A Holiday Romance (15 page)

“That’s not—”

“I’ll share some advice, since you seem like a nice girl,” Kyle’s mother interrupted again. “Give him up now. Save yourself the heartache. That boy—
both
my boys—they’re like their dad. Got their eyes on the prize.”

“Oh.”

Don’t believe her,
Kyle had said.

She was trying not to. But it was hard, especially after he’d pretty much admitted that he was planning to fire his brother.

“Now, that man, lemme tell ya,
he
was a handsome devil,” Lu said with a sigh. “I knew there’d be no good end to our marriage, but I just couldn’t help myself.”

“I’m not sure…are you divorced from Kyle’s father?”

“Nah. We’re still legally wed, after all these years. But that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when the
dickweed hasn’t shown his face in more years’n little Jasper can count.”

“I’m sorry.”

Luanne grabbed the bowl and swept from the kitchen, Alice at her heels. “Like I always told my hubby when he showed up with his hat in hand,
sorry
doesn’t pay the rent, but a twelve-hour shift slinging hash surely does.” Her laugh carried like a foghorn. “Bring that platter of sandwiches, will ya, hon? We got a hungry crowd out here.”

K
YLE HAD BROUGHT
the birthday cake in a bakery box with the PM logo, but it was Denver who carried it from the kitchen, candles ablaze. He sang with gusto.

The rest of the family joined in. Kyle stood, but Alice remained in her chair. Jasper, three years old and wearing a soggy pair of pull-up diapers beneath his swim trunks, had planted himself in her lap. It was like holding a sack of wet cement, but she was happy. She felt included.

She wished Kyle felt the same way. He was stiff. Uncommunicative. Not the thoughtful, wry and generous man she’d come to know, the one who was even willing to poke fun at himself. The tension between him and his sister was palpable. Alice didn’t understand why.

Daisy was a plump strawberry-blond version of her mother. She had a blunt way of talking that veered toward harsh. The favor she showed Denver seemed designed to spite Kyle.

Alice didn’t like her.

Daisy passed a wedge of cake to Alice. “You can feed Jasper. He’s taken to you.”

The little boy said “Yah!” and thrust a chubby hand into the frosting.

“Bad, Jas,” Daisy said flatly. She handed a slab of
cake to Denver. “Here you go.” Kyle got a narrow slice, pushed lazily across the table.

Alice wiped Jasper’s hand with a paper napkin and gave him one of the plastic forks. “Do you know how to use a fork?”

“Yah!”

Arabella piped up with “How old are you, Grandma?” She was a chunky nine-year-old with big blue eyes and wispy hair the color of sand. She’d already asked Alice if she was going to marry her uncle Kyle and then said, “Why not? Because he’s mean?” She’d offered Alice Denver, instead. Alice had politely declined, though she wondered what on earth Daisy had been saying around the girl. Kyle deserved a lot better.

“Sixty-five years young, pumpkin,” said Luanne.

“Are you retired?” Alice asked.

“Sure am,” Luanne said. “Kyle forced me to, couple years ago.”

Her older son lifted a forkful of cake in an ironic salute. “Terrible of me, wasn’t it?”

“No, that was sweet,” Alice said after a silence. If they wouldn’t defend him, she would. She was also fairly sure he was funding the retirement.

“My corns’ll never heal,” his mother said, “but my arthritis isn’t so bad these days.”

“Kyle said you’re the gardener. I noticed the roses when we drove up. They’re lovely.”

“Lots of fuss and bother,” said Daisy. “And Jas is always getting stuck with the thorns.”

Lu snorted. “Grammy’ll teach him to keep his hands where they don’t belong.” She ruffled the boy’s hair. “My little monkey.”

He’d stuffed half of a huge bite of cake in his mouth. The rest was on his face. “Yah, monkey!”

Alice reached for a clean napkin. She smiled at Daisy. “When’s the next one due?”

“I’m six months.”

“Do you know if it’s a boy or girl?”

“We’re gonna be surprised.”

Judd, the silent husband, grunted. “Better be a boy.”

Alice looked at Arabella. “Girls are just as nice.”

“Right,” Kyle said forcefully. “Two nieces for me would be twice as nice.”

While her daughter beamed, Daisy frowned. “Like you’d ever see either of ’em.”

“I’ll try to do better. I’m sorry I haven’t been around for so long. But you know how my job is.”

“Yeah.” She sneered. “I know how your job is.”

