Family for the Holidays

by Victoria Pade

  “Your leftovers!” Shandie nearly shrieked when she remembered. “I’ll get them.”

  She went quickly to the kitchen, unaware that Dax was following her as she did. She didn’t realize it until she had the plastic containers out of the refrigerator.

  But when she spun around, thinking to rush back to the entry, there he was, standing in the open arc that led to the kitchen, lounging just as he had been in Kayla’s doorway earlier—with one shoulder against the wall, his hips at a sexy angle.

  “You didn’t have to come back here. I would have brought them to you,” she said as she approached, expecting him to turn and head for the front of the house again.

  He didn’t though. Instead, he stood there, essentially blocking her from passing. He didn’t take the containers from her, either, leaving her hands full as he looked down at her standing there in front of him, his dark eyes glittering.

  “I had a great time,” he said, adding to his thanks of a moment before as if there hadn’t been a gap.

  “So did we. I’m glad you came,” Shandie said, feeling something different in the air suddenly. Something that caused everything female in her to make itself known.

  “You paid me back for fixing your car by going to that dinner with me last night,” he was saying. “How about if I pay you back for today by taking you and Kayla to the Parade of Lights tomorrow night? It’s the kickoff to the Christmas season, and you wouldn’t want to miss it.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” she murmured, wanting to accept and recalling that she’d just been thinking that if things she’d said tonight had scared him off it was all for the best.

  “Good, because I’m not big on doing what I have to do,” he said. “I’d just like to do this.”

  So would she. Even though she knew better.

  He’s a hard nut to crack, she reminded herself. That’s the last thing you need…

  But Kayla would love to go to the light parade…

  Maybe just one more night and then I really will keep away from this guy…

  “I wasn’t sure it was worth braving the cold for,” she said, still hedging because that was the truth.

  “You shouldn’t miss it,” he told her. “The town council sponsors it and everyone in it goes all out. Thunder Canyon will be talking about it for days afterward and you’ll wish you had been there.”

  “Kayla would probably get a kick out of it,” Shandie admitted.

  “Santa Claus brings up the rear—that’s what makes it the Christmas kickoff…” His delicious smile was so enticing it was impossible not to be infected by it and smile back.

  “Well, maybe…”

  “Yes or no,” he said, but he made it an alluring ultimatum.

  “Okay, yes,” Shandie said, finally giving in.

  That stretched his smile into a grin. “You won’t be sorry.”

  She hoped not…

  He still didn’t move from blocking the doorway, though—he stayed right where he was, looking down at her.

  “I really am blown away by you. Do you know that?” he said in a deep, husky, intimate voice, raising an arm to lay across one of her shoulders, leaving his hand dangling somewhere behind her but not touching her. “You look all soft and fragile and like…I don’t know, like you need protecting. But inside? You’re smart and together and strong, and I think you might be able to take on the world if you had to.”

  “Let’s hope I don’t have to,” Shandie joked because she didn’t know what else to say.

  “I think Thunder Canyon is lucky to have added you to its population. I think maybe I’m lucky to have you added to my shrinking life, too,” he said, making fun of what she’d said earlier.

  Shandie rolled her eyes to let him know she knew what he was doing in spite of the subtlety. And that only made him grin all the more.

  “You’re sharp,” he said on a laugh.

  And then he leaned over enough to kiss her, taking her completely by surprise. Plus, tonight it wasn’t only a kiss on the forehead—one minute he was laughing at her, the next his mouth was on hers.

  After an instant of shock and a faintly startled rearing back, her lips responded on their own and she discovered she was kissing him in return. Nothing spectacular—well, maybe a little spectacular because oh, could the man kiss! But there was some reserve to it, some holding back, in lips that were as supple and adept as they looked but only parted slightly, almost respectfully.

  At least until just the scant tip of his tongue flicked out from between those slightly parted lips to hers.

