“I really am blown away by you, do you know that?”

And then Dax leaned over and kissed her.

After an instant of shock, Shandie discovered she was kissing him back. But too soon he ended the kiss altogether.

She must have looked as stunned as she felt, because Dax said, “I’ll let myself out. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at seven-thirty.”

With the memory of his lips on hers, the image of him walking away with that confident swagger, she thought that it was no wonder he’d been one of Thunder Canyon’s hottest properties. The man had a certain something, there was no denying it.

She only wished she were immune to it…

VICTORIA PADE

is a native of Colorado, where she continues to live and work. Her passion – besides writing – is chocolate, which she indulges in frequently and in every form. She loves romance novels and romantic movies – the more lighthearted, the better – but she likes a good, juicy mystery now and then, too.

Dear Reader,

A Family for the Holidays touches on a whole lot of my favourite things – the time of year and the season, and Thanksgiving and the beginning of the Christmas preparations and celebrations. I like the snow, the food, the lights, the decorations, the movies, the whole shebang. I also like kids and writing them into my books – I just don’t think you can find funnier things than what kids say, and whenever I hear a good line, I like to use it (you’ll find a couple of those inside). Toss in a bad-boy hero who gets won over by a three-year-old and a heroine whose attitude and outlook I really admire, and you’ve got a great holiday story.

I particularly enjoyed writing this book. I hope you enjoy it as much, and that your own holidays will be especially fun and joyous this year.

Happy, happy holidays!

Victoria Pade

A Family for the Holidays

VICTORIA PADE

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

Dax Traub’s motorcycle sales and repair shop in the heart of Thunder Canyon might as well not have been open on the Monday before Thanksgiving. It was after four o’clock in the afternoon, and not a single person had come through the glass door or so much as paused to peer into the showroom through the storefront windows. He’d spent the day doing exactly what he was doing at that moment—reading articles in motorcycle magazines that were depressing the hell out of him. Articles that—once upon a time—had been about him. Articles that could have been about him now, had things turned out differently.

“Scooz me.”

The radio was on in the background, and at first Dax thought the small, quiet voice had come from there. But then he realized that a song was playing and that didn’t seem likely.

Maybe I’m hearing things…

“Scooz me.”

No, he was sure he was hearing something. But with the radio louder than the voice he couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from.

He was standing at the counter, facing the front of the store, and no one had come in. But even though it didn’t make any sense, he leaned far over the counter and peered down just in case he’d missed something.

There was no one there.

“Scooz me!” The small voice became more insistent and slightly louder. Loud enough for him to finally realize it was coming from behind him.

Dax straightened and glanced over his shoulder.

Sure enough, there stood a little girl to go with the small voice.

He pivoted on his heel to face her, dropping his gaze to the height of a motorcycle tire on display just to the right of the doorway that led to the garage portion of the shop in the rear of the building. That’s where the child was standing without any sign of timidity, her head of tousled blond curls held high, her crystal-clear blue eyes waiting expectantly for his attention.

“Hi,” he said with a note of question in his tone.

“Hi,” the bit-of-nothing responded.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“I wan’ one of these big shiny bikes,” the child announced, bypassing Dax and rounding the counter to go into his showroom, dragging a large shoulder-strapped purse along with her.

Dax looked beyond the spot the child had abandoned, wondering if someone else—an adult—was going to appear, too.

No one did, and his tiny customer wasn’t allowing him time to investigate because she was talking to him, apparently explaining her need for one of his big shiny bikes.

“Jackass says I’m a baby and my bike is jus’ a baby bike and his is a big boy bike and I wan’ one tha’s bigger ’n his ’cuz I’m not a baby. And red.”

Dax followed her onto his showroom floor.

“Jackass?” he repeated, knowing he sounded thick but unsure exactly what this kid was doing here and talking about.

“He’s in my school and he lives on my street, too.”

