Chapter Thirty-Three
Trevor stared at Haven’s wraparound porch. With the harsh cold snap that had slipped into north Texas in the last twenty-four hours, the Adirondack chairs where his brothers sometimes milled until everyone showed up were empty. They were all inside though, one vehicle for every one of them crowding the circle drive and the driveway in front of the four-car garage.
Ten minutes he’d sat here, his mood as bleak as the gray skies and whipping winds outside, but he couldn’t get out of the cab. Axel hadn’t been wrong when he’d teased Trevor about having something to bring up at today’s rally. He’d had plans. Huge ones he’d never thought he’d ever lay out for his brothers. Now he couldn’t figure out what to do.
For over two days, he’d waited. Waited, wondered and relived the things he’d said to Natalie. He knew she was safe and getting back on her feet, a fact he’d confirmed with at least a few calls a day to Maureen. He’d also pestered Zeke into making daily house calls. Still, not a peep out of Natalie.
Out of nowhere, memories of Frank and Bonnie flooded his mind. How often she’d told him she was proud of him. How she’d stood by him through the lean times on the ranch, and how she’d supported his decisions even when she openly disagreed with him at the start. That’s what Trevor had wanted. What he’d hoped he could have with Natalie.
Sighing, he reached for the ignition, hesitated, and snagged his phone from the center console instead. He thumbed up Frank’s number from his favorites list and hit Dial.
Three rings in, he’d just about accepted that his dad had his hands full and was about to hang up when Frank’s voice slid through the line. “‘Bout time you called me. Been waitin’ on a wish list for Levi so I can get my shopping done before I head up for Christmas.”
Fuck, he’d forgotten about that. “Yeah...” He cleared his throat, not sure how the hell to broach everything that gone down the last few days and how their planned holiday plans were likely smashed to hell again. “I need to get with him. Kinda been sidetracked the last few days.”
Silence hummed through the line.
Frank broke it first. “You gonna tell me what’s eatin’ you, son? Or are we gonna dance around the topic until you get up the nerve?”
Trevor huffed out a chuckle, but it came out about as tired as he felt. “I think what I had with Natalie is over.”
In the background, Frank’s footsteps sounded on a hard surface, the hollow echo of it placing him no doubt on his raised front porch. “Something cause it to be over, or did one of you make that choice?”
The same fury and gut-wrenching hurt he’d felt when Natalie had judged and sentenced him so quickly billowed up from the cage he’d tried to bury it in. “Something happened.”
“Mmm hmmm.” No guidance. No questions. Just quiet acceptance.
“I don’t remember you and Mom fighting,” Trevor said. “Not once.”
At that, Frank barked out a harsh laugh. “Not sure you’re the same kid who lived in my house then, because we fought plenty. Especially when I had an inclination to dig in my heels and she had a point to prove.”
They had? Because for the life of him, he didn’t remember it. Yeah, she’d shared her thoughts on things, even when it didn’t line up with Frank’s opinion, but she did it calm and never read him the riot act. “She might have debated with you, but at the heart of things she believed in you.”
“At the heart of things, yeah. But that didn’t mean we didn’t hurl a few grenades at each other that took a while to mend. Your mom used to say the more you love, the deeper the pain when you fight.” He paused a minute and pulled in a deep breath full of reminiscence. “You love this girl?”
Yeah, he did. Enough that walking out of that hospital and trusting his brothers to see her home had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. But if she didn’t want him, he’d be damned if he begged. “Not thinkin’ it matters now. Damage is already done.”
“For you or for her?”
The question caught him off guard. “Not sure I follow.”
“Son, you’re a man with enough pride to fill up Texas and half a Mexico. I get that ’cause I struggle with it, too. But if there’s one part of life where pride’s got no place, it’s with the woman you love. So I’m askin’—who’s damaged? You or her?”
“She lumped me in with that prick of an ex-husband of hers. Automatically assumed I’d acted without honor or reason.”
“She have all the facts when she made that call?”
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and shifted uncomfortably in the leather seat. “No, but she didn’t ask, either.”
“You give ’em to her?”
“After she’d told me to take a hike, yeah.”
“And then what?”
The look on her face when he’d shared the details behind his hauls flashed crystal clear in his head. How she’d flinched and got eyes as big as a harvest moon when he’d told her about the terminal patients. How her lips had trembled before he’d stalked out to the waiting room. He swallowed. Hard. “I hurt her.”
