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Family for the Holidays

Page 10

by Victoria Pade


  It was okay if she spent a little time with him because she didn’t have any illusions about him—that’s what she’d decided during a long, sleepless night of being stirred up by that good-night kiss. And that was the conclusion she came to again now. She knew that he was in some sort of funk that he needed to work through, she knew that he didn’t have the best reputation when it came to women, she knew that he was a really bad bet for anything long-term or serious. And with all of that firmly in her sights, she also knew better than to invest anything emotional in the relationship.

  But that didn’t mean that she, like her daughter, couldn’t just have some fun with him, too. It only meant that she needed to be careful and keep her eyes wide open.

  Shandie flipped her head upside down so she could brush her hair from the nape to the ends.

  “Eyes wide open,” she repeated to herself when she flipped upright again to finger-comb her hair so the layers fell just right and had some definition.

  Then she applied a light lipstick that was guaranteed not to come off and surveyed the whole picture.

  The sweater was really tight. And there was no room to spare in the jeans, either.

  Maybe she should change in favor of baggier clothes…

  Caution probably dictated that she should.

  But that part of her that Dax had awakened the night before still had a hold over her, and she just plain didn’t want to go with baggier clothes.

  She could be careful and keep her eyes wide open in tight clothes, couldn’t she?

  Sure she could.

  And when the doorbell rang just then, it seemed like confirmation that she should answer it just as she was.

  So that was what she left the bathroom to do.

  Swearing to herself along the way that she wasn’t trying to entice Dax Traub.

  But knowing just the same that what she was wearing was a cashmere and denim invitation to dance….

  It occurred to Shandie as she and Dax cleaned up their pizza mess in her kitchen an hour later that she wasn’t the only one of them to have changed clothes. He’d said that he needed to run by his place before he picked up their pizza, and Shandie had assumed he’d wanted to shave off the scruffy five o’clock shadow that she’d found very sexy.

  But when he’d shown up at her door she’d known instantly that he’d showered, too. He’d smelled of soap and had a just-scrubbed look to him, plus she could spot freshly shampooed hair a mile off. He’d also put on a clean shirt, or sweater actually, because while he’d been wearing a work shirt before, he’d replaced it with a heathered-gray Henley sweater.

  But it had taken her until after they’d eaten—as he was bending slightly over her kitchen table to wipe crumbs into his hand—to notice that the jeans he was wearing now were not the same jeans he’d had on at the shop.

  Both were faded denim so there wasn’t a clue in the color, but where the pair he’d worn earlier had had some sag in the seat, what he had on now followed the arch of his derriere of perfection to a T, and left no question about the density of thighs any weight lifter would have envied.

  If her clothes were an invitation to dance, she thought, his were an invitation to sin. And Shandie, for one, had an inordinate urge to slip her hands into his rear pockets and squeeze.

  Maybe, she decided, she’d better do something to help aid the cause of keeping her eyes wide open. And while she was at it, she’d get some of her curiosity about him satisfied, too…

  “I’ll finish up in here later,” she said, needing to clear her throat to reach a normal tone and cancel the effects of that look at him from behind. “Let’s go sit in the living room.”

  “Whatever you say,” Dax agreed, and they left the kitchen.

  When they both sat on the couch tonight, it was smack-dab in the center and close enough that when Shandie turned to sit facing him and pulled one leg up onto the cushion, her shin ran the length of his thigh.

  It was purely accidental, and she told herself to move. But the heat of him almost immediately seeped into her, and something about how nice it was kept her glued there, pretending she didn’t even notice.

  “So, thanks to you, I got to be the subject of gossip at my own shop today,” she told him.

  “Uh-oh. How did that happen and what’d I do?”

  “Two of the other girls’ clients—who didn’t know who I am or that I was within hearing distance—were wondering if I was the next Lizbeth Stanton.”

