Merry Cowboy Christmas (Lucky Penny Ranch #3)(69)

“I’m in the barn and my phone is going dead,” he answered. “If I don’t see you before then, I’ll see you in church tomorrow morning…”

She held the phone out but the screen was blank. An empty house. Leftovers warmed up in the microwave. Depression set in as she remembered other evenings just like that in the shabby little apartment in Houston.

The DJ on the car radio broke the silence surrounding her. “And we have a request from Diana this evening, so here’s a little Sara Evans for all y’all out there in north-central Texas.”

“Suds in the Bucket” started off with the twang of guitar music. The lyrics didn’t match her exactly, but it sure made her antsy to get out of Dry Creek. The lyrics about not being able to fence time reminded Fiona of when she’d packed a bag and started walking out of town to go on an adventure. That same antsy feeling hit her as she sat in the car with new snow tires and looked ahead at a dark house.

“I need an adventure tonight,” she said.

Every song on the radio reminded her of Jud or something about Dry Creek as she drove north. When she was out of range of that station, she hit the search button and a DJ with a voice almost as deep as Jud’s filled the car. “And now for an hour of Christmas music starting with Vince Gill’s ‘Peace on Earth,’” the DJ said.

Tears flowed down Fiona’s cheeks as the lyrics asked for peace on earth and for it to begin with her. She tried to clear her mind and think about nothing but the joy of an adventure as she drove, but when she reached Claude, Texas, at nine o’clock, she realized that every single thing she’d thought about on the journey that evening had circled right back around to Dry Creek, to her family and to Jud. Maybe it was time to hang up her adventurous nature and go home.

A convenience store was still open, so she stopped to put gas in the car and get a cup of coffee. The small motel down the street beckoned to her, but she was reluctant to shell out any more money, so she got back in the car and started toward Amarillo. Then she saw a sign that pointed south down through the Palo Duro Canyon and she made a left-hand turn.

Suddenly, the flat land where dirt met a sky full of bright twinkling stars disappeared as she fell into a deep canyon filled with shadowy formations on either side of the narrow two-lane road. Somewhere in the middle of the journey, her eyes grew so heavy that she dozed and awoke with a jerk to find that she was on the wrong side of the road headed straight toward a barbed wire fence. With adrenaline pumping, she whipped the steering wheel, overcorrecting to the point that she just missed another fence on the other side of the road. Finally getting it under control and back on the road, she let out all the pent-up air in her lungs in a long, loud whoosh.

She pulled into a short lane with a locked gate right ahead of her. Hands shaking, her heart still pounding, she looked up past the canyon walls at the sky above her where the moon hung weightless with a billion stars around it. She remembered the song from a couple of hours before and nodded. She wished that Jud was with her and that all those stars were shining on them as they cuddled up and slept together in the backseat of the car.

She turned off the engine but wasn’t sure what to do next, so she laid the seat back and gazed at the sky through the top of the windshield. She’d wait until her pulse settled back to normal before she got back out there on the road and drove up to Silverton. According to the last sign she’d seen, it was probably only half an hour at most from there and then she’d get a motel, no matter what the cost.

She wrapped her coat tightly around her chest and shut her eyes. Just for a minute until her heart stopped racing, but the adrenaline left as suddenly as it had flashed through her body and she fell asleep.



Jud slipped into the house a little after midnight. He grabbed a fistful of cookies from the countertop and poured milk into a quart jar. There was no light under Fiona’s door, but he knocked very lightly in case she was still awake.

She didn’t answer, so he eased the door open. Her bed was unmade, her spotless room every bit as empty as the feeling of emptiness in the whole upstairs portion of the house. Come to think of it, her car hadn’t been outside, either. Leaving the door open, he quickly went to his room, put the cookies and milk on his nightstand, and got his phone attached to the recharge cord. Not waiting until it even had one bar, he hit her number and it went straight to voice mail. Either her phone was turned off or she was in a place with no service. She hadn’t mentioned going anywhere, but then their conversation had been cut short when his phone went dead.

He headed toward the bathroom for a quick shower. When he returned, he tried calling her three more times but it still went to voice mail. Finally, at one o’clock, he crawled into bed and slept fitfully until morning.



Dora June wore a bright red robe and a very worried expression when Jud reached the kitchen for breakfast. “You heard from Fiona? Allie and Lizzy both called this mornin’.”

Jud shook his head.

Truman sat at the table with his breakfast before him. “Quit your fussin’ and carryin’ on, woman. Fiona is a grown woman and she don’t have to answer to you. If she wants to lay out all night in some dive motel with God knows who, it ain’t none of your business.” He stopped long enough to sip his coffee. “I keep tellin’ both of y’all that girl won’t never have roots. Her wings have probably carried her away and we might not see her for another year.”