A Family for the Holidays

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.