The Kidnapped Christmas Bride (Taming of the Sheenans Book 3) (8 page)

Trey took a
seat on one side of the burgundy booth tucked along the wall, and McKenna and TJ sat on the other. Trey barely glanced at the plastic coated menu but TJ wanted to have all his options read to him, even though McKenna knew he’d order chicken and buttered noodles.

The waitress returned a few minutes later with glasses of water and to take their order. Trey wanted a steak sandwich and TJ chose his chicken and buttered noodles. McKenna was more stressed than hungry and asked about the diner’s soup.

“It’s vegetable beef,” the waitress answered. “It’s from yesterday but it’s good. I had some earlier.”

“I’ll have a cup of that,” McKenna said, closing her menu. “And coffee, please.”

The waitress put away her notepad. “Cream with that?”

“No, thank you.”

“Is the coffee fresh?” Trey asked.

“Brewing a new pot now.”

“I’ll have a cup, too,” he said.

“Two coffees coming up,” the waitress said. “And what about the little guy? Milk, chocolate milk, juice?”

“Milk,” McKenna answered. “Thank you.”

The waitress headed to the kitchen and McKenna glanced to the register and phone. She needed to call. She should do it soon.

As if reading her mind, Trey said, “You need to call. Everybody’s going to be worried.”

McKenna nodded. “Yeah.”

“I’m sure the waitress will let you.”

McKenna nodded again. She was dreading the call. It wouldn’t be easy. Nothing about this was easy.

Trey was studying her face. “What’s wrong?”

She shrugged. “It’s going to get messy. Fast.”

“It’s already messy,” he answered.

“Yeah, but—” she broke off as the waitress returned with their coffees and the milk for TJ.

“Anything else?” the waitress asked.

“Would it be all right to use the phone?” Trey asked. “It’s a call to Marietta.”

“Sure thing, hon. You know where the phone is? On the counter, up front? Help yourself. Just dial normally.”

“Thanks.”

The waitress moved on and McKenna looked at Trey. “You didn’t have to do that. I could have handled it myself.”

“Just trying to help you.”

“Mr. Helpful, that’s you.”

His blue eyes sparked, lips curving slightly. “I can be good.”

“Mmm.”

“I was instrumental in making Deer Lodge’s ranch program successful.”

“You’ve always been a good rancher. That was never the problem.”

“I always loved you, and TJ.”

“Your love wasn’t the problem, either.” She sipped her coffee. It was surprisingly strong and hot. She sipped again. “I think you know what the problem was.”

“You’ve always known who I am. I’ve never hidden it from you.”

“It’s one thing to fight at seventeen, and another when you’re a thirty-one year old man with a fiancée and a baby.”

“Who did you kill?” TJ blurted.

“Who told you he killed someone?” McKenna demanded.

“Lawrence.” TJ shrugged. “He said he wasn’t supposed to say anything, and so I shouldn’t say anything to you ‘cause it’d upset you.” He looked across the table at Trey. “Did you really kill someone?”

“Yes,” Trey said bluntly. “I did. I didn’t mean to kill him though. We got into a fight in a bar.”

TJ clasped his milk, more intrigued than scared. “How you’d do it?”

Trey held his gaze. “I punched him.”

“You punched him to
death
?”

“No. I hit him three times. On the third punch he went backward, hit his head on the edge of a table. He died a couple of days later.”

“The police arrested you?”

Trey nodded. “There was a trial, and two days before your first birthday I was sentenced to five years in jail.”

“What’s jail like?”

“Bad. You don’t want to ever go there.”

“I used to go there. That’s what Mom said.”

“Yeah, but it’s not a place for kids. It’s not a place you want to visit again.” Trey looked up at McKenna. “I didn’t know why you stopped coming to see me, but I do now. And you were right. It wasn’t the place for him.” He hesitated. “Or you.”

