You’re doing the right thing,I tell myself.You’re showing up.
Tires crunch on snow.
Headlights sweep across the yard.
Dallas is coming.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Dallas
January 23rd
I don’t usually getnervous before dinner. I’ve eaten meals standing up in a blizzard, balanced on the tailgate of a truck with a kid hanging off my leg and a dog trying to steal my food. I’ve sat across from bankers who thought a working ranch was a novelty and from doctors who spoke in careful sentences that ended lives. Dinner is just food. Talking. Something you do at the end of a day.
So the tight pull in my chest as I turn onto Faith’s street has nothing to do with the meal itself.
It’s the quiet that gets to me. The world has collectively decided to hold its breath. Her mom’s house looks exactly the same as it always has, the front porch light glowing warm against the snow, curtains drawn just enough to suggest life inside, tire tracks neat in the drive. It looks safe. Ordinary. Nothing bad has ever happened here.
I park anyway with more care than necessary, kill the engine, and sit for a beat longer than I should. This is just dinner, I tell myself. Talking. Clearing the air. Not a funeral march.
The cold snaps at my face as I step out, boots crunching across the walk. I knock once, then again, already rehearsing the way I’ll greet her, the way I’ll keep this calm and simple and not make things harder than they need to be.
When the door opens, and it’s her mother standing there instead of Faith, my gut immediately drops.
“Dallas,” she says, surprise flickering across her face. “Hi.”
“Hi, ma’am,” I reply, clearing my throat. “Is Faith ready?”
Her expression shifts just a fraction. Small enough that someone not looking for it might miss it. I don’t.
“She stepped outside about ten minutes ago,” she says. “Said she’d wait on the porch for you… needed a little air.”
The word lands wrong. It skids instead of settling.
“Left,” I repeat, slower this time.
“Yes.” She glances past me toward the street, then back again. “She said she was waiting outside for you.”
My chest tightens. “She wasn’t. I just pulled in.”
Her brows knit together. “That’s… strange.”
I look over her shoulder, half expecting Faith to appear behind her, cheeks pink from the cold, apologizing for the mix-up with that nervous little smile she gets when she thinks she’s inconvenienced someone.
Nothing.
I pull my phone out. I hit her name and press it to my ear before I even realize I’m doing it.
Ring, ring… Ring, ring… Ring, ring…
Cut off.
What the…?
“Damn it,” I mutter, trying again as I scan the yard, the drive, the stretch of sidewalk leading away from the house. Her truck is here. She can’t have gone far.
Straight to voicemail.
