Chapter 16
Dawson Rhinehart put his coffee cup in the kitchen sink at the same time his doorbell cam alerted him of movement. “That’ll be April,” he said, glancing over to the breakfast nook where Caroline and their three children still sat, eating breakfast.
Bronco, his eighteen-month-old, had more syrup on his face than had probably gone in his mouth, but Dawson loved him with his whole soul. Joy, who had just turned three and had been talking more and more, grinned at him and held up her plastic fork with a piece of sausage stuck to it.
“You eat, daddy,” she said.
“I’m going to breakfast with Auntie April.” He moved over to give Caroline a hug and a kiss.
Sure enough, April called, “I’m here,” from the front door, and Dawson twisted toward her.
“I’m coming, bug.”
At the table, Caroline tipped her head back for Dawson to kiss her, and he looked over to his oldest. “Colt, you help your mother clean up.”
“All right, daddy,” he said.
“We might not be here when you get back,” Caroline said. “I’m taking the kids to the pool with Misty, Savannah, and Rory, and she’s going to bring them back, so I can go check on Lenore and Brandon.”
“All right,” Dawson said. “I can check with her when I get back and go get them.”
“She said she’d be happy to keep them. They’re going to go horseback riding, and then Savannah is going to let them into the pasture with the llamas.”
Dawson would have three bawling children if he tried to pick them up before those activities were finished, and he couldn’t imagine that his breakfast with his niece, though they sometimes ran long, would go longer than a trip to the pool and then farm activities.
School started next week, at least for Colt, but the pool wouldn’t close until at least November, but once school started again, it didn’t truly feel like summer.
“Hey guys.” April reached for a piece of bacon.
“We’re going to breakfast,” Dawson said.
“Yeah, I know.” She grinned at him.
Dawson tried to read her mood and her expression in a single moment.
He’d gotten really good at it over the years, as he and April seemed to be cut from the same cloth.
She was the daughter of his half-brother, and both Duke and Arizona had told him many times over the years that the only reason they didn’t worry about April more was because of her relationship with Dawson.
He didn’t break her confidence if he didn’t have to, and he always told her if he would have to tell her parents about what they’d talked through. Today, she seemed bright and bubbly, and she leaned over and gave Joy a kiss, which made the little girl laugh.
“We go swimming,” Joy said. “You come, April?”
“I can’t go swimming today,” April said, glancing over to Caroline. “I’m going to breakfast with your daddy, and then I’m helping my momma clean out our food storage.”
With the record heat of the past few weeks, everyone had been moving their chores indoors as much as possible.
Duke and his boys, Dwayne and Dallas, along with Dawson, had been taking care of everything outside, while Arizona, who normally did quite a bit of work with their livestock, both here on the Rhinehart Ranch and at her family’s ranch of Shiloh Ridge, had retreated indoors and had been cleaning out closets, bedrooms, the garage, and apparently now their food storage.
Arizona loved to garden and grow her own fruit and vegetables, which she then processed into sauces, soups, pickles, or canned in jars.
She taught all four of her kids everything she knew, and out of them all, Shiloh loved it the most. April was the wild card in her family, the black sheep, the one who bucked against all the family rules and expectations, and yet, Dawson knew she was also very traditional and conservative.
She simply wanted to make her own way in the world, and have her voice heard.
“Let’s go,” he said, and he only stopped in the kitchen to grab his wallet and keys from the junk drawer.
April led the way out to the driveway where Dawson parked, as his wife had their minivan in the garage, as well as all of their summer toys: bikes, helmets, tubes for the pond, and her double stroller, which he fully expected her to take to the pool that day.
In fact, Dawson quickly typed in the code for the garage door, gave April the keys, and said, “How about you drive us?”
As usual, she’d ridden her bike over, and it leaned up against the side of the garage next to the garbage bins.
“All right,” she said.
Dawson opened the back of the van and quickly loaded in Caroline’s beach bag and the double stroller, then got in the passenger seat of his own car and texted her to let her know that he’d done so.
Thank you so much, baby, she said.
Dawson used the app on his phone to close the garage as April backed out of the driveway and set them down the dirt road that would lead them off the ranch.
“Did you pick a place?” Dawson asked.
April glanced over to him. “I just figured we’d go to our usual—the diner.”
“There’s so many new places in town,” he said.
