A Wedding for Christmas Read online

  “Mama,” he said. “Where’s my mama? I want my mama.”

  “Sit down, boy.” His father took him by the elbow and maneuvered him none too gently into a kitchen chair.

  What was wrong? What had he done? Why was he being kept from his mother?

  “Mama.” He bawled like a baby. “I want my mama.”

  “Your mama is gone,” his father said, in a rough voice.

  “Gone where?” Ryder demanded.

  “She’s in heaven with the angels.”

  “No.” Ryder shook his head violently. “No. She’s at home. Baking cookies.”

  “She’s dead, son. Like Max.”

  Max was his collie that had gotten run over the previous summer. Ryder pouched out his bottom lip. “No, no, no.”

  “She fell off the back porch,” his father went on, his jaw clenching tighter and tighter. “Tripped over that goddamn Tonka dump truck I kept telling you not to leave lying around. She tripped and fell wrong and broke her neck.”

  “Stop lying!” He whaled at his father, pummeling him with his fists.

  “I told you if you left that truck lying around someone would get hurt. I told you, I told you, I told you . . .” His father collapsed onto the kitchen table, sobbing brokenly. “You killed her. You killed her.”

  Great-Aunt Delilah rushed across the room to lay a hand on his father’s shoulder. “That’s enough, Jax. I know you’re hurting, but he’s only a boy. He didn’t mean to leave that truck out. He didn’t mean for it to happen.”

  “No! No! No!” Ryder slapped his palms over his ears to drown out the screams. His screams. His mother was dead and it was his fault.

  He went nuts then. Ran around the room. Pulled his hair. Knocked things off the counter. A toaster. Cups. Towels. Smashed a canister. Gritty sweet sugar dusted him.

  Dad grabbed him and held him until Ryder’s screams dissolved into helpless tears.

  “I love you, son, I’m sorry I said those things. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He squeezed Ryder hard. “I love you and everything is going to be all right.”

  But they both knew that was a lie. Nothing would ever be all right again. His father blamed him for his mother’s death, but no more than Ryder blamed himself.

  For two weeks Ryder stayed with Great-Aunt Delilah, through his mother’s funeral and the long days that followed. He began to think his father was never going to come take him home, and he would have to live there forever.

  Then one morning Great-Aunt Delilah woke him up for school. He blinked his eyes open, saw she was wearing the heart necklace, his mother’s heart necklace.

  Ryder had grabbed for her throat, trying to yank the necklace from around her neck. “No,” he yelled. “You can’t wear it. It’s not yours. It’s my mama’s.”

  Stunned, Great-Aunt Delilah staggered back, clutching where Ryder’s fingernails had raked across her skin, her feeble lips quivering. “You . . . you attacked me!”

  “You stole my mama’s necklace!”

  “Your father gave it to me.” She fingered the necklace. The silver heart his mother had loved so much shining in the light flooding in through the open curtains. “It’s mine now.”

  Feeling utterly betrayed by the world, Ryder had acted out in school, scrawling the dirtiest words he knew in black marker down the hallways. The principal called his father. Jax had spanked Ryder, stood there while he cleaned the marker off the walls. Told him the heart necklace belonged to Great-Aunt Delilah now. She’d wanted something special to remember his mother by, and she deserved it for taking care of Ryder.

  Ryder hated that, but he had a plan, and at least Jax finally took him home.

  One Saturday when he knew Great-Aunt-Delilah would be at the beauty shop, he walked two miles into town, slipped into her house, and reclaimed his mother’s necklace.

  When his father found the necklace under Ryder’s mattress two weeks later, he’d called Ryder a thief, and took the necklace away from him again.

  In a mad fury, Ryder had gone on a stealing spree, taking candy from the convenience store, pilfering his father’s loose change, filching money from the collection plate at church.

  Bad seed, people called him. Rotten to the core. Punk. Thug. Troublemaker. Rabble-rouser. Hooligan. Thief.

