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“Not one day. Now,” TJ said, arms squeezing tighter.
“I can’t,” Trey said.
“Why not?” TJ pulled his head back to look at Trey.
McKenna was there now, in the street, shivering, teeth chattering. “TJ, get out of the truck right now. I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve tried to be understanding, but I can’t do it anymore. You can’t do this now. We have everybody waiting. Lawrence is waiting—”
“I don’t care!” TJ shouted at her. “I don’t like Lawrence. I don’t want Lawrence. I want my dad. He’s my real dad.”
McKenna paled. Her gaze lifted. She stared into Trey’s eyes. “Trey, tell him he has to come with me. Make him listen to you. I’m sure he’ll listen to you. Tell him he has no choice.”
McKenna’s eyes were a brilliant green, shimmering with emotion. She was angry and scared and he understood, he did. But at the same time, she had no idea what he’d been through, living without TJ these past four years. She had no idea what it was like to love someone so much and then be completely cut out…
Trey held her gaze, his voice soft. “Why doesn’t he have a choice?”
Her lips quivered. She pressed down, thinning them. “He’s five. He doesn’t know what’s true, or right, or real—”
Trey’s brows flattened. “Real? Am I not real? Is my love not real? Am I not here, fighting for him, fighting for a chance to be his father?”
“That’s not what I mean!”
“What do you mean?”
“He just…He just…” she took a quick breath, shivered, arms crossing over her chest, “doesn’t know.”
“Know what?”
She shrugged helplessly. “You.”
“Then maybe it’s time he does.”
Chapter Five
‡
McKenna suppressed a shiver as Trey’s dark head jerked up, his narrowed gaze locking with hers. For a split second she could see his shock. She’d hurt him. But in the next moment, the surprise disappeared, replaced by fury.
Mistake, she thought, inhaling sharply, she’d make a big mistake. Perhaps even a critical error.
You didn’t really want to make Trey angry. Not truly angry.
When pushed too far, Trey didn’t bend or yield. He didn’t compromise, nor was he a man of words.
Trey Sheenan was a man of action, and she could see from his hard, shuttered gaze that he was done talking. Done playing nice. Trey had tried diplomacy and he was reverting to what he did best: taking control.
Fighting.
And this time he was fighting her.
McKenna’s heart pounded. Her legs shook. She took a step toward him. “No, Trey, no,” she choked, seeing him place TJ in the middle of the truck’s bench seat. “Don’t do this.”
He clicked the seatbelt around the child’s waist and then turned the key in the ignition. The big truck roared to life. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the powerful engine. “I won’t have him thinking I don’t love him, Mac. I won’t have him believing I don’t care—”
“But this isn’t the way, Trey. This isn’t the answer.”
His brow creased, his jaw thickening. “He thinks I don’t love him. He thinks I don’t want him. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Take him out of the truck.”
“And put him on the curb and drive away like he isn’t my whole world? Like he’s not the most important thing in my life?” He drew a swift, shallow breath. “TJ’s the only reason I survived in that place. He’s the only reason I’m still here.” His deep voice dropped as he spit the words at her, each syllable sharp and rough. “He’s five and I’ve only had one Christmas with him and I want more. I want more with my son. And I deserve at least one Christmas with him before he becomes part of your new family with this other man.”
“TJ will always be your son, Trey.”
“Then you shouldn’t mind him spending one Christmas with me.” He slammed his door closed and shifted gears.
She pounded on his door. “You’re not taking him! You’re not—” She broke off as he swung the door back open. She fell back a step, tripping over the hem of her gown. “You can’t, Trey. It’s wrong. It’s illegal. You’ll be charged with kidnapping!”
“I’ve been charged with worse,” he retorted grimly.
She shook her head frantically. “But not this, Trey.”
“I don’t want my son to grow up without me.”
“You can’t just take him from me.”
“Fine. Then you can come with us, too.” And with stunning ease, he stood up, picked her off the ground and dropped her onto the truck seat, next to TJ. “Buckle up, darlin’. We’re heading out of town.”
