Page 43 of A Christmas Baby for the Cowboy
Ramona had no such problem. “I don’t know why I thought that everything changed. That Hailey changed you. That the fact you’ve decided to keep her means that you—”
“I haven’t decided anything,” he argued, a kind of panic gripping him by the throat.
That made Ramona rock back on her heels. She looked at him as if she’d never seen him before. “You can’t be serious. You’re head over heels in love with that baby. Do you really think you’re going to hand her off to someone else? Are you truly that delusional?”
Knox didn’t know what he was, but it felt like an earthquake. Maybe a series of earthquakes and a volcanic eruption for good measure.
“Ramona,” he tried again, but she was turning and walking away from him.
She went over to the door and stamped her feet into her boots.
“That’s fine,” she told him. “Stay right here in your mausoleum of a house and pretend that your life is going to start someday soon. In the meantime, definitely don’t admit to yourself that you already have a better life than most.” She glared at him as she jerked her sweater on over her head and jammed her arms into the sleeves of her coat. “That baby already adores you. Your family dotes on you. And you and I have something pretty special, but you’re too busy imagining far-off horizons to pay attention to where you’re standing.”
“Ramona.”
“I’m going to get Cat or Sierra to drive me back into Cowboy Point,” she told him. “I’m not staying here, and that sucks, Knox, because I like staying here. I like everything that’s happened between us since Christmas Eve, and I’m just sorry that none of that seemed to reach you.”
“Ramona, I don’t want to lose you,” he gritted out, like it was torn out of him.
“Lose me?” She shook her head at him, her eyes dark. “You would have to actually be in this for five seconds to lose it. You would have to choose me. You would have to actually let yourself love something without walling yourself off from how it feels. You don’t lose anything when I walk out this door.” Ramona’s gaze seemed to spear straight through him. “You never let yourself have me, did you?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. Maybe she knew that no answers were forthcoming. She merely turned, opened the door, and walked outside. Then she shut it behind her—quietly.
That was even worse.
And it left him feeling like he’d been struck down by some kind of giant stone that had landed hard and was pressing and pressing—
Knox shook it off, somehow, and he staggered to the door. He threw himself out into the cold and went to the edge of the porch in his socks, the cold seeping into him, so frigid it felt like a burn.
But she was gone.
And this time he knew that there was no possible way that she was ever coming back.
Chapter Ten
New Year’s Eve had never been a favorite holiday for Ramona. She’d either been working, and therefore getting a close-up view of the excesses involved, or she’d been happily sequestering herself away from the world.
This year she could do neither.
Cat had been only too happy to pick her up the day before. She must have come running out of the ranch house the moment Ramona’s text hit her phone because she managed to get down the hill in record time, snow be damned. Ramona had barely made it out to the main drive when Cat pulled up in an oversized truck.
I take it things got less cozy than they looked a little while ago, Cat said when Ramona slammed her way into the passenger seat, cold from the walk down Knox’s drive but making up for it with temper.
She put her seat belt on with perhaps too much aggression.
Things came to their inevitable conclusion, she said. The way they always do. Maybe this time I’ll learn something.
Ouch, Cat had replied. And Ramona must have sounded a little more bitter than she usually did, because Cat didn’t follow that up with more questions.
She had spoken with Cat a million times about Knox. Her friend knew more than she probably should have about her own brother-in-law. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to download on her all over again now. Cat had certainly made it clear, time and again, that she was willing to listen.
But something in Ramona just wouldn’t let her do it.
I don’t want to talk about him, she said instead, as they bumped their slow way down the hill and out beneath the High Mountain Ranch gates. I have a date with Wyatt Stark to that New Year’s party at the Lodge tomorrow night. That’s what I’m going to focus on. The future.
Sure, Cat murmured, much too agreeably. You know what they say. Best way to get over one man—
Ramona had shot her a look. Cat had gone quiet.
