Page 77 of Texas Splendor
“Oh, there you are,” Dee said smiling. She took Loree’s free hand. “We have a tradition of singing a song before we open presents. We were wondering if you’d play the piano while we sang.”
Loree felt the comfort of belonging slip around her like a warm blanket as Austin squeezed her hand. “I’d love to. What should I play?”
“ ‘Silent Night’?”
“One of my favorites,” Loree said as she released Austin’s hand and walked to the piano. She sat on the bench and swiped her damp palms along her skirt. Austin came to stand beside her.
“You’ll do fine,” he mouthed.
She smiled and nodded. “Hope so.”
“All right, everyone, Loree is going to play ‘Silent Night.’ Everyone stand so we can sing together as a family,” Dee commanded.
Loree glanced over her shoulder. The husbands and wives had gathered their children around them, distinct families that came together to form one. Where was a photographer when they needed one?
She wiped her hands again on her skirt before placing her fingers on the ivory keys. The notes sounded and the room filled with off-key voices—and for the first time ever, she heard her husband’s voice lifted in song. He carried the tune like no one else in the room, as though the melody were part of him.
His gaze captured hers, holding her entranced, and she wished the song would never end, but eventually it drifted away, leaving a moment of respectful silence in its wake.
Austin smiled at her, rubbed his hands together as though in anticipation, and took a step away from the piano. Loree twisted around on the piano bench to watch the exchange of gifts.
“You can help me pass out presents, Brat,” Rawley said as he knelt in front of the tree.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Maggie countered as she dropped beside him. “I’ve been helping you forever.”
Austin still smiling, stepped back, and sank onto the bench beside Loree, his gaze focused on the tree. He took her hand. “Thought you played really nice,” he said, his voice low.
She thought her heart might break as she remembered him saying earlier that he needed to pass out the presents. In the years while he was away, the responsibility had obviously fallen to Rawley until everyone had forgotten a time when anyone else had passed them out.
She squeezed Austin’s arm. “It surprised me, hearing how well you sang.”
He shrugged. “Use to enjoy music.”
“I wish you’d let me teach you to play—”
“Here, Uncle Austin, this one’s for you,” Maggie said, holding out a large package.
“Well, I’ll be,” Austin said with a smile as he shook the box. “This is almost as big as the box Rawley got the first year that you helped me pass out the presents. You remember that?”
Maggie furrowed her brow and shook her head. “What’d he get?”
“A saddle.”
“I don’t ‘member.”
Austin touched her nose. “Doesn’t matter. You’d better get back to helping him.”
She scurried away. Loree leaned close and whispered, “She couldn’t have been very old when you left—”
“Three.”
He looked at her and smiled sadly. “Guess we can’t always choose which memories we keep when we start growing up.”
But she knew she would forever hold the memory of her husband’s first Christmas after his release from prison. Even with her by his side, she thought he’d never looked more lonely.
Chapter 14
Austin awoke as he had for several months, long before the sun came up, with his wife curled against his side, her furled hand resting on the center of his bare chest. He loved these first moments of awareness, hearing Loree’s breathing, feeling her warmth, knowing they would be his for the remainder of his life.
