Page 58 of Wounded Christmas Wolf
“What can I do but leave?” he said aloud. “Holly has her family. She has this place. She doesn’t need someone who’s going to land in the middle of it like a wrecking ball.”
He wasn’t sure who he was talking to. Maybe his wolf, maybe himself; maybe the ghost of the woman who had designed this place, whose lingering sense of care was still visible in so many places around the ranch.
Maybe if Jace had had a mother like that, parents like that, he wouldn’t have turned out like this.
The best thing he could do for Holly was walk away from her now, before he dragged her down.
Before he really hurt her.
He took off the Colonel’s old brown coat and slung it over the back of a chair. Then he shrugged into his lighter coat and picked up the small duffel containing all his worldly possessions.
Shades of his childhood, he thought. The way he used to go from one place to another with no more belongings than could fit in one small bag.
He looked at the place one last time, then turned his back on it, and left.
The wind already seemed colder. It cut through his coat as Jace trudged through the circle of Christmas houses, keeping his gaze fixed ahead.
As he walked down the hill, the air smelled of woodsmoke and pine. The sun was slanting across the fields. From the Christmas tree farm came the sound of a chainsaw, followed by a crystalline silence. Even the dogs didn’t seem to be around.
Leaving with Rob still a danger to Holly sat horribly in his chest. He felt as if something inside him was clawing at him, trying to force him to turn around and walk back.
He’d deal with the problem from the Rob end, he decided. Holly had said Rob’s dad was well-connected. It couldn’t be too hard to find him. Telling him that his son had been terrorizing a local woman might help turn things around, at least give Rob a new target to focus his wrath other than Holly. Jace wouldn’t mind meeting the guy man-to-man. If he was going to be a savage beast, then he’d be a beast. Give Rob something else to worry about ...
At the top of the driveway he stopped and looked back at the farm. This had been his first sight of it. The Christmas tree sign, the buildings, the cottages on the hill.
He saw it so differently now. Every part of the place had memories attached to it. Places he had walked with Holly, the tree farm where he had helped so many customers, the silly holiday cottages that felt more like home than anywhere he’d ever been.
The realization began to settle on him that he couldn’t simply walk away from this.
Holly had furiously hurled the word “coward” at him. And if he walked away without even trying to fix this, she was right.
If he walked away, he didn’t deserve to ever come back. He didn’t deserve to have a home here.
Hehad to fix it. If he was going to belong here—and he wanted more than anything to belong here—he had to be a person who was worth it. Not someone who ran at the slightest hint of trouble.
He drew in a breath of the sharp, woodsmoke-tinged air, turned, and began to walk back.
He’d only taken a few steps when he had to move aside for a vehicle turning into the driveway from the main road. It had already taken the side road to the tree farm before he fully registered what it was.
It was a sheriff’s cruiser.
The emergency lights were off, but it was moving swiftly and with purpose, and it was going to the tree farm.
Something was wrong.
Jace dropped his duffel in a snowbank and broke into a run.
HOLLY
Holly wasin the house when she looked up and saw Sheriff Farrell’s cruiser go past and turn toward the tree farm.
“What on Earth?” Holly muttered. She dropped the roll of tape.
Noelle and Dad had taken Kaden up to the tree farm to show him the trees, while Holly volunteered to wrap the remaining gifts for Kaden that Noelle had brought in her luggage. She was just finishing the last one.
Leaping to her feet, she ran to grab a coat and shove her feet into a pair of boots. Cupcake, lying on Rocket’s bed, looked up from his bacon (SQUEAKA?) and Holly told him firmly, “Stay!” He probably didn’t know the command, but he didn’t seem inclined to abandon his warm bed and squeaky toy, either.
Why would the sheriff be here? Sheriff Farrell was a man who generally didn’t like rocking the boat or shaking things up, which made him perfect for small town law enforcement in a town where the biggest crimes were usually teenage vandalism and drivers skipping out on paying at the pump.This had led to the sheriff being reelected repeatedly since Holly was a teenager.
