Page 24 of Her Cowboy Prince Charming

“Yes,” she said. “It’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“You can’t live that way.”

“You’re a child,” she said. “You literally don’t know anything about anything.”

“That’s what you keep saying. Except I know I’m going to go to college. Except I know that I didn’t choose the bad things that happened to me, and I’m not gonna choose extra bad things just because.”

“You make it sound easy. But you don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what he makes me...feel. What he’s always made me feel. I have had feelings for him since I was a kid. When I was brave enough to act on them he rejected me.”

“And now you’re rejecting him? It just seems like you’re creating your own issues.”

“No, I just... I wanted to know that I was going to be okay if things didn’t work out between us. I went... I went to that Christmas party. The mask one in Mapleton. I wanted to hook up with a guy that I didn’t know. I wanted to prove to myself that I would be okay if Damien Prince never cared about me. But what I found instead was Damien. So I can’t prove it to myself. I don’t know if I’m going to be okay. And Dylan isn’t done in the military and...”

“I hear what you’re saying,” Camilla said. “But no. You don’t know if you’ll be okay. I’m sorry. But that’s just how it is. You don’t really get to know.”

She stared at her little sister, who said all these things so very matter-of-factly. It was maddening. Infuriating. And she just kept thinking about last night. About the way he had put that shoe on her foot. About the way he had danced with her. Awkwardly, with that one shoe and the one boot and...

She turned away from Camilla and found herself drifting toward the entryway, where her other high heel was still sitting, laying oddly in a pile of shoes in that doorway.

And it hit her then. She had the other shoe. She was the one holding it. And there was something about that revelation, that realization, that gave her a sense of power. A sense of determination. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop like she had no control over any of this. Like she had no control over what she did. How she changed and what she learned. What she decided to fight for. As if the other shoe was simply fate. That would fall from heaven one day and crush her beneath the weight of it, because that was how it had felt to lose her father after her mother when she’d been just a child.

But it wasn’t a trend. It was just life. And there were things that had happened since then that were...up to her. This was up to her. “I’m an idiot,” she whispered.

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Camilla said.

“I mean... I really am.”

She picked up the shoe by the door, and without bothering to put on her coat, she ran outside. She ran all the way down to Damien’s cabin. And she knocked on the door. He didn’t answer. She opened it, and she found it empty. “Dammit,” she whispered. She looked around and didn’t see his truck anywhere. He was gone. He was gone.

She went back into the cabin and looked again. His belongings were gone and so... So was her shoe.

And she stared down at the one in her hand, and she realized then and there, it was up to her to put that pair back together.

And so she went back up to the house and got in her own truck, and took off down the road with her glittering high heel in the seat beside her.

She was on a mission. And she was going to find Damien.

CHAPTER TEN

DAMIENHADDETERMINEDthat the better part of valor was to let her get on with her Christmas. He felt... Hell, he didn’t really know what he felt. Heartbreak, he supposed, though he never had an experience of it when it came to love. Romantic love.

Had he really fallen in love with her in just a couple of days?

No. He fell in love with her years ago.You just didn’t know how to let yourself in on it.

But she didn’t want to do it. And hell, he couldn’t blame her. The world was a cold and unforgiving place. And she’d seen a lot of bad shit.

He didn’t want to be just another terrible thing that had happened to Jessie Granger. He cared way too much for that.

Suddenly, in his rearview mirror, he saw a blue truck. Hot on his bumper, and driving pretty dangerously considering the weather.

It took him a minute to realize. It was Jessie. He put his blinker on like a good Oregonian and pulled to the right side of the road, and Jessie pulled swiftly after him.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, getting out of the driver’s side and shutting the door firmly behind him.

“I had to find you,” she said, getting out of the truck, holding a high heel shoe in one hand. “I have the other shoe.”

“Yeah.”

---