  But that was as far as he went before ending the kiss altogether. He straightened up, removing his arm from her shoulder to take the containers of leftovers she was still holding like a schoolgirl holding a lunch tray while the class heartthrob stole a kiss.

  She must have looked as stunned as she felt because Dax said, “I’ll let myself out.” Then, with a nod over her head, he added, “Your refrigerator door is still open a crack.”

  Shandie turned to see if that was true and when she looked back he was gone, walking down the hallway that ran alongside the staircase with that butt-swaying strut that for no reason she could fathom made her go all mushy inside.

  Then he disappeared around the newel post and she heard the front door open.

  “Parade’s at eight tomorrow night. I’ll come down and get you at seven-thirty,” he called, just before she heard the door close behind him.

  For a moment she stood there frozen in the aftermath of his kiss before she remembered the refrigerator door. As she returned to shut it more securely, it occurred to her that she might just have had a tiny taste of the Dax of days gone by.

  And with the feel of his lips still on hers, with the memory of that teasing touch of the tip of his tongue, the image of him walking away on that confident—but still a bit world-weary—swagger, she thought that it was no wonder he’d been one of Thunder Canyon’s hottest properties. The man had a certain something, there was no denying it.

  She only wished she were immune to it.

  Chapter Six

  “Lookit! Lookit! It’s a piggy wis a big bow!” Kayla shouted gleefully, giggling at the sight of an enormous sow being led on a leash down Thunder Canyon’s Main Street.

  “Lookit, Dax! Do you see her? Is she Miss Piggy?” Kayla asked.

  “Uh, I don’t think Dax can see anything,” Shandie told her daughter with a laugh when she realized his predicament.

  Dax had lifted Kayla to sit atop his shoulders so she could see the Parade of Lights, and she had encircled his head with her arms to hold on. But at that moment, in her agitated state, the three-year-old’s grasp had slipped from his hairline to push his eyebrows downward and partially cover his eyes.

  Kayla leaned to one side to peer at him and giggled again. “Tha’s a funny face,” she decreed of the half-pained grimace that her grip had inspired.

  But rather than remove her arms, the little girl lowered them even farther so they were completely obscuring his vision.

  “Peek-a-boo!” she said.

  Shandie grinned at her daughter’s antics and Dax’s misery but still reprimanded, “You can’t stay up there if Dax can’t see.”

  Kayla straightened enough to take her arms from around Dax’s eyes as he blinked several times.

  “How about you hang on to my ears?” he suggested.

  But the little girl ignored him and instead looped her arms under his well-formed jawline like a sling.

  “Or there,” he said somewhat forlornly.

  Shandie laughed again but then said, “She can get down.”

  “It’s okay. I just hope you have insurance to cover the reconstructive surgery I’ll need after this,” he joked.

  “Lookit! Why’s that horse gots those funny things in his hair?” Kayla demanded.

  “That’s his mane,” Shandie corrected. “And it’s in braids with beads on the ends.”

  “He’s all dressed up to be shown off,” Dax said. “A lot of t
hese animals are from the farms and ranches around Thunder Canyon. They’re either 4-H winners or they’re going to the National Western Stock Show in Denver in January. But we’re getting to see them now.”

  “Can I has beads in my hair like that?”

  “I don’t think so,” Shandie said. Then, to distract her daughter, she added, “Look at this float, Kayla—it’s full of fairies all dressed up in lights.”

  “Can I wear lights when I’m the snow fairy?”

  So much for that diversion.

  “No, it would be dangerous for you.”

  “Are you a snow fairy?” Dax asked, apparently interpreting Kayla’s question to mean that she liked to pretend to be a snow fairy.

  “Me and Mary McDougals are the snow fairies,” Kayla responded.

  “In the winter program at the preschool,” Shandie explained. “And it’s Mary McDougal—not McDougals.”

  “We been practicin’ and practicin’,” Kayla said, uninterested in the high school flag team that was going by. “’Cuz we has to do it in front of all the mommies and daddies. It’s on…When is it on?” Kayla asked her mother.

