Sleigh Belles. Beth Albright

girl once again. With everything she’d faced today, plus her own guilt of hanging up on a call that had been twenty years in the making, it all became too much. Even for Dallas.

      The firewall was down, and Dallas was desperate to put it back together as fast as she could.

      4

      That evening, Dallas went home to her empty house. It was a little place near the university that she was renting. If she got that anchor seat, maybe she could afford to buy herself a real place of her own. Maybe she could finally afford to stop running to Atlanta to hide the fact that she shopped at consignment stores. Everyone in town just assumed she had lots of money. She worked hard to make it look that way. But the truth was that reporters didn’t make that much. She had bills to pay and, unlike Blake and Vivi, she didn’t come from family money. But that wouldn’t hold her back. She’d just have to keep climbing her way to the top. Anchors made much more, a lot more. That’s what she had her eye on.

      She made her way to the shower, petting her big white cat, Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina was her only companion since she had broken up with Dan Donohugh, Harry Heart’s campaign manager, right after the election. Both of them had really been using each other, hoping to benefit from Harry’s run for the senate, so the brief fling had ended soon after.

      Here in her home, Dallas was finally in her safe haven. Just she and Wilhelmina.

      Dallas stood under the hot water of her shower thinking of her mother, but trying not to. Why would she be calling after all these years? Dallas had tried to make contact with her when she was still just a teenager. She’d hated living with her father, and she’d really hated living with Blake when her dad had married Blake’s mother, Kitty. Blake had let her know immediately it was her house, so Dallas hadn’t wasted a minute of her time trying to be sisters with her.

      Instead, she’d spent her time trying to prove herself worthy of her mother’s love. She’d become a high school cheerleader just as her mother had been when she was young. She’d worked hard to become the most popular—and that had sometimes been nasty work. You didn’t always become popular by being nice, so she’d had to crush a few hearts along the way. Eventually, she had been named the salutatorian of her class. Cal was the valedictorian and had gotten a football scholarship. But Dallas, after receiving a small scholarship of just a thousand dollars, had still been asked to give one of the speeches. She’d pulled together all her courage to call her mother when she found out, but no one had answered the phone. She’d left a message, asking her mother to please come and hear her speak, that it would mean a lot to Dallas to show her what she’d accomplished. She’d never heard back from her mother. Maybe she didn’t get my messages, she always thought to herself. But she knew it wasn’t true.

      Eventually, Dallas quit trying to make contact.

      As she stood in the shower, the memories of what happened all those years ago haunted her warm oasis.

      When Dallas had been only three and her brother, Houston, had been eleven, their father had walked out on their family. He’d left them to marry his secretary, the woman he’d been with just before he’d married Blake’s mother, Kitty. As they’d grown up, Houston had stepped up to become the man of the house and their mother, LouAnn, had leaned on him in that role. The three of them had been an incredibly close, tight-knit family—and, yes, her mother had a thing for Texas and had named her children after her two favorite cities there.

      As they grew up, Dallas had loved her brother like no one else in her life. He had been her hero. They had always had an incredibly close relationship. Houston always told her that whoever married her would be the luckiest young man in history, since he would get to have Dallas forever. To say she put him on a pedestal was a major understatement. She used to tell him he was her favorite person in the world. And he’d let her know she was the most special person in his life, too. Even when he’d moved out to campus, they’d still talked all the time and he’d taken her to the movies and out for ice cream once a month. She’d loved him more than anyone. He had been her security.

      When Dallas was in the ninth grade, she was basically living life like most teenaged girls her age. Makeup, boys, fashion and cheerleading practice filled her days. Houston, meanwhile, was twenty-two, gorgeous and fixin’ to graduate from Alabama.

      One day he’d brought a woman, Eleanor Walsh, home with him to meet his family. As smart and charming as Houston was, they weren’t at all surprised that he’d found someone special. But when Eleanor walked in the door, she was definitely a surprise, all right. She was about thirty years old, though Houston was just barely twenty-two. He was defensive right away, explaining to LouAnn and Dallas that they were in love and that it was serious. He told them he was planning on marrying her. Dallas, being so young, was actually really excited and wanted to get to know her new “older sister” right away. She trusted her brother’s instincts on everything, so if he said this woman was the right one, Dallas was happy to accept it.

      As they continued dating, Houston made sure that she and Eleanor became close. They’d take shopping trips together, go to movies and the couple made a real effort to spend time at the house with Dallas and her mother. So one day, Dallas and Eleanor went to Eleanor’s house to get ready to go out to a movie together with Houston. It was the first time she’d been invited to Eleanor’s place, so she was both nervous and excited. When Dallas entered the house, she immediately was shocked at the mess. The home was filthy—dirty pots and pans on the stove, so much old grease on the floor she couldn’t even see the color of the tile. As she moved through the house, following closely behind Eleanor, she heard noises coming from the laundry room. As they passed by, heading up the hall to Eleanor’s bedroom, Dallas caught a figure out of the corner of her eye.

      A man was sitting on the floor, surrounded by parts from the washing machine, along with screwdrivers and other tools spread out around him. The man glanced up as Dallas walked by. He locked eyes with young Dallas, and instantly she felt a pang in her stomach: that uh-oh feeling you got when things weren’t quite right. She had a feeling that Houston might not know this woman as well as he thought.

      “Who’s that?” she asked Eleanor.

      “No one. Just the repairman,” she answered casually.

      Dallas still felt that feeling. From another bedroom up the hall, Dallas could hear the sounds of children. One was crying. One was arguing with an older woman. As they walked toward the open door, she could see that the older woman was sitting in a small chair designed for a child. She was smoking a cigarette and staring out the window as she “babysat” the kids. As they walked past the door, the older of the two little boys ran out of the room and latched himself on to Eleanor’s leg, wrapping himself around her. “Mommy! Hi! Will you stay home tonight?”

      Dallas was stunned. The child was about four years old and the other looked to be only two. They were Eleanor’s kids. Eleanor had kids! In all the time she’d known her, there had never, not once, been mention of her sons.

      “Momma, can’t you do something with them?” Eleanor said to the older woman.

      “Y’all get off of your momma now,” the woman said, ashing her cigarette on the windowsill. “She’s goin’ out. Go in there and see what yer daddy’s doin’.”

      Dallas couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was the man with the washing machine the father? She froze in place, trying to take this news in for a second. Several seconds.

      Dallas got an instant stomachache. She was afraid she had stumbled onto a secret. Surely her beloved brother had no idea he was dating a married woman, with children. Not dating, but fixin’ to marry!

      Dallas didn’t want to go to the movies anymore. She wanted to rush home to save her brother from this horrible woman. She wanted to protect him now. She absolutely knew her brother would never be involved with her if he knew the truth. But as she stood there trying to imagine how she’d break the news, Eleanor shuffled her off to her bedroom and began chatting away as she got ready, as though none of this were out of the ordinary. In shock, Dallas wasn’t able to do much but follow along and wait for the right opportunity to speak