A Family for the Holidays

“I can’t think of a reason I would.”

“Okay, thanks. And thanks for not letting Kayla get any farther away than your showroom.”

“Sure.”

“Bye, Dax-like-Max-the-dog,” Kayla said, being silly and swiveling on her mother’s hip so she could look over Shandie’s shoulder at the shop owner as Shandie turned to go.

“Bye, Kayla Jane Solomon,” he countered as if they were sharing a private joke.

Which they must have been because her daughter giggled.

“Feel free to come and see me again,” he added.

Shandie wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to Kayla or to them both and as she reached the doorway to the garage she glanced over her own shoulder to see if she could tell.

But all she saw was Dax Traub smiling again, crookedly, and with enough mischief to leave more questions than answers.

And to confirm what she’d garnered from the things she’d heard said about him even before she’d met him—that Dax Traub was trouble.

Fun trouble.

But definitely trouble.

Which was the last thing Shandie Solomon was looking for.

Chapter Two

Tuesday was unbelievably busy for Shandie. The days before any holiday were usually booked solid with people wanting to look their best for upcoming celebrations, and even without an established client list she had back-to-back appointments scheduled. She also ended up dealing with a disgruntled plumber, construction havoc, an electrician who wanted to cut off all the power rather than only a section of the shop at a time, and two trips to the bakery to replenish the goodies she was using as incentive to keep customers coming in during the remodeling.

Along with getting Kayla to and from preschool and making sure her daughter was taken care of once Kayla was at the shop afterward, it certainly seemed to Shandie that that should have been more than enough to keep her mind occupied. And yet thoughts of Dax Traub had still managed to creep through the cracks when she least expected them.

It was a problem she’d had since she’d met him the previous day. The whole way home, the entire evening with Kayla, as Shandie had tried reading in bed the night before, Dax Traub had intruded.

He’d been on her mind the moment her alarm had snatched her from sleep this morning, too. He’d plagued her thoughts all through getting herself and her daughter ready for the day. But she’d been convinced that getting to work, pouring herself into her job, would finally put an end to it.

Only it hadn’t. And as she escorted the last customer out of the shop, told Kayla to pick up her toys and headed for the laundry room to fold clean towels for Wednesday, Shandie was frustrated with herself.

Of course, she might have had better luck not thinking about Dax Traub today at work if the subject of him hadn’t come up again and again throughout the day, she thought. Women customers she didn’t know and who would otherwise not have drawn her notice had made her all-ears at the repeated mention of his name.

Not that the conversations about him had been particularly enlightening. They’d been basically speculation and curiosity about whether or not he would go to the big pre-Thanksgiving dinner his friends were having Wednesday evening at The Rib Shack, the new restaurant Dax’s brother, D.J., had just returned to Thunder Canyon to open at the ski resort. There was particular concern about a recent fistfight between the brothers and whether it might be repeated if Dax did go.

There was also concern about Dax himself. Apparently, none of his old friends knew what was up with him lately or how to bring him out of his funk, or whether it was better to leave him to sort through his problems on his own, whatever those problems were—and no one was completely clear about that, either.

There was something she was perfectly clear about, however, Shandie thought as she stood at the dryer folding towels. When she added the information she’d gathered about Dax Traub—vague though it was—to the other things she’d heard through the grapevine, she knew it was that much more ridiculous for her to be giving the man a second thought.

So why had the image of him, the memory of the sound of his voice and every word he’d said, followed her through the past twenty-four hours like a stubborn ghost determined to haunt her? Why had she seized every opportunity to come into this laundry room and peer out the window at the alley and the rear of the motorcycle shop?

And, each time she had, why had she felt a hint of hope that she would catch a glimpse of the man himself, and then been let down when she hadn’t?

It doesn’t matter why, she told herself as she suffered the gazillionth wave of that disappointment when—in the course of folding the towels—she’d just gone through the whole process once again. It didn’t matter why she’d been so distracted by thoughts of Dax Traub or that she’d been peeking out at his shop to catch sight of him—it just needed to stop.