  “Monday night.”

  “An’my mom has to spray and glitter big clouds and she don’ know where she can do it wis’out makin’ a mess.”

  “I’ve been assigned to make the clouds for the set decoration,” Shandie said. “I have to spray-paint them and sprinkle them with glitter, which gets everywhere. Apparently Kayla overheard me talking about it today.”

  Kayla leaned over and said into Dax’s ear, “She don’ wanna do it.”

  It was Shandie’s turn to grimace, and she wished she’d been more careful what she’d said within her daughter’s hearing. “Don’t tell people that,” she instructed Kayla. “It isn’t that I don’t want to do it, I just don’t know where to do it.”

  “How about at my shop?” Dax offered.

  The man was full of surprises.

  “The spray paint and glitter will get all over your place, too—I’m sure you don’t want—”

  “I have a section in the garage where I do some bodywork on the bikes—including paint touch-ups. It’s already splattered, so a little glitter won’t make any difference.”

  “I’ll need to do it tomorrow night,” Shandie warned. “It’s the only time I have between work and getting our Christmas tree on Sunday. Are you sure you want to hang around your shop on a Saturday night?”

  “I don’t have any other plans. You can buy me a pizza for dinner afterward,” he said.

  This was becoming a relationship of paybacks, Shandie thought.

  Not that this was a relationship…

  But she did need somewhere to do the clouds, and it would be a big help to use the open space of his shop.

  “If you’re sure you wouldn’t mind…” she heard herself say before she had more time to consider whether or not it was wise to already be planning yet another evening with him when this one had only just begun.

  “I like sausage and olives on my pizza,” was his only answer as a marching band came by and made it impossible to hear anything else.

  Even though it was past Kayla’s bedtime when the parade ended, Shandie gave in to Dax’s persuasion to take them to a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop near where his truck was parked. He argued that rather than sitting in the traffic caused by most of Thunder Canyon having come out for the event, they might as well go somewhere warm and have coffee or tea or hot chocolate.

  Shandie had seen the small storefront diner but never been in it, and while it was filled to capacity with other parade goers with the same goal in mind, she also knew that it wasn’t one of Thunder Canyon’s main hangouts. She frequently heard mention at the salon of The Hitching Post and the various options for food and drink at the resort, but besides proximity, she had a sneaking hunch that Dax had chosen this place because they weren’t likely to run into his brother or any of his friends.

  But after his reaction to her meddling the previous evening, she decided to avoid saying anything about it. Instead she situated Kayla in their booth with the crayons and paper the waitress had provided along with the little girl’s cherry-flavored milk, coffee for Dax and tea for Shandie.

  “This is a pi’ture for you,” Kayla pronounced, sliding a sheet full of scribbles to Dax as the adults sampled their steaming brews.

  He glanced at the paper and then at Shandie, obviously unfamiliar with the limited drawing abilities of a three-year-old.

  Shandie bailed him out. “What’s it a picture of?” she asked her daughter.

  “Iss Dax at the parade and tha’s Max the dog over there, ’cuz he’s brown,” Kayla informed them as if they were morons for needing these things pointed out to them.

  “It’s a work of art,” Dax said without any hint of sarcasm.

  “You can put it on yur ’frigerator,” Kayla told him.

  “Can I fold it?” Dax asked.

  “Yep. Jus’ smooth it out again when yur home,” Kayla instructed matter-of-factly as she took a drink of her milk, which left a wide milk mustache.

  The grin that erupted on Dax’s face as he kept his eyes on her daughter while still folding his picture and putting it in his coat pocket made Shandie look at Kayla, too. When she saw the mustache, she used her napkin to wipe the child’s face. Kayla protested, wiggling away from her mother’s reach in order to color another picture.

  “Were you like this as a kid?” Dax asked her, as if he liked that idea.

  “I don’t remember how I was at three,” she said. “But I do see a lot of what I recall about myself as a kid in Kayla. I had a vivid imagination, too, and I was all girl, which Kayla definitely is.”

