Red Dirt Heart 04 - Red Dirt Heart 4 (21 page)

I kept my hand out. “Please, do this for me.”

He looked up at me, our eyes meeting for a few long seconds. I don’t know what he saw in mine, but he stood and took my hand and let me lead him to the living room.

I walked into the cleared dance space and turned to face him. He was nervous and embarrassed, his whole body was rigid, and he had a flush that crept from his neck to his cheeks.

But he was there, on the dance floor, for me.

I pulled him against me, one hand holding his at our chests, the other on the small of his back. He was still rigid against me. “Charlie?”

“Mm?”

“You’re doing fine.”

He pressed his lips to my ear. “You’re gonna give me a hard-on in front of your parents.”

I burst out laughing, making everyone look at us. Charlie shook his head, but he relaxed a little and we started to slow dance. It didn’t matter that Charlie’s version of slow dancing was basically shuffling his feet to a beat only he could hear. It didn’t matter at all.

“Thank you,” I whispered in his ear. “For doing this for me.” I pulled back so I could see his eyes, but we never stopped moving our feet. “My parents always do this, dance after a dinner party,” I said with a smile. “But this is the first time I’ve ever had anyone to dance with. I only ever just used to sit and watch. So, thank you.”

Charlie stared at me for a long while. “Thank you for asking me.”

I pulled us closer and leaned my face against the side of his head. Charlie’s breath was warm on my neck where his face rested on my shoulder. And we danced.

As far as Thanksgivings went, it was by far my most favourite. And it was the first, out of all the Thanksgivings I’d had, that I knew what it meant to be thankful.

* * * *

Leaving Texas wasn’t hard at all. In fact, I was looking forward to it. We sat in our plane, waiting to taxi out, and Charlie put his hand on my knee. Probably to stop me bouncing it. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

I nodded. “Yep.”

“No regrets?”

“About what?”

“Leaving your folks,” he said with a shrug. “Going back to Australia.”

We’d had a long goodbye with my parents in the airport. Mom cried, and Dad hugged us both, but it was a happy goodbye, if there was ever such a thing. I gave him a smile and slid my hand over his. “Home, Charlie,” I corrected him. “I’m going home.”

Going home.

The flight back to Australia was much better than the flight over. Going home always seems the quicker trip, but it helped that Charlie wasn’t so agitated about meeting my family and wondering if they’d like him.

In fact, there were a few times when I woke up from dozing to find Charlie staring out the window. Lost in thoughts about what, I didn’t know, but he’d look at me and smile.

And it wasn’t just any normal smile. It was a serene smile. A happiness that came from within kind of smile, like something inside him had settled.

George and Ma met us at the airport, and Charlie talked pretty much the entire three-hour trip home about, well, everything. But jet lag kicked us both in the ass and after lunch—and recounting most of the stories to everyone else and giving Nugget and Gracie big welcome-home cuddles—we both needed to sleep.

And there ain’t nothing like sleeping in your own bed.

I remember falling onto the duvet, putting my arm around Charlie’s waist, and the next thing I knew, I woke up when the late afternoon sun was streaming in low through the window.

And Charlie was gone.

I found him out front, leaning against the veranda and giving Nugget a belly scratch, both of them enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun.

Charlie smiled at me when I walked out the door, and when he saw my boots and socks in my hand, he said, “Leave ’em off. Come join me.”

And there he was, like George had once told me, standing with his bare feet in the red, red dirt.

So I did as he asked and joined him. The dirt was warm on top, cool underneath, and it was so soft. The fine grains felt like silk between my toes. “That feels good,” I said.

Charlie grinned. “I know.” He looked back at the front door. “But we’ll need to wash ’em off before we go inside, or Ma will go clean off her head.”

I chuckled. “Speaking from experience?”

“Oh yeah. I always thought I could run pretty fast, but I tell ya, she can throw a wooden spoon like a boomerang.”

I snorted. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You sleep okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, like the dead. You?”

He nodded, and as he looked out over the setting sun, he sighed. Knowing Charlie like I did, I knew damn well he was mentally goin’ over everything we had to do to make up for the three weeks we were away and there was a very good chance we’d be starting at four in the morning. His worrying about getting things done probably woke him up from our jet-lagged sleep.

