“You know these things aren’t what they seem.” He couldn’t tell his mom, but his dad wouldn’t snitch. He could lay it all out to get off the hook.
His father ignored him. “Broke her heart not to see you but twice a year for so long.”
A lump of regret caught in his throat. His dad knew his buttons, that was for sure. He hadn’t meant to make his mother sad. Never meant to stay away so long. Traveling, gigs, it all added up over time.
He’d do anything to make it up. His mind drifted to how Kenzie would look sitting at his mother’s table.
No.
He’d doalmostanything
“Don’t ruin her Christmas,” his father commanded.
The line went dead.
Dammit. How the hell was he going to convince Mackenzie Bennett to come home with him to small-town Collbran, Colorado at Christmastime?
* * *
Kenzie’s Bel Airbungalow was tucked off the main road. He pulled up to the gate and pushed the button on the speaker box.
“Tucker McKay for Mackenzie Bennett.”
He waited while whoever managed her security did their thing and checked him out.
A click and the gate swung open.
Tucker drove up the windy drive, his Jeep Cherokee hugging the asphalt curves. He climbed out and his boots clopped along the concrete steps up to the huge archway, practically announcing he was now in the lair of America’s Sweetheart.
He barely had his fingertip on the bell when the door swung open.
“Well, Tucker McKay. Imagine that.”
He’d heard of her. Moira Bennett. The original momager. The Kardashians had nothing on her drive and persistence.
Kenzie had replaced her a few years back, and Moira was not happy. Word was they’d had a falling out over the whole thing. Color him shocked to see her in Kenzie’s home. Then again, he was proof some would do anything for family.
“Tucker?” Kenzie stood at the top of the arched marble stairway, her eyebrows puckered together. Without changing the expression on her beautiful face, she clipped down the stairs toward him in her stilettos.
Fuck, she even wore stilettos at home. Small-town Colorado was going to eat her alive. It wasn’t like he was asking her to visit Telluride or Aspen—places where her stilettoed feet would fit right in with the eclectic fashion and five-hundred-dollar steaks. No, he wanted to take her to a muddy ranch to meet his now-kale-drinking mother in the sticks.
“You’re early.” Kenzie’s statement was more of an accusation, and the way she wouldn’t meet her mother’s eyes told him exactly why.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Tucker. Kenzie’s told me so much about you.” Moira held out her hand to him.
He shook it.
Fuck, even the woman’s hand was cold.
Kenzie had the look of a twelve-point buck in the headlights of his Silverado back home. “My mom was just heading out.”
Moira squeezed his fingers a few extra unnecessary seconds. “But I don’t mind sticking around to say hello.”
Kenzie’s expression hardened. “Nope. Time to go.”
“Well, I look forward to seeing you at my Christmas party then, dear.” Moira gave her a stare with more sharp edges than a set of steak knives. “Tucker?” She turned her stare to him, the steak knives dissolving on contact. “Do you have plans for the holidays? We’d love to have you attend. Vail is wonderful this time of year.”
No way in hell.