“Children,” snapped Luanne, “it’s my birthday!”

Daisy’s mouth was puckered into a knot. She narrowed her eyes and turned to Alice. “What would you say about a man who’d fire his own sister? His own sister who was a single mom with two kids to support. That’s a really shitty thing to do, don’tcha think?”

Alice felt her mouth drop open. It was
Daisy
he’d fired! She’d thought he’d meant an impending dismissal of Denver.

She glanced at Kyle. His expression was stony but resigned, as if he’d heard this all before. Many times over.

“I…I guess I’d have to know the circumstances,” she said.

Daisy sniffed. “There aren’t any circumstances that justify it.”

“I had no choice.” Kyle’s voice was toneless. “
You
gave me no choice, through your own actions.”

“I told you. I didn’t do it.”

“Gawd, Daise,” Judd suddenly erupted. He slammed his beer can on the table. “It’s been more’n a year already. Give it up, will ya? The poor guy’s paid his blood money.”

“You never take my side.” Daisy burst into tears. “And I’m
pregnant!
”

There was a dreadful silence around the table, filled only with Daisy’s sobs. At least, Alice thought it was dreadful. She fumbled for something placating to say. “I’m sure that…that…”

“Never mind her.” Luanne lit a cigarette. “It’s hormones.”

“Please don’t fight,” Arabella squeaked.

Kyle stood. He commanded attention. “I’ve got to cut this short,” he said briskly. “I promised Alice a drive around the town.” Without looking at her, he plucked Jasper out of her arms and set him on the floor. “Ready to go?”

She shot up. “Yes.”

Arabella’s face crumpled. “What about Grandma’s presents?”

Kyle patted her head. “You go ahead and help her open them, honey.”

“Hey, you abandoning me without a ride?” Denver was the only one at the table who seemed to find the family fireworks entertaining.

“We’ll be back.” Kyle looked as though that was the last thing he wanted.

“Go on, then.” Daisy mopped her face with a paper napkin. “Get out. We’ll do just fine without you and your friend.”

“Gawd, Daise,” Judd was repeating as Kyle and Alice hastily departed.

K
YLE PULLED OFF
the highway and parked at an empty stretch of land, staring at the scrub grass and creosote bushes. One lone cottonwood tree stood in the distance.

“It’s gone,” he said.

“Your old house,” Alice guessed.

“Yeah.” They got out of the car and walked. Took in the empty window frame with grass growing through the openings, a couple of leaning fence posts, sagging wire still attached, a rusty bucket half-filled with sand.

Kyle shaded his eyes. “I wonder when it was torn down. Daisy never mentioned it.”

“Had to be quite a while ago.” In the tall grass, Alice picked out the crumbling ruins of the foundation. “You never came by before?”

Kyle lifted a weathered board and a lizard scurried out from beneath it. “I never wanted to come back. Thought the place would bring up bad memories.” He dropped the board. “But this is nothing. Just a lot of nothing.”

She went over and hooked her arm through his. “You must have good memories here, too. Those aren’t gone.”

He made a noncommittal sound. “Daisy was Arabella’s age when we left. A cute little thing. She really looked up to me then, her big brother. She loved me.”

“She will again.”

“I doubt that. She blames me for everything that’s gone wrong in her life.”

“Why? You gave her a job, didn’t you?” Just like Denver.

“Right after I was promoted to manager at the Oasis. She worked as an office receptionist for nearly two years.”

They picked their way through the scrub. He stopped and put his foot on a dusty pile of cinderblocks. “Here’re the front steps. Would you like to sit?”

Alice hesitated. Kyle grabbed a bunch of pampas grass and used it like a broom to sweep away most of the dirt. He produced a handkerchief, spread it across the step and gestured her to sit.

“Thank you.” She perched on the blocks. He
would
be the sort of a man who carried a clean hankie. “Your sister seems to think I’m something better than I really am.”

“Forget it. Daisy has an inferiority complex, like my mother. They resent success.”

“I don’t see why.”

He sat beside her, took a breath and put his head in his hands. He scuffed the dirt with his shoe. “Daisy wasn’t always that way, only after things didn’t work out for her with her first husband. She got bitter then.” He rubbed his eyes before straightening and looking across the barren patch of land that had once been his front yard. “She hated working at the resort. Said it wasn’t a real home.”

“She was staying there with her kids?”

“Yes. We have employee day care. Jasper was a baby. Her husband had taken off while she was still pregnant. It didn’t help that our mother was constantly chiming in with I-told-you-so.”

