Page 48 of My Secret Santa Dallas

This time, there was nothing soft about this kiss. It was deep and damned well rocked my soul. My brain short-circuited, and I lost all remnants of rational thought as Dallas’s tongue swept through my mouth, making the entire fucking world outside of him cease to exist.

I couldn’t hear over my thundering heart and the blood pounding in my ears; my body was on fire, and I tried my best to run my hands over every inch of skin available to me.

“Want you,” he said, his voice low and rumbly against my ear.

They were the words I’d heard many times from the men I’d dated, but never like this. Now, he was the only one I’d wanted to hear them from.

I pulled away, panting softly. “Home?”

“Home,” he said. “But let’s finish this ride.”

Somehow, I managed to survive the other twenty-three minutes back to town, and in forty minutes, I’d managed to get another look into his mind. When Dallas hopped down from the carriage, he thanked the driver. We paid and walked to the café.

The town was in full Christmas mode; fairy lights were up on every business awning, and wreaths were on the doors. The scent of roasting chestnuts and sticky sweet apples in caramel was faint in the air while laughter and merriment rang out from every corner of the streets. We passed the square where adults held ladders for kids and teens decorating the massive twelve-foot fir with baubles and tinsel.

I couldn’t deny it; this tiny town charmed me.

Plucking up my phone, I switched it on to see seven messages and two missed calls from Wentworth. Instantly, my good mood vanished. “This asshole,” I swore.

Dallas shot me a look as we got to his truck. “Something wrong?”

“Wentworth has been bugging me since last night,” I dropped the cell and massaged my temple. “He wants me to come back for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I told him, in no uncertain terms, that I won't be doing that. Now, he’s sent me a million messages and tried to call me for the same thing, I’d imagine.”

We turned off onto the ranch road, with Dallas notably quiet. “You don’t want to go back?”

“Not if you paid me.”

Again, he was quiet as we drove up the lane. “Maybe you should go. If he tried to get a hold of you that much, maybe it would be important. I mean, the plant is going to be down for a while. Why not see what he is bugging you about?”

I felt as if he’d jabbed a hot knife in my heart.

I don’t know if I’d made a distressing sound in the back of my throat or something, but Dallas must have picked up on my recoil. He parked and yanked the e-brake up with more force than he needed.

“For God’s sake, Blair, don’t do this,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Make it look like I don’t want you here.” he turned. An hour ago, his gray eyes and hand had been liquid smoke, and now they were as hard as steel. “Nothing could be further from the truth. If your family needs you, you go and see what is happening. You can come right back if it’s not anything you want to be a part of. No one is kicking you out.”

The sting began to soothe. “I don’t want to go and listen to the bullshit he’s got.”

“I get it, but you’re an adult,” he said. “Unless your brother has run the business into the ground or banished your parents to Switzerland, there is nothing to keep you there.”

I slumped. “I just don’t want to?—”

My phone rang— fuck. It was Dad. If I’d thought I could blow off my brother, there was no way I could brush off my Dad.

“Hello, Dad,” I said, my teeth grinding, knowing that Wentworth was behind this call. “How are you?”

William said, “Doing well. I’d do much better if you told me why you are refusing to talk with Wentworth.”

“I told him I am on a job and couldn’t make it,” I said. “Besides, I don’t think there is much of anything for me to go back to. I mean, we do the same thing every Thanksgiving and Christmas. Why do you need me?”

“Because we have a family image to uphold,” Dad said sternly. “It's only a few days, sweetheart. Surely your boss can give you the time off.”

Translation: get on the nearest plane and come home—now.

Thanksgiving was in three days. I wasn’t planning onleaving now. “I have a choice for you. I can come home now but not for Christmas, or I can come for Christmas and not now. I can’t do both.”

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