Chapter 18
18
“I ’m guessing by the way Beau stomped off that you told him about trying to track down his mother,” Chloe said after the others took off in different directions. Kade headed to the bunkhouse while Conrad followed Beau into the main house.
“I didn’t make it that far,” Travis admitted, wishing he hadn’t been such an ass to her earlier. His feelings were getting in the way, so he stuffed them down deep where he hoped they would stay. Otherwise, they risked causing him to lose focus, which could be deadly. “All I said was that I’d like to speak to his mother. It was enough to cause him to go into a rant about the past being best left in the past.”
“To be honest, I haven’t spent five minutes in a conversation with the man since he showed up two months ago. Between working at the bar and spending every available hour with Grayson, I haven’t been out to the ranch much. Kade and Bree bring the baby to my house, or we meet out for the occasional playground run.” She compressed her lips into a frown. “We didn’t even have a family get-together for the holidays this year.” She shook her head. “Shame. Because we aren’t usually all in one place at the same time.”
“What about the twins?” They’d been in and out of town, refusing to stay in the main house.
“All I know is that they said the bunkhouse is too noisy with an infant, and they won’t stay in Beaumont’s house,” she said. “Too many reminders of the past.” She paused before adding, “Most of us agree that it would be best to bulldoze the damn thing and rebuild from scratch.”
“Let me guess who the holdout is…Beau?”
Chloe nodded. “You are correct. He says it represents the father he wants to get to know better.”
“I’m sure you all told him that Beaumont wasn’t worth getting to know,” Travis said.
“We did, but if you didn’t live it, you probably don’t fully get it,” she said. Then added, “You know?”
He did. His nod was slow.
There was something else on his mind that he wanted to address. Trust. “I want you to know that you don’t have to hide anything from me when it comes to where you go or who you see. In fact, I’ll be able to do my job better if you include me in your plans.”
“It would’ve spooked Craig,” she said. “He would’ve slammed the door in my face.”
“You could’ve called me and muted the sound so I could listen, and no one would be the wiser,” he offered. “Or, I could’ve put a bug in your purse or a GPS device on your car in case you were attacked on the road.”
Chloe chewed on her bottom lip. “I didn’t think about that.”
“I wouldn’t have had to be right beside you,” he said. “I could’ve been parked a mile away, so if anything went down, I could get to you fast enough to make a difference.”
Her gaze unfocused like she was looking inside herself. “True.”
“I was frustrated earlier and ended up setting you off,” he admitted. “That’s not the goal here.” He wanted to help put this behind her as much as she needed it to be.
“I’m sorry about the way I reacted to you, Trav.”
“You had a right to be angry after the way I came across.” He issued a sharp sigh. “I care about you and want to make sure you come home every night to your son.”
Chloe nodded. Moisture gathered in her eyes. She turned her face away like she didn’t want him to see the tears trying to gain enough momentum to fall.
“I take your safety very seriously, Chloe.”
“I know,” she said, her voice raw and vulnerable. Damn, if it didn’t make him want to pull her into an embrace and make promises he couldn’t guarantee, no matter how much he wanted to.
“You care more about this town and this county than anyone I’ve ever known,” she said.
He reached a hand up to cup her chin, gently guiding her face to meet his, where he locked gazes.
“ You are important to me,” he said, hearing the gruff quality of his own voice. She needed to know that much. The rest could be tamped down. But she deserved to know how much she meant to him. “Personally.”
She studied him for what felt like minutes but was probably less than thirty seconds and then offered a slight nod of acknowledgment.
The rest of the words he wanted to say clogged his throat. He didn’t have a right to let her know his feelings if it meant asking her to give up dreams of the future she wanted—no, deserved.
Besides, he was ten years older than her. The chemistry he thought he felt coming from both sides could just be the jolt of electricity he felt for her and nothing more. His brain could be imagining what it wanted to see, hear, and feel. Reality was strange and had a way of bending toward one’s biases and wants. The way people saw the world wasn’t always accurate. He’d seen it plenty of times during domestic calls. A partner believes they have a great life and a loving spouse only to come home early and find them with someone else. The one being cheated on almost never saw it coming.
In his case, infidelity had never been the problem. Not being able to give someone children in a town made for family life was. He was defective, owing to an enlarged vein that had rendered him unable to reproduce. That was the short version. The long, technical version could be found at the infertility clinic after he’d undergone testing because one of his exes had believed he could be cured.
He couldn’t be. He was flawed. He was forever broken.
And much like Humpty Dumpty, Travis couldn’t be put back together again.
Chloe cleared her throat, breaking the sudden silence. “We should go inside, grab a bite to eat, and go back home.”
He liked the sound of those words a little more than he should let himself.
For Chloe, eating in Beaumont’s kitchen brought back bad memories. Kneeling on rice that had been sprinkled on the hard tile floor as a punishment came to mind. There were other “creative” penances that had bordered on child abuse. And then there was flat-out being smacked with the back of Beaumont’s hand across the face for being “smart” at the dinner table. The smallest infraction became a punishable offense, depending on Beaumont’s mood.
