Oklahoma Christmas Blues Read online

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  The Long Branch was open on Christmas Eve because the Brands, and apparently the McIntyres too, loved Christmas and wanted to share that with the whole town. Everyone showed up. The music teacher from the local high school played the piano, and carols were sung around the tree. Festive drinks were on the house, and a buffet dinner was served at cost.

  Darryl stood watching the crowd, or trying to. Mostly his eyes were on Sophie behind the bar. Damn, she could sling drinks.

  Nothing had changed, though. Not really. He was still carrying the burden of his past, the regret and the anger. She was a happy, hopeful romantic who believed in miracles. He was a realist. Oh, he’d had one weak moment, after she’d left him last night. He’d actually written a Dear Santa letter of his own. It was in the glove box of his truck right now. Stupid. The whole thing, the notion of him and her together—it would never work. He would bring her down. She could do better.

  Jason walked up and clapped him on the shoulder. “What do you think of our Christmas Eve bash?” he asked.

  “Just wondering how you all make it home in time for the reindeer on the roof,” he replied. It was a great event, truly. Everyone in the crowded saloon was happy, laughing.

  “Oh, it only goes till nine,” Jason said. “Then we close down until the twenty-sixth, and we have shortened hours from then till the second. More time for you to stare at my pretty cousin.”

  Darryl blinked and realized that was exactly what he’d been doing the entire time Jason had been talking to him. “Sorry. It isn’t—“

  “The hell it isn’t.” Jason sighed. “She feel the same way?”

  “I think so.”

  “So what are you waiting for?”


  He shook his head. “I’m not the kind of guy she deserves.” Darryl couldn’t believe he’d just blurted that. It wasn't the kind of thing a guy like him said out loud. It was the kind of thing he only put into a song.

  But then Jason said, “It’s never too late to change, you know.”

  Something drew his eyes back to Sophie. She was taking off her apron and hurrying out from behind the bar, then through the crowded dance floor toward the batwing doors.

  “Where the hell is she going?” Jason wondered out loud. He started to move, but Darryl put a hand on his shoulder.

  “I got this.” Jason frowned at him but Darryl said, “I’m still the bouncer—head of security, I mean. It’s my job.” Then he went after her. She was outside and out of sight by the time he stepped through the still-swinging doors, and for some reason that made him nervous.

  He went out through the exterior door and into the front parking lot. It was dark, and snowflakes were dancing their way from the sky to the ground, coating the lot full of cars and the sidewalk and pavement. Snow on Christmas Eve. Wasn’t that something?

  He heard Sophie’s heels clicking on the blacktop, followed the sound, and caught up with her quickly, just as she was unlocking her car. “Everything okay, Sophie?”

  She jumped and spun around, one hand on her chest. Then she started laughing and leaned back on her car. “You scared the jingle bells outta me.”

  
“Sorry.” He walked closer. “You’re starting to sound like your Aunt Vidalia.”

  Something moved several yards behind Sophie’s right shoulder, and he squinted that way.

  “There are worse things than sounding like her,” she said. “Though looking like her at her age would be my preference.”

  
He didn’t say anything, and when the silence stretched, snapped his eyes back to hers. “You don’t have anything to worry about in that department, lady.” Before he even finished saying it, he was looking past her again.

  “Could’a fooled me,” she said.

  “Go on inside, okay? I need to check something out.”

  She turned around as soon as he said it, looking where he was looking, toward a barely visible shape, a human shape, in the shadows behind the cars. And then suddenly, the shadow burst into motion.

  “Get inside!” he said, and he lunged after it. He lengthened his strides and pushed harder, and within a few seconds, he was tackling the hoodie-wearing stalker to the ground.

  “Darryl, dammit, don’t you hurt him!” Sophie shouted from way closer than she ought to be. “Be careful, for crying out—”

  Momentarily glancing Sophie’s way was a fatal mistake. The kid socked him in the jaw, knocking Darryl off him and springing upright. Then he took off running.

  Darryl got up, rubbing his jaw and staring off down the street where the kid had gone. “Dammit, Sophie, this guy is up to something. Are you not getting it? How many times have I seen him lurking around you now? Who skulks in the shadows on Christmas Eve, Sophie? Who? Huh?”

  She didn’t answer and the kid was long gone, so he turned around.

  Sophia was holding a sheet of creased paper close to her face, squinting to read it in the dim parking lot lights. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth and her wide eyes shot to his.

  
“What?” he asked.

  “He…dropped this.” She held the paper out to him. “You’d better read it, Darryl.”

  So Darryl took the letter from her hand and turned his back to the nearest overhead light so it fell on the pretty penmanship scrawled across the lined sheet.

  My Darling Max,

  I wish I had the courage to tell you this to your face, but I just don’t. I’m so afraid you’ll hate me for it. And now that I know I’m not going to be here much longer, I don’t want to waste what time we have left together fixing this. Selfish of me, I know.

  So now that I’m gone, you need to know the truth. Your father isn’t dead, as I always told you he was. Your father is alive. His name is Darryl Champlain, and he’s a little bit famous for writing a country song. Last I knew he was a cop in Houston. I never told him about you. He knew I was pregnant, but I told him I’d ended it. He wanted to get married, settle down, raise you together, and I just wasn’t ready for that. I planned to give you up for adoption, and I was afraid he’d fight me on it. So I lied to him.

  And then you were born, and I held you in my arms and I knew I couldn’t let you go.

  I’ve kept this secret from you for seventeen years, and for that I’m sorry. I love you. I have always loved you and I always will. And I’m watching over you, my darling son. Never doubt it.

  Love,

  Mom

  Darryl lifted his head, blinking in shock.

  “You um,” Sophie sniffed and wiped a tear from her cheek. “You didn’t happen to try that…that hoping thing I suggested, did you Darryl?”

  He met her eyes and felt his heart sort of swell. “Yeah,” he said. “I did.” He smiled. And then his smile died, and he looked off into the distance the kid—his son—Max—had gone.

  “I’ve gotta find him!”

  “We’ll find him, don’t worry. Go on, go after him. I’ll get the family.”


  “They don’t have to—it’s Christmas Eve, I can’t ask them to—”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of a thing with this family. They—I mean, we—stick together. Even the black sheep eventually come back to the flock. I can’t break with tradition. Go on, go after your son. We’ll be right behind you.” Then she stood up on tiptoes, and said, “I’ll be right behind you, Darryl. For as long you want me there.” She kissed him. Then she turned and ran back inside the Long Branch.

  Darryl folded and pocketed the boy’s letter while heading around the saloon for his truck in the back. By God, he had a son. He had a son!