Page 31 of Her Candy Cane Cowboy
He walks away with Dallas, and I take a handful of popcorn and hold it without eating it. “Dad’s acting strange. So’s Dallas.”
Elizabeth passes me a glass of tea. “They seem fine to me.”
The movie starts but I can’t shake the feeling I’m missing something.
Halfway through the movie, the front door opens, and two men stride in, their voices lowering when they spot us.
“Royal, Radley come meet Ginger.”
Royal glances at the TV screen. “Ma, you’ve seen this movie a hundred times.”
She shushes him.
Royal sits down on an ottoman. He’s holding a thin gray kitten.
“You found another one?” Elizabeth asks, then explains to me, “Someone abandoned a handful of kittens in an alley by the liquor store in Clover County a couple of days ago. We’ve been trying to catch them.”
“Radley’s been working harder at that than any of us since he’s got his eye on the new veterinarian in town.”
“I told you that’s not true,” Radley denies. Then he mutters, “Marina doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Are you almost done with that thing you were handling?” Elizabeth asks him.
“What thing?” he says.
“The chore,” Elizabeth’s voice carries a warning.
“Oh. Ridge and Rocky finished putting up the l—” He glances at me and stops speaking.
Something is definitely going on.
Dallas walks into the living room and holds out his hand to me. His face and ears are red like he’s been in the cold. “Take a walk with me.”
I look at the grandfather clock in the corner. “It’s after midnight.”
“I know.”
I stand and slip my hand in his and we go to the foyer to get my coat. “Is something wrong?” I ask as I put it on.
“No.”
His short response is unlike him and now I’m worried about whatever is going on. My heart clenches. I don’t think I could withstand it if something happens to make the man I love disappear from my life. If I could never see him again…
I stand frozen while Dallas drapes a scarf around my neck. I love Dallas. I look up at him. At his handsome face. His kind eyes. His lips. I don’t know when…maybe I did from the beginning but fought it…I love Dallas. I really…
“Let’s go.” He leads the way through the house to the backyard. Someone has cleared the snow and strung lights around an enclosed gazebo. It glows in the cold darkness.
“How pretty!” I snap out of my shock to exclaim.
“Inside is even better,” he says while pushing the door open.
I walk in and stop, hardly able to absorb everything I see. Three large pictures hang on a wall. The first one is a black and white image of Dallas sitting atop a horse and staring off into the horizon. It’s bleak and lonely.
Beneath the picture are the words Where I was.
I start crying. I know where this is heading.
The second photo is the one of me and Dallas in the ugly Christmas sweaters. Below it are the words Where I am.
