Christmas Kisses with My Cowboy - Diana Palmer Page 0,69
the wave of hysteria clogging her throat, she pushed herself up on shaky hands. Another flash of light cut through the night sky, illuminating the moist handprints she left behind on the hardwood floors, and glistening off the beads of sweat covering her arms. And only because laughing was better than crying, she allowed a small laugh to escape, which sounded a little closer to a teary croak.
“One Mississippi,” she counted shakily, refocusing on the rhythm of the words and trying to slow her heart. “Two Mississip—”
Boom!
Faith let out another laugh because Mother Nature was not playing nice tonight. “Seriously, you couldn’t even let me have the second Mississippi to collect my shi-gle bells?”
Boom!
Not that it would have helped. Two Mississippis didn’t come close to cutting it when dealing with the haunting memories that stalked her. Which was ridiculous when she really thought about it. It had been over twenty years since that night but she could have sworn that she smelled discharged gunpowder in the air moments before everything went dark.
Then a downpour of hailstones the size of softballs bounced off the roof, confirming it was simply a winter storm; the rest of it had been in her head. That didn’t mean she didn’t jump when her phone vibrated in her back pocket.
“Hello?” she answered, surprised that she sounded calm and collected. Not like she was in the middle of a nervous breakdown.
“Hey, it’s Shelby. Pax wanted to call and make sure you were okay.”
Faith took stock of her body. She was in one piece, no one was in the room with her, and it had been nothing but a little scare.
“Tell him I’m fine,” she said casually, as if she hadn’t dropped to the ground like someone in the middle of a shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. “I’m fine,” she repeated. It was something she’d become adept at telling people—including herself.
But instead of Shelby’s answer, Faith got some rustling on the phone followed by heavy kid breathing.
“You okay?” It was Pax, and he sounded worried and small.
“You bet, buddy. I was just heating up some apple pie for dinner,” she said. “How are you doing? Did you see the lightning?”
Thankfully, Pax hadn’t yet been born when that awful night happened. But he’d woken Faith up from enough bad dreams to know that loud noises could sometimes freak her out. And with a heart the size of Texas, he wanted to make sure his older sister was okay after the thunderstorm.
“The lightning was pretty cool, I guess. But I told JT I might go home,” he said quietly. “You know, if you don’t want to eat dinner by yourself.”
“And miss out on a sleepover? I don’t think so.”
“Ms. Luella made us clean the kitchen before we could play. And only board games. No screen time.”
Exactly what she needed. A normal moment to find her balance. “That’s what happens when you break the rules. You should be happy Ms. Shelby allowed you to come over at all. You and JT are grounded, remember?”
“Yeah,” he grumbled, and she could almost picture him toeing the floor, which brought a smile to her face.
“Now hand the phone back to Ms. Shelby and be sure to brush your teeth before bed.” She gripped the phone to her ear. “Hey, Pax.”
“Yeah?”
“I love you,” she whispered.
“Love you, too.”
There was more rustling and breathing—this time it was from Faith’s end as she tried to keep her emotions in check—then Shelby was back. “He’s a great kid, Faith. You’ve done an amazing job.”
“Thanks.” She swallowed. “And thanks for watching Pax tonight.”
“Are you kidding? JT’s been driving me nuts being on house arrest. I don’t know who’s suffered more, the kids or us,” Shelby said. “Cody kept them busy, cleaning out the attic, feeding the animals. They’re exhausted.”
“I bet. Pax has been tired all week. Between helping Mrs. McKinney out at the diner and working off more of his hours helping Mr. Wilkins at the tree lot, he’s come home tired every night. Not to mention covered in sap.” Pax’s community service had been meant to teach him a lesson, but it had also given Faith a place to park him while she was working extra hours.
She hated that, while his friends were home spending quality time with their family, Pax and Faith had barely had a moment together that wasn’t driving to or from work. If Shelby hadn’t volunteered to keep him tonight, Pax would have been sitting in the break room at the hospital until her shift