“That’s somebody’s name? Jackass? Or is that just what you call him because he calls you a baby?” Which was an idea that secretly appealed to the ornery side of Dax.

“Tha’s his name—Jackass,” the barely-bigger-than-a-minute child said as if it should have been obvious.

Still, he persisted skeptically, asking, “That’s his name?”

“Jackass. We haves a lot of Jacks at school—there’s Jack W. and Jack M. and Jack—”

“S.,” Dax said as light finally dawned. “Jack S.”

“Jackass,” she confirmed.

Dax couldn’t recall the last time he’d smiled, let alone laughed, but one snuck up on him then and he couldn’t help chuckling. “Of course. And you want a bike that’s bigger than his. And red.”

“That one,” the little girl said decisively, pointing at a Harley-Davidson classic street bike.

“Good choice,” he decreed. “And who might I be selling that one to?”

“To me,” she said, once more, as if he were dim-witted.

“And who would you be?”

“I wou’ be me.” Again a statement of the obvious, only now his lack of understanding brought a frown to crinkle her cherubic face with its rosy cheeks, button nose and ruddy-pink lips.

Dax had no experience or knowledge or contact with children, so he had nothing to gauge how old this one might be. But it was beginning to sink in that, despite her self-assurance, she was very young.

“What’s your name?” he said more succinctly.

“Kayla Jane Solomon. Wus yur name?”

“My name? My name is Dax.”

“Tha’s a funny name.”

“Funny or not, that’s what it is.”

“I haves a friend who gots a dog whose name is Max. Like Max, only Dax?”

“Right,” he said, stifling a grin.

“Dax,” she repeated, trying it out.

“Kayla Jane Solomon,” Dax countered. “And how old are you, Kayla Jane Solomon?”

“Free.”

Had she not held up three short fingers, he would have thought she was answering with something other than a number.

“You’re three,” he said. “You’re Kayla Jane Solomon and you’re three years old.”

“Free and some months,” she elaborated. “But I can never memember how many.”

“And where exactly did you come from?” Dax asked.

“The shop,” she answered simply.

His building shared a connecting passage with the building directly behind it, and in that other building was the Clip ’n Curl beauty salon. Since his back door and the garage door that opened onto the alley were both closed, the Clip ’n Curl had to be the shop she was referring to. Although no one had ever come in here that way before.

“Won’t someone be looking for you?”

“I need a bike,” she reminded him, refusing to be deterred any longer from her goal.

Dax didn’t really know what to do with her. He was bored out of his mind, and this tiny tot was more entertainment than he’d had in a while, so he decided to play along. Temporarily, at any rate.

“How are you going to pay for it?” he asked.

Kayla Jane Solomon dragged the purse nearer to her, unzipped it and produced a lady’s wallet from inside. She opened the wallet, took out the paper money and held it up to him. “Is this ’nough?”

Dax shook his head. “Sorry. Bikes this big cost a lot more than that.”

Kayla replaced the money in the wallet, the wallet in the purse and then looked up at him again, still undaunted and now flashing him a smile that was riddled with mischief.

“Maybe you could jus’ gib me one, then,” she suggested sweetly.

And once again, Dax Traub had to laugh in spite of himself.

“I have a minute now, Kayla. Do you still want a cup of hot choc—”

Shandie Solomon came up short when she stepped into the Clip ’n Curl’s break room. Barely fifteen minutes earlier she’d left her three-year-old with a snack and Kayla’s favorite DVD playing on a portable DVD player at the table where the stylists sat to eat and chat when they didn’t have a customer. Only now, Kayla wasn’t there.

“Kayla?” Shandie called from the center of the break room. Sometimes, if the precocious little girl heard her mother coming, Kayla liked to hide behind the old vinyl sofa that also occupied the space and then jump out to surprise Shandie.

But this time, when she looked behind the couch, she found nothing but dust bunnies.

