“I might not understand why you love it,” her mom said. “But I can see that you do. And I can see that you’re good at it. Callie, I... I don’t want to have distance between us. I don’t want to fight.”
Her mom wrapped her arms around Callie, who stood stiff for a moment, before curving one arm around her and patting her on the back. “It’s okay, Mom.”
And it made Jake’s chest go tight. All of it. Because this was the kind of family togetherness, the kind of parental...stuff, that he just didn’t quite know what to do with. And it wasn’t his to witness. Wasn’t his to be a part of. He’d taken that. He’d taken it from everybody in his family, and he...
He shoved all that to the side. None of this was about him. And he was doing a pretty champion job of making it about him.
“Were going out to dinner tonight,” her dad said. “Why don’t we head over to the house until then?”
“I’ll need to change for dinner,” Jake answered. And not only that, he needed just... A little bit of time. A little bit of time to himself. Hell, he’d done his part, of all this. And that made him feel good. He had gotten Callie what she needed, and on top of all that, it seemed like she might even be able to find some kind of acceptance with her parents. But there was no place for him in the middle of it. He had just been a catalyst. That was all.
He turned and started to walk back toward the cabin, and Callie shouted from behind him. “Wait,” she said.
Her smile was wide, her cheeks red. Her hat had fallen off her head, and was hanging down her back. Her braids were loose and flying away. “Where you going?”
“I’m heading out,” he said. “Your parents said that there is dinner tonight. So I ought to get looking good, don’t you think?”
“You look plenty good to me.”
He looked down at his blue jeans. “Where do you usually go out for Christmas Eve?”
“All right. It’s fancy a lot of the time.” She waved a hand. “I just usually wear a pair of black jeans.”
“Well, I should at least go get some of those, then.”
“All right. I’ll see you later.”
Everyone was watching, but he couldn’t bring himself to kiss her. Just for some reason, it didn’t feel right. The game was almost over. After Christmas, they would go home and finish this out on the legal end, and then Callie would be free. Though he had a suspicion that after this, she might already be. But she wasn’t taking anything for granted, so neither was he.
At least it was almost over.
He just had to complete the ride. That was all.
* * *
CALLIE’S BROTHERS PRACTICALLY carried her back to the house and foisted beers on her. They were laughing, treating her like one of them, and it was... Everything she’d ever wanted.
They’d never seen her ride a bucking bronco before. She’d shocked them. Impressed them. And she was elated.
They weren’t acting like she was a kid. They were acting like she was an honest-to-God rodeo queen. Oh, not the kind with sparkles and sequins or anything like that. Just the queen of a real rodeo event.
Exactly like she’d always wanted.
But she wished that Jake were here. And it made her chest sore that he wasn’t. He had said that he just needed to go back and change, but he hadn’t reappeared. And his extended absence made her think that there was something else going on. But she didn’t feel like she could leave her family to go after him. Not when they were finally... She was finally getting what she wanted. And all of this, the whole thing with Jake, was about her family. Except sometimes it started to feel like it was more and more about him.
She was just getting all mixed up again.
“Are you going to wear that out tonight?” her mom asked.
She didn’t look as disapproving as she often did, but it was definitely a question tinged with a little bit of concern. And her mother had said she was proud of her, and that she thought she’d done a good job. And maybe...
Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if she gave her mom a little something. If she... Dropped her guard a little.
“No.” She hesitated. “Actually, can you help me find something to wear?”
Her mom’s eyes widened. “Of course I could. I just... You don’t normally ask me for help with that.”
“I know. But I might want to wear a dress.”
And if part of her wondered what Jake might think if he saw her in a dress...well.
But she’d slept with him.
And he’d seen her naked.
And he made her feel more like a woman than anyone or anything else ever had.
Proving to her family that she could ride saddle bronc, actually having them be impressed with her, rather than worried or doubtful... All of it was coming together and making her feel like she didn’t have to hold on to these things quite so tightly. Like maybe she could wear a dress tonight. And put on jeans tomorrow. That actually letting her mom dress her up wouldn’t signal to the other woman that what she wanted was to assimilate, but just that she wanted to try that, too.
Because she was the same woman who wanted to ride horses as she’d been before she became the woman who had touched Jake Daniels’s body. She was the same woman as the one who had kissed him in a fury, right after she had been killing herself doing burpees. Sweaty and gross and not at all someone he should find attractive or compelling.
She was all those things. So she could be this, too. Or she could try at least. She never had before.
“I have just the thing,” her mom said. She took her hand, and led her to the polished oak staircase. The rich red carpet depressed beneath their footsteps as they went down the hall, toward her parents’ bedroom.
Her mom had a massive walk-in closet, but Callie had never looked inside. It was full to the brim of clothes. And her mom went unerringly to the back, and found a crimson-colored dress. With the V-neck, and a close-fitted skirt that flared out at the bottom. It looked like it would land just below her knees.
“Oh,” Callie said. “I’ve never worn anything... I haven’t worn a dress since you put one on me for Easter Sunday when I was ten. And I tore the crinoline and you never made me wear another one.”
They didn’t talk at all about the necklace that she’d bought her for her sixteenth birthday. The one that Callie had never worn.
The one she had traded at a pawnshop for a pocketknife.
Where is the necklace I bought you for your birthday?
I... I lost it.
Callie Patrice. Where is it?