A Family for the Holidays. Victoria Pade

way, they’re here. He and Grant have always been as close as brothers. Closer than I ever was with mine…”

      Again Dax’s tone reflected a darker side that Shandie didn’t delve into.

      “Is your brother there?”

      “D.J.” Dax named him. Then he pointed a long index finger in the direction of the entrance to the lodge. “There he is. Looks like he and Allaire are playing host. See them standing in the doorway, waving for everyone to come in?”

      Shandie altered her line of vision until she located the couple Dax was referring to.

      Even from the distance she could see a resemblance between Dax and his brother, although they were opposite sides of the same coin. Where Dax was all bad-boy good looks, D.J. was pure boy next door.

      “He made a fortune selling barbecue sauce after he left Thunder Canyon,” Dax was saying. “Then he sank that money into opening a chain of his Rib Shack restaurants. He just opened one here. That’s where the dinner is tonight, so I guess that’s why he’s acting like everybody’s coming to his house.”

      Dax sounded as if that made him reluctant to go through with this, but Shandie wasn’t going to give him an easy out by asking if that were the case. Rather, she said, “And Allaire…”

      “My ex-wife,” he said. “She teaches art at the high school.”

      Nothing more was offered, and again Shandie didn’t think she had a right to delve into it.

      “There’s a late arrival—well, besides us,” she said when the driver and passenger of the car that had just joined the others got out and were greeted by the group.

      “Riley Douglas and his wife Lisa,” Dax said. “Riley is Caleb Douglas’s son. Caleb is as close to the town’s patriarch as there is. He’s the richest man around, has his hand in just about everything. He owns the resort, but he’s turned over running it to Riley now.”

      “That’s different than Grant—what was it, Clifton?”

      “Grant Clifton, right.”

      “Didn’t you say he ran the resort?”

      “He manages it. He supervises the day-to-day operations, while Riley is still the higher-up.”

      “And Riley’s wife, Lisa? What does she do?”

      “She’s an animal lover. She’s devoted to animal welfare—if there’s any suspicion of an animal being abused or neglected, Lisa’ll come out with both barrels blazing.” He paused, then concluded, “And that’s the whole bunch.”

      For a moment they just sat there silently, watching everyone gather at the lodge’s entrance to continue their hellos inside, to shake hands or clap backs, to exchange a hug here and there. It was very clear what a close-knit group it was and how happy they all were to be together. And Dax was making no fast moves to be in on it.

      “Well, it looks like this’ll be fun,” Shandie said with nothing whatsoever to base that on, merely trying to be encouraging.

      “Looks like it will be for them,” Dax muttered.

      Shandie finally decided to concede what she’d been trying to avoid and said, “If you don’t want to go, we don’t have to.”

      It took him a long time to answer that, during which he watched his friends, his exes, his brother from the distance and obviously reconsidered.

      But then he said, “Nah, we’ve come this far, we might as well go in.”

      “Like I said before, you might be sorry if you don’t,” she said gently to support his decision.

      “Yeah,” he agreed halfheartedly. “Who knows? Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

      Chapter Four

      The drive home from the pre-Thanksgiving dinner was nothing like the drive to it. Where pleasant conversation had filled the truck cab before, afterward there was only silence that made Shandie want to squirm.

      In spite of that, she didn’t break the silence. The evening had been so bad, and Dax’s mood seemed so dark as a result, she wasn’t too sure she should.

      When Dax pulled into her driveway she half thought he might merely wait for her to get out and just drive away without ever saying a word. It surprised her that he turned off the engine and walked her to her door. But he still didn’t speak.

      By then, though, she thought she had to say something. So as she unlocked and opened her front door she said, “I’m sorry—”

      That was as far as she got before her daughter skipped up to the screen dressed in red footed pajamas with a full wig of black hair on her head.

      “No! What are you doing?” Shandie blurted out, flinging the screen door open in a panic. “You know better than that!”

      An unrepentant Kayla laughed and ran, squealing as she did, “But I’m pitty!”

      Shandie hurried inside. “Come in,” she called over her shoulder to Dax, knowing it came out more as an order than an invitation and that he probably didn’t want this evening prolonged any more than it had to be and wouldn’t have accepted the invitation had she extended it. But as it was, she couldn’t merely leave him standing on the porch in the cold and she had to get to her daughter and that wig.

      “Kayla Jane Solomon! Don’t you run away from me! Stop right now!”

      “I’m pitty!” the three-year-old repeated.

      Shandie followed her to the right of the entryway into the living room, but the little girl had already ducked into the coat closet and slammed the door after her when the babysitter appeared from the kitchen with Kayla’s yellow security blanket in hand.

      “I just read her a story and put her in bed upstairs. We forgot Blankie so I came down to get it,” a wide-eyed Misty explained.

      “It’s okay,” Shandie assured the fifteen-year-old. Then, in a louder voice aimed at her daughter, Shandie said, “I mean it, Kayla. Come out here now!”

      Giggles preceded the scant opening of the closet door as the tiny child peeked through the crack. “I’m pitty,” she insisted yet again.

      “You know you aren’t supposed to touch those wigs. Get over here so I can take it off without ruining it.”

      Her daughter finally complied and stepped from the closet. The black wig was even more askew after the little girl’s mad dash. It had slipped too low on her brow and was far enough over her eyes that Kayla had to tip her head far back to peer out from underneath it.

      Dax had joined everyone in the living room by then, and Shandie caught sight of him. She was shocked to see that a small smile had eased the dark frown he’d worn since leaving the restaurant at the Thunder Canyon Resort. If Kayla’s misbehavior had accomplished it, it was almost worth it to Shandie.

      But that still didn’t mean she could let the child get away with what she was doing.

      Shandie bent over and very carefully removed the wig. “You know you are not to touch these,” she told her daughter firmly as she gently set it on an antique table against the wall.

      “’Cuz they’re the sick ladies’ hairs,” Kayla responded, reciting by rote what Shandie had explained to her more than once. “But I was bein’ pitty.”

      “You can be pretty some other way, but you never, ever touch these.”

      Kayla rolled her big blue eyes and reluctantly conceded. “I won’t.” Then she noticed Dax and cast him a smile. “I played with the motorcycles. Misty helped.”

      “And then I really did put her in bed,” Misty said meekly. “I really did, and I told her to stay there while I came downstairs just to get the blanket.”

      “I’m sure you did. I know