  “Does that mean you were doing your dolls’ hair from an early age?” Dax teased.

  “Probably,” Shandie said, sipping her own herbal tea and drinking in the sight of him across the booth from her at the same time.

  He was wearing well-faded jeans, and—from the waist up—layers to keep away the cold. Closest to his hunky body was a white T-shirt. That was underneath a V-neck gray sweater that peeked from behind a hooded sweatshirt zipped to mid-chest. The sweatshirt’s hood was pulled above the collar of the ashy-black leather jacket he had on over it all, and the hood was bunched around his substantially muscled neck and behind his head.

  His clothes were hardly fashion magazine chic—he was barely more than disheveled—yet he looked so ruggedly handsome she could hardly stand it. It didn’t help that, as he sat angled on the booth’s seat in his signature couldn’t-care-less slouch with one arm casually draped across the seat back, she was ultra-aware of his big hands, one curled around his giant-sized mug of coffee, the other just dangling idly against the tufted vinyl. And she couldn’t help wondering how those same hands might feel not so idly cupped to the sides of her face. Or on her bare shoulders. Or lifting her breasts…

  “So is that what you always wanted to do? Hair?” he asked.

  It took Shandie a moment to tame her wandering thoughts and put herself back into the conversation. Unfortunately, what also registered when she became aware of more than Dax was that her nipples were like twin rocks. And although she was wearing a bra, it was a flimsy one and the turtleneck over it was skintight.

  Worried that she was giving herself away, she rested her forearms on the table in front of her and grasped her own teacup with both hands.

  “You mean, did I dream of being a hairstylist from when I was a little kid?” she asked in response to his question. “No. Like most girls I was interested in my own hair but doing anyone else’s was not what I always wanted to do.”

  “Was there something else that you always wanted to do?”

  “I was more of a dreamer than a planner. I didn’t have an early interest in anything concrete like math or science or motorcycles or anything.”

  He smiled slyly at her including his early interest in that list. “What about when you were a teenager? Were you wild? Did you blow off school and spend more time at th
e mall? Or were you the editor of the school newspaper and head cheerleader?”

  “Somewhere in between and nothing exciting or flashy. I was just one of those middle-of-the-road kids. I made mostly B’s for grades, I didn’t do a lot of extracurricular activities, I wasn’t a cheerleader or class president or anything big. On the whole, what I was really occupied with all through middle school and high school was a boy,” she finished with a self-deprecating laugh.

  Dax’s eyebrows arched. “A boy?” he repeated.

  “I told you—I was a dreamer. I was all about romance and love and affairs of the heart.”

  “But you didn’t meet…” He cast a glance at Kayla and clearly didn’t know if he should mention Shandie’s late husband and Kayla’s father by name. “The real deal—” he finally said with a nod in Kayla’s direction “—until after high school when you’d gone to work for a living.”

  “I didn’t say it was the real deal—after all, it started when I was barely thirteen. It was just an all-consuming teenage crush.”

  “On the same guy all the way through school?”

  “Jordan Marshall,” she said with mock rapture.

  “Superjock, captain of the football team, made all the girls go dumb whenever he walked by?”

  Shandie shook her head. “We met in seventh-grade home ec. He was short, boxy, bowlegged, wore thick glasses and had a part in every school play—but he particularly liked the musicals.”

  Dax made a face and laughed.

  “Not up to your studly standards, Mr. Tough Guy Motorcycle Racer?” she challenged.

  “I guarantee you I do not have standards for studliness,” he said through a wry laugh.

  “Wus that—stu’liness?” Kayla asked, proving that she was once again eavesdropping on the adults despite the appearance that she was concentrating on something else.

  “It just means nice,” Shandie lied to her daughter, something else Dax found amusing.

  Then he said, “Home ec, huh?”

  “My Jordan could make cookies like nobody’s business,” Shandie confirmed with mock pride.

  “I yike cookies,” Kayla contributed.