“It’s lousy all right,” D.J. agreed sardonically.
But for the first time, Dax thought he understood what was behind his brother’s attitude and he told him so. “You know firsthand how lousy it is,” he said. “That’s what my eyes were opened to about you, that that was how you must have felt at home, growing up—like the odd man out.”
D.J. reared back slightly in shock but didn’t confirm or deny Dax’s statement.
“It is how you felt, isn’t it?” Dax persisted. D.J. shrugged but that seemed to be as far as he was willing to go in the way of concession.
“It’s how you have to have felt,” Dax said. “You and me and Dad—after Mom died and there was just the three of us. It should have been the three of us. But instead it was Dad and me doing the motorcycle thing and you basically on your own. And you were just a kid, Deej. A kid. As lousy as it’s been for me to feel like that, no kid should ever have to feel it. Especially not at home, with his father and brother. Then there was Allaire, and my getting her when you wanted her, and where were you again?”
“Odd man out,” D.J. said.
“Right. Honest to God, I didn’t have any idea how you felt about her and didn’t mean you any harm, but it’s no wonder you’ve hated my guts—”
“You’re my brother. I haven’t hated your guts.”
“Damn close, though. And it’s okay. I get it now. I know the feeling and it stinks and to have felt it as a kid and then to have had salt poured into the wound over Allaire…I’d have punched me out, too.”
D.J. almost cracked a smile.
“But here’s the thing,” Dax continued. “There’s nothing left to resent now. Your business is better than mine is. You have Allaire, and I’m not lying when I say I wish you both the best. So how about we really do try to put the past behind us and go from here?”
“Like brothers?”
“Yeah. Like brothers who may not have been friends growing up, but who can be friends now that we both know that life can kick the hell out of us so we don’t have to kick the hell out of each other.”
D.J. laughed. “Yeah, fighting like two hotheaded teenagers was pretty stupid.”
Dax put his tongue far over on one side of his mouth and then said, “Yeah, I think you might have cracked a tooth.”
But he said it jokingly and only made his brother chuckle again.
Then D.J. said, “So, we’re okay?” as if he was having difficulty believing it.
“I’m okay. I guess you have to decide if you’re okay since you’re the one who’s really gotten the short end of the stick up until now.”
D.J. didn’t answer in a hurry. He was clearly considering whether or not he could let go of so many years of hard feelings toward Dax, and Dax didn’t push him.
But after a few minutes D.J. visibly relaxed, and he stoically nodded his head. “Let’s put it all to rest,” he seemed to decide on the spot. “What’s past is past and we can go from here.”
Dax held out his hand for his brother to shake and D.J. took it without hesitation.
“Everything all right here?”
Dax hadn’t seen Grant return and didn’t know if D.J. had, either.
“Everything’s good,” D.J. answered him, his eyes remaining on Dax, this time not suspiciously but with the first warmth Dax thought D.J. might ever have aimed at him.
“Everything’s good,” Dax repeated, his own gaze sticking with D.J. “Great, in fact.”
“Seriously?” Grant said as if he needed convincing.
Their handshake ended and both Dax and D.J. looked at Grant.
“Seriously,” D.J. said.
But as if the brothers had made a silent oath to keep what they’d just discussed between themselves, neither of them filled Grant in.
Grant, however, wasn’t going to let it drop completely. “Does this mean that we can have our monthly poker games and dinners like the one before Thanksgiving without any tension?”
“That’s what it means,” Dax said.
“And no more weddings without everybody there?”
“That, too,” D.J. answered their friend.
“We’re gonna be all right, Grant. You can relax,” Dax assured.
“Then that just leaves us to figure out what’s come over you, Dax,” Grant said.
Dax merely smiled a smile that gave nothing away before he stood to go.
It had been a long, long time since Dax had felt as buzzed as he did driving from the resort to his apartment after meeting with Grant and resolving things with D.J.
No, it wasn’t the same adrenaline rush that came with winning a motorcycle race. But having Grant be receptive to his business proposition, seeing a doorway to the future open where before he’d seen only failure and, on top of that, paving a new road with his brother? It all left him closer to that high than he’d been in two years.
And again, even if he hadn’t given Shandie the credit publicly, he didn’t have any illusions about what she’d done for him and the fact that what had happened today was all thanks to her. In her own small, quiet way, she’d worked a miracle, and as soon as he could, he was going to tell her so.
It just wasn’t going to be as soon as he would have liked.
Kayla’s preschool winter program was tonight, and in the process of her mother painting the scenery for it in his garage on Saturday evening he’d been invited to go. He’d accepted and because he was taking Shandie and Kayla to it he needed to get home, shower, shave and change clothes before he picked them up. So telling Shandie what she’d set into motion couldn’t happen until then.
But at least then he’d be with her the way he’d been itching to be every minute since he’d walked out her door last night.
Grant had been right—something had happened to him.
Shandie Solomon had happened to him.
