Dottie
Save me a dance…
Why is it that men say things to you, get your hopes up, and then never follow through?
I sigh as I move around my tattoo parlor setting up for my first client of the week. It’s some guy from out of town who booked me based on the work I’ve posted on Instagram. We’ve messaged back and forth a few times throwing around design ideas, but ultimately, we landed on a forest piece that depicts a wolf howling at a moon that’s actually a fortune teller holding her crystal ball. There’ll be some cool additions of crows flying about, and all together, it’s going to look pretty epic.
I’ve been excited about this booking for well over a month because I love working on large, realistic black and gray pieces. But this morning, I’m not as pumped as I hoped to be.
Save me a dance…
With the entire work area sterilized and covered in plastic and tape, I set out my ink pots and get to distributing the various black inks I’ll be using. A lot of people think that black and gray tattoos use gray as a color, but they don’t. It’s all just different shades of black with different levels of pigment. Sure, gray inks do exist, we just don’t use them on this style.
I get about halfway through filling my little pots when I glance up and catch sight of myself in the floor to ceiling mirror I’ve set up so clients can inspect my work. With my long, dark, super-straight hair braided down my back, my pale complexion looks rather severe, despite the roundness of my features.
During my thirty-nine years of life, I’ve run the gamut of emotions when it comes to my body and my looks. I’ve been on every diet imaginable, tried out every exercise fad, learned how to ‘dress appropriately for my shape’, and accentuated my features with bronzer and blending. But at the end of the day, I had to accept what I was, and if I’m honest, I’m a bit of a ball. Everything about me is round and rather bouncy, and after years and years of hating myself for it, I finally did the most audacious thing in my life.
I learned to love myself just as I am.
Most days I honor the strength in my limbs while I work on renovating the old vineyard I bought a while back. I also honor my mind for the creativity that comes naturally to me whenever I design a tattoo. And if I’m totally honest with myself, I think I have a pretty bomb personality. I’m a great family member and friend. When I look in the mirror, I often find myself smiling at my reflection, content in my own peace. Most days…
But then there are days like today. Days when I’ve just spent the weekend wondering why. Why did the best man at my brother’s wedding—a man I remember secretly swooning over when we were kids—act like he wanted to spend time with me at the wedding reception then avoid me all night? The tall man with dark hair and a neat, full beard, stood right in front of me and all my friends, and asked me to save him a dance. I saved him one. Actually, I saved all of them since I didn’t dance with a single other man the entire time. And he didn’t approach me once. Does that mean he sees all the flaws I spent so many years trying to come to terms with, and is turned off by them? Is my round body too much for him, and he only said that to seem kind? Like he ‘thought’ about dancing with the fat girl, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Honestly, I’d just have preferred it if he’d left me alone. Because now I feel let down and embarrassed for getting my hopes up. And if I never hear another mention about the Whisper Valley Soulwink Society again, it’ll be too soon. Soulwinks don’t exist. And right now, I feel I’m living proof of that.
So what if I can smell those damn candles now…
This is why I quit dating.
Adding yet another sigh to my morning, I shake the negative self-talk out of my head and get back to work. My client should be here soon, and I still need to power up my computer so I can print off the stencils. Standing here ruminating over a date-that-never-will-be isn’t getting me anywhere. I’m happily single, and my life is pretty great. I have my work and the vineyard to keep my focus, and besides that, I have my family and friends to keep me company. It’s about high time I realize that no man is ever going to walk in here and sweep me off my feet. I’m just fine on my own.
Theo
Lying down on the trolley, I slide myself underneath the red Mustang to perform an oil change. The last time I worked in a garage was probably a solid decade ago when I left the family farm in Cedarwood Valley to try out life in the city. My father was livid, my brother even more so since it meant a lot of my chores would land on him, but my mother and sister understood. I needed to see if the grass really was greener on the other side.
Growing up and working nowhere but on a sheep farm for my entire life meant that the only things I was good at were animal care, herding, sheering, agriculture in general and mechanical service and repair. It’s a pretty solid list of capabilities if you’re looking for work in a country town. But when you head to the big city where roiling fields are replaced with weed-patched concrete, then you find yourself a little hard up. I was lucky Duke had moved to the city years before me and could pull a few strings to get me a job working alongside him in the garage.
