A Lone Star Christmas Read Free Page B

you thought was right.”
    â€œI did what I thought was right? I can’t even justify what I did to myself by saying that I did what I thought was right. My wife and my child are dead, and I killed them.”
    â€œIt isn’t as if you murdered them.”
    â€œIt isn’t? How is it different? Martha and the child are still dead.”
    â€œSo you are going to run away. Is that your answer?”
    â€œYes, that is my answer. I need some time to sort things out. Please try to understand that.”
    His father changed tactics, from challenging to being persuasive. “Tom, all I am asking is that you think this through. You have more potential than any student I ever taught, and I’m not saying that just because you are my son. I am saying it because it is true. Do you have any idea of the good that someone like you—a person with your skills, your talent, your education, can do?”
    â€œI’ve seen the evil I can do when I confuse skill, talent, and education with Godlike attributes.”
    Tom’s father sighed in resignation. “What time does your train leave?”
    â€œAt nine o’clock tonight.”
    Tom’s father walked over to the bar and poured a glass of Scotch. He held it out toward Tom and, catching a beam of light from the electric chandelier, the amber fluid emitted a burst of gold as if the glass had captured the sun itself. “Then at least have this last, parting drink with me.”
    Tom waited until his father had poured his own glass, then the two men drank to each other.
    â€œWill you write to let me know where you are and how you are doing?”
    â€œNot for a while,” Tom said. “I just need to be away from everything that could remind me of what happened. And that means even my family.”
    Surprisingly, Tom’s father smiled. “In a way, I not only don’t blame you, I envy you. I almost ran off myself, once. I was going to sail the seven seas. But my father got wind of it, and talked me out of it. I guess I wasn’t as strong as you are.”
    â€œNonsense, you are as strong,” Tom said. “You just never had the same devils chasing you that I do.”
    Tom glanced over at the big clock. It showed fifteen minutes of nine. Shouldn’t she be here by now? Had she changed her mind and already checked out? He walked over to the desk.
    â€œYes, sir, Mr. Whitman, may I help you?” the hotel desk clerk asked.
    â€œRebecca Conyers,” Tom said. “Has she checked out yet?”
    The clerk checked his book. “No, sir. She is still in the hotel. Would you like me to summon her?”
    â€œNo, that won’t be necessary,” Tom said. “I’ll just wait here in the lobby for her.”
    â€œVery good, sir.”
    Huh, Tom thought. And here it was my belief that Westerners went to bed and rose with the sun.
    As soon he thought that, though, he realized that she had gone to bed quite late, having arrived on the train in the middle of the night. At least his initial fear that she had left without meeting him was alleviated.
    Â 
    When Rebecca awakened that morning she was already having second thoughts about what she had done. Had she actually told a perfect stranger that she could talk her father into hiring him? And, even if she could, should she? She had arisen much later than she normally did, and now, as she dressed, she found herself hoping that he had grown tired of waiting for her and left, without accepting her offer.
    However, when she went downstairs she saw him sitting in a chair in the lobby. His suitcase was on the floor beside him, but he wasn’t wearing the suit he had been wearing the night before. Instead, he was wearing denims and a blue cotton shirt. If anything, she found him even more attractive, for the denims and cotton shirt took some of the polish off and gave him a more rugged appearance.
    Although Tom had gotten an idea last night that the young woman