27
A s the snow melts completely, bringing with it the bright blue skies of April, as only Montana can do, so do my thoughts of Aiden. My son grows low in my belly. Life consists of The Corner Store. My baby.
Davis.
I’ve accepted his words for what they are—a claiming. Some tentative, happy, love-drunk space. For once in a long time, I’m not worried Davis will come to his senses and realize he’s crazy for taking on a pregnant woman, another man’s son.
I have hope. Hope I don’t have to run. Hope we will work out. And though neither of us have said those three little words I’ve long felt, I’m at peace. With what we have and where we are.
The words will come.
Like all the light I’ve found over the last few months.
Finally, I see clearly. I see Resurrection. Maybe it’s how I should have always seen her, but I see her now. Sometimes you have to leave home and come back to find things you never knew you had.
And best of all, I see The Corner Store.
Our old country store has good bones. It can be something so much better. All it needs is a second chance. And I can breathe life back into it like I’ve been doing to myself these last few months.
It’s a Friday afternoon, and I’m pulling a loaf of sandwich bread out of the oven. As usual, The Corner Store is dead. The only sign of life is Fallon. She’s leaning over the counter applying lipstick using a butcher knife as a mirror.
It’s hypnotic. The juxtaposition of her sharp angles. Her beauty and her anger.
“How’s the arm doing?” Fallon asks, without looking at me.
I flex my pale arm, testing it out as I thump the bottom of the golden-brown loaf with my knuckle. The hollow sound tells me it’s done. “Pale and scrawny, but ready for the world.”
“Silly putty,” Fallon notes, straightening up. “Use it to strengthen the muscles.”
I give a nod, upturn the bread onto a cooling rack. “Here.” I slide the moderately chunky loaf Fallon’s way. “Try this. It’s a new recipe.”
My sister tears off a hunk, her pearly candy-pink nails glittering in the harsh kitchen light. She chews, then closes her eyes and says over a mouthful, “Fuck. I think I’m closer to God, Dakota.”
I laugh. “I got good.” I’m still a long way off from baking with two hands, but with the cast off, I’m getting close.
“I’m serious,” she tells me. “You got great .” Her face darkens as she stares at me. “And I hate that man who took that away from you.”
I smooth a hand over my stomach and smile. “He didn’t take everything.”
Fallon’s phone lights up. Danny it says on the screen. She scrambles to mute it, and I pounce on it.
“Who’s that?”
“No one.”
I follow my sister into the store, watching as she busies herself at the till.
I arch a brow. “Are you seeing someone?”
Fallon lets out a strangled laugh. “I’ll tell you tonight.”
“What’s tonight?”
“Girls’ night,” she says without enthusiasm. “Me. You. Ruby. Nowhere.”
A Friday night at Nowhere, Resurrection’s rowdy local dive bar, is asking for trouble, but if it means spending time with my sister, I’ll take it. The invitation has my heart soaring. Another glimmer of us. The little sister who hung out and opened up to me.
I pull out my phone. “Yeah, I just have to—”
“Text your bodyguard with benefits, I get it,” she says dryly.
My cheeks heat. “Fallon.”
I text Davis a quick Going to Nowhere with Fallon and Ruby and pocket my phone before I can see his reply.
She lifts a cool brow. “Well? That’s what you two are doing, isn’t it? Knocking boots. Especially now that you’re having his baby?”
I laugh and cover my face. “Oh god.”
“I knew it,” she says with a smirk. “That big, handsome cowboy wanted more than just your cupcakes back in the day.”
I snort. “You’re the worst.” But she’s not wrong. Sometimes cupcakes and cowboys are all a girl needs.
Fallon crosses her arms and tilts her head. “It’s sweet what Davis did for you.”
“Yeah.” Flushing, I finger the dog tag around my neck. “It is.”
“If only all Montgomery men had common sense.” She dips down, hefting the gym bag she keeps under the front counter.
Peeking out of the poorly zipped side, riding boots and heels.
A helmet and a pair of leather gloves. I frown.
Fallon never rides with a helmet. Another one of her ways she defies death.
“You living out of suitcases these days?” I ask.
She zips up her bag, hooks it cross-body style. “Something like that.”
Twenty-eight weeks pregnant and bellied up at Resurrection’s local dive bar on a wild Friday night with my sister and Ruby.
The night’s never felt more perfect.
The jukebox pumps at unholy decibel levels, the neon so bright I could get a tan. Peanut shells and spilled beer cover the floor as we cross to the bar.
“What do you want?” Beef, the bartender, grunts. His long black beard trails the sticky bar top as he wipes it down.
“Tequila,” Fallon says. “And something pink for Ruby, and water for Dakota.”
“Hi,” Ruby chirps with a wave.
He lifts his chin at her, and his scrutinizing eyes slide to me. “Dakota.”
