Tonight, I’m sleeping in Buckhorn, in Dallas McCoy’s borrowed clothes, in a ranch bedroom that smells of my past.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dallas
December 25th
Sleepand I don’t spend much time together all night long.
I look at the clock every damn hour between midnight and five, listening to the old house breathe. The wind makes the siding creak when it presses a little harder. Rusty snores loud as a chainsaw, somehow carrying straight through my closed door as if he’s lying on my pillow instead of on the rug in the hallway.
And under it all, a hum I can’t shut off, one thought:
Faith Ross is asleep in my house.
Every time I drift off, my brain tosses up some image just to make sure I don’t get too comfortable. Her wide green eyes in the snow when she looks up at me. Her bare feet, red and wet. The way my old flannel swallows her whole, making her look more like the high school girl who used to steal my hoodies than the runaway bride who nearly totaled her car outside our gate.
By four thirty, I give up.
I roll out of bed, shove my legs into a pair of jeans, and drag a T-shirt over my head. The hall is cold under my bare feet, familiar as the back of my hand. I move quietly, out of habit.Years of sneaking in late from the barn or early for winter chores have taught me exactly where every floorboard will squeak. I step over the bad one outside Nash’s room without thinking.
Light spills faint and warm from under one door near the middle of the hall.
Mom.
Of course she’s up. Maggie McCoy sees five a.m. every day, whether she wants to or not. On Christmas, she meets it with a ham already in the oven and cinnamon rolls halfway risen.
I pad past the guest room, Faith’s room, for now. The door is closed. I pause, my hand hovering halfway toward the knob. Curiosity tugs at me, stupid and strong.
Is she still asleep? Did she wake up and realize this is all a mistake? Did she sneak out and hike to town in my mother’s slippers?
The mental picture of Faith tromping down Old Mill Road in pink terry cloth slippers almost makes me smile.
I keep walking.
The kitchen is warm, the scent of coffee and rising dough lingering. Mom stands at the counter in her Christmas apron, hair twisted up in a messy knot, hands deep in a bowl of something sticky. The radio on the windowsill murmurs low, Bing Crosby crooning about a white Christmas as if he has any idea.
“Morning.”
Mom jumps, flour dust poofing off her fingers.
“Lord have mercy, Dallas,” she says, pressing a hand over her chest. “You trying to take ten years off my life, sneaking around like that?”
“Pretty sure my lurking skills are rusty,” I say. “You’re just jumpy.”
She squints at me, then shakes her head and turns back to the dough. “Yeah,I’mthe issue…”
I grunt and head for the coffee pot, which is already half full because of course it is. Mom doesn’t believe in starting the day without caffeine and prayers, in that order.
“You’re up early,” she adds, casual in the way that means she’s not being casual at all. “Even for you.”
I pour a mug, black and strong. “Didn’t sleep much.”
“I noticed.” She keeps kneading, forearms working. “Heard you pacing around like a caged bull at two a.m.”
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“Didn’t say it was a problem,” she says. “Just means something’s on your mind…”
