Family for the Holidays

by Victoria Pade

  Definitely better to get this over with before it’s too late, she thought.

  But she was no longer looking forward to the post-show ice cream that was being served in the cafeteria. She was too worried that that would be when she’d finally hear what Dax had to say.

  And regardless of what she told herself, imagining that what had developed between them was about to end already made her feel awful….

  “I wan’ yur ice cream,” Kayla said.

  She, Dax and Shandie were in the school cafeteria, sitting at the end of a long table—Dax on one side, Shandie on the other and the still-hyper Kayla kneeling on the table itself, rocking back and forth with the excess of energy that hadn’t yet been spent.

  The three-year-old was dressed in pink corduroy overalls and a white blouse with ruffles around the Peter Pan collar. She also still had on the filmy fairy wings that had been her costume for the program because she refused to take them off. They were held on by straps around her shoulders, like a backpack, and since most of the other kids continued to wear face paint or some remnant of their own homemade costume, Shandie wasn’t fighting to get Kayla to take off her wings.

  Besides, Shandie didn’t have much fight in her. Not with what was lingering on her mind—the same thoughts that had occupied her during the program. They’d also robbed her of her appetite, so she hadn’t taken any ice cream and she noted that Dax had barely touched his. Which seemed as if he might also have something weighty on his mind.

  For her part, Kayla seemed only to notice the ice cream that wasn’t being eaten.

  “That’s Dax’s,” Shandie said to her daughter as the child inched toward the plastic cup that held about half of his scoop of vanilla.

  “But he’s not eatin’ it and iss meltin’.”

  “I’m finished. She can have it,” Dax said with an indulgent chuckle before Shandie could address Kayla’s comment. Then, to Kayla, he added, “If it’s okay with your mom.”

  “Iss okay,” Kayla decreed, scooting on her knees to get nearer to her goal.

  “It’s okay, but only if you get off the table the way I’ve told you twice already,” Shandie said.

  Kayla complied promptly this time, but for some reason slid off into Dax’s lap rather than onto the bench beside him.

  “Kayla!” Shandie exclaimed when a surprised Dax barely caught her. “You’re out of control tonight and that’s enough!”

  Dax laughed. “She’s all right,” he assured her, situating the little girl so she could use his chest as her backrest, her fairy wings splayed out behind her.

  “I’m a’right,” the three-year-old repeated.

  Being in Dax’s lap did seem to finally calm her down because she concentrated on finishing his ice cream and was suddenly—and blissfully—quiet.

  And because Shandie was on pins and needles in anticipation of Dax’s saying it was time to count him out of this threesome, she said, “Maybe if little ones can be seen and not heard for a few minutes you can tell me what you wanted to tell me when you first picked us up tonight.”

  Dax craned his head forward to peer down at Kayla. “I’m only averaging about two words in that direction before she gets started again,” he joked. “I’m not sure the odds are in my favor.”

  “It’s okay if you want to wait,” Shandie said, thinking that maybe hearing what he had to say in private would be preferable because she was less and less sure she was going to be able to control her emotions.

  Dax looked down at Kayla again. The child honestly did seem to have run out of steam and that must have convinced him because he raised his espresso-colored eyes to Shandie and said, “I did it.”

  “You did what?” she asked.

  “Both of ’em, actually,” he added cryptically.

  Shandie raised her eyebrows in query and he explained.

  “I thought about everything you said about expanding my business and I went to see Grant today. I laid it all out for him—snowmobiles, ATVs, the possibility of my guiding guests into the backcountry, the whole deal.”

  “And?” Shandie said.

  “I’m in,” he announced with a proud grin that stretched his supple mouth nearly ear to ear. “Grant jumped at the idea, added a few touches of his own, and we’re gonna to do business.”

  “Congratulations!” Shandie said, pleased for him but still wary.

  “Then, at the end of my talking to Grant, D.J. walked in and I called a truce with him, too.”

  More good news. Why did she continue to feel as if another shoe was going to drop?

  But what she said was, “How did that go?”

  “Pretty well, everything considered. D.J. was kind of leery at first, but I convinced him it was time for us both to turn over a new leaf. I told him that I understand how he felt—like the odd man out—and that now that I’ve had some time in that spot myself, I can relate, that I didn’t like it. What I said seemed to strike a nerve with him, as if my finally getting what he’d felt for so long and recognizing that there was a reason for his resentment went a long way in making him feel better. And he accepted the truce.”

  “I’m so glad for you,” Shandie said without reservation on that score.

  “And it’s all thanks to you,” he said then. “I have to apologize for not letting Grant—or D.J., either—in on that, though. Eventually, I promise, I’ll make sure you get the credit, but it didn’t seem smart to tell Grant, in particular, that the whole business idea came from the woman I’m seeing. I was afraid if he knew he might think I wasn’t fully committed or something—the way things were when I was with Lizbeth and wasn’t making levelheaded decisions and didn’t follow through with things.”

  “I don’t need any credit,” Shandie said, meaning it. “I just planted the seeds, you took it from there.”

