“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.