  Dax pinched his eyes shut, and his face scrunched into an exaggerated grimace. “This can’t be good,” he said to himself. Then he opened his eyes, relaxed his expression and said, “Uh-huh,” as if he wasn’t having any reaction at all.

  Shandie laughed at him. But tonight she was determined, and so she refused to be diverted. “I told you about Pete and about my high school sweetheart. I think that makes it your turn.”

  He looked at her with confusion.

  “I want to know about your personal stuff,” she said, referring to something he’d told her a few days ago when they’d talked about his racing history and his problems with his brother—some of which had stemmed from Dax’s marrying the woman D.J. loved. “You said there was a marriage that ended—to your brother’s new wife—and a really dumb engagement. And while I’ve picked up bits and pieces about them, I want to know the real stories—which, I assume, will lead to the comparison between me and Lizbeth Stanton.”

  Dax made a face that was even more pained. “You really don’t want to hear this.”

  “I really do. Especially when I’m being gossiped about.” And before he could dodge the bullet any more, she added, “Start with the marriage.”

  He made yet another face to show his reluctance, slumped down on the sofa and raised both arms to clasp his hands behind his head before resting back against the cushion.

  Then he glanced—or maybe glared—at her from the corner of his eyes. “Allaire,” he said on a sigh. “She was my Mr. Home Ec—one of those young-love things, isn’t that what you called it?”

  “I didn’t marry my Mr. Home Ec,” Shandie pointed out. “So yours must have been more than that.”

  “Yeah, but that’s how things started between Allaire and me—in school. She was a grade behind me—in D.J.’s class—but actually a year younger than D.J. and two years younger than me. She was a whiz kid, skipped two grades in elementary school. But even though she was younger, she was still everybody’s dream girl.”

  “She is pretty,” Shandie said, recalling the other woman from the week before.

  “It’s not only looks. She’s always been an over-achiever. She shines at everything she does. She’s creative, accomplished, talented—”

  “As much golden girl as dream girl,” Shandie said before he went on listing the other woman’s attributes and made her feel inferior.

  “The golden girl—yeah, that was said of her, too,” Dax confirmed.

  “So she was the one everybody—including your brother—wanted, and you got her,” Shandie said.

  “Yep.”

  There was a combination of satisfaction and regret in that single word.

  “Did you want her or was it a competition thing? Did you just like being the one to win out over everyone else?” Shandie asked, wondering at his tone.

  “Oh, I wanted her. It was the young-love thing, remember?”

  Admitting to his feelings for Allaire seemed to embarrass him.

  “Did you genuinely love her?” Shandie asked, not letting him slide.

  “Sure.”

  “But you don’t sound so sure.”

  He shrugged. “I know some people find their life mate when they’re that young and it’s the real thing and it lasts because it’s the real thing. But for Allaire and me? It felt like the real thing and I guess, for then, it was—”

  “But it didn’t stand the test of time,” Shandie guessed.

  “We were dumb kids with stars in our eyes. We didn’t even know ourselves completely, let alone each other.
For my part, I went in with this idea that I would do the whole motorcycle thing and she’d follow me around from race to race like my own private cheerleader or sidekick. It never occurred to me that that might not be what she had in mind for herself—”

  “You didn’t talk about it?”

  “Like I said, we were kids Even though I was twenty-one by the time she graduated and we got married, I wasn’t a really mature twenty-one. And she was only eighteen. There was a lot more heart and hormones at work than smarts. We just wanted to be together, our friends were all for it because they thought it was a storybook romance, and away we went—swept along on the whole young-love thing.”

  “But then there was the reality of marriage.”

  “And my being on the racing circuit and Allaire not wanting to be just my ride-along pep squad, wanting to carve out something for herself, and…What can I say? The marriage suffered, deteriorated. The longer it went on, the more she was going her way and I was going mine, until there wasn’t anything in the middle. By the time it ended, it just seemed to me that it was stupid to have gotten married in the first place. That if we had done what you and Mr. Home Ec did—gone off on our separate pursuits before getting married—we probably never would have found ourselves at the altar at all.”