Chloe sat at the same table but with Trav, laughing this time.
What a difference being with a different person made in an environment. The air was lighter. The room was brighter. The food tasted better.
“Are you ready to go home?” she asked after Trav insisted on dish duty. All she’d contributed to the meal was scrounging around for leftovers and then popping them in the microwave.
“To your trailer?” Trav asked, but it was more a statement than a question—a correction, actually.
“Yes,” she responded anyway. “My trailer.”
“Ready when you are,” he said after folding the hand towel and setting it on the counter.
She held up a finger. “One sec.”
After going upstairs to check on the toddlers and giving her sleeping angel a kiss, she grabbed her handbag and met Trav at the door, where he waited, leaning against the doorjamb. Did he have to look so damn sexy standing there with his legs crossed at the ankles and his head down?
Chloe bit back a yawn. “Should we drive two cars?”
“How tired are you?”
“I could probably fall asleep standing up,” she admitted.
“Then, we better hop in my truck.”
She followed him out the door and to his vehicle. He opened the door for her, and she climbed inside. A part of her wanted to tell him how she felt about him. If he didn’t feel the same, she risked the rest of the investigation being awkward as hell and then losing his friendship for eternity.
Deciding she couldn’t risk it, especially after he’d corrected her a few minutes ago, she settled into the seat and then leaned her head back. “I’m planning to go to the rodeo site tomorrow to confront Blake about what he’s really doing in town and if it’s some sneaky way of checking up on me and Grayson.”
Trav’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Okay.”
“Thought you would want to know,” she said.
“I do.”
“The fact he came here has been bothering me from the minute I heard about the booking,” she said. “It’s just too coincidental.”
“I don’t like it much either.”
“How often are your instincts wrong?” she asked.
“Not a lot at this point in my career,” he said. “Years of experience have honed them.”
“Blake is still drinking.”
“Did you speak to him earlier?” he asked.
“No, but I saw him stumbling out of his tour bus just like he used to. Nothing has changed, except Craig is working harder to suppress the truth.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He would never be able to book another gig, for one,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t have expected him to change.”
“Grayson needs a father,” Trav said. There was an emotion present in his voice that she couldn’t quite pinpoint.
“He needs a positive role model,” she said. Then, she thought about Trav’s mother. “Can I ask a personal question?”
He nodded.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to answer it,” she hedged. Would she be reopening an old wound?
“Go ahead.”
“How did it make you feel, losing your mother to dependency?” she asked.
“Since I knew her as a different person early on, it was easier to understand her drinking had nothing to do with me and everything to do with losing my father,” he said after a few seconds of contemplation. “I reached a point of understanding about the illness that alcoholism is when I was older.”
“Grayson has never met his father,” she said. “I’m afraid my son will resent me for not making more of an effort.”
“Did Blake give you a choice?”
“No,” she said. “He told me that we were better off without him.”
“And he hasn’t tried to reach you once,” he continued. “Not during the pregnancy or in the three years his son has been alive.”
When he put it like that, she saw the situation differently. “That’s correct.”
“If Grayson can’t come to the conclusion on his own that you would never do anything to hurt him, then I don’t know what to tell you,” Trav said. His reassurance meant the world. “He’s a great kid. Smart. Kind. He loves you. You’re his world. He won’t forget that easily. Not to mention the fact you haven’t blocked his father from trying to be in Grayson’s life. It’s out of your hands.”
She was nodding before he finished his last sentence. “I’ve been telling myself something along those lines for years now.”
“Plus, he has Kade now,” Trav pointed out. “Conrad lives at the ranch.”
“Beau remains to be figured out, but the twins will move back once we get everything figured out,” she said.
“I’m not a parent, so take my advice with a grain of salt, okay?”
He pulled up to her trailer and parked.
“Okay,” she said.
“Keep doing exactly what you’re doing with Grayson,” he said. “And if he ever asks about his father, be as honest as you can be about the situation.”
“I’ve already rehearsed my monologue a million times,” she said.
“Let’s hear it.”
“Just that Grayson has all of his father’s best features and that his father can’t be with him because he has an illness that stops him from being in our lives,” she said. “Is that awful?”
“Not a bit,” he reassured. “In fact, it’s pretty damn insightful.” He paused. “I wish someone had explained my mother’s illness to me in those terms.”
“I said it before, and I’ll say it again; I’m sorry that happened to you.” She reached out and touched his arm before she could stop herself. Almost immediately, she pulled her hand back like she’d just touched a stove.
Before he could respond, she exited the truck. He cut the lights off as she searched for her key in the bottom of her handbag. As her fingers closed around it, she looked up and toward the door. She stepped onto the porch to get a closer look.
Something was off.
What?
It was too late to go to Ms. Bouche’s house and ask if she’d noticed anyone suspicious hanging around.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the older woman’s door stood ajar.
Chloe backed away from her own door. “Trav…”
He was behind her in two seconds flat. “What is it?”
“Someone might be inside my trailer…and look…” She pointed toward next door.
Trav cursed under his breath. “Will you go inside my truck and lock the doors while I investigate?”
“I’m going with you.”