No One But You (Silver Springs #2)(43)

“No, that’s okay. I need to get over to my babysitter’s so I can pick up my son.”

“You should take some dinner with you—enough for you and Jayden.”

“Why? They’re your groceries.”

“Doesn’t matter. There’s plenty.”

“You don’t have to eat it all tonight. It’ll make good leftovers, help you get through the weekend, since I won’t be back until Monday.”

Dawson had lost track of the days. Since all he did was work, one tended to blend into the next. “It’s already Friday?”

“You didn’t realize?”

“No.” Not until he thought about it. He knew Robin Strauss from the state was coming on Wednesday, which meant there had to be a weekend between now and then. He just didn’t want his first few days as Sadie’s employer to end on such a negative note.

She slung her purse over her shoulder. “Don’t forget you have meatballs and other food in the fridge, too. The meatballs would make a good sandwich.”

“Gotcha.”

“Call me if you need anything. Maybe I can come over for a few hours here or there. I’m scheduled at the diner on Sunday morning, but I’m off tomorrow. I won’t have a babysitter, but if it’s just for a short time, I might be able to bring Jayden if...well, it depends.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Dawson said, but he planned to leave her alone. Maybe if he didn’t see her for a couple of days, his hormones would settle down, and she’d forget what he said to her earlier.

“What do you do for fun?” he asked impulsively, before she could get out the door.

“I’m a single mother.”

“And that means?”

“I take a nap,” she said with a laugh.

He chuckled. “Right. I’ll see you on Monday.”

She gave him a beleaguered smile. “Have a good weekend.”

As soon as he finished dinner, Dawson went out and worked until the sun went down and he could no longer determine a dirt clod from a rock. He was exhausted when he came in, figured he’d take a shower and fall into bed. But he made the mistake of letting his mind drift while he was standing under the hot spray, and it went exactly where he didn’t want it to go—to Sadie. After that, he couldn’t sleep. He kept wondering what she was doing, if she was already in bed and whether Sly had contacted her. He almost texted her to check—that was his natural inclination—but he refused to succumb to the temptation.

After prowling around the house for two hours, until it was almost eleven, he gave up. He’d been reluctant to go into town, hated being the subject of such doubt and suspicion. He’d never been much of a “people” person to begin with. But if he was ever going to blend into the community, he had to circulate, had to get his official “return” over with so that seeing him wouldn’t be such a remarkable thing.

What better place was there to start than the bar?

*

The Blue Suede Shoe hadn’t changed over the past year, but Dawson had. Before the murders, he’d managed to let go of most of the anger that’d driven him to misbehave in his youth. But the dark emotions that’d skulked beneath his skin in the old days were back.

After a year spent sitting in a jail cell, he supposed that was normal. Even if it wasn’t, he couldn’t change anything, not until he found the man who’d murdered his parents. He’d never been much of an innocent, anyway. His reputation was partly what’d made it so easy for folks around here to blame him for the murders. As the son of a crack whore, he’d seen more by the time he turned eight than most teenagers had seen by eighteen. Had his grandmother not found him and his mother living in a bug-infested apartment with several people they barely knew, drug paraphernalia strewn about and little food, who could say where he’d be? Not long after Grandma Pat took him in, his mother died of an accidental overdose, so he would’ve been stranded in that situation without a single caring adult—at least one he knew about or could figure out how to reach at such a young age. He had no idea who his father was. His mother had never been able to tell him. She’d made up stories at first, but those stories always changed—in one his father would be a policeman, in another he’d be a rich businessman. That was what finally convinced Dawson that she didn’t know; she was just trying to tell him what he wanted to hear.

As nice as it sounded for his grandmother to swoop in and save the day, however, she was no picnic, either, or his mother wouldn’t have run away in the first place. Dawson didn’t get along with Grandma Pat much better than his mother had, which was why, after five years of struggling, she sent him to the boys ranch and allowed him to be adopted by the Reeds. Aiyana, the teachers and his new parents were supposed to train him to be a decent man. He’d expected to hate Silver Springs, had considered New Horizons a punishment one step short of juvenile hall, which was where he would’ve ended up—mostly for fighting—had he not been accepted into the school. But he wouldn’t have met the Reeds if he hadn’t come to New Horizons, and it was then that his life had finally changed for the better.

For years, he’d credited the Reeds and what he’d learned at the school with saving him from falling into the kind of life his mother had lived. But, eventually, he learned to appreciate the fact that Grandma Pat had done what she could, given her own emotional and financial limitations. At the end of her life, during the years she was suffering from cancer, they actually became quite close. He lost her right after college. That was partly what had motivated him to move back to Silver Springs when he lost his job instead of staying in Santa Barbara. Her death had served as a stark reminder that life didn’t last forever. He’d wanted to look after the Reeds while he could. Other than Angela, they were all the family he had left.