Dancing on air.
That was how Dean felt for all of twenty-four hours. He couldn’t stop smiling, and he couldn’t seem to just walk anywhere. When he went down for breakfast on Thursday morning, he expected Grandma to ask why he was so happy. He didn’t know what he was going to tell her.
Nothing was settled between him and Ann. She’d ended her engagement with that Jordan Teel character, and she’d kissed him, Dean, but that was all that had happened. So far.
That didn’t keep Dean from dreaming and planning. He told himself that with her business know-how and his hard work, they could really build something together. He hadn’t looked at her business plan yet, but when he realigned his budget, surely he could work in a reasonable payment on an engagement ring. Maybe he’d never be able to afford a diamond the size of that thing she’d taken off, but then size couldn’t matter as much as the man who offered it. Could it?
All Dean really knew about Jordan Teel was what he’d seen at Rex’s wedding: an older man who spent a lot of money on clothes. Apparently Teel hadn’t recognized Ann’s uncertainty about her feminine appeal. Dean neither knew nor cared why she had confided in him about that, but he thanked God that she had. He would happily reassure her on that score at any time, not that he particularly wanted to tell his grandmother that.
Thankfully, as she placed his eggs before him, Betty asked only, “How was prayer meeting last night?”
“Good,” he answered, taking up his fork and glancing at her. “I think it did Ann a lot of good.”
Betty patted him on the shoulder as she headed back to the stove. “Prayer always does.”
And that was it. Donovan was too busy smearing jelly on his toast to pay attention to anything the adults had to say. Dean smiled and ate his eggs.
Half an hour later the dually bumped over the pipes that Rex had laid out to bridge the ditch into the sorghum field, where Ann sat on the fender of her dad’s truck, wearing running clothes and smiling broadly. The combine sat far in the distance, across already harvested acres, but Dean brought the dually to a halt. Only Donovan’s presence kept Dean from jumping out, sweeping Ann into his arms and kissing them both stupid.
“I won’t be long,” Dean said to his son and his dog, opening his door and getting out.
He couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he strolled over the uneven ground to greet her. “Good morning.”
She nodded, her ponytail bouncing, and said, “Thought I’d come out to see how far you’ve gotten.” Squinting across the field, she added, “Dad’s heading back to the city for another treatment, and he’s wondering when you’ll be done. I wanted to reassure him before he goes.”
“We’re just about done here,” Dean told her. “I’ll be delivering the last of this to storage before next week.”
“That soon?”
“Mmm-hmm.” He pointed to the trailers already loaded with the rich fodder. “Tell him not to worry. We’re making good headway.”
“That will make him feel better, I’m sure.”
“When will he get back home?” Dean asked.
“Not sure,” she answered, shaking her head. “Meri says that a lot depends on how he handles things at this stage.” Ann sighed, adding, “I can’t shake the feeling that I should go with them. She had a hard time getting him home by herself last time. Would it be a hardship for you if I wasn’t here to sign checks for a few days?”
Dean shook his head. “I don’t have any help to pay right now. I can manage until you get back. Go if you need to.”
She looked off to the east then, saying, “I’d forgotten how pretty the sunrise is out here.”
“Not as pretty as you,” he said, smoothing an imaginary tendril of hair away from her cheek.
Glancing down, she tilted her head just enough to maintain brief contact with his hand. “You don’t have to say that.”
“I’ve always thought you were the most beautiful girl in War Bonnet.”
Pegging him with those sky eyes of hers, she smiled slightly. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
“With all my heart.”
Her smile grew, and she looked down at her hands, asking, “Have you had a chance to look at the business plan I drew up for you?”
“Not yet, but I will. Tonight, hopefully.”
Nodding, she hopped off the fender and moved toward the driver’s door. “Okay.” She opened the door and got inside the truck. He reached out and caught the edge of it before she could pull it closed.
“Ann.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know why you broke up with that Dallas guy, but if he doesn’t fight for you, he’s an idiot.”
Sadness tinged her smile, and she shook her head. “I’m the idiot,” she told him, “but at least I found out in time.”
Dean crouched behind the open door, bringing his gaze level with hers. “Then he doesn’t deserve you.”
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Right. I’m Jolly Billings, the best slugger ever to come out of War Bonnet High.”
“And don’t you forget it,” he told her with a grin, coming to his feet and at the same time bending at the waist so he could kiss her forehead.
