6. Dallas
CHAPTER SIX
Dallas
By the time the sun drops behind the ridge, I feel I’ve lived three whole days inside one.
Christmas Day always wears me out—the cooking, the gifts, the family noise—but this year it’s different. Because every time I turned around, I felt myself checking the hall, or listening for a door, or looking for a flash of curly hair in my peripheral vision.
Faith Ross has been in my house all day, and I’ve spent every hour pretending it hasn’t gotten under my skin.
Now the house is finally quiet.
Mom and Rose are in the kitchen packing up leftovers, whispering over containers.
Boone has taken Ellie and Wyatt back to the guest house, promising Lila hot cocoa tomorrow and a new game she "has to learn.
" Nash and Clay disappeared the second the cleanup started, which is about as predictable as snow in December.
Lila’s asleep already. Christmas will do that to a kid.
She fell asleep on my chest, fingers tangled in my shirt, book still clutched loosely in her other hand.
I carried her to bed and stood by the door for a long minute afterward, watching her breathe, trying to let the steady rhythm calm the last of my nerves.
It didn’t work.
Now I’m heading down the hall, mug of coffee in hand, trying to decide whether knocking on a guest bedroom door at nearly ten at night is crossing some line.
But Faith is awake.
I can feel it.
Her door is cracked open an inch, a thin strip of warm yellow spilling onto the floor. Inside, something rustles. Fabric, maybe. A soft exhale.
I raise my hand and tap once.
“Faith?”
The door pulls open because she’s right behind it. She’s barefoot, still in those sweatpants from last night, and now drowning in one of my old sweaters, sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Mom must’ve dug it out for her sometime this afternoon.
Her curls are down, her face scrubbed clean, cheeks a little pink from the heat of the room.
She just looks at me.
Then, quietly, says, “Hey.”
There’s something about that one small word that hits me in a place I don’t deserve to feel anything anymore.
“Hey,” I say back. “You doing all right?”
She huffs a laugh and leans a shoulder against the doorframe. “Define ‘all right.’”
I lift my coffee mug, tipping my head toward the living room. “Want some company?”
Her eyebrows rise a little. She wasn’t expecting me to ask.
“Yeah,” she says after a moment. “I think… I think I’d like that.”
She follows me to the living room, where the fire is low, the tree lights still blinking in soft colors. She wraps her arms around herself as she sinks onto the couch, tucking one foot beneath her.
“This house hasn’t changed,” she says. “Not even the mantle decorations.”
“That’s because Mom would fight God Himself if someone tried to rearrange her Christmas setup.”
She smiles faintly. “I used to love this place. More than my own house, honestly.”
I sit in the armchair across from her, though part of me wants to sit beside her, close enough to catch the scent of her hair. Bad idea. Very bad idea.
“It was good having you here today,” I say instead.
She lets out a breath. “It was… overwhelming. But good overwhelming. Your family is a lot.”
“Yeah,” I admit. “They don’t exactly come with a quiet mode.”
“I like it,” she says softly. “The noise. The madness. It feels… warm.”
She trails off, eyes drifting to the fire. Emotion flickers across her face. Sadness, maybe. Or loneliness.
I should leave whatever that is alone. I don’t.
“You want to talk?” I ask.
Her laugh is small, humorless. “About which part? The part where I fled my own wedding again? The part where my father will probably disown me? Or the part where I’m sitting on your couch wearing your clothes like some kind of deranged Christmas ghost?”
“Dealer’s choice,” I say.
She lifts her head and looks at me for a long moment, as if weighing whether I can actually handle the answer.
“Tell me about Lila,” she says at last.
That wasn’t what I expected.
But it settles my insides. This, I can talk about. This, I’m steady on.
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
“Everything,” she says. “She’s amazing. And I had no idea. I mean, I left, and suddenly you’re… you’re a dad.”
I shift, running a thumb along the edge of my mug.
“It wasn’t planned,” I say quietly. “Becoming a dad. But it was… right.”
