Chapter Twenty-Three
As her dad’s truck pulled up that evening, Rose bundled Sage’s bag over her arm and tucked his pillow beneath it, walking him onto the front porch while Toby walked Peanut Butter and Jelly out from the barn and around the house. Her dad climbed out of the truck, a short, wiry man. His button-up was tucked in, and his jeans cinched a little high for modern fashion with a belt made of latigo leather. He wore his own cowboy hat and boots and eyed Toby drawing nearer.
“Say, ‘Hi, Abuelo,’” Rose prompted Sage.
“Hi, Abuelo,” Sage said, sticking his arm straight out and waving it, then kept waving because it created a sensory experience with the nerves up his arm.
“Mijo,” her dad said, opening his arms to welcome the child.
Sage climbed down the steps and ran down the walk. Rose followed as Toby came up beside her with the goats in tow, their crates already stacked by the driveway.
“Hello, sir,” Toby said, sticking out his hand.
So formal.
Her father shook it, looking him up and down as if sizing him up. Rose fidgeted. Her dad had never done this with all the guys who had picked her up for high school dances. But he was doing it now, as if he, too, could sense something serious was happening.
“I’m Toby Dixon. I own the ranch here. It’s good to meet you. Rose talks a lot about her family.”
“Good to meet you,” Hector Morales finally replied.
“That’s mommy’s girlfriend,” Sage said.
A grin broke out on Rose’s face, as it did her father and Toby, relaxing the tension while they shared a chuckle. Sage apparently had boyfriends and girlfriends on the mind but was still mastering gender pronouns among other things. Teaching him was like programming a computer with the right algorithms and formulas.
“I think you mean boyfriend,” her father said to Sage.
“Yeah, that’s mommy’s boyfriend. He kissed her. So he’s her boyfriend.”
The tension returned. She glanced sidelong at Toby. Redness was creeping up his neck at being called out by a six-year-old. Her father’s handshake fell. Toby looked at her like a raccoon in a snare, begging for help. Her eyes widened, and she gestured that she didn’t know what to do.
“I, eh, sir,” Toby began, like a child fessing up to stealing the last cookie, “I like your daughter. A lot. She’s smart and pretty, and I’m—I’m happy when I’m with her.” He chewed his cheek at her father’s silence, glancing helplessly at her again. “I want to date her. I have the best intentions and want you to know that, and wouldn’t have kissed her otherwise.”
Rose withheld a snort. She wasn’t convinced that their first kiss in the archive room had been entirely good-intentioned, but it had grown quickly into something more.
“And I like Sage, too,” he added, ruffling the boy’s hair and casting it into confusion. “It’s gonna be awful quiet around here without him. I got used to him being my wingman these past couple weeks.”
God, he sounded like a Hallmark movie script. She covered her mouth to withhold a laugh—it would only make Toby more nervous—but her dad had put him on the spot with his typical silence, when in truth, her dad was probably just deciding what to say.
Finally, blessedly, her dad smiled and nodded. “You treat my daughter and my grandson right. ¿Si?”
“Yes, sir,” Toby replied nervously. “Of course, sir. My, eh, my mother wanted me to find someone who’d make me happy.” His eyes darted to hers, then back to her father. “I wish she could have met Rose.”
The emotion, so thick in Toby’s words, as well as the unspoken suggestion that she was the one he’d been needing caused a pang in her chest. A pang for her own mother, now safe and sound with her cousins in Mexico City, and a pang for Toby’s loss.
Her father nodded to him, smiling. “Your mother has met her. Our families never really leave us. Thank you for loaning Rosi your truck.”
Her father turned to her and gave her a hug, speaking in Spanish beside her ear as she staved off tears at the profoundness of her father’s understanding and words. Even to a perfect stranger, he always knew the gentle thing to say.
“He’s a good one. I like the way he looks at you. Like he respects you. If you like him, too, then don’t be afraid, mija.”
That was the final affirmation she’d needed, even if she hadn’t realized it until now. If her father was convinced after his misgivings two weeks ago, then that spoke volumes.
“Come, Sage. Let’s get an ice cream,” he said, pulling away from her and taking Sage’s hand.
Rose gave her son a squeeze and a kiss upon his crown, petting his hair back into neatness. “I’ll see you in a few days, buddy.”
“And then we’ll go to the lake.”