by Jane Porter
She really needed him to answer. She really needed to tell him what was happening. But once more she went to his voice mail, and this time she didn’t hang up but listened to his entire greeting, which was very lengthy as he gave his office hours and address, but then the beep sounded and she had to speak.
“Hi, Lawrence, it’s me. It’s about six thirty or seven I think, and I’m outside White Sulphur Springs, calling from the restaurant phone. TJ and I are fine. I’m so sorry about this afternoon. . .” Her voice trailed off and for a moment she didn’t know what to say.
It was ending, wasn’t it?
She couldn’t imagine how she and Lawrence would ever recover from this. And suddenly she wasn’t sure she wanted them to recover.
Trey and Lawrence would never see eye to eye and she couldn’t bear for TJ to grow up, caught in the middle. And he would be caught in the middle.
She’d be trapped, too.
McKenna tugged on the phone cord and drew a quick breath. “I won’t be back for a few days, probably not until Christmas. TJ and Trey have really missed each other and need to spend some time together. I want them to have this time. You’ve always said TJ was too much like Trey, and now that I see them together, you’re right. They are alike and they need each other…they need a chance to be a family together…”
Her voice trailed off as she struggled to think of a way to end the call. “I hate doing this over the phone. Hate doing this in a message, but I don’t want you wondering and worrying about us so I just want you to know that we’re okay, and safe. I hope you’re okay, too.”
“And I’m sorry,” she added softly. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, but we’re not the right family for you. We’re not the ones who will make you happy. There’s someone else for you, I’m sure of it. I hope one day you’ll understand and hopefully forgive me.”
She gently set the receiver down, ending the call.
For a long moment she just stared at the phone.
She’d just ended it with Lawrence. It was over. They were done.
Chapter Nine
‡
From their table at the diner, Trey could see McKenna on the phone, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. She dialed three different times, and each call was short. From the brevity of the calls he suspected she was leaving messages. It’d be interesting to know who she’d called and what those messages were.
TJ’s voice caught his attention. “What’s that, son?”
“Why didn’t you apologize?” TJ repeated. “If you didn’t mean to kill that man. Why didn’t you say it was an accident and you were sorry?”
Trey glanced from McKenna, who was heading back to their table, to TJ. “It doesn’t work that way,” he answered. “An apology doesn’t change some things.”
“But you didn’t want to kill him.”
“No.”
“Did you want to hurt him?”
“No.”
“What did you want to do then?”
He hesitated. “I wanted him to stop hurting someone else.”
TJ put his fork down. “Who was he hurting?”
“We shouldn’t talk about this.”
“Why?”
“It’s just going to upset your mom—”
“What will upset me?” McKenna asked, sitting down at the table and placing her crumpled veil on the seat between her and TJ.
Several long dark red tendrils had come loose from the elaborate twist at the back to frame her face. Trey wished she’d take the pins out of her hair and let it spill free. She had the most gorgeous hair. He couldn’t understand why she’d ever put it up.
“Talking about the man he killed,” TJ said bluntly. “He said it makes you sad if we talk about it around you.”
“He’s right.” She looked baffled. “Why are we discussing this again?”
“TJ wanted to know why I didn’t apologize, since it was an accident,” Trey tried to sound just as matter of fact but he hated the subject. It was obviously a sensitive subject. Trey had spent a lot of time at Deer Lodge asking himself what he would do differently, if he had to do it over again. Ignore Bradley beating up his girlfriend? Walk out of the Wolf Den as if nothing bad was taking place?
Trey couldn’t.
He’d never be able to stand by as a man used a woman as a punching bag. He’d never be able to allow a person to hurt an animal. He’d never let anyone abuse or threaten a kid.
It wasn’t his nature. It wasn’t acceptable to his own code of conduct.
Sure, when he was younger, he fought to fight. He’d liked fighting. He hadn’t been afraid of taking a hit, either, because he realized physical pain was temporary. The real pain was the abuse that went on behind closed doors, the suffering of women in bad marriages, the agony of children raised by unstable parents.
Trey’s dad had never hit his mom, but he didn’t love her, and she’d suffered. She’d been a beautiful young woman when she married Bill Sheenan—and she’d given him five sons, one after the other, but his affections were elsewhere, with Bev Carrigan, and his mother had known.
She’d taken her life the summer after he and Troy had graduated from high school. Troy had been the one to find her. Their family had never been the same.
How could it be without their mother?
“None of it should have happened,” Trey said flatly. “It’s a day I will regret for the rest of my life.”
“But why did you hit him?” TJ persisted.
Trey opened his mouth but no sound came out. How could he explain to a five year old that he’d seen a man using his girlfriend as a punching bag, so he’d intervened. The man, seriously inebriated, threw a punch at Trey, and Trey answered. A fight ensued and then Bradley lost his balance and went down.
If anyone else had stepped in that day, the outcome would have been different. Even the judge said as much. There might not have been an arrest, and there certainly wouldn’t have been a five year prison sentence, but it was Trey Sheenan who’d interfered, and Trey had a long history of fighting in Crawford County, and Judge McCorkle wanted to make a point that he wouldn’t tolerate thugs and petty criminals while he was on the bench.
