Christmas With the Mustang Man (12 page)

Each time they hit a rough bump Hayley laughed and bounced on the truck seat, while Dallas gripped the armrest for dear life.

“Too rough for you, Dallas?” Boone asked as he swerved to miss a huge clump of sage.

Dallas's body was thrown toward Hayley, who was sitting between the two adults and seemingly loving every minute of the ride.

“No. I'll just probably be black-and-blue in the morning,” she joked as she struggled to straighten herself up in the seat. “I can certainly see why you drove this old ranch truck.”

“Just hold on. We're almost there,” he promised.

“It's really pretty, too, Dallas,” Hayley added. “It's one of my favorite places on the ranch.”

If Hayley missed some of the fun things her town friends enjoyed, she certainly wasn't showing it at the moment. Her expression was radiant as she glanced all about her. And as Dallas watched a myriad of emotions cross her sweet face, she could see a bit of herself in the young girl. The close bond Hayley had with her father, her love of animals and appreciation of the land that was her home were all traits that reminded Dallas of herself. The notion drew her even closer to the girl and when
Hayley suddenly turned a smile on her, Dallas's chest filled with a flood of maternal emotions.

The truck crested a steep incline and Dallas gasped at the same time Hayley instructed her to look at the panoramic view in front of them.

“Oh! There's a river! It's beautiful!” Dallas exclaimed.

Below them on the valley floor a strip of green vegetation followed the silver strip of water winding across the desert. “That's the White. The river that the ranch is named after,” Boone informed her.

Dallas leaned eagerly up in her seat. “It's like an oasis,” she said with awe. “Are we going down there?”

“Not to cut a tree,” Boone answered. “But we can go down later for a look, if you'd like.”

Hayley bounced with excitement. “Oh, yes, Dad! That'd be great!”

“You should first be asking our guest what she would like to do, Hayley,” Boone instructed his daughter.

The girl twisted around to Dallas. “It'd be okay with you, wouldn't it?”

Dallas smiled at her. “I'd love to.”

Boone drove along the top of the ridge for a short distance until he found a flat spot to park the old Ford. Afterward, he collected an ax from the bed of the truck and the three of them walked along the top of the bluff, where thick stands of juniper and pinyon grew from the loamy soil.

“There's no spruce around here,” Boone told Dallas as the two of them strolled abreast of each other. “To find one of those we'd have to go much farther north and we don't exactly have time for that today.”

Dallas shook her head. “One of these trees will be just as beautiful. It's the symbol of the tree that's most important. And I think Hayley gets that.”

Boone gazed ahead to where his daughter was skipping and racing from tree to tree. “She's enjoying this much more than I ever thought.” He glanced over at Dallas. “It makes me feel like I've been neglecting her. And I don't like that. I don't want to be anything like Newt. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that I might be turning into a man like him.”

“Newt?”

“Yeah. My dad,” he said bluntly.

Since Dallas knew very little about his parents, it was hard for her to understand the disdain she heard in Boone's voice. She could only surmise that something about Newt Barnett and his family had gone very wrong.

“You haven't been a neglectful father, Boone. I can see that.”

The grateful look he cast her touched her as much as any smile could have, because he didn't seem like the sort of man who needed or wanted approval from anyone. The fact that he appreciated hers made Dallas feel somewhat special.

He said, “Being a parent…it's not easy to do everything the right way. One of these days you'll find that out for yourself.”

Her heart winced as she bit back a wistful sigh. Would she ever know what it was like to be a mother? These past few years, since the debacle with Allen, she'd often wondered if a man—the right man—would ever come into her life. But Boone couldn't be that man. To let her thoughts even go in that direction would be futile.

“Maybe,” she said solemnly. “Someday.”

His steps came to a halt and as he turned to Dallas, she paused to meet his gaze head-on. Was that regret or longing that flickered in his eyes? Either way, she felt her heart melt just a little.