  “The business expansion and making the connection with the resort was still your idea, and I won’t forget that.”

  That sounded like something someone might say as a lead-up to the announcement that they were moving on.

  Was she just being paranoid?

  The man did have a history…

  “You had a busy day,” she observed, watching him, looking for signs that there was more to come.

  “To tell you the truth, it was another slow day—that’s when I decided to go to Grant. But, yeah, once I put those wheels into motion I accomplished a lot. I also did a lot of thinking to go with it,” he finished in what was obviously a segue.

  “So there’s more,” she said tentatively.

  “As a matter of fact, the business stuff, the truce with D.J., were just where things started. From there—”

  Shandie lunged across the cafeteria table just in time to catch the ice cream dish.

  At some point, while Shandie and Dax were talking, Kayla had fallen asleep with the plastic cup in one hand and the spoon in the other. Had Shandie not acted with split-second reflexes, soupy ice cream would have ended up all over Dax.

  Dax’s eyes shot to Kayla again, too, surprised to find she’d nodded off.

  “We should get her home,” he said when Shandie had taken the plastic cup out of harm’s way and removed the spoon from Kayla’s hand, too. “We can talk about the rest after we get this kiddo to bed.”

  The rest…

  The knot in Shandie’s stomach tightened.

  She moved as if through a fog then. With Dax still holding Kayla, Shandie took off the fairy wings, slipped her sleeping child’s arms into her coat, pulled up the hood and zipped her in. She deposited the ice cream dishes in the trash and put on her own jacket over the slacks and sweater set she was wearing.

  Once that was accomplished, she held Kayla while Dax shrugged on his own coat and then she let him take Kayla back to carry out to his truck.

  And through it all, through the short drive to her house, she just kept thinking, Don’t cry, whatever you do, don’t cry…

  It was a mantra she continued even after they’d arrived at her place, and the whole time she was
undressing Kayla and getting her to bed.

  Don’t cry and embarrass yourself. Don’t let him see that he’s gotten to you so soon. Don’t cry, whatever you do, don’t cry…

  Dax was waiting for her in the living room when she went downstairs with her hands clenched into tense fists in her pockets, as if that would help her keep some control. She didn’t offer him tea or coffee or a nightcap, she didn’t join him on the sofa where he sat at an angle, one arm stretched across the top of the cushions in back. She just stopped as she reached the rear of the easy chair and said, “So tell me the rest,” hating that her voice came out so small.

  “The rest is about you and me,” he said.

  “I thought it might be.”

  He must have found her dire tone puzzling because his expression reflected that. But he didn’t say anything about it. He just patted the seat next to him and said, “Come and sit down.”

  “I’m okay here.”

  More confusion.

  “Tell me the rest,” Shandie said quietly, thinking that she couldn’t bear the wait any longer.

  Still clearly confused, he complied in spite of it.

  “I came out of the resort today feeling like I was on top of the world. And even though I hadn’t let Grant or D.J. know how much of what had just happened was due to you, I knew it. All I could think about was rushing to you to share it and…Well, that’s when it hit me—I want to share everything with you. From here on in. It hit me that for the first time in my life I feel like I’m—”

  He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “This sounds so sappy,” he said.

  But then he continued, anyway. “For the first time in my life I feel like I’ve found a part of me that’s been missing. Something that fills a gap I didn’t even know was there, and makes me…I’m not even sure how to put it into words…makes me centered, grounded. And coming from that, I can see beyond myself so I can deal with what needs to be dealt with, with a clearer perspective. Without giving it more weight than it deserves because no matter what it is, the only thing that really matters is this core that’s here now. This core that’s been formed by you and me coming together. It’s you, Shandie, who fills the gap, who’s more important—so important—that as long as there’s you, everything else can work out or not work out, can be there or not be there, and I know I can still go on perfectly fine. As long as I have you.”

  He shook his head again, this time in astonishment. “And what I realized when it hit me is that I need to hang on to that. I need to hang on to you. Tight.”

  So he wasn’t breaking up with her. In fact, he was saying wonderful things.

  But rather than feeling relieved and excited by his words, Shandie was wondering if, not so long ago, he’d claimed similar sentiments for Lizbeth Stanton. If this was the same kind of heat-of-the-moment thing that had inspired his impetuous proposal to the other woman…

  “What is it about tonight that has everybody so wound up?” she said, trying to make a joke. “First Kayla and now you.”

  “I am wound up,” Dax confessed. “This has been a great day and the start of a great future. And I want you in on it.”

  “I’m thrilled that it was a great day for you—you deserve it. I think—and hope—it is the start of a great future for you, too. But other than that, maybe you should slow down, take a breath, just enjoy this without barreling into anything else.”

  “I want to barrel into something else,” he insisted. “I know this is impulsive, but it’s a good impulse. I can feel it in my bones.”

  Shandie didn’t say anything. She doubted it would have much more effect on him than anything she’d said to Kayla tonight to try to get her daughter to calm down.

  “Come on,” he urged, patting the couch cushion again. “Sit down and talk to me.”