McKenna sat forward. “Your dad went to jail because he tried to save a woman who was getting beat up by her boyfriend. Your dad didn’t think it was right so he stepped in and there was a fight. Your dad is really strong, and a really good fighter, and he threw a hard punch which made the other guy fall, and when he fell he hit his head, and later died.” She exhaled, face pale. “He didn’t mean for the other man to die. It was an accident, and he did apologize to the family, but it didn’t matter. Someone had died.”
TJ frowned. “But a man should not hit a woman.”
“That’s right,” she agreed.
“So my dad’s a good guy? A hero?”
She made a soft, inarticulate sound as she glanced at Trey. “I guess it depends on who you talk to.”
Trey held her gaze a long moment before fishing out his wallet and peeling two twenties from the other bills and leaving them on the table. “Should we go?”
They left the diner and crossed the parking lot quickly to climb into Trey’s truck to escape the cold. He started the truck and turned on the heater but it’d be a while before it put out hot air, and McKenna wrapped her arms around TJ to keep them warm.
He glanced at the shivering pair. It was damn cold. None of them had proper clothing for a Montana winter night. “What now?”
“What do you mean, what now?” McKenna answered, her gaze lifting to his, her winged eyebrows arching higher. “I thought you were the man with a plan. I thought you were determined to spend this Christmas with your son.”
Her expression was mocking. She was throwing it down, daring him, challenging him, just as she had all those years ago when she was an innocent freshman and he the big bad high school senior.
Heat swept through him, blood surging through his veins, making him hot, and hard, filling him with longing for the life h
e’d had. The life he’d lost.
He missed her. He missed her body and her mind, her curves, her lips, her fire, her sweetness and that flash in her eyes. She knew him so well.
“That hasn’t changed,” he said, his voice low and husky.
“Then give TJ a special Christmas. Give him a Christmas he’ll never forget.”
*
Trey didn’t tell her where they were going. He just drove and she was fine relinquishing control and being the passenger, settling in while he took them wherever it was he wanted to take them.
As they headed west on Highway 12, she’d wondered if they were stopping in Helena, but he kept going, passing through Helena, and then north on 83. They’d been driving for three hours and TJ had crashed out a couple hours ago, leaning against McKenna.
It was getting late and they were traveling a mountain road but McKenna was relaxed. Trey was an exceptional driver and he might make her nervous in a bar, but he was good behind the wheel, and his truck was a four wheel drive vehicle with snow tires so if they hit snow or ice they’d be fine.
And she felt fine, now.
Mellow. Thoughtful. A little sad, but not heartbroken.
That told her something, didn’t it?
Shouldn’t she feel a little devastated?
Shouldn’t she feel something besides…relieved?
“Cold?” Trey asked, glancing at her.
She shook her head, and wrapped her arm more securely around TJ’s hip.
They drove another five minutes in silence.
She could tell Trey had something on his mind from the way he glanced at her every now and then but she didn’t press him to speak, thinking no conversation was better than conflict and she was enjoying the quiet and the lack of tension and the big night sky which wrapped the truck.
Traveling together like this was both familiar and intimate. Trey on one side, she on the other with TJ in the center.
Trey cleared his throat. “Were you able to reach Lawrence?”
She shook her head. “Tried twice, got his voice mail each time. I left a message the second time.”
He was silent for another minute, before shooting her a side glance. “What did you say in the message?”
“That you and TJ needed to catch up and I thought it was a good idea for you to spend Christmas together.” She could tell he wanted to ask another question and so she headed him off, adding, “I also left a message for my friend Paige, letting her know everything was okay and that we were with you. I asked her to let my brothers and Aunt Karen know.”
“Your family won’t be happy.”
“I don’t know who will be more upset, my brothers or Aunt Karen.”
“Your aunt’s never liked me.”
“She didn’t dislike you until she found us naked together in my bedroom.”
“I wasn’t naked, and you had…a few things…on. Your blouse…your bra…” His voice trailed off and his lips curved in a rueful smile. “You know she wouldn’t have come running if you hadn’t been loud.”
“Don’t blame me! How was I to know how good it would feel? It’s your fault for being so…talented…that way.”
“We didn’t see each other for a while after that.”
“Two months I think, which was ridiculous because we’d been dating two years at that point. Did they honestly think you and I weren’t going to try anything? That we weren’t going to eventually mess around?”
The corner of his mouth quirked and they slipped back into silence, traveling another five miles with memories hanging over them.
She and Trey had grown up together. Hard to remember a time when they weren’t together…
“I didn’t think you wanted a big wedding,” he said, a few minutes later, his attention on the road. “You’d always said that when we got married you just wanted immediate family, something small and intimate.”
McKenna didn’t immediately reply. She would have preferred a small wedding but Lawrence had wanted to invite all his clients and friends so the wedding grew from fifty to one hundred and then one hundred and fifty, and that was where she put her foot down. One hundred and fifty was plenty for a candle light wedding the last Saturday before Christmas.