  Labels. Defining him.

  And Ryder had striven to live up to them all.

  Not knowing what else to do with his troubled son, Jax decided what Ryder needed was a new mother, and he’d married Twyla. Twyla’s husband had divorced her after the baby boy she’d been carrying was born dead and the doctors told her she could never have more children.

  In Jax’s mind, Ryder needed a mother, and Twyla needed a child to love. On the surface it was a win-win situation.

  Except things had not turned out that way.

  Ryder and Twyla had resented each other from the beginning. He wasn’t the son she’d lost and she wasn’t the mother he missed with every breath in his body. He was no angel. He did things on purpose to set Twyla off. Their tumultuous relationship came to a head when he was sixteen, and she accused him of stealing two thousand dollars from her drawer and running up her credit cards.

  Ryder tried to tell his dad how ridiculous her accusations were. Why would he charge sewing patterns and pantyhose and collectible dolls from the Franklin Mint?

  His father had taken Twyla’s side when she claimed Ryder had charged those things just to make her look bad. Jax stood by Twyla. Ryder had a reputation as a thief, after all. And Jax kicked him out of the house.

  Ryder had nowhere to go, and the only people in town who gave him a chance were Joe’s parents.

  The Cheeks had taken him in, no questions asked, and it was the first time since his mother died that Ryder had felt like he was part of a real family. If it hadn’t been for the Cheeks, he would have ended up . . . well, nowhere good, that was for sure.

  Because of Joe and his family, Ryder cleaned up his act. Improved his grades. Started trying to live down his reputation. The year he lived with the Cheeks had been happy, normal. Whenever he was with them, he’d felt loved and respected.

  Then Katie had kissed him.

  And ruined everything.

  He knew he had to go. Because her kiss stirred feelings he had no business feeling. Not for his best friend’s kid sister. Not when she was fifteen and he was almost eighteen.

  So he’d joined the army, and it ended up being the best thing for him. In the service, he’d found redemption. Going from bad boy to decorated soldier. In the eyes of the U.S. government, he was a good man.

  But in his heart, Ryder feared his shadow side that lurked untamed and dangerous. He knew what he was capable of, and that was why he kept to himself, avoided entanglements. Things were safer that way.

  “Ryder?” Katie whispered. “Are you all right?”

  He blinked at her, felt himself come back into his body, back to the reality of the filthy room and the black velvet jewelry box in his hand. He dragged his palm down his face.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Nowhere.” He shook his head, tucked the box into his front pocket.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked, concern brimming in her eyes.

  “I’m fine.” He gritted his teeth.

  “You’re not.”

  He ignored that. “You’re right. I’m not up for this job.”

  “Too many memories?” She nodded toward the box in his pocket.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “You sure? It seems like you’re in pain.”

  “I’m fine,” he insisted, sliding steel into his voice.

  She took his irritation in stride. “All right.”

  They stood watching each other. Him guarded, her open.

  “You need to go see your father,” she whispered.

  “I know,” he whispered back. “Tomorrow. I’ll do it tomor
row.”

  “Do you want me to go with you? I’ll go with you if you want.”

  He started to say no. He meant to say no. He should have said no. But instead, he latched on to her gaze and murmured, “Would you?”

  Chapter 10

  Katie didn’t know what had happened to Ryder, and she didn’t know anything about PTSD, but she knew a lot of people who had been in the military suffered from it, and it was clear he’d had some kind of flashback.

  When he’d opened the small jewelry box, his eyes went glassy and his entire body trembled. She’d called his name several times, but it was as if he couldn’t hear her. She’d been afraid to touch him. So she’d waited for him to snap out of it.

  He still seemed dazed. If it would help, she would certainly go with him to see his father.

  “Sure.” She smiled, letting him know he was not alone. “Whatever will help you get through this.”

  “Thanks.” He nodded.

  “What time tomorrow?”

  “Noon? We could grab lunch afterward.”