“We’ll get through it all,” I told him. “Everyone’s done a lot of work while we’ve been gone, so we don’t have that much to catch up on, but there’s nothin’ that won’t wait a day, Charlie.”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “I know that. It’ll be fine.” And from how surprised he was by my talk of work, I got to thinking maybe he wasn’t thinking about work at all.

He sighed and looked out over the setting sun again. It was all orange and pink sky against a red-dirt horizon. There wasn’t a sunset like it in the world other than right here. No wonder he kept looking at it. It was beautiful.

“Trav, were you serious when you said you wanted to maybe have kids one day?”

Well, shit. That came out of nowhere. And there I was, thinking he was thinking about work…

“Um, yes. Of course I was. I mean, I still am. I want that with you, yes.”

He smiled, looked back out over his farm and sighed. “I want that too.”

“You do?”

He nodded. “I guess that’s what this has all been about, yeah?”

“All what?”

“You coming here,” he said simply. “You said once it was fate, and I think you’re right.”

I wasn’t really following. My brain was still stuck on him admitting he wanted kids. “Charlie?”

He smiled, and that serene look was back in place. “If you hadn’t come here or if you hadn’t been a stubborn arse and refused to go back to America, I’d have still been just Charlie Sutton.” He shook his head. “But now?”

“But now, what?”

“Well, look at me,” he said. “I have more than I ever rightfully should have thought possible. I have this place running like a well-oiled machine. I have the people in it who are my family, despite there not being a drop of blood between us. I have Sam, a brother. A
real
brother, and Laura. I mean”—he shook his head—“if someone told me that I’d have all this five years ago, I’d have thought they were crazy. I mean, there was just no way…” He dug his toes into the dirt a bit more. “And then last year, little Gracie comes along, and she’s like a little ray of sunshine, ya know? And then even Amos, a teenager, for God’s sake, and I think, ‘You know what? I think I could do that.’”

He shook his head slowly, like he couldn’t believe what he was saying. “And I thought, when you first talked about kids—the day Gracie was born—well, I just thought no way, not me. I just thought…”

“That you didn’t deserve it?”

“That I wouldn’t know how to be a dad.” He looked squarely at me. “I thought maybe I’d be too like my father… but I’m not.”

“No, you’re not.”

He shrugged. “Well, I am a little bit. But I think I got the good parts of him. And you know what I realized?”

“What’s that?”

“That any kid of ours gets to have you as a dad too,” he said with a smile. “And that’s gonna be pretty damn awesome to see.”

Oh.

He laughed at the look on my face. “I dunno what it all means, Trav. But I wanna look into it. I… want it.”

I couldn’t believe what he was saying. “What are you saying, Charlie?”

“I’m happy, Trav. I’m just… happy.”

Jesus. Charlie Sutton was talking about having kids. “You’re a puzzling man,” I told him.

“I looked into a few things while you were sleeping.”

“Such as?”

“Well, adoption isn’t an option in the Territory, not for gay couples anyway.”

I blinked. I think my mouth fell open. He
really
was serious about it.

“We could look into surrogacy. I dunno how legal that is here. Or maybe we could organize something in the States. I dunno how international adoption works either.”

“Um.”
Holy shit.
“Um, well, I think we need to be married first. And as much as our little declaration at the lagoon with the desert as our witness was real to
us
, I don’t think either government, Australian or American, would agree.”

Charlie smiled at that. “Well, then. We better organise something more official.”

I stared at him.

“Tell your mum she has a year to organise something for when we visit next Thanksgiving.”

“Charlie.”

“Only if you want to, that is.”

I snorted.
Only if I wanted to
. Was he kidding? “Of course I fucking want to.”

“Right, then,” he said. “Next year it is.”

“I think adoptions can take years, Charlie,” I said. “I don’t really know either, to be honest, but I assume it’s not easy.”

“That’s okay,” he said, still excited. “We’ve got years to work on that. And I’m not exactly known for doing anything the easy way.”

