Christmas With the Mustang Man

by Stella Bagwell

  “Thank you, Hayley. I’m very honored to join you and your father tonight.”

  Still not completely sure of her appearance, Hayley moved closer to Dallas and stuck one foot forward. “These are the only dressy shoes I have,” she declared.

  The ballerina flats were appropriate for Hayley’s age, but not the weather. “They look nice, but your feet are going to freeze. I heard on the weather forecast that the temperature will be in the teens tonight. Do you have a pair of boots?”

  “Cowboy boots. That’s all.”

  “Well, why not wear them? That’s what I’m wearing. See?” Dallas lifted her skirt so that Hayley could see her black boots.

  “Gee, that looks neat.”

  “Thanks. They’re all I brought with me on this trip so I hope they look neat. I wasn’t expecting to be going out for an evening like this,” Dallas explained.

  “Wait a minute! I’ll be right back!”

  Hayley rushed out of the room and Dallas turned back to the dresser and reached for a hairbrush. She was twisting up her red waves and clipping them to her head, when the girl raced back into the bedroom and skidded to a halt in the middle of the floor.

  “Now look! What do you think?” she asked as she turned full circle for Dallas’s inspection.

  Even though Dallas was trying her best not to feel like a mother, she did and a wealth of love and protectiveness flooded through her as she walked over to Hayley and gave her a brief hug. “I think we look like twins and we’re going to knock everybody’s eyes out tonight.”

  Giggling, Hayley hugged her back. “Wow! This is gonna be a special night.”

  A special night indeed, Dallas thought later, as they neared Pioche and the lights of town glittered against the stark desert backdrop. Even though the tiny old mining town only boasted a population of around nine hundred people, Boone and Hayley seemed to consider it a busy metropolis. And compared to the isolation of White River Ranch, it was that and more. After spending three days on the lonely ranch, Dallas felt as if she was actually returning to civilization.

  But it wasn’t just the chance of seeing busy towns-folk and businesses decorated for the Christmas season that was making it special for Dallas. Behind the wheel, Boone was handsomely dressed in a white shirt and dark brown Western-cut suit that set off his sun-streaked hair and dark tan. But the best part of his appearance was the frequent smiles he’d been tossing her way. She’d not expected him to be enjoying this outing and she wondered if she might be a part of the reason for his jovial mood.

  Don’t go there, Dallas. The man isn’t falling for you. He isn’t thinking of having you for long-term company. So forget it. Get your mind back on your family at home and all that you’re missing right now on the Diamond D.

  The pestering little voice in her head was telling her exactly how things really were and yet, for once in her life, she couldn’t focus on her family back home. Boone’s presence was so large it kept crowding away all thoughts…except him.

  “Do you have your voice limbered up for the play?” Boone asked his daughter while he guided the double cab truck down the simple main street of Pioche. “Maybe you’d better drink something warm at dinner to get your vocal chords loosened up.”

  From her place in the backseat, Hayley groaned goodnaturedly. “Oh, Dad. I’ve been talking all day to Dallas. My vocal chords are already warmed up.”

  He exchanged a meaningful look with Dallas, then winked. “I’m sure you have talked Dallas’s ears off,” he said to Hayley. “Now after hearing your chatter all day, she has to listen to you sing.”

  “And I’m very much looking forward to it,” Dallas interjected.

  “You shouldn’t be. ’Cause I can’t really sing,” Hayley warned her. “I only got the part of an angel because I can hit high notes.”

  “Well, if you can hit high notes then you can surely sing,” Dallas assured her. “Besides, enthusiasm is more important than perfection.”

  “Gosh, you sound just like my choir teacher.”

  Dallas chuckled at that thought and Boone asked, “Do you have nieces or nephews Hayley’s age?”

  “No. They’re all kindergarten-age and younger. Why?”

  He shrugged. “Just curious. You seem to understand her.”

  “I work with kids all day long. All week long,” she explained. “After a while you learn them.”

  “Is that it?” he asked wryly. “I’ve had Hayley for more than twelve years and I’m not sure I’ve gotten the hang of understanding her yet.”