“She had it rough,” Alice conceded.

“I liked having them around. Arabella, especially. There were ponies in the stable. I used to take her there every chance I had. I guess her mom’s turned the child against me since then.”

“I knew you were a good uncle.”

He frowned. “She’s asked me to bring her back to the resort so she could see the water park. And I haven’t found the time.”

“Schedule it.”

“Right.”

“Like any other appointment.” She brushed her fingers over his arm. It was brown and strong, with tiny hairs that looked gold in the sunshine. “You made time to come today.”

“Mainly because of you.” He turned his hand over.

She slid hers into it. “How so?”

“Hearing about the sacrifices you made for your mother got me thinking about why I’ve resented the things I’ve done for my family. I always thought I’d given them whatever they wanted. But I withheld myself.” He laughed shortly. “I’m not sure they want me anymore, but I may as well try.”

“It’ll take a while to heal the hurt feelings. Yours, too.” Alice turned over what he’d said. “But none of that is really because of me. It’s all you.
You’re
making the change.”

“Yeah, well, I also thought you’d take me more seriously if I let you into my life.”

“I
was
taking you seriously.”

“Not that night when you came to my suite and said—”

She winced. “Let’s forget that ever happened. I had vacation brain. I was trying to get your attention or something.”

He chuckled and lifted her hand to his mouth. The kiss he pressed to her knuckles made her shiver in the heat. “You’re too good for me.”

“You know that’s so far from the truth!” She yanked the pins from her hair and the French twist disintegrated into a hanging mess. She shook it out. “I’ll never be as sophisticated as your old girlfriends.”

“Do you think I want you to be?”

“Well, maybe.” Her experience with Stewart and his replacement fiancée was coloring her response, but she couldn’t help that. “Jenna is gorgeous.”

“And we’re not together.” He brought both his hands to her head and smoothed her hair. “You have your own beauty. It’s not fleeting. It’s real.”

He kissed her. She melted into his arms, amazed that a day that had turned so wrong could suddenly seem right again. Her lips parted and he licked into her mouth.

He pressed kisses along her throat. Her back arched, her breasts pressed against his chest. She let her head drop back into the cradle of his hands, losing herself in pleasure. Allowing it, at last.

The low rumble of thunder in the distance brought her back. “Tell me the rest of the story,” she whispered into his ear after kissing it.

He moaned. “Now?”

“While I’ve got you distracted.”

Kyle spoke swiftly. “I’d already put Daisy on notice after she was caught using an unoccupied hotel room for…
assignations
with another member of the staff.”

He didn’t give Alice a chance to comment on that astonishing news. “Next our office manager noticed that small amounts from petty cash were missing.” His fingers were still laced in her hair and he pulled them
out. “The manager started a private inventory and found other things disappearing, as well. Minor items like office supplies at first, but then an old answering machine. A few weeks later, a laser printer. Two of the secretaries had cash taken from their purses.”

“Oh, no. It was Daisy?”

“We set up our own sting operation, with a hidden camera and a wallet and an expensive watch left in one of the desks. As soon as Daisy was alone in the office, she went for it.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. Ouch. My own sister.”

“But how can she possibly blame you?”

“Easy. I set her up. I fired her. Even with the evidence on camera, she swore she was innocent, that she was only going to put the cash and watch away where they’d be safe.” He snorted. “Like in her own bag.”

“She should be grateful that you didn’t call the police.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

Alice mulled the sequence of events. They didn’t quite add up. “How did she end up living in a nice house in Elk River? By marrying Judd?”

“No, he came later.” Kyle seemed reluctant to explain. Finally he added, “She was going to be homeless after leaving the resort. What else could I do?”

“
You
bought her the house?”

He nodded. “She married Judd a few months after moving to Elk River. I don’t know him well, but he seems like an okay guy. I’m hoping it’ll work out.”

Alice was angry, for Kyle’s sake. “I’m sorry to say this, but your sister is a miserable ingrate. She treats you horribly, even after everything you’ve done for her.” Alice got even angrier. “And now you’ve hired
Denver, too, who doesn’t give you any more respect than Daisy.”

“I told you—they resent me.”

“While they leech off you.”

“Family’s family. I’ll always help them out. You, of all people, know what that’s like.”

“I suppose.” She leaned her chin on her fist. The air was growing heavy with humidity. A slight breeze rippled the long grass and she tilted her face toward it. “But they still ought to be grateful.”

