The Rock Star's Christmas Reunion: contemporary holiday romance (A Charisma series novel, The Connollys Book 1) (5 page)

“Just because I was the only one who could choke it down without gagging didn’t make it fair.”

“Life isn’t fair.”

“Yeah.” Niall stabbed the heel of his steel-toed boot into the gravel-studded dirt and drew a line. “How’s your wrist doing?”

“Pain’s gone. Performance career is over.”

They stared at each other.

“Sorry,” Niall mumbled.

“Easy come easy go. I’m over it.” Bax shrugged.

He stared up at the leaden sky, then glanced back at his brother. “Why are you back? I thought you moved to Nashville.”

Bax rubbed the place where the lines were forming around one eye. “Job ended for now. I turned thirty. Seemed like the time to come back.”

“Think you bought the most expensive house in town?” The sneer returned.

Bax stiffened his shoulders to keep from shivering. “Maybe on the block, but no, there’s all kinds of hidden property pocketed around here. You just can’t see it from the road.”

“Shouldn’t you have chosen something like that? To hide from your fans?”

“Been a long time since anyone cared about me,” Bax said, downplaying the reality. Plenty of people cared, they just kept getting older while the industry stayed young.

Niall’s mouth worked. “You’re still family.”

What did he mean? “There’s always two sides of the story, Niall. You don’t know everything.”

Niall punched Bax’s shoulder. “I just tried to apologize to you, bro. Don’t mix it up. I’m more on your side than Dare, so just accept it.”

Now he got it. Niall still considered him a bro. “Then why didn’t you come last night?”

“Dare.” Niall’s lips thinned. “I’ve got to put him first. He just had the breakup from hell. Bitch dumps him the day after Thanksgiving. He was going to propose on New Year’s. Had the ring all picked out.”

Bax winced. “Did he buy it?”

“Not yet, thank God. We had one more car to sell or two to auction off. Then he’d have had the money.”

“I hope you aren’t starving to buy some girl that isn’t yours a ring.”

“You sacrifice for family. You don’t quit.”

“Now you’re jumping on old territory,” Bax warned. “I tried to help out and Dad wouldn’t let me.”

“He’d have seen it as his responsibility,” Niall said calmly.

“But I got rich,” Bax said. “Plenty rich. And he paid for my piano lessons.”

“Not your guitar. You bought it and taught yourself. And they wouldn’t pay for voice lessons.”

Bax laced his icy cold fingers over his head. “I never should have asked. The girls had just come. Our parents were hammered with financial worries and Mom wasn’t well. They’d bought the new house.”

Niall crossed his arms. “Maybe I see it differently. You were a prodigy. Your talent shouldn’t have been ignored.”

“They were overwhelmed. Obviously.”

“I was only eight when she died,” Niall said, changing the subject. “I think I’ve blocked out most of it.”

For the first time in many years, Bax put his hand on his brother. He cupped his cheek. “It’s for the best. I have to remember everything.”

Gravel spit as an old Dodge Ram tore through the entrance, moving too fast. The truck drove past the hut and pulled up along the side. Dare jumped out. He had the longest legs of the brothers, and they looked too thin in the baggy jeans he wore. He had a wool cap hiding his hair, and a scraggly beard.

“Still hasn’t grown in, I see,” Bax muttered, his hand dropping away from Niall’s face.

“Watch it, Bax,” Niall warned.

Dare’s red-and-black checked flannel coat was stained with what looked like a cup’s worth of coffee down the front, but his stalking walk toward them was focused and sure. He looked like a wreck but he didn’t move like one.

“Happy holidays,” Bax said with the faintest hint of irony.

Dare stopped walking when he was just inside Bax’s normal personal space zone. He knew his brother’s face as well as his own, or at least he had. This wasn’t a stranger. His hackles shouldn’t be rising at the invasion, his fists shouldn’t be closing.

