Chapter 10 Dahlia
DAHLIA
“We’re almost there, aren’t we, sugar? I can smell the lemon from here.”
Cookie took the hill in an easy climb, her stride smoothing beneath Dahlia as hooves skimmed the south pasture. The prairie opened wide, green and gold under a mid-morning sun. Miles from the house, her mind hadn’t left the kitchen. Hadn’t left him.
One question about the Marines and Luc had gone still. His whole frame stiffened; the lines in his face showed the weight. Pain, buried deep.
Her daddy always said soldiers never come back the same. They see things they can’t say out loud. Do things they don’t ever confess. It carved men up, leaving ghosts behind the eyes. And Luc? He had a whole platoon in there.
Dahlia let out a breath through her nose. His order made sense now. Those dawn wake-ups, boots lined on the mat, the way he kept edges squared. She knew the look of someone trying to stay a step ahead of their demons. Her mama knew about those.
Juniper Childs had fought a different war, her mind clawing at itself until it bled. Some nights, Dahlia would find her barefoot in the grass, whispering to air while thunder cracked overhead. She’d wanted so bad to pull those clouds off her mother, but she’d been a child with too small of hands.
Dahlia blinked the thought away. She wouldn’t let that happen to Luc.
Cookie’s ears flicked. The mare always seemed to listen when Dahlia’s inner workings were loud. “Yeah, I know,” she murmured, leaning forward to gently scratch Cookie’s withers. “He’s been havin’ a rough go, huh.”
She hadn’t told him, but she’d heard the fit a few nights back.
The shout. The crash. Wynn’s frantic bark, the whine that said even a good dog couldn’t help.
That tea she made Luc? It wasn’t just for rest. It was a test. And when he drank it?
He didn’t stir until well after three a.m.—the devil’s hour, her mama called it.
Cookie slowed her pace. The path dropped into a crease of shade where the ground kept its cool. Down here, the ingredients waited.
“I know it ain’t a cure,” Dahlia murmured, sliding off. Her boots sank into the soft earth. “But it’ll help him relax. Help him sleep,” she said looping Cookie’s reins over a branch.
Mugwort feathered at her knee. Lemon balm brightened the cluster. Sage grew gray-green and generous.
She moved through the patch with her satchel open, picking the way Granny taught and Mama whispered: Pinch, not pull. Thank the plant. Leave more than you take.
Juniper believed the earth spoke in signs and songs. Sometimes those songs turned to storms she couldn’t outrun. Dahlia felt the ache of that memory and shook it loose before it rooted.
Cookie whickered and tossed her head when Dahlia snipped extra sage.
“What? You don’t think so?” Dahlia tucked a sprig behind her ear. “Mmhmm. Well, this ain’t nothing a lil sage and sunshine won’t fix. Maybe a prayer or two.”
The mare shook again as if to argue, then leaned into the bit, resigned. Dahlia laughed and finished collecting the rest of the ingredients. They took the long way back which she knew would tire Cookie out. In the stable, she watered her, offered an apple, and kissed the soft muzzle.
“You did good today, sugar.” She murmured, giving Cookie a kiss on her muzzle. How about tomorrow we visit Patsy to see what recipes she feels like swapping?”
Cookie nickered and lowered her head that Dahlia took as a ‘yes.’ Once she left Cookie, Dahlia went to get dinner started and prepare the tea for Luc. After an early day, Beau and the ranch hands had eaten early and turned in.
“Tell Luc we left him some,” Beau said, eyeing the platter.
“If it were left up to you it would be none, greedy.” Dahlia was already wrapping a plate to go.
She handed it to him, and Beau graciously took it, wishing her a good night with a lazy salute. Then she put on a second skillet and fried another chop, just in case. It felt wrong to let Luc come in to a half-warm plate and an empty kitchen.
He arrived about the time the apples turned glossy again, pausing at the threshold as if gauging whether he still belonged in his own home.
“Nobody saved me a beer?” he asked, deadpan, then shot her a sheepish grin when she pointed to the cold ones she’d set on the counter. After washing his hands, Luc opened two cans, handed her one and tapped the rim of his to hers, a soft click that felt like a truce.
It wasn’t awkward. To her surprise, it was normal. As normal as if they’d been a couple doing this for years. Forcing that thought to the back of her mind, Dahlia motioned for the table.
“Go ahead, sit. You’ve got to be starving.”
“I wasn’t,” he said, sinking into his chair. “But the way it smells in here, I am now.”
She plated his dinner and joined him. Halfway through her second can she paused, watching him chew like he hadn’t tasted mashed potatoes and green beans since the war. He let out a low sound at the apples and looked embarrassed for it.
“Well, somebody likes his pork chops,” she teased, watching heat climb the slope of his cheekbones.
“I do,” he mumbled. His gray eyes that kept different weather slid up meeting hers, then quickly dropped to his plate again.
She took note of the way his mouth moved, how his lashes lowered, the reverence in the chew. Something stirred low in her belly, heat curling through her as she imagined that mouth somewhere else entirely.
Her gaze found that cleft in his chin. That chin. Her inner voice was already misbehaving, whispering things about riding his face like he was a goddamn four-wheeler.
She took a generous gulp to cool down, burping softly after that fast chug.
He looked at her, arching a brow. “You good?”
