“She held on to her purse the whole time. I think she was worried I’d steal it.”
Smiling, she opened the door and went inside.
The cabin smelled like Christmas. Dallas had set up a small, perfect tree in the corner near the fireplace and draped several of the leftover boughs along the mantel. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
Vivi Ann was surprised by him yet again. All her life men had lined up to give her things; they’d wowed her with presents wrapped by sales-people and paid for by credit cards. But this, a simple, sparsely decorated tree, meant more to her than any of that because she knew her husband didn’t care about Christmas. He’d done this for her because she cared.
“That friend of yours—Trayna at the drugstore—helped me pick out ornaments.”
Vivi Ann laughed at the image of scary-looking Dallas following Trayna around, picking out angels and elves. She loved him so much she couldn’t stand it.
“What’s so funny? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, Dallas Raintree. You did something right.” She took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom, and there she showed him in a dozen ways how much she loved him.
Afterward, they lay in bed, staring at each other. Through the open door, she could see their first Christmas tree, twinkling in the darkness.
“I thought you’d hate today,” she said.
“No.”
“Did you do corny stuff like that when you were a kid?”
“No,” he said, and this time his voice was quiet. She knew she’d struck a nerve.
“Is there anyone you want to invite for Christmas?”
“You keep asking the same question in different ways, Vivi,” he said. “There’s no one. Just you.”
She didn’t see how that was possible, how a person could be as alone as he implied. She angled onto one elbow and looked at him. “What happened Dallas?” It was the first time she’d ever asked the question directly.
“He killed her,” he said quietly. “I guess that’s what you want to know so bad. Beat her up for years and then shot her one night.”
“Were you—”
“Yeah. I was there.”
It all clicked into place for Vivi Ann then: the scars on his chest, the anger he sometimes couldn’t control, the trouble sleeping. She imagined him as a boy, listening to things no child should hear, seeing terrible images. No wonder he didn’t want to talk about his past. She scooted closer and took him in her arms, holding him with the whole of her body, her heart and soul, trying somehow to impart her childhood to him.
He was holding her so tightly she knew their conversation had reopened an old wound. The look he gave her was a terrible, beautiful combination of happiness and pain, and she wondered suddenly if that was what he lived with, that unbearable duo. She kissed his lips, then his cheek, and then, at his ear, she whispered, “We’re going to have a baby.”
He said nothing, just pulled her more tightly into his arms and held her.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He drew back just enough to look at her, and the love in his eyes was all the answer she needed.
If Winona had been keeping her memories in manila file folders, she would have labeled the Christmas of 1992 as the second worst in Grey family history; only the year their mom died had been worse.
She’d tried to pretend that everything was okay. She’d shown up at the farmhouse to decorate for the holidays. She’d schlepped up and down the attic stairs, carrying down the dusty ornament boxes until she was sweaty and tired. Working alongside her sisters, she’d said all the right things. Look, Vivi, it’s the Life Savers clown you made at Bible camp in fourth grade . . . and here’s Aurora’s favorite angel with the broken wing.
But none of it had felt right. Aurora and Vivi Ann had laughed and joked and fought over what Christmas album to play, while Winona felt increasingly distant. She knew it was wrong of her, that she needed to put aside the old grudges, the bitterness, and go on with their everyday life. She couldn’t seem to do that, though.
The problem was Dallas. He was like a tumor in the body of their family, and only she detected the malignancy.
It didn’t matter that he acted like he loved Vivi Ann (acted was the key word, to Winona’s mind) or that he was doing a great job at the ranch. What mattered was that he couldn’t be trusted. The police reports on his past were proof positive. He would hurt her family somehow.
Anyone sitting at this table for Christmas dinner should have seen that. Everything was in its usual place, looking sparkling and perfect. Daddy was dressed up in new dark blue Wrangler jeans and a crisp white shirt, buttoned all the way to the throat. Aurora and Richard and the kids looked like they’d just stepped out of the Nordstrom catalog, and Vivi Ann was an image of golden beauty in her green velvet dress.