Dad and I stand to greet him, and behind Beau, a second person walks into the room. He’s as tall and broad-shouldered as Beau, and dark hair peeks out from under the ball cap he wears. He steps out from behind Beau, and my grip on reality ripples.
It can’t be.
My legs turn to vapor and I grab the edge of the table to stay upright. My vision swims, my throat constricts. Dad looks back at me just as he reaches Beau and the man who has turned all my senses upside down, and the look on his face is clear—what the hell is wrong with you?
If only I could tell him. I’d tell myself, but even I wouldn’t believe me.
“My daughter, Dakota,” I hear my dad say. I focus my gaze on Beau. My face stretches into a smile, small and polite, and I refuse to look anywhere but at him. Certainly not to the other man in the room.
The man I spent one night with five years ago.
“This is my son, Wes,” Beau says, introducing him to my dad, then to me. I nod politely, training my eyes on the wall behind Wes so I don’t actually have to look at him.
My dad, Beau, and Wes come to the table and sit down. Mechanically, I do the same. How the hell am I going to get through this meeting? I can barely grasp on to a coherent thought, let alone speak one.
I force my gaze up.
Up from the pattern of wood grain in the table.
Past his gray button-up covered chest.
Landing on his angular jawline, his cheeks pulled taut, his brown eyes that still hold secrets and pain.
And absolutely zero recognition of me.
5
Wes
Dakota.
Dakota Wright. Five years later and I’m finally learning her last name.
How the fuck am I supposed to concentrate with her sitting across from me? After that night in Colorado, I never thought I’d see her again. How is it even possible that she works with the development company looking to buy the land we put up for sale? How, on God’s green earth, can this seriously be happening right now?
I’ve done everything I can to forget about that night. Not because of her. Because of me.
I cried in front of her. Fucking cried. It was my first night back in the states after I was discharged from the Army. I’d stopped in Denver on my way home to Arizona and visited a buddy who’d gotten out the year before me. He was having a party at his lakeside place and wanted me to stay with him.
I’d been so ready to let loose, to start life as a civilian. Until I went home and eventually took the rightful title of owner of HCC, I was a free man. And I took advantage of my freedom that night. I stayed on the edge of the party, watching the girl in the middle of it all wearing the sorority shirt. It was cropped and showed her tan, flat stomach. She danced around under the white lights strung from the trees, laughing with her friends. Then she walked away from them, her gaze found mine, and everything happening around us was put on pause. She came toward me, hips swaying and a look on her face that told me she felt as knocked off her axis as me. On her walk over, she snatched a bottle of whiskey off a nearby table and took a swig. She stopped just out of my reach, and it nearly killed me because I wanted her in my arms with a ferocity I’d never felt, and haven’t since.
After that, there wasn’t a person at that party who thought we weren’t going home together. Anybody looking at us would’ve called us soul mates. And we made the most of the hours we spent together. But then I went and cried. I motherfucking cried in front of the most beautiful, fun-loving, smartest woman I’d ever met. All she did was ask me what the Middle East was like, but it brought tears out of me when all I wanted was to shove down everything that happened and lock it up tight. Who could blame me for getting the fuck out of there after she fell asleep?
Or for acting like I don’t recognize her right now?
She knew who I was right away, and it took everything in me not to bypass her dad and her vise-grip on the edge of the table and gather her into my arms.
Now I’m averting my gaze and I can feel hers burning holes into me. I don’t blame her. I’d throat-punch any dickhead who did to my sister what I did to Dakota.
“Hi, I’m so sorry I’m late,” someone at the door says, and I turn around to see who’s come in.
“It’s okay, Jericho, please join us.” My dad gestures to the empty seat between me and Mr. Wright.
I’d completely forgotten the realtor my dad hired was coming today. When he’d said Jericho Barnett, I’d pictured an old man with more hair in his ears than on his head, but this is definitely not a man. This is an attractive forty-something woman wearing a tight shirt and an even tighter skirt. She shakes hands with everyone but my father, whom she apparently already knows, though I don’t understand how.
My dad starts speaking, and Jericho sits back. In my attempt to keep my eyes off Dakota, I make the mistake of looking at Jericho. A sly smile turns up one side of her mouth, and I snap my eyes back to the water bottles in the center of the table. I recognize that look from women, and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been a willing recipient in the past. But not today. Seeing Dakota has officially fucked me up for a while, I already know it.
In an effort to focus on what my father is saying, I squeeze my knee under the table until it’s borderline painful. It does nothing to help me keep my attention on my dad, and now my knee hurts.
Dakota’s dad is talking, and in order to look at him, my eyes have to pass over Dakota. It’s only a second that I see her, but it’s enough for me to catch the angry set of her jaw.
“…We were shocked and excited to hear about your listing, Beau. Dakota and I have spent time learning about your land and thinking of how we can use it.” He looks to Dakota, silently encouraging her to speak for the first time since my dad and I walked into the room.
This also forces me to look at her or risk being unnecessarily rude, which later my dad would kick my ass for even though I’m a grown man.
I drag my eyes to her. God, she is gorgeous. Every bit as beautiful as the day she shimmied around in that T-shirt and short jean skirt. The blue blouse she’s wearing today has fallen open just slightly, revealing to me the tiny mole on the underside of her collarbone. I also happen to know she has a matching one next to her belly button. But as much as she resembles the woman from before, she looks different, too. There’s something about her eyes now, a dullness that snuffed out her spark. I wonder what tamed her wild nature. In all fairness, I’m not the same guy she met that day. In the years that have passed, the trauma has had time to simmer, the way a stew is always better the day after it’s cooked. The flavor of grief has evolved into crushing regret, the kind that eats you from the inside.
With fire in her eyes, Dakota squares her shoulders and glares at me, her gaze softening just slightly when she looks at my dad. “I’ve given a lot of thought to how we would develop your land should you choose to sell to us. The Hayden Ranch has only belonged to Hayden men since the ranch’s inception, and I imagine that’s a great source of pride for you. As it should be,” she adds, her eyes flitting to me for the shortest second and landing back on my dad. I wonder if this is her way of telling me she’s not interested in addressing me?
She continues. “My guess, Mr. Hayden, is that you would rather be eaten by one of the bears roaming these mountains than watch a big box store do business on land that was previously in your family for generations.”