  But he wasn’t laying blame, and Shandie was glad of that. Had he put his ex-wife totally at fault and taken none of the responsibility for himself, she would have thought less of him. As it was, she respected that he was admitting to his part and not condemning Allaire, either.

  “So you got divorced,” Shandie said to encourage him to continue.

  “We gave it a five-year run but, yeah, a few years ago we finally called it quits.”

  “And now she’s married to your brother,” Shandie said. “Does that bother you?”

  Another shrug.

  “It’s just weird, isn’t it? I mean, she was my wife, he’s my brother—weird.”

  “But do you care?” Okay, so she was digging because she suddenly—and for no reason she was comfortable exploring—wanted badly to know that he didn’t still have feelings for his ex.

  Dax seemed to consider that question before he said, “No, I don’t really care— I don’t feel jealous or as if I can’t stand the thought of them being together or anything. It just strikes me as strange—my former wife is now my sister-in-law. If they have kids, my ex-wife’s kids will be my nieces and nephews. I’m sure I’ll get used to the idea, but you have to admit, it’s strange.”

  Shandie hesitated, but then decided she couldn’t keep her thought to herself. “Is that contributing to this sort of life crisis you’re in? Did having your brother get together with your ex-wife make you feel like maybe you made a mistake letting her go?”

  Dax’s head pivoted on his hands to cast her a knowing—and smug—smile. “I don’t want Allaire back,” he said decisively. “She’s a decent person but I told you, if we hadn’t rushed into things I doubt the marriage ever would have happened at all. And I do hope it works out for them. Hell, if anything, D.J. has earned that just from waiting for her as long as he did. And to be honest, they’re more suited to each other than Allaire and I ever were.”

  Shandie studied him for a moment, searching for signs that he was speaking from pride rather than truth. But there was no indication of that, and she finally decided that she believed him.

  “After Allaire, was there anyone you were serious about? Until Lizbeth Stanton?”

  Dax made yet another face, and Shandie couldn’t decipher this one. There were hints of confusion in it, but more that she just couldn’t figure out. Self-disgust, maybe?

  “Lizbeth Stanton,” he repeated. “No, there was no one I was serious about between Allaire and Lizbeth. And with Lizbeth…that was just craziness.”

  “How so?”

  He frowned up at the ceiling. “It was craziness in just about every way it could have been. I met her when she was tending bar at the resort. She was new to town, and I’d see her here and there, and at the bar. I started hanging out at the bar more than I should have, escaping my own doldrums, I guess. We hit it off, started dating some, even though she’s pretty young—at twenty-four she’s six years younger than I am.”

  “Maybe that was part of the appeal—the sweet young thing?” Shandie said, teasing him but fishing, too.

  “Nah, that wasn’t it.”

  “What was it?”

  He shrugged without taking his hands from behind his head. “She had a lot of…enthusiasm for life, I suppose you could say. And I just sort of clamped on to her coattails and hoped all that energy and bubbliness would carry me out of the pits.”

  “It didn’t, though?”

  “When I was with her it seemed—at least on the surface—as if things were picking up for me. I didn’t really feel any better, I wasn’t any happier with my life and the way things have played out, but she was the first relationship I’d had in a while and it looked as if I was finally getting myself on track. Then D.J. and Allaire got engaged and I thought, Hey, why not go the whole nine yards…”

  “You asked her to marry you because of your brother and your ex-wife?”

  “It wasn’t a jealousy thing. Or an I’ll-show-you thing.” He was quick to read exactly what Shandie was thinking. “It was more that D.J. and Allaire getting together, getting engaged, was just another example of how everyone else was moving forward. And I figured maybe I should take that step, too. That if I acted like things were okay, they might actually start being okay. Nothing else had worked, so why not try that, you know? That’s what was going through my head.”

