Where he treated her like this beautiful, delicate and fragile thing that Kaylee was so certain she could never be.
This wonderful, deserving little creature that Kaylee knew she wasn’t.
But his relationship with Olivia hadn’t been passionate or physical. All that time she’d tortured herself over it and he’d never been with Olivia. She would never have guessed that.
So maybe Bennett was looking at her mouth because he wanted to kiss her, or maybe he was trying to figure out how much beer she was going to drink, or he was just spacing out because everything was weird.
Whatever, she wasn’t in the space to try to figure it out and she needed to stop trying before she did something really foolish.
“I’m going to have to go over to the ranch and talk to my brothers tomorrow. Will you go with me?”
“Of course I will.”
No matter what was wacky and off tonight, she was going to be there for him. There was no question about that. That was the kind of friendship they had. That kind of unconditional support that he had been the first person to show her.
“Thank you,” he said. She shrugged and set the beer on the porch rail, turning to walk down the steps. And then, Bennett spoke again, his voice heavy. “Kaylee... I really need our friendship right now.”
Those words were so weighted down that she knew in that instance he had felt the same thing she had.
That just made her mad. She had spent all this time subsuming her feelings, and there was one moment of mutual electricity and he was making veiled proclamations.
She’d been guarding their friendship for years. She didn’t need him to go talking about the importance of it. She damn well knew.
“Good,” she said, not offering him any indication that she had any clue what he meant. “I’m glad that I can be your friend. Very glad.”
And with that, she turned and stomped her way back to the truck, not quite sure what the hell it said about reality that the earlier scenario where Olivia was pregnant with Luke’s baby and wanted Bennett back was somehow less complicated than the one she found herself in now.
EARLY THE NEXT morning Bennett found himself embroiled in indecision.
His son—that was still the weirdest thought it was possible to have—was still asleep, and Bennett had to get to work in the next hour.
He went out and slowly, methodically began to feed the animals. Pepper and Cheddar, his Australian shepherds yipping excitedly at his heels as he navigated the morning chores with all the conviction of a robot performing work on an assembly line.
He didn’t know if he could leave Dallas alone. He thought of the business card that the social worker had left for him. Should he call her about that?
Logically he knew that a fifteen-year-old could handle himself for a few hours, but Dallas had only just shown up and Bennett didn’t know if it meant the kid would run away if he was left unattended. Of course, it wasn’t like he could prevent him from leaving if he wanted to, short of tying him up and locking him in a bedroom, and that was probably frowned on.
He didn’t feel comfortable about leaving him, though. Whatever was technically acceptable and wasn’t, he knew he didn’t feel right about it.
He had to talk to his family tonight. He had decided that he wouldn’t do it until then. Until they had all gotten through the workday and could see each other face-to-face.
But until then, he had patients to see.
Dallas could hang out at the clinic, or he could ride in Bennett’s truck all day. That would work well enough.
Bennett couldn’t think of what they would talk about if they ended up trapped in a vehicle together for the entirety of the day.
He supposed that was a stupid, selfish thing to concern himself with.
But he was concerned.
He walked back into the house just as the clock rolled over to six, and he knew that he was going to be tempting a lot of rage waking a teenage boy out of a dead sleep but he had to do something.
He knocked on the bedroom door and got no answer. He knocked again, this time more heavily, and nothing.
What if the kid had run off in the middle of the night? He should have like...slept in front of the door. But then, he could have climbed out the window.
Dammit.
He opened up the door, and his heart slammed hard against his breastbone when he saw the boy lying on his stomach, his face smashed against the pillow, a little bit of drool coming out the corner of his mouth. His arm was draped over the side of the mattress, his hand bent at the wrist, his knuckles pressing against the floor. He was so profoundly out that he looked entirely limp.
A flood of emotions butted up against some dam inside of Bennett he hadn’t known had existed. And he felt it crack.
Dallas made a croaking sound and sniffed. And the dam inside Bennett burst completely.
It was like being caught between two points in time. He could imagine then, what it might have been like to walk into a nursery when Dallas was a baby, to see him asleep like this in a crib.
But he hadn’t. He had never gotten to see him then.
Were there pictures? Was there a video of him taking a first step? How old had he been?
Had his first word been dada, like so many other babies, but with no dad around to feel like his baby was talking to him?
He had missed that. All of that. And he hadn’t even had a choice. He pressed a hand against his chest and staggered backward, suddenly so overwhelmed with the enormity of the situation that he couldn’t breathe.
This boy was fifteen. He took up the length of this entire bed. There had been a point when he had been no larger than a loaf of bread, and dammit, Bennett had had the right to know him then. To hold him then. But he hadn’t. And Dallas had spent all these long years with no one. Being bounced around, no safe place.
But he had slept easily here last night. He had slept deeply.
Whatever happened today, Bennett was going to take some solace in that.
And he was not leaving the kid here by himself.
“Wake up,” Bennett said. “Dallas, wake up.”
“What?” Dallas jerked up, rolling over onto his back and blinking hard. “It’s still fucking dark out,” he moaned.
“Yeah,” Bennett said. “But it won’t be for long. And I have to go to work.”
“So?”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“I’m not a baby,” Dallas muttered.
Bennett was well aware of that. It had all been driven home just a second ago.
“Yes. I know. But you are my kid. If you weren’t a kid, they would have turned you loose. But you are. That means I’m the adult. And I make the rules. I’m your dad.” He felt a strange, out-of-body sensation when those words fell from his mouth. “And I think that it would be best if today you weren’t here by yourself all day.”
“Afraid I’m going to steal the silver or whatever rich thing people get wound up about?”
Be∆nnett crossed his arms. “Do I look like I have silver?”
Dallas lay back down, his eyes on the ceiling. “I don’t know what the fuck you have.”
“Well, I don’t fucking have silver.”
He