Being with her had somehow made him do a turnaround. A full one-eighty, so that he was different. He was more like his old self. Only better.
At least he felt better. He felt grounded. Centered. Solid. Stable.
He felt happy.
That almost came as a shock as he pulled into his driveway and headed for his upstairs apartment.
He felt happy.
His mail was on the floor in front of the mail slot when he let himself into his apartment. He picked it up and tossed it onto his kitchen table, not even glancing at it. He was too lost in the realization that he, Dax Traub, had just thought of himself as happy.
And not only because his business proposition for the resort looked as if it would pan out, he realized as he went straight to his bedroom and sloughed off his clothes.
Sure, that was terrific. But it struck him that even before Shandie had suggested his expansion, even before he’d decided to go to Grant with it, his black funk had begun to take a hike. Under Shandie’s influence.
He turned on the water in the shower, gave it a minute to warm up, then stepped under the spray and closed the shower door behind him, wondering as he did when he’d started to feel better.
It hadn’t happened the second he’d met Shandie, but he had to admit that he could track the turnaround back to that pivotal moment.
For days now, he hadn’t been lying in bed after his alarm went off in the morning, dreading getting up. Instead, lately, the first thing he’d thought about was if or when or how he was going to get to see Shandie and Kayla again. And eagerness for that had lifted his spirits to such an extent that he’d been glad to get up and face the day.
And the nights? He hadn’t been dropping his head onto his pillow, grateful to have put another day behind him so he could lose himself in sleep and escape. Since that first time he’d laid eyes on her he’d been going to sleep thinking about her. Picturing her in his mind, remembering things she’d said, her laugh, how bright her eyes were. He’d fallen asleep bathing himself in memories of the sound of her voice, reliving the touch of her hand, the feel of her lips, how soft her skin was under his fingertips.
Her
positive outlook, her optimism, her energy were like some kind of tonic, he thought as he shampooed his hair. Better than any painkiller the doctors had given him after the accident. Better than any vitamin he’d ever taken. Better than anything that had come into his life since his first motorcycle.
But that wasn’t all. And while he used a bar of soap to lather up, that realization settled over him.
Shandie wasn’t merely some drug that boosted his mood. She wasn’t like putting contacts in nearsighted eyes. The change in him that he attributed to her wasn’t superficial—the way it had been with Lizbeth—and it wasn’t only about how hot he was for Shandie. It was honestly as if he’d been half a man, and she’d made him whole.
Oh yeah, tell Grant that! He’d laugh me out of town.
But it was the damn truth.
He finally felt like a complete person, and it was because of her. It was why he could let bygones be bygones with his brother. It was why he could put his failed marriage to Allaire behind him and genuinely not care that she was with D.J. now. It was why he could even recall the foolishness of his engagement to Lizbeth, see it for what it was, and put that behind him, too.
In a way, it occurred to him that everything that had come before Shandie had been nothing more than his going through the motions. With Allaire, when getting married was what they were expected to do, when it had seemed like the next step into adulthood, they’d gotten married. But they’d only been going through the motions of being adults.
With Lizbeth, he hadn’t loved her. He hadn’t wanted her or to marry her. He’d just gone through the motions that his friends, his brother were going through, in the hopes that putting the right surface on things would give him substance.
But now he had the substance.
Or at least he recognized what the substance was.
For him, it was Shandie. And how he felt about her. And the impact she had on him. And the man she inspired him to be. And what they had—and could have—together.
He rinsed off, shocked a second time by the direction his thoughts were taking. By the weight of what he was considering.
This really wasn’t like things with Lizbeth, was it? he asked himself, faltering slightly.
But it didn’t take much to convince him that it wasn’t.
With Lizbeth he’d only barely risen above his dismal mood and then never for longer than when he was with her. That was nothing more than distraction. And the fact that he’d recognized that there wasn’t anything else to it was what had prompted him to call off the engagement.
But with Shandie, there was no barely rising above his dismal mood when he was with her, only to sink into it again the minute he wasn’t. She hadn’t been anywhere around today when he’d opted to follow through on her idea for his business. He’d done that because being with her had recharged his own energy source, his own inner strength. That was what had allowed him to take the steps he’d taken today.
And had it not been successful? Would that have shot the hell out of what was between them? he asked himself as he stepped out of the shower and began to towel off.
It wouldn’t have.
The same way he was eager to get to her and tell her the good news, had the news been bad she was who he would have wanted to share it with, too. Who he would have wanted to regroup with. To rehash with. To rethink the future with.
She was the good, but she was also where he would have wanted to turn had things gone sour. Because this wasn’t about show. It wasn’t about pretending things were all right in hopes that they would be. It wasn’t about keeping up with his brother or his friends.
So no, this wasn’t anything like what he’d gone through with Lizbeth. Even if his relationship with Shandie had developed in a hurry, the way that it had.
