Family for the Holidays

by Victoria Pade

  “Odd man out…” Dax repeated as if she’d said something profound. “Yeah, I’ll bet that is how he felt. With me and Dad, then with me and Allaire. And everybody else around here, too, since Allaire and I getting married was a big deal and all our friends thought it was great…the way they all think her marriage to D.J. now is great, come to think of it. Anyway, it couldn’t have been easy for D.J…” That seemed to strike Dax as a revelation.

  Maybe Shandie should have left him to it, but she didn’t. She said, “Did I hear right? Was there really some kind of a physical fight between the two of you not long ago?”

  Dax came out of his reverie to aim those intense eyes on her. “Yeah, there was. A knock-down-drag-out brawl. At the opening of The Rib Shack at the resort. It was dumb. A throwback to the old days,” he admitted as if he wasn’t proud of it.

  “I take it there hasn’t been a warm brotherly reunion since then, or you wouldn’t have needed separate corners tonight,” Shandie said.

  “No, we’ve kept our distance. I didn’t even go to his wedding. But then I don’t think anybody expected me to—there was the fight and he was marrying my ex-wife—their wedding didn’t seem like a place for me.”

  “He’s still your brother,” Shandie ventured. “He’s family.”

  “The only family I have left,” Dax agreed but not in a way that caused her to think he was considering the true weight of that.

  “And now he’s living in Thunder Canyon again—which is a relatively small place. He’s married and reconnected with all your old friends, who are welcoming him back into the fold. Won’t it be kind of hard to keep a feud going under those circumstances?”

  “Feud? I don’t think we’re feuding.”

  “I don’t think you’re behaving much like brothers, either,” Shandie countered.

  Dax shrugged once more.

  “Oh, don’t act as if you don’t care,” she accused.

  “What do you want me to say? That I wish things weren’t the way they are? Wishing things weren’t the way they are is my middle name.”

  “But this is something you can do something about.”

  “I can’t make it so that D.J. was as close to Dad as I was. I can’t wipe away my marriage to Allaire so he and Allaire could have gotten together before this. I can’t change history.”

  “But you can reconnect with him now. Talk to him. You can make up, put the past behind you and go on from there. That’s what I would do if I were you. I wouldn’t so easily let go of family. Any family, let alone someone as close as a brother.”

  “Is that so?” Dax said with an amused half smile, as if he’d enjoyed her impassioned rant. “And did you know that when you get riled up like that your eyes sparkle and your cheeks get all red and rosy?”

  Shandie was sure her cheeks were getting much more red and rosy at that moment because she could feel herself blush in response to his words.

  “I’m not ‘riled up,’” she said anyway.

  “You’re a little riled up.”

  “I just think family is important.”

  “And what makes you think I should be the one to offer the olive branch? Why shouldn’t D.J. do it?”

  Shandie rolled her eyes at him for that and ignored it. “You’ve both done things and said things. You have regrets when it comes to him, he probably has regrets when it comes to you. Just let it go and open the door for him to let it go, too.”

  “Yep, riled up,” Dax said with an even wider smile.

  “Well, I’m glad I could entertain you,” Shandie said snidely.

  “I’m glad, too,” he countered as if she’d been serious. “It really turned this night around.” He glanced at the grandfather clock she had in the corner of the room then, and said, “But I should probably quit while I’m ahead and let you get some sleep.”

  Shandie scoured her brain for a way to keep him from leaving yet, but she didn’t come up with anything and in the meantime Dax stood.

  As she followed suit something else occurred to her. “What about tomorrow? I don’t suppose you’re having Thanksgiving with D.J. Are you going somewhere else?”

  “I have a few invitations, but you saw for yourself tonight how things are. I don’t think I’ll be accepting any of them.”

  “You’re going to spend Thanksgiving alone?”

  “It’s no big deal,” he said.

