A Cowboy's Christmas Carol by Brenda Harlen

Author:Brenda Harlen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-09-07T12:31:00+00:00

* * *

“Well, that went well,” Dorothea said, accepting the mug of tea that her daughter handed to her.

Wanda sighed. “Is this the part where you say, ‘I told you so’?”

“It might have been, but it’s not nearly as satisfying if you know it’s coming,” she remarked.

“How about if I say you were right? Because you were,” her daughter admitted. “I should have told him.”

“Why didn’t you?” Dorothea asked.

“Because I knew he wouldn’t take it well.”

“You didn’t give him a chance to take it well. He was ambushed by the sight of your boyfriend’s hands on your—”

“Okay,” Wanda interjected. “We all know where Sean’s hands were.”

“And Evan’s going to need some time—and possibly therapy—to block that image from his mind,” she said, trying to tease a smile out of her daughter.

She didn’t succeed.

“Plus, you know how he gets around the holidays.”

Now Wanda sighed. “I remember when he used to love the holidays.”

Dorothea did, too, but Andrew’s decision to walk out on his family only days after Christmas had changed that. Since then, all the signs of the season that others anticipated with so much excitement only made her grandson become sullen and withdrawn.

“He’ll come around,” she assured her daughter.

“Do you really think so?”

“You raised two wonderful children, but even grown-up children sometimes have trouble seeing their mom as anything other than that.”

“You’re not trying to tell me that you’re dating someone, are you?” Wanda asked.

Dorothea chuckled. “No. I was lucky enough to have fifty-two wonderful years with the love of my life, so I’ve got fifty-two years of memories to keep me company.”

Her daughter sighed. “I only ever wanted what you and Dad had. When I married Andrew, I thought we’d be together forever.”

“No one ever gets married thinking that there might be an expiry date on their vows. Well, except maybe people who marry for money.”

“If I’d married for money, I might have had at least that to keep me warm at night.”

“No amount of money can compete with a good man, and your father was the very best,” Dorothea said, her tone a little melancholy.

“Did you ever love anyone else?” Wanda wondered. “When you were younger, I mean.”

She shook her head. “No. I met Michael when I was fifteen years old, and that was it for me. There was never a thought of anyone else.”

“So who’s the man in your sketches?”

Dorothea reached for the sketchbook that was always close at hand and folded back the cover, thumbing through the pages until she got to the section of pictures her daughter was asking about. She studied the face again, as if that might give her the answer to Wanda’s question, but could only shake her head. “I don’t know.”

And the not knowing was frustrating for her, because she felt as if she should know him—as if he was a real person and not merely a construct of her imagination.

“And the woman?”

She flipped a few more pages, and shook her head again.

“She looks vaguely familiar to me,” Wanda said. “The man not at all, but the woman.

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