“I don’t remember this,” Trey admitted as he walked beside Kayla, the flicker of hundreds of candles illuminating the dark night with a warm glow that moved slowly down the street toward the park.
“It’s a fairly new Rust Creek Falls tradition,” Kayla told him.
His brows lifted. “Isn’t new tradition an oxymoron?”
“I guess it is,” she agreed. “Maybe it would be more accurate to say it’s a recent ceremonial event that the townspeople have embraced.”
“The people of this town find more excuses to get together than anyone I’ve ever known.”
She smiled as she looked around the crowd, recognizing so many familiar faces. “That’s probably true. The flood was an eye-opener for all of us, a reminder that everything we take for granted can be taken away. Even those whose homes were spared weren’t immune to the effects on the community. As a result, it brought everyone closer together.”
He looked around, too, and saw Shane and Gianna heading in their direction. He lifted a hand to wave them over.
“I swear, Gianna looks more pregnant every time I see her,” he commented to Kayla. His friend’s wife was hugely pregnant—her baby bump plainly evident even beneath the heavy coat she wore.
“When is she due?”
“I have no idea.”
“Don’t you and Shane work together at the resort?”
“Sure, but I’m in the stables and he’s in the kitchen, and guys don’t talk about stuff like that.”
She rolled her eyes as his friends drew nearer.
“I didn’t realize you were still in town,” Trey said. “Are you staying for Christmas?”
“We are,” Shane confirmed. “With both my sister and brother here now, it seemed the easiest way to get the whole family together for the holidays. Even my parents are coming—they’re flying in on the twenty-second and staying at Maverick Manor.”
They talked some more about holiday plans, with Gianna admitting that she was already more excited about next Christmas, when they would be celebrating the occasion with their baby.
“Staying with Maggie and Jesse and witnessing firsthand the havoc a child can wreak, I’m not quite so eager,” Shane admitted.
“Well, it’s not as if you can change your mind now,” his wife pointed out. Then, to Trey and Kayla. “Madeline has made both of us realize that you can’t learn parenting from a book. No matter how much you think you know, a child will quickly prove you wrong.”
“Of course, the child in question is my sister’s daughter,” Shane interjected. “Which might explain a lot.”
Kayla smiled at that.
“You guys are going to be fabulous parents,” Trey said.
“Do you think so?” Gianna asked, obviously seeking reassurance.
“Of course,” he agreed.
“We’re both so afraid that we’re going to screw something up,” she admitted.
“We’re going to screw a lot of things up,” Shane said. “We just have to hope that our child makes it to adulthood relatively unscathed.”
His wife shook her head. “And he wonders why I worry.”
“Right now I’m worried about getting you back to the house and off your feet.”
“As if my belly wasn’t big enough, my ankles are swelling, too,” Gianna explained.
Kayla and Trey exchanged good-nights with the other couple, then moved away in the opposite direction.
“Are you okay?” Trey asked. “You seemed to get quiet all of a sudden.”
“I was just thinking about Gianna and Shane,” she told him.
“What about them?”
“Your assurance that they’re going to be fabulous parents,” she admitted. “Not that I disagree—I guess I’m just wondering how you can be so sure, how anyone can know how they’ll deal with parenthood before they’re actually faced with the reality of it.”
“Maybe no one can know for sure, but the odds are in their favor because they love one another and their unborn baby.”
She nodded, envying the other couple that. She agreed that their commitment and support were important factors in parenting—and wished that she could count on Trey for the same. Of course, she couldn’t expect him to support her through the pregnancy and childbirth when he still didn’t know that she was pregnant. “They’re certainly excited about impending parenthood, notwithstanding the challenges,” she noted.
“They’ve been married two and a half years and are ready to enter the next stage of their life together.”
“Could you ever imagine yourself as excited about becoming a father as Shane is?” she asked, striving to keep her tone light and casual.
Trey’s steps faltered anyway. “What kind of a question is that?”
She shrugged. “I’m just wondering whether you’ve ever thought about having kids of your own.”
“Well, sure,” he finally said. “Someday.”
“Someday?”
“There’s a lot I want to do before I’m hog-tied by the responsibilities of marriage and babies.”
Hog-tied?
Kayla stopped in the middle of the street and turned to look at him. “Is that how you view a family—as something that ties you down and limits your opportunities?”
“I don’t mean it as if it’s a bad thing,” he explained. “It’s just not something I’m ready for right now. Especially when I look at my parents—married thirty-two years with five kids born within the first seven years of their marriage. No, I’m definitely not in any rush to go down that same path.”
She nodded, pretending to understand, but inside she felt as if her fledgling hopes—and her fragile heart—had been crushed like a candy cane beneath the heel of his boot. There was no way she could be with a man who would feel tied down by her and their baby—no way she could even tell him about their baby now.