I snorted out a laugh. “Ain’t that the truth.”

He looked back out over the setting sun, at the prettiest sunset I think I’d ever seen. He seemed… content.

“You’re absolutely certain?” I asked. “Because if I tell my mom, there’s no going back.”

He grinned. “There was never any going back, Trav. Not from the first day you walked in here.”

He amazed me. This perfectly impossible man, as stubborn and beautiful as the desert we called home. He’d said once that if you cut him he’d bleed red dirt, and I had no doubt that it was true. Only now I was exactly the same. This place was as much a part of me as it was of him, and I was certain—
absolutely certain
—that the red dirt that covered our feet and the soft glow of the setting sun on our skin was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Two red dirt hearts.

I’d just spent five days with Ernie and Amos, two hundred and seventy kilometres from the homestead, fixin’ fences. It was too far from home to keep comin’ in every night, so we camped out. It was the best time of year for spending time away: April, during the Australian autumn, which meant there were no baby animals to tend to. The nights were cool enough for a campfire, and the days were perfect for getting shit done.

But I tell ya, I was looking forward to gettin’ home.

I hadn’t shaved or showered in five days. We could wash up and have a sparrow’s bath, as Ernie called it, but I was covered in dust. It was everywhere. I’m pretty sure my blond hair was brown, caked with sweat and dirt. I felt gritty.

And I missed Charlie.

He was stressed before I left. His work was piling up and he seemed distracted, so when he said I was on the away-team fencing this time, I figured it was probably a good thing. The days apart were good for us. We knew that. But it didn’t mean I wouldn’t miss him.

When we were about fifty miles from home, the radio in the old ute cracked to life. It was Charlie. “How far away are you?”

“About an hour, bit less than. Why?” I asked. He sounded stressed. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, no, it’s all good,” he said. Though it sure didn’t sound like it. “See ya soon.”

I clicked the radio back into the clip on the dash and looked at Amos. “What was that all about?”

He shrugged. “Dunno.”

I let it go, concentrating on navigating the old ute along the cattle track that was supposed be the road instead. I didn’t give it another thought until we drove into the yard and I saw two Land Cruisers pulled up around the side of the house.

Something was wrong.

I stopped out front of the house instead of driving down to the shed and took the veranda steps two at a time. I opened the front door, stepped into the foyer and took off my hat. “Charlie?”

“Yeah,” he said, though his voice sounded strained. “In here.”

Before I could ask where the fuck “here” was, I found him in the lounge room.

Charlie was pacing, all nervous, wearing suit pants, which I’d never seen him wear, ever. He had on a crisp white button-down shirt, a charcoal vest, fitted at the waist, and a silver tie. He was dressed all fancy-like, and sweet mother of God, I’d never seen him look so good.

But he was pacing, pulling at his hair, and looking like he might take ill. “Charlie, what is it? What’s going on?”

He looked at me and barked out a laugh. It sounded almost maniacal. “Oh God,” he mumbled and raked his hand through his hair again.

He was about to lose it. That was his I’m-about-to-freak-out look. I went to him and took his face in my hands. “Okay, Charlie, breathe for me. Take a deep breath.”

He looked at me, his brown eyes searching mine, full of trust and bordering on panic, and we breathed together.

“Tell me, what’s going on?”

He shook his head and laughed again. It wasn’t a particularly happy sound. “I’ve ruined it. It was supposed to be a surprise, and it was gonna be great and awesome, but then I thought it really shouldn’t be a surprise, it’s something we should have done together, and then I started to freak out and your mum and dad are here and—”

“Wait, what? Mom and Dad are here?” I looked around the lounge room, finally taking in the fresh flowers, the decorations… “Charlie, what’s going on?”

He reached into his pocket, and when he pulled his hand out, it was shaking. On his palm were two rings.

Oh.

Oh holy-sweet-baby-Jesus. He was holding two rings.

And then tears fell, and he wiped at them with the back of his hand.

I slid my hand around his neck and pulled him against me. “Hey,” I whispered. “Don’t cry.”

“I ruined it.”

Jesus. I think today was my wedding day.

My fucking wedding day!

