Page 34 of Long Past Dawn
“Well, darlin’, dancin’, and datin’ are two different things. I don’t necessarily want to dance, but my momma’s manners are always ringing in my ears. I dance when a woman asks me to dance, but that doesn’t mean I date them. It also doesn’t mean I bring them home with me or anything else you imagine in that beautiful head of yours.”
Her mouth opened and closed twice before she got words out. “Why not date them, though? They’re beautiful women.”
“The answer is simple. Those women aren’t you. You’ve probably never noticed, but no matter where I am on that dance floor, my eyes are always searching for or locked onto you. I could be dancing with Hollywood’s hottest actress, and I wouldn’t know it. I only have eyes for you, Dawn Lee. It’s been killing me to keep you in the friend zone, but I didn’t think you’d be interested in a guy like me. I don’t have much to offer a woman. I’m just a misplaced cowboy who doesn’t have a lot under his hat.”
Her hand slipped up the side of my face until her thumb was stroking the skin at my temple. “You’re wrong, Beau,” she whispered into the stillness of the night. “What you have to offer is exactly what I need. I know you think you aren’t that smart—”
“I’m not,” I assured her. “I barely made it through school. I never could sit still in class long enough to learn a thing.”
Dawn shook her head and laid her finger against my lips. “You were a kid who had gone through a lot at a young age. When you were on the ranch, the work and the animals kept your mind busy. It was understandable that being forced to sit inside a classroom all day made it even harder to put the thoughts of your mother aside so you could learn.”
“School was a struggle,” I agreed. “I preferred working on the ranch and ridin’ horses. I didn’t think about my momma all the time then.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her thumb stroking my lips now. “Just know that I think you’re a genius in the things that matter. You can run a ranch better than Blaze can. You have a soft touch with the horses that has saved more than one life, and you have an incredible talent for leatherwork. You undervalue yourself because you’ve always lived in Blaze’s shadow. Now that you’re going to own half of this place,” she said, holding her hands out, “you have to stop doing that.”
I took her hand and held it to my chest. “I can say the same thing to you, babe. Maybe here tonight, we should both vow to hold each other accountable.”
“To what?” she asked, her head tipped to the side.
“To let the negative thoughts and feelings we have about ourselves go and concentrate on the positive ones. To let ourselves believe we deserve the same kind of happiness that Blaze and Heaven have. To stop pretending that we don’t want something out of a belief that it’s for the greater good of the ranches.”
“What do you want, Beau?” Dawn asked, her voice breathy and soft.
“You,” I answered, my head starting a slow descent toward her lips. “I want you, Dawn Lee. I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I want you.”
The kiss heated immediately when my lips landed on hers. Dawn moaned against them until my tongue convinced hers to open so we could tangle them together in a dance of honesty and trust. She was everything I wanted and the only thing I wanted. If I couldn’t have her, I might shrivel up on this ridge and disappear into the earth.
“God,” I moaned, my lips still on hers, “I need you just to breathe now.”
She didn’t say a word, just straddled me, buried her hands in my hair, and went back to kissing me like I was oxygen, and she was a dying woman.
Nine
“That was superb, Beau,” I said as I leaned back against the pillows and pulled the soft wool blanket up around me. The excellent food and sweet wine had finally relaxed me enough to make me sleepy. I stared up at the beautiful sky full of twinkling stars while Beau cleaned up dinner and stoked the fire.
I’d spent the entirety of dinner trying to put right in my head what he’d said. Did he want me and no one else? How could he still want me when I had already told him the truth about my health?
“I’m always going to have arthritis and need treatment,” I blurted out, the wine in my system making it hard to be anything but honest.
Beau finished his work with the fire and then sat next to me, his hand tenderly stroking my thigh. “I figured that out already, Dawn. I didn’t think it was just going to go away, even if you wish it would.”
“I don’t want to saddle someone else with that kind of life, Beau. Especially someone who loves the outdoors, riding, and being active as much as you do. There could come a point in time where I can’t do those things anymore.”
He tipped my chin up until I made eye contact with him. “Didn’t we just vow not to let negativity get in our way anymore?”
“We did, but this isn’t negativity, Beau. What I’m saying now is the truth. I’m being honest about what my future holds. You said that sometimes honesty hurts, and I can tell you, it does.”
He smiled his famous Texas cowboy smile and stroked my jawline with his thumb. “Darlin’, I was raised by a woman with an autoimmune disease. I’m aware of the implications and complications. We can weather them together as long as we trust each other.”
My eyes darted to the blanket as Heaven’s words ran through my mind. We know a lot about each other, but not the important stuff. Now was a chance to learn something about Beau that I didn’t know. “Did she die from lupus, Beau?” I asked, my voice soft and caring.
His thumb faltered on my jaw for a moment before it started its rhythmic stroking again. “No, Momma died at the hands of a coward. We don’t know who killed her. He escaped and has never been found. It was a home invasion gone wrong, and she died a horrible death while I was having fun at Blaze’s ranch. I’ll never forgive myself for not being there to help her.”
My gaze sought his again, and the pain and anger in them were raging, even this many years later. “Beau, if you were there, your fate would have been sealed, too. Your momma wouldn’t have wanted that. She would have wanted you safe.”
His eyes fluttered closed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed a couple of times before he spoke. “La—la—gically, my brain knows that. My heart,” he shook his head and moved his jaw around a couple of times. “The—that still struggles. Momma was so wonderful, and then just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers, “she was ga—gone. I know I couldn’t have helped her, but I tha—tha—ink it’s the idea that I—I—I could have done something. Ah——ah—anything, you know?”
I nodded, my heart breaking for this man who, twenty years later, still carried guilt for something he never had any control over. “I understand, Beau. The situations you found yourself in as a kid shaped the man you are today.”
