Family for the Holidays

by Victoria Pade

  By seven o’clock Friday night Shandie had calmed her daughter, fed Kayla dinner, delivered her to the sleepover at Bethany’s house and was back home alone for the evening.

  She’d already decided that the best way to get through tonight would be to keep herself busy. Without Kayla underfoot, cleaning the child’s room seemed like a productive way to spend the time.

  She had the television blaring from her own bedroom so she could hear it in hopes that that would keep her mind occupied with something other than thoughts of Dax as she plunged into the three-year-old’s room.

  First up was to strip the bed and change the sheets. Off came the pink princess-themed quilt and the plain blanket under it. Then Shandie grabbed Kayla’s pillow.

  Doing that sent something flat to fall between the mattress and the headboard. Assuming it was a storybook or a coloring book that had provided some post–lights-out entertainment and then found its way under the pillow, Shandie retrieved it.

  But it wasn’t a book of any kind. It was something in a frame.

  With the back side facing her when she took it from behind the mattress, Shandie didn’t recognize the frame as one of hers and wondered what this was and where her daughter might have gotten it.

  Then she flipped it over.

  Stunned by what she saw, she sank down onto Kayla’s bed.

  It was a picture of Dax.

  He was dressed in racing gear, a helmet tucked under one arm, proudly holding the trophy from winning a motorcycle race in the other.

  Although Shandie didn’t recognize that particular photograph, she knew where it had come from. The largest solid wall in the motorcycle shop was covered floor-to-ceiling with similar pictures interspersed with memorabilia, magazine covers and newspaper headlines. All from Dax’s motorcycle racing days.

  Dax had called it his wall of credibility and said it was to make customers aware of the fact that he knew what he was talking about when it came to bikes.

  Kayla must have snatched this picture off that wall.

  Shandie had a vague memory of her daughter behaving a bit strangely about her backpack the day before—the three-year-old had insisted that she carry it herself, running upstairs with it the minute they’d arrived home last night rather than leaving it in the middle of the floor for Shandie to put away. Shandie hadn’t thought much about it, but that must have been when Kayla had taken the picture—after preschool on one of Thursday’s sneaky forays to the motorcycle shop. Then the little girl must have hidden it in her backpack in order to get it home. To hide under her pillow.

  Shandie wasn’t happy to find that her daughter had lifted someone else’s property, but more than that, she felt awful that Kayla had wanted a picture of Dax—something to remind her of him—so badly she’d been willing to steal it. And that, coupled with Kayla’s desire to see him, her distraught tantrum over being taken away from him tonight, all gave Shandie pause.

  Clearly Kayla, too, already cared more for Dax than Shandie had thought.

  She’d been so mired in her own pain and misery, Shandie guessed she hadn’t realized how much her daughter was suffering and missing Dax, too. But thinking back on the past four days, on Kayla’s unusual moodiness, on how easy it had been to set off crying jags and tantrums, Shandie was suddenly struck by the truth of it—Kayla was going through her own breakup angst.

  “This is just what I was trying to avoid,” Shandie said as if her daughter were there to hear her.

  Playing it safe apparently didn’t have much to recommend it. In order not to run the risk of being hurt later, she’d caused Kayla pain now.

  With that spinning around in her brain, Shandie stared down at the picture of Dax. He was obviously several years younger, but age and a few added lines had only made him better looking, and she couldn’t resist caressing his image with her fingertips.

  When had she become this person who played it safe? she wondered. Certainly that hadn’t been the case with Pete. If she’d been playing it safe with him, she would have run the other way as soon as he’d been honest about his health problems and the very real possibility that his cancer could return a third—and more serious—time.

  Certainly there had been people then—more than a few—who had advised her against marrying Pete. Who had thought she was out of her mind to try to have a future with a man who might not have long to live. And when the worst had happened with Pete, there had been those same people and more—one even at his funeral—who had said, “I told you so.”

  But then, even that day, Shandie hadn’t regretted that she’d taken the chance on Pete. They might not have had long together, but what they’d had had been worth it. Having Kayla had been worth it.

  “If I had played it safe then,” Shandie said to Dax’s photograph, “I would have spared myself a lot of pain, but I also would have lost out on what I did have with him.”

  But she’d followed her heart when it came to Pete, and she’d never been sorry for that. Not even through the worst of the grief had she regretted that she’d married him.

  Yet here she was now, playing it safe, trying to avoid something that might happen in order to spare herself and Kayla pain, and causing them pain in the process.

  How was that better? she thought, recalling Dax’s parting shot.

  She wasn’t sure she could answer it, but she couldn’t help wondering if Lizbeth Stanton could.

  And being the “next Lizbeth Stanton” was a major part of what she’d been trying to avoid.

  So, would the other woman agree with the playing-it-safe course and say that Shandie and Kayla were better dealing with this now than later, the way Lizbeth Stanton had been forced to when Dax had broken their engagement?

  Shandie honestly didn’t know.

  But she did know that regardless of what Lizbeth Stanton had felt when the relationship ended, the other woman was no worse for wear now. Shandie had met her at the pre-Thanksgiving dinner, she’d seen the other woman with her new fiancé, and Lizbeth Stanton appeared to be extremely happy now.

