Christmas Kisses Collection. Louise Allen

questioned if her body would even allow her to get pregnant if she wanted to, which she didn’t. No way would she want to bring a baby in to the world the way her parents had.

      “Stranger things have happened.”

      “Than my getting pregnant?” She shook her head in denial. “That would be the strangest ever. I’m not meant to have children.”

      His curiosity was obviously piqued as he studied her. “Why not?”

      “Bad genetics.”

      “Your parents are ill?”

      How was she supposed to answer that one? With the truth, probably. She took a deep breath.

      “Physically, they are as healthy as can be. Mentally and emotionally, they are messed up.”

      “Depression?”

      “My mother suffers from depression. Maybe my dad, too, really. They both have made horrible life choices that they are now stuck living with.”

      “Your dad is a lawyer?”

      She nodded.

      “What does your mom do?”

      “Whatever the man currently in her life tells her to do.”

      Lance seemed to let that sink in for a few moments. “She’s remarried?”

      McKenzie shook her head. “She’s never remarried. I think she purposely stays single because my father has to pay her alimony until she remarries or dies.”

      “Your father is remarried, though?”

      “At the moment, but ask me again in a month and who knows what the answer will be.”

      “How many times has he remarried?”

      She didn’t want to answer, shouldn’t have let this conversation even start. She should have finished her charts, not opened up an emotional can of worms that led to conversations about her menstrual cycle, pregnancy and her parents. What had she been thinking?

      “McKenzie?”

      “He’s on his fifth marriage.”

      Lance winced. “Hard to find the one, eh?”

      “Oh, he finds them all right. In all the wrong places. He’s not known for his faithfulness. My guess is that he’s to blame for all his failed marriages. Definitely he was with his and my mother’s.”

      “There’s always two sides to every story.”

      “My mother and I walked in on him in his office with his secretary.”

      “As in…”

      Feeling sick at her stomach, McKenzie nodded. She’d never said those words out loud. Not ever. Cecilia knew, but not because McKenzie had told her the details, just that she’d figured it out from overheard arguments between McKenzie’s parents.

      “How old were you?”

      “Four.”

       CHAPTER TWELVE

      LANCE TRIED TO imagine how a four-year-old would react to walking in on her father in a compromising situation with a woman who wasn’t her mother. He couldn’t imagine it. His own family took commitment seriously. When they gave their word, their heart to another they meant it.

      His own heart squeezed. Hadn’t he given his word to Shelby? Hadn’t he promised to love her forever? To not ever forget the young girl who’d taught him what it meant to care for another, who’d brought him from boyhood to manhood?

      He had. He did. He would. Forever.

      He owed her so much.

      “That must have been traumatic,” he mused, not knowing exactly what to say but wanting to comfort McKenzie all the same. Wanting not to think of Shelby right now. Lately he’d not wanted to think of her a lot, and had resented how much he thought of her, of how guilty he felt that he didn’t want to think of her anymore.

      How could he not want to think of her when it was his fault she was no longer living the life she had been meant to live? When if it wasn’t for him she’d be a doctor? Be making a difference in so many people’s lives?

      “It wasn’t the first time he’d cheated.”

      Lance stared at McKenzie’s pale face. “How do you know?”

      “My mother launched herself at them, screaming and yelling and clawing and…well, you get the idea. She said some pretty choice things that my father didn’t deny.”

      “You were only four,” he reminded her, trying to envision the scene from a four-year-old’s perspective and shuttering on the inside at the horror. “Maybe you misunderstood.”

      She shook her head. “He doesn’t deserve you or anyone else defending him. He doesn’t even bother defending himself anymore. Just says it’s genetic and he can’t help himself.”

      “Bull.”

      That had McKenzie’s head shooting up. “What?”

      “Bull. If he really loved someone else more than he loved himself then being faithful wouldn’t be an issue. It would be easy, what came naturally from that love.”

      McKenzie took a deep breath. “Then maybe that’s the problem. No one has ever been able to compete with his own self-love. Not my mother, not his other wives or girlfriends and certainly not me.”

      There was a depth of pain in her voice that made Lance’s heart ache for her. “Did he have more children?”

      McKenzie shook her head. “He had a vasectomy so that mistake would never happen again.”

      “Implying that you were a mistake?”

      McKenzie shrugged.

      “He’s a fool, McKenzie. A stupid, selfish fool.”

      “Agreed.” She brushed her hands over her thighs then stood. “I’m going to get a drink of water. You need anything?”

      “Just you.”

      She paused. “Sorry, but the discussion about my parents has killed any possibility of that for some time.”

      “Not what I meant.”

      She stared down at him. “Then what did you mean?”

      Good question. What had he meant?

      That he needed her?

      Physically? They were powerful in bed together. But it was more than sex. Mentally, she challenged him with her quick intelligence and wit. Emotionally…emotionally she had him a tangled-up mess. A tangled-up mess he had no right to be feeling.

      He’d asked her to give him two months. That’s all she planned to give him, that’s all he’d thought he’d wanted from McKenzie.

      Usually he had long-lasting relationships even though he knew they were never going anywhere. He’d always been up-front with whomever he’d been dating on that point. When things came to an end, he’d always been okay with it, his heart not really involved.

      With McKenzie he’d wanted that time limit as much as she had, because everything had felt different right from the start.

      She made him question everything.

      The past. The present. The future. What had always seemed so clear was now a blurred unknown.

      That they had planned a definite ending was a good thing, the best thing. He had a vow to keep. Guilt mingled in with whatever else was going on. Horrible, horrible guilt that would lie heavily on his shoulders for the rest of his life.

      “I’ll take that