Instead of speaking, Dare pulled his hat over his ears. “Made coffee yet?” he asked Niall.

“Nah.” Niall turned toward the hut. “I’ll do that now.”

“Coward,” Bax called, injecting humor into his words.

Niall raised his middle finger as he opened the hut’s door.

“Why are you here?” Dare lifted his chin in the direction of Bax’s new SUV, still with its temporary plate taped into the rear window.

“Thought you must have a good excuse for skipping my welcome home party.” He shoved his hands into his pockets.

Dare’s nostrils flared. “Most people have friends to throw them welcome home parties.”

Anger flared, but Bax breathed through it. “Haldana helped cook.”

“She got paid,” Dare retorted.

Bax hunched his shoulders against the cold. “Did we have a fight just before I moved away or something? I don’t remember us not getting along.”

Dare stared at him, hollow-eyed. The sight of his younger brother this beat up made it hard for Bax to swallow.

“Hey, man,” he said softly. “I’m sorry about the girl. Niall told me what happened. We could do a guy’s trip, get away for a while.”

Dare laughed, fake and sarcastic. “Get away?”

“Do people buy cars at Christmas?” Bax asked. “Just you and me, if you can’t close down. Nice hotel, maybe Vegas. Watch some shows, play the tables.”

Dare wiped at his coat as if the coffee stain was fresh. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“I don’t get why I’m saying someone wrong. Get your head out of your ass, okay? I’m just trying to help.”

Dare swung a fist toward his jaw. Bax ducked back, too shocked to do anything but let his mouth slacken.

“What the hell?” he shouted as Dare grabbed him in a bear hug and slammed him up against the old Honda behind them.

He heard shouts. His father’s angry voice, distantly remembered from when they were kids. When had his father arrived? More sounds of gravel crunching as a car drove through the entrance.

Great
. His brothers finally get a customer and this is going on.

Dare slammed him against the car again, hands on Bax’s shoulders. Bax put his hands out, refusing to fight back.

Dare’s face contorted as he slapped Bax’s face. “You asshole!” He shouted. “You stupid jerk. How could you do drugs? How could you screw up so bad? After what Mom did? I don’t want that shit in my life.”

Chapter Four

Bax coughed and rolled onto his side, letting the for-sale car hold him up. His brother had slammed him into it, and he obviously had inherited their grandfather’s barrel chest. Bax didn’t have any air in his lungs. His feet skittered on the gravel as he shifted his balance.

Unlike Niall, three years younger than Dare, the middle brother seemed to remember their mother’s problems all too well.

“Merry Christmas,” he wheezed.

By then, their father had made it over to them. He pulled Dare into the narrow lane between cars and secured his arm behind his back. “Don’t you talk about your mother like that.”

Bax’s eyes widened. He’d thought his father meant to stop the fight, not join in. “Dad, he’s got a point.”

His father bared his teeth as Dare struggled, but Bax could see the hold Dare was in and he wouldn’t escape without a dislocated shoulder. “Don’t fight it.”

“Apologize to your brother,” their father ordered.

Bax lifted his hands. “Don’t worry about it. It was four years ago. I’ve been clean since rehab, I swear. I left L.A. for years and when I went back I realized it was a bad idea to stay.”

“So here you are?” Dare sneered.

Bax crossed his arms over his chest. “Exactly.”

Behind the men, two women appeared. His cousin Haldana and Yakima. What were they doing here? Just what he needed. His caterer witnessing the Connolly family explosion. They hadn’t had so much drama since Mom died, taking her manic energy with her. At least not when he was around.

He rubbed his hand over his eyes. Now the hellacious Christmases of his childhood were starting to come back to him. Why had he thought to take this time of the year to start over?

Next to him, Dare and his father were frozen in tableau, with identical frowns on their faces. Niall chose that moment to intercede.

“Let him go, Dad. Bax doesn’t want an apology.”

“Dare can apologize for tackling him,” their father said stubbornly.

