Chapter 6 - Pete
The door to the small bedroom opened, and in walked Dale, making Pete catch his breath at the way Dale filled the room, all masculine energy and smelling like woodsmoke, his dark hair a mess over his forehead, his blue eyes just the same as they’d always been, except now there were little laugh lines at the outer corners.
Pete’s quick-drawn breath turned into a raspy, chest-rattling cough.
“Don’t do that,” said Dale, his voice rumbly and warm. “Here, here.”
He sat on the bed next to Pete, his arm around Pete’s shoulders, just as would always happen back when they were boys. A gesture of camaraderie, a press of muscle and warmth, to tease, a little roughhouse, or to comfort, when needed.
“Where are the girls?” asked Pete when he could speak, a sudden worry overtaking him.
As he stood up, Dale stood up, as well, pulling a soft cherry-red wool bathrobe around him, helping him into it. Gesturing to the floor where two leather slippers, lined with sheep’s wool, waited for his bare feet.
Obediently, Pete did as Dale silently told him, then looked up.
“They’re fast asleep,” said Dale, straightening the lapels of the bathrobe that surrounded Pete with the sensation of Dale’s scent. Woodsmoke, lavender soap, a bit of cologne. “I’ll show you.”
Dale took him the two steps across the short passage to another room and slowly opened the door. Light from Pete’s room sliced into the darkness to show two little girls tucked beneath a vanilla-white duvet, their dark hair streaming across the lace edges. They were safe. Dale had rescued them all.
“How did you–” Pete waited until Dale had closed the door, then tugged the warm robe around him as a shiver ran through him. “How did you find us?”
“I was driving back from the store when I saw them walking to town,” said Dale.
He was close to Pete, but he didn’t move away.
“They were fully aware that they shouldn’t talk to strangers, but I managed to convince them to let me help them–and that’s when I found out they were going into town for soup and cough drops.
That’s when I found out who their daddy was. ”
There was no recrimination in Dale’s voice, only the slight question running through the words as to what had happened to Pete to land him where he’d ended up.
The last thing Pete wanted to do was labor Dale with all of his problems, but a bit of luck kept him from having to answer as a cough rose up in his chest, and he staggered away to keep it from waking the girls.
Dale followed him, almost guiding him from behind as they walked into the large farm kitchen.
“I got you all here, and told the girls to change into dry clothes while I got you into bed and dosed you with Theraflu,” said Dale.
He filled an electric kettle with water, and turned it on, then guided Pete to sit down at the kitchen table.
“When you were in bed, I fed them, let them watch TV for a little while. Put them to bed, put their wet clothes in the washer, and watched over you.”
Dale’s voice fell on that last word. You.
As if Pete was the most important among all of it.
Making Pete shiver even as he lowered his face into his hands at the thought of Melanie and Rebecca deciding together that they should stride out into the danger of a growing storm to help their dad feel better.
If Dale hadn’t come along, perhaps some other person would have picked the girls up, as Wyoming tended to be a tight knit community, for all its size, and neighbors looked out for each other. But of all the people who could have stopped, Dale had been the one who’d rescued his girls, and him.
Dale deserved an answer, so when a white china mug was placed in front of him, Pete drank the hot, metallic tasting liquid, and told his story. Not all of it, not too much so as to overwhelm, but enough of it, as Dale was always clever enough to read between the lines.
“I don’t know why I trusted her,” said Pete, wincing at the bitter dregs of the medicine as he swallowed the last mouthful. “Or why I left without really saying goodbye.”
“You were doing what you thought was right.” Dale rubbed the scruff along his jaw. “You looked after your family.”
“I’ve loved Melanie as if she were my own.
” Pete couldn’t take his eyes off Dale, leaning forward, his elbows on the table, sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up to show corded forearms, the dark hair on the back of Dale’s wrists.
“She is my own, just as much as Rebecca is, even when I found out she wasn’t. ”
“That was cruel to do to you.”
Pete looked up from where he’d been staring at the point where the undone buttons on the flannel shirt showed a sprightly burst of dark chest hair. Looked into Dale’s eyes.
“I’ve forgiven her,” said Pete, softly. “I think.”
“You were always nicer than me,” said Dale. “I will never forgive her for what she did to you.”
The words were meant to be kind comfort, but Pete could hear the anger just below the surface. And he couldn’t blame Dale for being angry about what Raynette had done, not when that rumbly voice floated in the air to land on his shoulders like a soft, determined, protective blanket.
“I should put you back to bed before that stuff knocks you off your feet.”
“I don’t want to go to bed,” said Pete. He glanced at the clock over the white stove. “Even if it is midnight.”
Dale’s gaze was as warm and steady as it ever had been, but there was a question in them now, low beneath the blue of those eyes, rising up like a creature freed, at long last, from a vast depth.
“Then let’s sit for a while.”
Dale stood up, and when Pete stood up and wobbled, Dale was right at his side, a strong warm arm around his waist, a broad chest to support him, slow steps to take him to the couch, which was set in front of a slow-burning fire of orange embers, coal-black logs, the pop of blue and cherry flaring from time to time.
“This your place?” asked Pete as he looked around the fire-shadowed room, which seemed to be the great room in an old farmhouse that had been updated to be a little more modern, but still cozy. The walls were painted some soft color, and the floor beneath his feet was warm. “Heated floors?”
“Yeah.” Dale laughed, his head going back, the way it always used to when he thought something was funny. “I don’t mind heading out in freezing temperatures to feed cattle or to break up ice in the water troughs, but I have never liked coming home to a cold house.”
He looked right at Pete as his laugh settled into a smile and casually, quite casually, he flung his arm along the back of the couch, right behind Pete’s head. And then Dale was still, watchful, waiting as though for a signal from Pete.
