The Cowboy's Christmas Surprise
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Marie Ferrarella
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Prologue
The bouquet of flowers she’d given her mother for her birthday had done more than serve its purpose. The arrangement of yellow mums, pink carnations and white daisies had remained fresh looking and had lasted more than the customary few days, managing to dazzle for a little more than a week and a half.
However, now, as to be expected, the flowers were finally dying, no longer brightening the family room where her mother usually spent a good deal of her day. Their present drooping, dried-up state accomplished just the opposite, so it was now time to retire the cluster of shriveling flowers to the trash can on the side of the house.
But as she began to throw the wilted bouquet away, one white daisy caught Holly’s eye. Unlike the others, it had retained some of its former vibrancy.
On an impulse, she plucked the daisy out of the cluster, pulling the stem all the way out and freeing it from its desiccated brethren. After dumping the rest of the bouquet into the garbage, she closed the lid of the trash can, then stared at the single daisy in her hand.
Holly shut her eyes, made a wish—the same one she’d made over and over again for more than a decade and a half—and opened them again.
Then, very slowly, she tugged on one petal at a time, denuding the daisy gradually and allowing each plucked petal to glide away on the light late-fall breeze that had begun to stir.
“He loves me,” Holly Johnson whispered, a wistful, hopeful smile curving her lips as she watched the first white petal float away. “He loves me not.”
Just to say those words made her chest ache. She knew she was being silly, but it hurt nonetheless. Because in all the world, there was nothing she wanted more than to have the first sentence be true.
The petal floated away like its predecessor.
“He loves me,” she recited again, pulling a third petal from the daisy.
Her smile faded with the fourth petal, then bloomed again with the fifth. With two petals left, the game ended on a positive note.
She looked at the last petal a long moment before she plucked it. “He loves me.”
This petal, unlike the others, had no breeze to ride, no puff of air to take it away. So instead, when she released it, it floated down right at her feet.
Unable to live?
Or unable to leave?
She sighed and shook her head. What did flowers know anyway? It was just a silly game.
The next moment, she heard her mother calling her name. “Coming!” she responded, raising her voice.
Then, pausing just for a second, she quickly bent down to pick up the petal, curling her fingers around it. She pressed her hand close to her heart.
Turning on her heel, she hurried back into the house, a small, soft smile curving the corners of her mouth. The corners of her soul.
The last sing-song refrain she’d uttered echoed in her head.
He loves me.