I give him a nod, smiling at his bad attitude and tattoos. To me, he’ll always be that sweet boy who took me to homecoming my sophomore year. “Beef. You still got the band?”
He straightens up. Pride crosses his craggy face. “The Turbofuckers? Hell, yeah. Still rocking in my garage.” His big hands drum the counter. “Glad you’re home, Koty.”
“Thanks.”
Another grunt and Beef’s gone.
Fallon settles onto a barstool with a happy sigh. “God, I already feel drunk and I just sat down.”
“Place hasn’t changed,” I add, roving my gaze around the neon lights.
“It’s where I met Charlie,” Ruby says. “Bar fight.”
Beef hurls down our drinks. A tray of shots, a gaudy pink drink in a tall, curvy goblet with a big bendy straw, and a large water with a cherry on top.
Fallon grabs my drink and leans over the counter. “Beef, if you put booze in this, I’ll knock your ass up to your receding hairline.”
A raise of Beef’s middle finger. “Stop bitching at me, Fallon, and suck it.”
I watch as my sister sips my drink before passing it to me. The sweet act of protection makes me smile.
She looks at me suspiciously. “What?”
“You love me.”
Her cheeks turn bright pink. “Shut up.”
I laugh as my stomach bumps, then I groan. “Ugh, it’s like a squirrel going sicko mode inside my body.”
Fallon tentatively splays a hand out on my belly like it’s an alien about to burst. My sister has zero maternal instinct. It would not be abnormal for her to eat her young.
“Kid’s doing barrel rolls,” she says with a pleased grin.
Ruby wiggles on her stool, adjusts the hem of her sundress. “Have you thought about names, Dakota?”
“Shockingly, no.”
Fallon slugs down a shot, reaches for another. “One more minute of baby talk. Then I’m cutting you off, Ruby.”
Ruby stirs her drink with her bendy straw. “You have to have a baby shower.”
“Would you believe I’m taking it one day at a time?” I admit.
Fallon barks a laugh. “I don’t believe it.” Her gaze flits to Ruby. “My big sister treats planning as an extreme sport.”
I elbow her. “Excuse you.” Ignoring Fallon’s grumbles about my pointy elbows, I turn back to Ruby. “But she’s right. I used to have plans. Order. I could do it all, and I didn’t need help. I could bake the fuck out of a croissant. And now I just have a baby.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” Ruby says, her eyes falling to the bar top.
I smile. “No, it’s not. I love my little Squish.”
“What about Davis?” Fallon interjects. “You have your Marine.”
I prop my chin in my palm. “Maybe. Maybe not. We used to fuck in secret, now we’re just…fucking in public.”
Ruby giggles. “Oh, I think we’ve all done that.”
I stare at the shots. Is it possible to get a contact high just from looking at them? “How many would it take to forget I admitted that?”
“It’s girls’ night.” Fallon’s gaze is shrewd. “We gonna bullshit or be real tonight?”
Ruby and I both look at her like she’s an all-seeing wise witch.
“Well? Truth or bullshit?”
I take a deep breath and debate. She’s right. So I clear my throat and let it out. “I don’t know what Davis and I are doing. I just know it feels right. It feels normal. Is that so bad to want something simple?”
“No,” Ruby says, her eyes as large as saucers.
“I don’t know where I’m going,” I say. “I just know there’s no one else on earth I want to be with.
” The words build in my chest. “I’ve built a life before, and it all burned down.
But instead of being afraid, I’m up for the challenge.
To do it all over again and hope maybe I get this life right.
” I inhale. “I am someone new now and that is okay.”
There’s a long silence, and then Ruby speaks up.
“Before my surgery, this would make me sick,” Ruby explains, pointing at her pink drink.
“But I can do stuff like this now. Charlie worries because he’s Charlie.
I can do a lot. But I can’t do everything.
” Her eyes flicker to my belly. “And I’m still trying to be okay with that. ”
“Goddamn.” Fallon exhales like Ruby’s words have taken a toll on her.
I look up at Beef. “More water.”
Ruby dips her head and hoovers the rest of her pink drink.
Tequila and secrets. Apparently, that’s where girls’ night has gotten us.
Fallon’s three shots in when the stomp of cowboy boots rattle the floorboards.
I glance over at the door.
My knees go weak at the sight of Davis.
Davis and his brothers stand in the mouth of the bar. Broad-shouldered, broody, intimidating cowboys. Half the bar has their heads on a swivel.
“Here comes the parade of assholes,” Fallon drones dryly. Then she scowls. “So much for girls’ night.”
Davis’s dark eyes rake over me. My stomach curls as I drink in the sight of his dark hair and rough stubble. A tight US Marine Corps T-shirt. Biceps. Oh god.