“Have you gone soft since I left?” Bax asked. “Apologize for roughhousing?”

Their father grunted and let Dare go, with a rough push that had him stumbling almost into the same car Dare had tossed Bax on. “What are you doing here, sweetheart?” he asked Haldana.

“I need a new car,” she said. “Yakima drove me over because my car wouldn’t start this morning.”

“Battery dead?” Niall asked.

“Are the connections corroded?” Bax asked.

“Shut up and sell her a damn car,” Dare said.

“You’ll have to give her a family discount no matter what,” Bax pointed out. “You aren’t going to make a profit on your own cousin. Why not check her car first?”

“I’m not a moron, you guys.” Haldana pulled gloves from her pockets and pulled them on. “I spent ten years listening to car stuff around the kitchen table. My battery has a charge. It’s the water pump, and changing that out will cost more than the car is worth. Can you take it to auction and give me something else?”

Dare rubbed his gloves together then interlaced his fingers and stretched. “And so the negotiation begins. Let’s find a Blue Book value on your dead rig and get down to business.”

Haldana mimicked his motions. “You ain’t gonna make a penny off me, big boy.”

Dare snickered. “That’s what you think, little cousin.” He hooked his arm over his diminutive cousin’s shoulders and hauled her toward the hut.

“Got some work to do there,” his father said, much milder now.

“That was the point of last night,” Bax said.

His father scratched his day-old beard. “Try again. I’m not real happy with you either.”

~

Yakima could see how Harry Connolly’s words took the wind out of his son’s sails. Couldn’t they show any compassion, not to mention pride that the son of someone who’d had trouble with drugs managed to beat his addiction and start over? Why wouldn’t they give him a fair shot?

“Bax?” Her voice was too loud.

He turned to her.

“Let me take you to lunch,” she suggested. “One of your brothers will have to take Haldana home so they can pick up her car.”

“They have a tow truck?”

“It’s mine,” Harry said. “My end of the business.”

Bax shrugged. “I don’t know the restaurants anymore. How about we check out the burger place?”

“They have veggie burgers,” she said. “I don’t mind at all.”

He pointed at her van. She nodded. “The door is open. Get in and I’ll be there in a sec.”

“He pay you decent for your food?” Harry asked as soon as Bax was out of earshot.

“Absolutely. I hope everyone was happy.”

“I thought you were on some kind of health kick. What was with the fried food?”

“It’s what Bax asked for. I’m all about making the customer happy.” She reached into her pocket, thinking to give him her business card. Her family wasn’t close with Harry, but she would network with anyone.

“Be careful,” Harry said. “We don’t know if we can trust him yet. Twelve years away makes him a stranger. Get cash up front.”

“Gee, Harry,” she said, surprised. “Please don’t treat me more like family than your own son.”

“I’ve known you since you were what, eleven or so? Seen you at least once a week since then,” Harry said gruffly. “At least to say hello to.”

She smiled and squeezed his arm. “You’ve grown on me, but so far, Bax has been a perfect customer, and he paid me extremely well.”

“Would you cook a turkey dinner?” Harry asked. “Someone needs to make Christmas Eve dinner for the Connollys.”

“Haldana will do that for free,” she said, handing him her card. “No need to pay her. But if you ever have a non-family party, I’d love to step in.” She waved and went to her van. Bax was deep in thought, so she let him be as she drove out of the lot.

When they arrived in front of the hamburger place, Yakima surveyed the parking lot. “Busy today.”

Bax checked his watch. “It’s not even eleven.”

“It’s the post church crowd having brunch. You sure you want a hamburger?”

Bax sighed. “How about a coffee shop?”

“There’s a decent one by the library at the moment. They never last long before going out of business, but I think it’s still there.”

“Would you prefer to make me lunch at your house?” he suggested.

“I’ll make you a killer veggie burger,” she suggested. “What do you say?”