32. Dallas
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Dallas
I don’t usually get nervous 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.
“Faith,” I say after the beep, forcing calm into my voice because panic won’t help her hear me. “It’s me. I’m here. I just got to your mom’s. Call me back. Right now.”
I hang up and look around again.
Behind me, her mom steps onto the porch, pulling her coat tighter. I hear the worry in her breathing even before she speaks.
“She wouldn’t just walk off,” she says.
“Maybe,” I say carefully, already not liking the sound of my own voice, “maybe she thought we were meeting somewhere else. The diner, or—”
“She would’ve told me,” her mom says, shaking her head before I can finish. “She was very clear. She said she’d wait. Besides, her car is here.”
The unease sharpens into something colder, heavier, settling low in my stomach.
“I’ll check town,” I say. “Be right back.”
She hesitates, then nods. “Please call me.”
“I will,” I promise, and head back to the truck faster than I should be walking, my breath fogging hard in the air.
I drive slow, eyes scanning sidewalks, porches, parked cars, every shadow stretching a little too long. Faith isn’t the kind of woman who disappears easily. She stands out without trying. Always has. The idea of her just vanishing into the dark doesn’t sit right.
I turn onto Main Street, the diner lit up as a beacon at the center of it all. Steam fogs the windows, neon humming faintly above the door. If Faith went anywhere, it would be here.
I park crooked and push inside.
Warmth hits me immediately. Coffee, grease, sugar, the familiar smell of Buckhorn’s unofficial meeting place. Jet looks up from behind the counter, a smile already forming until she really looks at my face.
“Evenin’, cowboy. You’re early for—”
“Have you seen Faith?” I cut in.
Her smile falters. “Tonight?”
“Yes.”
She shakes her head slowly. “No. Not tonight.”
Martha Lou, refilling sugar caddies at the far end, glances up. “Seen her this afternoon,” she calls. “But not since.”
My stomach sinks.
“Thanks,” I say, already backing toward the door. “I’ll find her, I’m sure it’s just…”
What?
A mix-up?
I don’t know anymore.
Outside, the cold bites harder than before. I tell myself not to jump to conclusions, not to borrow trouble that hasn’t earned it yet. Faith is an adult. She knows this town. She could’ve doubled back, could be walking, could’ve decided she needed air, and forgotten to say anything.
People are allowed to change plans.
Still, my hands are tight on the steering wheel as I circle the last few streets. I slow near the park. Check the benches. The library lot. The stretch of road that leads back toward her mom’s place. Nothing. No familiar coat, no flash of blonde hair, no movement that makes my chest ease.
I don’t want to get dramatic. I really don’t. I’ve spent years training myself not to panic, not to assume the worst just because my instincts are loud. Ranch life teaches you that most things have explanations if you give them time.
But the problem is… time keeps moving.
And Faith still hasn’t turned up.
I sit at a stop sign longer than necessary, exhaust puffing into the night, and finally admit what my gut’s been trying to tell me since I opened that diner door.
This isn’t just a missed connection.
I turn the truck around and head back toward her mom’s house.
The porch light is still on when I pull in, and that shouldn’t make my chest tighten the way it does. I park faster this time, don’t bother sitting to collect myself. When I knock, the door opens almost immediately, as if she’s been waiting behind it.
Her mom’s face tells me everything before she even speaks.
“You didn’t find her,” she says quietly.
I shake my head. “No, ma’am.”
She steps back without a word, letting me inside. The house smells of cinnamon and something baked earlier, but the warmth doesn’t reach all the way in tonight. There’s a tension in the air now, thin and brittle.
“She hasn’t called,” her mom says. “Or texted. And that’s not like her.”
I scrub a hand over my jaw. “She didn’t say anything else before she left? Anyone she might’ve gone to see?”
“No.” Her voice tightens. “She was anxious, but she didn’t say where she was going. Just that she needed air.”
That word again.
Anxious.
I shift my weight, feeling too big in the small living room. “She’s been under a lot of stress lately, hasn’t she?”
Her mom exhales, long and tired. She’s been holding this in all evening. “She’s been getting some abuse, weird photos and texts sent to her.”
Sickness bubbles up in my stomach. I remember the look on her face the day she ran out on me. Is this why? Did she get a message that freaked her out?
“What sort of photos?”
“Photos from her wedding day. And her life here.” She meets my eyes. “I guess her father figured out that she came back here.”
She types something on her phone and turns the screen toward me.
It takes me a moment to understand what I’m looking at. My brain stumbles, trying to make sense of it. Faith in her wedding dress. Faith getting into her truck. Faith here.
My chest goes tight, breath locking halfway in.
“She didn’t tell me.”
Her mom gives a sad smile. “Faith has spent her whole life learning how to carry things alone.”
That lands harder than it should.
Silence stretches between us, thick with possibilities neither of us wants to say out loud.
Finally, I ask the question that’s been circling since I got back in my truck. “Do you think she ran?”
Her mom’s shoulders tense. “I don’t know.”
Not knowing is the worst part. If Faith had decided to leave, to bolt again, overwhelmed and cornered, I could almost understand it, even if it tore something out of me. But the other option sits there too, heavy and dark.
“So her father knows she’s here,” I say slowly.
“Yes.”
“And he’s angry.”
“Yes.”
I pace a short line across the rug and back. “Do you think he came for her?”
The color drains out of her mom’s face. “We need help.”
“You mean—”
“Yes,” she says firmly. “We need to call the police.”
My instinct flares. Part of me wants to keep this contained, to search every road myself, to fix it with muscle and persistence the way I fix everything else. But this isn’t a busted fence or a missing cow.
This is Faith.
“You’re right,” I say. “We do.”
She reaches for the phone again, hands steadier now that the decision’s made. I stay where I am, close enough to feel useful, useless enough to hate it.
As she dials, my gaze drifts to the window, out toward the quiet street. Snow drifts down, softening everything it touches.
Come on, Faith, I think, the worry finally breaking through all the restraint. Wherever you are… just be okay. Just at least let us know you’re okay.