Page 14 of Her Candy Cane Cowboy
“The evening is beautiful. We can just walk if you’re comfortable with that?”
“I am,” I answer, reaching for my sweater.
“Hold on. Your outerwear isn’t suitable for this weather. We’ll take one of the cars.”
“I’ve been colder,” I tell him.
“So have I.”
And I know we’re both referencing heartaches and not weather. “I left my thick coat at the Inn.”
“The car it is then.” His tone is firm, decisive.
And a small, wilted place in my heart opens a crack and frees a bud of acceptance for his concern like a flower seeking the sun.
He leads the way to his rental car and as soon as I’m settled in the passenger seat, he reaches into the back and brings a lap blanket up and hands it to me.
“Back home, I got into the habit of making sure I always had a blanket with me after I encountered a wounded dog on the side of the road during a cold, rainy day.”
My heart aches for the unknown animal.
“What happened to it?”
“I wrapped him in my shirt to pick him up and get him to the vet in town. He made a full recovery.” Dallas looks relieved as he recounts the incident. “I named him Storm. My brother Ridge is taking care of him while I’m gone.”
“Do you have a lot of family?”
“I do. I’m the oldest and have four younger brothers. Ridge, Rockwell, Radley and Royal.”
I’m wondering why his name didn’t follow the R pattern.
He glances at me as he adjusts the car’s heater to full blast. “My parents were teenagers when I was born. My mother comes from a wealthy family but back then my father was poor as hell and from a rough family.”
I think about what Mary said about Dallas being in the system. “They gave you up?”
His fingers tighten on the steering wheel before he relaxes them. “I was born at home and that night, my grandmother took me from my mother and told her I didn’t make it. She threw me in a dumpster behind a grocery store the next state over from where I was born.”
I gasp. “How could anyone…how could she…”
“I made it, so my story ends well.”
I’m still outraged on his behalf. “What an awful woman!”
Dallas laughs. “You remind me of a defensive kitten.”
“How can you be so okay with what happened to you? And even find a way to laugh about it?”
He stops smiling and the laughter fades away. “Every now and then I’m not okay when I remember how I was treated. But for the most part, I look at what I’ve gained. I have a great family that loves me deeply. Plus, I have Mary and Christopher and the brothers in heart that I bonded with at The Naughty List Ranch.”
He reaches across the space between us and smooths a strand of my hair. “And every event in my life until now led me to crossing paths with you. How could I not be okay with that result?”
I don’t know how to absorb what he said or handle the emotions churning in me. I want to slap the faceless grandmother and hug the child he was.
“I’m not sure I’m the gold at the end of the rainbow,” I say, trying to diffuse what I’m feeling.
“I’m sure,” he says.
Fall into him, part of my heart urges me. Are you kidding? Get far, fucking away from him the other part counters.