Still laughing, she started the engine. He backed away and closed the truck door.
“Go or stay, just take care,” he told her through the open window.
“Say a prayer for us.”
“Several,” he promised.
She blew him a kiss before starting the truck forward.
Dancing on air, even as he trudged back to his own vehicle, he watched her drive out of the field and go on her way.
Then that evening he sat down to study her business plan. The crash back to earth came as a very painful jolt indeed.
He tore the thing apart, came at it from every angle he could find, but no matter how he looked at it, her plan could not possibly work without a serious injection of capital to fund a real expansion of his business. Where he was supposed to get that kind of money, he didn’t know, couldn’t even imagine. Even if he took a mortgage out on the house and remaining acreage, the resulting funds would not do what Ann suggested needed to be done. As things stood, he might be able to establish a modest line of credit, but that was about it.
Certainly if he could find a way to get his hands on the capital that Ann believed he required, her number projections looked great, but he could see no way to come up with that much cash. Or any cash, really, not if he intended to feed, clothe, house and transport his son, never mind himself.
He felt sick. Reality had just crashed his dreams. He thought of the plans he’d been forming in the back of his mind, some of which had hovered there for a decade or more, never seeing the light of day until just recently. Only lately had he even dared to actually think these things, let alone pray about them.
Now it was as if God had just told him in no uncertain terms that Ann was not for him.
Dean had traded a college degree and a career for fatherhood, the rewards of which were too numerous to count. He should be happy with that. He would have to be happy with that. It was all he could afford, all he’d ever be able to afford, no matter how hard he worked.
Maybe, after Grandma died—he prayed that wouldn’t be soon, not before Donovan was grown and on his own—Dean could sell the house and remaining land, buy more equipment and a little trailer to live in. He could live on the move, following the work, and lay up a tidy sum that way then retire secure. That was no way of life for a family man, though. That was a single man’s solution.
So obviously Dean was meant to be a single man.
He stopped sneaking peeks at engagement rings on the internet and concentrated on just getting through, hour by hour. Having learned that the key to overcoming self-pity was gratitude, Dean made a concerted effort to thank God for His every blessing, starting with the redheaded, freckle-faced boy who called him Dad.
Sadly, he couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before he stopped seeing Ann every time he looked at his son now. Deflated and depressed, he finished the sorghum harvest and delivered it, truckload after truckload, glad that Ann did not put in another appearance. He assumed that she’d gone to Oklahoma City with her father and sister, but he carried his statement to the house that Friday evening as usual, intending to wedge it between the casing and the edge of the front door. He didn’t even make it across the porch before the door opened, however, and Callie, Rex’s wife, smiled at him, her little daughter on her hip.
“Dean Paul! Hello.”
“You’re back,” he said stupidly, his stomach dropping all the way to his toes.
She nodded her shaggy blond head, and Bodie, her baby girl, copied her. “We just got in. Rex was going to come out to see you, but you beat him to it. He’s in the office looking for the checkbook. Go on in.”
Dean muttered his thanks as he followed her into the foyer, but all he could think was that Ann would surely be heading back to Dallas now. It shouldn’t matter, but somehow it did.
“Where’s Donovan?” Callie asked. “I have some cookies for him.”
“Oh, he’s already belted into his safety seat in the truck,” Dean told her.
“Well, you can take them to him,” Callie said. “They’re already bagged up, left over from our trip. I’ll just go get them while you talk to Rex.”
“That’s very kind,” Dean managed, kneading his work cap and painfully aware that he hadn’t yet made his feet budge in the direction of the office.
She hurried away, and he faced that office door, which stood open, just waiting for him to enter. Dean liked Rex; he really did, but having him home felt like the death knell to every hope and dream Dean had ever nurtured.
* * *
“In some ways, I feel like my dreams have been dashed,” Ann admitted, “and in others I feel as if I’m just now waking up to reality.”
Her father reached out, his hand still surprisingly heavy and strong, despite the web of hoses trailing it, and patted her knee. “I’m glad you sent back the ring,” he told her, “and I think you were wise to do it without explanation. I hope you’ll tender your resignation the same way, but that’s for you to decide.”
Sighing, Ann shrugged. She didn’t know why she’d waited until now to tell her father about her broken engagement. Something about hospital rooms seemed to invite confidences. Of course, she hadn’t told him all of it, just that she’d mistakenly left the line open after a telephone call very early one morning and overheard Jordan telling another woman that marrying Ann was nothing more than a career move on his part.