Kayla wasn’t under the microwave stand or hiding beside the refrigerator, so Shandie opted to look in the next likeliest place her daughter might be—the bathroom.

“Kayla? Are you in there?” she said after knocking on the closed restroom door in the hallway outside the break room.

“No, she’s not in here,” came the answer from one of the other stylists.

“Have you seen her?” Shandie asked.

“She was in the break room when I came in here.” An answer that didn’t help Shandie at all.

“Okay, thanks,” she said, heading back to the main area of the salon.

The entire place was in the middle of the remodeling that was part of the reason Shandie had come to Thunder Canyon. Her cousin Judy had asked her to move to Montana and buy into the business. The Clip ’n Curl, Judy had said, needed new life breathed into it or it wouldn’t survive in the town’s new climate of change and growth.

Because of the construction, everything was in disarray—a manicure/pedicure area was being built, existing stations were crammed with anything that would fit under their sinks to clear other spaces for work, plumbing and electrical changes were being made, and plastic tarps hung from the ceiling to section off the work being done on new stations. It all made for a number of enticing hiding spots for a tiny three-year-old.

“Kayla?” Shandie repeated yet again, scanning the area. “Has anyone seen my daughter?”

The other stylist, who was coloring a customer’s hair, said she hadn’t, and the customer chimed in to concur.

From behind one of the tarps, the cabinetmaker said, “She’s not in here with me.”

Concern began a crawl up Shandie’s spine. “She didn’t leave the shop, did she?”

The stylist at work on the patron’s highlights said, “Not from the front. I’ve been out here since you picked her up from preschool and brought her in with you, and she hasn’t been back this way.”

“The bell over the door hasn’t gone off, either,” the customer contributed.

“But I don’t know about the alley door,” the stylist added. “Maybe you should check it.”

Shandie spun around and picked up her pace, hurrying from there through every possible nook and cranny, even glancing through the window that looked out onto the alley and the motorcycle shop on the opposite side of it. But there were no signs of her daughter.

“She has to be around somewhere,” Shandie muttered to herself. Then, in a louder, firmer voice, she said, “Kayla Jane Solomon, where are you?”

Using her daughter’s full name should have let the child know she meant business, but still there was no response.

Adrenaline was tying Shandie into tighter and tighter knots.

“Kayla, this isn’t funny. Where are you?” she said, feeling and sounding on the verge of terror as her mind raced with awful thoughts.

But again there was no response to her plea.

There were a lot of hiding places in the laundry room, though. In the revamping of the shop Shandie and her cousin were adding massage rooms, a sauna, a relaxation space and a room that would alternate between an aerobic workout room and a yoga room. As a result, the laundry room was now also used for storage, and because Shandie had yet to organize it, things were stacked and piled everywhere.

“Come out now, Kayla,” Shandie ordered as she searched behind everything. But this time what Shandie’s search brought her to was the door to the utility room. And it was ajar.

“Kayla?” she called again as she opened the door and went in herself.

The buildings that housed the Clip ’n Curl and the motorcycle shop behind it had once been owned by the same person. That person had connected the two properties across the alley, extending the room that contained the Clip ’n Curl’s furnace, water heater and electrical panel to reach that other structure. Kayla wasn’t in the utility room, either, but there was a door on the other end of it that led to the motorcycle shop. And that door was wide open.

With her heart in her throat once more at the thought of her little girl going through the motorcycle shop and out that front door to who knew where, Shandie crossed the utility closet and rapped on the door that was open into a garage.

“Hello? Anyone?” she called as she went from the utility room into the garage without waiting for an answer or an invitation, too worried about where Kayla might have gone now to hesitate. “Is anybody here? Kayla?”

“We’re in front,” came a man’s voice.

Shandie held her breath, hoping that the we included her daughter as she headed across the garage to a doorway that provided access to the sales section of the motorcycle shop. Only when she spotted Kayla did she breathe again, nearly wilting with relief.