McKenna struggled to speak around the lump in her throat. “I should have explained it to you. I should have told you—” she broke off and bit down into her lip. “It’s been such a mess, hasn’t it?”

Trey grimaced. “Still is.”

“Yeah.” She glanced toward the phone, knowing she needed to make the call, knowing that the moment she made the call everything would change. Again.

“What are you worried about?” Trey asked, still able to read her so well.

Aware that TJ was listening intently, she picked her words with care. “I’m concerned Lawrence will have made some calls.”

“I’m sure he has,” Trey said bluntly. “If the situation was reversed, I would have.”

“I don’t think more…messy…is good for…anyone.” She glanced at TJ who was toying with his milk glass but his dark head was bent, and she knew he was taking it all in. “And I definitely don’t think it’s good for him.”

TJ glanced up, and looked from her to Trey before returning his attention to the glass.

“So what do you want to do?” Trey asked her, leaning against the burgundy vinyl, by all appearances comfortable and relaxed. But appearances were deceptive. This was Trey’s best defensive position. He was always relaxed before a fight.

She clasped her coffee mug between her hands, warming them. “Avoid unnecessary drama.”

“How do we do that?”

She shot TJ another quick glance. “We have dinner. You go. I call. We wait for Lawrence to come.”

“I just leave you here?”

TJ’s shoulders hunched up. Her own insides churned. It took her a moment to reply. “I don’t know who will show up. I don’t know how all the pieces will come together. I do think it’ll be less—tense—if it’s just me and TJ here.”

Trey’s jaw tightened. He looked away, out the front window onto the dark, mostly empty parking lot.

He didn’t like the plan. He was wrestling with himself. It wasn’t his nature to walk away from those he loved. If left to him, he’d rather stay and get handcuffed and hauled away, than to drive away, leaving them behind.

She nearly reached out to touch him but remembered herself at the last second. “I know you don’t want to,” she said quietly, fingers curling into her palm. “But it’s better. Better for him.”

Trey glanced at TJ, and TJ looked up at that moment, to meet Trey’s gaze.

Two Sheenans, cut from the very same fabric.

Her jaw ached and her eyes burned. She wished she could protect them both, but that was impossible. So she had to do the next best thing, protect their relationship. They loved each other. They needed each other. And they hadn’t had enough time with each other.

“I’ll go home and smooth things over,” she added. “We’ll let things settled down and then with a little luck and maybe some finessing, we can get you two together for Christmas, for a bit—”

“What is a bit? An hour? Two?” He shook his head. “That’s not Christmas.”

“It’s better than the alternative.”

“But is this the future? That I’ll have to learn to be grateful for an hour with my son on Christmas?”

“I hope not.”

“Me, too.”

They both watched TJ who was frowning into his milk, his forehead furrowed.

Trey shifted then abruptly said, “I’ll leave as soon as we’re done eating.”

She nodded, grateful. “Will you head to the Sheenan ranch?”

“I don’t know. Depends on how things work out.”

“I’m not pressing charges. Nobody will come after you—”

“That’s not the point. I just can’t be there without you and TJ. There’s nothing for me in Marietta if I don’t have you.”

“You’ve got your family—”

“
You
and TJ are my family. You’re the ones I love. Without you, there’s no point in sticking around—”

“Can I go wash my hands?” TJ asked, interrupting, showing them his palms. “They’re sticky.”

“I’ll take you,” McKenna said, sliding out from the bench.

“I can do it myself,” TJ answered, climbing from the booth. “I’m in Kindergarten now.”

She smiled a little. “Okay, but hurry. Dinner will be here soon.”

‡

T
rey watched McKenna’s
gaze follow TJ across the diner, her expression troubled.

“You’re a good mom,” Trey said quietly. “He’s so lucky to have you.”

She looked at him, tears in her eyes. “He’s missed you. So much.”

“He’s a sweet little boy. Smart, too.”

“You’re smart. Very smart. You just never liked following the rules.”

“True.”

