Chapter Thirty-four
Mason
Home after eleven and a half weeks on the road
There were giant steel planters on the front porch, teeming with multicolored succulents. They looked expensive and custom made. I knew the silver Tahoe sitting in the driveway wasn’t Payton’s. I’d had a Mercedes GLS delivered two days after I left. I’d done a lot of research and that was one of the best and the safest. So either she said fuck you to my gift, or there was someone else here. The sick nervous feeling in my stomach intensified.
I tried the door and found it locked. I told myself that was a good thing. Payton was being safe and cautious. I fished my key out of my pocket, a key I hadn’t used in over three months. I frowned when it wouldn’t fit in the lock. I was forced to knock on my own front door. I held my breath, waiting to see her face. I almost wanted to close my eyes.
I was terrified.
“Can I help you?” I jerked back. The man who opened the door was built like a brick house. He had dark hair and dark eyes, his face set in confusion.
“Uh, can I help you?” My voice sounded like a spoiled sixteen-year-old girl’s, and it made me wince.
His expression deepened, an almost smile playing on his lips. Yeah, I sounded ridiculous and we both knew it. “What?”
“This is my fucking house.” I wanted to hit him, even though he had a couple inches and like forty pounds on me. Payton had moved some guy into my house? Screwing him under my roof? With my sister down the hall? I wanted to hit him, and then lean over the new planters and throw up everything I’d eaten today.
“You’re Mason.”
Of course I was Mason. I was famous as fuck, not to mention that my pictures were up in the damn house. Lining the hallway, sitting on the dresser. That smug prick knew who I was. “Are you going to move? Or am I going to have to call security.” I had started to get my voice back, and I sounded a lot stronger than I felt.
He crossed his arms over his chest, his massive body blocking the whole doorframe. “Go ahead, asshole. Call them.” He gestured toward the gate with his big head. “I’d love to know why they let someone on the property without calling the house first.”
My eyes widened. “Because it’s my fucking property.” I all but screamed in his face. “Move.”
He stared at me for so long I was seriously wondering if I was going to have to go get security. Security I’d hired. Men I paid to make sure that Payton and Katie were safe. Finally he let out an annoyed sigh and stepped to the side. I picked up my worn, army green duffle off the ground and brushed past him. I made sure to knock my shoulder into his, but he didn’t really budge.
“Where’s Payton?” My eyes scanned the living room. The furniture was the same brown leather stuff my parents had picked out. But it was rearranged and there were toys scattered in baskets on the bookcases, and there was a pink and gray foam play mat under the windows.
“Pay took Katie to mommy and me yoga. They should be home any second now.” The beefcake was still standing by the door, his muscular arms still crossed over his chest.
Pay? How long had those two been shacking up? “Are you the nanny?” Please God, let him be the nanny. Payton hiring a hot and built manny would be so much better than her moving her boyfriend into my house.
He threw his head back and chuckled. “No.”
Well shit. I turned my back to him, once again surveying the house. All my pictures were gone off the shelves, the walls. They were replaced with pictures of Katie. There was one of Katie and Payton that made my heart stutter in my chest. I walked closer, studying it. They were in the field of wild flowers that always grew on one of the back acres of the ranch. They were both dressed in white and she was holding Katie up, the sun lighting their smiling faces.
“I’m guessing Pay doesn’t know you were coming back today?”
I cleared the lump out of my throat and spun around, irritation on my face. “No. I didn’t call Pay to let her know I was coming home. To my own fucking house.” I sounded like a straight up asshole now. But I was scared that she’d moved on, moved on to someone better. Someone who had been here for her and Katie when I’d all but abandoned them.
He shook his head, a smile forming on his stupid pretty face. “You should have called, bro.”
I opened my mouth to go off on him, but before I could get a word out, the front door swung wide.
“We’re home!” Payton walked in, her long hair piled on top of her head and Katie in her arms. There were both smiling at the man I’d quickly grown to hate.
Katie started to squirm and he scooped her up, making her coo and Payton chuckle. The sound of her laughter made my heart stop.
“I know everyone thinks their kid is the cutest kid, but I’m telling you Pax, our girl was the—”
Her words cut off when she noticed me standing in the middle of the living room. Her gaze took me in and her face froze, like she couldn’t really believe I was here.
“Hey, Payton.”
“Mace?” She took a step closer, her light pink tank top flowing with the sudden movement. Her mouth was open and her eyes were wide. I’d shocked her. Maybe the Hulk was right. Maybe I should have called. “What are you doing here?”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat that had formed the minute she’d walked in the door. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. “The tour is over.” I looked from her to my baby sister sitting happily in another man’s arms. “I, uh, it was time to come home.”
