by Sophie Oak
Or he might have just changed his mind, and this was his way of telling her.
The phone in her hand buzzed. Mouse flipped it open as quick as she could. “Trev?”
“No, hon, it’s Wanda.”
Wanda? Why was Wanda calling? There was only one reason Wanda called, and that was to spread gossip about the people who got hauled into the sheriff’s department. Mouse’s heart fell. “What did he do?”
“Which one, hon?”
Mouse sat up straighter. “Trev, of course.”
“Well, I had to ask because both Trev and Bo got their butts hauled in along with that attractive man who thinks I would make a good Dom DeLuise. That’s not flattering, mister. I don’t care what you say.” Wanda sounded like she was talking to someone else. “Seriously, Mouse, you have to get your men under control. Lou is in a crappy mood now because he had to hose down the second cell. No one uses that second cell, and now it’s full of puke. It’s really your fault. If they think I’m cleaning up after a bunch of drunk-ass twenty-year-olds, those boys are wrong. I have shit on both those deputies, and I won’t hesitate to use it. I just got my nails done. Do you know how much Sue charges these days? Well, let me tell you, I’m not wasting these nails on cleaning.”
Mouse heard Wanda take a breath. It was the only chance she was going to get. “Wanda, what did Trev and Bo do?”
“Oh, they did what all those boys do. They got in a fight. Why boys need to beat on each other I have no idea.”
Mouse got to her feet and started looking for her keys. Damn it. She was going to have to drive. She hated driving, but apparently Trev had gone looking for Bo and they had fought. Fought. Oh, that was absolutely the last thing she wanted. “Is Bo still alive?”
There was a laugh, and Wanda was talking to someone else. “She wants to know if you’re still alive, Bo.”
“Hell, Mouse, I’m not exactly fragile. Beth, I mean, Beth. Damn it, that hurt, Trev.” Bo sounded far away, but she got the idea.
“Wanda, you have to separate them.” Mouse found the keys to the ancient car her father had left her.
“Oh, Trev wouldn’t let Bo go into the other cell. He did this whole thing where his eyes got cold and suddenly all the men in the room just do what he tells them to do. I don’t get that. I would have just done what I wanted, but it does seem to get to the men. So he and Bo and the other one are in one cell, and everyone else is in that second cell, and let me tell you, that man from New York City is getting on my nerves. We really should be able to send him to a bigger lockup just for that accent alone. How am I supposed to follow that? He talks so fast.”
But Mouse was out the door. Like it or not, she was driving, and she had to hope that her car was going to get with the game plan.
* * * *
Trev felt cold deep in his gut. He’d taken care of everything he’d needed to, and now he could let the guilt wash over him. He sat down on the hard bench and looked over into the second cell where Marty held a compress over his nose. He sat sullenly among the other men the sheriff had managed to catch.
“You’re an asshole, Trev. And your choice in friends has gone way downhill.” Marty spat out the words.
Trev merely leaned back against the bars. His last set of friends had been a bunch of druggies and dealers and Marty himself. He kind of thought Bo was a step up. And Leo. Crap. He’d gotten his mentor tossed in the can. He looked over where Leo stood in the corner talking quietly to Jimmy Nixon. He hoped Leo wasn’t having to listen to crap about how city folk always came into town and ruined everything. He’d gotten enough of that from the deputy.
And now Beth had been called to come get them all. His heart ached. He was going to have to tell her he was leaving.
“Fine, I’m an asshole. When does our plane leave?” Trev had to do it. He needed the money now. He had to get his sister out of debt. She couldn’t go on working in a strip club.
And where had his brother-in-law gone? Why wasn’t he here in this happy little party? Trev had seen Bryce with Deputy Len and assumed they would all end up in the same cell together. Why had Bryce been allowed to walk away?
“You can’t go.” Bo turned to him. “You can’t leave Deer Run now.”
