The Kidnapped Christmas Bride (Taming of the Sheenans Book 3) (14 page)

Those things mattered.

Watching Trey and TJ together now she felt as if she could see Trey, truly see him, all the way through to his soul.

And no, his soul wasn’t shiny and silver bright, but tarnished like the vintage balls on the tree, and perhaps even bruised and broken, marked with jagged cuts and welts and scars.

Yet for all those scars and dull marks, there was something so very beautiful in him. He was alive, and strong, and deep.

But then, wasn’t that the appeal from the beginning. That he was flawed and real? That he was open and honest?
Human.

He’d never tried to cover up his weaknesses. He’d never sugar-coated anything for anyone, and he certainly had never pretended to be a perfect man, one of those romance novel heroes….all good and pure, the idealized boyfriend every girl wanted.

No. He wasn’t that great, stand up guy.

But it hadn’t mattered. She’d loved him anyway, as even broken and flawed, he’d felt like hers.

She’d been the one to seduce him. She’d been the one to push his buttons, wanting him to treat her like a woman, not a girl. Wanting him to be hot and demanding, sensual and physical.

He’d wanted to marry her ever since he graduated from high school. He’d wanted to do the right thing by her, but she refused to marry him until he stopped fighting and drinking and driving and staying out late causing trouble with ‘the boys’. She didn’t like that he was one person with her, and then this street-tough alpha with everyone else. Why couldn’t he be as kind and charming with everyone as he was with her? Why couldn’t he try harder to fit in? Settle down? Be good?

They’d fought about his behavior for years…

Don’t cause trouble. Don’t stay out too late. Don’t drink too much because you’ll just end up doing something stupid…

But he liked who he was and he wasn’t interested in changing. He enjoyed all the things she was afraid of…the fist fights, the late nights, the rowdy groups of guys he hung out with. He enjoyed being tough, strong, slightly dangerous.

“This is who I am,” he’d told her more than once. “This is what I am.”

“Someday something will happen,” she’d answer. “Someday something beyond your control.”

And then it had happened. The fight at the Wolf Den, with its disastrous results. Bradley Warner had died after falling and striking his head on the edge of the bar, and Trey was arrested and charged with manslaughter.

It didn’t matter that Trey had intervened to protect Bradley’s pregnant girlfriend from Bradley’s fists. It didn’t matter that witnesses said that Trey had only thrown a few punches and had never lost control. It didn’t matter that Trey was supposed to be the good guy and Brad was the bad guy. Because Brad died and Trey was responsible and Trey had to pay.

There were consequences for fighting.

Consequences for not following rules.

Consequences for being tough and physical and fearless.

For the past two years McKenna had told herself that she was rejecting Trey because she didn’t want TJ to grow up like him, but suddenly she knew she’d wronged them, both of them.

There was so much good in Trey, and so much good in TJ.

She couldn’t reject one without rejecting the other and suddenly she wasn’t so sure that being good, being safe, was the right answer.

She didn’t want to be stupid and didn’t want danger, but she wanted more than safe, wanted more than predictable.

She wanted teasing and smiles, love and laughter.

She wanted her heart back.

She wanted her life back.

She wanted Trey and TJ together.

With her.

Together a family with her.

But she was scared. She was scared that if she let down her guard, if she allowed Trey back in, something bad could happen—again—and she could lose him, and her heart, and her happiness all over. Again.

‡

M
cKenna woke up
to the incessant trilling and drumming of a bird outside her cabin window. It had been going on and on and she’d tried to ignore it and fall back asleep but it wasn’t happening, not while the bird kept thrumming and kuk-kuk-kuking outside the window.

Climbing from bed she went to the small window and pushed back the shutter. She shivered in her pajamas, which was really just a man’s t-shirt, X-Large, and craned her head to try to find the offending bird. The sun was just starting to rise and she couldn’t see a bird, but she could still hear it,
kuk-kuk-kuking,
over and over.

McKenna bumped into Trey in the hallway. He was fully dressed and she tugged the hem of the t-shirt down, trying to cover herself.

“You’re up early,” he said.

“What time is it?” she asked, thinking that the t-shirt had seemed perfectly roomy and modest last night but seemed to cover far less of her now.

“Not quite six.”

“I didn’t want to be awake this early,” she answered, smothering a yawn. “But there is the most annoying bird outside—”

“Our resident woodpecker. I heard it, too.”

“It’s been making noise half the night.”

“The pileated woodpeckers do. Our woods are full of them. They love the old growth trees.”

“Great.”

He must have noticed that she kept tugging on the hem of her t-shirt. “Aren’t you wearing panties?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You’re acting excessively virginal, Mac,” he said, sounding amused.

“Be quiet. Go shave. Or better yet, be useful and make some coffee.”

“I have, and it’s waiting for you, Princess. Or was I supposed to bring it to you in bed?”

“
No
.” And yet the moment he said the word bed, her imagination sparked, creating all sorts of wanton images in her head. Images she didn’t want or need. Because when it came to making love with Trey, reality was so much better than fantasy. He was that good. And he felt that good, and no, she’d never slept with any other man than Trey, so she didn’t know if it’d be that good with someone else, but honestly, she hadn’t wanted to find out.