“You didn’t ruin anything,” I told him. “Not that I’m entirely sure what’s going on, but I’m sure you didn’t ruin anything.”

He pulled back a little bit. His eyes were still full of tears, and he spoke to the floor. “It was supposed to be a surprise. I wanted it all to be perfect and romantic, and your mum and I have been organizing this for weeks and it was going to be perfect, but I panicked.”

Unable to bear seeing him upset, I pulled him against me once more, probably ruining his clean white shirt. He held on to me so tight. I rubbed his back. “Is today our wedding day?”

He nodded against my neck and moaned a not-happy sound.

“Oh, Charlie.”

“I’m sorry. It was gonna be a surprise thing. But I couldn’t do it without you here. I ruined the whole thing. Your mum probably hates me. They came all this way, and I freaked out in front of everyone.”

I kissed the side of his head to stop myself from smiling just as the door opened and in walked my parents, followed by Ma and George. They were all dressed up in the fanciest clothes I’d ever seen them wear and Ma gave me a smiley-frown when she saw me holding on to Charlie. Man, it was good to see them.

“Is everyone okay?” Mom asked.

I smiled at her. “We’re good.”

Charlie straightened up and wiped at his face. “I’m really sorry, Mrs Craig. This is not what we planned and I ruined it. But I—”

Momma put her hands on Charlie’s arms. “Oh, sweet boy. Don’t apologise.”

Charlie nodded. “I shouldn’t have tried to do it without him.” He looked at me. “We should have done this together. I’m sorry.”

“Well, we probably should have,” I agreed. It was an awful lot to take in, but it was sweet. I never thought Charlie would ever want such a thing, let alone be the one to plan it. He even organised for my parents to come early. They were supposed to be getting here next week… Just then, a woman came into the room who I’d never seen before.

“Everything okay?” she asked with a kind, hopeful smile.

Charlie straightened up a bit, obviously feeling a bit foolish. “Travis, this is Mary Roberts. Mary, this is Travis.” He looked at me and frowned. “Mary’s the minister who was gonna marry us.”

Oh. I smiled at her, then looked at Charlie. “What do you mean
was
?”

He swallowed hard. “Well, I ruined it.”

I pulled him back against me and smiled at my parents. “You didn’t ruin anything, Charlie. Gimme ten minutes and I’ll go get dressed.”

Charlie pulled back out of my arms, his eyes wide. “Really?”

I laughed at him. “Yes, really. Look at you!” I looked him up and down. “You’re wearing a suit… well, kind of. Suit pants and a vest with a tie. And well, your shirt
was
white.” It was now creased and smeared with red dirt.

Charlie smiled, and even though he looked at the floor between us, I could see the blush on his cheeks. When he looked up at me, he was biting his bottom lip. “I’ll come with you,” he said. “To get dressed.”

“No, you won’t,” Ma interrupted, putting her hands on Charlie’s shoulders and pulling him away. “Trav, hurry up, love. Ten minutes.”

My mom was quick to grab me. She almost hugged me, but looked at the state I was in and kept me at arm’s length. “I’ll hug you later.” She looked at my unshaven face, almost a full beard, horrified, and waved her hand at it.

“Yes, Mom. I’ll shave it.”

Jesus. A grown man on his wedding day, still getting lectures from his mother.

On his wedding day.

Holy shit.

“Come on, son,” Dad said with a smile. “Everyone’s waiting.”

Seven minutes later, after I’d scrubbed my body and hair to get rid of the grime, I stood at the bathroom sink with every intention of shaving.

Except my hands had started to shake and somehow wouldn’t stop. I mean, it was stupid. I wasn’t nervous. Marrying Charlie was the most right thing I would ever do, but the suddenness, the complete lack of warning, had me thrown for a loop.

I leant against the sink with nothing but a towel around my waist, and lowering my head, I took a steadying breath.

When someone knocked on the door.

Um, shit. “Who is it?”

“Travis, it’s me.” My dad’s voice sounded soft on the other side of the door. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

He smiled as he walked into the bathroom. His eyes were filled with knowing and love. “Ma’s standing guard at the hall in case Charlie tries to come in. I thought she was gonna card me on the way past.”

