Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Monday nights meant one thing. Girls’ night. They’d kept the tradition alive since high school, the ritual binding them tighter than blood.
Last week, three margaritas down, Tessa had flung her arms wide and promised the moon. “Next time, the Rusty Spur. Real music. Real dancing.”
Past Tessa was an idiot.
Now she stood in the Spur’s parking lot, stomach knotted.
The neon sign buzzed like it had a grudge.
Christmas lights sagged across the roof, half burned out.
Trucks wedged in every spot, mufflers coughing white clouds into the cold.
Smoke drifted from a nearby chimney, clinging to her clothes before she even made it to the door.
This was supposed to prove she was still fun. Still Tessa. Instead, it felt like walking into her own trap. Going home would’ve been smarter, except home meant the ranch, and every fence post, every paddock, every echo of Cade’s voice whispering you’ve got this would be waiting there.
The bass rolled through the walls, heavy as a pulse. Her teeth buzzed with it. She wanted to turn around and skedaddle, skipping tonight just as Megan had when she texted last minute to say she developed a migraine after the disaster run through of the Christmas pageant and needed to bow out.
Tonight, it was just the three of them and that threw things off.
“Wait, hold up.” Fiona tottered across the gravel, sequins flashing like a human disco ball, stilettos wobbling. “These things were not made for rocks.”
Eliza snagged her elbow, steady as sunrise. “At this rate, you’ll face-plant before we even get inside.”
Fiona hooked onto Tessa too, grip ironclad. “Don’t even think about running. You’re the genius who picked this circus, and we’re seeing it through.”
The bouncer, Chet Truman, lounged in the doorway, Santa hat sliding over one ear. Same Chet they all endured in tenth-grade biology. “IDs, ladies?”
Fiona breezed past him with an eye roll. “Out of the way, Chet.”
“Hey, Tessa.” His grin cracked his windburned cheeks. “Great parade Saturday. My kids won’t shut up about those reindeer.”
Her throat pinched. She pasted on a smile. “Thanks, Chet.”
Inside, the Spur roared alive. Jimmy Castellanos and the Renegades had turned Jingle Bell Rock into a fiddle-stomp free-for-all. Boots hammered the warped floorboards. Strings of colored bulbs painted everything forgiven. Neighbors cut loose. Laughter poured thick as beer.
It should’ve lifted her. Instead, it underlined the hollow. Cade had taken the part of her that fit here, and without it she rattled empty.
“There’s a table.” Eliza steered them toward the back, past a mechanical bull dolled up with antlers and a red nose. “Fiona, grab it. I’ll get the first round.”
Tessa raised a finger. “Cider. Mulled, if they have it.”
“They always do.” Fiona pulled out her phone to peek at a text. “Ned’s mom’s recipe. She would haunt him if he stopped making it at Christmas.”
They didn’t make it three steps before Mrs. Yancy latched onto Tessa’s sleeve. “Tessa! Those reindeer of yours stole the show!”
“Thanks.” Tessa edged toward escape.
“My granddaughter wants Einstein at her birthday. Do you have cards?”
“I’ll check my calendar.”
“And that cowboy of yours, what a horseman! Is he taking clients? My mare’s got some issues.”
“He’s not mine.” She broke free, ducking past, leaving Mrs. Yancy frowning after her.
Pride and shame crashed inside her. People already thought Cade was hers. The cowboy who calmed skittish horses, who kissed her under mistletoe like he meant forever. And he was already gone. The town would chalk this up as another Tessa failure.
At their table, Fiona shimmied out of her parka, sequins shining in the light.
“Subtle.” Tessa slid out of her own coat.
“It’s Christmas. I’m allowed to look like a disco ball.” Fiona fluffed her hair.
Eliza returned with mugs steaming. “Ned says hey. Also says you still owe him for the goat.”
“That was ten years ago.”
“Elephants and bartenders never forget.” Eliza passed them their drinks.
The cider was rich with cloves and cinnamon, and steam curled into Tessa’s face. She held the mug between both hands, savoring the burn.
Fiona drummed her nails on the wood. “Spill, Tessa. You’ve been twitchy since we got here.”
Her chest squeezed. The tears pressed hot behind her eyes. She tipped her gaze upward, searching for control and spied a sprig of mistletoe, tied with red ribbon, dangling above the bar.
Bam.
Memory blindsided her. The football field.
Cade’s breath warm against her cheek. Peppermint, cocoa, the drag of his fingers in her hair.
Proof he was real. Proof he wanted her. Proof she wasn’t just the town airhead stumbling into a fantasy she couldn’t hold.
But the memory cut both ways. If he was real, then so was his leaving.
How could a kiss taste like forever and vanish like a dream?
Eliza leaned in. “Talk to us.”
The words pressed against her chest. She could lie. God knows she had before. But Eliza would see through her, and Fiona deserved more than the brittle smile she was hiding behind.
Her chest burned. She couldn’t keep it to herself another second. She dug into her bag, pulled out Cade’s Christmas card, and set it on the table.
Mountains stark, snowfield sharp, but Cade’s figure was already half-erased, shoulders dissolving, face fading to shadows. Her stomach lurched. It was like watching him die in increments. How much longer until he was gone forever?
Eliza stared at the card, her hand flew to her throat. “No.”
The word split Tessa in two, and tears slipped down her cheeks.