She’d had such high hopes for their relationship a few hours earlier. While they’d walked through the town, hand in hand, she’d let herself dream that they would always be together. When she saw Nate Crawford with Noelle perched on his shoulders, she’d imagined that would be Trey with their baby in a couple of years. But now that she knew how he really felt about the prospect of fatherhood, she knew she had to end their relationship before she got in any deeper.
“It’s starting to snow,” she noted. “Which means it’s time for me to be heading home.”
“It’s only a few flakes,” he pointed out. “And we haven’t even roasted marshmallows on the bonfire yet.”
“A few flakes is all it takes for my mother to worry.”
“Well, we don’t want that to happen,” he said, guiding her to his truck.
She felt his hand on her back, even through the thick coat she wore, and felt tears sting her eyes as she accepted she would never feel his hands on her again. Whatever fantasies she’d spun about living happily-ever-after with this man and their baby weren’t ever going to be.
He helped her up onto the passenger seat and she murmured her thanks.
“Are you sure everything’s okay?” he asked her.
“I’m sure,” she said. “I’m just really tired.” And she was—not just physically but emotionally exhausted. Not eager to make any more conversation, she fiddled with the radio until she found a station playing Christmas music, then settled back in her seat, concentrating on the song and holding back the tears that burned her eyes.
* * *
Kayla jolted when the door opened and a blast of cold air slapped her face. “What—”
“You’re home,” Trey told her.
She blinked. “Did I fall asleep?”
“You did,” he confirmed.
“I’m sorry.”
“I should apologize to you for keeping you out past your bedtime.”
“Then I should let you get inside to bed,” he said.
She nodded. “Thanks for the ride.”
He didn’t take the hint. Instead, he took her arm and guided her to the front door. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
“I don’t know,” she hedged, aware that she needed to start putting space between them. A lot of space. Three hundred miles would be a good start, but she knew that wouldn’t happen until after Christmas.
And right now, Trey seemed more focused on eliminating the space between them. “I’ll call you in the morning and we’ll figure it out,” he said.
Then he leaned in to kiss her, but before his lips touched hers, the porch light clicked on. He pulled back just as Rita Dalton poked her head out the front door.
“What are you two doing outside in this cold weather?” she chided. “Why don’t you come on in for some of the hot chocolate I just took off the stove?”
“I’m sure Trey is anxious to get back to town before the snow gets any worse,” Kayla told her mom.
“It’s just a few flakes,” he said again.
Rita smiled at him and stepped away from the door so that they could enter.
“It’s so nice that you’re here to spend the holidays with Melba and Gene,” Rita commented to Trey, as she busied herself pouring the steaming liquid into mugs.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” he admitted. “And spending time with Kayla has been an added bonus on this trip.”
“I know she’s been enjoying your company,” Rita said. “Her happy glow has brightened up the whole house these past few days.”
Kayla kept her gaze focused on the mug she held between her hands and resisted the urge to bang her head against the table.
Could her mother be any more obvious in her matchmaking efforts? And how would she react if Kayla told her that happy glow wasn’t a consequence of Trey’s company but his baby in her belly? Would her mother think the man sitting at her table and drinking hot chocolate was so wonderful if she knew he’d knocked up her daughter?
“Do you have any specific plans for tomorrow?” Rita asked him, setting a plate of cookies on the table.
“Not yet,” Trey said, reaching over to touch Kayla’s hand. “Although I was hoping to talk Kayla into taking a drive into Kalispell with me so we could go ice skating in Woodland Park.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun—doesn’t it, Kayla?”
“It does,” she agreed. “But I’ve got to put the finishing touches on the sets for the elementary school holiday pageant tomorrow.”
“But you’ve been working on those sets all week,” her mother pointed out. “Surely you can take a day off.”
“Actually, I can’t. The pageant is tomorrow night.”
“Well, maybe we can go skating the day after,” Trey suggested.
“Maybe,” she agreed.
Rita frowned at her daughter’s noncommittal response before she turned her attention back to their guest. “Tell me about your plans for Christmas—is your grandmother cooking a big meal with all the trimmings?”
“Of course.”
“She usually serves it around midday, doesn’t she?”
“Everyone is expected to be seated at the table at one o’clock sharp,” he confirmed.
“We don’t eat until six,” Rita said. “If you wanted to join us later in the day for another meal.”
Kayla felt as if she was watching a train wreck in slow motion—she could see what was happening, but she was powerless to stop it. Not an hour after she’d vowed to put distance between herself and Trey as the first step toward ending their relationship, her mother had invited him to Christmas dinner. On the other hand, spending Christmas with a girlfriend’s family was probably too much of a commitment, so she felt fairly confident that he would decline the invitation.
