8. Dallas
8
DALLAS
I race home, have the fastest shower of my life, throw on jeans and a clean shirt and head back to the main farm house in time for dinner.
Sadie and I live in the farm cottage across the paddock from the main house. It’s tiny, has draughty windows and I’m convinced it’s haunted, but it’s the closest thing we’ve had to a stable home in a long time.
I step through the front door of the main house right as Katie and Olivia are descending the stairs. Olivia’s wearing the same jeans, floaty pink blouse and cardigan as when I left, but Katie is like a whole different person.
Her filthy jeans and top are gone and she’s wearing a pastel blue dress with wide straps, a square neckline and a full skirt with a cardigan pulled on over it.
It was easier to forget about last night while we were toiling away in the dirt, her dressed like she’s spent her life on the farm, but wearing this, it’s a solid reminder of the girl I went home with last night. It stops me in my tracks.
Olivia gives me a smile as she walks past and heads for the kitchen, but Katie stops on the last step, so she’s closer to my height.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
I swallow, not sure if she’s going to like my answer. “Violet invited us to stay for dinner.”
“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Vi was always big on having lots of people for dinner.”
“Sadie helped cook, so she really wanted to stay. I think she might also want to give you an update on Porridge.”
Katie grins at that. “That lamb’s going to be smothered isn’t it? Like, with love.”
“Most likely, yes. You might be Sadie’s hero now, since you saved that lamb.”
“All in a day’s work,” she says with a grin, then turns away and leaves me standing there staring after her.
She called me cocky, but I think that word suits her better. It looks good on her though, almost as good as that dress.
I step into the kitchen behind Katie. Sadie is setting the table, but she glances up as we come through the door.
“Katie,” she says. “I fed Porridge again!” Then her gaze lands on me. “Hey Daddy, are you clean now?”
“I sure am. Do I get my hug now?”
“Yes!” She drops a handful of forks on the table and bounds across the room. I scoop her up into my arms and hold her tight. It’s the best feeling in the world.
Sadie kisses my cheek, then wriggles free of my hold and slides back to the ground. “You should go say hello to Porridge,” she says.
Dinner is delicious, as it always is when Violet invites us to stay.
Most of the time Sadie and I eat at our place, but sometimes Violet insists. Tonight, with Katie’s arrival, they’re treating it like a special occasion and I’m not sure if we should have stayed or not.
But when Sadie brings out the cake she helped Violet make, with the proudest grin on her face, I knew I couldn’t have deprived her of this moment. Her smile gets even wider when Katie gushes over how gorgeous the cake is, and how delicious it is. Sadie hangs on her every word and it makes something curl in my chest.
I see Sadie with Violet and Olivia all the time, and they’re just as caring and generous as Katie is with her.
But, I also know they aren’t going anywhere. They’re reliable and trustworthy and aren’t going to break my daughter’s heart. I can’t see Katie in the same light yet. It must be something about last night that gives me the feeling she’s going to let us all down.
It’s not like she was here when Henry passed away, leaving her best friend overwhelmed and grieving. So, as good as she is with my daughter, I can’t trust her not to be like the completely self-involved princess I met last night. It doesn’t matter how sexy someone is if you can’t rely on them .
I tune back into the conversation, refusing to dwell on those thoughts any further, because thinking about Katie’s level of sexiness while sitting across the dinner table from her is a terrible idea. I shift in my chair, hoping to ease the pressure in my pants, but it doesn’t help much.
“When did you meet Scout?” Sadie asks Katie, gazing up at her in wonder.
“Scout came here about the same time I did,” Katie replies. “Her last owner hadn’t been very nice to her, so Olivia’s dad brought her here.”
“Katie looked after her,” Olivia adds. “They’ve been each other’s favourites ever since.”
Katie shrugs and smiles at her friend. “She helped me through some stuff.”
Olivia leans over and drapes her arm around Katie’s shoulder, squeezing tight while Katie leans into her for a moment.
“When did you come here?” I asked, surprising myself by joining the conversation.
“When I was sixteen,” Katie replies. “My mum had just died and I came to live with my grandma, who was friends with Violet.”
“Then she shook up the entire town and left us behind to go take on the world,” Olivia says, pride evident on her features.
Katie snorts. “Barely.”
“I don’t have a mummy either,” Sadie announces to the table and a hushed silence drops over us in an instant. “But she’s not dead.” She turns to me. “Is she?”
My heart might shatter right there and then. My chest aches. I’m never sure how much Sadie remembers of her mother, or what happened to make me a single father.
“No, she’s not dead,” I say quietly, willing my voice to remain steady.
I don’t know what else to say. I can’t say her mum is coming back because it’s not something that I even know. And if she did show up again, I have no idea what I’d say to her, or if I’d let her anywhere near Sadie.
Everyone in the room is silent, waiting for me to handle this incredibly awkward moment, but my mind is blank, my heart twisting painfully inside my chest and I don’t know how to move back to safer topics.
My eyes lock on Katie across the table and she must sense my desperation because she turns to Sadie.
“Will you help me give Porridge her next bottle?”
I blow out a breath as Sadie excitedly agrees and bounds away from the table. I’m about to open my mouth and remind her to clear her plate when Katie continues. “Hey, hey, Lady Sadie, don’t forget your dishes.” She says it with a big smile and Sadie happily skips back to the table and clears her plate, coming back for Katie’s, then mine.
“Will you come too, Daddy?” Sadie asks, slipping her hand into mine.
“Of course,” I say, following along as she leads me and Katie into the laundry room where the lamb is curled up in a cardboard box. She wobbles to her feet when she sees us and emits the tiniest bleat.
Katie prepares the bottle, and to my surprise slides down to sit on the floor, gorgeous dress and all. Sadie plonks down too and pats the floor indicating where I should sit. I fold my legs and sit cross-legged between them.
I realise my mistake the instant my ass hits the floor and I feel the heat of Katie’s arm through my shirt.
She reaches forward and scoops the lamb out of its box. I can’t believe she’s getting lamb all over this dress. The only thing that should be all over that dress are my hands. I blink at the thought, because woah. Co-worker. That was so inappropriate, but I can’t help myself. There’s a reason I noticed her last night, there’s a reason I went home with her and had potentially the greatest night of my life. And that dress … that dress keeps reminding me of all those reasons. Reasons that cannot matter now.
Because we work together, and because it breaks her very clearly defined rules. I am definitely not brave enough to find out what she’d do if I broke those rules.
But still, she doesn’t need to be ruining another outfit because of this lamb.
I’m about to tell her so when she places the lamb in my lap. “Your turn,” she says with a challenging grin, a flash of that bratty princess attitude I encountered last night. The one that irritates the fuck out of me … and makes my blood heat in all the right—or wrong—ways.