Chapter 3
DALTON
Dalton thrashed himself awake in a strange bed.
Bolting upright, he took in his surroundings as the last of the nightmare released its hold on him.
I’m safe.
The room was freezing cold, but cozy nonetheless. A large wooden bookshelf held hundreds of paperbacks. Thick white curtains framed a nighttime view over a peaceful farm.
This is Andy’s room.
Dalton was on his feet and making the bed before he realized he was doing it. Years of routine made the familiar actions a comfort.
It was almost unreal to be standing in Andy’s home with his family and his things all around. Dalton had spent the last two years grappling with guilt that he couldn’t come right away to work the farm like he had promised. So much so that maybe his desire to help had muted his grieving.
Now that he was finally here, happy thoughts of his best friend returned to him alongside an ache of sadness.
You’re still with us, buddy, he told Andy inwardly, gazing at the photo of their unit. As long as I’m here, there’s a piece of you in Trinity Falls.
He grabbed some clean clothing and his bathroom things and slowly opened the door, wondering just how early farmers woke up.
But there was no one in the bathroom and there were no sounds or lights emerging from any of the other bedrooms.
He showered and dressed as quickly and quietly as possible, then headed down the stairs.
One of them creaked loudly, and he froze in place for a second. Once he was convinced that no one was stirring, he let out a breath and continued through the darkness down to the kitchen.
Last night, he’d been too focused on the family members to notice much else. Andy had described them so many times—his mother’s smile, his father’s wild energy, his sister’s feisty spirit.
He never mentioned how beautiful she was…
He wished he hadn’t noticed. He knew full well she had lost her husband just before he met Andy, and of course she had lost her brother as well.
Life wasn’t fair. He knew that all too well himself. But it didn’t make him feel any less sorry for her.
When he reached the kitchen, he flicked on the lights and surveyed the room. While it was certainly wiped down and pleasant, he assumed that with Michael’s bad back and Mary and Ella working the farm every day, there hadn’t been time for deep cleaning.
A quick search under the sink yielded the supplies he needed, so he got right to work, starting with the ceiling and light fixtures and scrubbing his way down to the floors.
By the time he was finished, it was almost dawn. But the appliances gleamed and the whole kitchen smelled like pine cleaner.
The first pink rays of morning sunlight peaked through the back window, tracing a pattern on the wood plank floor. Sunrise meant the house would be waking soon.
Dalton washed up, then assessed the contents of the refrigerator and the small pantry, and decided on a course of action.
He was ready to pour the first batch of pancakes onto the griddle when he heard the creaky step.
He guessed that it would be Ella or her mom, and he hoped they would be happy to see him cooking a nice breakfast in a sparklingly clean kitchen.
“What are you doing?” a little voice squeaked instead.
He turned to see a tiny girl standing on the stair landing. She looked like a miniature version of her mother, with her messy golden hair and dark, serious eyes.
“Good morning,” he said. “I’m making pancakes.”
“You’re friends with Uncle Andy,” the girl said sternly.
“Yes,” he told her. “I’ll bet you miss him a lot.”
“I don’t remember him,” she said matter-of-factly. “But he used to live here.”
“That’s right,” Dalton said, charmed by the little girl’s honesty and wondering what she might ask him about her uncle.
He hoped he could provide any answers she was looking for. He’d known Andy well, but in a separate time and place, so different from the peace of this farmhouse.
“I want to make pancakes,” she said, scampering down the rest of the steps.
“Okay,” he told her. “Come on down.”
She joined him in front of the stove a moment later. Her hair was messy, but she was dressed and she smelled like toothpaste.
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
“I’m Dalton,” he told her. “What’s your name?”
“Dove,” she said, her eyes back on the bowl of batter now that the niceties were settled. “What do we do?”
“Well, you never want to do this by yourself,” he told her, suddenly realizing how little she was. “The stove gets very hot, so it’s not safe to cook without a grownup.”
“I know that,” she said, like he was silly to even bring it up.
But she didn’t roll her eyes. She was polite for a child her age, or at least he assumed she was. Dalton hadn’t spent a lot of time around kids since he was a kid himself.
He watched as she grabbed a step stool from the corner and dragged it back to the stove before scrambling up and looking to him like she was awaiting marching orders.
“Okay, well, we want to put some batter in the pan and then wait until the whole thing is covered with little bubbles,” he told her. “Then we flip them.”