“Kayla Jane Solomon, you scared me to death! What are you doing here?” Shandie demanded, rushing to her three-year-old, her focus so concentrated on the child that she was only peripherally aware of the man she knew owned the shop—the somewhat notorious Dax Traub.

“I need a big bike,” Kayla informed her simply.

“Apparently Jack S. is giving her a hard time about the size of the bike she has now,” her daughter’s companion contributed, despite the fact that Shandie continued to stare fiercely at her daughter.

Still, she used his comment as the springboard to say, “And you want to go from a tricycle to a motorcycle?”

“I need a big bike,” the little girl repeated.

Shandie closed her eyes, shook her head and sighed, just glad she’d found Kayla and that nothing horrible had befallen her.

Then she opened her eyes, scooped the tiny tot into her arms to hang on to her and finally settled her gaze on the man standing only a few feet away.

“I’m sorry about this,” she apologized.

He shrugged it off—literally, with shoulders that were wide and straight and powerful enough to imply, “Don’t mess with me.”

“No problem,” he said. “I do sell big bikes, after all. It was the logical place to come for one.”

Shandie appreciated that he was making light of it. “I’m sure you didn’t need a three-year-old wasting your time, though.”

“Actually, she’s been my only customer today. Wasting time is all I’ve done, and she was a nice change of pace.”

A smile went with that information. Not a huge grin, merely a minor upturning of the corners of a mouth that was a touch on the full side.

“I guess it’s good she didn’t blow your biggest sale or something, then,” Shandie said.

Belatedly she realized she hadn’t introduced herself, and so she added, “I’m Shandie Solomon, by the way.”

“Dax Traub.”

“Like Max the dog, only Dax,” Kayla explained.

Shandie didn’t tell either of them that she knew who Dax Traub was. Besides the fact that she’d seen him a time or two coming and going from the rear of his store, and he was too attractive a man not to notice, his name had cropped up on occasion among some of the women who frequented the Clip ’n Curl. Enough so that Shandie was aware that Dax Traub was the dauntingly good-looking daredevil, hell-raiser, heartbreaker and all-round bad boy who currently had tongues wagging about a very sudden—and very brief—engagement to someone, a rift with his brother over someone else he’d formerly been married to, as well as apparently uncharacteristically dour spirits that had turned him dark and brooding and had him avoiding old friends who were all wondering what was going on with him.

Although at that moment Shandie didn’t see anything that seemed dark or brooding about his mood since he appeared to be amused by her daughter’s misbehavior.

“I’m Judy Johnson’s cousin,” Shandie said then. “She sold me a half interest in the Clip ’n Curl, and we’re in the process of expanding and remodeling. Judy had to leave town—her mother had some health problems and Judy has to stay with her until her mother is back on her feet. So I’m overseeing everything along with trying to build my own client base, and Kayla was supposed to be having an after-school snack and watching the Wiggles in the break room.”

“Seems more like she had the wiggles,” Dax Traub joked.

“Anyhow, there’s a lot of work going on in the utility room because we need to add a second water heater and another electrical box, and that must have been how Kayla discovered the room and found her way through to you.” Shandie wasn’t sure why she was giving the man such a lengthy explanation. Although it did provide the opportunity to look at him a while longer, and she was enjoying that. Even if it did make her feel slightly jittery inside.

“I need a big bike,” Kayla said yet again as if that was the reason she’d ended up where she had despite what her mother was postulating.

“These are motorcycles, not bicycles, and they aren’t for little girls,” Shandie informed her daughter.

“I’m a big girl,” Kayla insisted.

“Not motorcycle-big, you aren’t,” Shandie countered.

Ignoring the mother-daughter debate, Dax Traub commented instead on what Shandie had said about the Clip ’n Curl. “I know there’s been a lot going on back there for a while now. I heard all the noise and wondered what was up.”