Fiona studied the card closer. “I don’t get it. This is just a Christmas card that got wet.”
Eliza shook her head. “Not just any Christmas card. It’s Cade.”
“Huh?” Fiona wrinkled her nose. “You’re telling me this blurry cowboy is Cade? Tessa, come on.”
“It’s the card I found before he appeared.” Tessa remembered the wild dancing she did to dislodge the card, felt a bittersweet pang.
Fiona laughed. “This is a prank. Holiday edition Punk’d. Tell me you’re kidding.”
Eliza locked eyes with Tessa. “Cade’s gone?”
Tessa kept her eyes on Eliza, searching her face as if she could find answers there. “Yes.”
“Gone where?” Fiona scratched her head. “I’m confused.”
Tessa shifted her gaze from Eliza to Fiona. “Back to eighteen seventy-eight.”
Fiona jerked back. “Excuse me?”
Boots stomped, fiddles shrieked, glasses clinked, ordinary life rolling on, while in their corner everything changed.
Fiona swung to Eliza. “Do you get what she’s saying?”
Eliza sagged back in her chair and sighed. “I do.”
Fiona’s laugh thinned. “Are you saying Wyatt—?”
“Is also from eighteen seventy-eight? Yes.”
“Like what? Time travel?”
Tessa and Eliza nodded in unison.
Fiona’s mouth fell open. “Time travel? You’ve lost your minds.”
“We know how it sounds.” Tessa stroked the card, grief pulling her apart. “But we’ve lived it.”
Fiona eyed the card like it might explode. “And this card is the portal?”
“It is,” Eliza said. “Now that Cade’s gone back, his picture is vanishing.”
Fiona shook her head. “This is insane. Next you’ll tell me Santa Claus is real. Or the Tooth Fairy.”
Eliza didn’t flinch. “Wyatt came through a card just like this. I watched it happen.” She touched Cade’s ghostly image. “Wyatt went back once too, but then returned for good, and the card burned to ash. He’s in twenty twenty-five permanently.”
Fiona cupped both palms over her ears. “How is this possible?”
“We don’t know,” Tessa said.
Eliza turned to her. “When did Cade vanish?”
“Yesterday. After we got back from town. I told him—” She pressed her fist to her mouth, choking back a sob. “I told him if I quit Rent-a-Reindeer, I didn’t need him. And then the card took him.”
Eliza’s mouth fell open, and her eyes rounded. “You’re quitting Rent-a-Reindeer? Why?”
The word speared straight through her. She tried for humor, her old shield. “Fear of success?”
“Or.” Fiona raised a stop-sign palm. “Hear me out. It’s because if you succeed, you’ll surrender being the screw-up.”
The words landed like a boot to her chest. If she wasn’t the flake, who was she? Without her mess-ups, her laugh-it-off mask, what was left? The thought scared her more than Cade vanishing. At least Cade was explainable, magic, time, fate. But who was she minus the ditzy identity?
Fiona picked up the card, studying the fading image. “I can barely see him, but I can kind of see it’s Cade. You’re serious about this?”
“As a heart attack,” Tessa said.
Fiona shook her head. “This is insane. Wyatt’s from 1878?”
“And Cade too. They were friends, worked the same cattle outfit.” Tessa didn’t blame Fiona for being unconvinced. She did the same when Eliza told her about Wyatt when he disappeared.
“But Wyatt stayed.” Fiona’s brow furrowed. “So why did Cade—”
“Because I panicked. Because I said something stupid, and the magic took me at my word.”
The waitress arrived with nachos none of them had ordered. “From the gentleman at the bar. Said you ladies appeared like you needed fortification.” They turned. Ned raised his glass in salute, his Santa hat at a rakish angle.
“Tell him thanks.” Eliza grabbed a chip.
Fiona dragged the plate closer. “Okay, so magic is real and time travel happens. Apparently, I’m the last to know.”
“Megan doesn’t know.” Tessa toyed with a cocktail napkin.
Fiona gave a shaky laugh. “Well, that makes me feel marginally better. What else? Unicorns? Flying monkeys?”
“Who knows?” Eliza lifted her shoulders and her hands.
“So Cade’s really gone?” Fiona stroked her chin, puzzling it out.
Tessa stared at the card. Even in these few minutes, he’d faded more. “Presumably, the card took him back because I said I didn’t need him.”
“But you didn’t mean it.”
“The magic doesn’t care what I meant.”
“That’s stupid magic. Who designed this system? I want to see the manager.” Fiona lightly banged her fist on the table.
Tessa managed a smile, but it collapsed fast. The band shifted to a faster song. The crowd whooped. A conga line broke out by the pool tables.
Fiona covered Tessa’s hand. “We’ll figure this out. If the magic brought him here, it can bring him back. Like Wyatt.”
“What if he doesn’t want to come back?” Tessa curled her hands into fists.
“Oh.” Fiona bit her lip.
The mechanical bull launched a rider skyward, the crowd roaring as he staggered up, bowing. Boots stomped, spurs jingled, the disco ball sprayed the room in fractured light.
Tessa sat in the middle of it, emptied out. Around her, life whirled on, a snow globe shaken by someone else’s hand. Lights spun, people laughed, and she stayed frozen, gutted.
“Tessa?” Worried pinched Eliza’s forehead. “Are you okay?”
“No,” she said. “I’m not.”