Page 7 of Long Past Dawn
I tipped my head at her, the steady rhythm of the flashers the only sound in the truck. “I know you can, and I wasn’t following you. Blaze texted me a list of things to pick up for the ranch. I was in town and noticed you walking down the street. Where’s your truck? I’ll drive you up there.”
“I wasn’t going to my truck. I had to go to the pharmacy, and it wasn’t that far.”
The pharmacy was at least three more blocks up the street, so I let off the brake and signaled onto the almost deserted road. The town of Wellspring, Wisconsin, wasn’t a busy metropolis on a good day, but no one even poked their head out if they could avoid it on a day like today. Wellspring had a clinic, pharmacy, feed store, café, and several mom-and-pop shops that kept the townspeople from having to drive another ten miles to a bigger city. When Blaze and I blew into town, we were a bit taken aback. We lived in a small town in Texas, but even that town was three times the size of this one.
The ride to the pharmacy was silent, and even an obtuse cowboy like me could feel the anxiety and sadness rolling off her in waves. I parked in front of the pharmacy and waited for her to open the door. “I’ll wait here, and then I’ll drive you back to your truck.”
Dawn slammed the truck door without a word and stole into the pharmacy. I watched her through the windows as she stood in front of the counter talking to the pharmacist. While I waited, I tried not to think about what Blaze had said to me earlier today, but that was impossible now that I was alone again. His words rolled through my head like the annoying lyrics of a famous pop song. The truth had little to do with Heaven being at Bison Ridge now. The truth had everything to do with being unhappy that Blaze was getting a second chance at happiness when I hadn’t gotten my first.
Contrary to his opinion, it had nothing to do with my momma’s death, either. It had everything to do with the beautiful, pain-filled eyes of the woman standing in the pharmacy. Something was wrong with her, but I didn’t know what it was. I did know it was killing me to watch her become someone I didn’t recognize—both physically and emotionally. We had been best friends for years, but this winter, that all changed. She had changed. She stopped laughing. Tex told me he’d even found her crying on more than one occasion. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know how. That was the hardest pill to swallow. She was within reach, but she was going to slip away and drown because she refused to take my hand.
When Dawn turned from the counter with a bag in her hand and her head hanging in defeat, I saw the answer to the question I didn’t want to ask. Regardless, the time had come to get the root of her problem out in the open, even if that meant she never talked to me again.
Three
Why was Beau so good at showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time? He was always around when I didn’t want him to be and never around when I did. I guess that’s what made him one of my best friends. He sensed when I needed him, even if I never spoke the words. His big brown eyes held a level of heat to them when he gazed at me that both excited and scared me. He was tall and lanky, but every scrap of his one hundred and seventy pounds was muscle. He wore his hair in a typical Texas cowboy shag that was always in need of a cut but rarely got one. Today he wore a Stetson over the shag, one he’d made himself from bison leather. He was the quintessential Texas cowboy right down to the vocabulary he used to express himself. He’d lived in Wisconsin for years, but that didn’t mean a hill of beans, as he would say. He still spoke as though he had just walked off the ranch in Texas.
Beau was a proud man. He was proud of his profession and the work he did. He also insisted he wasn’t intelligent, but that wasn’t even close to the truth. He was wise in all the ways it mattered, including matters of friendship and family. He was intensely loyal to his friends, which made him one of those guys you knew you could count on, no matter what.
This morning, those sienna eyes were unnerving me from across the booth at the small café in Wellspring. When I left the pharmacy, he refused to take me back to the truck and insisted I have coffee with him first. I wasn’t in the mood to do that, but I couldn’t convince him I needed to get back to the ranch. From what he tells me, he’d already been by there this morning, and Tex told him I was off for the day. Thanks, Tex. I blew out a breath as I stared at the black brew in my mug. It wasn’t Tex’s fault, I guess. I didn’t tell anyone why I was going into town. Not even Heaven.
“You okay?” he asked, settling his rough and tumble hand over mine on the table.
I inhaled sharply, and he lifted it again instantly. His gaze tracked downward until it came face-to-face with my hand. He glanced up immediately. “What the hell, Dawn Lee? Your fingers are all red and swollen. Did you hurt them at the ranch? Is that why you were at the clinic?”
