A Christmas Wish: Dane Read Free Page A

family?”
    “He’s my son, Dane.”
    “He’s my son too, dammit. I can only imagine what he feels or thinks whenever he looks at me. But I’m not going away. We’re a family. It’s time we started acting like one.”
    “I’m just asking for a little more time. I’ve forgiven you for the past, Dane. But I’m not sure you’ve forgiven yourself. Maybe once you have, Jayden can start to forgive you too.”
     
     

CHAPTER TWO
     
     
    Dane tried to pretend like his world wasn’t unraveling around him the next morning. In his heart , he knew it was what he deserved. But deserving it didn’t make it any less of a bitter pill to swallow.
    Muscles strained beneath the thick layers of his coat and sweat snaked down his spine , despite the freezing temperatures. His breath huffed out in white puffs as he fought the snow with a shovel like a warrior wielded a sword in battle. It was a losing battle, for even now the heavy white flakes fell with alarming speed, covering the freshly cleared surface.
    The MacKenzie house stood where it h ad for the past hundred or so years. The original two-bedroom structure of hand cut timbers and gray stone had grown into a sprawling house with more rooms than they could count, and it had been added to with every generation of MacKenzie.
    It was where he and his brother Thomas lived now, though the house was meant for a large family with children running up and down the hallways. Much to his Aunt Mary’s disapproval, none of his brothers or his cousins were married.
    Thomas was the only doctor in Surrender, so he’d turned one e nd of the house into a clinic, but there was still more than enough room for a whole army of MacKenzies to sleep comfortably. His other brothers, Riley and Cooper, stayed at the house off and on. Cooper was the sheriff and usually slept in a small apartment over the station. Riley was a college professor in the next town over and stayed there during the school year. They were all four living under one roof again for Christmas though.
    Dane had been back home for months, but this place wasn’t really his home anymore. His home was with Charlotte and Jayden, and he resented every second he didn’t get to spend with them.
    The Munroe land came right to the edge of the MacKenzie property, and Cooper had said they’d offered to buy the ranch from Charlotte after her father’s death. If Dane hadn’t come home when he had, she probably would have sold it to his brothers.
    He still didn’t know why he’d had the urge to come home all those months ago. He’d walked away from a career that had made him a name in the journalism world, kept him on the front lines, and brought him close to death more times than he cared to count. There were aspects of his career he missed—the excitement of chasing down a hot lead on a big story—but he was enjoying the book he was working on just as much. It was its own challenge to put his experiences down on paper in a way that would make people want to read about them.
    Yes, coming home had been the right decision. A fortuitous decision. But frustration clawed at him in a way it hadn’t in a long time. Family had always been the most important thing in his life. From the time he was small, he always knew that if he were in trouble or he needed help that his parents or brothers would be there for him. And if for some reason they couldn’t be there, then one of his cousins would step in. To the MacKenzies, family was everything. And whether Charlotte and Jayden wanted to admit it or not, they were MacKenzies now.
    But here he was, living at home with his brother, while his lover and son lived only a few miles down the road. He felt like a failure. In every way a man could fail. Tonight was Christmas Eve, the first one he’d spend at home in ten years, but he felt little joy in the season.
    Dane tossed the shovel aside and watched it skid across the slick driveway. The physical labor hadn’t cooled his anger or frustration, and