Chapter 13
thirteen
Deacon Hammond adjusted his jacket over his shoulders, wondering if he was trying too hard.
Putting himself together after a long day on the farm for a dinner date automatically felt like too much work.
In the past couple of months, he’d worn his best jeans, bought new shirts, cowboy boots, and even a new hat for the dates he’d been going on.
He’d only made it to a second date with one woman, and then she’d confessed that he felt more like a brother than a boyfriend.
He hadn’t asked anyone out from the farm again…until now.
“Alaska Whitby,” he muttered to his reflection, wondering why he was entering this date with dread instead of excitement. Maybe because dating felt like a chore now, instead of something he could enjoy.
He did need to eat, and he enjoyed a steak he didn’t have to cook, along with a loaded baked potato with as much bacon and ranch dressing as he could get.
He tapped a little bit of beard oil into his palm, rubbed his hands together, and smoothed it over his face.
Alaska was bubbly and talkative—everything Deacon struggled to do on a date—so he figured he’d at least have a good time.
He could answer questions and add to a conversation, but he needed someone to get him started.
He’d tried a date with a woman named Kara last weekend, and she’d been as quiet as him.
The meal had been awkward, and the walk over to downtown Ivory Peaks Park to check on the ice skating rink had been filled with tense silence.
He’d been asking out women he knew from church, work, or through a friend that he’d met at least once, but the pool of potential dates was quickly drying up.
He didn’t want to do anything online, and if Opal or Jane offered to set him up on a blind date one more time, he felt sure he’d lose his mind.
His phone chimed out the familiar alarm notification, and Deacon abandoned looking into his own eyes to pick up his device.
It was a calendar reminder for tomorrow’s barrel racing finals, which Rosie Young was riding in.
Tucker and Bobbie Jo had gone with her, and Deacon wanted nothing more than pure success for his brother, because he knew Tuck wanted more clients.
If he could get Rosie to win in her rookie year as a pro rodeo rider, he would have people knocking down his door and begging to train right here in Colorado instead of in San Antonio.
He swept away the reminder and saw that he’d missed a text from his father. He tapped on it and read: Call me when you can.
Deacon quickly checked the time and saw he had about fifteen minutes before he had to walk out his front door and over to the cabin community where Alaska lived, which would take him less than five minutes.
So he tapped to call his father and listened to the phone ring three times before his daddy’s familiar bass rumbled through the speaker.
“Howdy, son.”
“Hey,” Deacon said. “Sorry, I just saw your text. I’m getting ready for yet another first date.”
Daddy chuckled. “You don’t sound too happy about it.”
“Why would I be?” Deacon griped. “I don’t understand dating at all. Why can’t I just meet someone, and fall in love in five seconds, and we can be married?”
Daddy full-on belly-laughed then. “I’m putting you on speaker with your mother.”
“Really? This is a speaker call?” Deacon’s mood worsened. “If I’d have known that, I would’ve waited until after the date.”
“She likes hearing about your dating escapades,” Daddy said.
Deacon groaned even as his momma said, “You can’t go into it with such a bad attitude.”
“I don’t have a bad attitude,” Deacon said. “I’m dressed up real nice, and it’s Alaska. Besides, she thinks anyone who talks to her has hung the moon.”
“So you don’t think she’s a potential serious girlfriend?” Daddy asked.
“I don’t know what I think.” Deacon sighed. “You wanted me to call?”
“Yeah,” Daddy said. “It’s only a couple of weeks until Christmas, and Jane and Cord are coming up here. I know it’s hard to leave the farm, but we wanted to know if you might be coming with them.”
“I don’t think so,” Deacon said. “Mission will be around, but four of our other cowboys are leaving the farm for a few days for the holidays.”
“Yeah, I figured,” Daddy said. “It’s a hard time.”
“What are you going to do then?” Momma asked. “Uncle Wes and Aunt Bree are out at Gerty and Mike’s.”
“Yeah, they invited me to eat with them,” he said. “But I don’t know if I’ll go.”
“Well, you can’t have Christmas at that farm by yourself,” she said.
Deacon wanted to ask her why not? but he held his tongue.
“Matt and Boone also invited me,” he said. “They’re doing stuff with their kids, and I thought that might be a good place to go.”
“Tuck and Bobbie Jo are going to Oklahoma,” Daddy said.
“Yeah, they sure are,” Deacon said. “And Hunter and Molly are going to be in town with her folks. Tarr and Briar are going out to Mike’s, and so are Steele and his girlfriend—probably his fiancée by Christmas.”
“Yeah, I heard he bought a diamond ring,” Daddy said.
“He did,” Deacon confirmed, trying not to be too salty about it. But he wanted what Steele had managed to do: meet a woman, ask her out, hit it off within minutes, start dating, and six months later be planning to propose.
He didn’t want to go hang out with couples, and that was all who would be out at Mike and Gerty’s farm, while Matt and Boone, who’d both worked the farm while Deacon grew up, had teenagers and single young adults.