April laughed and shook her head. “No, there’s not, Uncle Daws. You keep saying that, but it’s not true.”
“Caroline and I have been to other places besides the diner.”
“Sure,” April said. “But they’re not new. They’ve been in town for years.”
He frowned, though, technically, April was probably correct. Three Rivers had seen a pretty big boom in growth about a decade ago, but he supposed it had slowed down in recent years. She reached over and turned the radio up, her signal to him that she didn’t want to talk on the way there.
Dawson knew his niece exceptionally well, and they wouldn’t be going to breakfast if she wasn’t going to tell him something.
He figured he could wait and just enjoy having someone else drive.
He did exactly that, not even bothering to catch up on texts or emails or anything ranch related, which he maybe would have done as a past version of himself.
But he’d been trying to enjoy the moment more and worry less about work and life circumstances he couldn’t control.
He wanted to be present for his kids, and his wife, and his friends. Right now, if April wanted to start talking, he wanted to be ready to listen, but she just sang along to the radio in her beautiful soprano.
Since they hadn’t come super early, there was space in the diner parking lot. And when they walked in, Dawson only had to look toward Sandy, and she said, “Hey, I haven’t seen you guys in a while.”
He grinned at her. “It’s been a couple months.”
“Yeah. Your usual table?”
“Yes, please,” April said.
“Do you need menus?” Sandy picked them up and held them out. “We’ve got a couple of new pancakes.”
Dawson looked at the sign board beside the hostess station and saw they had white chocolate chip macadamia nut pancakes listed there. He always got the buckwheat with blueberry syrup, as he’d never tasted anything better than that.
“I don’t need a menu,” he said. “Buggy?”
“I’ll take one.”
Sandy handed it to her and nodded to the corner booth they liked to sit in when they came for their talks.
A waitress named Linda arrived before Dawson had truly found a comfortable position, and she put two coffee cups on the table. “Are you drinking coffee this morning, April?”
April reached to flip over the coffee cup. “Yes, ma’am, but can I have the half-decaf?”
“Absolutely.” Linda looked at Dawson. “I know you want the fully caffeinated.”
She flipped over his cup. “Always.” She poured him a cup and left to get April the half-decaf she wanted.
She returned with it, as well as cream and sugar, and said, “Are we ordering anything different this time?”
April picked up her menu.
“Well.” Dawson reached for the sugar. “Yeah,” he said.
“I want one order of regular bacon and one order of that candied, spicy bacon. You know what I mean? Do you still have that?” He wasn’t sure what was a special and what wasn’t.
Last time he’d been here, they’d had brown sugared bacon with chili flakes, and he’d taken a chance and loved it.
“We’ve got it,” Linda said, and she smiled at him, her ordering pad missing entirely.
“I want that,” Dawson said. “With my regular pancake order.” He spooned a healthy heap of sugar into his coffee. “Keep the coffee coming too.”
Linda smiled at him, and April handed her the menu. “I want the fresh peach pancakes,” she said.
“So the usual.” Linda grinned at her.
“Can I have extra whipped cream?”
“Of course you can, honey,” Linda said. “Any other modifications?”
“Yeah.” April said. “I want a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.”
Dawson raised his eyebrows. He didn’t understand eating cold cereal from a restaurant, but April claimed the milk was way better.
He suspected it was whole milk, or half and half, or even cream.
He always paid for their breakfasts, and he didn’t mind the five-dollar bowl of cereal. If April wanted it, she could have it.
“I’ll bring the cereal out first,” she said.
“Thank you.”
Linda walked away, and April reached for the sugar bowl and pulled it closer to her. “You done, Uncle Daws?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Go ahead.” He didn’t put cream in his coffee, but April did and he waited patiently while she got her brew doctored up.
Sometimes he had to ask her to start talking, and other times she’d finally look at him and say what was on her mind. Today, she seemed awfully interested in the color of her coffee as she swirled cream through it, and Dawson’s patience ran out.
“So what are we doing here, bug?” he asked. “You got something on your mind?”
She nodded, her bottom lip already trembling. She didn’t cry often, but April experienced strong emotions the same way Dawson did. She simply kept them all boxed up, and when she was ready to talk about them, she spewed everything out.
But he rarely saw her cry. No, April’s default was to get angry, or frustrated, or irritated—the same as Dawson.