Free The Kidnapped Christmas Bride (Taming of the Sheenans Book 3) by Jane Porter Page B

to upset your mom—”
    “What will upset me?” McKenna asked, sitting down at the table and placing her crumpled veil on the seat between her and TJ.
    Several long dark red tendrils had come loose from the elaborate twist at the back to frame her face. Trey wished she’d take the pins out of her hair and let it spill free. She had the most gorgeous hair. He couldn’t understand why she’d ever put it up.
    “Talking about the man he killed,” TJ said bluntly. “He said it makes you sad if we talk about it around you.”
    “He’s right.” She looked baffled. “Why are we discussing this again?”
    “TJ wanted to know why I didn’t apologize, since it was an accident,” Trey tried to sound just as matter of fact but he hated the subject. It was obviously a sensitive subject. Trey had spent a lot of time at Deer Lodge asking himself what he would do differently, if he had to do it over again. Ignore Bradley beating up his girlfriend? Walk out of the Wolf Den as if nothing bad was taking place?
    Trey couldn’t.
    He’d never be able to stand by as a man used a woman as a punching bag. He’d never be able to allow a person to hurt an animal. He’d never let anyone abuse or threaten a kid.
    It wasn’t his nature. It wasn’t acceptable to his own code of conduct.
    Sure, when he was younger, he fought to fight. He’d liked fighting. He hadn’t been afraid of taking a hit, either, because he realized physical pain was temporary. The real pain was the abuse that went on behind closed doors, the suffering of women in bad marriages, the agony of children raised by unstable parents.
    Trey’s dad had never hit his mom, but he didn’t love her, and she’d suffered. She’d been a beautiful young woman when she married Bill Sheenan—and she’d given him five sons, one after the other, but his affections were elsewhere, with Bev Carrigan, and his mother had known.
    She’d taken her life the summer after he and Troy had graduated from high school. Troy had been the one to find her. Their family had never been the same.
    How could it be without their mother?
    “None of it should have happened,” Trey said flatly. “It’s a day I will regret for the rest of my life.”
    “But why did you hit him?” TJ persisted.
    Trey opened his mouth but no sound came out. How could he explain to a five year old that he’d seen a man using his girlfriend as a punching bag, so he’d intervened. The man, seriously inebriated, threw a punch at Trey, and Trey answered. A fight ensued and then Bradley lost his balance and went down.
    If anyone else had stepped in that day, the outcome would have been different. Even the judge said as much. There might not have been an arrest, and there certainly wouldn’t have been a five year prison sentence, but it was Trey Sheenan who’d interfered, and Trey had a long history of fighting in Crawford County, and Judge McCorkle wanted to make a point that he wouldn’t tolerate thugs and petty criminals while he was on the bench.
    McKenna sat forward. “Your dad went to jail because he tried to save a woman who was getting beat up by her boyfriend. Your dad didn’t think it was right so he stepped in and there was a fight. Your dad is really strong, and a really good fighter, and he threw a hard punch which made the other guy fall, and when he fell he hit his head, and later died.” She exhaled, face pale. “He didn’t mean for the other man to die. It was an accident, and he did apologize to the family, but it didn’t matter. Someone had died.”
    TJ frowned. “But a man should not hit a woman.”
    “That’s right,” she agreed.
    “So my dad’s a good guy? A hero?”
    She made a soft, inarticulate sound as she glanced at Trey. “I guess it depends on who you talk to.”
    Trey held her gaze a long moment before fishing out his wallet and peeling two twenties from the other bills and leaving them on the table. “Should we go?”
    They left the diner and crossed the parking lot