Damn, but he was an idiot. Wounded in his own right, but not so much it excused flaying the woman he loved with a sharp tongue and uncensored words. Christ, after what he’d said, no wonder she hadn’t called.
As if he’d sensed the direction of Trevor’s thoughts, his dad laid out his guidance with the same black and white frankness he always did. “Then if you love her, I suggest you start fixin’ the damage.”
“How?”
“Trevor Raines, you don’t need my answer on that. You already know it. You just need to pull your head out of your ass long enough to get shit done.”
Whatever it takes.
He might not have ever heard the phrase before he stepped on Frank and Bonnie Raines’s property, but he’d heard it plenty after. Had heard it echoed just as much in the years he’d been with Jace and Axel. He killed the engine and popped his door, urgency and purpose reigniting his drive with the finesse of a battering ram. “I gotta go.”
Frank’s knowing chuckle rumbled through the phone line. “I imagine you do. You call me and let me know how it goes. I like that girl and was looking forward to getting my hooks into Levi over Christmas. No fun bein’ my age without a kid to spoil.”
“You’re still coming up,” he said, striding through the kitchen. “I might have to kidnap the lot of them and tie Natalie to a chair to keep her here, but our Christmas in January is still happening at my place.”
He hung up and jogged down the basement stairs. His brothers’ random chatter died off the second he hit the room. Every one of them were already in place with drinks ranging from bottled beers and Scotch to sweet iced tea placed in front of them.
Axel spun in his big barrel studio chair and stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing one boot-shod foot over the other. It wasn’t often he ditched his sophisticated clothes for jeans and a T-shirt, but today’s getup said he’d be spending time tonight in territory better spent blending in. “‘Bout bloody time ya got here.”
“Had something I had to deal with.” Like figuring out he was a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. He scooted his ladder-back chair up to the table, wishing like hell he’d grabbed a beer on the way in. As nervous as he was, his tongue and courage could both use a little lubrication.
Jace leaned into the table and crossed his arms in front of him. “All right. Who’s up first?”
“I’m claiming Nat,” Trevor blurted before he could overthink it.
Jace tried to fight a smile, but lost the battle and ducked his head.
Zeke flat-out laughed, and Axel cursed.
Danny, Beckett, and Knox cast a combination of scoffs and scowls across the table.
“Pay up, fuckers,” Zeke said. “I told you he’d cave in under a week.”
Every damned one of them grumbled and reached for their back pockets.
Trevor couldn’t believe it. The stacks of cash getting tossed toward Zeke beside him said it was real, but his head still couldn’t wrap around the concept. “You bet on me?”
“Fuck, yeah.” Danny slid a crisp hundred-dollar bill across the table.
Knox unfolded an unbelievably crinkled piece of paper and held it out for Trevor. “You cavin’ was never a doubt, but the timing was debatable. No harm in a little good-natured wager, right?”
Trevor snatched the paper just as Zeke lifted his hand palm out. “I gotta confess, though. I might have had a tiny inside track. Or should I say a honkin’ three-karat inside track. Gabe said the rock you bought her was a work of art.”
Jace leaned back in his chair the same way he would settling in behind a big screen for a football kickoff. “I take it this means you patched things up?”
Glaring down at the bets laid out on the simple white paper, Trevor gritted his teeth. Damn, but he had his work cut out for him. If admitting what a fool he’d been to his brothers was hard, fessing up with Natalie would be about twenty times worse. “Not yet.”
“You haven’t asked her?” Beckett said.
Trevor shook his head. “I wanted to, but not before we got the deal with Wyatt behind us. Then Wyatt got bail, and the rest you already know.”
“You sure she’s ready for this?” Axel asked. “If she’s so quick to judge, you sure she’s ready for us?”
Yeah, she was ready. He knew it with the same certainty he’d felt the day he’d looked down at that ring and known exactly where it belonged. He’d just been too hotheaded to wade into facing the serious tactical error of not coming clean with Natalie before the brotherhood had pulled their operation. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. “Nat’s got a level head. She’ll see the reason in what we do. And if she doesn’t, she’ll still back my play. She’s solid. I’m the one who fucked up by blindsiding her.”
Knox set his near-empty Corona on the well-scarred table, beads of sweat gliding down the side to pool around the base. “So what’s your plan?”
Hell if he knew, but he wasn’t stopping until his ring was on Natalie’s finger and her whole damned clan was tucked up tight on his ranch. “What any smart man does. Stay on her until she can’t say no. Whatever it takes.”