Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(66)

You don’t care about me at all! And you don’t know me. I wish you’d just stop. I don’t even like being around you. I just like being with dad—at least he listens to me!

But her mother had hurt her. She’d disregarded who Callie was. She’d made it about what she’d hoped Callie might be. The memory of a child who’d died superimposed over the reality of the child she’d had instead.

It was the first and last time they’d let those resentments out into the open.

And that had been when Callie had met Jake. Jake, who had accepted her just as she was in fostering her interest in barrel racing. In the rodeo and in horses.

Jake, who she was beginning to see wove into different areas of her life in deeper, more meaningful ways than she had previously realized.

He was her friend. That was how she thought of him. Her best friend.

But that wasn’t all. It wasn’t.

It wasn’t that simple. Wasn’t that shallow. He was like a part of her.

Standing there, that realization washing over her as she stared at the dress, she found it difficult to move.

“Try it on,” her mom said.

Callie closed the door on the closet, and stripped off quickly. Then she eyed the dress with suspicion before undoing the zipper in the back and tugging it on over her hips. She zipped it, doing a bit of a contortionist act to do so, but the back was a V, as well, so it didn’t go up very high. And she felt exposed. Her whole chest felt exposed. When she looked down, she saw cleavage, which was not anything she ever tried to foster.

“I can’t wear this,” she said, opening the door.

Her mom’s mouth dropped open. “Callie,” she said. “You look beautiful.”

“I look naked,” Callie said, stepping out cautiously.

She never wore things so tight. This clung to every inch of her body, and the fabric felt so thin.

“What’s the point of being in such great shape if you don’t show it off?” her mom asked.

Callie looked down at her body, then into the mirror. Trying to see what her mom had just said. Until Jake, her body had been utilitarian for her.

A pocketknife, not a necklace.

Something to use, not something to look at.

She frowned. “To ride horses. My muscles serve a purpose. It’s not to look good in a dress.”

“But the side effect is that you look very good in this dress,” her mom said.

She pushed Callie over to the full-length mirror, and held her there. “Look at you.”

Her stomach rolled over. She looked... Like a woman. Like a very pretty woman actually. It made her whole body look different. Not strong so much as soft. She noticed a different shape to her legs than she ever normally did. Noticed an extra curve to her butt that she certainly hadn’t noticed before. She wondered if Jake would notice.

“That husband of yours is going to like this dress,” her mom said, as if she could read her mind.

“Mom,” she said, her face getting hot.

“You want him to like the way you look, don’t you?”

“I haven’t had any complaints,” she said, mumbling.

“That Jake is a stunningly handsome man. It wouldn’t hurt you to gussy up for him sometimes.”

As she said that, her mom removed the two rubber bands out of the ends of her braids and loosened her hair. Callie dodged and moved away, but her mom followed, still fussing with her hair. “Makeup next.”

“Makeup?”

But it wasn’t a discussion. Callie was attacked with cream and blush and something shimmery on her cheeks. Followed by a crimson lipstick. “You look fantastic,” her mom said. She was beaming. “And you made me so happy.”

“Well, I’m glad I could make you happy,” she muttered. She looked in the mirror, and the person she saw there was a stranger. Her cheeks looked hollow, her cheekbones sharp. And the emphasis on her mouth felt obscene, especially when she thought of...

The way she had put it on Jake just a few days ago. And she did not want to be having those thoughts in front of her mom.

“Can I... Can I borrow a necklace?” Callie asked, looking at the bare expanse of skin displayed by the neckline of the dress.

Tears pooled in her mom’s eyes. “I... Yes, Callie.”

Callie blinked and reached out, awkwardly wrapping her arm around her mom’s shoulders.

Her mom disappeared, then reappeared with a delicate white-gold necklace that looked like icicles. They cascaded down over her cleavage and made her shiver.

Especially when she thought of Jake seeing her.

He didn’t want anything to happen between them? Well. Well, now he’d have to resist her.

So there.

“He’s going to love it,” she said. She squeezed Callie’s shoulders. “Thank you. I’m sorry. I’m just... I’m sorry. I know we haven’t been close, and I know it’s my fault.”

That shocked Callie.

“It’s not all your fault,” Callie said. “I... I let some things hurt my feelings a long time ago. And I decided that it all meant something really specific. It’s nothing you told me. Nothing Dad told me. It just is. I decided that if I couldn’t compete with Sophie’s memory I would... Well, that I would just be one of the boys. Because you love them. And...”