Read Christmas With A Stranger Online Free by Blakely Stone

Five hundred is what I can do now. Once the baby comes, we'll figure out what changes. By then, maybe I'll start seeing some income from Dutch's property. For now, five hundred a month will have to do during the pregnancy.

The memo line sits empty, and there's no word I'd put on it. I leave it blank, tear the check out along the perforation, and set it face-up by my elbow.

Then I pick up the phone and open the flight search. I put in Denver to Asheville through Charlotte, leaving the fourth, and the little wheel spins until the fares come up in a stack. The cheap one is four hundred eighty-six round trip, with a long layover.

I turn over the electric bill and get the pencil off the windowsill.

I write four-eight-six at the top. Under it I put a rental car for three days, call it two hundred, and two nights in a room at a hundred and ten a night. Then I write the five hundred to her, because as far as I'm concerned, I spent that when I said it.

I draw the line and add it up. Under the total, I put the glow plugs Wade charged to the account and the feed bill that came this week, and both of those are due before the month's out.

The ticket alone is fourteen dollars shy of what I'm sending her.

I can get on a plane and be there for the ultrasound, or I can put five hundred in an envelope like I said I would. February doesn't have room for both. It isn't close. The heifers told me no this morning, and now the numbers say the same thing.

I close the search without booking anything.

I get an envelope out of the drawer. Dutch's receipt is still in my shirt pocket. I turn it over and copy her address onto the envelope one line at a time so I don't get a number wrong.

I fold the check once and put it inside. I run my tongue along the flap, press it shut, and lay it on top of my truck keys by the door.

The next day, it's my afternoon to call Hildie, so I drive the envelope down to the end of the lane and make the call from the truck with the heater blowing warm across my knees.

I dial Sabal Point. Manny picks up on the second ring. "Front desk."

"It's Carson North."

"Carson! Great to hear from you. Hildie's been asking about you. Hold on, let me get her."

The wind rocks the truck on its springs, and I keep one hand on the wheel out of habit.

"There you are," Hildie says, sharp and bright, with no fumbling at the front of it. It's a good afternoon, then. "You will not believe what Dolores did today. She reneged on a spade and swore up and down she didn't."

"She didn't."

"She most certainly did. I watched her lay a club over top of it, plain as day, and when I called it she looked at me like I'd lost my mind." She huffs into the phone. "As if I can't count a suit."

"You can count a suit."