Honestly, it wasn't much different to the work I was doing back on the farm. The only real difference being that I didn't go home smelling like an animal. I smelled like an oil pit instead. At first, I thought that was preferable. But after a while, that homesickness kicked in. I longed to see wide open spaces and sit in a field with nothing but the sound of a herd of sheep bleating in the distance. The city was just… too small for me.
Getting the tray in place, I pick up my wrench and with a few quick turns, watch as dirty oil pours out and flows into the waiting receptacle. While I wait on that, I’m taken back to the first day I returned home. I’d only been gone six months and called home every week, but from the way my father responded to my return, you’d think I’d been gone six years without so much as a postcard. It probably took another six for him to utter his first word to me, and even longer than that to forgive me. Thankfully, the rest of my family wasn’t so hurtful. They welcomed me home with open arms—even if it didn’t feel like that anymore.
With my dad, things between he and I were never the same. And when he eventually passed years later, he left the farm to my younger brother, Josh instead of me. The final punishment for leaving, I guess. But at the end of the day, I get it. My father was a proud man, and my leaving hurt that pride. There wasn’t a thing I could do after making that decision that would change his mind. I was forever the son who didn’t want what I was born into.
The silver lining to that, though, is that even though I didn’t inherit the way the eldest son has for generations of Olivers, I was gifted my freedom.
Over the years, I’ve used that freedom to wander. I’ve visited state after state, and country after country, always returning to the farm in the spring to help with the shearing and spend some time with family. I’m still yet to find a place that feels like home though. Maybe I’m just destined to always wander and never put down roots? I doubt I’ll ever stop looking though.
As the flow of oil slows to a dribble, I ready myself to replace the cap—something I have to do quick, so I don’t get oil all over myself.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” a voice asks moments before a foot kicks my boot with a decent amount of force.
“What the?” I flinch in the wrong direction, sitting up and hitting my head on the engine. “Ow!” The clock to the head precedes my leg kicking out to rebalance myself, and next thing I know, I’m hitting the oil pan. A slosh of black filth covers me like a wave, and the remnants flowing out of the valve I didn’t get to close up are new dripping on my face. “Fuck!”
I dig my heels into the concrete and slide out from under the car, quickly sitting up and assessing the damage. Thank god for coveralls, because if I was wearing my regular clothes they’d be fucked.
“Oh my god. I’m so sorry,” the voice—that I can now see belongs to Duke’s sister, Dottie—says. She covers her mouth and steps back, her eyes wide. “I thought you were Duke.”
“He’s on his honeymoon,” I say, looking around for something to wipe up some of the mess with. She quickly grabs a rag and hands it to me.
“I know. That’s why I gave him—well, you—a kick. I thought he was in here doing work instead of spending quality time with his wife. I really am sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say, wiping off my face enough that I can lie back again without worrying about oil getting in my eyes. “I’m guessing he didn’t tell you I’m holding down the fort for the next week.” I wheel myself back under the car and get the valve closed up while I talk.
“No. He didn’t. Or maybe he did, and I just wasn’t listening. Either one is possible.”
I slide back out and sit on the trolley, looking up at the woman, who in my memory was still a five-year-old girl up until a couple of days ago when I saw her at Duke’s wedding. Back then, Duke and I were teenagers who thought we were too cool to have a little kid in pigtails following us around. Then his family up and sold their farm and moved to the suburbs. I kept in touch with Duke, but I never spent any time around his family. Duke has always been very protective of his little sister. A fact I was reminded of during his wedding reception when he warned me not to go near her.
“You grew up good, Dot,” I say, giving her a lazy grin as I stand until I’m towering over her. She cranes her neck to maintain eye contact. At least that part hasn’t changed. She’s always had to look up at me.
She smiles before breaking eye contact. But it was enough that I could see that smile didn’t touch her eyes. And when she angles her chin and sighs, I know immediately that the compliment wasn’t welcome. She shakes her head.
“I’ll let you get back to work,” she says, already stepping away. “Sorry again for kicking you.”