“I think the wedding was for Lawrence and the community,” she said after a moment. “There are many in Marietta who want closure for me…they want that happy ending.”
“And a fancy wedding would give them closure?”
“I think people want me to be happy, and they hoped that by marrying Lawrence, TJ and I would have stability.”
“Or maybe they were just glad that Lawrence would keep you away from me.”
She started to protest but closed her mouth, swallowing the protest. He was right. He was not Marietta’s favorite son.
“I never cared what people thought,” she said softly, glancing at him, and taking in his profile with the jutting jaw and firm press of lips. He was leaner than she remembered, and yet bigger, harder. He was carrying a lot of muscle still, but he seemed to have virtually no body fat.
In the light of the truck dash, he glowed, rugged and Hollywood handsome. Black hair, long black lashes, piercing blue eyes, chiseled bone structure.
He’d always been good looking, but in his mid thirties he had a maturity that suited him.
The last vestiges of boy were gone. He was all man. A gorgeous, darkly beautiful man.
When he’d been sentenced to prison she’d thought her heart was permanently broken and so it’d been a surprise when she finally accepted Lawrence’s invitation to dinner.
Maybe she was comfortable with Lawrence because he was nothing like Trey.
Lawrence wasn’t sexy or sexual. He wasn’t hard taut muscle. He wasn’t a rancher or a cowboy. He couldn’t rope a fence post, much less a steer. And no, he couldn’t fix the engine of a car or deliver a calf. He couldn’t drive in snow. He couldn’t shoot, hunt, fish or build a proper fire.
But he was sweet, and thoughtful, gentle and kind. If he said he’d be there at seven, he always showed up…five minutes early. If she needed anything, he was there. He treated her like she was the best thing since sliced bread and it felt good to be important and valued.
It felt good to know he’d be there the next day, and the day after, and the day after that.
It felt good not to worry that he’d be out too late, drinking too much, getting heated, instigating fights.
It felt good to be with someone that folks didn’t criticize.
“People really thought Lawrence would be a better husband and father than me?” Trey sounded incredulous. “A man who has so little backbone that he allows a five year old to walk all over him?”
“Well, TJ’s not just any five year old. He is your five year old.”
“My point exactly.”
She chewed on her lip, thinking, remembering the fight, the trial, the sentence and then those two years she drove twice a month to see him, carting the baby, who was quickly growing into a spirited toddler.
TJ always cried during the drives to the prison, but he cried the most when they left Trey behind. He cried because he didn’t know why he had to leave his daddy behind, again, and TJ’s tears and grief had worn her down. TJ had been too young to feel so much anguish. He hadn’t understood. She couldn’t seem to make him understand. And what about when Trey was released?
Would he be there for them then? Did she believe deep down he’d ever be there for them?
She hadn’t known anymore.
She hadn’t trusted Trey anymore.
She’d come to see him as others saw him—a dominant male, fierce and physical—but a man who was in need of reason and self-control.
She’d finally heard what everyone said….that he was reactive, responding instinctively without regard to risks and consequence, and she’d seen that they were right. He refused to grow up, refused to control his temper, refuse to bend or yield which meant he could never be depended on.
She loved how beautiful he wa
s, remembered how amazing it felt when they were together. Making love with Trey wasn’t just sexual, it was emotional and spiritual….or at least it used to be before she was so angry with him. So frustrated and hurt.
And so she’d found the opposite of Trey in Lawrence Joplin, and when Lawrence proposed the third time, she put aside her reservations, telling herself that passion was less important than predictability, and accepted his marriage offer, determined that the future would be different from the past.
But now everything had changed again and instead of being teary and conflicted, she was…calm.
Relieved.
There was that word again. She almost felt a little guilty for feeling relieved that she wasn’t marrying Lawrence. And now she wondered if that was why she had felt so many butterflies earlier, at the church. Had she been getting cold feet and she just wouldn’t admit it? Had she not wanted to marry him but was too afraid of hurting his feelings to say something?
She hoped she wasn’t that much of a coward. She’d been through too much in life to be a doormat…
But no, she wasn’t a doormat. She’d stood up to Trey plenty of times, refusing to marry him until he got his act together and grew up and acted like a man.
She’d stood up to her family when they’d pressured her to stop seeing Trey.
She’d ignored the gossip in Marietta when she’d chosen to be a single mom rather than marry a man she didn’t think was ready to settle down.
No, she wasn’t a doormat. And she had a spine. But she also was tender hearted when it came to those she loved. And she loved Lawrence, but probably more as a friend than a lover and life partner.
Which was why it baffled her that Lawrence had taken it upon himself to tell TJ why his father was in prison. Lawrence had promised her he wouldn’t say anything, agreeing to leave it to her so she could tell TJ when she thought the moment was right.
But Lawrence had broken that promise. Why?
And if he’d broken that promise to her, how much others had he not kept?
Chapter Ten
