Merry Cowboy Christmas (Lucky Penny Ranch #3)(72)

“Where have you been?” Dora June caught her at the end of the pew.

“Driving and soul searching,” Fiona answered honestly. “Are we ready to go see Granny and do some shopping this afternoon?”

“Did you do any good by driving all night?” Dora June’s expression left no doubt that she was serious and that she would have answers.

Fiona nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I did.”

“Good. We’ll talk details later. For now let’s gather up the family and go shopping. I could get used to this kind of lifestyle.” Dora June smiled.

“Yes, we will talk details later,” Lizzy said right behind her. “You scared the hell out of us.”

“I lived in Houston for years. You didn’t know where I was for a whole week, maybe more, at a time and you didn’t act like this,” Fiona said.

“Things were different in those days,” Jud whispered close to her ear. His breath on her neck sent shivers down her spine.

“Hey, if you’re through whisperin’ sweet things in Fiona’s ear, I’m ready to go eat. If we slip out the back door, we can beat the rest of these people to Nadine’s and get our dinner quicker,” Truman said.

“Truman O’Dell,” Dora June gasped.

“Y’all could be about your shopping trip sooner if you’d do the same thing,” Truman told her.

“Do what?” Allie returned from the nursery with Audrey.

“Sneak out the back door to go shopping,” Fiona laughed.

“I will if Dora June will,” Allie said.

“I reckon the preacher has plenty of people to shake his hand.” Dora June nodded. “Lead the way, Truman. I feel like a kid again. Remember when we was dating and we’d do this so we could have a little bit of time together?”

“Shhh.” Truman actually blushed. “You’ll be givin’ these kids ideas.”

Jud touched Fiona on the arm. “Tonight?”

She nodded.

Tonight might not be sex or making love, and when she was done telling him what she intended to say, he might not even want to talk to her again. Thinking of the talk they were going to have, she decided it would occur while sitting in the two wingback chairs and not in either of their bedrooms.

“I want to eat at that little family restaurant in Seymour,” Dora June said on the way to Allie’s van. “I’m buying today and there’ll be no arguments. I hear they’ve got fried chicken on the all-you-can-eat buffet and it’s been a long time since I got to eat fried chicken that I didn’t cook.” She opened the door and crawled up into the front passenger seat.

Allie tossed the keys to Lizzy. “You can drive. Baby girl is fussy today.”

Lizzy caught the keys, got inside, and buckled the seat belt.

“I do hope Irene is herself today,” Dora June said. “I’d love to sit and talk to her like we did for that little while when we decorated the tree.” She fixed her big black shiny purse just right in her lap and wrapped her arms around it. “Do any of y’all know what’s going on with Truman? He’s actin’ strange lately. Talkin’ to himself and frownin’ like he’s arguing with someone.”

“Blake told me this morning that he’s arguing with God over something,” Allie said. “We’re all ready, Lizzy. You can go now.”

Lizzy started the engine, backed out, and headed north toward Seymour. “Okay, Fiona, start talking.”

“About what? I told you I drove most of the night and most of the morning to get to church on time.” This feeling was all so new that she didn’t want to talk about it right then. Selfishly, she wanted to hug it close and let it all sink in before she tried to explain what she’d figured out. Besides, what if she was wrong? Why give them false hope if in a few days the aura of peace disappeared?

“Why did you drive all night and where did you go?” Allie asked.

“Y’all ever hear that song by Sara Evans called ‘Suds in the Bucket’?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Lizzy asked. “Don’t change the subject. We want details and we aren’t going to talk about old songs.”

“It is a detail,” Fiona said. “I think it was a detail before I ever left home to go to college. I left the suds in the bucket and the clothes hanging on the line.”

“You did not,” Allie said.

“Figuratively speaking, I did. I left behind all the things that I did back then. My boots and my country girl clothes. I didn’t leave them on the line but hanging in my closet and in my dresser drawers,” she argued.

“Go on,” Dora June said.

“Last night, I left the store and when I got home the house was dark. Jud was delivering another calf and that song came on the radio and I got that same feeling I had back then. The same thing that I felt when I was a little girl and decided to leave Dry Creek and go on an adventure,” Fiona said. “I wanted to run away. It didn’t matter where or how long. I could not go in that house. It reminded me of all those times I went home to that depressing little apartment in Houston.”

“Okay, then what?” Allie asked.

“I drove to Seymour and then to Vernon and all the way to Claude, right on the edge of the Palo Duro Canyon. I stopped and got coffee because I was getting tired. Every single song on the radio reminded me of Dry Creek.” She wasn’t going to tell them that most of them reminded her of Jud. “On a whim, I turned down into the canyon rather than going on to Amarillo, which was my first plan. I got sleepy, almost ran off the road and…” She went on to tell them the rest of the story, leaving out the part that Sara Evans’s other song played in settling her mind.