  “With Judy gone, Kayla and I are on our own, too. But I want Kayla to have the traditional day so I have a huge turkey and all the fixings. Why don’t you come here?” she asked, unable to help herself.

  “That’s okay. It’s really not a big deal,” he repeated.

  “Any holiday you spend alone is a big deal, and this way Kayla and I won’t feel like we’re alone, either.”

  “You’re sure?” he asked, echoing her question to him about paying the babysitter.

  “I’m sure. It’ll give Kayla the chance to play motorcycle with you,” she added as if she wasn’t thinking solely of how much she wanted to see him again.

  “So we’re talking another just-friends-no-strings-attached deal,” he said as if he found some humor in that but might also be reminding her of the terms that had allowed them to see each other tonight.

  “Right,” Shandie confirmed, for some reason feeling slightly let down by that qualification despite the fact that it was absolutely what she should have said herself.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “What time shall I be here?”

  “We usually make a full day of it. When I was a kid I started it out by watching the Macy’s parade on television, but I thought tomorrow I’d record it for a little later so there won’t be a rush getting up in the morning. We can start that about one—why don’t you come then and we can go from there? Unless you just want to have dinner with us…”

  “No, I’d like to do the whole thing,” he assured her without hesitation. “I’ll be here at one. Can I bring anything? Not that I cook, but I could stop and pick up a pie or a can of cranberry sauce or—”

  “I have everything. Just come.” And even though Shandie loved holidays, she suddenly found that she was looking forward to this one more than she had been a few minutes earlier.

  “Sounds good.”

  Dax headed for the entryway then. As he passed the table against the wall, the wig Shandie had confiscated from her daughter and set there caught his eye.

  “What did Kayla say about that?” he asked with a nod in that direction. “Something about it being a sick lady’s hair?”

  “Mmm,” Shandie confirmed. “I make them—wigs.”

  “You make wigs? Can’t they just be bought somewhere?” Dax asked as he moved on to the entry and grabbed his coat from the hall tree there.

  “Sure, you can buy wigs a lot of places,” she said as she trailed him. “But mine are…special.”

  “Because they’re handmade or something?”

  “That and because I use each woman’s own hair.”

  He screwed up his expression so that one side was a sort of a grimace. “Really?” he asked as if the idea put him off.

  “I do it for people going through chemotherapy,” Shandie explained. “Their hair is going to fall out during treatment, so they cut it before that happens, and I use it to make them a wig. That way they look more natural and feel more like themselves.”

  “It’s a side business for you?”

  “Actually, I do it for free,” she said quietly because she didn’t believe that good deeds should be bragged about.

  Dax’s eyebrows shot up as he slipped into his coat. “Really? It’s like a charity thing?”

  Shandie shrugged the way he had so many times this evening. “It’s just a little of my time. But the hair is precious and you can see why the wigs—especially one that I’m in the middle of working on—can’t be played with by a three-year-old.”

  The mention of more of Kayla’s mischief brought out another smile in him. He really seemed to get a kick out of it.

  “Do all hairdres
sers know how to make wigs?” Dax asked.

  “No, it isn’t part of that training. I learned to do it after I’d become a stylist. But I work with hair, so it wasn’t a giant leap.”

  And she didn’t want to talk about it.

  She went to the front door ahead of him and changed the subject. “Tomorrow about one, then? Come hungry, but not too hungry because we won’t eat until six or so.”

  Once he had his coat on he joined her at the door, studying her from beneath eyebrows angled enough to let her know she’d sparked some curiosity in him.

  But like the questions she hadn’t asked about his marriage and broken engagement, he didn’t pursue the subject of her wig making. Instead, he stopped directly in front of her and merely smiled a small smile.

  “You really did turn this night around for me.”

  “I don’t know how—all we’ve been doing is talking,” she said, making light of it.

  “Yeah, but it’s been nice.”

  Shandie only nodded her concession to that, feeling the same way but not wanting to admit it. “And tomorrow we get turkey and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie,” she said instead.

