Page 1 of Her Candy Cane Cowboy
Chapter 1
Dallas
Montana is especially beautiful in the winter. The sun hits the rental car’s windshield, and I lower the visor as I leave the airport. The destination I’m heading to is the one that saved my life. Silver Bell Hollow.
If it weren’t for being sent to stay with Mary and Christopher Maas when I was a teenager, I’d have kept going down the path I was on. The one that would’ve led me to a future behind bars or worse. I didn’t appreciate them or their Christmas tree farm when I first ended up there.
The chip on my shoulder and my belief that nobody was in my corner was deeply rooted in me. I arrived braced, waiting for the lectures, for a backhand across the face, waiting for them to tell me to straighten up and live right.
I didn’t get lectures. I didn’t get hit. I received hope and love and learned how to work hard. Mary taught me how to heal from the things that happened to me, and Christopher taught me how to become a good man. When I told them I’d always wanted to find my birth family because I wanted answers, they had spent long hours searching for them, not quitting until they found them.
Learning the bad details involving my birth was difficult. I learned when I was born, my grandmother had taken me away from my teen mom and thrown me away in the garbage.
But there was also good. I learned my parents had never stopped searching for me and they were overjoyed when we were reunited. In addition to my parents, I gained brothers and a slew of extended family.
So, yeah, I owe the Maas’s for the good life I have.
I try to return every year around the holidays in time for the Christmas Eve bonfire to spend time reconnecting with them and the other boys they’d taken in. We’re not blood related, but we’re family all the same.
My stomach growls reminding me that I haven’t eaten since I downed half a mediocre burrito yesterday. I never can the day I catch a flight. I hate flying. I prefer my boots on the ground, my ass in a saddle rather than in a seat thousands of feet in the air.
A roadside diner I’ve stopped at on prior visits looms just ahead, its silver siding and bright red accents making it hard to miss. I slow to pull into the parking lot and get out of the car to stretch, then hunch into my jacket. It’s cold as hell with the wind chill.
Gravel crunches beneath my boots as I make my way to the front door. The woman working the register calls out a greeting as I enter.
A singer on an antique jukebox is crooning a slow country song barely loud enough to be heard over the conversations of the customers.
Burgers sizzle on the grill and the aroma of onions and freshly brewed coffee fill the air. My stomach growls again.
I take a seat at a booth in the front where I can see out the window. I like wide open spaces and if I’m cooped up too long I get restless.
The waitress pours me a cup of coffee and after I place my order, my phone rings. It’s my buddy Marshall from back home in Lucky River, Texas. We’re as close as brothers. Like me, he’s been to hell and back. He was rescued from a place called The Gentle Children’s Home.
I take a sip of the coffee, letting it warm me from the chill outside and wait for him to speak first.
“I sent an early Christmas gift for you to the post office there.”
There’s smug delight in his voice. He thinks he’s got me. Each year, on birthdays and at Christmas, we give the other outrageous gifts.
It started as a challenge and the more over the top, the better. The one who wins our competition gets bragging rights and then has to buy the rounds at the bar all year long. That way, the loser has to toast the winner and thank him for the drinks, then explain what’s going on to the crowd that’s there. It always leads to a lot of laughs.
I started the competition because I learned as a kid that laughter is a good way to hide pain. If you’re laughing, no one knows how badly they hurt you.
“You can’t beat that doll.” I grin at the memory. I gave Marshall a blow-up doll not knowing he’d accidentally open the gift in front of his family.
“Wait until you see what I sent before you gloat.”
“I’ll do that. I stopped for a bite to eat but I’m almost at the town.”
He sounds way too delighted as he ends the call, but I’m not concerned. Out of all my friends and family, I’m always the one headlining the naughty list.
I finish my burger and fries and get back on the road. It doesn’t take long to reach the town and once again, I find that old, familiar comfort settling in my chest. This place, like my ranch in Lucky River, is my peace.
Christmas décor is everywhere I look as I drive toward the post office. I pass the holiday shop, the coffee shop and a group of kids clearly thrilled to be out of school for the holiday break.
The post office has frosted windows with winter scenes on them, and icicle lights hanging from the front of the building.
I park and head in. It’s crowded with people trying to ship last minute packages, and I get in line. I’m nearly at the window when an elderly clerk with the snowmen earrings calls my name.
