Rugged Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,63

back in to sleep with him.

Part of him wanted to see them, and part of him didn’t. He wanted to be in the right place, but he didn’t want to deal with anyone. If Martha would only listen to him. He’d called her almost daily since Thanksgiving, and she’d answered her phone in the beginning.

After about a week, she’d told him to stop calling and to leave her alone. No amount of pleading, begging, or explaining had swayed her, and he wondered how she could’ve changed so completely from the woman he’d known and loved.

It’s not really her, Nate had said. Those are the drugs talking.

Dallas couldn’t help thinking that if she hadn’t started drinking and using, she might have been the one to pick him up from River Bay. Her and the kids. They’d still be living in the sprawling house in Houston, and his life would be back to the one he’d left to serve his time.

In his quiet moments, he knew that wasn’t what he wanted. Things happened that changed situations so completely that they simply couldn’t be recreated. He’d forgiven her for abandoning him, but not for doing the same to Thomas and Remmy. He could handle disappointment; his children had already had more than enough.

“Let’s meet for dinner,” Nate said. “Seven, point one.” With that, he was gone. Dallas watched him go, his step sure and his stride long. When he’d first met Nate, he’d wanted to be exactly like him. Certain and confident, contemplative and kind. He was smart as a whip too, and dedicated to always doing what was right.

Dallas looked at Ted, who looked up at the tall building next to them. “What do you think?”

“It’s not my brain that’s having the issues,” Dallas said. “It’s my gut, and it’s saying we just need to get this over with.”

“Maybe you just go in there, then,” Ted said.

That brought a healthy dose of fear to Dallas’s heart, stomach, and mind, and he couldn’t comment again. His thoughts derailed, and he shook his head. “Let’s stick to the plan for now.”

“Okay,” Ted said. “Just don’t do anything stupid, okay? If you decide to go in, call us.”

Dallas nodded and said, “See you at seven.” He went down the block toward the housing unit, his goal to find somewhere to sit where he could watch the proceedings. He crossed the street, keeping one eye on the building as if he expected a swarm of heavily armed men to come out and start firing shots.

No one did, and he made it to a bench that a mother and her son were sitting on. He flashed them the best smile he could under the circumstances and sat on the other end. He sighed and opened his backpack to take out the bottle of water he’d gotten on the plane.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and pretended to look at it. He watched and watched, seeing a couple of men he recognized from the pictures Jesus had sent. No one else seemed to be going in or out, and Dallas started to wonder if the residents were allowed to leave or not.

Once the work day ended, the streets got busier, and so did the revolving door at the building. Dallas sat, watching the world go by. He felt like he was the only one sitting still and everyone and everything else rushed by in a blur.

The crowds had started to thin when a man sat on the bench beside Dallas, not down on the other end. “Hello, Dallas,” he said, and Dallas turned to look at him.

He had not been anyone in the pictures. He was no one Dallas had ever seen before. He wore a suit and tie and sighed as he set a briefcase between their feet. “What are you doing here?”

“Do I know you?” Dallas asked.

“No.” The man kept looking straight ahead. “And you don’t want to know me. I don’t want to know you either. I just want to know why you’re here.”

“My ex-wife is in trouble,” Dallas said.

“And you think you can save her.”

“No,” Dallas said. “I just want to be left alone.”

The guy said nothing, and Dallas continued to study him. He had dark hair and dark eyes that didn’t settle on anything. He radiated a coldness from his expression that kept people away, and Dallas wanted to get up and go meet his friends for dinner. He kept his hands folded in his lap, and Dallas noticed a triangular