She flicks her hand dismissively, and before she can get away from me, I quickly wrap my hand around her wrist and hold steady. “Don’t leave yet. I never got a chance to talk to you at the weddin’.”
Her dark eyes flash as she pulls her wrist from my grip and looks up at me. “I noticed. You never took that dance you asked for.”
The memory of her dancing alone or with friends and relatives returns to my mind. How do I tell her that I was on my way to collect when her big brother stepped in and asked me not to start something that I couldn’t finish with his sister.
So, out of respect for my lifelong friend, I stepped back and put the idea of holding the soft curves of this beautiful woman while we danced out of my head. I stepped back and tried to forget the idea of her long dark hair brushing over my forearm as we swayed side to side, her sweet breath tickling my neck while I held her close. I tried to forget.
But as I stand here, covered in oil and grime while she looks up at me with the faint hint of hurt in her eyes, I can’t forget the things I wanted when I saw her again for the first time in over thirty years. The little Dottie Fox from my memory is all grown up and matured into a gorgeous, self-sufficient, amazing woman. And now that I’ve seen her, I can’t look away.
For the sake of my friendship with her brother, however, I can pretend that I don’t see.
Clearing my throat, I shift my focus to the rag in my hand and wipe at the oil covering my overalls, so I don’t have to look her in the eyes when I say, “I’m really not much of a dancer.”
I can feel her eyes assessing me as she gives me a slow nod then shifts back on her feet. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t ask people then,” she says, already walking away as she shoots over her shoulder, “Make sure you use sawdust on that oil.”
My gaze doesn’t leave her until she disappears through a door in the back of the shop, and I hear another door beyond that open and slam shut. I wince. Then I sigh. I have no interest in hurting Dottie in any way, but it seems that despite keeping my distance like her brother asked, that’s exactly what I’ve done.
Dottie
“And that is it. Linework done,” I say, spraying down my client’s arm then wiping it clean. He angles his body to try and get a good look. “If you want to check it out in the mirror first, I’ll wrap it right after.”
“Sweet. Thanks.”
He moves over to the full-length mirror and inspects the artwork on this thigh. During the session, he said he wanted this to eventually be a full leg piece with the forest and sky on his thigh merging into a rough seascape on his calf. I’m not sure if he’s planning on asking me to do the second half, or if he wants to merge two artist’s styles. But either way, it’ll be a pretty epic addition to his current tattoo collection.
While I get the wrap and tape ready to cover his tattoo for his journey home, I spot movement in the back of the shop where the break room is. Instantly, my heart kicks up a beat because while I’m kinda peeved at Theo for standing me up the way he did at the wedding reception, I can’t ignore that fact that my body sings at his mere presence.
Every word that comes out of that man’s mouth is like invisible fingers tracing long lines across my skin. He could be talking about shoveling sheep dung, and I’d sit there enraptured just to hear him speak. It makes me feel ridiculous since our skipped dance was a clear sign he isn’t interested in me. But a girl can’t help following a lifelong pattern of falling hard and fast for unavailable men—yet another reason I quit dating.
At least he’ll only be here for a week.
“Do you need something?” I call out to him as he moves from the back of the store to the reception area where I have a wall covered in framed pictures displaying my art, along with several leather-bound portfolios showing off past work. I’ve spent a lifetime cultivating these things, and I normally display them proudly. But something about the way Theo leans in and inspects my drawings has me feeling a little off. Like I’m somehow exposed.
Theo looks over at me and flashes a smile. “Maybe,” he says, drawing out each syllable like it’s a separate word.
“I’ll be with you when I’m done here,” I say, turning my attention back to my paying client. It’s a short conversation and half a roll of tape later that we’re standing at the register booking in our next session and paying for this one. All the while, Theo is quietly inspecting my work. I’m keenly aware of every shift of his body as he goes through my portfolios, page after page after page.
“Long sitting,” Theo says when I let the client out and lock the shop door behind him, flipping the sign over to ‘closed’.
“Ten hours,” I sigh, rolling my neck from side to side to work out the kinks that leaning over and concentrating creates.
“You look like you could use a massage.”
I laugh and lift my chin toward the pile of folios he’s going through. “And you look like you’re window shopping for more ink.”
He smiles. “I wouldn’t say no to a Dottie Fox original. You’ve got skills, Spot.”