  “And was it your plan to act as if things were okay with just whoever was in range at the time? Or were you genuinely in love with Lizbeth Stanton?”

  “I liked her all right,” Dax said defensively. “I wasn’t using her or anything—the way you make that sound. But, well, to tell you the truth, we really were strangers. I mean, I may not have known Allaire deep down, but I knew her. With Lizbeth? It was all just on the surface. The whole time we were together I didn’t talk to her the way you and I have talked already. I didn’t know as much about her as I know about you now.”

  “And yet she accepted the proposal?” Shandie asked.

  Dax pulled his hands out from behind his head and sat up straight, angling to face her and stretching an arm along the back of the sofa. “I’m a persuasive guy,” he said with a sly and very engaging grin. Then he went on. “Lizbeth hadn’t made any secret of the fact that she saw marriage in her future, that that was what she ultimately wanted. Not that she was angling for it with me, just in general. But when—for my own crazy reasons—it seemed like a good idea, I popped the question and yeah, she said yes.”

  “But you didn’t get to the altar this time,” she prompted.

  “No. I knew right away that I wasn’t in it for the right reasons, and before I ended up with two divorces to my name, I broke it off. Now Lizbeth is hooked up with Mitch Cates, and he’s probably a whole lot better for her.”

  “You seem to think both of your exes are better off without you,” Shandie observed.

  “When it’s not right, it’s not right.”

  “Any lingering regrets about the breakup with Lizbeth Stanton?”

  “Not that we broke up, no. I wasn’t the one for her, she wasn’t the one for me. It was just a lapse of sanity that—luckily—didn’t go too far.”

  But it sounded as if he regretted something. “Was she hurt?” Shandie asked.

  Dax wasn’t so quick to answer that. “There were some hard feelings, I think. We were both embarrassed, of course, since—like a jerk—I went and announced to everybody that we were getting married. So there were questions about why we weren’t, what had happened—you know how that goes. It was uncomfortable for a while and Lizbeth seemed to take the breakup personally—”

  “I guess so!” Shandie said. “How could she not take it personally?”

  “Yeah, I know. But she shouldn’t have. It wasn
’t as if I called it off because of something she did or something I learned about her or because I started to hate her.”

  “Did you make that clear when you called off the engagement?”

  He looked slightly shamefaced. “I didn’t really give her any reason for it—probably a lousy thing—”

  “Probably? Definitely. How could you call off an engagement and not even tell her why?”

  “Because the whole thing was just a dumb, impulsive, spur-of-the-moment deal that my own messed-up head made me think for a minute might be a solution. I didn’t want to say that. Or that when I thought twice about it, I realized that it was a disaster in the making. Especially since neither one of us was really in love with the other one.”

  “You just didn’t say anything?”

  Dax’s grimace showed his regret. “I know, it was a rotten way to handle it. But it’s not as if I’ve been on a roll lately with how I’ve handled anything.”

  “Are you sure she wasn’t in love with you?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said without hesitation. Then he amended it to, “Well, I’m pretty sure she had feelings for me, but no, I don’t believe she was in love with me. It was more…Have you ever been in one of those arcade machines that simulate driving, or car or motorcycle racing? I think what we were both playing at was that—a simulation of the real thing because we both wished it was the real thing. But it just wasn’t.”

  “So, with Allaire, you think that was puppy love taken too far, and with Lizbeth you think it was just a simulation of love. Doesn’t that mean that you haven’t ever felt the real thing, then?”

  “I never thought of it like that. But…yeah, you might be right.” He smiled that irresistibly wicked grin again and raised only a finger from the cushion behind her to smooth her hair away from her face. “I could just be a babe in the woods when it comes to the real thing.”

  Shandie laughed but the simple touch of that finger had already had enough effect on her to make it a throaty, seductive sound. “Somehow I doubt you’re a babe in the woods when it comes to much of anything.”

 

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