Page 6 of Hard Candy Christmas

No nothing extra.

That didn’t bode well for our future date.

I groaned as I finally got up, needing to go through the rest of the decorations. Mom’s stuff was nice, but there were a lot of old pieces. Not that she would mind, but it would be nice to go shopping for some new stuff. Wasn’t like I didn’t have to go into town anyways to do some Christmas shopping.

I walked outside, looking around the house, seeing where some lights might go when I saw Chase walking by, a horse with him.

“Hey,” I called out, waving to him. I wanted to talk to him when I was with Grandma, but he left so soon, almost as if the sight of me did something to him and he had to leave.

Chase glared as the horse jerked and he rubbed her nose. After a few moments, he stalked over, the horse following.

“Don’t you know not to scream like that.”

“I didn’t scream, Chase. And sorry. I forgot that horses scare easily with loud noises.”

“Oh, right, you’ve become such a city girl, that things like that aren’t second nature anymore.”

“Unfair, Chase. It’s been a long while since I’ve been around horses.”

“Really wouldn’t matter, Belinda, given that you weren’t that good with them before.”

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is where the nickname came from. I loved horses, thought they were magnificent animals, but they didn’t like me. I could never last on one longer than ten seconds before I was getting bucked off, almost as if they couldn’t wait to get me off. I’d never cut it as a Cowgirl in their eyes, and they all thought it was too damn funny to give me that name.

“What did you want?”

I pushed my hair behind my ear before scratching at my arm, all nervous ticks when faced with anger. And for some unknown reason, Chase was downright mad.

“Nothing. Guess it didn’t matter. You’re far too upset to talk to. I’ll let you be.”

Without realizing it, I had pushed the arm on my sweater up, revealing even more scars.

“Did he do those?”

I followed Chase’s gaze and quickly pulled the sleeve down before shrugging.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Funny. The woman I remember talking to before she left wouldn’t have allowed anything like that to happen to her. Guess you did change in many ways, none of which I recognize now.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. As if he had room to talk. He went and married the one woman he vowed to hate forever because of the shit she did to me in high school. I can see where his loyalty lies.

“Same goes both ways, Chase. I’m hoping that at least someone else would be a little happier to see me and show me what all I’ve been missing in Westover. Even before we fucking graduated.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I have a date with Bo. Maybe I’ll finally be able to compare the two of you and find out what I was missing back then while I wasted all my time on you.”

With a huff, I turned right around and marched back into the house, letting that man stew over that. As if it even mattered to him.

Chapter Four

Chase

“He was supposed to be my best friend, and instead, he goes and does that!”

“Are you quite finished, Chase Jackson Montgomery? I do believe the whole house understands your frustration at this point,” my mom asked, looking up from the stack of Christmas cards she was going through.

I slammed my mouth shut. I could just see that my mother was about to impart some much-needed wisdom on me.

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