Five
“Wow! Look at all the people, Dad! This is gonna be super fun!”
Stifling a groan, Drew Strickland pulled his gaze away from the large crowd milling about on the grassy lawn of the Rust Creek Falls park to glance down at his seven-year-old son, Dillon. The child’s brown hair was already mussed despite the careful combing Drew had given it before they’d left home, plus the tail of his plaid cotton shirt was pulled loose from the back of his jeans. However, it wasn’t the boy’s disheveled appearance that concerned Drew. It was the mischievous twinkle in Dillon’s brown eyes that worried him the most.
Like his late mother, Dillon didn’t possess a shy bone in his body, and Drew had the uneasy feeling that before this back-to-school picnic ended, his son was going to do a bit too much talking. Mostly about things he shouldn’t be talking about.
“It does look like plenty of folks are here today,” Drew replied to his son’s excited comment, while silently wishing he could think of one good reason to grab Dillon’s hand and hightail the both of them away from the gathering. But that would hardly be fair to his son. Nor would leaving give Drew the chance to be a dad for one day, at least. And being a real, hands-on dad to Dillon was one of the main reasons his parents had pushed him to move to this little mountain town. It had been their way of forcing Drew to take on the full responsibility of Dillon’s care.
“That’s gonna make everything better!” Dillon grabbed a tight hold on his father’s hand and tugged him toward the crowd. “Come on, Dad. I want you to meet my new friends.”
Drew and Dillon had only moved to Rust Creek Falls a month ago, yet already his son had made fast friends with many of his second-grade classmates and most of the adults who called Strickland’s Boarding House their home. As for Drew, he had a few relatives in the small Montana town, but no one he could actually call a close friend. But then, a doctor, especially an OB-GYN, didn’t have much time to socialize.
Who was he trying to kid? Drew wondered. He’d never been a people person. Even when Evelyn had been alive, he’d always been more than happy to stand in the background and let her do most of the talking.
But Evelyn wasn’t at his side anymore, he thought grimly. She never would be. And now it was up to him to step forward and be the kind of father that Dillon needed and deserved. Even if that meant mixing and mingling with total strangers.
Father and son had barely moved more than ten feet into the gathering when two young boys and a girl, all of them Dillon’s age, came racing up to them.
“Hi, Dillon!” the three children shouted in unison.
Grinning broadly, Dillon gave his friends a wave, then proudly began introductions.
“Dad, these are my best buddies.” He pointed to a towheaded boy with a face full of freckles and then to the other boy with black hair that looked as though it was just starting to grow out from a summer buzz cut. “This is Oliver and Owen. And that’s Rory,” he added, pointing to the lone female.
Even though Rory was wearing jeans and a T-shirt like her male counterparts, the plastic tiara crowning her long blond hair was an all-girl fashion statement.
Drew smiled a greeting at the trio. “Hi, guys. It’s nice to meet some of Dillon’s friends.”
The boy named Oliver immediately spoke up, “Dillon says you’re a hero. ’Cause you’re a doctor. Is that right?”
A hero? Far from it, Drew wanted to say. If he’d been anything close to a hero, his wife would be walking around this park with her son, rather than Drew. But to hear that Dillon had put him on such a pedestal filled him with gratification, even if it was undeserved.
“I am a doctor,” Drew answered simply.
Owen looked properly impressed. “Gee, can you sew up cuts and fix a broken arm?”
“Of course he can, silly!” Rory chided her friend. “Any ole doctor can do that.”
“My dad can fix anybody that’s sick,” Dillon boasted proudly.
“Dillon,” Drew gently admonished. “You’re stretching things a bit.”
“Well, almost anybody,” the boy amended.
Deciding that was enough medical talk, Oliver said to Dillon, “Wanta come with us? We’re gonna go gather some pinecones.”
“What for?” Dillon asked.
The black-haired boy rolled his eyes. “To throw at the dorky first graders, what else?”
Drew was about to tell his son he wasn’t about to throw pinecones at any child, much less one younger than him, when Dillon suddenly said, “Naw, I’m going to stay with my dad, so I can show him around. He doesn’t know many people yet and I do.”
“Okay. See ya later, Dillon,” Rory called as the three kids turned and ambled away.
“Dillon, this deal with the pinecones, I—”
“Oh, that was nothing, Dad. Oliver wants to act like he’s a tough guy, but he ain’t.”
“He isn’t,” Drew corrected his son’s grammar.
“That’s right. Oliver is just a big mouth. He wouldn’t hurt a flea even if it was biting him.”
Drew let out a heavy breath. At thirty-three, it had been many years since he’d been a boy of Dillon’s age. And even then he hadn’t been surrounded by a group of friends. He’d spent most of his time on the back of a horse,