  “Sure you don’t want to do it today?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve been on the road for two days straight. I need a break before tackling that mountain.”

  “Oh gosh, I hadn’t even considered that. Driving from LA on a motorcycle through the desert has got to be exhausting. And here I am putting you to work. Why don’t we just call it a day?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not the physical exhaustion. I need a good night’s sleep before dealing with my dad. Besides, I like to start what I finish.”

  Katie glanced around the chaos, thought, Hoarding: a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them.

  Twyla Southerland certainly fit that description. Katie stood in the small area they’d cleared, hands on her hips, flummoxed at how they were going to sort it all out.

  Just looking at the mess made her feel claustrophobic.

  And to think Ryder had grown up in this. No wonder the guy was a minimalist. Because his stepmother, and by association, his dad, held on to so much—frank language warning here—shit, Ryder had reacted by keeping his life bare bones.

  No roots. No attachments. Nothing to weigh him down. And apparently that included relationships.

  To Katie’s way of thinking, neither extreme was healthy. Too much attachment to material things led to, well . . . this. But total detachment could leave you anchorless, empty, and lonely.

  Yes, she liked for her surroundings to be clean and tidy, but there were objects that brought her joy. Like the spelling bee trophy she’d won in fifth grade, after having struggled in spelling so miserably in fourth grade. Or the last photograph of herself with her grandmother as they were sprinkling sulfur on their shoes to ward off chiggers when they went blackberry picking the June afternoon Katie finished her final day of high school. Or the little yellow rubber ducky that Ryder had given her after winning it at the Texas State Fair the year he lived with her family. She kept it on the side of her bathtub. Matt had tried to get her to throw it away when she moved into the yurt, telling her there was no space for silly knickknacks, but she’d vetoed his veto of the yellow duck.

  The litmus test for whether something stayed in her life or not was simple.

  Did it bring her joy?

  Even functional items had to put a smile on her face—like her days-of-the-week underwear, or the designer handbag she’d splurged on because it would last a lifetime.

  “You with me?” he asked.

  “That could take until midnight,” she warned. Or longer.

  “I’ll get better at sorting,” he promised. “We’ll speed up. How much do you charge for overtime?”

  “It’s a set fee.”

  “A bonus then.”

  “Let’s just see how it goes,” she said.

  “All right,” he agreed.

  They tackled the task with renewed zeal and by five, they’d made it through half the room, which was much better than Katie thought they’d do.

  They were taking a short break, when Katie’s cell phone rang. It was her niece Lauren.

  “You’re invited, Auntie Katie!” Lauren said in her childish singsong.

  “Hello, kiddo. Where am I invited?”

  “To Pasta Pappa’s for pizza. Everbody comin’. You too.”

  “Aw, thanks for inviting me, but—”

  “Please, please, please,” Lauren begged. “You gotta come.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there.”

  “Yay!” Lauren squealed, and yelled, “Auntie Katie’s coming.”

  Lauren’s mother, Emma, got on the phone. “You don’t have to come if you’ve got other plans. I know how Lauren can strong-arm people into accepting an invitation.”

  “Are you kidding? I’d love to come. I have to swing by the house for a shower first, but I’ll be there.”

  “See you at six at Pappa’s?”

  “I’ll be there.” Katie hung up.

  “You’ve got a date,” Ryder said.

  “Yes. My family’s going out for pizza. Wanna come?” Part of her wanted him to say yes, another part of her hoped he’d decline. They were already too close for comfort.

  “I’m going to stick around here. Work on whittling this down.”

  She didn’t argue. “All right. See you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” he echoed, reached up to rub his shoulder with one hand, winced.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Crick in my shoulder. Slept on the ground last night in the desert.”

  “Good grief, why didn’t you get a motel?”

  “Well, for one thing I was in the desert and there were no motels around. For another, I like camping.”

  “In December?”