  On the south edge of town, Boone parked the truck in front of a large two-story building constructed of lumber that hadn’t seen paint in more years than she’d been living. At one time, when the silver and nickel mines had been booming in the area, the building had served as a company store for the miners. Now it was a restaurant called the Mine Shaft.

  Inside, a hostess seated the three of them at a round table covered with a white tablecloth. Once they were all settled, Dallas looked around her with curious appreciation. The interior of the eating place looked like something out of the Wild West days. The floor and walls consisted of bare wood while heavy beams crisscrossed the low ceiling. A long polished bar lined one long wall, while across the room an upright piano was currently being played by an elderly gentleman wearing a black wool vest and bowler hat. A few feet away from their table, a large window overlooked the dark desert and star-studded sky.

  Dallas was surprised to see several people, mostly men, sitting at the bar enjoying drinks while the tables around them were all occupied with hungry diners.

  “Is this place always this busy?” Dallas asked, after a waitress had taken their orders.

  “It’s Friday night and the weekend has started,” Boone explained.

  “It has a quaint charm,” she told him. “I like it.”

  Hayley wrinkled her nose. “The food is okay. But this place is stuffy and for old people like you and Dad. I’d like to go some place where they have good music and you can get fries and milk shakes and pizza.”

  “You can order those things here, Hayley,” Boone pointed out. “And if I remember right, you were the one so keen on coming here tonight to eat.”

  The girl tilted her head from one shoulder to the other as she contemplated her father’s remark. “Well, yeah, I did,” she allowed. “But that because it’s the only decent restaurant in town. And it’s better than eating at home. Besides, having Dallas with us makes it a lot more fun.”

  Boone turned his gaze on Dallas. “Yes. Everything is more fun with Dallas,” he said.

  Was he being serious or sarcastic? There was nothing on his face or in his voice to tell her which and Dallas spent the rest of the meal wondering what had been behind his remark and why it should even matter to her. Just because he looked like a rugged, sexy dream didn’t make him the right man for her. And the fact that he was a hardworking, honorable man shouldn’t sway her feelings, either. There were plenty of decent, good-looking, hardworking men back in Ruidoso and one of these days she’d find one.

  Yeah, but he wouldn’t kiss you like Boone. He wouldn’t make you feel like you’d flown to the moon and back.

  A flight to the moon wasn’t what she needed, Dallas argued with the war of words tumbling around in her head. All she needed to fix her problem was a truck. Once she got back on the highway and headed home to New Mexico, she’d be fine. Boone could go on raising his daughter without the help of a wife, just as he had for the past twelve years. And Hayley…well, the girl could probably see the writing on the wall even clearer than Dallas. She was never going to get a stepmother.

  The church was located on a hill overlooking town and as they neared the sloped parking area, it was obvious that there would be a big crowd on hand.

  “Wow! Everybody is already here!” Hayley exclaimed as Boone searched for an empty parking space.

  “Looks like it,” he said as he stopped the truck and killed the motor. “Are you going to be late?”

 
; Hayley flung off her seat belt and scrambled for the door. “No. I have five minutes. But I better hurry!”

  Before Boone could say anything else, Hayley was on the ground and racing toward a side entrance of the church. With a shake of his head, he said, “She doesn’t think too much of time until she realizes at the last minute that she’s going to be late.”

  “She was enjoying her meal and wanted to linger,” Dallas reasoned.

  Grinning faintly, he said, “Yeah. Even if it wasn’t fries and pizza.”

  He reached for Dallas’s hand and quickly helped her out of the truck. Once they were on the ground, she expected him to release his hold on her. But he surprised her by keeping his hand firmly wrapped around hers as the two of them headed toward the church with a much slower gait than Hayley had taken.

  The white stucco structure was L-shaped with a tall steeple erected over the front entrance and a row of beautiful stained-glass windows running along the sides. A priest was standing outside the door to greet church members and guests and it wasn’t until they approached the middle-aged man that Boone finally released Dallas’s hand.