“Pax. Uh, could you—”
“Come on, Katie Bug, let’s go see the horseys. You want to go see the horseys?” He glared at me on his way out of my house, holding my sister. “Say bye-bye.” He picked up her tiny little hand and waved gently for her. “Bye. Bye.”
“Bye-bye, Bug. Have fun.” Payton blew her a kiss and smiled until the front door shut. Then she turned to me, her expression wary. “You didn’t call.”
“Yeah. Well I didn’t realize I needed to. Since this is my house.” My tone was way harsher than it had any right to be. I should be acting contrite. But seeing her, seeing Katie smile at that guy? It was like a punch to the stomach.
Payton crossed her arms over her chest. “This isn’t your house, Mace. It may be in your name, but you don’t live here. Not anymore, not since the day you decided to extend your tour.” She raised an eyebrow and dared me to tell her a lie. Did she know that it was my idea to extend? “You should have called.”
I mirrored her position, even though I should have been groveling at her feet. “Why? Afraid I pissed off your meathead boyfriend?”
She snorted. “Who? Pax? That’s one of my brothers.”
Holy shit. That was one of her brothers? What did the other two look like? They could kill me with one hand tied behind their backs. Were they all like the Hulk? Just less green? I shrugged like I was indifferent, not slightly alarmed. “What was he doing here?”
She sighed, clearly already annoyed with my dumb, snarky ass. “Not that it’s any of your business why my brother was in my house, but he lives here, helps me take care of Katie.”
“Where’s the nanny?”
“I fired her the second you hired her. I told you I’d stay with Katie when you extended the tour, there was no need to get a nanny.” Payton crossed the room, picking up a couple of Katie’s toys off the floor.
“Your leave of absence was over, I thought…”
“I knew Kate wouldn’t have wanted that for her, wouldn’t have wanted her daughter raised by a stranger. So I took on an alternate position at the hospital, and my brothers moved in here to help me.”
“Brothers? As in more than one lives here?”
“Two live here and—”
“Katie wasn’t going to be raised by a stranger. I was coming home, the tour would have ended eventually.” Payton scoffed. Clearly she didn’t believe me. Which was okay, because I didn’t really believe me either. But for some reason I was hell-bent on selling the lie. “This leg only had two weeks left anyway.”
“Oh did it? Or were you going to call up RiffRaff and beg them to extend it again? What happened? Did they say no? Tell me, Mason, why are you home early?”
Did she know? Did she know that they’d sent me home like a scolded child? Facing my fears being my ultimate punishment. “It was just time.” That was only a partial lie. It was well past time for me to come home, and everybody knew it.
“I don’t believe that for a single second.” She stood straight, finally looking at me. Really looking at me. I watched as her eyes glassed over with unshed tears.
I closed mine, trying to find the right words. Trying to figure out exactly what to say to convey my regret, my sorrow. “Payton. I am so fucking sorry.” I took a step toward her. “I did the wrong thing, and I made the wrong choice.”
She shook her head, like she was trying to block out my explanation.
“I’ve missed you so damn much. And I know that I have no right to beg for your forgiveness, no right to be asked back in, but Katie is—”
“Katie is your sister, and I’d never try to keep you away from her.” She raised her chin. “But you sure as hell aren’t going to get my forgiveness. So please, don’t even try.” She pointed down at my duffel. “I took over your room, you’ll have to sleep in the master.” She headed toward the front door, throwing it open.
I panicked. No lie, I fucking panicked. My heart started to pound and I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. “Where are you going?” Was she leaving? Would she just walk out that door and never come back? Did I even have the right to ask? Was that what I’d done to her?
“I’m going to get Katie. She needs to eat, and then she needs a nap.” She took two steps out and then turned on her heel, glaring at me. “Why are you following me? Go unpack or something.”
“She’s my sister and…”
Suddenly Payton’s finger was in my face and I was walking backward to keep from getting jabbed. “You listen and you listen good. Katie may be your sister. She may be your blood. But she has been my responsibility, my life, for the last eleven weeks. Don’t you dare think you can come in here and demand that I just hand her over. She doesn’t even know you any—”
“I just wanted to see her, Payton. I just wanted to come with you, that’s all.” I held my hands up in surrender. The truth was I didn’t want to be alone in that house. The truth was that I was itching to hold my sister. And longing to be near Payton.