“It wasn’t supposed to take this long, but I guess that’s how construction goes. We started in the summer and here it is—Thanksgiving on Thursday—and we’re still further away from being finished than I even want to think about.”

“I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, but are you saying that you’ve been around since the summer—right behind me—and I’ve missed it?”

“I haven’t actually been around much until the last few weeks. Judy and I worked up the plans for what we wanted to do while she was visiting me in Denver, and she got it started. I’ve been in and out of Thunder Canyon to deal with a few things on the shop and to find a place to live, but I had a house that had to be sold and a whole life to wrap up in Colorado before I could make the move.”

Dax Traub nodded as if that accounted for why he hadn’t known she existed before. He also suddenly seemed to be making up for lost time by studying her, and Shandie became very self-conscious under the scrutiny. She couldn’t help taking mental stock of her unimpressive jeans and the equally unimpressive tennis shoes she’d worn today for comfort. And the black smock all the stylists used to protect their clothing totally hid the fact that she had on a T-shirt she considered one of her better ones because it was formfitting and gave the illusion that she was a C-cup rather than barely a B.

At least she knew her shoulder-length blond hair was in good shape because she’d had one of the other girls highlight it just that morning. She’d also done her blush, mascara and lipstick right before leaving the shop to pick up Kayla from preschool, so while she might be wearing something tantamount to a choir robe, her high cheekbones, blue eyes and not-too-full, not-too-thin lips were taken care of, enough to leave her presentable.

Still, she felt at a disadvantage, and just as she was about to end this encounter to escape, it registered that her purse was on the floor near where Kayla had been standing.

“You took my purse?” she asked her daughter, retrieving it to sling over her shoulder.

“She was going to pay for the bike with what’s inside,” Dax Traub said, again seeming to find some humor in the situation.

“Kayla! You know better than that!”

“You don’t gots ’nough money. But we could use the bad charge ’cuz this is a ’mergency.”

Embarrassed by that, Shandie grimaced and felt obliged to explain again. “That sounds worse than it is. The bad charge is bad because it’s the account I have a balance on and am trying to pay off. I only use it in emergencies.” Then, to her daughter, she said, “And you getting a motorcycle isn’t an emergency.”

“I need a big bike,” Kayla said in a tone that Shandie knew could elevate into a tantrum.

She had no idea if Dax Traub was aware of that, too, but before Kayla could take it that far he changed the subject. “So how do you both like old Thunder Canyon?” he asked.

Her earlier thought of ending this encounter drifted away with the opportunity to go on talking to him and Shandie said, “I like it a lot. Or what I’ve seen of it. I haven’t really been able to pay attention to more than the necessities yet, and even though a fair share of people come through the shop, I haven’t made any friends or anything, but I’m sure that will come.”

He nodded a head that was so smolderingly handsome it could have graced one of the posters for men’s hairstyles that came to the shop on a monthly basis. And he had hair great enough to qualify as a poster boy, too. Thick, shiny deep mink-colored hair, cut short on the sides and in the back, and left longer on top in finger-combed waves, that had a charm—and a sexiness—all its own.

He also had eyes that were so dark brown they were the color of espresso beans, bordered by lashes so thick they should have been outlawed. His nose was slightly hawkish above those supple lips, and his facial structure included pronounced cheekbones and a jawline that could have been carved from granite. Plus, he was tall, lean and muscular, and couldn’t have been better suited to the low-slung jeans he was wearing with a gray sweatshirt over a white T-shirt, under a denim jacket, with the sweatshirt’s hood pulled above the jacket’s collar in back.

“I’d better get going,” Shandie said when she realized silence had fallen between them and she was the one doing the staring now and really should end this whole thing. “I have a haircut due in any minute.”

“I still need a big bike,” Kayla reminded her.

“She’s three,” Shandie said. “I think there’s a handbook somewhere that says she gets points for persistence.”