A burst of amused air leaves my nose. When I was little, I hated being called ‘Spot’. It was Dot or Dottie and nothing else as far as I was concerned. And with Theo being a cheeky teenage boy, he loved seeing me stomp my foot whenever I got mad. Spot was the only way he’d refer to me.
“I haven’t heard that nickname in years,” I say, my mouth tilting up at the memory of grumpy little me. “Thirty-three to be exact.”
“Long time between visits,” Theo says, closing the portfolio he was looking at and standing.
“Didn’t notice you coming to see me either, Theo,” I scoff, rolling my eyes because I was only six when our parents sold the farm and moved Duke and me to the suburbs. It wasn’t long after that before Duke got an apprenticeship and moved even closer to Sugar City for work, meaning I never really had the opportunity to interact with his friends the way I did back in Cedarwood Valley. That, and I’m pretty sure Duke purposely kept his friends away from me. For a long time, I thought it was because he was embarrassed of chubby little me. But as time went on, I realized it was just him being a protective older brother. Something Theo confirms for me with his next comment.
“Duke was like the dragon protectin’ your ivory tower, Spot. Never trusted a single guy around you. Still doesn’t, if I’m honest.”
“That explains my love life then,” I mutter, fingering the gemstone necklace that hangs around my neck as I turn away to start cleaning up my workstation. It’s strange because this gemstone feels warm between my fingers, yet cool when I release it and it taps against my skin. The ladies in the Soulwink Society—a group of Whisper Valley women who swear they experienced a phenomenon where their souls ‘winked’ when they met their husbands—believe that this colorful little stone has magical properties that help to draw two soulmates together. One of their members once put a bunch of these gems inside some candles and sent them out into the world, which is how my new sister-in-law, Ava, came to visit Whisper Valley and meet Duke. Then Ava took those gems and turned them into necklaces. Which is how one came to hang around my neck. I’m yet to feel confident in its power though, since all I’ve felt is rejection since putting it on before the wedding.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” My cheeks heat because I didn’t mean to lament my lack of love so loud. “I just said I need to tidy up.”
“Listen, I know it’s pretty late,” Theo says, coming up behind me. “But if you’re willing, I’d love for you to add something to one of my sleeves.” When he lifts his arms and turns them side to side, the muscles ripple and flex under his tattooed skin.
“Like what?” I ask, feeling all warm at the thought of putting my hands on this man’s body. He may not want me, but I certainly can’t shake the thought of wanting him. I might not get anywhere here, but a girl can dream, right?
His mouth curves up in a slow grin. “Anythin’ you want.”
I hold off on replying too quickly, not trusting my voice to come out steady when I’m standing this close to him with my thoughts swimming dangerously close to filthy waters. It’s strange how a person can exist for so long in your memory, frozen as the boy he was, and then suddenly you meet again and all of that has changed. He’s a man now, and even though you can see hints of the cheeky boy in the light behind his eyes, something tells you that he doesn’t pull pigtails anymore. Oh no. This man pulls hair. And for the first time ever, I want to get my hair pulled.
“So…you’re just going to sit there and let me do whatever I want?” I ask when I’m sure I can speak without squeaking.
“Sure. Why not?” He pulls back then narrows his eyes slightly. “You’re not gonna draw a dick and balls on me though, are you?”
“I’d never stoop so low,” I say, giving him a wicked smirk. “But why don't you take off your shirt instead? I don’t want to mess with these sleeves, but if you’ve got some skin on your back or torso, I could do something there.” I’m not going to pretend like I’m not creating an excuse to see this man shirtless either. This request is purely personal under the guise of being professional. And I’m not even a little bit sorry.
“You want un-inked skin?” he asks, pulling his shirt off in one swoop. “I’ve got plenty of it.” When he drops his shirt to the side, I have to hold my breath to stop from gasping. This man is ripped.
“Um. Yeah, OK,” I say, trying not to linger too long on any one muscle group. The tattoos he currently has are the very definition of sleeves, starting at his shoulders and ending at his wrists. Beside a couple of smallish pieces on his back and chest, it’s pretty much open real estate. And I get to add anything to it I want…
This opportunity almost feels too good to be true.