But just in case, she decided to nudge him in that direction. “Mom, you’re talking about Christmas Day,” she pointed out. “I’m sure whatever plans Trey has with his family will keep him busy throughout the afternoon.”
“And if they don’t, I’m just letting him know that he’s welcome to come here,” Rita replied.
“Thank you, Mrs. Dalton. I appreciate the invitation and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Well, I’ll leave you two to finish your beverages,” she said.
“Thanks for the hot chocolate and the cookies,” Trey said.
Rita beamed at him. “Anytime, Trey.”
* * *
The next night Kayla attended the holiday pageant at the elementary school. The night after that she was busy helping Nina and Natalie assign and wrap gifts from the Tree of Hope for the area’s needy families. It was the day after that—Saturday—while Kayla was hiding out in her room after breakfast that her sister came in.
Kristen had been so busy with the theater and wedding plans that she hadn’t been at the ranch very much over the past couple of weeks.
“Trey came to see me yesterday,” Kristen announced without preamble.
Kayla’s head whipped around in response to her sister’s casual announcement. “Why?”
“Because he’s trying to plan a special surprise for you and wanted my help.”
“What kind of surprise?” she asked, both curious and wary.
Kristen rolled her eyes. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”
“Then why did you mention it?”
“Because he mentioned to me that you’ve been so busy he hasn’t seen you since the night of the Candlelight Walk, and I know for a fact that you haven’t been any busier than usual and certainly not too busy to spend time with Trey if you wanted to spend time with Trey.”
“Okay, so I don’t want to spend time with Trey,” she acknowledged.
“I don’t understand,” Kristen said. “Everyone can see that the man is head over heels for you, and I know how you feel about him, so why are you avoiding him now?”
“Because I finally realized that we want different things.”
“What different things?”
“A family, for starters.”
Kristen frowned.
So Kayla found herself telling her sister the whole story of that night, from the candle-lighting to their encounter with Gianna and Shane and Trey’s subsequent denouncement of marriage and everything that went along with it.
“Wait a minute,” Kristen said. “Are you telling me that Trey still doesn’t know about the baby?”
“How could I tell him?”
“How could you not?” her sister demanded. “Kayla, the man has been spending every possible minute with you over the past couple of weeks—everyone knows he has feelings for you. Except, apparently, the Rust Creek Rambler.”
Kayla’s eyes filled with tears. “Even if he does have feelings for me, how can I be with a man who doesn’t want our baby?”
Her sister was silent for a long moment. “You don’t know that he doesn’t want your baby,” she finally said. “You’re making an assumption based on his response to a vague and seemingly hypothetic question. You can’t hold that response against him.”
“He compared being married to being hog-tied.”
“He’s still the father of your baby.” Kristen’s tone was implacable. “And even if you think you can get through the holidays without him finding out about your pregnancy, what’s going to happen afterward? What are you going to tell people when they want to know the identity of your baby’s father? And even if you refuse to name him, what’s going to happen when Trey comes back to Rust Creek Falls and sees you with a baby? Do
you really believe he won’t immediately know the child is his?”
“Maybe he won’t,” Kayla argued, albeit weakly. “Maybe he’ll want to think it’s someone else’s baby so that he doesn’t have to be tied down by the responsibilities of parenthood.”
“There’s no maybe,” Kristen said. “Because you’re going to tell him.”
Kayla sighed, but she knew her sister was right.
And maybe her dreams had been crushed, but at least now she had no expectations. Trey had made his feelings clear, and she was going to tell him about the baby without any illusions that he would want to be part of their life, and she would make it clear that she didn’t want or expect anything from him. She was simply doing him the courtesy of telling him that she was pregnant.
She was admittedly a little late with that courtesy, but she would tell him.
“Tonight?” Kristen prompted.
“I can’t tonight,” Kayla said. “Russell called this morning. He’s down with the flu and asked me to fill in for him at the theater this afternoon.”
“Then tomorrow,” her sister said firmly.
“Tomorrow,” she agreed.
* * *
But when the curtain fell after the matinee, Kayla found Trey waiting for her backstage, and her heart gave a jolt—of surprise and longing. And when he smiled at her, her knees went weak.
Despite what she’d said to her sister about their wanting different things, she couldn’t deny that she still wanted Trey. She managed to smile back, though her stomach was a tangle of nerves and knots.
“What brings you to the Kalispell Theater?”
“I decided to take your advice and check out the play,” he told her.
“What did you think?”
“I was impressed. I didn’t expect a small theater production to be so good.”
“The actors are all spectacular,” Kayla agreed. “But Belle steals the show.”
Trey chuckled. “Your sister does have a flair for the dramatic.”
“Speaking of my sister, I’m supposed to meet her outside her dressing room. She’s waiting to give me a ride home,” she explained.
Merry Christmas, Baby Maverick! Page 13