Dax Traub smiled again and aimed his dark eyes at Kayla. “You tell Jack S. that you know where there are a lot of bikes bigger than his and if he doesn’t leave you alone I’ll bring one over to show him what a baby he is.”

Shandie flinched. “Oh, don’t say that. She’ll make you stick to it.”

“That’s okay. We have to keep these hotshots in line,” he said.

“I’ll tell ’im,” Kayla assured, clearly feeling victorious.

“Anyway, again, I’m sorry for bothering you,” Shandie said before any more promises could be made.

Dax Traub’s smile this time was pure devilish charisma, and he flashed it at mother and daughter. “No bother. I’m glad I got to meet you. Both.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Shandie said, not sounding anywhere near as smooth as he did. “Do you mind if I go out the way I came in?” she added with a nod toward the garage.

“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.”

“How about you?” he asked with a sly twinkle in his eyes. “Are you wondering what’s going on with me?”

“It’s none of my business,” she repeated as if her curiosity about him wasn’t growing by the minute.

Still he wasn’t forthcoming. He merely smiled more broadly. “Maybe you’ll find out if you come to that dinner with me.”

“Would you feel better about it if you didn’t have to go alone?”

He grinned. “Would you feel better about going if I say I’d feel better about going if I didn’t have to go alone?”

Shandie was beginning to think this was a game she wasn’t any more likely to win than the struggle to keep Kayla’s hat and mittens on in the car seat. So she conceded.

“Yes,” she said. “It does sound like fun, and it would give me a chance to meet some people. I think it would be good for you to go, and so if it would make you more comfortable, I’d be happy to go with you. As long as it was just as friends and as your moral support, to pay you back for taking us home tonight and fixing my car tomorrow.”

His grin got even wider as he volleyed once more in the game she’d been trying to put an end to. “If that makes you feel better—just as friends, payback for the ride and for the jump tomorrow, no strings attached.”

Shandie took a deep breath and sighed. “Okay.”

He laughed as if he’d thoroughly enjoyed whatever it was they’d just played. “Gee, thanks,” he said facetiously.

Shandie rolled her eyes at him and released the portion of Kayla’s car seat that kept the little girl contained. Then she got out of the truck and turned back to help Kayla climb from the carrier. The three-year-old jumped across that section of seat into Shandie’s arms so Shandie could lift her down to the ground.

While she did, Dax unclicked the belt that held the safety seat and took it with him to cart up to the front door behind Shandie and Kayla.

“Can Dax-like-Max-the-dog have sam’iches with us?” Kayla asked as they made the trek.

“You aren’t having peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches for dinner, Kayla, no matter what,” Shandie said, recognizing her daughter’s tactics and uncomfortable with the spot the child’s question put her in. But after already considering asking Dax to stay, she’d thought better of it.

“But I wan’ peanut butter and marsh’allow sam’iches!” Kayla insisted.

Shandie unlocked the door. “Go in and take off your coat,” she said, rather than getting sucked into what she knew was likely to be a battle.

“Then can I have ’em?” Kayla bargained.

“Maybe you can have marshmallows in hot chocolate before bed if you eat a good—not sweet—dinner,” Shandie countered to avoid the fight.

That appeased her daughter, who paused to say “Bye” to Dax before going inside.

Alone on the porch with Dax, Shandie turned and took the car seat from him. “Thanks,” she said, echoing the word but not the facetious tone he’d used moments earlier.

“Sure,” he answered. “Want me to send Misty down to meet you?”

“Misty?”

“The babysitter,” he said with a nod in the direction of his house up the street.

“It’s cold and a school night. I’d hate to make her come out. Maybe you could just give me her number and I’ll call her?” Shandie suggested, taking a pen and one of her business cards out of her purse.

She handed them both to him, and Dax wrote on the back of the card in the space allotted for appointment dates and times. Then he returned it to her.

“I put my numbers on there, too. In case you want to back out of tomorrow night for some reason,” he said, letting her know he wouldn’t hold her to something he’d essentially taunted her into in the first place.