  “I don’t mind being uncomfortable.” He kept kneading his shoulder. “We don’t grow when we’re in our comfort zone.”

  She grinned at him. “So you’re growing a whole lot right now.”

  “Yeah.” He laughed ruefully. “I guess I am.”

  “Sit down,” she said, indicating the clearing on the floor.

  “Why?”

  “I’ll give you a quick neck massage.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know I don’t have to, but I’m offering.”

  “You have a dinner date.”

  “In an hour. There’s time to give you a five-minute massage.”

  He must have really been hurting, because he said okay and sat crossed-legged on the floor. She knelt behind him, knees digging into the carpet so old and dirty it crunched.

  Katie had no more than touched the wall of hard male muscles than she realized what a colossally bad idea this was. His outdoorsy scent penetrated her senses, seeped into her bones. She was unprepared for the onslaught of sensations that zinged through her palms, her wrists, her elbows. She swallowed against the desire rising up in her throat. Gulped it back. Felt her belly tremble and her knees weaken.

  And when he groaned at her kneading, she almost came completely undone. He moved his neck from side to side as she massaged him. Grunted when her thumb hit a knotted trigger point.

  “Harder?” she whispered.

  “Oh yeah.”

  Using her knuckle, she put as much pressure into the knot as she could exert.

  “That’s it, sweetheart. You’ve got it.”

  Sweetheart.

  They both froze at the word, both decided to ignore it.

  Blood churning with numerous sensations, all of them wild and crazy, Katie rubbed his shoulder a few minutes. “There. How’s that? Help any?”

  “Helped. Yes. Good.”

  She hopped up, heat spreading throughout every cell in her body, tingling and throbbing. “I’m glad. Gotta go.”

  Zigzagging around him, she darted for the door.

  “Katie?”

  She stopped, turned, her pulse jumping strangely at his earnest tone of voice. “Yes?”

  “Thank you for the
neck rub.”

  “Of course,” she said. “My pleasure.” Realizing a fraction too late just how that sounded, and how unfortunate the word choice was on both their sides, and yet how true it was.

  Her face heated, and she opened her mouth to try to mitigate things, but Ryder’s sultry smile was on her, hot and sexy.

  “Mine too,” he said, smooth as sipping whiskey.

  Katie felt her pupils widen and her body vibrate and she couldn’t take a second longer in his presence. Pulse galloping, she fled, as she latched on to one shocking thought.

  The last year had not lessened her desire for him. Not one whit. In fact, if anything, she wanted Ryder more than ever!

  After Katie left, Ryder grabbed a beer from the cooler on his Harley and went out to stand on the back porch. The last rays of the sun bumped up against the horizon, cooling off the temperature fast. He huddled deeper into his leather jacket.

  White-faced Hereford cattle grazed in the field beyond. Not Jax’s animals. Not anymore. His father had sold off his herd and leased the land out to others to run their cattle on. According to Joe, anyway. Ryder didn’t know firsthand. He hadn’t talked to Jax since he’d come to tell him he was joining the army and his father told him he was a damn fool.

  Sadness torqued his chest, and Ryder stared out across the land spreading out as far as he could see, except instead of seeing the topography he knew so well, he saw Katie in his mind’s eye.

  Her stunning brown eyes, smooth and soothing as high-quality milk chocolate, her pert high breasts, her curvy, feminine body. Every drop of testosterone inside him heated and stirred, intense and demanding. He wanted her.

  Desperately.

  More than he’d ever wanted any woman.

  God, how he wanted her again, but having a one-night stand with her in LA was a far cry from an affair in the bosom of her friends and family. In LA, she’d been exploring, trying on a new identity.

  Here? She was herself. Good girl next door, and no matter how you spun it, in Twilight he would always be the reckless bad boy who took risky chances, and damn the consequences.

  He couldn’t taint her. Wouldn’t do anything to cause her harm or damage her reputation. And if that meant keeping his hands off her forever, then that’s what he would do.