I gesture at the now-clean station. “Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll get my equipment ready,” I say, wracking my brain for something small yet meaningful. Since the only thing I really know about the adult him is that he spends most of his time traveling, I settle on my version of a North Star just under his left collarbone above his heart.
“You gonna let me see this before you add ink to it?” he asks, trying to angle his head to see what I’ve just freehand sketched onto his skin.
“That would defeat the purpose of letting me do whatever I want, wouldn’t it?” I say, flashing him a smile as I pop the cap back on my marker.
“Can’t argue with that,” he says, watching intently as I pick up my machine and check the needle.
“Last chance to turn back,” I say, loading it with ink.
“Don’t want to. Do with me what you will,” he says, and I can’t deny that I get a little heat between the thighs at the thought of doing just that. Theo Oliver grew up well.
“I think I owe you an apology,” Theo says when I’m about halfway through lining the design.
“What for?”
“The weddin’. I should have danced with you.”
“It’s honestly fine, Theo. It’s not like I couldn’t have come to ask you myself, right? It is the twenty-first century after all.”
“Maybe. But it was wrong of me to ask and then not collect. And I feel like skipping out on you has caused us to get off on the wrong foot when we should be here having fun reminiscing over old times.”
“I’m not holding a grudge, Theo,” I sigh. “Did it annoy me? Yes. But can I move past it? Of course.” I pause my work so I can look up at him and grin. “Besides, that tray of oil sloshing all over you kind of makes us even.”
“I suppose we can look at it like that.” He chuckles. “You think we can also maybe start fresh? I’m not here in Whisper Valley long. But I would like us to be friends while I’m here. Maybe even keep in touch when I’m gone.”
His words ring in my ears. “Friends?” I force a smile and try to cover my second bout of disappointment where this man is concerned by inking up my needle. Of course friendship is all he wants. When has a man like him ever been interested in a woman like me?
I wipe away the excess ink on his chest and prepare myself to start shading. “Friends sounds great,” I say, using my focus on my work to keep the conversation to a minimum for the rest of the piece, which thankfully doesn’t take too long.
“What do I owe you?” he asks as soon as I announce I’m done.
“You might want to look at it before you offer me money,” I say, already packing up.
He moves over to the mirror and looks closely at the series of lines, dots and shading. “Is that the North Star?” he asks, and I can’t tell from the tone of his voice if he likes it or not.
“Yeah. Duke mentioned you never stay in one place for long. Figured that maybe having that near your heart might help guide you to somewhere you can call home.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I stop what I’m doing and find him watching me closely via the reflection in the mirror. “Thank you,” he says the moment our eyes lock. “I love it.”
I give him a small smile. “Consider it a gift. Besides tormenting me by calling me ‘Spot’, you were probably the only friend of Duke’s who was kind to me back in the day.”
“You were a cute kid,” he says quickly.
“Not cute anymore,” I whisper under my breath as I put everything back in its place ready for tomorrow.
“No. Cute is the wrong word for what you are now, Dottie,” he says, shocking me because I did not think he’d hear that.
I take a deep breath and jut my chin out in challenge. “And what am I now?”
A smile takes over his entire face. “I’ll let you know before I leave town.”
“Sure you will,” I say, rolling my eyes as I put a small covering over his tattoo. The warm smell of his skin mixed with the ink invades my senses, and I quickly step away.
“Where’s a good place to eat out around here?” he asks.
“It’s a small town, so not much.”
He laughs. “You’re forgetting where I come from, Spot. Cedarwood Valley has a diner and that’s it, remember?”
“Not really. I was six when we left, so my memories of that place are a little hazy.”
“As long as I’m one of them,” he says, smirking as he puts his shirt back on—much to my disappointment.
I choose to ignore his comment and stick to the answer to his original question. “Let’s see… There’s a diner, a coffee shop, a bakery—except that will be closed now—and a couple of bars and basic restaurants.”
“What’s your choice?”
“I don’t really go out much, but the most popular place is Valentines. Their booths are always crowded. But if you just want a quiet drink and some wings, then the bar on the corner of Main St and Mirabella is your best bet.”
“What if I wanted a pizza?”
