A Family for the Holidays

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?”