Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Blair
B y the time we stepped into the diner— Dallas tugged down his hat while I thought he’d take it off—as things were almost ready to start. I found a seat in time for servers to round the room with cups of coffee, and while Dallas took one and dropped the minimum amount of sweeteners in it, I sipped from the cup I still had.
Dallas perplexed me; at one time, I’d considered him a cut-and-dry, black-and-white, stubborn soul who didn’t bend for anyone. Now, I was seeing sides to him that I doubted he had shown to anyone.
Sure, he was still plagued with guilt and regret for how he had dealt with his brother, this town, and the people who had once known him. Dallas was whip-smart; he knew his business, knew himself, and decided on what he wanted and didn’t want. He was a you-get-what-you-see kind of guy.
I liked that .
He was bold, bossy, and didn’t pussyfoot around any issues, not like some corporate schmucks I knew who could be bought and sold for a coin and a compliment. He didn’t have an ego that needed to be stroked, and he didn’t have anything to lose or gain by not being himself.
Not to mention, he rocked my body like a localized earthquake.
“Is everybody here?” Miss Betty said while entering the room, her eyes skimming over the crowd. “Well, almost everyone, I suppose. It will be enough to get the word out. Tom, do you want to take it away?”
A man, tall and broad-shouldered with short-cropped hair and piercing blue eyes, stepped up. He wore the green pants and khaki button-down uniform a sheriff wore, and the badge shining on his lapel told me I was right. He cocked his thumbs in his belt loops and rocked back on his heels.
“Glad to see you all,” he said. “I don’t need to go on a long spiel about this. We’ve been doing this song-and-dance for as long as I can remember, so no one should be surprised how Secret Santa works.”
“It’s two weeks before Black Friday, so we need to get everyone participating signed up to do the shuffle after Thanksgiving. I assume all of you here will be participating, but we have sign-up sheets to pass around for those who are not. Get as many as you can so we won’t miss anyone.”
“And we mean no one,” a lady with graying auburn hair came to stand by him. “Sheriff Callahan is right. Last year, we missed three people, and it was not pretty.”
“Thanks, Laura,” the sheriff said, nodding. “From the drawing on Black Friday to Christmas Eve, you have ample time to find the gift for your person. We have no idea what your budget will be like, but please put some thought into the gift. Consider what the person likes and what might make them smile. For example, you know I love hiking, so a pair of boots wouldn’t go amiss.”
The lady gave him a sidelong glance. “So now we know what the Sheriff wants, we can use that thinking for all the gifts we can give.”
“Yep, Laura,” he said, then coughed into a fist, “Waterproof and size thirteen.”
A titter went through the room, and I couldn’t even hold back a smile. These people were so far removed from those I usually rubbed elbows with back home in Georgia and at my job in Texas.
They were so refreshingly genuine and wholesome that I suddenly craved that back in Texas. These people were no big wigs out to twist a contract to benefit them, or were some corporate mogul ready to screw the little man over. They were not two-faced, not ready to stab you in the back for profit, or were willing to kick you when you were down.
“We have some new faces around here,” Laura said, craning her head around. “I think we all know one of our own is back home.”
“Fuck,” Dallas muttered under his breath.
I sipped my drink, “You’re up, bronco.”
He lifted his hand, and every eye turned to us. Dallas plucked his hat off and rested it on the table. “Dallas Donovan, yes, I’m back.”
A ripple ran through the room, and Dallas held his head up, letting the rest of the room look at him freely. I had to give him credit for facing another fear of his. I couldn’t understand how facing a whole town of people you abandoned decades ago felt. That slice of humble pie had to be going down the wrong way .
A few women were looking his way, and when their eyes skittered over to me, I held my reaction.
“Good to see you back, Dallas.” The sheriff nodded. “And who is the pretty little lady near you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Blair Cullen here,” I waved, “I’m Warrick’s business partner here overlooking the processing plant construction.”
“Ah,” Helen nodded. “Welcome to our humble town.”
“Thank you,” I replied.