  So did Allaire, Dax’s ex-wife, for that matter.

  Both women had weathered the breakup with Dax and come through it just fine.

  And what if it’s true that what he feels for me is different than what he felt for either of them? What if what he feels for me is the real thing and I didn’t even give him the benefit of the doubt? The chance?

  Then she was suffering and causing Kayla to suffer for no reason. And that was a hard pill to swallow.

  “I’m sorry if that’s what I’ve done, Kayla,” she said, fighting another stab at the thought that any action she’d taken might have inadvertently hurt her daughter, who hadn’t had the slightest say in what was going on.

  And Shandie knew what Kayla would have said if she’d been consulted about what had gone on with Dax. Kayla would have said the same thing she’d said at the motorcycle shop tonight—that she wanted to be with Dax now.

  Kayla was three. Living in the moment was what she did. And even though it was Shandie’s job to look beyond the moment, maybe this time that wasn’t what she should be doing. Maybe this time living in the moment was the way to go. The same way it had been with Pete.

  After all, what she’d had with Dax until she’d turned her back on it hadn’t been only good for Dax. Or for Kayla. It had been good for Shandie, too, she admitted to herself. She’d been genuinely happy with him. She’d been enjoying—more than enjoying—every minute with him. She certainly hadn’t felt as if what was going on between them was superficial or just for show. It had felt like the real thing to her. And if there hadn’t been substance to it, how had she come as far with him as she had in such a short while?

  But she’d nixed the possibility of that continuing because of what had happened between him and other women. Because of what other people were saying about him, about his relationship with her.

  Didn’t that make her the one who was guilty of superficiality? Of letting outside forces rule? She hadn’t let t
hat happen with Pete, and yet here she was, letting it happen with Dax. Not following her own instincts, not letting her own feelings for him be the deciding factor.

  Because as she sat on her daughter’s bed, still staring at Dax’s photograph, there was no denying that her feelings for him were nothing to sneeze at. They were no less than the feelings she’d had for Pete. And if her feelings for Pete had been big enough, strong enough not to bend to the potential of a life-threatening disease, weren’t her feelings now big and strong enough not to bend to the shadow of Dax’s past or his reputation?

  She thought that they were.

  And if they were, they were also big and strong and important enough to take a risk for.

  Shandie let that realization settle in, waiting to see if it would stick or if, in another moment, some other thought might shoo it away.

  But no other thoughts, no other feelings could unseat it. This was the real thing, she decided.

  In fact, the only other thought that popped into her head was that there were a few indications that Dax did have some staying power. He’d stayed in his hometown, hadn’t he? He’d maintained his friendships with his childhood friends. If he could do that, maybe he had the ability to go the distance with her and Kayla, too. Maybe his poor track record with Allaire and Lizbeth did have more to do with the times of his life and the situations themselves—the way he’d claimed.

  So, just as the possibility that Pete’s cancer might have never returned, there was, at the very least, the possibility that she and Dax and Kayla could have a full future together….

  “Just don’t let me be wrong,” she beseeched his image.

  And now that she’d made up her mind to take that chance on him that he’d asked her to take, she wanted to put the wheels into motion. She wanted to see him. To tell him. To end this misery she’d put them all through.

  And returning her daughter’s ill-gotten gains seemed like the perfect excuse.

  Shandie stood, taking the framed photograph with her and went into her own room.

  She was in too much of a hurry to get to Dax to waste time changing out of the jeans and buttoned-up cardigan sweater she had on. But she did powder her nose and under her eyes to conceal the redness left by her tears. She also refreshed her blush and mascara, and applied a little lip gloss.

  Then she took her hair down from the clip that held it haphazardly at the back of her head and brushed the golden strands to fall around her face.

  “Ready or not, here I come,” she whispered to her reflection, turning off the loud television as she went by it on her way out with the stolen goods in hand.

  She snatched her coat off the hall tree when she reached the entry, deciding that rather than driving up the street to Dax’s place, she’d walk and put her coat on along the way.

  Then she opened her front door and stopped short.

  Because there, standing on the other side of the threshold, was Dax, leaning on one arm stretched up the door frame as if he’d been there quite a while.

  Which was given credence when he said, “Finally.”

  “Finally?” Shandie parroted, surprised to find him on her porch and confused by his greeting.

  “I’ve been out here ringing the bell and pounding on the door for ten minutes.”

  “I had the television on loud.”

  “I know, I could hear it.”

  He didn’t wait for an invitation inside or even ask if he could come in. He merely pushed off the jamb and came, leaving Shandie no option but to step out of his way.

  She did that, rehanging her coat on the hall tree.

  When she turned to face him again, he was right there, standing directly in front of her.

  Without taking his eyes off her, he shoved the door closed behind him. “We’re gonna talk,” he decreed. “I know Kayla’s gone to her sleepover so we can scream and holler and throw things if we need to, but we are going to talk,” he added, those last five words drawn out and emphasized.

  “I was on my way to see you,” Shandie said.

  “Yeah?”