“So stop it,” she ordered under her breath even as her gaze drifted through the glass to the rear of his place.

She wanted to. She honestly did. Thunder Canyon was a fresh start for her. Leaving Denver and all the reminders of Pete was a big step, and she’d finally been able to take it because she was ready to move on. The past three and a half years had been rough, but she’d made her way through it all and she honestly felt as if she’d come out on the other side of a mountain. She’d even talked to Judy about maybe dating once she got to Thunder Canyon.

But maybe dating—down the road, at some point—some ordinary nice guy who Judy might possibly set her up with or who she might meet here, was different than being consumed with thoughts of a guy she’d only exchanged a few words with. A guy who—although he was hellaciously handsome—was clearly complicated. Who apparently didn’t have a good relationship with his own family. A guy who might have a chip on his shoulder and who—at the very least—obviously didn’t have much staying power when it came to women if he already had a divorce under his belt and had impulsively become engaged and then unengaged to someone.

That was not just some nice, ordinary guy she might possibly, under the right circumstances, consider going to dinner with or seeing a movie with as her first dip-of-the-toe into the dating pool again. That was a guy to stay far, far away from. For her own sake and for Kayla’s.

Especially for Kayla’s sake, she told herself firmly.

She absolutely would not put her daughter in the vicinity of anyone Kayla might come to care about or depend on, only to have that person turn his back on them.

No, Pete was a hard act to follow. He’d been a genuinely, thoroughly good man. A trustworthy, caring, unselfish, dependable, feet-on-the-ground man. A man she and Kayla could have counted on forever, had fate not intervened.

A man who couldn’t easily be replaced and would have to be lived up to if ever anyone was in the running to replace him.

And not only was Dax Traub not in the running to replace Pete—nor was there any evidence that he wanted to be—but even if he was, Dax Traub was about the most unlikely man to ever take the place of Pete Solomon.

So, she really did need to stop thinking about Dax Traub. And picturing him and his dark, deep eyes and how she’d felt as if they could heat the surface of her skin when they were aimed at her, and how sexy he was when he smiled.

No, Dax Traub was just someone nice to look at. But only from a long way away. Like lions at the zoo. He was a sight to see, to gaze upon, to appreciate the glory of from a distance. But only trained lion tamers should get in the cage with him.

“And that isn’t me,” Shandie muttered as she folded the towels.

She was just the mother of a three-year-old who was going to put the towels away once they were folded and take Kayla home for dinner and a quiet evening. Just the two of them. Safe and sound and secure and comfortable.

Far outside the lion’s den.

“I wan’ a peanut butter and marsh’allow sam’ich for dinner.”

Shandie would have taken issue with her daughter’s announcement as she applied the car key to the ignition, but when the engine didn’t start that became the priority.

“Just a minute,” she told her daughter, postponing the conversation as she tried again.

But again nothing happened.

“Uh-oh,” she said. “Something’s wrong with the car.”

“Turn it on,” Kayla suggested logically.

“I’m trying,” Shandie said as she did just that, making four more attempts. All with no result. “Great.”

For the first time since Dax Traub had been popping into her head for no reason, Shandie welcomed the intrusion. Because it suddenly occurred to her that the man owned and operated his own motorcycle shop. That he repaired the things. And if he could make them run, maybe he could make her car run, too.

If he hadn’t closed up for the day and gone home already.

She quickly got out from behind the wheel of her sedan, took Kayla from the car seat in the back and carried the little girl for a fast return trip to the Clip ’n Curl.

“You said we wuz goin’ home,” Kayla complained. “And I wan’ peanut butter and marsh’allow—”

“The car is broken, and we need some help.”

Kayla accepted that without further comment, and Shandie wasted no time rushing with her daughter through the dark beauty shop, through the laundry room to the utility space behind it.

The door that connected the motorcycle shop’s garage was closed but—gratefully—not locked. Much as she had the day before, Shandie knocked and went through to the garage without waiting for a response.

“Hello? Are you still here?” she called.

