The next day, Dallas and I worked for ten hours straight at our beauty salon slash furniture store. The floors were done, the antacid-orange chairs and tacky old gilt mirrors had been disassembled and donated, the walls were freshly painted, and the sagging old furniture that had sat in the front was now out of there, and the space was clean and shining.
There was still so much to do, though, and the tree, sitting in a metal holder, was next on our list. I’d taken down the dusty and dirty old blinds and strung lights around the windows but that naked tree wasn’t looking too hot at the moment. I had run out of excuses with my parents to avoid them, but shockingly they hadn’t contacted me all week.
I wondered if my mom had some Christmas volunteering obligation or if she was biding her time. Because she must’ve heard by now that I was staying with Ruby. But I didn’t want to think about any of that at this moment. We’d already decorated Dallas’s tree at his house, and the one I’d given to Ruby. Now, I wanted to decorate the tree for our businesses’ window.
Dallas plucked a strand of trim out of one of the shopping bags full of decorations we’d bought earlier today. “What, exactly, is this?” he asked.
I turned to look at him and my heart gave a soft flutter as I checked him out. He’d shucked the leather jacket. His long-sleeved shirt and jeans clung to his body in an appealing way. One of his eyebrows lifted as he stared at the strand of gold trim suspiciously. A warm feeling of love rolled through me.
I swallowed hard. “It goes around the tree. You can drape and wrap it and when you run out of that string then put another beside it so the whole strip looks like one piece.”
A knock sounded on the front door and I jumped. Huh. Hadn’t been expecting anyone. I peeked out the window to see who was there. A small frown creased my forehead. “Um, there’s a delivery guy out there. Did you order something?” I asked.
Dallas tossed the strand of trim at the tree. It caught and hung on a branch. “Yep. Thought we could use some dinner after our hard work.”
I smiled. “Aww, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He headed for the door and dealt with the delivery person while I removed the trim so I could get it better situated. The smell of hot and gooey cheese, bacon, and olives hit my nose and I completely forgot about the trim and the tree as Dallas came inside with a pizza.
My belly rumbled. “That smells amazing.”
He set the pizza box on a small table we’d set up to hold tools and things. He settled a six-pack of beer beside the box and I eyed the bottles. “The pizza place delivers beer?”
“It’s actually a craft brewery that makes the best pizza in town. This is their pale ale.”
“Huh.” I headed for the table. “The place must be new.”
Dallas twisted the tops off two beers and passed one to me. I took a sip and the chilled liquid hit my throat, tasting like hops and malt. I swallowed. “Refreshing.”
He lifted the top of the box and I stared down at the wood fired pie with delight. He handed me a paper plate. “Here you go.”
“Thanks,” I said, loving that he’d so casually taken care of dinner for us. We helped ourselves to the pizza and then went back to the tree with plates and beers in hand.
I stared at the tree, imagining how it would look all decorated. “This is going to draw in clients,” I said, then sank my teeth into delicious gooey cheese and tomato sauce.
Dallas bit into a crispy-crusted slice and nodded. “Glad I talked you into it.”
“I think you have that backwards.” I gave him a sideways glance and watched him wink at me. Then I bit deep into the pizza again, sighing happily as the flavors of roasted garlic, red pepper, and cheese met my taste buds. I paused before taking another bite. “I was the one who suggested this particular tree.”
“So you did.” He winked at me, his eyes twinkling and my heart picked up to a rapid pulse. I’d been hoping we could talk about what was happening between us since I wasn’t going to be able to force him out of the salon until Coraline returned Christmas Eve and I wasn’t able to keep him out of my heart either.
It hit me then that we’d been spending so much time together with fun and easy banter—not to mention earth shattering kisses—but I didn’t know much about his time between high school graduation and now. I set my plate down and picked up a box of bulbs then began threading the accompanying hooks through them while Dallas sipped his beer and then began settling the trim end to end to make a nice continuous loop around the bottom of the tree.
I knelt down beside him and wrapped my arm around his shoulder. “So. . . I have an awkward question for you.”
“Maybe I can give you an awkward answer.” He turned to me, the corners of his mouth lifting as he brushed his lips over mine. Oh, yum.
“Have you been dating anyone?” My cheeks heated as I realized how that sounded. “Not that I think you’re dating anyone else right now. I mean, we’re with each other all day long and it’s not like you’ve snuck off to the other room to check your phone or anything.” I rolled my eyes, wishing I could take back everything that had just spewed from my mouth. “The last girl I saw you with was Nina Abbott when she took you to her prom. You came back to town to go with her, so I’m just . . . curious about your love life,” I said, and then took a long swig of beer. “I’m really good at this, aren’t I?”
