Cowboy's Christmas Rodeo by Mary Sue Jackson & Leslie North

Author:Mary Sue Jackson & Leslie North [Jackson, Mary Sue]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2020-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

“This is too surreal. I’m sorry, I know I keep saying it, but it’s true. I can’t get over how weird this night is turning out to be.”

Weird was definitely the understatement of the century. How had she had gone from being blindsided by her mother to sitting on the edge of her high school's auditorium stage? Never mind the fact that she had been the one to bring up the faulty gym door. It all felt like some kind of weird, grown-up fairy tale. She would only have been mildly surprised to look over her shoulder and find a brownie waiting to give her some secret advice.

“I know,” Axel said loftily, leaning over and bumping her with his shoulder. “It’s not every day you get to spend time with a bona fide celebrity, is it?”

Belle groaned and kicked him lightly with one of her dangling legs. “Come on, I’m serious. I didn’t expect to come back here any time soon, and never in a million years with you.”

“Is being here with me so bad?” He took a sip from one of the cans of Coke he’d liberated from the vending machine and peered into the seemingly endless darkness of the auditorium.

She shook her head, vehemently. "No, that's not what I'm saying at all. This is lovely. I just mean that it's strange seeing you back here at all. Even when we were students here, you seemed like you were already too big for this place. Right from the very start, it felt like you were too important. Like you had outgrown the school before you ever set foot inside its doors."

She took a sip of her own Coke and shifted restlessly. Could he see that her hands were trembling? When he had left and not come back, she had been crushed. She had worked hard to erase him from her mind over the years, and she’d thought she had done a pretty good job. Now, she wasn’t so sure. A part of her was still following him around the school with her eyes, her heart skipping a beat every time he favored her with a smile.

“Are you serious?” he asked, and the surprise in his voice pulled her out of the past. “I honestly can’t believe you thought that. I can tell you for sure, I never felt like I was too big for this place. I felt like a big, fat failure.”

Now it was her turn to be shocked. “How could you possibly have thought that? That’s completely insane.”

“No,” he contradicted with a soft, slightly melancholy laugh. “There wasn’t one class I didn’t come close to failing, and my teachers had no qualms about pointing out my shortcomings as a student. Then I would look at you, and I just knew I would never measure up. Everything seemed to come so easily to you, Belle. Whatever you wanted, you got.”

“No,” she said quietly. “That’s not quite true. I didn’t get everything I wanted.”

The words just slipped out, and she felt powerless to stop them.

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