Bo was a mystery. Trev didn’t understand him. Bo hadn’t even spoken up when the deputy had tried to separate him from Trev and Leo. Trev had seen the way Bo’s whole body had stiffened at the thought of getting thrown in jail with Brian Nixon, the same man who had tried to separate his head from his body just this morning, but he’d taken it with almost willful acceptance. Now Bo wanted to protest?
“I would think you would be happy about it.” Trev knew that hours before there had been nothing Bo wanted more than to see his ass leaving town.
There was a long pause. The hum of conversation around them seemed to relax Bo as though he didn’t want anyone to hear what the two of them were saying. “Tell me why you wouldn’t let me in that night.”
Trev searched his memory. “What night are you talking about?”
Bo’s eyes became hooded. “You don’t even remember.”
Trev sighed. His whole body felt like it was weighed down. If he could just sink into the floor, he would. The desire for a drink was raging now. Just get through the next five minutes, Trev. He could handle it. He had to. Sure he could. He hadn’t been able to handle fame and all the crap that went with it in San Antonio. How the fuck was he going to do it in LA? He would take some of that money and hire two guys whose only job was to make sure his ass didn’t stray. If he did, they would beat the shit out of him. The minute he sniffed a beer or started to walk into a party, they would beat the impulse out of him. Yeah, that might work.
“My dad tried to kill me that night.”
Bo’s words shocked Trev out of his misery. He turned to Bo. “What are you talking about?”
Bo shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t want to talk about it. Look, that’s all over. The thing is I came to your apartment in Austin that night and you told me to go away. You said something about me not being dressed for the party.”
“I had a lot of parties, Bo. It could have been any of them.” There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. This event was obviously important to Bo, and he couldn’t even remember it.
“You really don’t remember.”
He shook his head. Shame threatened to choke him. “I wish you would talk about it.”
Bo shook his head. “We can let it go. It changes things now that I know you don’t even remember. Maybe you really were a different person.”
“That addict is still inside.” He was screaming right now.
“Well, don’t let him out again.” Bo’s demeanor changed. He sighed and settled back as though trying to get comfortable. “So, how does this thing work? You know, the whole ‘sharing Beth’ thing. I mean, if she says yes, of course.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to ask her exactly. I was going to strip her down and see how she felt when she had two mouths on her girl parts. That’s when the yes, yes, yeses start.” Except they wouldn’t now. He would be in LA, and he didn’t dare take Beth with him. He wanted to. He wanted to order her to pack up and come with him. She would be the reason he stayed sober. She was his responsibility, the person who kept him grounded, the person he couldn’t let down.
But he would.
Bo chuckled a little. “Damn, that actually sounds hot. Are we going to tie her up? Maybe we should make a game plan. We have some time. She’ll either have to find a ride or worse, she’ll drive. We could be here for hours.”
Trev ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “We’re not going to tie her up. I have to leave.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Did you hear a word Bryce said? My sister is working at a strip club because she can’t pay the hospital bills. I can’t let her down. I don’t have a fucking dime until next year. I can’t leave her there.”
Bo shrugged it off. “I have eight hundred thousand dollars in t
he bank. You can pay me back later. Now, do I get to order her around, too? I don’t know how good I’m going to be at that.”
Trev stared at him for a moment. He’d said it so casually. “You would do that? You hate me.”
Bo leaned his head against the bars, his eyes closing as he spoke. “Not really. I don’t know how much I can trust you, yet. This doesn’t make us friends, but I like your sister well enough. And that money doesn’t mean a damn thing here. What the hell am I going to spend it on? I came into that money last year, and I haven’t spent a dime of it. I thought about asking to buy into the ranch, but Aidan’s got his own family now. He’s going to want to leave that ranch to his kids. I wouldn’t be any good at my own ranch. I can work a herd, but the business part makes me nervous. So, I’ve got a whole bunch of money and not a damn thing to do with it. Beth cares about you. It would break her heart if you walked out now. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for her.” He opened his eyes and turned to Trev. “The question is, are you man enough to accept it?”
