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“She was a premie.”
“An eight-pound premie,” Edie said. “Good thing she came early, or Ma still wouldn’t be walking straight.”
Mel snorted, elbowing Alex, her quiet, well-dressed husband whose sharp eyes seemed to see everything, and everyone laughed. Then the next ornament came out of the box, and another story came with it. No one seemed overly stuck on Selene’s tale. No one but Bobby Joe. He was kind of fixated on it and spent the rest of the evening searching the girl and noticing things that probably meant nothing at all.
Her eyes, though, weren’t they a lot like Joey’s? The shape of them, at least. And her chin was almost identical to Jason’s. But no, she looked like her sisters too, and like her mother. All in different ways.
Still....
No. No, Vidalia wouldn’t have kept a secret like that. Not like that.
Would she?
He watched when the ornament with her baby photo was hung, and sidled that way at the first opportunity for a closer look. But Vidalia reached past him, and took it from the branch where it dangled. “Sorry, Bobby Joe, but this one ought to be on my tree at home. I have no idea why it was buried in that box of forgotten ornaments.”
“You’re the one who keeps saying everything happens for a reason, Vidalia,” he said. “Could there have been a reason for that, too?”
She averted her eyes. “My forgetfulness is the only one that comes to mind. Oh, look! Kara, that’s the God’s Eye you made in Kindergarten!” And she hurried to her daughter and left the conversation with Bobby Joe unfinished.
But a seed had been planted, and he was looking at Selene differently now, and at the easy way she was laughing with Joey and rearranging the glittering silver ball he’d just hung.
When the tree was all decked, Vidalia ran around shutting off all the lights, and Rob stood with a plug in one hand, near an outlet. Everyone else gathered in front of the giant pine. The children were still giggly but starting to look a little bit sleepy, too.
As soon as Vidalia returned to his side, Bobby Joe said, “Okay, Rob. Light her up.”
Rob plugged in the extension cord, and the tree came to life, a collection of multicolored lights, topped by strand after strand of tiny white twinkling ones. There came a collective “Ooooh” that should’ve been corny, but somehow, wasn’t.
Softly, Maya started to sing “Oh Christmas Tree” and the others all joined in. Even his sons, though they probably had to guess at the words. Vidalia elbowed him. “Come on, open that heart of yours and let the magic in.”
He nodded and started singing. He didn’t mutter. He sang out loud. And he knew he was going to get his wish. A Christmas his sons could remember after he was gone. And all thanks to this woman.
Even as he thought it, she looked up at him with a dreamy smile and a suspicious glimmer on her lashes, and slipped her small hand inside his. He closed his around it, and his heart tightened. It wasn’t fair not to tell her. He realized he had to do it and soon. He was going to break her heart otherwise.
CHAPTERSEVEN
Vidalia said she had posted signs all over the OK Corral explaining that tonight, she was closing in order to help welcome a new saloon to town and encouraging her patrons to stop in to see her at the grand opening of The Long Branch.
Now she was with him, at the brand new saloon, and she and the boys were rehearsing their lines in the store rooms in back. Bobby Joe had spared no expense on the costumes and props. Vidalia had even added Miss Kitty’s beauty mark to her own cheek for good measure. She looked more like Miss Kitty than the real one had, aside from one minor alteration. Vidalia’s hair was jet black, not copper penny red.
Her big skirt and bustier top might have been a little sexier than Miss Kitty had worn, but then, he’d probably think that about a feedbag if she was the one wearing it. “Marshall Dillon” walked up behind her and looked over her shoulder at her reflection. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her décolletage and didn’t bother trying. “Damn, woman. You look even better in that getup than that photo of you from Halloween.”
“Well, it’s a nicer costume,” she said, but her eyes were on him in the mirror. He wore his duster and cowboy hat and her eyes said she liked the look on him.
“Even better than you did in my imagination when I picked it out, too, he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “And trust me, that’s saying something.”
“I’m not bad for my age, I suppose.”
“You’re not bad for any age.” He turned toward the still-open door leading into the saloon. “Jason, you out there?”
“Yeah, pop,” Jason said, poking his head through the door. “What’s up?”
Bobby Joe pulled his six shooter from his holster and held it up. “You’re gonna have to switch out my blanks for real bullets, or I’m not gonna be able to keep the competition away from my lady, here.”
Vidalia spun around, snatched the gun away from him. “Keep it in your holster, Marshall.”
He laughed out loud, slapping his thigh, and Jason laughed too, shaking his head and returning to the saloon.
“You look so much better than you did the other day,” Vidalia said, her smile giving way to a serious expression, and a searching one too.