“Dallas, this morning—”

He stopped, clearly uncertain about what he wanted to say. But Dallas didn't have any trouble softly admitting, “I said some things without thinking.”

“So did I.”

She swallowed as emotions swelled in her throat. “Something happens to me, Boone, whenever I'm close to you.”

“Yes,” he said gently. “It happens to me, too.”

“What are we going to do about it?” she asked.

He was about to speak when Hayley called out to them from a few yards away.

“Hey, you two! Come look at this pine! It's looks really perfect!”

His lips took on a wry slant. “Sounds like we're being summoned.”

Dallas nodded. “Yes. And this outing is for Hayley.”

He started walking toward his daughter and Dallas joined him. Once they reached Hayley, Boone took great pains to look over the size and shape of the tree before he aptly declared it a beauty.

A few swings of Boone's axe brought the tree quickly down and after he shouldered it, the three of them headed back to the truck. Along the way, Hayley reached for Dallas's hand and the silent connection filled her with a warm, maternal feeling, a protectiveness that went far beyond her normal reaction to children.

First the man and now his daughter, she thought desperately. If she wasn't careful, before she left this ranch, the two of them were going to take over her heart completely.

Once at the truck, Boone loaded the tree and as the three of them started to climb back into the cab, Hayley insisted that she wanted to ride next to the window.

Dallas wondered if Hayley's request had anything to with getting a better view or if she was subtly trying to throw Dallas and Boone together. Either way, she didn't argue with the girl. Instead she climbed in and settled herself in the middle of the bench seat and tried her best not to notice that her thigh was crammed against Boone's and each time the truck swayed, her shoulder brushed his.

“I think I see a few snowflakes in the air,” Boone commented as he headed the truck off the ridge and toward the river. “That's a surprise.”

“What if it snows a lot, Dad? I've got to get to church tonight for the play, remember?”

“I've not forgotten. But it's highly unlikely that we'll see
any
snow, much less get snowed in.”

Sitting in the middle forced Dallas's legs to straddle the stick shift in the floor, but Boone's hand resting on the knob was the thing that was getting to her the most.

This morning that same hand had touched her, caressed her, heated her like no flame could have. Or no other man ever had, she thought. The realization didn't just surprise her, it troubled her.

“Well, it still might not hurt if we went to town earlier, Dad? We could eat out for dinner at the Mine Shaft. That way it wouldn't matter how much it snowed.”

Boone cut Dallas a look of wry amusement. “My daughter doesn't know how to give hints. She just comes out and says what she wants.”

“Sort of like her father, I think,” Dallas couldn't help but say.

Ignoring Dallas's remark, he said to Hayley, “We'll see.”

Hayley didn't press him for a more concrete answer and that alone impressed Dallas. Clearly the girl didn't
get anything and everything she wanted, yet she respected her father enough not to hound, beg or argue. Boone had said, as a parent, he'd made mistakes with Hayley, but if that was the case, he'd certainly made up for them in other ways, she thought.

“So you don't get snowed in on the ranch very often?” Dallas asked.

Boone shook his head. “It's rare that we ever see a sprinkling of snow. The past few years it's been extremely dry around here.”

“We can always hope, Dad,” Hayley said as she focused her gaze out the window. “See! There goes a few flakes now!”

Boone exchanged a private grin with Dallas. “Yes, we can hope, princess. A long time ago we had winters with lots of snow. But that was back…before my grandparents were killed.”

The wistful note in his voice tugged on Dallas's heart and without thinking she reached over and laid her hand on his knee.

“I wish I could have met them.”

He cast a brief look of regret at her. “I wish you could have, too,” he said gently.

The truck bounced forward for several yards before Dallas realized her hand was still resting on his knee. She hastily pulled it back, then darted a glance at Hayley. Thankfully the girl was still staring out the passenger window and had missed the caring touch she'd given Boone. Not that there had been anything inappropriate about the gesture, Dallas reasoned. But she'd been getting the feeling that Hayley would like for something to develop between her father and Dallas and she didn't want to feed into the girl's childish dreams. Hayley was craving a mother, or at least, a mother figure. It would
be heartless to let the girl think Dallas could ever be that mother.

