Page 15 of Her Cowboy Santa
Grady chuckles, a soft sound like he’s trying out his laugh again for the first time in years. “I remember you gluing those jumbo-sized tissue rolls to the front of every scarecrow in the field.”
“And how you got those blonde wigs—” Cole shakes his head.
“I did that,” I admit. “Borrowed them from community theater. Still can’t believe Mary never found out about that one.”
“We need to get another one over on him, just for old times’ sake,” Dallas says. Once a jokester, always the jokester.
I stand and take my empty bowl to the sink, my stomach filled with the warmth that comes not only from spicy chili but from good company. “Why don’t you worry about getting that girl of yours to fall for you?”
He grins at me. “Don’t you worry about that. I’ve got a plan.”
I snort. I’m not sticking around to listen to whatever disaster he’s got up his sleeve. Still, Dallas will get what he wants. He always does. “I’m headed back to the main house. We got a girl to see. Come on, Rudy.”
Grady follows me out into the snow, Rudy bounding ahead of us. The twinkling Christmas lights around the ranch house reflect on the bright snow as smoke curls from the chimney.
“You’re quiet,” I finally tell him.
He chuckles. “I’m always quiet.”
He’s got me there. Grady has never been the first to strike up a conversation, even when he needs someone to listen to him. “Quieter than usual. You good?”
“Still deciding.” He glances at me from the corner of his eye, assessing me and the situation. Always assessing. It’s in his DNA at this point to constantly be monitoring everything and everyone around him. “You?”
I nod. The sensation that my heart is too small for my body has been with me since the moment I first laid eyes on Callie at the rest stop. “Yeah, I am. I’ve fallen for Callie.”
He stops walking. “That fast?”
I shrug. “It’s not fast when it’s right. She’s everything. And Danny has changed me. I didn’t know I had this much room in me for someone else.”
He nods and for a moment, I think that’s going to be the end of our conversation. But then he says it quietly, peeling off the small piece of armor. “Angel’s got me twisted up.”
I don’t know who she is, but I know she has to be special if Grady has fallen for her. He doesn’t love easy, but when he does love, he does it with everything inside of him.
“I… told her some of it,” he confesses gruffly. “She didn’t look away. Didn’t look at me like I was broken. She’s got this quiet way of seeing things. And when she looks at me… it’s like she sees a version of me I forgot existed.”
He shoves his hands deeper into his coat pockets. “I don’t know how to do this, Nate. Emotions. Feelings. Relationships. I don’t know how to sit still and let someone in.”
The wind shifts, picking up and more snowflakes swirl in the air. My heart hurts for my friend, for the boy he was. The way we all became men too fast.
He lets out a ragged breath. “She makes the noise stop.”
“Because she means something to you,” I answer. I wouldn’t have understood that before Callie. But there’s something about being around her. She soothes the parts of my heart that I didn’t realize were still aching.
He clears his throat. “She means everything. And that’s what terrifies me.”
I nod. “We came from the same place, Grady. We got handed the same busted compass. But Mary and Christopher taught us how to point it somewhere better. You’re allowed to want more. You’re allowed to stay.”
We’re quiet again. Not because there’s nothing left to say, but because some things don’t need to be explained between brothers. Especially not the kind who survived the circumstances we came from.
Finally, I tell him, “You know what helped me most? Figuring out I didn’t have to protect myself from love. Just had to protect the people I love with everything I’ve got.”
We turn back toward the house, slower now.
“You really think we’re allowed to have this?” he asks.
I can’t help the smile that stretches across my face. My life before this taught me to fear every change, but now I’m thinking, sometimes good things do come into your life. The most unexpected, wonderful gifts I never could have imagined. “I think we’ve earned it, Grady.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Hey. I’m glad you found them. Callie and Danny.”