  “I can’t wait,” he responded in a soft, silky voice that left her wondering if it was the food he was talking about after all.

  It didn’t seem to be when those coffee-colored eyes of his were so intently on her, looking into her face as if he could see below the surface.

  For her part, she was staring up at him in return, absorbing the sight of those eyes, of that artfully disheveled hair, of that cut and carved bone structure that all worked together to make him dangerously good-looking and hotter than any mortal woman should be expected to endure.

  And there they were, at the door, at the end of a date, and while Shandie didn’t know if kissing was on his mind, she couldn’t think about anything else.

  Just friends.

  No strings attached.

  She reminded herself of the strictures she’d placed on tonight and the fact that Dax had applied them to tomorrow, too. Those limitations dictated that a good-night kiss would be out of line.

  Which somehow made it all the more appealing an idea.

  But it still shouldn’t happen…

  Yet when he began a slow move toward her, Shandie did, too. She raised her chin. Heaven help her, she parted her lips…

  All to no avail.

  Because when Dax kissed her, he didn’t go anywhere near her mouth.

  He kissed her forehead.

  Yes, he lingered there a moment longer than he could have.

  Yes, his lips were warm and soft and velvety against her skin.

  Yes, his breath in her hair was as rapturous as a tropical breeze.

  But she’d wanted a real kiss and she almost groaned in complaint.

  She managed not to. Barely. And instead did everything she could to act as if that was no more or less than she’d expected.

  “See you tomorrow,” she said too cheerfully.

  “See you tomorrow,” he repeated before he opened the door and went outside, apparently with absolutely no idea that he’d left her unsatisfied. And the cold blast of air that came in after him?

  It was just what Shandie needed to bring her to her senses.

  Or so she thought and continued to tell herself as she closed the door, as she turned off the lights, as she went upstairs, washed her face, put on her pajamas and got into bed.

  But once she was in that bed?

  Disappointment crawled under the covers with her.

  Disappointment that as she lay there she didn’t have a toe-curling, knee-weakening, head-lightening kiss to relive.

  Even though she knew she was better off without it.

  Chapter Five

  “Looka me!”

  Dax clicked off Shandie’s television the moment Kayla skipped into the living room and made that demand.

  It was nearly six o’clock Thanksgiving evening, and Shandie had offered him the TV remote control while she took her daughter upstairs to dress for the holiday dinner they were about to share. The house was infused with the luscious aroma of roasted turkey. The snow that had begun early that morning was still falling in big, milky flakes beyond the living room’s picture window. There was a fire lazily burning in the fireplace. And after a day of watching the parade, taking Kayla outside to make a snowman and shovel walks, and playing with the motorcycle race set while drinking steaming marshmallow-laden hot chocolate, Dax already thought he’d had one of the best Thanksgivings he could recall. And he hadn’t even eaten yet. So when Kayla preceded her mother downstairs and stood before him—proudly preening—he didn’t mind at all turning off the football game to pay the three-year-old more attention.

  “See my pitty dress?” the little girl said.

  “I do. You look beautiful,” he said emphatically of the black velvet dress with the lacy white collar and red ribbon bow around her waist.

  “New shiny shoes-uz and ties, too,” Kayla pointed out, hiking up one foot to display the black patent leather Mary Janes and the white tights that Dax assumed were “ties.”

  Then she said, “When you goes potty you haves to pull up your underpants first and then the ties—not together—or you gets all bumpy.”

  Unable to keep from grinning at the information he doubted was meant to be relayed so openly, Dax said, “I imagine so.”

  “And I gots to wear my locket!” Kayla added, pointing a short, pudgy finger at the small gold, filigreed, heart-shaped pendant dangling from the chain around her neck. “I only gets to wear it on special times when I promise I won’ jump or run or anything that makes it break so I don’ lose it. Wanna see inside?”

  “Sure,” Dax said.

  “Iss my daddy.”

