Family for the Holidays

by Victoria Pade

  “Me, too,” Dax agreed as if he and Kayla were in cahoots. “Maybe we should look up this Jordan guy. He must have made really good cookies because I’m not hearing anything else that would give him six years worth of appeal…”

  Dax had said that with an ornery glance at Shandie out of the corner of his dark eyes, goading her.

  “Jordan was sweet and funny and I liked him,” she said to defend her attraction.

  “No,” Dax corrected, “you lo-o-o-ved him.”

  “A crush, I said it was a crush. And I doubt that he’d bake you cookies if you did look him up. I saw him at my class reunion last summer—he’s a dentist, married with five kids. I don’t think he has time to bake cookies now.”

  “Damn!” Dax lamented.

  “Damn!” Kayla parroted.

  “Whoops,” he countered, again laughing and obviously remorseless.

  “You know better than that, Miss Kayla,” Shandie chided her daughter.

  Without raising her gaze from her crayon scribbling, Kayla grinned and also said, “Whoops.”

  “You’re a bad influence,” Shandie told Dax.

  “So I’ve been told,” he informed her, still without regret. Then he said, “How come you didn’t end up with home ec man?”

  “It really was just one of those young-love things. We were always breaking up and making up and breaking up, and even though we swore we’d make it work long distance when he went away to college, it fizzled. Neither of us ended up with broken hearts or anything. By then, I guess it had just run its course—we’d grown up, grown out of it.”

  “Was that when you discovered the joys of hairstyling?”

  “I went to college, too, right after high school, close to home. But only for a semester. I didn’t know what I wanted to do—or be—and it seemed unfair to have my parents paying tuition until I figured it out. So I quit and then sort of looked around. My mother was a stylist. And Judy. And it occurred to me that I liked it, too.”

  “And the rest is history,” Dax decreed with his face tilted toward the coffee mug that was on its way to his mouth, looking up at her from beneath eyebrows that were none the worse for wear in spite of Kayla’s abuse at the parade.

  He finished his coffee, and since Shandie had drained her tea and Kayla wasn’t terribly interested in the second half of her milk, Shandie said, “The rest is history and I think this night has to be history now, too. It’s getting late and Saturdays are killers at the salon. I should get Kayla home to bed and head there myself.”

  Dax nodded and aimed his next question at her daughter. “What do you say, Big K? Ready to go home?”

  Kayla ignored him, unaware that she was Big K. So again Shandie stepped in.

  “Come on, Kayla. Time to leave.”

  “I don’ wannoo!” the overly tired three-year-old complained.

  “I know, but we have to,” Shandie said, beginning to put the little girl’s coat on.

  Dax paid the bill and they were in his truck with Kayla firmly buckled into her car seat between them.

  There were still a lot of people milling about the streets of Thunder Canyon, but Dax’s plan to avoid traffic had paid off and they were back at Shandie’s house before the truck had even warmed up. Still, that was all the time it took for Kayla to fall fast asleep.

  “Why don’t you let me carry her in, in the car seat, and you can put her to bed from there?” Dax suggested when he’d pulled into the driveway.

  Shandie agreed to that and as Dax put the parking brake on and left the engine running, she got out the passenger side.

  “Go on up and open the door so she doesn’t have to be out in the cold for too long,” he advised when he’d rounded the truck’s front end.

  Shandie did as she was told, and he rushed her sleeping child inside and upstairs to Kayla’s bedroom with Shandie following behind.

  “Just leave the seat on the floor,” she whispered when they got there.

  Dax did just that and they both crept silently out of the little girl’s room again.

  Shandie had closed the front door behind them when they’d come in but with his truck still running, Dax clearly wasn’t expecting an invitation to stay and he went right back to the door.

  “Thanks for tonight,” Shandie said as they both reached it. “You were right. The parade was something to see and I’m glad we didn’t miss it.”

  “I’m glad you came,” Dax said with one of those great, capable-looking hands of his on the door handle. “Do you want to just come through the utility room tomorrow after the salon closes to do your paint-and-glitter thing?”

  Shandie had forgotten about that. Of course, at that moment the next day wasn’t on her mind—she’d been thinking about how gorgeous his eyes were and how when he looked at her the way he was right then it gave her hot flashes.

  But he was thinking about Saturday and she had to, too.

  “That would probably be the easiest,” she answered. “The clouds were precut—thank good-ness—and they’re still in the trunk of my car from when my recruiter gave them to me today after school. I’ll just leave them there until I finish for the day and then bring them over to your place. If you’re still sure—”

  “I’m sure. I’m already counting on that pizza you’re treating me to afterward,” he said with a slow, teasing smile that made something flutter deep inside of her.

  “Besides,” he continued, “like I said, I didn’t have any other plans. And I have fun with the two of you.”

  He said that last part as if it surprised him, and although Shandie was reasonably sure that had more to do with his own self-admitted brooding of late and being surprised that he could have fun doing anything with anyone, she pretended to take personal offense. “And here we were trying to bore the pants off you.”

