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“Yeah. Not for long,” he added quickly.
“And you didn’t help her?”
“There wasn’t much for her to do,” he said, but his mother’s question made him feel guilty. He should have helped. He just...had some things he needed to wade through first, and her children were between them.
“Oh,” his mom said, and he could hear the disappointment in her voice. She didn’t have to say anything to him.
“Things are kind of complicated between Dakota and me.”
“Oh.” This one had a different tone. It invited him to explain what the complications were.
He needed some wisdom in his life. His mom was the wisest person he knew. But in order for her to be able to give him good advice, he was going to have to admit what he had done. He wasn’t looking forward to that. He would rather just push that all under the rug and not have anyone know.
“You know Dakota and I used to be pretty good friends.”
“I know when she was here visiting her gram during the summers when you guys were little, you were inseparable. You both loved horses, and whenever she was here, I could count on you wanting to be with her, whatever it was you guys would be doing.”
He smiled at the memories. “Yeah.” But then he realized his mom didn’t know. “We were good friends while I was on the rodeo circuit too.”
“You didn’t tell me much about those years. You were gone a good bit, and when you were home, you had some good stories, but typically they were not stories that gave too much insight into your personal life.”
“I really didn’t have much of a personal life during that time. I was focused on winning a championship. I pretty much put everything I had into it.”
“You and Dakota were friends?” his mother prodded gently.
His hands stopped on Goldie’s shining coat. She already glistened, but the rhythm of brushing her was soothing, and he forced his hands to move again.
“Yeah. We were friends. Good friends. I considered her my best friend for a long time.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Yeah.” They had the memories together from their childhood, but they also had so much in common. While they didn’t think alike, they complemented each other in that way. They had different interests, and that enabled their friendship to deepen, and they never allowed the things that they didn’t agree on to come between them. She just...suited him so perfectly. He had been a fool not to see that before.
“She was a pretty awesome person. Always willing to lend a hand, and always wanting to help me if she could.”
“That’s rare.”
“Yeah. Dakota is a very rare kind of person.” He could see that now too.
“What happened?” his mom asked, again bringing him back to the present.
“Well...” He took a breath, trying to figure out how he was going to say this. He didn’t have to tell his mom. She didn’t need to know everything about his private life, and more than likely, she didn’t want to. But she couldn’t tell him how to proceed, if he didn’t tell her what he’d done, and... He kinda thought it would be good to confess. “When I won my first rodeo championship, before she got married, she and I spent the night together.”
His mom gasped.
“We had both been drinking. I didn’t drink as a general rule, ever. Neither did she. But that night... I guess we both were hanging out with people we usually didn’t, and we did a lot of things we usually didn’t. I regret it. I suppose she probably does too.”
“You didn’t ask her? You guys didn’t talk about it?”
“I haven’t talked to her since that night. Well, just once. On the phone when she randomly called me.”
“What did she want?”
“Well... I wasn’t really able to talk at the time. I was in the middle of giving a lesson.” He winced, remembering how brusque he’d been on the phone, all because he’d had Gina at his elbow and hadn’t wanted to speak with Dakota right then. He’d wanted privacy for their conversation, planned to call her back later.
As if reading his mind, his mother asked, “And you never called her back?”
“No. And then she got married. Just a couple of days later. Maybe she was going to tell me that.” Although, from all the news reports, they had decided just that night before. It wasn’t a premeditated thing. I read the news reports about her getting married. If she knew about it before they did it, they did a good job of pretending she didn’t.”