  She handed him the framed photograph. “Kayla must have taken this. It was hidden under her pillow.”

  Dax took it, glanced at it, shook his head and chuckled a little wryly. “She must have swiped it off the wall when I wasn’t looking.”

  He set the picture on the side table where Shandie usually put her mail when she first came in, but he did that without moving from his position facing her.

  “Kayla can have it,” he said of the photograph, his gaze still on it. “She can have anything she wants from me.”

  Then he looked back at Shandie. “Is that the only reason you were coming to see me? To return it?”

  “No,” Shandie admitted freely because four days was too much time to have wasted already. “I wanted to talk, too.”

  “It better be about how this whole split between us isn’t going to go on,” he warned. “Because if you just want to talk about keeping Kayla away from the shop, forget about it. I’m not letting you do this, Shandie. I’m in love with you. I love Kayla. Unless I’m mistaken, Kayla loves me. And so do you—”

  “I do,” Shandie confirmed, cutting him off and surprising him. “I do love you. That’s what I was coming to see you about. To tell you I love you as much as I loved Pete.”

  One side of his mouth lifted in a cocky half smile, and he took a step nearer to her. “Is that so?”

  “Yes, that’s so,” she said, going on to explain all she’d been thinking about and laying out for him the decisions she’d ultimately arrived at. “So I’m betting on you having more staying power with me than you had with Allaire or Lizbeth Stanton,” she concluded.

  “Oh, I have staying power,” he assured her when she’d finished, putting a much more sensual spin on it than she had as he slid his hands from her wrists to her upper arms and pulled her nearer. “You’re never getting rid of me.”

  “I hope not,” she said more quietly.

  “You don’t have to hope, Shandie,” he assured, serious himself once more. “That’s why I came here tonight—to fight this out, to see it through, to let you know that I was going to do anything and everything it took to convince you that no matter what my history is and no matter how fast this has happened between us, I’m in. I’m in to my eyeballs and I don’t want out. Not even if you’d have made it tough on me tonight. I may not have known the real thing from the not real thing before, but now? Now I know the real thing because I have some experience with the not real thing to compare it to. And the real thing is so damn much better, so damn much more powerful, so damn much more all-consuming, that what I’ve felt before can’t hold a candle to it. And I’m sure as hell not letting it go. I’m not letting you go. I’m not letting Kayla go. Not ever.”

  “It’s a deal,” she said as if they’d been bargaining with each other.

  “That’s it?” he asked with that cocky grin again.

  “That’s it.”

  He studied her face for a long moment, a shade of disbelief edging his expression. Then he said, “You’ll marry me? Let me be a dad to Kayla?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  He grinned a full, delighted grin. “You had a plan?”

  Shandie grinned back at him. “No, it just sounded good.”

  He laughed and pulled her into his arms to kiss her then, a kiss that began sweetly and almost instantly turned into something riddled with passion.

  Then he stopped kissing her, pointed his chin in the direction of the stairs behind her and said, “Kayla’s really gone, huh?”

  “For the whole night.”

  “I think I better put my money where my mouth is and prove my staying power, then,” he said, bending over to wrap his arms just under her rump to lift her over his shoulder like a sack of grain.

  “This is not romantic,” she informed him from upside down as he carried her up the stairs, taking two at a time.

  But all he said was, “Which room?” when he reached the
second floor.

  “First door on the left,” Shandie answered with a laugh.

  He took her into her room, not bothering to turn on the light, and deposited her unceremoniously on her double bed. Then, with his eyes holding steady on hers, he ripped off his denim jacket, peeled his T-shirt over his head and climbed onto the bed with his jeans-clad legs straddling her while his mouth recaptured hers.

  Shandie didn’t mind that from there his kiss was hungry and demanding because she felt the same hunger, the same demands. She didn’t even hesitate to hook her fingers into the waistband of his jeans and unfasten them before using the open ends to yank him down on top of her.

  A part of her marveled at where they were, what they were doing, how quickly it had evolved into this, but another part of her merely indulged in meeting the needs she hadn’t even known she’d been fostering as hands coursed under clothing to remove it and then trailed across bare skin. As mouths and tongues toyed with each other and then did some exploring of different frontiers. As they rolled around together and discovered new ways to please, to pleasure, to arouse and drive wild until Dax slipped inside of her and truly proved his theory that they were two halves of a whole made perfect when they were joined together.

  So perfect that even once they’d both reached the pinnacle of that pleasure that they each brought the other to, he stayed joined with her, holding her so close she wasn’t sure where he ended and she began as he rolled them to lie on their sides.

  “I love you, Shandie,” he whispered into her hair. “I love you like I have never loved anyone.”

  “I love you, too, Dax. With all my heart.”

  With all her soul. With every breath she took.

  “And we can be a family?” he asked with so much awe for that idea in his voice it brought tears to her eyes.

  “A family for the holidays,” she said.

  “And for the rest of time, too.”

  “I guess so if I’m never getting rid of you,” she teased him.

  He flexed inside of her. “Never.”

  Then she heard him take a deep breath and sigh it out before he relaxed around her, still holding her firmly against him, his arms encircling her, one thick leg draped over her thigh.