Shandie couldn’t think of any reason she’d want to back out, but she didn’t tell him that.

Instead she said, “I’ll see you in the morning, then? With your battery charger?”

“First thing,” he promised before he said good-night and retraced his steps to his still-running truck.

Only in his wake did it strike Shandie that she’d just made what could be considered a date with him.

With Dax Traub.

And that was when a reason to back out of dinner with him the following night did occur to her.

It was a date.

With Dax Traub….

Chapter 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 Shandie and say he was sick or something and couldn’t make it…

But like his earlier deliberation about leaving Thunder Canyon, not going through with tonight with Shandie was a short-lived consideration, too.

Because since she’d agreed to go with him he’d been looking forward to the damn dinner just so he could have a little concentrated time with her. And if he wanted to be with her badly enough to make him look forward to this dinner? He wanted to be with her too badly to cancel out now.

“So apparently you’re plenty stupid,” he answered his own question of a moment before.

But he wasn’t going to refuse himself the only thing he’d actually wanted to do in as long as he could remember. He would just make sure to abide by the terms she’d set, he told himself as he turned off the water and reached for his towel.

No strings attached—that was what she’d said. And that was what he needed—and wanted—too.

They’d go to the dinner as friends, and maybe his showing up with her on his arm would be the key to shutting down those freaking sympathetic looks he kept being the recipient of, and Shandie would get to meet some people—everybody would come out ahead.

Yeah, that was another way to look at it.

Then Shandie Solomon would go on about her business and he would go on about his—no harm, no foul, no strings.

Maybe this was actually the best route to take.

Or maybe he was kidding himself.

But for once—and unlike his usual perspective these days—he decided to opt for the better of the scenarios and believe that this evening would accomplish a few good things.

He already knew for a fact that something positive would come of it—he was going to get to see the new blonde on the block for a while tonight. And that was definitely something good.

Good enough to almost make him feel as if things were already looking up….

“Did you say you were from Denver?”

“I did,” Shandie confirmed in answer to the question Dax asked her as he pulled away from her house Wednesday night.

He’d come to her door only a few minutes earlier and won more of Kayla’s fondness by giving the three-year-old a set of toy racing motorcycles complete with a track. Then he’d helped Shandie on with her black, calf-length coat while telling her she looked terrific in her gray pin-striped, cuffed trousers and the white angora sweater she’d judged just dressy enough for the evening.

She’d returned Dax’s compliment, but it had been an understatement. He didn’t merely look nice, he looked jaw-droppingly fabulous in charcoal slacks and a black turtleneck sweater that gave him a man-of-mystery-and-danger sort of edge while still dressing him up, too.

But now that they were on their way, he was making small talk that Shandie thought was designed to conceal that he was very much on edge. And while she didn’t wish him any stress or discord from his other relationships, she just hoped his tension wasn’t a result of being with her.

“I was born and raised in Denver,” she continued. “It’s where I’ve lived all my life.”

He smelled wonderful, too, she thought as the scent of a clean, airy cologne wafted to her in the cab of his truck.

“And you just decided to chuck it all and move to Thunder Canyon?” he asked.

“Well, I wasn’t really ‘chucking it all.’ I was a late-in-life baby, and both my parents are gone. Judy is all the family Kayla and I have left, so when she offered me a partnership in the Clip ’n Curl and it meant moving up here, I thought why not? Especially since Thunder Canyon is relatively small—it just seemed like it might be a better place to raise a child on my own.”

Dax nodded.

“What about you?” Shandie asked to keep the ball rolling. “Are you from here or from somewhere else?”

“Thunder Canyon—born and bred.”

“And you’ve always lived here?”

“I’ve done some traveling but, yeah, this has always been home. For better or for worse.”

“Do you not like it here?” Shandie inquired, wondering if that was what he was implying.