Dax Traub appeared at the doorway that connected the showroom, pulling a black leather aviator jacket on over a Henley sweater and jeans. “You lookin’ for me?” he asked.

Too many times today, Shandie thought.

But what she said was, “I’m so glad I caught you. My car won’t start. I know motorcycles are your thing, but I thought maybe—”

“What’s it doing?”

“Hi!” Kayla said belatedly, brightly and as if she were thrilled to have this second encounter with the man.

Dax Traub paused to aim a just-as-thrilled-to-see-her smile at the child, winked at her and answered her greeting with a warm, “Hey, Kayla Jane Solomon.”

“Hey, Dax-like-Max-the-dog,” Kayla responded then, giggling with delight.

“The car’s not doing anything,” Shandie said when the two of them were finished with their playful exchange. “When I turn the key there’s a little clicking noise and that’s it.”

“How old is your battery?”

Shandie shrugged. “As old as the car—seven years.”

“That’s probably the problem. Are you parked somewhere I can get to it to give you a jump?”

Shandie hadn’t thought of the battery. “No, I’m nose-first in that little space on the side of the shop that’s big enough for only one car.”

He nodded. “I know that spot. But I’ll tell you what—the temperature’s dropping, it’s dark, and it’ll be tough to get to the battery at all in that cubbyhole of a parking place. So how about if I give you two a ride home, and tomorrow when it’s warmer and we have some daylight, I’ll take a look? Chances are I’ll be able to hook up your battery to my charger and that’ll take care of it. Otherwise, we’re going to have to tow you out of there and that’s more complicated and also something better done when I can see.”

Jump her…

Hook up his charger to her battery…

He hadn’t said any of that with any sort of undertone or innuendo, and yet sexy undertones and innuendos were flitting through her brain anyway.

Such thoughts were hardly typical of her, and she didn’t know why it was happening to her now.

“I’m sure it’s just the battery,” she muttered to conceal what was going through her head. Then, forcing herself to focus on more mundane matters, she said, “I’ll have to get back here tomorrow, but I guess I can ask one of the other girls to bring me in.”

“Can we ride home on a big bike?” Kayla asked, excited by the idea.

Shandie hadn’t considered that possibility, and before Dax had answered her daughter she said, “Are you taking us home on the back of a motorcycle?”

He laughed wryly at her alarm. “No, I own a truck, too.” He nodded toward the utility room door behind her then. “Do you have to go back?”

“No, everything is locked up and turned off. This is the only unlocked door,” she said, poking a thumb over her shoulder at the panel she’d come through.

“That lock was broken when I set up here. I’ve never fixed it.”

“You probably should. It would keep little girls out,” Shandie said.

“Yeah, but the problem with that is that it would keep big girls out, too,” he countered pointedly and with the kind of smooth, easy-to-come-by charm Shandie was sure had earned him his bad-boy reputation.

She pretended not to catch the flirtatious undertone even as something tingly erupted just beneath the surface of her skin. “I do need Kayla’s car seat out of my car,” she said. “I could go get it and bring it over here or you could pull your truck around and meet us—”

“Why don’t I just drive us all around the block? Kayla’ll be okay riding in your lap that long, won’t she?”

“Sure,” Shandie agreed.

“Le’s go!” Kayla said, apparently equally as excited by the idea of riding in Dax’s truck as she had been by the thought of riding one of his motorcycles.

“You’re the boss,” Dax decreed, leading the way through his showroom, locking his own shop after them and pointing out his truck parked in front.

It was a black behemoth big enough to cart two motorcycles in the bed and to haul a trailer with four more if need be, he explained as they got in and went the short distance to Shandie’s car.

Once they arrived there, Shandie left Kayla with Dax and got the safety seat, but when she returned with it to the truck, Dax was waiting on the passenger side to put it in for her.

Shandie appreciated the courtesy, but he didn’t know what he was doing and after a few failed attempts to figure it out she took over. As she did he went around to stand by while Kayla stood behind the truck’s steering wheel, bouncing wildly in her mimicry of driving.

