Chapter Seven #2
quiet time to contemplate how to handle them. What if she just went with it?
What if she did exactly what Gemma told her to do and took this time to rest
and explore the possibilities and enjoy herself for once? She’d already
disappointed her brothers. She wasn’t sure how she could make things worse,
although they had that dinner coming up. “Lucy’s wearing Ty’s mother’s dress.
It’s lovely and looks good on her. I’ll tailor it. I’ll have a harder time with
the boys because they’ll want to rent tuxes, and I can’t fix those.” She would
use temporary means if she had to so Lucy got the absolute best photos. “I’m
going to help Sabrina and her sister shop for dresses. We either have to go
into Alamosa or Colorado Springs, or buy one off the Internet and hope for the
best. If we were in New York, we would have all the choices.”
Bay seemed to think about that for a moment. “I know a lot
of choices sounds good, but I can get overwhelmed.”
Shane nodded. “He can. They put Netflix in the bunkhouse and
Bay keeps shuffling through but never actually watches anything.”
Bay shrugged. “What if there’s a better movie?”
“It’s not always about what’s better. It’s about how we make
use of the experience, but I get what you’re saying. I’ve lived in the city for
the last couple of years, and I don’t understand how fast the world is going
until I come home and smell the pine and hear the wind rustle through the grass
in the back field.”
“Is it home?” Shane asked. “Because for me home is your
place. The place you always want to be.”
“I suppose Bliss is the place I will always come back to.
It’s my touchstone, where I know I belong.” Even if her brothers were mad at
her. Even if Rachel had been in on the whole PI debacle. She knew she was being
stubborn, but she needed time. And she wanted to know these guys a little
better. If she was staying with them for a couple of weeks, she might as well
talk to them. She would probably hear a bunch of stories about how they were
high school superheroes and moved on to rodeo superheroes, where all the buckle
bunnies fawned over them. “Where’s home for you?”
Shane shrugged. “Don’t really have one.”
“Our parents died a couple of years back.” Bay seemed to
think about it for a moment. “Well, over a decade, I guess. We were in our
teens and went into the system because we didn’t have more family.”
“Your parents,” Shane corrected quietly.
“He was your dad, too.” Bay’s hands kept moving on her
shoulders and up her neck. Gentle but firm.
“He was my biological dad. He didn’t do much for me beyond
that.” Shane opened the basket and pulled out a bottle of wine. A familiar
bottle.
“Oh, that’s my favorite,” she said.
“I know.” There was a smile on his face as he used the
corkscrew to open it. “The good thing about a small town having few choices is
every shopkeeper knows what their customers like. The liquor store always
brings some in when they know you’re coming.”
“How would they know? It was a…” She sighed. “My brothers. I
would bet they keep a couple of bottles, too.”
“Probably. I was also told you like cheese and this one…
What did she say?” Shane asked, passing her a glass and then taking out some
plates.
“It pairs well with the wine. That’s what the beekeeper lady
said,” Bay replied, his thumbs rubbing over her skin.
She was relaxing but more than that, she was getting
aroused. She took a sip of the wine and it was utter perfection. Crisp and
cold, with notes of green apple and pineapple. Delicious.
What had Shane said? She opened her eyes and watched him
unwrap the cheese and crackers. “You said you were half
brothers and you shared a dad. But you’re close in age.”
Shane nodded. “When my mother realized Dad wasn’t going to
leave Bay’s mom, she dumped me on their doorstep and never looked back.”
“She left you?” Brooke sat up.
Shane put the cheese plate where she could get to it and
then sat back down, pulling her feet on his lap. “I don’t love talking about
this so if we’re going to, you have to let me do something I do like doing.”
He pulled her shoes off and then she groaned as his strong
hands moved across her aching feet.
This was dangerous. The night before had been about passion
and crazy lust. This was something different. This was caring. She should set
boundaries. She should tell them she was going to the Movie Motel or let Lucy
get her a room at the lodge. The last thing she should do was let them surround
her with sweetness and allow their stories to touch her.
“She left you?” She couldn’t do it. The truth of the matter
was she wanted this time with them. No matter what the outcome would eventually
be.
“She did.” Shane seemed intent on making her bonelessly relaxed. She hadn’t realized how much walking
today had affected her. Or maybe some of it was the ruthlessly athletic sex
she’d had with them. “I was a kid. I don’t remember much about her, though my
stepmom did like to talk about her a lot. According to her, my biological
mother’s professions included whore, homewrecker, and certified gold digger.”