  “Good evening, Boone. Good to see you here. Is our little Hayley ready to perform?”

  Boone’s smile was full of fatherly pride. “Let’s hope she is.” With his hand at Dallas’s back he urged her forward. “Father O’Quinn, I’d like for you to meet my friend. This is Dallas Donovan from New Mexico.”

  The kindly faced priest instantly offered his hand to Dallas. “Donovan? That’s a nice Irish name,” he said with a wink for her. “And how lovely you are!”

  “Thank you, Father. It’s very nice to meet you. My parents have dear friends back in Ireland by the name of O’Quinn. Perhaps you’re related.”

  He kindly patted the top of her hand, while turning a pointed look on Boone. “You must bring Ms. Donovan by the rectory for a nice chat one day soon.”

  Boone awkwardly cleared his throat. “It would have to be very soon. Dallas will be leaving in the next two or three days.”

  “Oh.” The priest appeared disappointed by the news, but when he turned back to Dallas, he bestowed her with a gentle reassuring smile that made her wonder if he could sense the turmoil that was beginning to build in her heart. “Just remember, Ms. Donovan, a road always travels both ways.”

  “Thank you, Father. I’ll remember.”

  Inside the church, they found a seat on one of the long wooden pews. As Dallas settled next to him, he could only imagine what was going through Father O’Quinn’s mind. For more years than Boone wanted to think about, the man had been urging him to remarry and build a family. No doubt, he’d clearly seen Dallas as wife material for Boone. But then, Father Aiden O’Quinn believed in miracles. And that’s just what it would take for Dallas to ever become Mrs. Boone Barnett, he thought dismally.

  The Christmas program, made up of a cast of children only, turned out to be a beautiful spectacle with the manger scene surrounded by real animals. When Hayley and three more winged angels appeared to sing joyful hymns, Boone had been filled with immense pride and love for his daughter. He’d also felt something more—something deep and bittersweet—as Dallas had momentarily reached over and covered his hand with hers as though she’d wanted to share the special moment with him.

  Now, as they drove home in the quiet night, Boone realized he was treading on dangerous ground. He didn’t know when or how it had happened, but at some point he’d stopped thinking of Dallas as a guest, as a horse buyer and nothing more. He could only think of her as a beautiful, desirable woman. A woman who made his daughter happy, and a woman who filled up the loneliness in his heart.

  “I think Hayley has fallen asleep,” Dallas remarked as the lights of the ranch house finally came into view.

  “No. I’m not asleep.” The girl sat up on the edge of the seat and yawned. “But I’m pretty tired. I didn’t know acting was so exhausting.”

  “You weren’t acting,” Boone corrected. “You were singing.”

  “Well, I was acting like I could sing,” the girl countered.

  “You sounded beautiful,” Dallas assured her. “I heard all the high notes.”

  Boone parked the truck at the back of the house and as they started toward the porch, Queenie ran up to greet them, then trotted along at Dallas’s side as though she’d lived there for years rather than days.

  Damned dog, Boone thought. She wasn’t any smarter than he was.

  When they entered the kitchen, Hayley yawned again and quickly excused herself for bed. But before she got halfway out of the room, she turned and rushed back to Dallas.

  Boone stood awkwardly to one side as his daughter flung her arms around Dallas’s waist and hugged her tightly.

  “Thank you coming to see the play, Dallas. It felt really nice to know you were watching,” she said.

  Dallas bent her head and kissed the top of Hayley’s head. “It felt really nice to be there,” she assured the girl.

  Hayley smiled up at her, then quickly left the room. Once the girl was out of sight, Boone let out a long breath.

  “I want to thank you, too,” he said lowly. “For making a special effort to be kind to my daughter.”

  Dallas shook her head and for the hundredth or more time tonight, he could only think how beautiful and feminine she looked in her long skirt and with her hair coiled up on her head. The diamonds dangling from her ears glittered like real gems and he realized they most likely were. The expensive jewelry was a reminder that she lived more than a thousand miles away from him. She lived a world away from him.

  “I didn’t have to make any effort. Hayley is easy to love.”

