at him with relief in their eyes. They both started talking over one another, and Dallas found he had very little patience for either of them.
“You checked with Nate?” he asked the man. “You got the tag?”
“That’s right.” He held up the pink post-it note that had Nate’s handwriting on it. It said, Painting in hall beside kitchen.
“Ma’am,” he said. “I’m sorry, but talking to the front table and getting a tag is the procedure we’ve been using.”
“I was waiting here to talk to one of you,” she protested.
“Have you seen the library?” Dallas asked. “There are at least half a dozen paintings in there, most better than this one.”
“The library?” she asked, and Dallas led her to the sprawling room filled with books no one had ever opened. Several items had tags on them, claiming them for people. But none of the paintings had been taken.
“Oh, my,” the woman said, and she started examining the pieces. “This is an Andy Warhol.” She turned to Dallas with wide eyes.
“Yes, my ex-wife loved his work,” Dallas said. In the time it took to blink, he could see the anniversary where he’d presented that painting to Martha. She’d been over the moon, and Dallas had too—because he’d loved her so much and all he’d ever wanted was for her to be happy.
“I want this,” she said, already moving to the next painting.
“Ma’am,” he said as kindly as he could. “You have to get the tag from the front table. Someone could be getting it now.”
“Not again,” she said, and she practically sprinted from the library. Dallas just watched her go, trying to remember if he’d ever been that excited about the art hanging in the library. No, he had not.
He returned to the front table to help Nate, and the woman after the paintings had five tags with her as she hurried away from him once more.
“This is incredible,” Nate said. “What a great idea. We don’t have to move the stuff, and you’re making a lot of money.”
“I need it,” Dallas said, looking down at the sheet. His mind seized onto numbers, and they just made so much sense to him. In only a few seconds, he calculated that he’d made over seventy-five thousand dollars in just over two hours.
And he had many more ahead of him before he could truly relax, especially if the mysterious Josh knew where he worked.
Josh didn’t call Dallas, nor did he show up at the ranch again. He wasn’t loitering outside Dallas’s house on the outskirts of town, and as one week became two became three, Dallas started to put the man out of his mind.
He hadn’t spoken to his ex-wife since the closing on the house either, and he wondered if she’d found someone else to fund her habits. Dallas wasn’t going to do it, he knew that. If Martha wanted to be on the fast-track to self-destruction, there was little he could do about it except withhold the cash she needed for the pills and alcohol she favored.
He couldn’t believe she’d abandoned their children, their marriage, and their house for her vices. She’d made such great progress over the years, and they never kept wine in the house. If she drank, it was only socially, and only at restaurants.
He kept in touch with her sister, but Amy hadn’t heard from Martha in longer than Dallas had. As October became November, he started to put her out of his mind completely, which was a good thing as he prepared to go visit his parents and siblings in Temple.
The day finally arrived, and Dallas loaded up the pies he’d bought from Emma and told the kids to put their suitcases in the back of the SUV. He put his in too, glad he’d bought a new car that could hold luggage without making it a workout to get it in and out.
“Seat belts,” he said as he got behind the wheel. It was almost four hours to Temple, and his mother was serving Thanksgiving dinner promptly at one o’clock. If she hadn’t changed while Dallas had been in prison—and he didn’t think she had—they’d probably start eating at twelve-thirty.
He and the kids were on the road by eight, and he didn’t let his lead foot take over. He was in no hurry to get to his parents’ house and then wait around. That was the worst part about Thanksgiving meals—the visiting before and after. He just wanted to eat and run.
He wouldn’t be doing that