Chapter Fourteen
Nix
N ix hadn’t been sure what to expect from Thanksgiving dinner with Shauna’s family, but whatever he’d had in his head, this wasn’t it.
He knocked on the McKillop front door while a hint of fear swam in his gut.
Elizabeth O’Connell had told him what wine to buy and suggested he bring flowers as well.
He passed the wine and flowers to Dan’s mother and followed Dan’s father into the formal living room.
Clean jeans and a nice shirt were all that Montanans required for formal family occasions, so he felt confident in that department.
The fear came from knowing he was punching up and everyone in the living room knew it too. Shauna had a great career going, whereas he was a former bull rider who’d lost any money he’d earned and now worked as a ranch hand.
“Hi, Nix,” Shauna said when he walked in.
Light from a nearby window caught hints of gold in her dark hair and hazel eyes.
She held a glass of red wine in her hand, and she set it on an end table as she hurried across the room to greet him.
The kiss she gave him felt forced, but that could well be paranoia on his part because her parents were staring at them.
“Mom, Gunther, this is Nix McCray, a friend of mine and Taryn’s riding instructor. ”
Nix shook hands. It was a tough room to read.
At first glance, Natalie and Gunther Morris seemed normal enough.
Second glance, too. Natalie was a lot younger than he’d expected, but only because he forgot Shauna had said she’d been an unwed teenaged mother.
She was prettier than expected as well. His own mother had looked like his idea of how most mothers appeared—a little round from cooking heavy ranch meals, and a little weathered from working outdoors.
Natalie looked like a mix of her daughters, blond and blue-eyed like Taryn, and tall and slender like Shauna. They shared a blend of the same facial features, one that worked well for all three.
Gunther was closer to Nix’s age than his wife’s. He was shorter and stockier than his wife, too. From what Nix observed, he didn’t contribute much to any conversation and waited patiently for someone to tell him to move. Taryn hadn’t arrived yet.
The McKillops had withdrawn to the kitchen, leaving the four of them alone to get better acquainted, and for about fifteen minutes, things went just fine. Natalie had grown up in Grand, so she knew a lot about bull riding and rodeos. She had plenty of questions about how Taryn was doing.
“She’s a natural, ma’am,” Nix said.
Natalie sighed as if tragedy had struck and took a long sip of her wine. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
Nix didn’t know what the correct response to that was, and he looked at Shauna, silently begging for help.
She proved to be no help whatsoever because at that moment, Taryn walked in.
She had Remi with her, and Jesus had to be smiling on Nix, because that young idiot was about to make him look good.
He was dressed all in black and wore a spike-studded collar, obviously intent on making some sort of statement, because this was a new look for him.
Taryn, too, was dressed to impress. Nix hadn’t known fishnet stockings were back in vogue. Black army boots either. She’d dyed her hair black and wore what looked like black lipstick.
She beamed as if presenting the Pope to her parents. “Mom and Dad, this is Remington Forrest.”
“Remi,” the idiot said.
Ian McKillop drifted in with two cold beers in his hands, caught the chill in the air, passed one beer to Nix and the other to Gunther, then fled back to the kitchen.
Dan and Jazz arrived before the tension could thicken. They appeared slightly taken aback by Taryn’s new style, but wisely said nothing. Gunther, a man of few words, also kept his thoughts to himself. Not Natalie.
“Taryn,” she breathed, and Nix braced himself for the scolding she was about to receive. “I hope you went to a salon and didn’t use cheap dye yourself. You’ll damage your hair.”
Shauna slid her arm around his waist while he was trying to recover from the waste of a good bracing. “I told you,” she whispered. “Taryn knows how to get Mom’s attention.”
Nix made it through dinner by employing Gunther’s tactic of staying silent.
The family dynamics were interesting, however.
Ian, who was twenty years older than Natalie, treated her more like a daughter.
Natalie, in turn, treated her daughters like sisters—with Shauna taking on the role of the parent.
By comparison, his own family was normal.
Moments like this were what made him realize how much he missed them.
It wouldn’t kill him to call. The worst thing that could happen was that he never saw them again.
They moved to the living room after dinner. Nix was about to call it a night when Natalie touched his arm.