Maybe it was the medicine, kicking in, making his head feel like it was swimming in a vat of cotton wool.
Or maybe it was the fire in the stone fireplace, sending tendrils of warmth into the room as though inviting Pete to sink beneath that warmth and rest forever and ever.
Or maybe it was Dale himself, a steady presence, a warm body so close to his that if Pete melted into it and disappeared, that would be a fine ending to a life half-lived and choices made in fear.
Or maybe it was simply time to say the truth out loud and face what might follow.
He took a breath and froze, expecting that his rattling cough would rear its ugly head, but the medicine had kicked in well and truly now, and the cough abated before it even began.
That’s when he curled into Dale’s side, into that warmth and steady tide of love and affection that he’d always felt coming from Dale. Slid his arm around Dale’s back, as he’d often done when they were kids, half-wrestling, half goofing around, playing at affection and then darting away again.
He was doing what they always did, especially when they were hanging around with other guys at ball games in early summer, at the skateboard park down by the rec center, at the Dairy Queen–everywhere.
They simply pretended it was nothing other than what it was, pretended it was just guys being guys, and not a bone-deep, soul-imprinting love.
This time, he did not pretend.
“Dale,” he said, half-choking on the well of feelings that rose up inside of him as he buried his face into the curve of Dale’s flannel-clad shoulder. Gripping folds of soft shirt in hard, claw-like fingers. “I missed you. Every minute of every day.”
He wanted to cry when both of Dale’s arms came around him, folded him close against Dale’s strong chest, one hand coming up to cradle the back of his head.
“Me too.”
Pete could hear the ache in Dale’s voice, as though his throat had grown too thick to say more than he had.
But behind those two words was more–everything that had always shone out of Dale’s blue eyes.
Affection. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Love.
Most of all love, all of it. Every bit of it.
As though the words they’d never said to each other had been packed carefully away, staying safe over the years, held for just this moment to be spoken.
Only it was too much, too much to be said aloud, at least not yet, not just yet.
He felt the rasp of Dale’s beardgrowth scratch along the side of his face, and then a kiss, warm, plush lips tenderly pressed to his temple. Pausing, a start of hesitation from Dale’s body as if he feared he’d done too much, risked too much. Loved too much.
“Dale.” Pete whispered the name against Dale’s strong neck, curled his head down to brush his forehead to the hard muscle, then swept a kiss to Dale’s collarbone where it rose amidst a rumple of flannel shirt.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, almost a whisper.
“Over and over, I missed you, and now I’ve come back, but my life’s a mess and I’ve got kids and I don’t know–”
“Of course,” said Dale, not hesitating to say it when Pete paused. “You’ll stay with me. You and the girls. Starting from now. I can’t wait to get to know them, and I can’t wait for it all to be like I imagined it–”
“You imagined it?” Pete looked up, touched a hand to Dale’s jaw. His fingers trailed Dale’s mouth, his lower lip, tickling the tips of his fingers around the corner of that mouth that was starting to curve into a slow smile.
“Yeah.” Dale’s voice was low and quiet, and the word yeah was said with such certainty that the force of it sank into Pete’s whole body.
The room was starting to swim around him, but he could feel Dale’s warmth, the hardness of bone along his jaw, the scratch of beardgrowth, the whisper of a kiss to his fingers.
“Just like this. A farm. A small herd of very good cattle–”
“Gelbvieh cattle,” said Pete, interrupting.
“You remembered,” said Dale, pleased wonder in his voice.
“Of course I did,” said Pete. “Tell me what else you imagined.”
“A little white farmhouse, complete with an old fashioned windmill drawing up water from a pure, clear well.” Dale paused and cleared his throat, his solid arm around Pete like a beautiful proud angel.
“And a family around a farmhouse table. Which I don’t have–” Dale stopped again and then gestured to the kitchen counter and the two barstools placed along its length.
“Hadn’t needed one, seeing as it was just me I was cooking for. But now–”
Pete squinted where Dale had gestured, but either the room was too dark or he was too doped up to be able to focus, for all he could see was Dale’s face, the profile of his jaw, the darkness beyond his arms.
“Now, I’m going to need to buy one or build it–”
“You could build us a table?” Pete asked, not allowing himself to question that what Dale was talking about was anything other than a true marriage proposal.
“Sure could.” Dale’s smile was proud, as it had every right to be. “Got me a little woodworking shop next to the barn. It’s got heat and running water and tools. Everything I need.”
“I’d like it built rather than bought,” said Pete.
He was sliding into darkness so fast that it almost felt as though he was falling.
And he was falling, for he’d stood up, and strong arms caught him, effortless and sure and true.
“And you’ll teach me, right? I don’t wanna be an accountant anymore–”
He stopped, pressing close to Dale as they stepped through a doorway into where Pete had been sleeping before.
He waited as Dale steadied him on his feet, took the robe away, knelt to take off the wool lined slippers.
Waited while Dale took off his blue jeans so he was dressed only in the flannel shirt and pale blue boxers.
Pete hadn’t even started to wobble and fall over before Dale had tucked him into the bed and then slid in beside him, reaching to turn off the bedside light. And there, in the darkness, Dale’s arms came around him, warm and steady, a gentle hand guiding his head to rest on Dale’s shoulder.
“It’s you and me now, Pete,” said Dale’s voice, almost disembodied from the warmth that encircled Pete completely. “Like it always was.”
In spite of the newness of what Dale said, Pete didn’t doubt the words or their truth, a finality from which he would never return, never turn away from, never regret agreeing to in a soft murmur, his lips kissing Dale’s cheek before he sank back.
He’d found his way home. After many years and living a false life, he’d found his way home to Dale.
The End