Bay snorted. “Our father never had any gold to dig. I still
haven’t figured out how that hypocritical jackass managed to get two women to
sleep with him.”
She was confused and a little horrified at the thought of a
baby being left behind by his mother. Her own mother had died and her dad had
taken off, but she knew her mom loved her, and she’d had her brothers. They
hadn’t left her on someone’s doorstep, and it would have been easy to. “They
took you in? I mean you were a kid. You didn’t cause the situation.”
“I think a psychologist would say the situation was
complex,” Shane replied like they were simply talking about what he’d done with
his day and not how awful his childhood had been.
“What he means is dear old dad was a deacon at the
fundamentalist church we were forced to attend,” Bay continued. “The preacher
and his wife found out about Shane and basically informed my mother that she
couldn’t consider herself a woman of God if she didn’t take Shane in and
forgive her husband. She had to stand in front of the congregation and forgive
him and ask for his forgiveness since a man didn’t sin if he didn’t have
reason. You know what they didn’t make her do? Ask for forgiveness for beating
a kid because she couldn’t hurt anyone else.”
Her heart threatened to break. She thought they’d likely
left behind a nice home so they could party and live the cowboy life. She knew
men who did. They worked for a while and then played until they needed more
cash. They had a woman in every city. Sometimes two or three.
“You didn’t start in this life because you wanted to, did
you? If no one took you in, you aged out of the system.” She knew a bit about
foster care. It wasn’t great for the eighteen-year-old.
“My father’s family ran a small cattle ranch. My dad didn’t
work it. He was a salesman. Mom was a stay at home, but they would send us both
out to the ranch on weekends and summers, and Grandad would teach us. He was an
old man and bitter because he missed our grandmother so much, but he did what
he could,” Bay explained.
“Teaching us how to work the ranch was how he showed he
loved us. I don’t claim my father, but I loved my grandfather,” Shane admitted.
“The time we spent at the ranch was heaven for me.”
“Why didn’t you stay?”
“He was too old to handle a kid, and by the time I wasn’t a
handful, I realized I needed to stay home.” Shane’s voice was so steady.
Bay’s fingers found her hair, and he moved them along her
scalp. “He didn’t go live with our grandfather because he thought if he did, my
mother would take out her rage on me. And he was probably right. I know I’m the
artistic one, but Shane knew how hard it would be on me when he was ten years
old. He made the choice to take the abuse so I didn’t have to.”
“Stop,” she said, unable to simply sit there. Did they think
they could tell her all of this and she would just… Emotion threatened to
overwhelm her.
They weren’t party boys. They might tease her brothers and
be assholes from time to time, but wasn’t everyone? They were real men with
real problems, and so far they had treated her like she was made of gold.
They treated her like she was the one who got all the
affection and comfort, and she didn’t have to give it back unless it was
sexually.
Both their hands came off her like the well-trained Doms
they were. Even though they hadn’t gone over their limits or set hard rules,
she knew she could trust them.
It was herself she didn’t trust, but that didn’t mean a
thing right now. What mattered was what they’d gone through.
What Shane had done for his brother.
Sometimes words failed and all a person had was touch. She
stood and she saw Shane’s face fall as though he thought she was rejecting
them.
She moved to him, putting her hands on both his shoulders
and then lowering herself onto his lap so she was straddling him.
His expression relaxed, and his hands found her hips.
“You’re not disgusted by my childhood.”
“By how you were treated? Absolutely.” She studied him for a
moment. He looked a lot like his brother, but there were stark lines in his
face that seemed softer on Bay. Like life had carved him up in a way it hadn’t
Bay. She ran her hands over his hair and watched him. She couldn’t imagine how
sweet he would have looked as a child, how vulnerable. How he’d been forced to
grow up quickly, and even at a young age he’d made choices to sacrifice for the
brother he loved. He was a good man. She leaned over and kissed him, bringing
their mouths together in the connection she didn’t even know she’d been looking
for.
This time it wasn’t lust that moved her body. It was
something more, something infinitely dangerous, but she couldn’t stop herself.
“Tell me you came here for this,” she whispered on his lips
before running her tongue there.
He shuddered under her, fingers tightening on her hips, and