“Then you’d go to the pizza house on Rose Avenue.”
“Join me?”
“Ahhh… I don’t know. It’s been a long day.”
“Come on, Dottie. Buying you dinner is the least I can do after you just gave me a tattoo for free.”
“I don’t know…” I keep my eyes off his face when I speak. If I’m honest with myself here, I’d love to go out and have dinner with him. But if I’m super honest with myself, I know that doing so will only get my hopes up even through he’s already laid all his cards on the table, and they spell out friendship and nothing more. But I’m a chronic hoper. A romantic deep inside who wishes fairy tales were real, and that one day my version of a prince would come. But since I’m a thirty-nine-year-old woman without a single serious relationship in my history, I know that’s just not true. In my story, I’m not the princess waiting for her prince. I’m one of the side characters living alone in the woods. And I’m OK with that. Well, most of the time I am anyway. It’s only when men like Theo enter my orbit that I get a little foolhardy and hopeful. “I really should head home and get some sleep.”
“One hour,” he counters. “Give me one more hour of your time and we’ll call it a day. We can talk old times and catch up on the last thirty years. I want to know how the little girl who loved animals and barbie dolls turned into a tattoo artist in a small town.”
Biting at the inside of my lip, I lift my eyes and search his face. He seems genuine enough, and his persistence tells me I’m not getting out of this without a fight. “Fine,” I say with a resigned sigh. “One hour.”
He smiles and claps his hands together in triumph. Then he helps me lock up the shop, and we head out into the night with me wondering if I can get through this night with my heart intact. Because I’m not going to lie, getting stood up for that dance at the wedding, then having him put me firmly in the friendzone today kinda stung. And I don’t want to come across as bitter and twisted, but always being the friend and never the girlfriend is hard.
Once again, I curse all mention and knowledge of Whisper Valley’s now-infamous Soulwink. According to Jade—the woman who first coined the term—it’s supposed to be your soul’s way of letting you know you’ve met your other half. The way she explains it, you see each other and your souls ‘wink’ at each other to let you know. Silly me had thought that maybe that’s what was happening between Theo and me. But since he’s leaving soon and made it clear that he just wants to be my friend, I can’t see how that’s possible. Reaching up, I tug the necklace from around my neck and drop it into the bushes on my way out. My soul, it seems, is destined to always be alone, and I need to quit being hopeful.
Theo
After a short walk down a picturesque street, we reach the entry to Whisper Valley’s pizzeria, Slicey.
“Cute name,” I say, pointing up to the neon sign.
“Everything about this town is adorable,” Dottie says, the dimples in her cheeks popping as she smiles and looks around. “It’s like living in a story book.”
“I’m liking everything I see so far,” I respond, flirting with her and knowing that Duke is going to kick my ass for it, but also not being able to stop myself.
She gives me a look that reads like she doesn’t believe me. But that’s OK, I can convince her.
Stepping ahead of her, I reach for the handle on the front door.
“Wait, Theo.”
“Every woman deserves to have a door opened for her, Spot.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s not that, it’s—”
Thud. The door doesn’t budge.
“Is it stuck?” I ask, jiggling the thing and adding a bit of elbow to it.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Dottie says, pointing to a sign in the window beside the door. “They’re closed Mondays. Looks like someone forgot to turn the lights off though.”
“They’re closed Mondays?” I repeat, jiggling the door one last time for sport.
She giggles. “They are. And if you keep trying to force the door like that, you’re likely to find yourself party to a break and enter.”
“How do you live here and not know the pizza joint shuts on Mondays?” I ask as I step away from the entrance.
She shrugs. “Pizza is more of a Friday food for me.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s a Monday food?”
“I don’t know. I don’t eat specific foods every day. But if I did, probably left-over pizza from Friday?”
I laugh. She’s such a no-nonsense person that I bet she eats it cold from the fridge to save time too. “Where to next then? It has to be somewhere that’s definitely open since we’re already cutting into my hour here.”
“In that case, Valentine’s. They’re always open. But we’ll have to drive there.”
“And how long will that take?”
“Fifteen, twenty minutes?”
“That doesn’t give us much time for talkin’ and eating.”