It rankled. It was charity, and Trev knew it. What would his sister want? It was a question Leo forced him to ask whenever he thought about something like this. When making a decision that truly affected another person, Trev had to take her feelings into account. It sucked. Shelley would want him to follow the path he’d planned. That was the whole damn reason she’d never mentioned it. His sister loved him. Making a unilateral decision that could cost him his sobriety wouldn’t really help her in the end. He was the only family she had left. Bo was offering him a chance to fix the situation without causing another problem.
Sometimes being a man meant swallowing his damn pride.
“If I’m getting involved in this, I have to know I mean something.” Bo turned away as though he didn’t want to look at Trev anymore. “I can’t just be a third body. I know the way this goes. You’re going to be the big guy, the one with all the authority, and I’m mostly okay with that. But I can’t just be a dick to be used in bed and ignored out of it. If that’s all you want, a third to please Beth, then you should count me out.”
Bo wanted to matter. “Thank you. I’ll take it. I’ll find out from the hospital just how much it is. And I’ll pay you back. With interest.”
Bo turned to him.
“Fine, without interest.”
“I’m not a fucking bank.”
“Understood.” He didn’t have to go. Trev felt a smile sneak across his face. How was it that he’d reached his lowest point and finally found the people who mattered? His sister. Leo. Beth and Bo. Years and years he’d been a football god, and it was only when he had not a dime to his name that he found real friends. “Thank you, Bo.”
A sunny smile lit Bo’s face. “No problem.”
Marty stood at the bars. “Hey, McNamara and I have an early-morning flight to LA. When are we getting out of this piss pot? I swear to god, I’m going to sue the fuck out of this town.”
“You can try. We ain’t got any money, so good luck, mister.” Wanda went back to admiring her nails.
“And Trev’s not going anywhere,” Bo announced. “He has a job. He’s a cowboy.”
Marty’s eyes went wide. “Have you been talking to Dallas? Behind my back?”
Trev laughed. It was genuinely freeing. “No, Marty. I’m not that kind of cowboy. I’m the ‘spend all day on horseback, get knee-deep in cow shit, and get paid next to nothing’ kind of cowboy.”
And it was the best job in the world. He’d loved football, but he’d loved the game more than anything else. The rest of it—the business part—had nearly killed him. He just wanted to play. He hadn’t picked up a football in two years, but he suddenly wanted to. He wanted to get the hands together on a Sunday and play a little touch. He never felt freer than when he was looking for a target to throw to.
If he’d been a different man, his talent and his personality would have meshed. He wasn’t that man. He couldn’t handle it. Life was a choice. He chose to live and not burn out. Trev knew some people might never understand, but he’d chosen to live the day he’d walked away.
“I’m not going anywhere, Marty. Go find someone else to exploit. And don’t call me again. I’ll never step onto the field again. Not a professional field. Now, leave me be. Bo and I have a game to plan.”
It would involve rope and a paddle because Trev intended to let Beth know what she was in for the next time she hid something from him.
Leo smiled over at him before patting Jimmy on the shoulder and passing him a business card. “Call me tomorrow. We’ll set up a session. It’s going to be all right.”
Trev raised a brow. Leo shook his head. “Patient confidentiality. But god, I could build a whole practice off this town.” He turned to Bo. “Are you going to be able to handle this? Beth lied to her Dom. This is going to be an ugly scene.”
Bo’s eyes found Trev’s. “Lied?”
“By omission,” Trev clarified. She hadn’t mentioned the fact that she’d been shot at. It was a hell of an omission.
“Fuck, I told her you would find out. I told her to call you.” Bo talked fast.
“You aren’t in trouble, Bo. Though now that we have a deal, I expect that you would call me in if something like that happens again. So, she fixed the door and painted over the bullet holes?”
Bo groaned. “Nope. She painted over the words on the wall. ‘Get out.’”
