Cactus Heart (David Mapstone Mystery 5)

“History Shamus,” she said. “You alone?”

I nodded.

“No snow and jingle bells?” she said.

“The first Christmas was in the desert,” I said. “The desert never forgets that.”

She took my hands. “You’ve been beaten up,” she said.

“You’ve had some adventures, too. I read about you in the paper.”

“You’re right about one thing, Dave. Patrick Blair is a beautiful-looking man.” She smiled. “A crappy shot, too. I found myself missing a man who would read me the classics in bed…teach me history and bring it alive…make me a martini…”

She started talking faster, trying to outrun the tears filling her eyes. “It’s Christmas Eve. It’s the time when we want to be home with our family, with the ones we love. The people who connect us to everything good we can be. And the one person in my life, the only person, who fits that description…” She almost didn’t get it out. “…is you, Dave.”

I was beyond words, so all I could do was take her in my arms and swear to God I’d never let her go. Take her in my house, in our house. Make peace with our individual histories and try to write a new one together. Hope for all the luck in the world. Let her into my cactus heart. It was cold in the desert that Christmas Eve, and it was enough that we could hold each other all night long.