Page 73 of Christmas with Three Cowboys

“My baby,” I say it again, cradling my belly underneath a thick, plush winter coat. I’m cold and I’m afraid, the truth of my reality haunting me from every damn angle. No matter how I look at it, the situation is dire, and this whole waiting game is doing one hell of a number on my psyche.

Deep breath in, slow breath out.

“Melissa!” Darla’s voice cuts through the darkness that threatens to take me. “Melissa, hold on, I’m here.”

I hear her falling to her knees with a grunt. She gets in front of me, her shadow instantly soothing me as she rushes to rub my hands with hers. “Deep breaths, honey,” she says. “In and out. You know the drill, come on.”

“Right, right.”

Deep breath in.

Slow breath out.

“You’ve got this, Melissa. Keep breathing.”

“I’m so tired,” I sob when the worst passes and I’m able to inhale and exhale without a thousand nails poking through my lungs, my throat. “I’m so fucking tired of all of this.”

“Oh, girl,” Darla says and hugs me.

“I’m sorry,” I manage as I pull back. “I… I broke a plate… All this chicken…”

“Leave it,” Darla replies. “The cats will eat it. Relax.”

“I can’t relax…”

“You haven’t had an episode in over a week. I thought these were getting scarcer,” Darla says, her worried gaze scanning me from head to toe. For a moment, I worry she’ll pick up on my secret, but I’ve managed to keep the symptoms mostly to myself—I blamed everything else on stress, and no one has batted an eye thus far. “What’s going on? It’s been quiet the last few days.”

I give her a weary look. “That’s the issue. They vanished. They’re in hiding, biding their time, getting ready to deliver another blow. The cops can’t find them. I’ve yet to hear Colton say anything about new evidence against them. We’re in fucking limbo, every day the same while I’m barely allowed to leave the house.”

“It’s for your own safety.”

“I know, and I should appreciate that more, but I… Dammit, Darla, I feel like a prisoner. Even here, surrounded by good people and with all this land at my feet, the fresh air… I feel trapped. The way I felt in my prison cell.”

“I’m sorry,” she sighs and pulls me into another hug.

This time, I give into it.

It’s not like she can do much else about it. She is as helpless as I am. As dependent on the outcome as I am. It’s the impotence that’s killing us. The inability to fight back, to speak my truthand for people to believe me. In the eyes of the law, I’m guilty. I’m serving my sentence. In the eyes of the cartel, too.

“I’m so angry,” I say, lowering my gaze. “I wish I could find Jake myself and rip his eyes out. Oh, the things I would do to him… Argh!”

“Let it out,” Darla replies. “Cuss and scream and just let it out. Better out than in, I always say. Be loud. Be angry. Fuck ’em all.”

“I wish they’d all just… die, and I feel awful for wishing such things.”

“It’s absolutely normal and perfectly okay to feel this way about people who wouldn’t hesitate to kill you, Melissa. You’re human. You’re not a saint.”

“I’m supposed to be a God-fearing woman.”

“You still are. But with a lot of rage in your soul. And you’re entitled to it. That man Jake Miller did you wrong; he did you dirty. Rest assured, if you don’t gouge his eyes out with a spoon, I will. And don’t even think that Ethan will hesitate to blow his brains out the next time they meet,” Darla says. “You didn’t deserve any of it. And you certainly didn’t deserve part two, either. The audacity of that bastard… it boggles the mind.”

“And the cartel… how’d they buy his bullshit so easily?”

“You pled guilty,” Darla sighs deeply. “It didn’t work in your favor where they’re concerned. Either way, you have every reason and every right to feel the way you do. So don’t fight it, just feel it.”

“Oh, I’m feeling it.” Hot tears stream down my cheeks. My lips quiver as I look up at her. For a moment, I’m met with the silence of her soft, blue eyes.

“I’m still a prisoner,” I say. “And I’ve never felt more trapped than now.”

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