Christmas with the Mustang Man

“It’s very nice to meet you, Hayley,” Dallas said. “Do you help your father with the horses?”

The glance she slanted at her father said she wasn’t sure how to answer that question. “Sometimes.”

“With school going on I suppose you don’t have much spare time,” Dallas remarked.

“Not much,” the girl replied. “I’m in seventh grade now and the math is awful.”

Dallas chuckled. “I never did like math. My dad grounded me once because I made a D. After that I had to study or sit home for the whole school year.”

Hayley’s expression perked up as she seemingly decided that Dallas was human after all. “Do you have any kids, Ms. Donovan?”

“Please, call me Dallas,” she said with a smile for the girl. “And no. I’m sorry to say I don’t have any children.”

“Then you’re not married?”

“Hayley! Quit asking personal questions! It’s not polite and you know better,” Boone admonished.

Shaking her head, Dallas sank back into her seat at the table. “It’s all right. Your daughter is curious. There’s nothing wrong with that,” she told Boone, then looked directly at Hayley. “No. I’m not married. What about you? Do you have a boyfriend?”

Hayley giggled and Boone shot the child a strange look, which made Dallas wonder if the sound of his daughter laughing was a rare thing, or was it the idea of Hayley having a boyfriend that caught his attention? Either way, Dallas felt totally drawn to the girl.

“Noooo,” Hayley exclaimed, her cheeks a bright pink. “I’m only twelve! Well—I’ll be thirteen in four months. But Dad says that’s too young for a boyfriend.”

Glancing over at him, Dallas noticed that Boone Barnett’s expression had returned to resembling a piece of hard granite, which only proved that he didn’t quite understand a young girl’s dreams and feelings.

Ignoring him for the moment, Dallas said, “Oh. Well, I just thought there might be a boy at school that you liked. You know, like best friends.”

The girl’s gaze instantly dropped to the floor. “The middle school I go to only has about ninety students altogether. So there aren’t that many boys to pick from. But there is one that I like,” she mumbled, then looked directly up at Dallas. “His name is Jeffery. And the rest of the girls call him a nerd. But I like him ’cause he’s polite and smart, not dumb jerks like most of the other boys.”

Dallas tossed her a smile of approval. “He sounds like a winner to me.”

Hayley looked up, her eyes widened with surprise. “Really?”

“Sure. Manners and brains. That’s the combination I’d pick.”

Hayley cast her father a subtle look of triumph, but he said nothing on the subject. Instead, he told his daughter, “You’d better cut the pizza before it gets cold.”

The girl appeared as though she wanted to say more, but at the last moment decided not to press her luck.

As Dallas watched Hayley return to the gas range to deal with the pizza, Boone asked, “Would you like to join us, Dallas? There’s plenty.”

Surprised by the offer, Dallas turned her head to see he was looking at her with those dark brown eyes, surveying her in a way that left her feeling like a turtle without a shell.

“No, thanks. I’d like to get to my hotel room before it gets late.”

After quickly draining the last of her coffee, she rose to her feet. Boone was out of his seat almost at the same time and reached for her heavy jacket. Dallas’s heart beat fast as he held the garment for her to slip her arms into.

She was accustomed to men doing gentlemanly things for her. But she wasn’t expecting such caring manners from this one. Nor was she expecting to feel so breathless, so completely aware of his strong presence.

“I’ll walk you to your truck,” he said. He shouldered on his own jacket and reached for a flashlight that sat on the end of a cabinet counter.

“Goodbye, Hayley,” Dallas said to Boone’s daughter. “It was nice meeting you.”

The girl nodded shyly, then gave her a little wave before Boone opened the door and ushered Dallas out of the kitchen.

Outside, darkness had settled over the ranch and she appreciated the glow of Boone’s flashlight illuminating their path as the two of them moved across the barren yard.

“Is there a special time I need to be here tomorrow?” she asked as they walked briskly toward the truck. “If you have other appointments, I can match my schedule to yours. That’s the least I can do for arriving late today.”

“I don’t have anything pressing going on tomorrow,” he replied. “Come out whenever you’d like.”

As they moved along in the darkness, she realized he was close enough for her to reach over and touch, if she was so minded to. The idea titillated her senses and sent all sorts of questions hurtling through her mind. Mainly, where was Hayley’s mother? And was there some other woman in this man’s life?

Don’t be letting your thoughts stray in that direction, Dallas. The hurt that Allen laid on your heart would be a minor scratch compared to what this cowboy could do to you. Get your business done with the man and get the heck out of here.

“I’ll be out early,” she promised him as she jerked her thoughts back to the real issue.

Once they reached the truck, he closed a hand around her elbow and helped her into the tall cab. Determined not to linger any longer, she closed the door between them and reached to start the engine. To her dismay the truck gave one loud sputter, and then the starter whirled uselessly.

Boone knocked on the door panel to garner her attention and then made a motion for her to lower the window. Dallas did as he asked, then hung her head over the partially opened glass panel.

“Pop the hood,” he instructed. “I’ll have a look.”

She pulled the hood lever, then climbed to the ground while he poked and prodded at several things attached to the engine.

After a few minutes, he finally said, “I don’t see anything undone or broken. Which leads me to think you could be right about the problem being with the fuel.”

She was already half-frozen from being out in the icy wind. It was growing later by the minute and she was miles and miles from Pioche, the only town in the area large enough to have any sort of amenities for a traveler.

“Well,” she said decisively, “I’ll have to call a wrecker and have the truck towed to Pioche. Is there a service you’d recommend?”

The glance he flashed her was full of impatience. “By the time a wrecker drove out here and pulled you back to town it would be the wee hours of the morning. And I doubt you’d find a mechanic that would want to crawl out of bed and start repairing your truck at that hour.”

Not willing to give in to her dire predicament, she asked, “You don’t happen to have a spare vehicle that I could borrow? I’d be happy to pay you for its use.”

He slammed the hood shut on the pricey vehicle and walked back over to where she stood. “Just an old truck we use here on the ranch,” he explained. “It’s not even highway legal.”

“Oh. Well, it was just a thought,” she said, trying her best not to sound dejected.

“Look, Dallas, I’d offer to drive you in to Pioche, but I’m not about to leave Hayley on the ranch by herself and I’m not going to drag her about for three fourths of the night. Especially when tomorrow is a school day.”

She’d not even gotten as far as that solution, Dallas thought. But she could see how the idea of him driving her all the way to Pioche was just as problematic as calling for a wrecker.

She might as well face the fact that she was stranded in the middle of nowhere, without anyone to rely on for help, except this big stone-faced horseman.

“I would never ask you to do such a thing, anyway,” she told him, then released a short, helpless laugh. “But I am going to ask what you suggest I do now?”

A faint grimace tightened his lips. “The way I see it, you have one choice. And that’s to stay here tonight.”