I lowered my hand to my lap and lifted my mug to my lips with my right hand to avoid answering him. Unfortunately, he was a patient man. He was ridiculously good at waiting people out when they didn’t want to talk. Beau sipped his coffee some more and waited until finally, I couldn’t take those eyes staring at me in silence any longer.
“I’m fine, Beau. Leave it alone.”
He settled back into the cushioned red booth and frowned the way only Beau could. His lips went down, his cheeks fell, and his eyes followed. I never knew that eyes could frown, but Beau’s deep all-knowing eyes could. “I’d like to believe that you’re fine, but you’re not. You’ve easily lost fifty pounds since last summer, and you didn’t have it to lose to begin with.”
“Seventy-five and I had plenty of extra padding,” I said smartly, my lips going back to the cup so they wouldn’t keep talking.
Beau lifted the other brow. “That didn’t help your case, Dawn. I’m worried about you, so is everyone else at the two ranches. You don’t have to pretend that something isn’t wrong if it is.”
I shook my head and didn’t make eye contact with him. If I started crying, I would never stop, and I didn’t have time for that. I didn’t even have time to sit here and drink coffee with the guy I couldn’t stop thinking about every minute of every day. I had a job to do, and I had to get back to the ranch and do it. Considering what the doctor told me today, I would need that job just to stay alive. “I’m not talking about this right now. Besides, I could say the same thing about you. You haven’t been yourself lately either, Beau Hanson. If you ask anyone in a ten-mile radius, they’d say you’ve been meaner than a momma wasp.”
He was going for nonchalant, but the shrug he gave me was jerky and filled with an emotion I couldn’t put my finger on. Something told me I better figure it out sooner rather than later if I wanted to keep him in my life. “It’s been a long winter, nothing more. I’m tired of being cooped up. I need sunshine and some warmer temperatures.” He said it as if he recited it to the mirror every morning before he left the house. It rolled off his tongue too quickly for it to be the truth.
My hand chose that moment to throb, and my breath hitched. I had to drag in short staccato breaths for a moment while I held my hand to my chest. Beau reached out and lowered my hand to his warm ones, cradling it and letting the heat of his hands ease the aching. He didn’t touch the fingers or do anything but hold it for me until I could speak. “I know what you mean,” I finally agreed. I didn’t want to look into his sweet eyes, so I stared out the window at the fat snowflakes as they fell. When they hit the ground, they melted into drops of wet slush. “At least we’re getting closer to spring. “
“I heard Heaven was able to hire a cook for the dude ranch. Good news, right?” he asked. The question was small talk, but his attention was focused on my hand in his. He was studying it as though he was memorizing the mottled skin and had plans to report back to Heaven about it. As if she couldn’t see it with her own eyes.
I pulled my hand back and tucked it under the table, even though that was just going to make it throb. I would bite my tongue off before I showed weakness in front of him again, though.
“I was thrilled to hear it,” I admitted. “Considering Heaven’s getting married in a few months and won’t be living at the ranch at all, I will need the help. I can’t do it all. I helped her with the interviews, and I think Cecelia will fit in perfectly at Heavenly Lane.”
Beau’s fingers tapped on the table while we both stared out the window. “I’m still trying to figure out how it’s all going to work, you know?”
“Me, too,” I admitted. “The ranches aren’t that far apart, but she won’t be at Heavenly Lane at all once she’s married.”
“And that changes the dynamics equally as much at Bison Ridge.”
I glanced down at my cup and back to him. “I know you’re not happy living there anymore, Beau. I can understand why, so I thought maybe you should move into the house on Heavenly Lane.”
He lowered his cup slowly and lifted one brow. It was always sexy as hell. I pictured him doing that at night after a shower wearing nothing but a towel. The image made me squirm in my seat, and I forced myself to put those thoughts and feelings aside. I couldn’t fall for Beau Hanson. He was about to be the only best friend I’d have around. I rolled my eyes at myself internally.You can’t fall for Beau Hanson.That horse left the barn years ago.
“You want me to move into Heaven’s house? With you?” he asked, as though he was clarifying the statement.