Keith and Lindsay would be there with their new baby, and so would Britt and Lars—and she was due with their first child just after the first of the year.
But Deacon wouldn’t be the only single one there; he wouldn’t be this massive fifth wheel, taking up too much space at the dinner table.
“Yeah, I’ll probably go to Matt and Boone’s,” he said. “I’ll text him and see what he wants me to bring.”
“Well, we’ll miss you,” Momma said. “Maybe you can come up in January or February for a visit.”
“I’d like that,” Deacon said.
“I know Uncle Wes was going to ask you to follow them back,” Daddy said. “They’re staying through West’s birthday at least, but they like having help if something happens on the roads between here and there.”
Deacon nodded to himself. “I can coordinate with them.” He looked out the window above his kitchen sink. “I’ll look at my cowboys’ schedule and talk to Mission, because it would be nice to get away from the farm for a couple of weeks.”
“You need that sometimes, son,” Daddy said. “That place will eat you alive if you let it.”
“I know, Daddy.”
His father had told him that many times.
Deacon loved the farm and loved the work; he loved the sky and the fields and the cattle; he also loved the horses and the cowboys and cowgirls who worked with him.
He loved the horseback riding lessons and the children who came to the farm, bringing it life and vitality.
But Daddy was right. The work was never-ending, and the farm never slept.
“Wish me luck on this date,” he said. “Are you guys watching the rodeo finals tomorrow?”
“Sure are,” Daddy said.
“Tuck’s been texting about it nonstop,” Momma added. “I’ve been praying so hard for both him and Rosie.”
Deacon hadn’t been doing that, but he made a mental note to add Tuck and Rosie and Bobbie Jo to his prayers that evening.
“All right, well, I better go,” he said. “It’s not a good idea to show up late on the first date when she lives next door to you.” He chuckled, glad when his momma and daddy did too, and the call ended.
Deacon silenced his phone and stowed it in his back pocket as he left the bathroom of the generational house where he lived. Hunter and Molly and their kids lived in the main farmhouse, and if Deacon ever got married and had children, he knew that place would become his one day.
“Lord,” he sighed out as he left the house and took quick steps down to the front sidewalk.
He turned right and headed across the lawn toward the family barns and stables.
On the other side of that ran the dirt road that led straight through the cabin community where the hired help at the farm lived.
Alaska shared a cabin with another woman from the staff—Ruth. Deacon hoped he wouldn’t have to go through a rigorous round of roommate questioning before he could take Alaska to dinner. His legs felt especially tired as he went up the front steps and knocked on the door.
Ruth opened it and stepped back, her face alight with a healthy glow. “Hey, Deacon,” she said. “Alaska just ran down the hall to grab her earrings.”
“I’m right here,” Alaska called, bursting out of the hallway in the small cabin with both hands still fiddling at her right ear. “I’m ready.”
She wore an enormous smile to go with her little black dress, and Deacon was really glad he had put on a collared shirt with buttons down the front and his best brown leather jacket.
“Wow, you look great,” he said.
She tipped up onto one toe and cocked her red cowboy boots. “It’s the boots, right? They really make the look.”
Deacon grinned at her, his heart sending out an extra beat, though he hadn’t really felt anything romantic for Alaska before now. “Oh, it’s the boots, all right,” he said.
She came over to him, and Deacon put one hand lightly on her back as he leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Are you ready for dinner?”
“I am starving,” Alaska said, her usual exuberance on display. “And I hope you packed your platinum credit card, cowboy, because I want the surf and turf.”
Deacon chuckled and offered her his arm. “I’ve only got the one card, Alaska, but I think it’ll cover your surf and turf.” He nodded to Ruth. “Good to see you, Ruth.”
She giggled. “You too, Deacon,” and he finally escaped the cabin with Alaska on his arm.
Normally that contact disappeared pretty quickly as they had to go down steps and navigate back over to his house to get his truck. But Alaska slipped her hand into his the moment they reached the bottom of the stairs, and Deacon glanced over at her.
Heat filled his face, because he wasn’t sure how he felt about holding hands with Alaska, and he didn’t want to give her the wrong impression. He also didn’t want to yank his hand away and make everything awkward before they’d even left the property.
So, while his discomfort continued to stream through him, and he second-guessed even asking her out, he continued to hold her hand as he led her back toward the generational house and his truck.
Why does dating have to be so hard? he thought, glad at least that Alaska seemed able to carry a conversation almost entirely on her own with only an occasional nod or hum from him.
At the same time, that wasn’t the kind of relationship he wanted to have, and after he got Alaska situated in the passenger seat of his truck and walked around the hood to get behind the wheel, he knew he would not be the one to ask her on a second date—and he would have to turn her down if she suggested it.
Talk about awkward, he thought. And this is why you should not date anyone who works and lives here on the farm.
Hadn’t he learned that lesson yet?
Apparently not.