Shandie had to smile to herself when he began to teach her daughter to make engine noises, but she didn’t comment on how funny it sounded.

Then the car seat was strapped in tightly to the center of the truck’s bench seat.

“Okay, climb in,” Shandie told the little girl.

After some reluctance to leave the wheel, Kayla did get into the carrier, wiggling until her heavy quilted coat wasn’t bunched up around her, then settling and promptly taking off her knitted hat and mittens.

It was something she inevitably did the minute Shandie got her in the car seat, and Shandie had given up fighting to stop it because she never won anyway—as soon as she wasn’t looking, off went hat and gloves every time.

As Shandie buckled her daughter in, Dax got behind the wheel once more. “Where to?” he asked.

Shandie recited her address in the course of situating herself again in the passenger seat and closing the side door so they could get going once more.

“Huh?”

“It isn’t far,” she said as if his huh had indicated that he thought it was.

“No, I know.”

“Is it a bad neighborhood or something?”

“I live on the same street—so maybe,” he joked.

“Which house?” Shandie asked, surprised to learn they lived near each other.

“The big gray one on the corner closest to New Town.”

“That is a big house. But I thought a family lived there with a teenager.”

“I rent out the main floor and live in the apartment on the second level. The income from the renters helps tide things over during the slow winter months. What house are you in?”

“The small yellow one, second from the other end.”

“So we’ve been within walking distance of each other there, too? I really must have been in a fog lately.”

“Well, at least you won’t have to go far out of your way,” Shandie said.

“Wouldn’t have mattered if I had needed to,” he assured her with a sideways glance that seemed along the same lines as his comment about not fixing the lock on the utility room door and blocking big girls from coming into his garage.

Shandie didn’t know what to say except, “Well, I appreciate the lift,” and only after she’d said it did she realize he was giving a bit of a lift to her ego, too, since she was feeling flattered to be flirted with for the first time in a very long while.

Kayla caught her attention then. Sitting in her carrier between them, out of the blue the toddler began to rub the sleeve of Dax Traub’s leather jacket.

It did look as soft as butter, and Shandie was aware of a curiosity of her own about whether or not it felt the way it looked. But being three and having few inhibitions, Kayla merely reached over and rubbed Dax’s arm.

It took him by surprise and he glanced from the road to the chubby hand caressing his coat.

“Kayla…” Shandie reprimanded.

“Feels like blankie,” the little girl countered.

“It isn’t blankie, though, so keep your hands to yourself,” Shandie said, embarrassed.

Or was it not only embarrassment she was feeling? Was there also some envy over the fact that her daughter was getting to touch Dax Traub?

It had better just be embarrassment, she told herself.

“It’s okay,” he assured Shandie as Kayla went right on fingering the leather the way she did the satin edge of her favorite blanket when she was falling asleep.

“Ever’body was talkin’ ’bout you today,” the little girl said then.

Dax aimed another look at Shandie, and she could tell he was taking her daughter’s remark to mean that Shandie had been talking about him today.

“Not me,” she was quick to say. Too quick. “But you were the talk of the beauty shop.” Although she hadn’t thought that Kayla had been eavesdropping as much as she had been.

One of Dax’s eyebrows arched suspiciously. “Why?”

“A few of the customers knew each other and were wondering if you’ll go to some dinner they’re having tomorrow night?” She finished that in the form of a question because it wasn’t as if she was clear about what she was referring to.

Dax turned his eyes to the road ahead, and as Shandie looked over at his perfect profile she saw his chin raise slightly in what might have been defensiveness or defiance or maybe both—she couldn’t tell. But it had a stiffness to it that let her know she’d hit a sore spot.

“It’s none of my business,” she said in a hurry to provide an excuse for him not to talk about it.

“It’s okay,” he said. Then, when Shandie expected him to drop it, he added, “Some old friends are having a get-together is all.”

“A pre-Thanksgiving dinner,” Shandie repeated what she’d overheard.

“Right.”

“And you may not go?” she asked cautiously.

“It’s pretty unlikely, yeah,” he said in a gruff voice that was almost more to himself than to her.