“It doesn’t have berries,” the little girl observed sadly, pointing to the glass bowl of batter.
“Do you normally put berries in your pancakes?” he asked.
“They’re better with berries,” she said.
“Do you have berries?” he asked her.
“You have to check the fridge,” she told him.
“Okay,” he said, moving to open up the fridge again. Sure enough, there was a small carton of blueberries on the top shelf. “Your grandparents aren’t saving these for anything, are they?”
The little girl shrugged.
If they were, he could always go to the store and buy more. Right now, he was going to try and give Andy’s niece exactly the breakfast she wanted.
He moved to the sink and then realized that cleaning berries was probably a good job for a kid.
“Hey, do you want to rinse these off for me?” he asked her.
“Okay,” she said, hopping off her step stool and industriously pushing it over to the sink.
He watched as she grabbed a strainer from the drainboard and dumped the berries in it. She had clearly done this before.
He let himself feel a moment of victory for correctly guessing about a good task for her.
She did a pretty good job getting the berries ready for the pancakes, and only a small handful were left in the sink when she was done.
“Thank you, Dove,” Dalton told her as he carried the strainer back to the stove.
Dove grabbed her step stool and followed.
“Should we mix the berries into the batter?” Dalton asked. “Or do you want to make faces on the pancakes?”
“Faces?” Dove echoed.
“Yes, we can make round pancakes with blueberry eyes and noses and smiles,” he told her.
“Or frowns,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “You could give them frowns if you want.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling widely.
“Why don’t I pour the batter in the pan, and you do the decorating?” he asked.
“Okay,” she agreed, clambering back up onto the stool. “That’s a good idea.”
Dalton smiled as he put a pat of butter in the pan and warmed it up. It was kind of nice hanging out with such a serious little kid. She wasn’t yelling or knocking things over or anything. She just wanted to see what he was doing and maybe help.
He’d never really wanted kids. His own childhood had cured him of any fantasies about that. But this was actually pretty nice.
“I’m going to put some batter in now,” he told her. “Once I’m done, you can put blueberries on them. But you have to be really careful not to touch the edge of the pan.”
“It’s super hot,” Dove said, nodding.
“Exactly,” he told her.
He poured a careful circle of batter and then two more.
Dove leaned in and very carefully deposited a berry onto one of the circles.
“Nice,” he told her.
Her first face had crooked eyes, but by the time she did the third one, she had the hang of it.
“Can we have some music?” she asked while they waited for the pancakes to be ready to flip.
“Sure,” he told her.
She hopped off her stool, then ran to the other counter and turned on an old-fashioned looking radio.
“Penny Lane” was playing and Dalton felt his heart lighten a little more as he hummed along to the old Beatles tune.
“My grandpa likes this one too,” Dove said, watching him flip the pancakes.
“Oh yeah?” Dalton asked. “I could tell he was a cool guy.”
That made Dove laugh really hard for some reason, and Dalton found himself smiling along with her.
Half an hour later, there were more footsteps on the stairs.
“They’re coming,” Dove said excitedly.
“Let’s get all this stuff on the table,” Dalton told her. “Can you grab the fruit?”
He was pretty pleased with how everything had come out.
He’d skipped the eggs, since he had no idea how soon anyone would be up.
But the pancakes were keeping warm in the oven, and he’d fried up some sausages while Dove cut up some apples and strawberries for a fruit salad along with the last of the blueberries.
“Oh wow,” Mr. Bennett, who Dalton remembered wanted to be called Michael, said on his way down. “What a surprise.”
There was a smile under Michael’s white beard and Dalton was relieved that the older man wasn’t offended that a guest had raided his pantry.
“We made it, Grandpa,” Dove yelled, launching herself at her grandfather.
Dalton froze in place to watch their interaction.
“Well done, young lady,” Michael replied, smiling warmly.
But there was a slight tension in his jaw that Dalton read as pain. Dalton figured that the little one hugging him so hard must have been aggravating his back injury.
“Let’s set the table, Dove,” Dalton suggested.
“Okay,” she said, releasing her grandfather and skipping over to the cupboard for silverware.
“My goodness, what’s all this?” Mrs. Bennett, who had insisted on just Mary, asked as she finished coming down the stairs. Her voice was melodious, and her expression was so pleased that it made Dalton feel like he was ten feet tall.
“We made breakfast, Grandma,” Dove yelled as she balanced on her foot stool to reach some plates.