“Don’t you start.” She pressed fingers to her lips, laughing. “I know Granny would’ve popped me for being unladylike.”
“You’d have deserved it.”
“Boy, hush.”
He didn’t. Luc leaned back, nursed his drink, and talked.
Really talked. He told her about a father who wore patriotism as if it were a second skin and about a big brother who tried to be a map of that man.
Then he shared about the funerals when neither of them made it back from war, their flags folded tight and given to his mom as a final tribute to their service and sacrifice for the country.
And how he and his younger brothers followed them into service because it felt like duty.
“My mama’s still outside Houston,” he said evenly. “One of my younger brothers lives with her. He . . . he didn’t leave the way he should’ve.” His jaw went tight as a cinch. “A dishonorable discharge he won’t talk about it. I don’t force him.”
“And your other brother?”
“Air Force. Based in Warner Robins.” He peered at her over the rim of his beer. “That close to Briarwick?”
“Bout two hours south.” She met his look. “Why? Planning a detour next time you visit him, cowboy?”
Color rose again, painting his bronze skin in a slow, earthy flush that had nothing to do with the kitchen light, making her want to touch him just to feel it bloom. “Yeah,” he finally said, a smirk settled on his full lips as those stormy eyes stared back at her. “Maybe I am.”
Dahlia swallowed hard, redirecting them back to their G-rated conversation rather than let him know about her naughty thoughts.
She decided to tell him about her family’s small farm—feed sacks and rain puddles, cousins chasing chickens at dawn.
About milking cows that stomped mud all over their sneakers and roosters that had no respect for sleep.
She spoke of Darnell, her father who loved hard and gave her life’s anecdotes, Juniper, her mother who believed the earth sent messages in birdsong and swore the devil tried to hide in sugar.
“Mama heard things the rest of us couldn’t,” she said lightly, keeping the weight from her voice.
“She’s at peace now, though.” Dahlia’s fingers curved into quotation marks.
“Daddy and my grandparents always called her a ‘free spirit’—their way of saying untamable but precious. Apparently, I inherited that particular trait.”
Luc nodded once, then tipped the can back for a long pull.
“So, she nudged, curiosity winning over caution, “what brings a Houston boy all the way out here?”
He took another generous sip and set the can down with a soft thud. He looked at her as if he were a man studying a road that might lead home or off a cliff. “Long day tomorrow,” he said finally, not meeting her eyes. “We should turn in.”
She swallowed the push that wanted to rise. No. Let him keep that door locked for tonight. She rinsed their plates while he dried. They moved around each other without brushing, heat pooling in the inches they didn’t cross.
At the counter she reached for the teapot and explained every ingredient as she poured. “This blend is guaranteed to keep the ghosts of the past at bay. Won’t stop the dreams, but it dulls the jagged edges.”
She noticed his eyes following her hands. His gaze fixed on the rising steam.
“What exactly am I drinking?” Suspicion hardened his stare.
“Nothing that’ll have you speaking in tongues. It slows the mind without knocking you flat.” She extended the mug, he reached for it, his fingers brushing hers. “Drink while it’s warm.”
He sipped cautiously. His throat bobbed with the swallow, face pinching at first taste. But the honey must have softened the bitterness. His lips smacked appreciatively before he licked them clean.
“Not half bad,” he admitted.
She gestured toward the cup. “This is no miracle cure. But it helps.”
While he drank, Dahlia wiped down the granite countertop, then swept the kitchen floor.
Later, they walked the hall together, a yellow glow from overhead pooling ahead of their steps.
The house had that end-of-day hush, an emptiness that made every floorboard seem louder.
He stopped a step short of her room. So she did too. He turned to face her.
“Thanks for the company at dinner.” His voice was lower, gravellier. Perhaps it was the tea already showing its effects. “And for . . . this,” he said, lifting his mug.
Her fingers curled against her thigh. “My pleasure. Anytime, cowboy.”
He stood there, something turning behind his eyes, something he fought like the big ones he’d already told her about. She waited him out, watching the battle play across his face until his knuckles grazed the doorframe, hesitated, then dropped away.
“This ranch was supposed to be my peace.” His gaze traveled her body without shame. He brought those shifty irises to meet hers and rasped, “Now it’s just where I fight not to touch you.”
Her breath left, came back, left again. Juniper would’ve cackled from the beyond and said, “Baby, that’s the kind of confession you write on birch paper and burn.” Dahlia leaned forward not to crowd him, but for him to feel her heat without her touching him.
“I’ve never been one to run from danger,” she murmured, mouth curving despite everything, “especially when it looks like you.”
The space between them went electric. Luc exhaled a laugh that wasn’t a laugh and dragged a palm down his face. “Goodnight, Dahlia.”
“Night, Luc.”
Dahlia slipped inside her room, quickly closing her door.
She pressed her spine to it, palms flat, heartbeat thumping hard and fast like boots on a dance floor.
She told herself it was only the beer, the long day, the way a man can look when he’s been cut from duty and rebuilt out of stubbornness. No, it wasn’t anything she could name.
“Lord,” she whispered in a prayer, “what am I doing?”
The answer didn’t come, but the question burned bright enough to light the whole dark:
Was she healing a man—or handing her heart to the kind of fire she wasn’t sure she’d survive?