The Maverick's Christmas Homecoming

by Teresa Southwick

  “That’s it?” Jackie asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  “I want to hear about celebrity chef Shane Roarke.” Her mother’s blue eyes twinkled. “I watched If You Can’t Stand the Heat. He’s a hottie and that has nothing to do with cooking over a steaming stove.”

  “Mom,” Gianna scolded. “What would Dad say?”

  It was a deflection because she really didn’t think her carefree act would hold up to scrutiny if she was forced to talk about her boss.

  “Your father would say there’s nothing wrong with looking as long as I come home to him.”

  “Frank would agree with that.” Her sister looked thoughtful. “This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed that he and Dad are a lot alike.”

  Susan took a cautious sip of the hot tea, then set the cup on the saucer. “They’re both good men. Solid. Stable. Dependable. It’s what eased my worries a little bit when you insisted on getting married so young.”

  “It all worked out for the best,” Jackie said.

  And then some. It was everything Gianna wanted. Up until this morning she’d been sure Shane was cut from the same cloth as the other two men, but now she didn’t know what to think. His behavior had changed so suddenly. Where he was concerned, her emotions were all over the map. One minute she was angry, the next worried about whatever was so “complicated.”

  “Are you okay, honey?”

  “Hmm?” Gianna had zoned out and it took a couple of seconds to realize her mother was speaking to her. “Sorry, Mom. I’m fine. Just tired.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “No. Just that time of the year when we’re all busy.”

  It wouldn’t do any good to tell them that she’d lost sleep because of playing in the snow last night with Shane, then he drove her home and made love to her. Her head was still spinning from the speed at which everything had changed.

  She looked at her sister. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Things are good. The kids aren’t sick and I hope we make it through the holidays with everyone healthy.” She crossed her fingers for luck. “Griffin is in the Christmas pageant at his school. Colin’s preschool is going to the hospital to sing carols for the patients. I’m the room mother in both of their classes and responsible for the holiday parties. I love doing it, but when Emily is old enough for school, I’m not sure how I can spread myself that thin.”

  “You need minions.” Gianna remembered talking about that with Shane and wondered how long casual conversation would set off reminders of him.

  “She has minions,” Susan said. “It’s called family.”

  Jackie snapped her fingers. “That reminds me.”

  “What?” Gianna and her mother said at the same time.

  Her sister grabbed her purse from the chair and pulled something from the side pocket. It was an oblong-shaped piece of cardstock and she handed one to each of them. “This is the Blake family Christmas card.”

  Gianna’s heart pinched again in a different way as she looked at her sister’s beautiful family. Handsome dark-haired Frank with four-year-old Colin on his lap. Beautiful Jackie holding Emily. She was wearing a sweet little red-velvet dress, white leggings and black-patent shoes. Griffin, seven and a half, stood just behind his parents, little arms trying to reach around their shoulders.

  “Oh, sis—” Gianna’s voice caught. “This is a fantastic picture.”

  “It really is, honey.” Susan smiled fondly.

  “Thanks.” Her sister beamed. “It’s a Christmas miracle. You have no idea the level of difficulty there is in getting a decent photo of three kids and two adults. No one is crying and by that I mean Frank and I. There are no spots on the clothes—at least none that show up.”

  Gianna laughed in spite of the fact that she was simultaneously rocking a case of jealousy and feelings of failure. She loved her sister very much and was so happy for her. But the picture she held in her hands was everything she’d ever wanted and thought by now she would have. She was thirty years old and had nothing to show for it except a string of broken dreams and long, unsuccessful relationships.

  She wasn’t sure Shane could be considered a relationship, but he was definitely the shortest. So it didn’t make sense that what happened with him hurt so much more than all the others.

  And it was going to get worse. She had to see him at work in a couple of hours.

  * * *

  Shane paced back and forth in the living room of his condo but today the fantastic mountain view and heavenly blue sky did nothing to fill up his soul. On the other hand, his mind was overflowing, mostly about how rude he’d been to Gianna that morning.

  “I’m an idiot.” An idiot who was talking to himself. “At the very least she just thinks I’m nuts. It’s complicated? How does that explain anything?”

  His cell phone rang and he plucked it from the case on his belt then checked the caller ID because he didn’t want to talk to anyone unless absolutely necessary. This person was most definitely necessary.

  He smiled and hit the talk button. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Shane. Is it really you? Not your voice mail?”

  “Okay. I officially feel guilty.”

  She laughed. “Is this a bad time? Are you working? I don’t want to interrupt—”

  “You’re not interrupting anything.” Except him beating himself up. He had a little time before work. And facing Gianna. “I’m at home.”

