Moonlight and Mistletoe
Page 14
“Yep, that’s me. Can I keep this?”
“Sure thing, hon.” A bell dinged on the counter, and Millie excused herself. Kyle didn’t bother looking up from the paper.
The caption under their picture proclaimed, “Holiday Couple Brings New Spark to Festival Traditions.” He couldn’t help but chuckle. Bet Shayna hated that.
He quickly scanned the attached article and noticed that the reporter was also a big fan of Shayna. She was named as the driving force behind what was being hailed as the most successful pageant in recent history. Proudly, he noted that the Santa photo booth earned a record fourteen hundred dollars.
Wow. He knew he’d listened to a boatload of Christmas wishes, but he’d had no clue that he’d helped to raise so much money for the foster kids.
He took a slurp of coffee before thumbing through the rest of the paper. Bowling scores, birth announcements and school lunch menus. It was a small glimpse into the peaceful, slow-paced life of a small community.
On page four, he finally stumbled across actual news. The road repair at McGuffy’s sinkhole was scheduled to begin at the first of next year. Damage from the recent ice storm had closed the skating rink until further notice. The bottom half of the page was dedicated to the youth center ground breaking.
There was an old yearbook picture of Coach Miller, along with a touching and well-written story on his years of service to the school district, highlighting his emphasis on education—he’d also been a history teacher—as well as athletics.
A photo from the ceremony showed Shayna at the podium. The grainy newsprint couldn’t hide the glimmer of tears in her eyes or the pride in her smile. She’d looked so spectacular with that green sweater hugging her body, her hair stirring in the breeze.
When he’d first seen her, he’d wondered if the combination of strength and vulnerability had been part of an act, at that point still unsure if she’d been a party to Patty’s threats. Those past suspicions sent a wave of greasy self-disgust through his gut. He knew now that Shayna Miller was the antithesis of her scheming mother.
A third photo showed Shayna and a handful of others—among them the mayor and Lindy and Travis Monroe—standing in front of a shiny white ten-passenger van with James Miller Youth Center stenciled across the side. His sixth sense tingled as he read the article. By the time he got to the third paragraph, the veins in his neck were throbbing.
‘Reliable transportation is key to several outreach programs we hope to begin instituting immediately,’ reported recently appointed Center Director Shayna Miller, who donated the ten-passenger van in her father’s name.
The rest of the article disappeared in a blur of disbelief. Holy hell! Did that woman have any money sense at all?
As part of his background work on this case, he’d investigated Shayna’s financial situation. It was bleak. She had no retirement plan, only three thousand dollars in her savings account and her monthly income was barely more than his rent. So what the hell was she doing donating a fifty-thousand dollar van to the youth center while her own car looked like it should be pushed off the mountain and put out of its misery?
Coffee and food forgotten, he folded the paper and stood. He tossed a twenty on the table and stalked out of the noisy diner.
Damned woman was living mere inches from the poverty line. How could she possibly justify spending money she didn’t have on a van she didn’t even intend to keep for herself?
She was threatening all he’d worked for on sheer stubbornness. He hated the idea of her doing without when a viable solution was well within her grasp.
Walker’s money was her birthright. She deserved it. She needed it. And she was damned well going to swallow her pride and accept it.
The quiet of the empty Knights of Columbus Hall helped soothe Shayna’s anger at herself, but her frustration still raged. Her lawyer, Chester Warfield, had headed out to the deer camp with his son and two grandsons this morning at first light. His secretary had regretfully informed her he wouldn’t be back in town until late Thursday and was scheduled to be in court Friday morning. Shayna begged for, and got, an appointment Friday afternoon.
If she’d called last night like she’d intended, she wouldn’t be in such a pickle.
Instead, she’d driven home, navigating more by habit than attention, and spent the night recalling Kyle’s beyond-fantastic kisses, lecturing herself about all the sound, logical reasons to be glad he hadn’t pressed for an invitation to her bed.
Then of course, all the sensational, emotional reasons why having him in her bed was a terrific idea had surfaced. That line of thinking conjured up all manner of lusty thoughts, which had fueled some impressively erotic dreams.
Not surprisingly, this morning she was a confused ball of hot hormones and mixed emotions. Figuring it best to steer clear of him until she’d made a decision about Walker’s agreement, she was holed up, inventorying the donated toys so she could decide how best to spend the cash contributions. Three-thousand four hundred sixty-two dollars and seventeen cents—a new record, helped considerably by the five crisp one-hundred dollar bills found at the bottom of the bucket. Put there by a certain Hollywood lawyer.
Knowing that Kyle was the surprise benefactor only upped his yumminess. If she didn’t uncover a few negatives soon, she’d be a goner for sure.
Last night, when she and Kyle had unloaded the truck, she’d been too frazzled by his kisses to worry much about organizing the toys, so the first order of business was to divide the goodies by gender and age. By the time she had everything separated, she’d worked up a light sweat, so she peeled off her jogging suit’s zippered jacket. More comfortable in the cooler tank top she wore underneath, she plopped onto the floor, notebook in hand, and began her shopping list.