“He’s called, but I haven’t answered. The thing is, I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t go back to LHI,” she confessed gloomily.
“What do you want to do?” her dad asked, but she dared not answer that question. She wasn’t quite ready to lay herself that bare.
It was too soon. A woman didn’t just dump her fiancé and jump to another man. Not that doing so was even an option. Dean hadn’t said anything about a relationship with her. All they’d done was kiss. Maybe if she could stick around long enough, things would develop into something serious between them.
Wes cleared his throat. “Maybe I should ask who you want.”
Ann stared at him, wide-eyed. “Am I that obvious?”
Wes chuckled. “You’re both that obvious.”
Groaning, Ann squeezed her eyes shut. “Now, don’t get the wrong idea. Dean had nothing to do with me breaking my engagement. Nothing happened between us until I ended things with Jordan.”
Her father’s pale blue gaze brightened. “So something did happen between you and Dean, then.”
“Nothing of any significance,” she stated flatly. Unless you called having your world rocked significant.
Grinning, Wes said, “Yes, I can see that. You know, sugar, there’s nothing wrong with a woman going after what she wants. Dean is a good man. I’d venture to say there are few to none better.”
As if she had to be told that. Not that Dean was perfect by any means.
“He has less education than me.”
“So? Most likely he could finish his degree online these days. If he wanted to. I’m not sure it makes any difference. Dean’s not the sort to work for anyone but himself.”
That was true, and she certainly couldn’t fault him for it. But was he flexible enough to accept help when it was offered? She could help him. She knew that she could. When she’d gone over his books, she’d seen the possibilities right away, and she hadn’t even been thinking about a partnership between the two of them then.
That was what she wanted with a man, a true partnership, in which each of them brought unique talents and abilities to the joining that made the pair of them together stronger and more successful than either of them could be alone. The saddest part about her and Jordan and LHI was simply that if Jordan and Marshal had sat her down and explained that with her at Jordan’s side, he would soon become a vice president of the company, she would have happily and proudly hotfooted it back to Dallas as the earliest opportunity. They hadn’t done it that way for one reason: It had never occurred to them. It had never occurred to them to discuss that possibility with her because Jordan did not love or value her. To him, she was a means to an end and nothing more. To Dean she was a woman whom he found attractive, but was that it?
She desperately wanted to believe that Dean saw—and wanted—the real her, the whole her, but how much of that was genuine feeling and how much was simple attraction?
“He lives with his grandmother,” she said, tipping her nose into the air.
“Actually,” Wes drawled, pressing his head back into his pillow, “if you want to get technical about it, she lives with him. Milburn set up a trust when he became ill, leaving everything to Dean, with Betty and her daughter, Deana Kay Wilton, as executors until Dean turned eighteen. That’s how Dean was able to sell off the land to buy farming equipment and go into business for himself after Donovan was born.”
“I wonder what Betty thought about him selling off the land,” Ann murmured, trying to put herself in Betty Pryor’s place.
“Oh, she was all for it,” Wes informed Ann. “She, Deana and Dean Paul came to talk to me about it. Stuart Crowsen had offered him a loan, but I thought the terms were...dangerous.”
“You advised him to sell rather than borrow.”
“I did. But only after we prayed about it first.”
Ann felt her chin quiver at the thought of her father and Dean, who couldn’t have been more than twenty at the time, sitting down together to pray.
I never really prayed until Donovan came into my life...now sometimes I feel like that’s all I do.
“He’s younger than me,” Ann pointed out softly.
Wes chuckled. “If Dean Paul Pryor isn’t a man fully grown, I’d like to know what your definition for a real adult male is.”
Ann had to smile. “He’s stretched out on this bed here.”
“Aw, sugar.”
“I have to say,” Ann went on carefully, “Dean measures up pretty well. And I never thought I’d say that about any man, really.” She realized with a shock that she’d just accepted at some point that no man would ever measure up to her dad. She’d been wrong about that, and because she’d been wrong, she’d been willing to settle for less than she should have.
Wes’s eyes filled with tears. Reaching out, he caught his hand against the back of her head and pulled her to him for a hug that set off alarms all around the room.
Laughing and dashing away her own tears, Ann settled back into her chair to await the nurses about to burst into the room.
“Well,” Wes demanded, “what are you doing sitting around here? You should be back in War Bonnet.”