  His smile eased into an evil grin and he glanced down at his jeans. “Sorry, still on. But if you want them off…”

  “No, that’s okay,” she said as if he were serious and needed stopping, acting as if the one glance of her own at his jeans-encased legs and the bump in his zipper hadn’t sent those flutters in her into a frenzy. “Don’t forget the motor is running on your truck,” she added to remind him, not happy to discover that her voice had taken on a breathiness.

  His grin got even more wicked. “That’s not the only motor that’s running,” he said, his own voice octaves lower, deeper, huskier.

  Without removing his right hand from the door handle, he raised his left to the back of her neck, leaning forward and pulling her toward him all at the same time to cover her mouth with his.

  Unlike his good-night kiss of the evening before, Shandie had seen this one coming. Or maybe she’d just been willing it to happen by thinking about that other kiss—and wanting another.

  Not that this was just another good-night kiss like its predecessor. This was a kiss with a capital K.

  His supple lips were parted from the start, enticing hers to part, too, as she kissed him back.

  This kiss was firm, commanding, confident, shouting that regardless of what sort of self-doubts he might have in any other area, he didn’t have any at all there.

  He towered above her, tall and strong, and she thought that if her weak knees buckled beneath her, that single hand at the back of her head could probably hold her up. Yet she found her hands drawn to the solid wall of his chest to steady herself, anyway.

  Too, too many layers of clothes, she thought, sorry that anything more than a mere shirt or a sweater kept her from him. But still the kiss was the thing and as his mouth opened wider over hers she was drawn from any other thoughts to that.

  The tip of his tongue made itself known again then. But also unlike the previous night, it didn’t only jut out in a quick tease. This time it traced the sensitive inner edge of her lips with enough pressure to urge her mouth to open wider, too.

  Shandie didn’t put up any resistance—not to his persuasion to make way for his tongue to weave its way into her mouth, and not to his b
ringing her in closer to him. So close that her head was far back in the cradle of his hand. In fact, not only didn’t she resist, she met his tongue tip-to-tip and matched him circle for circle, joust for joust, lingering for lingering…

  It had been a long time since a man had kissed her like that. A long time since she’d even thought about being kissed like that. But it was nice to know she hadn’t forgotten how. Nicer to have it happening again. With Dax.

  Dax, who was the first man who had made her want it to happen again. Dream of it happening again. Long for it to…

  But his truck was running.

  And Kayla was upstairs, still in her coat, in her car seat.

  And that kiss was so good it was rousing other things in Shandie that shouldn’t be.

  That couldn’t be…

  So push him away, she told herself.

  But instead her hands massaged his chest much as his fingers were massaging the back of her head.

  His mouth opened wider still and so did hers.

  His tongue became even bolder.

  And so did hers.

  His hand left the doorknob and his arm came around her, pulling her against him, bending her backward with the force of that kiss that was fast becoming more a beginning of something than a simple ending of the evening they’d just spent together.

  That was when Shandie did manage to push against Dax.

  Okay, so maybe it was more a gentle pressure that could have just as easily been construed as an attempt to press through the layers of clothes he had on. But he got the idea.

  He kissed her once more with lips only half-parted, then a final time as if taking just one more taste of a forbidden fruit.

  Shandie opened her eyes, finding his opening, too, but lazily even as that sexy, succulent mouth curved into another smile.

  “Damn running motor,” he said in a gravely voice.

  “The truck’s or yours?” Shandie asked in a scant whisper because that was the most she could muster.

  “Both,” he whispered in return.

  Then he let go of her and actually did open the front door, flinging it enough to bump the hall tree behind it.

  “See you tomorrow night,” he said on his way out.

  “Okay,” Shandie countered, wishing afterward that she’d come up with something better.

  But actually she knew she was lucky to have managed that when that kiss had left her brain foggy and the rest of her just a puddle of yearning.

  Not until she saw Dax’s truck pull out of her driveway did she even think to close her door or recall that her daughter was in need of being put to bed upstairs.

  But, once she had closed the door, she stayed there for a moment and took a few deep breaths.

  It was as if Dax had flipped on some kind of bright light inside her, and she didn’t want to go to even her sleeping child until she could tone it down.

  Or at least pull an imaginary curtain around it.

  Because what that bright light seemed to be was that part of her that didn’t have anything at all to do with being a mother.

  What he’d turned a bright light on was that part of her that had gone into hibernation somewhere along the way when Pete had become too ill for more than hand-holding and chaste good-morning and good-night kisses. That part of her that had been left in hibernation as she’d grieved for the man she’d loved, as she’d dealt with a newborn, as she’d learned not only to be a parent, but a single parent.

  Suddenly that part of her wasn’t hibernating anymore. It was awake and alive and recharged. And desperately wishing that Dax was still there.

  Still kissing her.

  Maybe taking her beyond just kissing.

  And it didn’t seem as if she should go up to Kayla until it was back under some kind of wraps.

  But even as Shandie worked at that with a few more deep breaths, with her eyes pinched closed as if that would help, she also knew that calming that formerly hibernating part of her didn’t mean putting it to sleep again.

  Yes, she was courting danger to have that reawakening caused by bad boy, brooding, adrift Dax Traub. But it still felt good—really good—not to have any portion of her slumbering.

  It felt almost as good as kissing him had felt.