He chuckled, playing with the hair beside my cheek. “I’ve dated. Never that seriously, though.”
“Why not?” I asked, trying to sound casual as I took an ornament from the bag and placed the blue and gold swirled ball on the tree right above the trim. Silence. I peeked over to see him standing there, a bulb resting on one palm.
He shrugged. “Didn’t date much while I was in the military. After I got out, I met a woman I liked and for a while it was good. But I didn’t see it going anywhere long-term.”
Red flags flew up. “So you’re commitment shy?”
“Where is all of this coming from?” He exchanged a look with me. When I didn’t answer, he hooked the bulb on the tree. “She was a nice person. But it just . . . didn’t seem right. She needed me to be there more and I couldn’t be. Right around that time, my aunt got sick. I was so caught up coming back to visit her that I didn’t have a lot left over. Then she didn’t get better and I decided to move back to Christmas Mountain,” he said, lifting his beer to his lips and taking a swig.
He didn’t have to say he hadn’t asked her to come back with him. I already understood. He was, as Connor had said, the kind of guy who clammed up when things hurt. He had done that with that woman, which made me wonder how he’d be with me if things got hard.
I settled another bulb. “So you two broke up?”
“Yes, but we keep in touch on occasion.”
I winced. “Do you miss her?”
“I feel bad about how we broke things off, but she wasn’t the right person for me. She’s married now and happy. I’m glad because she’s a really good person.” He paused again, then a line formed between his eyebrows. “How about you?”
Oops. I’d walked into that one.
I shrugged. “I’ve been busy for so long, trying to be the perfect daughter—the one my parents want me to be—that dating was usually the last thing on my mind. I’d date on occasion. But nobody special.”
“Good,” he said. His facial muscles softened as he gazed up at me, making me melt.
I ran my fingers through his short, dark hair, loving the soft feel beneath my fingertips. Eight years had passed by without us seeing each other and already I couldn’t imagine what life would be like without him. “Do you see your uncle often?”
He nodded and then got to his feet, picking up a container of silvery tinsel. “He’s over at Sunny Acres. It’s supposed to be the best in the area and he has dedicated care there.” He popped the tinsel container open. “Why do you try to be who your parents want you to be? At some point, you’re going to have to live your own life. Right?”
Ouch. “If I were still trying, I’d have my MBA and be working at their bank with Connor. Instead of being here doing this.” But what was this? What was happening between us and would it last? Fresh worries set in. If this thing between us went sour then where would that leave us, especially if we were sharing a business space? “But I did what they wanted for a long time. I guess I didn’t want to disappoint them or hurt them. I still don’t want to. . . They’re my parents. I love them.”
Dallas took a seat in a chair. He dabbed at the water ring his bottle had left there but he didn’t answer. I finished off my beer, wondering if he was thinking about his own parents—his mom who had left and his dad who still didn’t have his life together.
I didn’t know what they put in that pale ale. Liquid courage maybe, because I set my empty bottle down and took a seat right in his lap. I ran my fingers through the back of his hair. “You know you can trust me, right? We’ve known each other all our lives, so you know I’m not out to hurt you, right? Not ever.”
“I should buy you pizza more often.” There was laughter in his voice but a serious note hung below it and he slipped his arm around my waist, pulling me close to him. “I’m glad you came back, angel.”
My heart melted. “Me, too.” I had no idea if what was happening between us would last, but I wanted to find out. I gestured toward the tree. “We make a great decorating team.”
His legs shifted under me. “I think we’ll be a good team in the shop, too. That is, if you don’t come up with some nefarious plot to get me tossed out.”
My mouth fell open. How had he known what I was thinking? “You have to admit that a beauty salon and a furniture store doesn’t seem like the best combination.”
“You never know.” He shrugged. “I can’t believe you decided to be a beautician. Come to think of it, you were always carrying a doll around. I remember one time you cut the hair off and cried when it didn’t grow back.”
“Yes, Miss Kitty Lee was devastated by her permanent crew cut when she wanted to grow it out again.” I giggled, touched that he’d connected my passion to where it began. “How did you get into making furniture?” I asked.
He reached for a second beer, keeping one arm secure around my waist. “I made my first chair when I was a kid.”
My eyebrows lifted. “I never heard you say anything about it back then.”
His fingers tightened on my waist, sending heat flares skittering along my skin. “I know. I stopped for a long time. I was about eight years old the night I showed my folks the chair I made out of glue, leftover wood and a bed pillow. They laughed their heads off. I thought it was amazing at the time and they swore it was, but what was I thinking with a bed pillow?”