“It’s OK. I promise I won’t disappear into a puff of smoke the moment one-hour passes,” she says, her hands in her pockets as we head back toward the building that houses both the garage and tattoo shop.
When she breaks away from me to get into her car, I pull open the passenger side of my truck. “I’ll drive. No sense takin’ two cars.”
“You’ll bring me back here after dinner to get my car then?”
“Something like that.” I grin and gesture for her to get her ass over here. Thankfully, she does what is now becoming her patented eye roll and obliges me. I don’t know why, but it pleases me to have this woman in my car. Like it’s my duty to chauffeur her around. I’ve never had a thought like that before.
“So, why don’t you tell me all about your travels?” Dottie says once we’re on the road. “Duke says you’re only in Cedarwood Valley for shearing season these days? What happened to taking over the farm like you always said you would?”
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. “You remember that, huh? Well, seems I wasn’t the son for the job in the end. My father left the farm to Josh instead of me.”
“Josh is your brother, right?” I nod. “I don’t think I remember him much.”
“He didn’t hang much around the rest of us. Too tied to the farm even as a kid. Which, really, is why I think Dad made the right choice leaving it to him. Josh is a great farmer, and I’m happy to play my role in helping him orchestrate the shear each season. Especially since it means I get to travel in between.”
“Where have you been?”
“To all fifty states, and a decent number of countries too.”
“Do you have a favorite place?”
“I love island life. So places like Bali, Greece and Thailand are great destinations.”
“Do you see yourself ever settling down and living somewhere like that?” she asks, and I take a deep breath as I ponder for a moment. People often mistake my desire to travel with a restless soul. But I’ve never seen it that way. I simply enjoy exploring, learning, and experiencing new things. Home for me was always the farm, and I happily return to it over and over again. But as far as settling down and finding a home of my own goes, I’m yet to find somewhere that gives me that sense of belonging that’d anchor my feet and keep me from wanting to roam.
“You know, I’ve never really seen myself settling anywhere,” I say, momentarily taking my eyes off the road ahead to glance at the beautiful lady by my side. It’s then two words enter my mind without warning—until now…
When I set my eyes back on the road, a furrow creases my brow. Am I really that sure about my attraction to this woman that I can make a claim so bold? From the moment I saw her again, my ability to breathe stalled, and now my mind struggles to think of anything but her. And I know I promised Duke I’d keep my distance, but what if I can do more than just start something with Dottie? What if I can finish, stay, be with her permanently? Is that something I’m capable of? It’s something that could cost me the longest running friendship I have. But at the same time, it’s something I feel the urge to take a chance on. After forty-nine years on this earth, I’m well aware that feelings like this don’t come along that often. In fact, this is the first time in my entire life that I’ve felt an attraction so intense. I have to have her.
“Valentine’s is just up ahead,” Dottie says, pointing to what looks like a brightly lit log cabin in the distance. As I get closer, I can make out the pink neon ‘Valentines’ positioned at the front of the roof. There’s a cocktail glass at the side of it, flashing like it’s a lure and we’re the fish it’s trying to attract. Based on how full the parking lot is when we pull in, I’m guessing it works.
“Well, helloooo,” a woman I recognize from Duke and Ava’s wedding says as soon as we step inside. “I’m not sure if you remember me, but I’m Jade. Kellen’s wife.” She points at the burly man behind the bar. “We met at the wedding on Saturday. Nice to see you’re still in town.” That last part is directed at me, but I don’t miss that Jade’s eyes go to Dottie’s and widen in silent communication. Dottie seems to shake her head imperceptibly, but it all happens so fast that I can’t figure out what’s really going on.
“We’re just here for a friendly dinner,” Dottie says, putting an emphasis on the word ‘friendly’ and giving me a little insight into what went unspoken just now.
I’ll have to fix that. By the end of this meal, she’ll have no doubt that being friends with her is currently the last thing on my mind.
I place my hand on the lower part of her back, a clear signal to every other man in the room that she’s mine. “Is it OK if we take that empty booth?” I ask Jade, nodding to where a server is bussing and resetting. “It looks nice and quiet.”
“It’s all yours,” she says, a knowing smile taking over her face. “You two get yourself situated, and I’ll be over with a menu in a few.”