  Which was something else that she knew had to be contained, controlled, not allowed to just run rampant.

  But with a little containment, a little control, maybe she could have that simple flirtation.

  Because she didn’t want to completely put an end to it any more than she wanted to put any part of herself back into hibernation.

  Chapter Seven

  “I yike Dax,” Kayla informed Shandie as Shandie tucked her into bed on Saturday evening.

  “I know you like Dax,” Shandie said.

  “He’s funny.”

  “He made you laugh all night, didn’t he?”

  It was true—the entire time Shandie had spray-painted and glittered the clouds for Kayla’s preschool program Dax had entertained the three-year-old.

  “He putted my French fries up his nose,” Kayla said, laughing at the memory.

  Shandie made a face. “Yuk.”

  “We din’t eated those ones,” Kayla said as if her mother were dim. “And he letted me sit on the big red motorcycle, and he gived me a horsey-back ride, and—”

  “I know everything you did, I was there,” Shandie reminded her, to cut this short so she could do some freshening up before Dax arrived with the pizza he and Shandie were to share for their dinner. Kayla hadn’t been able to wait until this late to eat and had had fast food at the motorcycle shop.

  “Can Dax be my boyfriend?” Kayla asked as she situated her security blanket just so.

  That alarmed Shandie. The last thing she wanted—or would let happen—was for her daughter to become too fond of someone who could remove himself from their lives at any time.

  “No, Dax is too old to be your boyfriend. And you’re too young to have a boyfriend.”

  “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “No, he’s not my boyfriend, either,” Shandie said emphatically. “He’s just a plain friend.” If the kissing they’d done the past few nights didn’t count…“He’s just a plain friend we have for now,” Shandie qualified.

  “Not a forever friend?” Kayla asked, picking up on that qualification.

  “Maybe he will be a forever friend, or maybe not,” Shandie hedged. “Sometimes people are friends forever and sometimes they’re friends for a little while and then they get busy with other things or something changes, and you don’t see them so much anymore. You don’t count on them.”

  “Like one-two-free counting?” Kayla asked, confused.

  “No, like…”

  How to explain this…

  Shandie tried. “Like, we had fun with Dax tonight, but if we didn’t see him again nothing would be any different for us—we’d still have fun and go places and do things just the same.”

  “Why wouldn’t we see him again?”

  The three-year-old mind.

  “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you know that it’s okay to have fun with Dax as long as we don’t count on him always being around.”

  Kayla shrugged the tiny shoulders in her flannel pajamas. “Okay. But for now we can play with Dax and he can be our friend even if he isn’t a forever friend,” the little girl summarized.

  “Right, for now we can see Dax,” Shandie confirmed.

  “Good, ’cuz I yike him.”

  Which brought them full circle, and Kayla put her thumb in her mouth and closed her eyes.

  Shandie kissed her daughter good-night and whispered, “Just don’t like him too much…”

  “’Cuz he’s jus’a friend for now,” Kayla repeated through a yawn, her eyes never opening.

  But her daughter’s easy acceptance of what they’d just talked about reassured Shandie that Dax hadn’t gained any great importance to Kayla. And that was something Shandie was glad of.

  She’d watched Da
x with Kayla tonight, and on top of seeing how much her daughter had enjoyed him, Kayla’s comment just now could have been a warning. But as it was, Shandie thought it had been an opportunity to put things into perspective. To make sure the child grasped that Dax was likely only around for the time being.

  Because as long as Kayla wasn’t relying on anything more than that, and Shandie herself was aware that any relationship with Dax was destined to be short-lived, it didn’t seem as if she was doing any harm to allow him to be a part of things. For now.

  Of course, there was the danger that Kayla could start to have stronger feelings for Dax or count on him, Shandie reminded herself. But as she changed out of the slacks and shirt she’d had on all day and quickly climbed into a pair of jeans and a white turtleneck sweater that clung to every curve like a second skin, she swore that she would watch out for that. That she would absolutely keep an eagle eye out for any indication that her daughter might be coming to think of Dax as anything more than a passing acquaintance. Because if there was a single sign, that would be it for Dax Traub around here. She would never—ever—risk Kayla’s getting hurt. And certainly she recognized that when it came to appeal, Dax was a high risk for both her and Kayla. After all, the man just had so much…

  Well, so much of everything that was hard not to like. He was smart—and a little smart-alecky in a way that came off more as wit than as anything negative or insulting. He was a great listener—he even paid attention to Kayla’s rambling stories. He was patient. Even-tempered—although there had been that fight with his brother, but Shandie hadn’t seen any indications of a short fuse. He not only had a sense of humor, he could even muster up a genuine laugh for Kayla’s silliness. He was just cocky enough to give him an edge. He was never boring. The man had magnetism. And he could be a lot of fun—for both of them.

  So, yes, there was a risk of Kayla’s getting to like him more and more. Of Kayla’s falling under his spell and forming a bond with him that, when it was broken, could hurt the little girl.

  But until there was any indication that that might be happening?

  “It’s okay if I spend a little time with him,” Shandie told her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she freshened her mascara and blush and took her hair down from the clip that had held it at her crown since that morning.