I fought back laughter. “It sounds like a good start.”
He nodded. “I remember every minute of that night. I brought the chair out from the garage where I’d been working on it. My mom was cooking dinner. She stopped and said, ‘that’s beautiful, honey’ when it had to be the ugliest chair ever made.”
I smiled at him. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
“I used the pillow with a superhero pillowcase still on it.”
I sputtered laughter. “But your mom loved it, right?”
He nodded. “She seemed so excited about it. She sat down in it and swore it was the most comfortable chair she’d ever sat in.”
“Must’ve been the pillow,” I said with a grin. “It had superhero power level comfort.”
He roared laughter. “She called my dad in the kitchen and he knelt down, checking the rungs and the pillow and then he declared it was perfect. He said next I should make a table that we could use in the dining room since ours was getting older.”
I’d never seen Dallas come alive with so much energy. I hung on every word he said, especially since his dad had changed so much after his mom left.
“What happened next?” I asked, my body humming with anticipation.
He fidgeted. “Mom insisted on sitting in it and after dinner we had dessert. The next week, she packed her bags and left. She never came back.”
My gut clenched. “Did she say why?”
“She and my dad had an argument, bigger than usual.” A line formed between his brows. “But I didn’t know that a mom could leave for good,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. “Once, I asked my dad where she went and whether or not she’d return.”
I waited for him to go on, but his jaw had tightened. “What did your dad say?”
His gaze met mine. “He said not to waste my time thinking about that woman.”
“Ouch.” My heart tightened with pain for him. “I’m sorry, Dallas.”
He nodded slowly. “I’ve never told anyone that story before.”
“Thanks for trusting me,” I said, knowing how much that meant coming from someone who had been hurt by the ones he’d loved most. I also knew he took things to heart and had probably felt as much guilt over his mother’s desertion as he did over his uncle’s accident. I suspected his dad had a hand in the guilt Dallas felt. It wasn’t fair. “My sister died,” I blurted.
“I know, angel,” he whispered.
Of course he did. He’d been there when it happened.
“Afterwards, my mom was so grief stricken,” I said, my throat tightening as I shared what haunted me most. “She stayed in her room and rarely came out for meals. It went on for months. I never want to see her upset like that again. It’s like I’ve become the replacement daughter, trying to be everything my mom thought Grace could’ve been. My parents were always so proud of her.”
The corner of his mouth turned down. “You’re an amazing person, Morgan. No matter what Grace might’ve accomplished, you have to live the life that’s right for you. You can’t try to replace someone who’s gone. Nobody should expect that of you.”
There was a haunted look in his eyes. Tears sprang into mine. I got up and walked over to the tree, my whole body shaking. “I know that on one level.” My voice was hoarse. “But I want to be enough for my folks. I’m the only daughter they have and part of me wants to be more than that, to fill that hole Grace left . . .” My fingers went to a pile of ornaments I’d painted earlier with Ruby’s leftover paints. I picked one up at random and held it as he came over to me.
“Morgan—”
“I just wish . . .” Tears clouded my vision and made everything blurry. “That night had never happened. That Grace was still with us. Mom never talks about her unless she’s pointing out something I’m doing wrong.”
I guided the ornament to the tree and hooked it on a sturdy branch to let the blue-eyed angel with the rosy lips dangle there. She reminded me of my sister. Angels always reminded me of Grace. I lifted another angel ornament from a bag.
Dallas looped his arms around my waist. I turned toward him, intending to say something, but instead I kissed him. He tasted like a combination of pizza and ale and him. His firm lips parted against mine and he tasted me. Oh, yum.
My pulse raced along, faster and faster, and I forgot about everything, the worries I had about my folks and the salon as my arms went round his neck and I leaned into that kiss with everything in me. The tears spilling over my cheeks salted our kiss but he held me tight, kissing away the sad past and bringing me into the present moment.
“Morgan Reed,” came a familiar female voice, jerking me from my heavenly fog. The two words were firm, like a warning without even raising her tone.
Dallas broke off the kiss so fast that it left me breathless as my head swiveled toward the front door and the woman who stood there. My heart dropped like a rock straight to my belly.
I managed to squeak out, “Mom?”
My mom stood inside the doorway, her dark-brown hair elegantly coiffed in a simple French twist, thick lash extensions framing her green eyes, and her trim body neatly attired in an elegant pair of slacks and a white cashmere sweater.
She advanced a few steps. “What is going on here?”
Her tone indicated bewilderment and disapproval, the kind of tone she used when something didn’t meet Ivy Reed’s standards or approval.
That something being me.