A Texas Christmas Wish. Jolene Navarro

      She turned with a yelp; her hands went to her chest. “You startled me.”

      “Sorry.” He nodded to his dad. “He’s asleep?”

      Karly looked at his father with a soft smile. “Yeah, as soon as I got him still he was out.”

      “We need to talk.” He knew he sounded short and he would be better off at least trying to use some of his charm, but right now he was too raw to care.

      “Okay.” She nodded, her big eyes begging him for something he didn’t know if he could deliver.

      “I’m going to take a shower first. I’ll meet you in the front living room in about fifteen minutes.”

      She just nodded again.

      He steeled himself against any weakness she brought out in him. His father’s needs came first.

       Chapter Four

      After checking on Bryce, Karly went back into her new room. Unpacking again, she hoped this time they would get to stay for longer than a few months. With one hand she gently opened the top dresser drawer to start putting her few belongings away. Pens, hair clips, rings and other random items cluttered the space.

      Oh, my. She took a deep breath. Carol’s belongings were still in the dressers. She reached down to the bottom drawer and pulled on the handles. The clothes smelled musty. Shutting the drawer, she sighed.

      Putting her back to the dresser, she scanned the room. The closet was probably filled with Carol’s things, also. She didn’t feel right moving anything. When Pastor John had told her to take this room, he must not have known his late wife’s teenage life was still here.

      “Wow.” Tyler stood at the open door. “It looks as if she could walk in any minute.” His triceps flexed as he crossed his arms, the loose T-shirt and jeans in contrast to the tension in his stance. Dark blond hair still damp from his shower curled at the base of his neck.

      She had no clue what to say. “I’m sorry. I can move my things into your room.”

      “You mean Bryce’s room. No. When Carol left for college, Mom wanted to clean out the room for sewing and crafts, but my dad wouldn’t let her. He said it was Carol’s room and would always be Carol’s room. Then Mom got sick.” He walked over to the dresser and picked up a trophy with a horse on the top. “I think it’s time to clean it out. Man, this was from seventeen years ago.”

      He put it down and picked up another relic from his sister’s childhood. Silence lingered as he went from one dust-covered item to the next.

      She understood loss, but she didn’t have a house full of memories. She’d always wanted something of her mom’s to hold. Tyler had a whole house of memories of the people he loved. It didn’t seem to make it better. “So you lost your mom before Carol’s accident?”

      His back to her, Tyler nodded and set down a picture frame. “Yeah, eighteen months.”

      No one had talked about all his losses when they talked about Tyler Childress. They loved to recap all his wildness and scandals. “I’m sorry. Were you still in school?”

      This time he turned away from the dresser and walked over to the faded purple-covered bed. “When Mom died I was in Florida, at flight school.” He looked around the room. “We could put the old clothes in your bags and donate them. All the other stuff can go in the boxes.” He pulled the bedcover up at the corner and folded it over, starting to strip the mattress. “I think the room is ready for a new comforter, also. There are plenty of newer ones in the hall closet.”

      “Oh, no... Everything can stay.”

      He raised one eyebrow and grinned at her. “So you like the purple-people-eater theme.” He walked to the other side of the bed. “Really, it should have been done years ago. Carol would do it herself if she was here.”

      “What about her girls? They might want some of their mom’s things.” Habit stopped her from saying more. She always made a point not to dwell in the past, and she never talked about it. He folded over the stuffed comforter, shoulders slumped as if a heavy weight pushed them down. Biting hard on the inside of her cheek, Karly resisted the urge to put her arms around him. She couldn’t go there, but maybe she could ease his pain in another way. At this rate she would be eating the flesh inside her mouth. “Right after my sixth birthday, I lost my mom. The same age Rachel was when her mom died. I dreamed of having something, anything of hers. I don’t know anything about her other than she was from Hawaii.”

      “So your parents are from Hawaii.” He placed the purple comforter in the window seat. “That explains your last name.” He walked back across the room without looking at her.

      “It’s my mom’s name. A lot of people think I’m Hispanic.”

      “What about your grandparents, your father? They didn’t share anything with you?”

      He picked up her bag of clothes and dumped them on the bed. He didn’t have much sense of personal space. Another reason to not get emotionally involved.

      She rushed to the bed and started gathering the articles he had scattered on the bed. “I can get my clothes.”

      “I’m using the bags to clean out the old clothes.” He paused.

      “You could have asked.”

      He moved to the dresser, pulling open the one with all the trinkets first and closed it just as quick. Reaching for the next drawer, he looked at her. “We need to make room for your clothes.” Without looking, Tyler pulled out the next drawer and dumped the contents into the black plastic bag. He did the same with the three long drawers, his jaw locked and his posture tense.

      He nodded to the bed. “Go ahead and put your clothes in here and I’ll get the ones hanging in the closet.”

      “Tyler, we don’t have to do this now.”

      He shook his head as he opened the closet door. “It should have been done a long time ago.” His face took on a hard look as he pulled clothes off the hangers and crammed them into the now-stuffed trash bag. “My dad goes on as if they’re coming back. He won’t change anything.”

      “If you really love someone, I would think it’s hard to get rid of their things.”

      He stopped and looked at her. “You said you didn’t have anything of your mother’s. How did that happen? How did you lose her?”

      She shouldn’t have brought it up. He wouldn’t understand all the holes in her life. “She just died. One morning Anthony took her to the hospital. I never saw her again. The next day, my stepfather put me in his car and we left town.” And from that day forward traveling became the cornerstone of her life. Anything given to her got pawned.

      What if her mother had lived? Would they have left Anthony? She couldn’t change the past, only her future. This was why she never let herself think about it. She took her eyes off her list and peeked at Tyler from under her lashes.

      Tyler looked at her as if she was crazy. “You left town with your stepfather? What about your father, grandparents?”

      “No, there was only my stepfather. I don’t even know my bio dad’s name and my mother didn’t have any family.”

      With sharp motions, he stuffed the clothes into the plastic bag and tied off the top. “I can’t imagine not having any family.” After grabbing a box off the top shelf, he turned back to her. “There’s still some stuff in there, but you can hang your clothes for now.” Tyler left the room.

      He confused her. She went ahead and put a few of her things in the dresser. The long skirts she loved wearing were wrinkled from being jam-packed. Shaking them out, she took them to the closet and hung them on the faded pink silk hangers.