I snorted. “She’s the only one here he won’t argue with.”

Dad smiled. “Sounds familiar.” He looked at me for a long, long second. “You okay there?”

I smeared shaving cream over my face and rinsed the foam from hands. I picked up the razor and stopped. “Well, I would be,” I said, holding it out to show him, “if my hands would stop shaking.”

My dad smiled and took the razor from me. With a finger to my chin, he turned my face, and putting the razor to my skin, he started to shave me. “Thought I’d come and check on you,” he said. “I remember the day I married your mother. My hands shook so bad, I cut my face to pieces. Took about two hours for the bleeding to stop. And you don’t have two hours.”

“No. I don’t.”

He continued to shave me, studying his handiwork as he went. “Charlie’s much better now. Thought he was gonna pass out earlier.”

“I can’t believe he organized this.” I shook my head, and my dad pulled the razor away quickly and frowned at me. “Sorry.”

“Hold still,” he said, lifting my chin. “I probably should be wearing my glasses to do this.”

“Comforting, Dad.”

He smiled. “Your mother’s been so excited. We both have.” He was quiet for a while as he shaved the other side of my face, tapping the razor against the sink after every stroke. “We’re both real proud of you, son.”

Oh.

“You chased your dream, and now you’re living it. And as a father, that’s all I could ask for. Not success or wealth, but happiness.”

I blinked back the tears in my eyes. “I am happy, Dad.”

Dad smiled. “Charlie’s a real good man.”

“He is.”

“He puts you first.”

“He does.”

Dad put the razor on the sink. “I’ll be proud to have him as a son-in-law.”

I couldn’t help the tears that spilled then. “Thank you,” I said.

He handed me the face towel from the counter. “And I don’t even mind the fact he’s Australian. As long as we keep winning more medals at the Olympics than them, I won’t have a problem with it.”

I laughed as I wiped my face. “Yeah, thanks, Dad.”

When I looked at him, he was staring at my necklace. “Is that… is that our brand on your necklace there?”

Oh. I’d worn it for so long, I’d forgotten about it. “Yeah.” I held it out to show him. “It’s got the Craig family brand on one side, and the Sutton Station brand on the other. Charlie wears one too. He had them made for us.”

“Oh.” My dad blinked a few times, his eyes shiny. “Well… well, that’s a real nice thing to do.” Then he composed himself, shaking his head. “I supposed you wanna go out there and get married to the man, huh?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Dad put his hand to my face just as there was another knock on the door. “Michael, Travis,” Momma called. “Michael, we need to go.”

Dad opened the door. “I had to help the boy so he didn’t come out looking like that Krueger man.”

Mom looked at me and gave me a sad smile for approximately half a second, but then she straightened up. “Your clothes are all laid out on your bed,” she said, grabbing my father by the arm. “Come on, George is waiting.”

Five minutes later, I walked out. Dressed in suit pants and a white shirt, my vest was a different kind of grey than Charlie’s, and my tie was blue. I didn’t know if it was Charlie’s doing or my mother’s, but they’d done a pretty good job of putting it all together.

I had so many questions. I was torn. Part of me wanted me to take him into our room and have my way with his surprise-wedding ass, and part of me wanted to throttle him.

He was back to pacing in the lounge room, but he stopped when he saw me. “Oh wow.”

I smiled and straightened my vest, then shook my head at him. “Charlie, you have so much explaining to do.”

“Before or after?” He glanced toward the door. “I guess we can talk on the way. But I am sorry. It all seemed like a good idea. It was going to be romantic—”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “On the
way
?” The house was quiet. Too quiet. “To where?”

He took a deep breath. “Trav, are you sure you want to do this? Get married, I mean? I really shouldn’t have done the whole surprise thing, I can see that now.”

I pressed my lips to his. “Yes. But…”

“But what?” he asked, his eyes widened.

“But how is it legal? I mean, I thought we couldn’t get married here, so how does this work?”

He smiled nervously. “Well, you see, the minister… she’s a Kiwi, right? And it’s legal in New Zealand, and she said she’d fill in the paperwork like we were there.”