“You know that Meredith needs my help on the trip home,” Ann replied diplomatically.
“You aren’t needed until then, though,” Wes told her as a pair of nurses swept through the door. They fluttered around adjusting intravenous tubes and resetting machines while he argued. “The road runs both ways, you know. Go home. Come back to get us.”
“I can’t take Meri’s car and leave her stranded,” Ann protested, but she was already out of her chair and staring at the door.
“You never heard of car rental?”
Her heart beating swiftly, Ann dropped a kiss onto her father’s forehead. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too,” he rumbled, “and I’m pretty fond of that redheaded kid who keeps eating my cookies.”
Laughing, Ann practically flew from the room.
* * *
Getting out of Oklahoma City took considerably more time than Ann expected, so the hour was later than she’d have liked when she pulled her sister’s little car to a stop beneath the old tree behind the ranch house on Saturday evening. They’d arranged a rental for Meredith to drive, and then Ann had needed to repack, eat, find an ATM to make sure she had cash, fill up the gas tank, call Rex to let him know she was on her way home...
When she came through the back door, the house was quiet and dark except for the distant hum and flicker of the television in the living room. Aware that her little niece would be sleeping, Ann carried her suitcase through the mudroom, past the rear bath that opened into both the hall and her father’s room, through the kitchen and up the back stairs. A glimpse into the living room showed her two figures sitting close together on the leather sofa.
Ann considered calling out to let her brother and sister-in-law know that she was there, but she didn’t want to wake the baby. Instead, she slipped up the stairs and dropped her bags in her room then crept back down to the kitchen where she flipped on a light, went to the sink and ran a glass of water, clinking dishes and bumping into chairs. Basically, she did everything she could think of to signal her presence without waking baby Bodie.
When she walked into the living room, Rex and Callie looked over at her.
“How was your trip?” Rex asked.
“Boring,” she answered drily, plopping down into her father’s recliner. “I hate driving alone.”
“Then why did you?” Rex asked.
“I was in the way at the hospital,” she said, leaning back in the chair. “And Meri’s cat’s lousy company.”
He rolled his eyes. “I can’t stay at Meri’s apartment with that cat, either.”
“I thought maybe I could be of more use here.” She plucked at a knotted thread in the denim of her jeans. “How’s the sorghum going?”
“It’s done,” Rex told her easily, draping his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Dean delivered the last of it yesterday evening.”
“That’s it?” she blurted, feeling stung. She’d known that it would be soon, but she’d thought it would happen Monday maybe.
Rex nodded, playing with a tendril of Callie’s short, wispy hair. “Good harvest. And he did a great job with the mixing station. He actually moved the footprint slightly, but it works better this way. He would know, of course, how best to place it so you can back a pickup bed right up to the mixing pan.”
Ann hummed in agreement, but all she could think was that Dean wouldn’t be coming back to the ranch, not until planting time, anyway. Callie laid her head on Rex’s shoulder, and he bent his head to whisper into her ear. She nodded, and they began rising from the sofa. A shaft of envy speared straight through Ann.
“Guess we’ll call it a night, sis. Glad you made it home safe. See you in the morning.”
Nodding, she reminded herself that they were deliriously in love and basically still honeymooning, but it did no good. As they left the room, arm in arm, she knew with sudden, shocking clarity that she wanted exactly what they had, that calm, sure, complimentary partnership underpinned with a deep abiding love, an unmistakable physical attraction and a shared, unshakeable faith. It seemed so simple, really—and all-encompassing.
Everything. It was everything.
Suddenly what she’d had—even what she’d thought she’d had—with Jordan seemed small, shabby and artificial. She couldn’t believe that she’d been willing to settle for what he’d offered, what she’d actually thought she wanted. For the first time she realized how truly great a fool she had been.
Jordan, she realized, could not be blamed for her shallow foolishness, only for taking advantage of it. No, this was all on her. She’d let her insecurities drive her away from what was most dear in her life and had clung to her career and intellectual abilities for redemption, rather than her faith. Perhaps she’d even been angry with God for making her less than what she’d imagined she should be, when that had never been the case. She’d allowed one unimportant person’s opinion to color her entire life and determine her future, even her career path, and she’d almost let it lead her to commit a great folly in marrying the wrong man.
Well, no more.
She told God how sorry she was, and then, as she turned off the TV and the lights and climbed the stairs, she began to pray for courage.