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

TJ’s tears and grief had worn her down. TJ had been too young to feel so much anguish. He hadn’t understood. She couldn’t seem to make him understand. And what about when Trey was released?
    Would he be there for them then? Did she believe deep down he’d ever be there for them?
    She hadn’t known anymore.
    She hadn’t trusted Trey anymore.
    She’d come to see him as others saw him—a dominant male, fierce and physical—but a man who was in need of reason and self-control.
    She’d finally heard what everyone said….that he was reactive, responding instinctively without regard to risks and consequence, and she’d seen that they were right. He refused to grow up, refused to control his temper, refuse to bend or yield which meant he could never be depended on.
    She loved how beautiful he was, remembered how amazing it felt when they were together. Making love with Trey wasn’t just sexual, it was emotional and spiritual….or at least it used to be before she was so angry with him. So frustrated and hurt.
    And so she’d found the opposite of Trey in Lawrence Joplin, and when Lawrence proposed the third time, she put aside her reservations, telling herself that passion was less important than predictability, and accepted his marriage offer, determined that the future would be different from the past.
    But now everything had changed again and instead of being teary and conflicted, she was…calm.
    Relieved.
    There was that word again. She almost felt a little guilty for feeling relieved that she wasn’t marrying Lawrence. And now she wondered if that was why she had felt so many butterflies earlier, at the church. Had she been getting cold feet and she just wouldn’t admit it? Had she not wanted to marry him but was too afraid of hurting his feelings to say something?
    She hoped she wasn’t that much of a coward. She’d been through too much in life to be a doormat…
    But no, she wasn’t a doormat. She’d stood up to Trey plenty of times, refusing to marry him until he got his act together and grew up and acted like a man.
    She’d stood up to her family when they’d pressured her to stop seeing Trey.
    She’d ignored the gossip in Marietta when she’d chosen to be a single mom rather than marry a man she didn’t think was ready to settle down.
    No, she wasn’t a doormat. And she had a spine. But she also was tender hearted when it came to those she loved. And she loved Lawrence, but probably more as a friend than a lover and life partner.
    Which was why it baffled her that Lawrence had taken it upon himself to tell TJ why his father was in prison. Lawrence had promised her he wouldn’t say anything, agreeing to leave it to her so she could tell TJ when she thought the moment was right.
    But Lawrence had broken that promise. Why?
    And if he’d broken that promise to her, how much others had he not kept?

Chapter Ten
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    T hey arrived at Bigfork at a little after midnight, the high full moon reflecting white off Flathead Lake as they drove south fifteen miles on Highway 35 to the little town of Cherry Lake.
    If they kept going another eighteen miles they’d come to Polson.
    Trey’s mom, Catherine Cray, had spent her early years outside Cherry Lake, a member of the Bitterroot Salish tribe that formed part of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation.
    All but the northern tip of Flathead Lake was part of the extensive Flathead Indian Reservation, and when Trey’s mother’s grandparents died, they left an old cabin on the lower slope of the Mission Mountains, and a couple acres of land to their daughter, hoping she’d return and raise her sons on the land of her ancestors.
    Trey’s father hadn’t minded taking the boys to the cabin with its spectacular view of Flathead Lake for fishing trips, but he wasn’t interested in his wife’s native ancestry. She wasn’t even half Salish and he wasn’t about to raise his sons as native this, or that.
    Trey hadn’t been to the