A Family for the Holidays. Victoria Pade

Three

      What was going on with him?

      It was the question that Shandie had said people were throwing around the beauty shop, and as Dax got ready for Wednesday night’s dinner, it was something he was wondering himself. Again—because the truth was, it was something he’d been wondering for a while now.

      He’d turned thirty this year, and it had hit him hard. It was an age, he thought as he got into the shower, when there was no more denying he was an adult, that his life had gotten to where it was going. And he’d had to take stock.

      His friends, the guys he’d grown up with and known all his life—Grant Clifton, Marshall and Mitchell Cates, Russ Chilton and even his own brother, D.J.—were all around the same age. And yet if they looked back, they could all list success in their lives, their careers and in their relationships—since most of them had found women they wanted to spend their futures with. And where was he?

      Nowhere.

      Business was lousy. His marriage had lasted only a few years. That flash-in-the-pan engagement to Lizbeth Stanton…

      What was going on with him? he asked himself.

      He wished he knew.

      Maybe a better question was what the hell had happened to him.

      He’d been on top of the world all through high school. He’d thought he was cool, and so had everyone else. Girls had fallen all over him, there had never been a party he wasn’t invited to, a person who hadn’t wanted to hang out with him. He’d snatched Thunder Canyon’s golden girl from under every other guy’s nose—apparently including his brother’s, even though he hadn’t known how D.J. had felt about Allaire at the time. And fresh from graduation and his honeymoon, he’d begun what had proved to be one of the most stupendous winning streaks motorcycle racing had ever seen.

      He’d had it all, and he’d been sure that his entire future would be the stuff of dreams….

      Shampoo suds were running down his face. He clamped his eyes shut, stepped under the spray of the shower and let the water beat down on him.

      The stuff of dreams…

      Then his fresh-out-of-high-school marriage to Allaire had tanked.

      And fast on the heels of that, his biggest dream had ended in a nightmare against a retaining wall.

      And when all the dust had settled and the stitches had come out and the casts and bandages had been removed, he’d found himself with no choice but to try picking up what pieces he could salvage from what was left.

      That was where the shop had begun.

      But it wasn’t booming, and he knew why. Sure, he was good with an engine, with the mechanics, working with his hands, but his heart just wasn’t in the business that seemed like nothing more than a consolation prize.

      So here he was, a washout at thirty. A loser. Or at least that was what he felt like. A royally messed-up, couldn’t-make-anything-work-out, didn’t-know-what-he-wanted loser. Who probably deserved the strained way all his friends were acting around him and the fight he’d had with his brother.

      Maybe he should lock up, load his Harley into the back of the truck and get the hell out of Thunder Canyon, he thought as he went on standing in the punishing spray of the shower. Maybe he should go somewhere where he could forget everything here—past and present—and start over.

      He considered it. Seriously. Even contemplating where he might go.

      But that didn’t do anything for him either, he realized. In fact, it seemed like an even more dreary route to take.

      Thunder Canyon was still home. Still where he’d grown up. Where he felt he belonged.

      “But something’s gotta give,” he growled.

      Going nowhere, enjoying nothing, adrift and wondering, What now? It sucked.

      Although it struck him suddenly that the enjoying nothing part wasn’t altogether true of the past few days. He’d enjoyed Kayla Solomon. And Kayla Solomon’s mom…

      Just the thought of the two of them lifted his spirits a little.

      Kayla with her tousled hair and three-year-old’s confidence—sure of herself, of what she wanted, of how she could get it.

      And her mom.

      Shandie Solomon.

      He’d heard there was someone new at the Clip ’n Curl who was worth a look. It just hadn’t really registered through his misery and he hadn’t given it a second thought. Or put any effort into taking a look.

      But to say that Shandie was worth a look was an understatement.

      Shandie Solomon was hotter than hell.

      She and her daughter shared the same hair color—blond so blond it nearly gleamed. They had the same pale skin, too, and Shandie’s was no less smooth or flawless than the little girl’s. Their eyes tagged them as mother and daughter as well. The blue of a mountain sky on a clear winter’s day, and with the longest lashes he’d ever seen.

      Shandie also had a small, perfect nose, which was slightly different from her daughter’s upturned little pug, and high cheekbones and bone structure that looked fine and delicate, as opposed to Kayla’s chubby cheeks.

      And then there was Shandie’s compact, not-too-thin, not-too-curvy body—he’d wanted to pull that up against him and…

      Dax dropped his head backward and shook it as a dog shakes water from its coat, despite the continued pelting of the shower.

      The last thing he needed to be thinking about was pulling some woman—any woman—up against him.

      He grabbed the bar of soap to get on with his shower. And as he lathered up, he reminded himself that he wasn’t interested in starting anything with Shandie Solomon—or anyone else—right now.

      After the fiasco with Lizbeth he knew better than to think a woman could be the bandage that would fix his screwed-up life, and he was determined to sort everything out before he let himself get involved with anyone again. He knew that was the only hope he had of getting it right, and he just couldn’t take any more failures.

      So why was he going to this dinner tonight and taking Shandie Solomon with him?

      Another good question.

      Maybe because when he was with Kayla and Shandie, he got a rest from his own depressing thoughts. He actually forgot about how damn unhappy he’d been lately.

      So when Shandie had started talking about this dinner—which he’d had no intention of going to until she’d brought it up—and he’d heard in her voice how much she would have liked it if she had been included in something like it, the whole thing hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea.

      Especially when taking her also meant that he was certain to see her again tonight—without having to hope her daughter might sneak into his shop again and act as a lure for her mother to follow, or that the car battery he’d charged today might not hold the charge and give him the chance to take them home again.

      But he was probably making a mistake, he told himself as he rinsed off the soap. It was probably a mistake to go to this dinner when he and his brother were liable to fight again. When his ex-wife and ex-fiancée would be there. When everybody was walking on eggshells around him and playing down their own successes and happiness rather than make his lousy life seem even worse.

      Going to this dinner was probably a mistake when spending an entire evening with Shandie Solomon would give free rein to a weakness for her that he shouldn’t be having at all, let alone giving in to. Particularly since it would undoubtedly just feed the thoughts and mental images he’d been having about her since they’d met.

      “Man, how stupid are you?” he muttered.

      Maybe he should call