*
Trey had done a lot of stupid things in his life, but this might just be the stupidest.
But had no choice. He had to do something. He couldn’t just stay there on Church Street fighting with McKenna in front of TJ and St. James.
She wasn’t fighting fair. Women never fought fair. They argued. They yelled. They cried. They used torrents of words, endless words, words that drowned a man in sound and nonsensical emotion.
He’d tossed her into the truck because he wanted TJ, and he knew very well he couldn’t take TJ from his mom, not on Christmas.
What kind of man would he be to separate a mother and young child on Christmas?
So he was bringing her along. Letting her come. He was being generous and thoughtful.
Magnanimous.
Not that she’d see it that way.
Nor would her groom, who they’d just left in the church with the guests and her brothers and his brother and good old Aunt Karen…
Aunt Karen would be the one to call the sheriffs. Aunt Karen would be delighted to hear he’d been arrested. Again.
Something hard and sharp turned in his gut. Regret filled him.
He’d just screwed up badly, hadn’t he? She sat beside him, a blur of white in his peripheral vision and didn’t say a word, but he didn’t need her to. He knew it. He knew what he’d done.
He flipped on the truck lights as he approached Highway 89, steering with a tight knuckled grip that made his hands ache. It was dark out. The wind whistled and howled.
He fiddled with the truck heater, the truck interior almost as chilly as the frigid temperature outside. But the biting cold was nothing compared to the ice in his heart.
He’d made a terrible mistake just now.
What was he thinking? Taking TJ, and McKenna, too?
What kind of madness had taken over him back there at St. James?
Merging onto the highway, easing into the traffic, he kept his gaze fixed on the road, while McKenna’s silence felt as huge as her gown.
He’d thought he’d finally grown up. He’d thought he’d changed. He was wrong. He was still stupid and impulsive, and what he was doing now, heading north on 89 with TJ and McKenna, was illegal. McKenna was right. This was kidnapping.
He’d only been out of jail one day and he’d already broken the conditions of his parole.
Trey exhaled in a low, slow rush, sickened, aware that he’d just proven Judge McCorkle and Karen Welsh and all the other skeptics that they were correct: he was a loser. A bad seed.
Leopards didn’t change their spots.
It didn’t matter now that he’d left Deer Lodge determined to make amends and be the stand up father TJ deserved. Good intentions were just that—intentions. What mattered was actions. And just look at his actions…
McKenna’s stillness only made his regret worse.
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She was rigid, staring out the window, her expression one of shock. And horror.
He’d failed her, again. Ruined one of the most important days in her life.
Damn all.
But TJ was oblivious to the tension. He’d buckled his seatbelt as they’d pulled away from the curb and now he was sitting tall, trying to see over the dash, curious about where they were going, but not afr
aid. From his bright eyes he looked excited. This to him was a great adventure.
McKenna must have her hands full with him. TJ didn’t just look like a Sheenan, he seemed to have inherited the Trey-Sheenan-Chaos DNA.
Not good. For McKenna, Marietta, or TJ himself.
Trey struggled to think of something he could say to her. He wanted to apologize, and yet at the same time he knew that if he was truly sorry, he’d turn around right now and take her back. Take them both back.
Taking them back now, before they traveled any further, would at least allow her to salvage today…marry and have her party and cake and dancing.
But he wasn’t that sorry.
He didn’t want her to marry Lawrence. He understood why she wanted to get married, why she wanted stability, but Lawrence…? Really?
McKenna deserved a real man. A strong man who’d love her deeply, passionately for all of his life.
The way he loved her.
The way he’d always love her.
He glanced at her again, the deepening twilight swallowing her profile. “McKenna—”
“Don’t say it.”
“I’m—”
“You’re not. And I don’t believe it. I know you.” Her voice was hoarse and it shook, trembling with emotion. “I once thought you were a dream, but I was wrong. You’re not a dream. You’re a nightmare, a never ending nightmare—” She broke off, shook her head, turned her face away, her white veil gleaming in the lavender-purple light.