“Now, we have the first sign-up sheet going around,” Sheriff Callahan said. “Drop your John Hancock on it, and when we’re done, we’ll have the other sheets for you to keep and pass around the community. Get all the sheets in two days before Black Friday, and we’ll have all the time we need to tally the names and get them into the bucket.”
“Any questions?” Laura asked, her eyes spanning the room.
A few people asked questions about what if they were duplicates or if someone didn’t want to sign up, and they got the answers they were looking for while Dallas was drinking coffee at a rate where the beans would probably go extinct.
I leaned in. “What’s going on in your head?”
His eyes flickered up, brows tightly furrowed. “Too much to say right now.”
Sitting back, I gave him his space but god damn, Dallas. When are you going to let go of all the ideas in your head telling you these people had nothing but unending forgiveness for you and were lining up with pitchforks to skewer you alive? Why would they do it now if they hadn’t done it when word got out that you were here a week ago?
Aren’t you smarter than that?
Or was it a can’t see the forest for the trees' kind of thing ?
Did I dare talk to him about it, or just let it slide?
The quick meeting adjourned, and as we made it to the truck, a steady stream of people came to talk to Dallas. Some asked him where he’d been, others were concerned if he was sticking around, and others wanted to know if he would help Warrick with the ranch.
At first, his answers were light and amiable, but as the questions continued, I could see how nervous and uncomfortable he was, and by the tick in his jaw, I knew he was a second away from blowing up. I had to step in.
Poking my head out the window, I said, “I am sorry to interrupt, but Frankie texted me. He said there is an emergency at the ranch, and we must return there ASAP.”
“Oh, oh,” the lady questioning Dallas jumped. “Oh god, go, go. I won’t keep you.”
Nodding, Dallas jumped into the truck and got the engine throttling in seconds; we peeled out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell to the ranch. When we parked at the steps, Dallas yanked the handbrake up and slumped against the door. He plucked the hat off and rubbed his eyes, those long fingers with sparse hair dotted at the knuckles.
I didn’t say a word.
When he did peel his hands from his eyes, his gaze was baleful. “Thanks for saving my ass back there.”
I cocked my head, “You know it was fake?”
“As fake as Billy Burner’s prize pig suddenly growing wings and flying off to Delaware,” he said.
Even though I did not know who Billy Burner was or what his prize pig was, I had seen enough town fairs to make a visualize it. “You’re welcome,” I said.
It was just under two o’clock, and after a quick trip to my room to check for any emails from Hunter, I went downstairs, hoping to find Dallas. He was probably on the ranch with bulls bigger than my grandaddy’s beast of a tractor.
I wanted to ride out to see him too, so I switched my pants out for looser jeans— note to self, buy bootcut jeans with stretch— and strode out to the back doors, pausing to speak with Marie.
“Here,” she handed me a tumbler of warm coffee. “He’ll appreciate this. It’s getting cold out there.”
“Okay,” I said, firming my grip around the tumbler.
“There’s enough for two,” she smiled innocently.
My heart began pumping double time— what was she hinting at here? I didn’t have the heart to ask her, so I just nodded and booked it out the door. I got to the stables, expecting to saddle my horse, but found Dallas there, slowly backing up as a huge dog stalked him.
“Whoa, whoa, boy. Sit.” The dog kept heading toward him, and panic set on his face. “Sit, boy. God damn it, sit, I say!”
The dog sat on his haunches— for two seconds before he leaped and crashed into Dallas, taking him to the floor, that damn hat flying in the opposite direction. My knees gave out from under me as I watched, and I had to slap a hand against the wall to stop myself from collapsing entirely.
“Stop,” he shouted as the dog licked his face. “Stop it, you mangy mutt! Get off me.”
Nope, my butt hit the floor, I couldn’t take it anymore. I even tilted to the side, grabbing my belly from how much it hurt. It was a miracle I kept hold of the tumbler, or else that would be lying sideways on the floor.
“Get. Off. Me.” Dallas managed to unseat the giant dog and herd him into a stall before locking it, glaring daggers and sadistic death at me. Dusting off his pants, he grunted. “You could have helped me, you know, instead of laughing at me like a loon.”
