Page 25 of My Secret Santa Dallas

“Coffee,” I finally said, handing him the travel cup. “I’m not sure how you take it, so I brought cream and sugar, if you want. According to Marie, you are half human without your third cup.”

He eyed the sachets suspiciously.

“They’re not poison,” I told him.

Taking them, he asked, “Are you sure?”

“No,” I drawled, my face flat. “You see, because you irritate me so much, I left the ranch, jimmied your truck, drove all the way to Helena to get some liquid arsenic, made a chemistry setup in my room, and created arsenic crystals. Then I forgot I needed plastic, so I ran off back to Helena, got plastic, cut them into squares, and then realized I had forgotten the stamp and seal machines.”

“Oh, silly me. I am such a featherbrain. I jumped into the truck, took another trip to Helena, bought rare trademark seals from a back-alley sweatshop and aerosol glue, came back to the ranch, and put everything together, all before—” I checked my watch, noting the time was eight,twenty-five a.m., “—sunrise, and now here I am, giving you liquid death.”

His face was as blank as mine. “What about the cream?”

“Milk of magnesia,” I said. “I thought it was best for you to have a clean colon before you kicked the bucket.”

Frankie lost it and nearly catapulted over his horse’s head with how hard he was laughing. He grabbed the saddle horn and laughed till he shook like a rickety shed in the middle of a hurricane.

I turned back to Dallas. “Just take the damn coffee. You are worth more to me alive than dead.”

Resting the cup on the flat head of the post, he opened the cream cup, dumped it in, and added one sachet of sugar.

“One milk, one sugar,” I noted.

“Yep,” he mixed it and added, “I guess you’re the sort to have a bucket of skim milk and ten packets of Splenda, right?”

I must have made a face because he just laughed. “I’m sorry. You take it black, right?”

“Mostly,” I said, looking as he rubbed the horse’s ears. What I didn’t expect was Dallas’ horse leaning over the fence, nose at me— I froze. Was this one of those instances with a bear where you didn’t move, otherwise, he’d charge?

“Hello,” I said calmly. “May I help you?”

The horse closed its eyes with apparent satisfaction at the petting, its incredibly long lashes laying against its cheeks in bliss.

“Are all horses’ eyelashes this long?” I asked as the horse started to scratch harder.

“Yup. Keeps the flies out of them,” Dallas said. “Cows and horses have the longest eyelashes you’ll ever see. It's the same with their tails.”

Sipping my coffee, I asked, “I suppose you’ve been riding all your life, huh?”

“From the moment I could sit in the saddle at three,” he said. “Before that, Dad held me on his lap when he went riding. I did the same when Warrick was born, too. I took him out as a baby, all swaddled up in four layers of clothes so he wouldn’t get sick.”

My heart twisted hearing that. “Sounds like you were a good big brother. My brother would have lashed me to the horse and gone off to sleep before telling Dad he took care of me.”

He canted his head. “How old is your brother?”

“Three minutes and forty seconds,” I replied.

“You’re twins.”

“Unfortunately.” I twisted my lips. “So, what are you guys doing up here?”

“Just monitoring,” he said. “Earlier, there was a part of the fence a bull had ripped apart, and we fixed it while the rest of us kept the bulls away.”

Something wet touched my nose, and I tilted my head up. I saw flurries of snowflakes drifting down. The sky was still mostly bright, but gray was creeping in at the horizon.

“I’ll be damned,” Dallas said, nudging his hat up and staring at the sky. “I was wondering when it would start.”

The flurries kept coming, and I had to ask, “What do you do with the bulls when winter comes?”

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