Faith’s expression softens. “Were you and her serious?”
“We were married,” I say.
Her eyes widen, then she nods slowly, as if the shape of the story is starting to form.
“Belinda was all fire and laughter. She came through Buckhorn with a traveling rodeo, and she lit up every room she touched. I wasn’t looking for anything. I wasn’t even thinking beyond the next sunrise most days. But she…” I swallow. “She made life feel bright again after a long stretch of gray.”
Faith doesn’t interrupt.
“She got pregnant sooner than either of us expected, but we were happy. Scared, but happy. We got married at Grace Community. It was small and quick, nothing fancy.” I glance toward the window, remembering it more clearly than I want to. “She wore a blue dress. Said white wasn’t her color.”
Faith smiles faintly.
I keep going.
“It was good, for a while. She loved being a mom more than anyone expected. She was focused on education, on her big dreams for our baby. She wanted her to have everything. Lila was her whole world. Our whole world.” My throat tightens.
“But then Belinda started getting tired. Not normal tired. Deep, bone tired. She had bruises she couldn’t explain. Colds that never went away.”
Faith’s brows draw together, worry blooming across her face.
“We thought it was postpartum at first. Or stress. But it wasn’t.” I stare into my coffee, though I’m not seeing it. “By the time we got answers, it was already too late. Some things you can’t outrun.”
The silence between us shifts.
“She fought hard,” I say. “Harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. Even when she was scared. Even when she couldn’t hold Lila without help. She stayed kind. That was the part that gutted me. She stayed kind all the way to the end.”
Faith lifts a hand to her mouth, eyes shining. “Dallas… I’m so sorry.”
I nod once. “She passed when Lila was two. Peacefully. At home. We had hospice, and Mom and Boone were here. We weren’t alone.”
Faith trembles. “You went through that without me even knowing.”
I don’t say: You weren’t here.
I don’t say: I didn’t expect you to be.
Instead, I just shrug one shoulder. “Life doesn’t stop for anybody. Not even for people who should’ve had more time.”
Faith looks at me, seeing a whole other version of me layered over the one sitting here. One she didn’t know existed. One she never got to help.
“And after she passed,” I continue, “everything became about Lila. Keeping her safe, keeping her still. Building something strong enough that neither of us would fall through the cracks.”
Faith nods, tears slipping down her cheeks before she can wipe them away.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “For telling me. You’re a really good dad.”
The compliment goes straight to a place I keep tightly locked.
“Trying,” I say quietly.
She studies me, her gaze warm in a way that makes me want to look away. Instead, I force myself to stay still.
“You look older,” she says finally. “Not in a bad way. Just… like life’s been heavy on you.”
“Hasn’t it been on everyone?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Not like this.
“Your mom was so kind this morning,” she says. “And your brothers… loud, but sweet. And then Lila…” Her face warms at the name. “She’s perfect.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Faith inhales, gathering herself. “I didn’t realize how much I missed real people. Real warmth. My mom. My sister. Myself.”
I lean forward slightly. “You can go see them.”
She shakes her head. “I will. Once the snow subsides a little.”
“I’ll help you with your car when I can.”
She gives me a grateful smile.
Silence stretches. Comfortable on my end, tense on hers. She pulls the sweater tighter around herself, as if bracing.
“What happens next?” she asks.
“For you?” I shrug. “Whatever you want.”
She laughs softly. “I have no idea what I want.”
I stand before the urge to sit beside her gets too strong. “I’ll get more firewood in the morning. Blanket’s in the closet if you get cold.”
She rises too, her hand grazing the back of the couch for balance.
“Dallas?”
I look at her.
“It really is good to see you.”
I nod. “You too.”
I turn before the moment can stretch into dangerous territory, then head down the hall toward my room. My steps are steady, but my breathing is not. The door clicks softly behind me.
I scrub both hands over my face, exhaling hard.
This is bad.
This is very, very bad.