“Uh-oh,” Ruby whispers. “Here they come.” She secretly sounds delighted.
“Oh, hell no,” Fallon complains, hopping off her barstool. “We’re not letting big, dumb men interrupt our night.” A wicked smile appears on her face, and she leans in conspiratorially. “You want to see the quickest way to clear a room of four tough cowboys?”
She waits until Davis and his brothers are within earshot and says, “Tell me about pregnancy, Dakota? Have you lost your mucous plug yet?”
All four pairs of boots instantly beeline in the opposite direction.
Fallon snickers.
Beef passes Ruby another pink drink, and she feels blindly for it, staring at Charlie like a woman long gone.
I smother a smile, watching Davis redirect his brothers like they’re children instead of tough cowboys.
Turning to Fallon, I arch a brow, run a hand over my stomach, feeling the little pepper of feet. “Mucous plug?”
She gives a cavalier shrug. “I did some research.” She lifts her glass in the air and loops her arm around my neck. “Welcome to the Weird Cowgirl Club. It’s you and me now, Koty, no take backs. No secrets.”
“No secrets,” I echo, ducking my head so she can’t see the tears that have sprung to my eyes.
Ruby stirs her drink, a bright pink clashing of liquors while the Montgomery men claim a table in the room’s corner. Davis gives me a nod, tugs his hat down low and settles in like my personal attack dog.
“God,” Fallon groans. “Are they always so—”
“Morally gray cowboys with killer tendencies? Yeah. They are,” Ruby breathes, watching Charlie from above the rim of her drink. She looks enamored. Lovesick. “That’s my cowboy.”
“Really leaning into this wild honky-tonk lifestyle, aren’t you?” Fallon says to Ruby.
Ruby sips her drink, slurping as she reaches the bottom of it.Her cheeks are bright pink. “Oh, yes.”
I point my straw at the brothers. “What do you think a pack of them is called? A murder of Montgomerys?”
“Welcome to the dating pool in Resurrection,” Fallon drawls with a flick of her hand.
“Your options are a douchebag from California with mommy issues who won’t date you until his psychic reads your aura, or a cowboy with busted boots and a dusty attitude who is prepared to antagonize you even through a zombie apocalypse. ”
At that, Ruby and I share a wide-eyed look.
“Wow,” Ruby breathes. “So specific.”
“No more about me.” I twist on my stool toward my sister. I can feel Davis’s intense gaze burning a hole in my back. “Let’s talk about you. And this guy you’re seeing.”
Ruby squeaks.
On Fallon’s lips is a rebuttal, but I shake my head and grab her hand. “One secret. Tell me.” I give her a hard look. “We can be real tonight or we can bullshit.”
“Real,” Ruby echoes.
“Ugh, god. Fine.” Fallon puffs her chest out and exhales. “He’s just some guy I met at the stock show in Butte.”
It all makes sense now. Fallon wearing lipstick, nail polish, sneaking out of work early.
Her duffel bag full of lacey undergarments.
My fierce, independent little sister has a boyfriend.
She was never an idealist about love, especially after our mother left.
Usually, she was quoting Elizabeth I’s speech on avoiding marriage and cursing men.
“When was this?” I ask.
“Over the winter,” she says, downing another shot. Her fifth or sixth of the night. By now, I’ve lost track of counting.
I slide a glass of water her way, hoping she takes the hint. I don’t want a repeat of graduation night when I held back Fallon’s hair while she threw up Four Loko. “Well, don’t stop there. What’s his name? What’s he like? Tell. Me. Everything.”
“Relax, Dakota. It’s not a relationship or anything.
” She cocks a brow. “We’re casual. It’s something fun with someone who’s not a cowboy.
Who doesn’t live in the hellscape that is Resurrection.
” A smile softens her face. “We’ve been on maybe six or seven dates.
Had sex in a Pinto. Girl’s gotta get laid. ”
A groan-laugh pops out of my mouth. “I’m happy for you and didn’t need to know that.”
Ruby wobbles on her stool, grips the bar to steady herself, then clears her throat. “But what about Wyatt?”
Fallon scrunches up her nose. “What about him?”
Ruby casts a confused gaze at me, but I stay quiet. Fallon’s beef with Wyatt started long before they ever competed.
“Shit,” Fallon mutters, glancing at the Budweiser clock on the wall. She stands and grabs her duffel bag tucked beneath the stool. “I gotta change. Metalhead concert in Missoula.” She wiggles her brows. “With Danny.”
Ruby’s mouth falls open.
Fallon holds up a finger. “And before you ask, no, you can’t meet him.”
Ruby and I stare after her as she hustles to the bathroom.
Grin on his face, Davis crooks a big finger and motions us over.
Ruby clasps her hands to her heart and looks pleadingly at me.
A ghost of a smile plays on my lips. “Fine, let’s go.”