Rugged Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,79

The house was old, and he’d told Dr. Wood that he liked spending his time fixing it up. “I’m good with my hands,” he’d said. “Thomas helps me.”

“So Thomas is there,” Dr. Wood had said.

“Of course,” Dallas said. “He and Remmy are always with me.”

“Is Martha there?” Dr. Wood asked.

“No,” Dallas said, and his eyes had shot open at that moment. He looked at Dr. Wood. “She’s not there. What does that mean?”

“It means you don’t want a future with your ex-wife,” Dr. Wood had said, and they’d moved on to talking more about Martha and how Dallas could deal with the termination of his marriage, something he hadn’t truly done.

As he walked now, the ranch breeze trying to steal his cowboy hat, he saw who was in the house with him.

Jess.

It was always Jess when he thought about who would walk in through the back door and say, “Well, I got that silly horse to listen to me.”

Jess.

Dallas would smile at her and kiss her hello, his hand easy and comfortable along her waist. He’d tell her he’d made scrambled eggs and sausage for dinner, and she’d smile up at him and say breakfast for dinner was one of her favorite things.

The fantasy faded after that, because Dallas had arrived back at the equipment shed, and he needed to focus on getting the last tractor serviced for the day. Then it would be the weekend, and maybe he could figure out the next steps he needed to take to get himself into a place where he and Jess could be together.

“You’re sure?” he asked Amy the next day. Martha’s sister had kept in touch with him and his kids since he’d gotten out of prison, and Dallas sure was grateful for her.

“Absolutely,” Amy said. “She’ll hate it here, and it’ll be exactly what she needs.”

“But what about what you need?” he asked. “Martha won’t be easy, Amy.”

“I’m well-aware of what she’ll be like, Dallas,” Amy said, a crispness to her voice that Dallas had heard before. “I’m not trying to raise two children and run a household,” she added in a much kinder tone. “I’ve thought a lot about it. Brent and I have talked about it extensively. We believe she should be here with us—that it’s the right thing to do.”

Dallas looked out the front window to make sure Remmy got to Mrs. Clyde’s okay. He caught the last second before his daughter walked inside, and he turned back to the house. “She won’t be able to see the kids.”

Amy and Brent lived in Louisiana, and that wasn’t a simple drive away. It was an all-day drive of just over eleven hours.

“She shouldn’t see them anyway,” Amy said.

“I want to be there with you when you pick her up.”

“I’m going to ask her about it,” Amy said. “Do I have your permission to call the treatment facility and have them send me the discharge items?”

Dallas took in the dirty breakfast dishes, the blankets that usually went on the back of the couch neatly, and the backpacks and shoes just discarded by the front door. The whole house needed to be cleaned, and he didn’t want to do it.

“I want her to know she can see her kids whenever she wants to,” Dallas said. “Thomas told me that he’s been doing really great in therapy, and he’s not mad at her anymore.”

Amy allowed a pause to go by. “Perhaps you should bring the kids too,” she said. “Maybe she could see them for a few minutes, and then we’ll take her home.”

Dallas nodded, emotion clogging his throat. “Thank you, Amy,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d do with her here.”

“She shouldn’t be there,” Amy said. “I don’t know why I feel like that, only that I do. Here, she’ll have me and Brent to help her. Daddy’s willing to help out too. She’ll be surrounded by familiar things and people, and there won’t be any stress.”

“Okay,” Dallas said, because he couldn’t argue with a woman’s feelings. He’d been praying for a solution for Martha, and perhaps this was it.

“Thank you, Dallas,” Amy said, as if he had any say in Martha’s life anymore. “I’ll call the center and let you know what they say.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

He set his phone on the kitchen counter and took a deep breath. The dishes wouldn’t do themselves, and if he just got started, he’d find his rhythm. He did, and soon enough, the dishwasher was loaded and the bigger pans and bowls