  “Great.” Christa Roarke’s voice suited her. She was strong, sweet, tough and tender. A green-eyed brunette whose face showed the traumas and triumphs of life but remained beautiful. She practiced family law and after struggling to have a family of her own, it seemed appropriate.

  “Is Dad okay?” Gavin Roarke was the strongest man he knew, but Shane always needed to check.

  “Fine. Why?”

  “Ryan and Maggie?” His siblings, lawyers like their parents. He’d wondered more than once if that’s part of what made him question who he was. Though they were all adopted, he was the only one who didn’t follow in their parents’ footsteps, but took a completely different career path. He couldn’t remember when he’d seriously begun to wonder why.

  “Your brother and sister are fine.” There was humor in her voice. “But the focus of your questions leads me to believe you think I called because of a family crisis.”

  “Did you?”

  “Everyone here in L.A. is fine.”

  “Good.” That left him the only family member in a mess. “What can I do for you, Mom?”

  “I just haven’t talked to you for a while.” There was a slight hesitation before she added, “That comment was in no way meant to make you feel guilty.”

  He laughed. “If you say so.”

  “Maybe because it’s the holidays and you’re so far away, I’ve just been thinking a lot about you. Wondering how you are.”

  He stood beside the floor-to-ceiling windows and leaned a shoulder against the wall as he looked out. His mother was as transparent as the glass. She knew why he’d come to Thunder Canyon and was fishing for information. “I’m okay.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line for a few moments before she asked, “That’s it? Just okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is why you’re not an attorney like the rest of the Roarkes. Practicing law frequently requires the use of words and apparently that’s not your strength.”

  He grinned. “I communicate through food.” />
  “That’s all well and good. The culinary world loves you. The camera loves you. And I love you. But it’s a mother’s job to encourage her child to use words.”

  “It’s a dirty job, I guess, but someone has to do it.”

  “And you know what an overachiever I can be,” she said.

  “What is it you’re asking, Mom?”

  “You just love to torture me, don’t you?” She sighed. “Okay. You asked for it. Here comes the maternal cross-examination.”

  “I can hardly wait.” A rustling sound on the line made him picture her sitting up straight in the chair, probably behind the desk in her office.

  “Mr. Roarke, you’ve lived in Thunder Canyon, Montana, for nearly six months now. How is it going?”

  He thought about the question and knew she was asking how the search for his birth parents was progressing. When he’d first stepped foot in the town something clicked into place inside him and it seemed crazy at the time. But the more he learned, the longer he stayed, the less crazy that feeling felt. Still, he wasn’t ready to tell his family what was going on. So much of it was conjecture. Getting into her milieu, he only had half the facts to build a case.

  So, Shane decided to use his words to go in a different direction. “When I made the decision to come here, I braced myself for a wilderness adventure.”

  “Survivor Montana?” she teased.

  “Something like that.” He studied the jagged snow-capped peaks with evergreen trees standing out in stark relief against the whiteness. “You can research anything on the internet, but there’s no way to experience a place until you do it in person.”

  “There’s a reverence in your voice, as if you’re in church.”

  “Someone else said the same thing to me,” he answered, thinking of Gianna. “And it feels like being in the presence of God sometimes. You can’t know unless you see.”

  “And what do you know now, Shane?”

  “I like this place. More than I thought.” He pretended she wasn’t asking about his search. “Thunder Canyon is small. Really small compared to anywhere I’ve ever lived.”

  “That could be a double-edged sword.”

  “People talk.” He knew that and what he’d uncovered could give them a lot to talk about. “Around here everyone knows your business even if you haven’t shared it with them. But that can also be a good thing. When there’s a problem, they don’t look the other way. They don’t avoid getting involved or feel inconvenienced. Folks help each other out.”

  “And you like that?”

  “Let me put it this way,” he said. “I’ve donated money to charity and felt good about it, but was never personally touched by the cause. But it’s different here. There’s no comparison, no way to describe how good it feels to use your talent to make a difference. To be included in a cause bigger than yourself.”

  “Such as?”

  “Just before Thanksgiving I prepared a dinner for the families of military members serving overseas. You could see the gratitude in their eyes, Mom. It was a fantastic feeling.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  “Of course I didn’t do it alone. The staff at The Gallatin Room pitched in. Gianna was pretty amazing.”

  “Gianna?”

  “Gianna Garrison. She’s one of the waitresses who volunteered her time to serve that dinner.” He pictured the sassy redhead with the beautiful smile that warmed him in dark places he hadn’t even been aware of. “She worked her tail off and I never once saw her anything but considerate. Always laughing.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Humor me.” There was a tone that said resistance was futile.

