The Cowboy Who Saved Christmas - Jodi Thomas Page 0,49

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All of it started right there, under that roof, in the beautiful, wooden beamed entryway of the Mason Ranch. And that didn’t even include my own personal loss. Finding out that my Ben was Benjamin Mason, that he’d betrayed me with a pack of lies, was engaged to another, and expecting a child.

It was like the portal to hell, and all I wanted was out, but my feet halted at the doors. I shut my eyes tight against the burn that wanted to win, that wanted to make me give up and retreat to a dark corner. I didn’t have that luxury now.

Taking a deep breath and turning slowly, I swiped under my eyes and watched the last remnants of the crowd wander through the dining room door, some of them still whispering among themselves as they glanced over their shoulders. I’d reminded them. Glorious.

Let them talk. I didn’t care. I had bigger problems.

The library door stood ajar ahead, and a burst of painful laughter escaped my throat before I clapped a hand over my mouth. The irony was almost crazy. But before I knew what I was doing, I found myself inside, raising my eyes overhead. No mistletoe now.

I closed my eyes as I leaned against a shelf and breathed in the quiet. The last time I was in that room, my world turned upside down. I could still see him down on one knee, his head bowed, begging me to—

“Who are you?”

I sucked in a very ungraceful breath, knocking two books from their place as my right hand flailed sideways. They clattered to the ground, and my gaze landed on two little bare feet near where one of them lay open on the wood floor.

A little girl with silky blond hair, a long nightdress, and her father’s golden-hazel eyes peered up at me from the corner as she sat cross-legged, a book on her lap.

“Oh my God, you startled me,” I said, blowing out a slow breath.

“You aren’t supposed to take God’s name in vain,” she said, holding one finger in her place on the page.

“Well, I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to be sneaking up on people at a grown-up party either,” I said.

“I didn’t sneak,” she said. “I was reading. You came in here.”

I bit back a smile. “So I did. What’s your name?”

“Abigail Winifred Mason,” she rattled off automatically. “Winifred was my mommy’s name. What’s yours?”

Of course she would have a version of her mother’s name to carry around with her. I understood that burden.

“Josephine Elizabeth Bancroft,” I said. “And Elizabeth was my mother’s name, too.”

“Is she dead?”

This girl was direct.

“She is.”

“Do you remember her?” she asked, her eyes clear.

I shook my head. “She died when I was born, just like yours did.”

Abigail closed her book and leaned forward. “Kind of makes us half orphans, don’t you think? Never knowing our mommies? Did you know mine?”

I swallowed at the barrage of questions. “I met her once.”

“What was she like?” she breathed.

God, I knew this conversation. I’d had it at least once a week with my father for the first ten years of my life. Any speck of information, of knowledge, of anything that would make me feel closer to the woman I never knew.

“She was very pretty,” I said, digging hard for that. “Just like you. Shouldn’t you be in bed, Abigail?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“So you came down here to be nosy?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

She shook her head. “We don’t care about the people.”

“We?”

“Me and Daddy,” she said. “But Uncle Travis did, so Daddy plays pretend once a year to give him a belly laugh in heaven.”

I chuckled in spite of myself. “And you? What’s your excuse?”

“I like to read,” she said. “Books are nicer than people.”

“You are absolutely correct about that,” I said, dabbing under my eyes to get myself in order.

“You aren’t wearing a hat,” she said. “Most grown-up ladies do.”

“I don’t like hats unless I’m riding,” I said. “They make my head feel heavy.”

“I don’t think I’ll like them either,” she said. “My daddy doesn’t like this room.” My hands stopped in midmotion. “He says it’s a sad room, but I love it. So I come in here to get some quiet sometimes.”

A sad room.

I cleared my throat. “I understand that. I have a place like that, too, at my house.”

“A library?” she asked.

“The stable,” I said. “I like sitting with the horses.”

“Me too,” she said, her bright eyes lighting up. “Mrs. Shannon doesn’t understand