“I need some fresh air and would love to go for a walk. Come with me,” she said, and Nix heard faint echoes of Shauna when she had her mind set. Maybe Natalie wasn’t as fluffy as she pretended. Her daughters sure as hell weren’t.
“I’ll come too,” Shauna said. She started to rise.
“No,” Nix said, because he knew what her mother wanted to say to him, and they might as well get this over and done with.
He wasn’t good enough for her daughter. He didn’t bring anything to the relationship.
He had no future lined up. His rodeo days were behind him and the money that might have set him up for something else was long gone. He knew all those things.
But he loved Shauna. He’d been confused about his feelings for her because of his marriage to Peg, and while marriage was out of the question, he most definitely wasn’t ready to give Shauna up.
He wished he could tell her how he felt about her, but they’d never last, so there was no point in it other than to set himself up to have his heart broken and for her to feel bad.
He helped Natalie into her coat, then shrugged into his.
“After you,” he said, opening the door.
They stepped onto the McKillop front porch. Evening had settled and the stars were out in full force. Frost pinched Nix’s nostrils and cheeks. The Yellowstone River flowed a short distance away, and the faint roar of its current carried on the still air.
He offered Natalie his arm as they strolled onto the street in front of the house. They walked for a few minutes in silence.
Then, “My daughter seems serious about you,” Natalie said. “I’m curious as to what makes you so special. What brought you together?”
He could hardly go there with her mother.
“I’m not special. Far from it,” he said.
She laughed like Shauna, too. He found himself liking her, despite what was coming.
She squeezed his arm. “I know my own daughter—a lot better than she thinks. Let me tell you a few things about her.” She paused as if collecting her thoughts.
A car drove past them, its headlights sweeping the street.
“Shauna was this wild, headstrong little girl who taught herself how to be practical because I was a child, too, and one of us had to grow up. She and Taryn were a lot alike as babies, but the pendulum swung too far in either direction. Things were different for Taryn. She had a father and mother, and a big sister who mothered us all, because by then, that was all Shauna knew how to do. She likes to set boundaries and Taryn tramples all over them for attention. They both need to find their middle grounds, and I’d hoped by spending time together they might help each other do that.
Taryn’s not there yet but thank you for helping Shauna reach hers. ”
She’d thanked him for lowering Shauna’s standards? He’d expected this to be a far different conversation.
“Taryn likes you too,” Natalie continued. “In case you’re wondering what the black hair and the Emo boyfriend are all about. She wanted you to look good.”
“Remi’s not a bad guy,” was all Nix could think of to say. Someone had to stick up for the poor kid.
“Probably not. But Taryn’s not as interested in him as he is in her, and they aren’t going to last beyond the end of the school year. Which is lucky for him—she’ll break his heart, but it’s a lot better than ruining his life.”
She really did know her daughters.
“Don’t get too attached to me,” Nix said. “I lost everything in a bad divorce, and it will be years before I recover financially from it.”
“I’d forgotten how much male pride you western boys have. You’re a young man and fortunes change. Why can’t you and Shauna rebuild financially together?”
“Because she’s smarter than that.”
“She’s smart. Absolutely. But she cares about you. If you care about her, too, then you should have this conversation with her, and let her make up her own mind. She should have a say in her future.”
They’d circled the block by now and were headed back to the house. Nix hadn’t quite gotten his head around their conversation.
He loved Shauna. He recognized the emotion. But he’d been trapped in a bad relationship, and he wasn’t going to do that to her. He didn’t want them to grow apart because they didn’t have the same goals.
Except he didn’t know what her goals were. They’d talked about everything else, but they’d steered clear of that topic.
Maybe he should take her mother’s advice and find out.
*
Shauna
“I like your mother,” Nix said.
It was Friday night, and they were curled up on the sofa in front of the television at Shauna’s. Taryn was spending the night at the hotel with her parents, and they had the house to themselves.
Shauna snuggled deeper under his arm. “She grows on you.”
She wanted to ask what he and her mother had talked about—she already knew it was about her—but he had something on his mind, no doubt in relation to it, and he’d get to it in his own time.
“She thinks Taryn dyed her hair and talked Remi into looking like a moron because Taryn wanted her to like me,” he said.