“And do what?” I asked, still on the floor. “Get trampled like you? I am a third of your size, if you haven't noticed. You barely handled that dog. What was I supposed to do, hm? Be like Cinderella and charm him off you?”
He stared at me long enough that I got concerned. “What?”
“I don’t think you got that princess right,” he said while extending a hand to me. “Wasn’t that supposed to be Snow White or something?”
“You know princesses?” I asked, then teased. “Do you have a secret fetish I don’t know about?”
His voice was flat. “I’ve had girlfriends who had little sisters and was forced to sit and watch TV with them before the squirt could doze off so we could make out.”
Rolling my eyes, I handed him the tumbler. “Marie, send her regards.”
He took it. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to carry your coffee.”
“This is an aberration of the rule,” I said. “Now, say thank you like a good little boy.”
“I’m not a boy,” Dallas said while screwing the tumbler’s top off to sniff the contents. “Or good and hardly little.”
Oh fuck, didn’t I know it?
Clearing my throat, I brushed off my backside and stepped away. “I thought you were on the ranch, doing what all you rough, tough cowboys do.”
He cocked a boot on the nearby wall and poured himself a cup. “You mean the mind-numbing, rough, tough job of watching bulls graze without a care in the world? Oh, yes, it's riveting. ”
Mirroring his position, I observed for any flare-up. The man might deny it to his dying day, but he had more tics than a feral wild hog in the forest— and I’d begun to recognize them all.
“Are you going to stay until Christmas?” I asked. “If you’re considering your options, it seems a bit… much.”
He finished his drink and capped the tumbler. “I don’t know about Christmas, but I do know about Thanksgiving. I haven’t been here in so long that I want to spend it here, to wipe out the memory of the night when I snuck away with a knapsack on my back, my fortune of eight hundred and seventy-nine bucks, and dumb luck on my side.”
“Crossing two states to California.”
“Three, actually,” Dallas replied. “I’d crossed into Oregon before I went to Nevada.”
I cocked my head, “Why?”
“Temp jobs,” he said, “I’d run out of money by then, even while hitchhiking. Had to get some cash in my pockets before making another move….” He fell silent, those damn fingers tracing the top of the cup lid. I wondered if he knew he was doing it. “It was touch and go back then, but now…”
I felt hesitant pushing this, but it needed to be said, “Are you finally realizing that people here are not lining up to lynch you?”
His brows lowered, and his gaze flashed, “Don’t start with that nonsense.”
I lifted my chin, “You still need to realize that these people do not hate you, so stop looking over your shoulder every moment.”
The steel flashing in his eyes had been expected; what I didn't expect was for him to press me against the wall in the dark. His hands bracketed my face, and his growl seemed to come from the bottom of his gut. “Leave off.”
“And what if I don’t?” I asked while my heart kicked up.
The air changed; Dallas was dangerous and exciting. Hot. That harsh set of his eyes stirred something dark inside me that I didn’t want to think about; the grit of his permanent scowl made me want to kiss it away.
“Don’t push me, Blair.”
“Someone has to,” I replied. “Otherwise, how will you get your head out of your ass?”
The playfulness between us from earlier was long gone. A thunderstorm was brewing over Dallas’ face, and I knew I was playing with fire, but fuck me if I didn’t want to fan the flames. Dallas was a stubborn bastard, and I knew that feeling well; he would never move if someone —me— didn’t push him from always teetering on the brink and toward the light.
His jaw worked as he pushed away, stalked five paces away before he spun on his heel and stalked back to me. Roughly grabbing my chin, he ordered. “You need to stay out of my business.”
Was there a word that amalgamated pissed off and turned on? Or could I just call it Dallas? He was red in the face, fuming, but his pupils were dilated with lust. I had to call him out on it.
“Is this your idea of foreplay? Because I’m a little confused. Are we starting early?” I asked.
He glared at me— hard. “You get under my skin.”
I chuckled. “You are flirting. Oh my God.”
“Flirting? Is that what you think I’m doing?” He asked, his left brow inching up. “Really?”
“Are you going to prove me wrong…?” I challenged him. “Or right?”