This brief time with Boone and Hayley would end in two or three days, at the most. After that she'd be back in New Mexico and this man and his young daughter would be nothing more than a memory.

Or would they?

O
nce the three of them returned to the ranch and ate a light lunch, Boone erected the tree in the family room, then hung around for a few more minutes until Dallas and Hayley got busy pulling out strings of lights, garland and ornaments to decorate the huge pine.

“It looks like the tree is going to stay upright, so you two don't need me anymore,” he said, as he pulled on his coat and reached for his hat.

“But Dad, don't you want to help us decorate?” Hayley implored.

“That's a job for you and Dallas,” he told his daughter. “I've got more work to finish at the barns before we leave for town.”

“Okay,” Hayley conceded. “We'll have it looking really pretty by the time you come back in.”

Pausing at the doorway of the room, he shoved back the sleeve of his coat to glance at his watch. “I'll try to be
back here at the house by four o'clock. So you girls need to be ready shortly after that. We'll go early and have dinner at the Mine Shaft—if that suits the two of you.”

As far as Hayley was concerned, his announcement certainly compensated for not being around for the tree decorating. She immediately began to bounce on her toes and clap her hands. “Yes, Dad! That'll be great!”

With a humorous twist to his lips, he cast a questioning look at Dallas. “What about you? Are you up to a bit of bright lights and big city?”

The teasing note she heard in his voice surprised Dallas. He was not the sort of man that joked. The fact that he was exhibiting any sort of playfulness told her that he was actually looking forward to the evening ahead.

The idea filled her with anticipation and she smiled back at him.

“I'm ready for anything.”

Are you?
The question was clearly in his eyes and Dallas was wondering what in the world had possessed such a remark to come out of her mouth, when he suddenly slapped his hat on his head and headed out the door.

 

Later that evening, Dallas dressed in a long black skirt and a thin red sweater with ruffles edging the wrists and the V neckline. When she'd initially packed for the trip, her plan had been to be gone from the Diamond D for no more than three days, so she'd kept her wardrobe to a minimum. But thankfully, at the last moment, she'd tossed in the skirt and sweater, just in case it might be needed. Little had she known that she'd be attending dinner and a Christmas play with a man who made her
heart stutter and stammer every time he got within ten feet of her.

She was fastening a simple silver cross and chain at the back of her neck, when Hayley knocked on the bedroom door and quickly stepped inside.

“Is it okay if I come in?” she asked.

Dallas looked at her and smiled. “Sure. Do you need help with anything?”

Hayley stood before her and held out her arms. “Do I look like a geek in this? I wear jeans all the time and this is something a friend gave me that she didn't want anymore.”

The little flared velvet skirt in deep purple coupled with a trendy vest to match made Hayley look like a different child. “Oh, you look so pretty, Hayley! That looks great.”

Wrinkling her nose with uncertainty, Hayley looked down at herself. “At the play, I'll have an angel robe that will cover everything up, so I guess it don't matter much what I have on now. But I wanted to look nice for dinner. We don't… Well, we go out and eat sometimes, but we—” Pausing, she glanced up, her eyes suddenly gleaming as she smiled at Dallas. “We've never had a guest with us. Especially a beautiful lady like you.”

Hayley's comment not only touched Dallas, but also told her a few things about Boone. He didn't venture off the ranch on a regular basis. And he didn't date. Neither fact surprised her, but both of them troubled her. He was a man who had so much to offer a woman, yet he obviously didn't want to share himself with one. Nor did he believe he needed a steady connection to people or the outside world. He was either hiding from life, she thought, or refusing to join in. And either reason was not acceptable to her.

“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 good
naturedly. “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.”