Trey had been her only one.

Although once she married Lawrence, she would have obviously had to make love to him. She suppressed a faint shudder. She hadn’t been looking forward to that.

Although she was pretty sure he had.

She crossed her arms over her chest, hiding her breasts. “Did any of your brothers ever leave a robe behind?”

“Nope, but I did find an old wool cardigan. It’s huge, XXL, and rather moth eaten but it could be a robe on you.”

“I’ll take it. Thank you.”

She was in the kitchen filling her cup when he returned with a grey, beige and cream knit sweater with an Indian motif.

“That’s beautiful,” she said, taking the wool sweater from him and examining the intricate Indian design.

“My great Grandmother Cray made it. My mother said she made hundreds of sweaters and blankets during her life to help pay bills. Cormac has been able to track down a few in antique stores and on eBay as her stitches and designs are different from the Coastal Salish, but this sweater has been in the family forever. It was probably made for one of my uncles, or even my great grandfather.”

“It should be in a museum.”

“No, it shouldn’t. It was made for family, it should be worn by family.”

“But I’m not—”

“Yes, you are. You’re my family. You’ll always be family to me.”

She undid the sturdy buttons and slipped one arm in and then the other. The sweater was heavy and long, and a little bit itchy, but it was a Cray family heirloom, and she could feel the history in it, and the love.

Her eyes suddenly burned and she looked down, focusing on working the wood buttons through the holes. “Do you ever think about that side of your family?” she asked, voice husky. “Do you ever think that maybe the reason you felt like such an outsider in Marietta was because you take after the Crays? That maybe you were never meant to be cooped up in classrooms and offices but outside…free?”

He didn’t immediately answer and she looked up, to find him staring hard at her, a strange expression on his face.

“What?” she whispered. “Was that a bad thing to say?”

“My mom used to say that,” he said quietly. “She said that Troy and I might be identical twins, but he’d inherited the Sheenan blood and I’d inherited the Crays.” His mouth curved but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Every time I got in trouble when I was little, every time my dad took the belt to me, or a switch, she would apologize to me, saying that we needed to forgive my father for not understanding who I was, and being unable to recognize my spirit.”

His powerful shoulders shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t know what to think when I was younger. Dad didn’t recognize Mom’s Native American heritage. He didn’t want a wife that was ‘mixed’, and forbad her from telling us stories about Indian folklore and customs. But now and then when I couldn’t sleep, I’d go find her, and inevitably those were the nights my father was out and my mother would be awake, staring out the window, looking westward.”

Trey glanced down at McKenna, expression pensive. “I didn’t understand then how deeply lonely my mother was. She never talked about her loneliness but looking back, we all see it—her sons—and it’s hard to realize how much she gave to us and how little she got back—”

“I don’t think that’s a fair assessment,” McKenna interrupted. “Children are not responsible for meeting their parents’ needs.”

“Maybe not when they are young, but by high school, I should have been more aware, more sensitive. Instead I was at my most rebellious.”

“Because you were a teenager, filled with testosterone!”

He shrugged. “I wish you could have heard her stories. I wish I had recorded them or written them down because on those nights when my father was gone, she would talk about the Salish, the Kootenai and the Pend d’Oreille Tribes and how their beliefs about life were so different from the righteous Christians that only talked to God in Church. She said for the Flathead tribes, spirit was everywhere, and that all things were connected and to be respected, plants, rocks, animals, people. She said it was hard to find peace when one simply used things selfishly, and never gave back to the earth. She said the land wasn’t there simply to be stripped, but to be protected. The trees and animals have a right to exist. Man is to recognize the spirit in each of them.”

McKenna swallowed around the lump forming in her throat. “But you didn’t need to record her stories to remember them. You’ve remembered.”

“I miss her.”

She went to him then, and wrapped her arms around his waist and held him, hugging him, knowing he needed to feel her—his mother’s love—and if he couldn’t have that, he could have her love.

Because she would always love him.

And she had always seen his spirit—and it was good. Yes, he had a wild streak, and he might not ever be completely tamed, but maybe that was who he was meant to be? Beautiful, fierce, and protective.

“She’s still with you,” McKenna whispered. “Especially here. I can feel her here.”

Trey wrapped his arms around her and held her for a moment, before placing a kiss on the top of her head and breaking free.

“There is supposed to be a storm coming in tonight,” he said gruffly. “I’m going to go have a look at the generator, make sure it’s in working order.” And then he was gone, disappearing quickly out the front door.

*

It’d been a
dry and cold December in much of Montana, with freezing conditions but very little snow. It had snowed hard early in the month but whatever remained in the valleys was now compacted and brown.

With Christmas Eve just three days away, everyone was ready for fresh snow, saying it wouldn’t be Christmas without a dusting of powdery white, but the storm coming was supposed to be a big one, with a foot or two of snow falling steadily throughout the night, making it difficult for the snowplows to keep up.

A foot of snow was a lot for Cherry Lake, and the record for heaviest snowfall in one day was sixteen inches back in December of 1929. No one wanted a foot of snow, not so close to Christmas when there was still so much shopping to do and last minute presents to mail.