“No, I like it. Well enough not to leave it, I guess.”

“Has that been a possibility? Your moving away?”

“It’s something I think about from time to time,” he said. “But don’t let that change your mind about Thunder Canyon—you’re right, it is a good place to raise kids. I had a lot of fun growing up here. I think Kayla will, too. If Jack S. gets off her back.”

“I don’t know. Kayla and Jack S. seem to have a love-hate thing going,” Shandie joked.

They’d arrived at the main lodge of the Thunder Canyon Resort by then.

Like a tour guide, Dax informed her that what had begun as a ski resort was now a four-season destination that drew upscale tourists from around the world.

Shandie wasn’t surprised that the beauty of the rustically elegant Alpine-flavored gateway to the mountain had become a big draw.

There were parking spots closer to the entrance, but several cars had pulled in just in front of them and Dax seemed to hang back from where they were all headed, choosing a spot behind them.

“Looks like everybody’s getting here at once,” he observed, apparently recognizing the cars.

“Then we won’t be too early or too late,” Shan-die said brightly, as if she hadn’t noted the more somber note that had edged Dax’s comment.

He turned off the engine, removed the keys from the ignition and put them in his pocket, but he made no move to leave the truck. Instead, his gaze was glued to those other cars and the people who were emerging from them without any hesitation.

“Who’s who?” Shandie asked as they all seemed to gather to say hello without any knowledge that she and Dax were there watching.

“The tallest guy in the coat that looks like it came straight out of a magazine? That’s Grant Clifton. He manages the resort now, which seems right since he’s always been driven and ambitious. He’s the man to make it be all that it can be.”

“And the woman he’s holding hands with?”

“Stephanie Julen. Steph, Grant’s fiancée. She’s our nature girl—more at home on the back of a horse than anyone I’ve ever known. Next to them—the guy built like a brick wall—is Mitchell Cates. He’s the founder and president of Cates International, a company that sells farm and ranch equipment. He caused some trouble when we were kids,” Dax said affectionately and clearly with fond memories of the trouble. “But he’s pretty serious now. That’s Lizbeth Stanton with him…”

Dax’s tone had slowly brightened as he’d talked about his friends, and Shandie could tell that he was genuinely fond of them and even proud of their accomplishments and attributes. But that brighter tone dimmed with the mention of the woman Shandie had heard he’d been engaged to.

Was he jealous now that Lizbeth Stanton was with his old friend? Shandie wondered. Or were there harder feelings between him and his former fiancée than he’d let on when he’d said what little he’d said before about her being at this dinner?

But Dax didn’t offer anything else on the subject of Lizbeth Stanton, and Shandie didn’t think it was the right time to pry.

So, instead, she prompted him to go on by saying, “Next to them?”

“That’s Marshall—Mitchell’s brother.” The warmer tone returned to his voice. “He’s a doctor. Sports medicine. He practices at the resort now that it’s grown, but he was at the hospital in town before. He’s with Mia—she’s actually an heiress who came to Thunder Canyon to hide out. That’s how they hooked up.”

“They look happy,” Shandie commented, feeling a twinge for what she’d lost herself as she looked at them standing there with their arms wrapped around each other’s waists.

“Russ Chilton is beside Marshall. Russ has a ranch outside of town. He’s our good ol’ boy. He likes things the way they are, doesn’t like that change and progress are not only on the 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 this isn’t your fault. It’s just something Kayla will do when she gets wound up,” Shandie told the teenager as she accepted the security blanket from her.

Then Shandie returned her attention to her daughter and said, “Kayla, go back to bed. I’ll pay Misty and then I’ll be there to tuck you in.”

“I don’ wanna go to bed. I wanna play motorcycles with Dax-like-Max-the-dog,” Kayla said.

Shandie had to lunge to catch the tyke as Kayla tried to run again.

“Like I said, wound up,” Shandie repeated to her onlookers as she settled her daughter on her hip.

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