“TJ doesn’t, either.”

“That could be problematic.”

“It already is.” She struggled to smile. “I worry about him. I worry that no one will understand him. I worry that people will judge him…much the way they’ve judged you.” Her voice broke and she looked away, swiftly wiping tears from beneath her eyes.

“It’s going to be okay, Mac.”

She looked at him, eyes wet. “Will it?” she asked hopefully.

Her make up had begun to fade and her high cheekbones jutted, her skin pale, gleaming like porcelain.

She looked younger without the blush and lipstick. More like his McKenna, the one he’d met his senior year at Marietta High when she was just a wide-eyed freshman, and the baby sister to Rory and Quinn.

It was impossible not to notice McKenna when school started in September. She was on the Frosh-Soph cheer squad and wore the short uniform red and white skirts every Friday, game day, and with her long bare legs and dark red hair spilling all the way down her back, she looked like a siren, and yet she was only fifteen years old.

He did his best to avoid her. He didn’t want to be attracted to her. He didn’t date freshman. He didn’t even like dating sophomores. But every now and then he’d find her looking at him, and she looked at him in a way no one else ever did.

She looked at him as if she could see him, see who he was, not who he pretended to be.

She looked at him as if he was good. Maybe even wonderful.

It made him feel funny, and his chest would get heavy and tight, and he became protective of her, not just because she was that Douglas girl, and not because she was impossibly pretty, but because she made him believe that maybe he was worth something. That maybe even though he was brash and reckless and in and out of trouble, that there was something still decent in him. Something real that had value.

And so he went out of his way to avoid her, not wanting to be tempted, because he was already far too tempted.

He stopped glancing her way when he knew she was around. He refused to meet her gaze. He wouldn’t get to know her.

He didn’t want to disappoint her, and it was inevitable he’d let her down. In his eighteen years, he’d disappointed everybody else.

But McKenna didn’t take the hint. She didn’t go away. She shadowed him as they took the same path to their respective fourth period classes. She stared at him as he hung out with the other seniors during lunch. She’d stand with her books on the sidewalk bordering the school parking lot waiting for her ride, and yet he sensed she wasn’t as much waiting to be picked up, as waiting to watch him walk by.

From all accounts she was a nice girl, and a smart girl, taking honors courses and getting straight A’s.

Why was she so interested in him?

He’d thought initially it might be the good girl-bad boy opposites attract thing, but she wasn’t one of those sheltered good girls. She wasn’t naïve. A year or so earlier she’d had her world blown wide open with the horrific home invasion on the Douglas Ranch and she was still coming to terms with the unthinkable tragedy.

You’d think she’d want to stay away from trouble.

You’d think she’d feel safer with the nice guys that hit the Honor Roll.

She was the one that approached him between classes, the day before the two week Christmas break. She was selling Christmas ornaments—flat brass angels—as part of a choir fundraiser and she wondered if he wanted to buy one.

Or several.

She was happy to sell him a dozen.

It was for a good cause.

He’d watched her face while she talked, fascinated by the curve of her lips and the glint of laughter in her wide, cat eyes. She was pretty at a distance, but stunning up close, her face all elegant lines and planes—cheekbone, jaw, nose, lips. But it was her eyes, jade green with flecks of sapphire and gold, that made it impossible to look away.

So he didn’t.

He cornered her against the gym wall and stared into her eyes. “And what would I do with a dozen angels, little girl?” he asked, his voice low, husky. Dangerous.

He saw the flicker in her eyes and the tip of her tongue dart to wet her upper lip. He couldn’t tell if she was afraid or intrigued.

“Give them as gifts,” she answered coolly. “Your mother and girlfriend might like one.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Well, your mother.”

“So that’s one. What about the other eleven?”

“You could hang them in your truck, put them in your room, string a few over your bed.” Her long black lashes blinked, her expression innocent. “Might help keep you out of trouble.”

She knew his reputation, then.