  Dax was surprised by how much his interest was piqued by that information.

  Kayla’s father.

  Shandie’s—what? Ex-husband? Or not even that?

  Dax patted the sofa cushion next to him. “Come on, let’s give it a look,” he said as if he wasn’t consumed with curiosity.

  Kayla crawled onto the sofa, kneeling there to face him when she’d accomplished it. “I can’ gets it open, you’ll have to,” she said, holding out the locket for him to do the honors.

  The locket was no bigger than Dax’s fingertips, and with his nails trimmed to the nub it wasn’t easy to pry apart the two sections of the tiny piece of jewelry. But he wasn’t about to give up without seeing its contents, so he jammed his almost nonexistent thumbnail into the crevice that separated the front from the back and managed to open it.

  “Tha’s him,” Kayla said, tucking her chin to her chest to see.

  Dax looked at the picture inside the locket, too. It was so small it made him wish for a magnifying glass, but he leaned close enough to make out a face that seemed to have been extracted from a snapshot. The guy appeared to be about his age, a clean-cut blond with an ample smile that showed a lot of straight white teeth. But that was about all Dax could tell from the miniscule photograph.

  He wasn’t sure what to say about it so he said, “What’s your dad’s name?”

  “Daddy,” Kayla answered as if it should have been obvious.

  “Makes sense,” Dax agreed. He hesitated to ask what occurred to him then, but after glancing in the direction of the entryway and the stairs to make sure Shandie wasn’t coming, he said, “Where is your daddy?”

  “In heaven,” Kayla answered simply enough.

  In heaven?

  Was Shandie a widow?

  Dax hadn’t entertained that possibility, and it made him even more curious. But not knowing how sensitive a subject this might be for Kayla—although it didn’t seem to upset her in the slightest—he merely repeated what she’d said. “Your daddy is in heaven…”

  “Uh-huh. Wis the angels. He went there when I wasn’t borned yet.”

  “Hmm,” Dax mused, beginning to wonder if that was the truth or something Shandie might have just told her daughter. After all, there wer
e pictures here and there of Kayla from infancy to the present, snapshots of older people Dax had assumed were Shandie’s parents and photographs of Shandie and Kayla together. But Dax hadn’t seen a single other hint of the guy in the locket—or any guy who looked to have been coupled with Shandie. Which had led him to believe that Shandie was either divorced or had never been married.

  Of course she could have been a widow, he allowed. A very young widow. It might not be common, but he supposed there was still that chance, despite the lack of memorabilia he could recognize as any sign of a late husband.

  But Dax also considered that it might be possible that Kayla’s father had balked at the idea of parenthood and rather than let Kayla know that, maybe Shandie had instead decided to say he was dead.

  Dax glanced at the locket picture again to see if he could tell if it was genuinely a snapshot or might have been cut out of a magazine or something. But it seemed to be a real photograph.

  Shandie a widow?

  Happy, upbeat Shandie?

  He heard her coming down the steps then, and he closed the locket. “I think it might be time to eat,” he confided to Kayla in a quiet voice.

  “There’s marsh’ allows on some orangey stuff called potatoes,” Kayla whispered back as if it were a scandalous secret.

  “And we know how much you like all things marshmallow,” Dax countered with a laugh.

  Shandie reached the foot of the stairs and headed for the living room to join them, a serene smile on those lips, which had repeatedly drawn his thoughts today. The same lips he’d wanted to kiss the night before and forced himself at the last minute to avoid.

  He was glad she hadn’t changed her clothes—she was still wearing the cocoa-brown slacks and the cream-colored sweater she’d had on since his arrival that afternoon, so he didn’t feel underdressed in his own dark blue jeans and gray dress shirt. But she’d taken her hair down from its twist at the back of her head and brushed it to fall, silky and free, around her shoulders. He thought she’d also done something to her face because she looked refreshed, and he was reasonably sure she’d applied some kind of lipstick or something.