She’d become so attuned to the building’s silence that the unexpected pounding on the rear service door startled her so badly she broke her pencil in half. Alarmed, she raced to the back door. Several strands of hair escaped her clip as she ran.
Heart beating furiously, she turned the lock and wrenched the door open, finding a thunderously mad Kyle Anderson vibrating on the other side. Dressed in a new suit, he looked every inch the spit-and-polished, no-holds-barred lawyer she remembered from the ground breaking ceremony. Had the jeans and flannel guy who’d kissed her last night been a figment?
“Hey! How’d you know I was here?”
“That old heap of yours is pretty hard to miss.” He stormed past her.
Wondering what in the world he had caught in his craw, and knowing he’d tell her soon enough, she shut and relocked the door. “No sense replacing a perfectly good car just because it’s seen a few hard years.”
“And I’d imagine a new vehicle would set you back a pretty penny. Probably take a single woman without a full-time job quite a while to save that kind of money.”
Troubled by his forcefully bland tone, she wrapped her arms across her chest. She’d taken him at his word when he’d promised to back off and give her time to consider her options, but this return to bullying lawyer mode unnerved her. Was he reneging on his promise? Or was something else driving this inquisition?
“Four-wheel drive certainly doesn’t come cheap,” she answered noncommittally, heading back to the gym, Kyle close on her heels. “But my old wagon’s got plenty of good years left in her yet, so I’m not worried.”
“With any luck, if it breaks down, the youth center will let you borrow their expensive new van, since you won’t be able to afford another new vehicle for at least a decade on your income.”
She spun around so quickly that her hair clip dislodged and fell to the ground. Ignoring the wave of hair settling around her shoulders, she propped her hands on her hips and glared up at him. “What do you know about my income?”
“I ran a thorough background check on you, Shayna. I know exactly how dismal your finances are. Damn it, why continue to struggle when you could be living the good life?”
“Who says I’m not living the go
od life? I have friends who love me, a career I care about, a community that supports me, a beautiful home that’s paid for and a dog who thinks I hung the moon. For me, that is the good life.”
“But you could afford so much more if you took Walker’s deal. You’d never have to worry about money ever again.”
Again with the money. He was beginning to sound like a broken record.
“I don’t worry about money now.”
“That’s obvious.” He raked his fingers through his hair, knocking the edge off his frighteningly polished look. “If you did, you’d have signed that agreement and snatched up the cash.”
“I’ve already told you that I can’t be bought. Walker can keep his guilt money.”
“Quit thinking of it as a payoff. It’s his responsibility to support and care for any children he brings into his world, and for twenty-five years, Walker has shirked that responsibility. You can’t allow him to get away with it any longer.”
With sudden crystal clarity, Shayna understood the root of his stubborn insistence. Her irritation gave way to empathy. Kyle Anderson, with all his dazzling charm and brusque confidence, wasn’t interested in making her father pay for his mistake. Deep down, he was striking out at his father.
Instinctually, she yearned to wrap him in her arms and gently share her insight, but that wouldn’t work. If she wanted this man to see reason, she’d have to knock it into him.
“What a load of hooey.”
As she’d hoped, her childish word choice took some of the steam out of his anger. “Did you just say ‘hooey’?”
“Yeah. This doesn’t have anything to do with my finances, or the center’s new van, or even Walker’s ridiculous payoff. You can’t punish your father so you want me to punish mine.”
Instantly, Kyle stiffened. His brilliant, sparkling blue eyes went dark, obscuring all his inner goodness. “You don’t know a damned thing about my father.”
“Nothing specific, that’s true, but I know enough deadbeats that I could paint an accurate picture. Ruthless, abusive, degrading, cruel. Part-time criminal, full-time jackass.”
A dark look clouded Kyle’s face. Shayna’s nerve threatened to desert her, but she couldn’t quit now. He needed to face this truth, and she bet he didn’t have anyone else in his life who’d dare force him into it.
“A big, stocky guy,” she continued, working hard to keep her voice cool, free of the sympathy she knew Kyle would despise. “A bully who terrorized his son, picked on him for being a late bloomer with a big heart. And poor kid, he probably loved that son of a bitch once upon a time, until it was beaten out of him.”
“Stop. Now.” His jaw clenched so tight she could see the veins running down his neck.
Praying she’d correctly judged his character and his inherent opposition to violence, she pressed on. “Against the odds, that kid survived with his inner goodness intact, but in order to insulate himself from the past, he vowed to be as different from that horrible beast as possible. His solution—his salvation—became money. Money, power and prestige. Those were the keys to freedom, to safety. To happiness. But it didn’t work, did it?”
Tentatively, she reached up and cupped his cheek, her thumb caressing the galloping pulse in his neck. “No matter how much you achieve, you can’t shake that scared little boy. Isn’t that what you told me?”