  “She’s very attractive.” Such plain words to describe someone so bright, so special. And before his mother asked, he added, “A blue-eyed redhead.”

  “Hmm.”

  He wished he could see her expression. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. Go on.”

  “That’s it. I was finished.”

  “Hardly.” Along with sweet and strong, his mother’s voice could also be sarcastic. “There’s a lot more you’re not saying.”

  Mental note, he thought. Never play poker with this woman. But he added something that was completely true and also too simple to explain what he felt. “I like her.”

  “That does it. I really want to meet the new woman in your life.”

  “That’s not how it is.” At least not after the way he’d acted this morning. He probably blew it big time.

  He just hadn’t been able to pull off a casual act after Catherine Overton mentioned D.J.’s mother’s name was Grace. If their mothers sharing a first name was the only coincidence, he could have laughed it off. But then Allaire Traub commented on his resemblance to Dax and D.J. She’d stopped short of calling it a family resemblance, but...

  He and D.J. both had the food-service industry in common and every time he’d seen the other man there’d been a feeling. A shared sense of humor. A connection that Shane couldn’t explain. Because they were brothers?

  It was complicated. If he’d told Gianna all of his suspicions, she’d think he was crazy and call the shrink squad. Shane had heard the rumors of Swinton’s unrequited love for Grace Traub, but everyone laughed it off as the raving of a lunatic. What if that was true? What if Arthur Swinton had slept with Dax and D.J.’s mother and he, Shane, was the result?

  “Shane?”

  His mother’s voice yanked him out of the dark turn his thoughts had taken. “Sorry. What did you say?”

  “I asked how it is with you and Gianna?”

  It was nowhere because he’d pushed her away. Even a bad shrink would say it was because he didn’t want to see the look of disgust in her eyes when she learned who his father was. Why would she not believe that an evil man’s son didn’t have evil in his DNA?

  “I consider her a friend,” he finally said.

  “Hostile witness.”

  “Really, Mom?” He had to smile. “Now you’re going all lawyer on me?”

  “That’s what you do when a witness holds back.” She sighed. “But, it’s all right. You’re entitled to your secrets.”

  That word grated on him. He was learning the hard way that secrets could corrode the soul. Should he come clean with Gianna, give her the explanation? Maybe stop the blackness inside him from spreading? The risk was that everyone in town would find out. But maybe if he asked her to keep it to herself, it might be possible to control the flow of information even in a small town.

  When he didn’t comment, his mother continued, “Another reason I called is...what are your plans for Christmas?”

  “I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.” What with everything else on his mind.

  “It’s a couple of weeks, so not really that far ahead. Will we see you for the holidays?” Her voice was carefully casual, an indication that seeing him meant a lot.

  The truth was he missed his family. He’d never not been there for Christmas. No matter where he worked his heart was with the Roarkes—his parents and his siblings. Nothing he found out would ever change that.

  “Of course I’ll be there.”

  “Wonderful.” There was a subtle sound of relief in her voice. “We’ll look forward to seeing you, sweetheart.”

  “Same here, Mom.”

  “Hold on.” There were muffled voices in the background, then she came back on the
line. “I’m sorry, Shane. My next appointment is here.”

  “No problem, Mom. I have to get to work.”

  “Love you, son.”

  “Love you, too.”

  He clicked off and thought about the conversation. It didn’t escape his notice that he no longer thought of Los Angeles as home. Something twisted in his chest when he opened the French door and walked out on the balcony to look at the big sky and mountains. The cold snapped through him and sliced inside.

  He wasn’t at all sure he would survive Montana unscathed. This place had become home and Gianna had become more important than he’d intended. It was entirely possible that he could be more lost now than when he’d first arrived in Thunder Canyon.

  Chapter Eight

  At work Gianna looked over the empty dining room, searching for anything out of place. Silverware was wrapped in cloth napkins and ready in a corner, out of the view of customers. Fresh linens and flower vases were on the tables along with lighted candles. She’d done everything ahead of time that could possibly be done and not compromise the quality and freshness of food.

  The service business was always a delicate balance, not unlike navigating a relationship. Never give anyone a reason not to come back, but if a mistake was made, do whatever was necessary to make things right.

  With all the prep work done, this would be a good time to grab a quick bite to eat. At lunch with her mother and sister she’d lost her appetite, but was starving now. The rest of the staff had already finished their pre-service meal and were gearing up for a busy night. A local company was having their Christmas party in the banquet room.

  In the kitchen there was food left from the staff meal. She was just taking a bite when Shane walked in. This was the first time she’d seen him alone since he’d dropped her off at her apartment this morning. Not that she’d done anything wrong, or that she wanted to give him a reason to come back, but speaking of making things right... They did have to work together, at least for the time being.