  Easy to love. At one time in his life Boone had found it easy to love people. But that had all changed as, one by one, he’d lost those that he’d cared about the most. For years now he’d done his best to keep his heart shut tight toward anything or anyone, except for Hayley. His love for his daughter would never change. Then there were the horses, so wild and frightened at first and then so trusting and giving once they’d bonded with him. He kept more of them than he should, simply because it hurt too much to see them leave.

  Now there was Dallas. And with each minute that ticked away he was beginning to feel the pain of loss looming ahead of him. He didn’t want to like her, want or need her. And he damned well didn’t want to love her. But something about her was turning him into a softhearted fool.

  “That’s nice of you to say,” he said huskily, then cleared his throat, stepped around her and walked over to the cabinets. “I think I’ll have a cup of coffee before I go to bed. Want one?”

  “Sure. I’ll find some cookies or something to go with it.”

  A few short minutes later Boone carried a tray with their drinks and snacks to the family room. While he placed the refreshments on the coffee table in front of the couch, Dallas plugged in the lights on the Christmas tree.

  “We might as well enjoy the lights while we drink our coffee,” Dallas said as she sank down on the couch, a cushion away from his.

  He looked over at the decorated pine as mixed emotions rolled through him. “There hasn’t been a Christmas tree in this house since my mother was alive,” he admitted.

  “Yes. Hayley told me.”

  He grimaced as he reached for a cookie. “She wasn’t the best of mothers. But she tried in her own way. I miss her.”

  “I’m sure you do,” she murmured, then asked, “Do you mind telling me what she was like?”

  He shrugged. “She was one of those free-spirited types. A carryover, you might say, from the flower child era of the sixties. The only thing that anchored her was Newt, which never made sense. There’s not a solid, dependable cell in my father’s body. But she loved him blindly and in spite of his problems with alcohol.”

  He could feel her green eyes studying him thoughtfully and their touch disturbed him. “Is that why you don’t get along with the man? Because of his drinking?”

  “Mainly. But mostly because he shun
ned his responsibility as a father.”

  “So you think he never loved you.”

  Boone let out a cynical grunt. “I’m not sure if Newt is capable of loving anyone but himself.” Turning his head, he locked his gaze with hers. “By the time I was five, my grandparents could see that I wasn’t being raised in a normal family atmosphere and they literally took me out of my parents’ house and into theirs.”

  “You think that was the right thing for them to do?”

  Her question had him looking at her with amazement. “Right? Hell, I’m glad someone stepped up to care for me. Half the time we had no electricity in the house because Newt didn’t work enough to pay the bill. I remember having meals of nothing but jelly beans and potato chips. And in winter the house would be so cold my mother would constantly cough.”

  With a rueful shake of her head, she half whispered, “I can’t imagine you living as a child in those conditions, Boone. And I guess I don’t understand, either. Why did Newt not try to do better?”

  His gaze dropped to the steaming brown liquid in his cup. “Who knows why anyone turns worthless? But I think he wasn’t always that way. From what I’ve gathered, my father and grandfather got into it when Newt was a teenager and they still lived in Arizona. He wanted the family to stay there, where Burt, my grandfather, made good money as a miner. He balked at the idea of his parents getting a ranch out in the middle of nowhere in Nevada.”

  “I remember you saying that your father didn’t care for ranching. I take it that didn’t change over the years.”

  Grimacing, he sipped his coffee. “No. Newt left home as soon as he was legally able, but he didn’t move back to Arizona. He married Elsa and they lived in Reno until I was born, then they showed up in Pioche. Because they needed money, or so my grandparents told me.”

  “Did they give it to him?” Dallas asked, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I keep asking you these personal questions. You don’t have to tell me if it bothers you to talk about it.”

  He let out a cynical grunt. “What difference does it make now? You’ve already heard my family’s dirty laundry. And to answer your question, yes, they made the mistake of giving him money—because of me. They wanted me cared for. But in the end they could see that their son was using me and them. So they took charge of me and cut off Newt from any financial aid.”