Page 56 of Christmas Ransom

Before driving to the bank, she’d looked around her house. She loved what she’d done with the place since she’d moved in. But having Davy live with her there made it feel too empty now. A friend had suggested she get a cat. Carla had laughed, even though she loved cats.

“Life is about choices and consequences,” her mother used to say. Carla couldn’t agree more as she walked into the bank and went straight toward her office. But she didn’t enter it at first. Instead, she stopped in the doorway, taking in the space as if seeing it for the first time.

She’d been proud of this accomplishment because it was a symbol of her hard work and what she’d given up to get here. Back then her office had been a place of comfort and safety. She knew her job and did it efficiently. She’d always thought that one day she might move up and be a branch manager. Maybe it wasn’t what she’d set out to do, but she’d accepted it.

Just as she’d accepted that she and Davy Colt would never be together.

Shoving away the thought, she stepped in to walk behind her desk, but she didn’t sit down. Instead, she stared at the open doorway, remembering Judson Bruckner standing there the first time he’d come to the bank for money. He’d looked so nervous, so unsure of himself, so scared.

And then him later in the Santa costume.

Her boss suddenly filled the doorway, startling her for a moment.

Appearing uncomfortable, he stepped in and closed the door behind him. “I know I’ve already tried to talk you out of this, but I have to try one last time,” he said. “We have trauma experts you can talk to about your fears.”

Carla chuckled. “I’m not afraid of working in the bank or of another robbery.” She shook her head. “It’s personal, like I told you. All the robbery did was make me realize what I really want out of life.”

“If you’re sure I can’t talk you out of this,” he said.

“No, I’ve made up my mind. It’s definitely out of my comfort zone and it will be the first time that I don’t have a plan or know what the future holds. But I’m not scared anymore and that’s a really good feeling.” She smiled. “I’ve never felt so free.”

“Well, if you change your mind or need a job in the future...” He turned to walk toward the door.

“Thank you. I appreciate that.” But she didn’t see herself coming back here. She’d put away money for years. With the sale of her house, she would have plenty to live on for a long while, since she’d never lived extravagantly and she didn’t really see that changing.

As her boss opened the door to leave, she dragged her gaze to the box she’d brought to clean out her desk. Before Christmas, she couldn’t wait to get back here to this job, to the routine, to the comfortable life she’d managed to make for herself here in Lonesome. A safe, secure life. She realized the past few days that keeping Davy in her heart had also been part of her protection from moving on with her life. He’d been safe there, just under the branding iron tattoo. And she’d been happy enough with that.

Then Judson Bruckner had walked into the bank, and everything had changed. He brought Davy—the real live cowboy—back into her life. How had she thought that after everything she could just walk back into her old life that easily? She’d almost been killed—not once, but numerous times—since she’d left this office. But oddly, that wasn’t what had jolted her into making a decision about that life.

She’d lived in fear, she’d realized, long before the bank robbery. She’d feared disappointing her mother, feared becoming like her, feared veering off the path she’d set for herself. She’d feared what it would mean loving the rodeo cowboy part of Davy, who would always get on the back of a rank horse and try to ride it.

Her biggest fear had been taking a risk and following her heart.

Carla opened a drawer and began to take out her personal items and put them into the box.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” her boss said, having stopped in the open doorway. “I wish you all the luck in the world.”

Luck? She smiled and thanked him. She was lucky to be alive, but it would take more than luck to get what she wanted. It would take true love, the kind that compromised, that changed dreams, that didn’t always give you what you thought you wanted. But gave a woman what she needed soul deep. While that scared her, nothing could hold her back. Not anymore.

DAVYCOULDN’TCOUNThow many times he’d almost turned around and gone back to Lonesome. He hated the way he’d left. He regretted the things he’d said to Carla. He felt as if he’d burned their last bridge. There was no going back because they’d reached an impasse—just like ten years ago, he told himself as he drove toward Arlington, Texas.

So he’d kept going, even though his heart wasn’t in it—even when he’d drawn a horse he’d been wanting to ride for a long time. He told himself that Carla loved the idea of him—but not the man he was. She needed a man who wore a suit to work, who got off every night at five and mowed the lawn on the weekends.

But even as he thought it, his heart broke even worse to think of her with another man. He asked himself if this really had anything to do with the rodeo. Was he being unreasonable? What was another two years on the circuit? What if he didn’t want to quit even after that?

He stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for gas. The sun was starting to set. He found himself looking back up the highway toward Montana. Regret seemed to weigh him down even more. He was weary from the miles pulling his horse trailer across the country. Why had he fought so hard to do this? He’d always planned that one day he’d quit rodeo and raise rough stock. He had the land and had saved enough money to make it happen.

But it had always been down the road. He’d wanted a few more years riding bucking horses that were determined to toss him into the dirt more often than not. Man against beast. It was something that, whether Carla liked it or not, was in his genes, he told himself.

So why wasn’t he excited like he usually was when he hit the road? He needed these Texas-sanctioned rodeos. He had to earn enough wins to count toward circuit standings. He had wanted desperately to draw a horse named Pearl that weighed close to fifteen hundred pounds and was said to send cowboys to the Pearly Gates. Pearl had never been successfully ridden. He’d told himself he had to try to change that if he got the chance.

Gas tank full, he climbed behind the wheel, determined to make it to Dodge City, Kansas, before he pulled over and climbed into his horse-trailer camper to sleep.

CARLAWASPACKINGher car for the trip to Arlington, Texas, before the next snowstorm hit. A light dusting of flakes drifted down. She planned to be there when Davy rode and was hurrying to finish when she heard a vehicle pull into her drive. Turning, she blinked.

Through the falling snow, she couldn’t see the driver behind the wheel. She didn’t have to. She knew this shiny new truck intimately. Carla felt goose bumps race over her. Davy? Her mind whirled. What was he doing back here? Had something happened?

The pickup door swung open, and he stepped out. He adjusted his Stetson and seemed to hesitate, but only for a moment as he started toward her.

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