He was different as a result of Shandie because Shandie was different. His feelings for her were different. And even what he wanted was different because what he wanted didn’t have a single thing to do with proving to his friends and his brother that he had his act together or that he was on top of things again. With Shandie, he was on top of things again. He did have his act together. And he couldn’t have cared less whether anyone recognized it. He only cared that it was true. He only cared about Shandie.
And Kayla.
And having them in his life.
Both of them—because they were a package deal and that fact didn’t even give him pause. Which was something else that told him what he was feeling was the genuine article and nothing like anything he’d felt before. In the past, a three-year-old coming along in the mix would have freaked him out. Yet he was as thrilled with the idea of having Kayla in his life as he was with thoughts of Shandie. They already felt like his family.
Except that they’d begun as someone else’s family, he reminded himself. Someone Shandie had adored. Someone she might be remembering as bigger than life…
Could he compete with that? he asked himself as he pulled on a pair of clean jeans and a heavy mock-turtleneck sweater.
He may have had a moment’s doubt when he’d realized that what had developed between him and Shandie had happened as fast as his engagement to Lizbeth, but the thought of being compared to Shandie’s late husband was more daunting.
Pete— that was his name. Said always in that sort of reverence used for a lost loved one.
Shandie had loved him. Deeply and without reservation.
Right to the end, Dax thought.
What if I can’t live up to that?
He sank onto the edge of his bed, his socks left dangling, forgotten, from one hand as that possibility held him in its grip.
But he realized that if his father had been there with him he would have said that he was losing the race before he’d even hit the track and given it a try. And that was something he’d never let himself do on a motorcycle. It wasn’t something he would let himself do now, when this was so much more important.
More important than a motorcycle race?
He had come a long way, he thought when that struck him.
But it was the truth. Shandie—and Kayla—were more important to him than any race he could remember. They were more important than anything in his life now. And he wasn’t going to let that slip through his fingers. Not because of his past, or hers. And not even if he and Shandie had agreed that there would be no strings attached when this had begun.
Because now he wanted strings attached. Lots of them.
Chapter Ten
Shandie sat through Kayla’s program Monday evening unsure what to think.
Not about the program in which her daughter was a snow fairy—Kayla did leaps and skips and preened hilariously, and was generally the star of the show.
No, what Shandie was at a loss for was an explanation of what was going on with Dax.
When he’d picked them up he’d announced that he had something to tell her. But Kayla had been so excited for the program that she’d chattered the entire way to the high school where the program was being held. She’d made it impossible for either Dax or Shandie to get a word in edgewise.
Then they’d arrived at the school and Dax had had to find them seats in the auditorium while Shandie went backstage with Kayla and the set decorations, and helped out behind the scenes. Shandie had barely found her place beside him before the program began, so again—although he’d repeated that he wanted to talk to her—he hadn’t had the chance.
And she was expecting the worst.
He was acting a little strange. He was less laid back than usual. Slightly more wired. More antsy. And several times she’d caught him watching her so intently she knew he wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around him. It all caused her to wonder if he was about to break things off with her.
Oh, sure, he was still being nice enough. He’d made a few jokes. He was patient with Kayla and very kind to her even in the midst of Kayla’s hyper-excitement. But something was up and Shandie knew it. And given his history with women, it just seemed likely that this w
as about to be it for them.
One fantastic roll in the hay and the guy was out the door for good, she thought. In fact, as the program went on, he was so distracted that she wondered if he’d intended to end things between them the minute he’d gotten to her house so he wouldn’t have to go through with this evening, and just hadn’t managed it.
But if what he had in mind was breaking up with her, why had he just reached over and taken her hand to hold?
Maybe that was just part of how he did it. Maybe the hand-holding was meant to be comforting or supportive before he lowered the boom.
It didn’t seem like consolation hand-holding, though. It seemed very intimate. Especially since he had them situated so snugly. His upper arm was resting against the front of hers, tucking her shoulder behind his. His elbow rode the inner curve of hers. Their forearms were inside to inside. It all felt close and cozy and couple-ish. But still, she had a sense of impending doom.
It’s okay, Shandie told herself. If he’s going to end it, fine. I just have to be prepared. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. Better sooner than later. It’s the price to pay for getting involved with someone I know is a high risk when it comes to relationships. No strings attached, remember? That was the deal…
She took a slow, deep breath and exhaled it just as slowly.
It was for the best not to go any further, she insisted to herself. The lovemaking had been too good. Any more of it and she knew she would get in deeper than she should. Deep enough to be hurt. Seriously hurt. By a man she’d known all along wasn’t someone with staying power. Better to have only one night before he called it quits than to end up engaged to him, announcing that engagement, and then have him break up with her—like he had with Lizbeth Stanton.
The program concluded just then; all the pre-school classes filed onto the stage and the need to clap gave Shandie the excuse to snatch her hand from Dax’s as they both joined in the applause.
Family for the Holidays Page 14