“It’s all right. I got over expecting anything from them years ago.”

She looked at him sideways. “How did you turn out the way you did, coming from the same home as your brother and sister?”

“Maybe because I was the oldest. I was thirteen when I made up my mind I wasn’t going to live like that for the rest of my life. I knew I’d need a scholarship to get to college, so I concentrated on schoolwork above everything else. Every time we moved, I made damn sure my transcripts were in order and that I stayed caught up in my classes.”

Alice blinked back tears before he saw them. “Good for you,” she said around the lump in her throat.

He picked up her hand. “Yeah, but I’m starting to see that I’ve been too single-minded.”

“That was the only way you could manage.”

“Back then.” He studied her with regret in his eyes. “It’s different now. I’m already a success, even without the next promotion. I don’t
have
to be so rigid anymore. But it’s become a habit, I guess.”

She lifted her face to the rising wind. The brilliant blue of the sky was graying at the edges. “I know all
about the board review, or whatever it’s called. I don’t want to be a distraction.”

“No worries. I’m set. I’ve been working on acing this presentation for weeks.” He sounded confident. “Nothing can go wrong now.”

That was what she’d said to Denver. No worries. She prayed that Kyle was right, knowing she’d been guilty of steering him wrong. She hadn’t fully understood how cavalier she’d been—flirting with Denver, trying to entice Kyle into breaking the rules himself. She’d been reckless.

Reckless, but besotted.

“It’s going to rain,” he said, rising from the step as thunder crackled and boomed in the distance. He held out his hand to her. “We’d better go.”

Lightning brightened the horizon, a split-second flash that lit the dark clouds.

Ominous. The hair at Alice’s nape lifted. She took Kyle’s hand.

T
HE STORM LASHED
the windshield, but went eerily quiet the instant Kyle drove under the tiled roof that extended past the loggia to the parking area. Through the gray sheets of rain splashing down on the courtyard, squares of welcoming lamplight beamed from the condominium buildings.

“Door-to-door service,” Kyle announced. He powered down his window before turning off the engine. The air in the car was heavy and damp. “You won’t even get wet.”

Alice had been quiet on the drive home. Even Denver had known when to shut up, except for his “See ya around, hypocrite,” when they’d dropped him off at his quarters near the stable grounds.

It was early evening. They’d all made nice with each other after Kyle and Alice had returned to his sister’s house. Daisy had accepted a hug. His mother had opened her birthday gifts, regaled Alice on the ins and outs of rose gardening, then lured them into several games of Bunco. Still, they’d left earlier than planned. He’d blamed the long drive ahead of them.

At her door, Alice said, “I’d offer you a drink, but I don’t suppose you should come inside.”

“Is that an invitation?”

She hesitated. “Yes, if it’s all right.”

“There are no resort police patrolling for staff lawbreakers.”

But as he spoke, a door opened farther along and a silver-haired woman poked her head out. “Oh, it’s you, Alice. Hello. And Mr. Jarreau.” A big smile. “Storm’ll be stopping soon, wouldn’t you say? There should be a fine sunset.”

“That was Mary Grace,” Alice said after the woman had gone back inside.

“One of the wedding crashers.”

“They, uh, have been keeping an eye on me.”

“Does she have a nephew, too?”

“A son. And he’s a doctor. He lives halfway across the country, but Mary Grace is giving him my phone number.” Alice opened the door. “If I’d known about the senior set’s propensity for matchmaking, I’d’ve worked my mother’s friends for dates.”

“You don’t want to marry a lobsterman.”

“Why not?”

“Too much pinching.” He goosed her and she shot into the apartment with a squeal of laughter. He followed, telling himself he’d only stay for a drink.

Alice went to stow the empty cooler in the kitchen. “Is wine okay? Or you could check out the bottles on the liquor cart. They came with the place. I’m not much of a drinker.”

He chose a bottle of whiskey and polished a highball glass on his sleeve. “This place is nicely decorated.”

“I lucked out,” she agreed, coming into the living room with an ice tray and a glass of white wine for herself. “Even if every day has been hot enough to roast a Christmas turkey.”

“The rain cools it off.” The storm had ceased. He opened one of the glass sliders and a fresh breeze billowed through the stuffy room.

She’d dropped to the sofa. He watched while she kicked off her shoes. There was something sensual about the action. Perhaps her throaty moan as she wiggled her toes.