Trev closed his eyes. Those words had been meant for him. A huge part of him wanted to slink away. It would be better for everyone if he left. Beth and Bo were going to be tainted by his presence. He opened his eyes to find Leo and Bo both looking at him expectantly.
If he left, this town would eat up Bo and Beth again. Fuck it. He was better for them. The town could go to hell. Bo and Beth had made their choices. The town could hate him all they liked, but Beth was his. Fuck. Bo was his. Not in any sexual way, but Bo had just become his responsibility in a way that meant something to Trev.
Trev raised his voice to make sure Wanda heard him. As long as Wanda heard, everyone in town would know what he’d said. “I will beat the living shit out of the next person who tries something like this. I’m not going anywhere, and this town better get used to it. I’m here for a year, and then we’ll see what happens, but I’m not going to let some asshole make me run out on my friends.”
Leo stood, a brilliant smile on his face. “The man learns. I am the greatest therapist in the world.” He pointed to the five men in the opposite cell. “Group rate, gentlemen. Give me a call. I can fix you. Well, maybe not you. You offend me. But the rest of you are more than welcome.”
“Did you hear that, Patty? Yeah, I think the ponytailed man is some sort of cult leader. Right here in Deer Run. Yep.” Wanda was back on the phone.
“I can handle whatever this town tries to throw at me,” Bo said, sitting back. “This is what she wants, right?”
Trev turned to him. “I have a question for you. Were you with her when she walked into that house? Or did she call out for you to help her?”
Bo’s face tightened. “I only knew she was in trouble because I heard the gun go off.”
“Is that the way she should have reacted? Or should she have called out for you?” Trev asked the question because Bo needed to understand his place. “I don’t care what had gone on with the two of you. She should have called for you. If she belongs to us, then she has to learn to take care of herself, and that damn straight includes asking for help when some asshole is shooting at her.”
A hard look came into Bo’s eyes. “I can handle it.”
Trev was suddenly pretty sure he could. And he’d just gained a partner.
The door to the sheriff’s office opened, and Beth ran in. She was dressed in jeans and a bulky shirt Trev intended to burn. Her wardrobe was getting an update. He stood, Bo beside him as though they had practiced the move.
“I’m here to pick up Trev and Bo.” She was breathless as she spoke to Wanda. She finally turned, and a little stubbornness
firmed her chin. “I hear the two of you have been fighting. You should both know that I won’t put up with it.”
Trev narrowed his eyes. The only things that kept him off her were the bars between them. “You won’t put up with it?”
She swallowed but seemed to find her courage. “No. I will not. You two should make up.”
Bo chuckled beside him. “Oh, I think Trev and I are fine now. You could say we talked it out.”
She stared for a moment. “Well, I’m glad.” She turned back toward Wanda. “Can I take them home now? I mean, I’m going to take them to their homes, of course.”
Wanda’s eyes widened. “Of course.”
Trev wasn’t going to let her get away with that. “Are you really in?”
Bo nodded.
Then it was time to stake a claim. “You can just take us back to your place, Beth. There’s no reason to hide. I slept there last night. I’ll sleep there tonight. So will Bo.”
“What?” It came out of Beth’s mouth with a little squeak. “Bo?”
“That’s right, Beth. I ain’t calling you Mouse anymore. Trev won’t allow it. And I am definitely spending the night,” Bo insisted.
Wanda continued her play by play. “That’s right, Patty. Both of them. Just like Aidan and Lucas.”
“No!” Trev and Bo both managed to shout it at the same time.
And then Bo laughed. He laughed long and hard, shaking his head.
The sheriff was sighing as he opened the cell door. He looked back at Beth. “Can you take the long-haired fellow with you? He’s made two of the men in the next cell cry like babies. If you leave him here, they’ll all be throwing fits.”
“They aren’t throwing fits. They’re having breakthroughs,” Leo assured the sheriff as he walked out.
“I’m going to actualize my own perfect being,” Jimmy Nixon proclaimed through his tears.