The resentment and sorrow that had stiffened Kyle left as quickly as they had come. His body sagged, the weight of his head resting against her palm. Touched by his grief and awed by the fact that he trusted her enough to reveal such vulnerability, she feathered a light kiss over his lips before escorting him to the bleachers. With a gently insistent tug on his hand, she sat them both on the bottom riser.
Giving him a measure of privacy while keeping his hand sandwiched between hers, she focused straight ahead and waited. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest, hear the sounds of his breathing as he struggled to regain control.
When he finally spoke, his voice had a rusty, ragged edge that nearly broke her heart. “I hated him.” He didn’t look at her, but his fingers tightened against hers. “I used to jump through hoops trying to please him, but nothing ever worked. Eventually, I quit trying. Then he got arrested for grand theft. They gave him two years and processed me into the system. Foster care was ten times worse than living with the old man. Always feeling like a charity case, knowing people only took me in for the money. It made me feel like a thing.”
Knowing there was only so much demon-facing a person could handle at once, she decided to deflect the conversation from his past. Besides, she needed to make a point, and she figured Kyle was finally in the right frame of mind to listen.
“Yeah, I remember that part. Before James took me in, I’d done a couple of stints in foster homes where I was just one of a dozen. Some of those people didn’t care about the kids, only their monthly payoff from the government.”
He inhaled audibly, turning on the bleacher to face her. She could see the realization on his face as her words sunk in. “That’s why Walker’s money bothers you so much, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It’s taken me a while to figure out, and now that I have, it seems so obvious. My brain understands your point about my having a right to that money and how much good I can do with it, but my heart just sees it as once more being valued as a commodity rather than a person.”
As it always did, talking about the past made her nervous, restless. Her left leg started to jiggle. “I was pretty near the giving-up point myself when James came along. He never cared about money. He sought custody because he loved me and wanted to take care of me, the way he knew Patty never had.”
He moved their joined hands to her lap, the pressure of his touch stilling her jerky movements. “You were lucky to have someone like him come along and rescue you.”
“He did more than just rescue me. He gave me a real life. He got rid of sad, scared, unloved Shayna Hoyt and created Shayna Miller, a happy, safe, cherished daughter. How can I allow anyone to dishonor his memory?”
“That’s exactly why you have to accept Walker’s deal. It’s the only way to make sure Patty won’t paint James as a villain.”
“I’ll admit that part of this deal does tempt me.”
He pulled his hand from her grasp and cupped her cheeks, angling her face to his. “You really aren’t tempted by the money?” he ask incredulously.
“No. Not for myself. I’m happy with my life as it is. The temptation comes from how much I could help others, but if I accept the money under Walker’s conditions—” she squeezed her eyes closed and searched for words that would help him understand “—I’m just not sure I could live with myself if I abandoned my principles and went along with his story.”
“You may not have a choice.”
She nodded miserably as a tear slid down her cheek. “I know, and that scares me. Agreeing with Walker’s story means I’ll have to say goodbye to Shayna Miller and become scared, unloved, unwanted Shayna Hoyt again.”
Kyle’s thumb soothed away the fallen tear. “Shayna, I’ve met your friends, seen how this entire community adores you. Unloved and unwanted are two things you will never again be.”
His kind words, spoken with such warmth and sincerity, brought forth more tears. And a desire to be loved and wanted in a whole new way.
By him.
Chapter Twelve
Sniffling softly, Shayna excused herself and retreated to the ladies’ room. Alone in the large gym, Kyle removed his suit coat and laid it over the back of a folding chair. Once again she’d seen through all his bull and found the truth. And this time it was a truth he hadn’t even known himself and one he’d been enraged to have pointed out.
Not many men would have stood their ground when his temper was that hot, but Shayna had never flinched. The woman packed a lot of guts and courage and intelligence into one tiny, alluring little package. A package he wanted more than he’d ever wanted anything before—even that damned partnership.
Her spirited laugh tortured him. It was all he could do not to lay her out on the parquet floor and make love to her, here and now. He had to clear the lust out of his throat before he could respond. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear you have such a stable savings plan.”
The lame joke was punctuated by a chirp from his BlackBerry. Incoming text message.
“So much for your vacation, huh?”
“I’ll just ignore it.”
“No way. Even if you don’t answer it, you’ll be thinking about it.”
“Must be such a drag, being right all the time.”
“Actually, I get quite a kick out of it,” she quipped, picking up a notebook full of scribbly notes.
He unclipped the phone and opened Roscoe Thomas’s concisely worded message. Her appointment?
Tension tightened his jaw. Once again, he’d become so entranced with Shayna that he’d lost track of the job he’d been sent here to do.
“Bad news?” she asked cautiously.
“Reality check. The senior partner wants an update regarding the appointment with your lawyer.”
“Oh, I’m afraid it’s not good news. I called this morning, but he’s out of town. Friday afternoon is the earliest appointment I could get.”
He knew the delay should frustrate him, but it didn’t. Another sign of how far his priorities had slipped.
He keyed in Friday’s date, and once the message was successfully sent, he turned off the phone and slipped it into the pocket of his discarded coat. “Then Dr. Walker will have no choice but to wait a few more days.”