  She gave him that much. She went to the sofa and sat down. But she sat as far from him as she could manage because she had no doubt that if there was any contact it would cloud her thinking.

  “I know this is all quick,” he said then, correctly translating the distance she was keeping as a sign of her own reservation. “It struck me like a bolt of lightning, too. But once it did, I just knew it was the way things should be. That we should be together. A family.”

  “Slow down, Dax,” Shandie repeated softly.

  “I don’t want to slow down. I don’t see any reason to slow down. I’ve thought it all through, Shandie. You told me yourself that I had to figure out what makes me happy now that what made me happy before is gone—well, I figured that out today—”

  “What made you happy today was having Grant like the business proposition you went to him with, and making up with your brother.”

  “No. What I figured out today was that I was feeling happy before any of that happened. That I’ve been feeling happier and happier the longer things have gone on with you. That you have been making me happy. You and Kayla and being with you both. What I figured out today was that if Grant hadn’ t liked the idea, if he’d blown me out of the water, you are still who I would have wanted to turn to. That you are who I want to be with whether things are good or bad or just plugging along. That’s when I knew that this—” he waved a long index finger back and forth between them “—that whatever this is that’s happened with us is the only damn thing that makes any difference to anything.”

  It was Shandie shaking her head now. “That’s nice but—”

  “You don’t feel the same way.”

  “I haven’t thought about it like that,” she admitted. “This is so new—what’s happening with us—and…” And she’d only been thinking that if he had something he wanted to talk about, it must be that he didn’t want to see her anymore.

  “To tell you the truth,” she said, deciding on the spot to do just that, “I thought you were going to say we should cool it.”

  “Cool it? Like stop seeing each other?”

  Shandie nodded.

  “Why would I have wanted to say that?”

  She shrugged.

  “Because of Lizbeth,” he guessed. “You thought this was like that—some fling that I’d already lost interest in.”

  “The whole thing with Lizbeth Stanton was a whirlwind romance that you were gung ho about and then called off. And there has been that talk around the Clip ’n Curl about my being the next Lizbeth—”

  “I told you I was only ‘gung ho’ about things with Lizbeth on the surface. That it was all a stupid attempt to fix what was wrong by just making it seem as if it was fixed.”

  “And this isn’t the same?” Shandie asked.

  “No, this isn’t the same!” he answered with absolute conviction.

  But regardless of how convinced he might be, Shandie wasn’t. And suddenly all the things she’d been imagining during the program and worrying about and dreading and trying to prepare herself for had a new and different significance.

  Because she wasn’t sure if she might not just be “the next Lizbeth Stanton.” And it had taken only a slight change in Dax’s mood and the simple statement that he had something to tell her for her to fall into thinking he was going to end things with her. For her to be completely on edge. On the verge of tears, even. To give her a sense of impending doom. To suck the fun out of an evening that she should have enjoyed.

  Wasn’t that what she would be facing if she went on being involved with Dax in whatever way he saw them involved in the future? she asked herself. Wouldn’t the slightest change in him leave her thinking all the same things she’d thought tonight? Wouldn’t that always be hanging over her head? Only wouldn’t feeling what she’d felt tonight get even harder as more time passed? After they’d made love again and again? When she was counting on his being around? Wouldn’t everything she’d felt tonight be a hundred times harder?

  Then into her mind’s eye came the image of Kayla plopping comfortably down into Dax’s lap the way she had earlier in the evening. She could see her daughter once more snuggled against him, feeling confident in him, feeli
ng so safe and secure that she’d fallen asleep in his arms. And she could only think about how much worse it would be for them both for him to change his mind later and leave them behind.

  Sooner or later— that’s what she’d thought just a little while ago—Dax’s ending this relationship was inevitable, and that if that was the case, it was better sooner than later.

  But how long was she going to wait for later to come? Fearing every slight variation in Dax’s attitude and knowing that when the ax fell, she wasn’t the only one who would feel the blow?

  That wasn’t something to embrace. It wasn’t even something to accept. And even if she were willing to consider accepting it for herself, she didn’t have only herself to think about. She had Kayla.

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Dax,” she began. “But it won’t work.”

  His puzzlement returned to carve deep grooves into his forehead. “If you don’t know what I’m thinking how can you know it won’t work?”

  “I’m just saying that this—” she mimicked him waving a finger back and forth between them “—won’t work.”

  “Why not? It seems like it’s been working great.”

  “Until tonight,” she said more to herself than to him.

  “What was wrong with tonight?” he asked, baffled.

  “I’ve been…I’ve been so sure that this was it, that this was where my being “the next Lizbeth” would happen, that I’ve felt awful.” She infused the word with the misery she’d been suffering.

  “But that isn’t what happened.”

  “No, not tonight. But when? Next week? Next month? Next year? Or the next? I can’t go through worrying and wondering and being afraid of when it will happen.”

  “Maybe it won’t happen—did that occur to you?”

  It hadn’t and she admitted it. “But the odds aren’t in my favor,” she said. “Your track record, your reputation—”

  “All come from the past. From my history with other people. From making choices that were made too young or for the wrong reasons,” he qualified.