Rugged Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,31

raged in his whole being, body and soul.

Another couple walked past him, but he felt completely alone. He clenched his fists around the phone, wishing something would break. The case or his bones, he didn’t care which. Somewhere far away, in the back of his mind, he remembered a conversation between him and his counselor at River Bay.

There will be times where you’re treated unfairly, Dallas. How do you think you’ll feel?

Angry, Dallas said. I hate things that are unjust.

You’ll be an ex-con. Some people won’t want to hire you when they find out.

Dallas had nodded. In prison, he’d accepted that. In prison, it was easy to talk through a situation and come to a conclusion on how he’d act. In prison, he’d been safe from real-world situations, ex-wives, first dates, and science homework he thought was stupid.

He did employ the breathing techniques his counselor had taught him, and slowly, Dallas came back to a place inside himself that wasn’t about to punch at a brick wall until it came down. He turned back to the restaurant where he and Jess had enjoyed a nice meal together and went back inside.

The booth where he and Jess had been sitting was empty. He came to a complete stop, watching as the busboy wiped the table and stepped away. He had no idea what to do now, and he turned in a full circle, expecting to see Jess waiting for him somewhere.

She wasn’t, and he met the eye of the woman at the counter who’d seated them. He retraced his steps to her. “Did you see where she went? Did she pay?”

“She left about twenty minutes ago,” the woman said. “I’m sure she paid, because we don’t have any tables that left without paying.”

Dallas just nodded, his voice suddenly gone. His throat had narrowed so much, he could barely swallow as he left the ravioli restaurant and looked up and down the street. He didn’t see Jess anywhere, and he hadn’t seen her pass him either. Of course, he also hadn’t realized he’d been gone for as long as twenty minutes, so anything was possible.

Still, he reasoned. If she’d come outside, she’d have seen him standing on the sidewalk. He hadn’t moved that far away from the restaurant.

He worked up enough saliva to swallow, and then enough courage to dial Jess’s number. It rang and rang, and she did not pick up. He mentally beat himself up for answering Martha’s call. What was Jess supposed to think about that?

Dallas shook his head, irritation with his ex growing inside him again, and his annoyance with Jess multiplied too when he called her a second time with the same results as the first.

He sent her a quick text. Listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken that call. Where are you?

She read it, and Dallas stared at the phone, willing her message to come in. Should he go back to the car? Call her again?

“What you should’ve known,” he muttered to himself. “Is that life was going too good, Dallas. You should’ve seen this coming.”

He disliked the negativity in the statements, and he could hear his counselor admonishing him for always expecting the worst life could give him. But Dr. Pelltri hadn’t lived Dallas’s life. He didn’t understand that life had kicked Dallas around quite a bit.

It sure did seem like every time things started to look up in Dallas’s life, there was something or someone to pull him back down. He’d started attending religious services while at River Bay, and he honestly wasn’t sure how he felt about God.

“Why did she have to call right then?” he asked, tilting his head toward the sky. He wasn’t sure if God could hear him, or if He even cared. “Why did I answer?”

No one gave him any reasons or answers for either of his questions, but his next one—Where was Jess?—appeared on his screen.

I’m back at the ranch already, Dallas.

He tapped to call her again, praying with everything inside him that she’d answer this time. To his great surprise, the call connected though Jess didn’t say anything.

“Hey,” he said, relief filling the three letters. “I’m sorry, Jess.” He found he didn’t have anything else to say. He wasn’t going to tell her about Martha, and that meant there wasn’t anything to tell. “I shouldn’t have answered the phone. I’m sorry.”

She still said nothing, and Dallas’s heart wailed at him. What the message was, though, Dallas didn’t know. His brain blanked, and he simply stood in the