“It sounded nice,” she offered. “Good food. Everyone’s looking forward to it…”

“Probably more if they can count on my not being there.”

“I didn’t get that impression.”

“No? What impression did you get?”

Shandie shrugged within the navy-blue peacoat she had buttoned to her throat. “I got the impression that they wanted you to go.”

He gave her a look that said he doubted that.

“Why would they invite you and not want you to be there? Especially if they’re old friends?”

“Because now one of the old friends is coupled with my ex-fiancée, and my ex-wife has connected with my brother, who’s not so thrilled with me himself and… It’s complicated.”

“Oh,” Shandie said, not telling him that she’d heard he’d had a fight with his brother. After all, she didn’t actually know anything about it, anyway. Or any details about any of the rest of what he’d just briefly outlined.

“Still,” she felt inclined to persist, “I didn’t get the idea that anyone wanted you to miss the dinner.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t say I’m too thrilled about going myself.”

“Oh. Is this a group you want out of?” she asked, treading carefully.

He shot her a quizzical look, as if he didn’t know why she’d ask that.

“It happens,” she said in defense of her question. “People reach points in friendships and even in families where they just don’t want to be a part of it anymore.”

“I thought we were only talking about some dumb dinner?”

And clearly he didn’t welcome her sticking her nose into any more than that.

Shandie took the hint and shrugged. “All I know is that if I were you, I’d go.”

“Why?”

“It’s Thanksgiving, the start of the holiday season, your friends are getting together, it sounds fun, and I say bury whatever hatchets there are. Go, have a good time, forget about anything else that’s gone on.”

They’d reached their common street and her house. Dax pulled into her driveway. He put the engine into Park and applied the emergency brake but left the engine and the heater on as he slung one wrist over the top of the steering wheel and pivoted enough to look her eye-to-intense-espresso-brown-eye.

Shandie might have thought he was angry except that around his lips was just the teaser of a mischief-filled smile.

“I’ll go if you will,” he said offhandedly.

“Me?” Shandie exclaimed. “Where did that come from? I wasn’t invited.”

“Maybe I’m inviting you. I can bring someone, why not you? At least then I’d know that one of us would benefit from it.”

“Why not me? Because whoever is going to be there doesn’t know me and I don’t know them—even the women who were talking about you today weren’t my clients and—”

“That’s how you get to know people—you go somewhere, get introduced, spend some time with them.”

“And I have Kayla and—”

“That teenager whose family I rent to? She’s fifteen and she babysits for people in the neighborhood all the time. She’d probably be happy to stay with Kayla, and Kayla would love her. Wouldn’t you, Kayla?”

“Can she make peanut butter and marsh’allow sam’iches?” the three-year-old asked.

“Probably,” Dax said.

“Okay.”

“Besides,” he said to Shandie again, “you said yesterday that you haven’t met anyone you’d consider a friend yet. This would give you the chance to get out and do that. To socialize.”

“I just think you should go,” she contended. “That you might be sorry if you don’t. Besides, I wasn’t looking to get myself in on it.” Although it did appeal to her.

“I didn’t think you were,” Dax assured. “Even though it does seem to have lit a spark in you.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Shandie lied.

She wasn’t positive, but she thought he was teasing her. Toying with her to amuse himself—again like a true bad boy showing his ornery streak. But the more she thought about being included in the next night’s get-together, the more inclined she was to call what she thought might be his bluff and agree to go.

Even if she did, though, she wasn’t going to let him turn this into something he did for her sake. “I think if you don’t go it could give a negative message that might end up with people reading more into it than you want them to. That is, if you genuinely aren’t looking to get out of this group. So, unless you want to cause problems and questions about why you wouldn’t have dinner with your old friends and your brother, you should go.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s what I think,” she said.

“With nothing to base it on but some beauty shop gossip?”

“With nothing to base it on but my own intuition and the sense I got from what little I overheard today. Your friends are wondering what’s going on with you, and if you don’t show up tomorrow night, they’ll be wondering even more.”