Love meant losing control.
Love was also, it was said, supposed to make you feel happy and complete. He didn’t deserve to feel happy and he’d never feel complete. How could he when he was the reason his parents’ remains, and those of his unborn sibling, were scattered on a mountain in Vermont?
Beck felt his cell phone vibrate in his back pocket and pulled it out. He smiled at the name on the display. He had two older brothers, Linc through adoption and Jaeger through birth, and he loved them equally.
They were also equally annoying in their belief that he needed looking after. The fact that he was taller and bigger than both of them didn’t stop them fussing over him and his younger sister, Sage.
This time it was Jaeger calling.
“Jay, what’s up?” he asked after answering the call.
“Just checking up on you. Any trouble?”
Beck rolled his eyes. He wasn’t that stupid; he wasn’t stupid at all. “Actually, I was just about to call you. We’re sitting in a Thai jail. They found some coke on us.”
There was long silence before Jaeger released a harsh curse. “That’s not funny, Beck.”
Beck grinned. “I thought it was.”
“You are such an ass.”
Beck tapped Cady on her knee and pointed to his backpack, silently telling her to keep an eye on his stuff. She nodded and Beck stood up to walk toward the window looking out onto the busy tarmac.
“Where are you? Bangkok?” Jaeger asked. “And are you still heading for Vietnam?”
“That’s the plan, why?”
“I’m heading there day after next. I’ve had a tip about a new rustic mine in Yen Bai producing some very high quality rubies. Want to come with me and see what we can buy?”
Beck felt a spurt of excitement, the kick of adrenaline at the thought of hunting gems with his brother to supply the demands of Ballantyne’s rich and demanding clients. “Hell, yes.”
Then he remembered that he wasn’t traveling alone. “Can I bring Cady?”
“I’m not sure of the area, Beck. I wouldn’t,” Jaeger replied. “Can’t she stay in Hanoi by herself for a couple of days?”
Beck ran his hand over the back of his neck. The backpackers they’d met on Phi Phi were heading to Hanoi, as well, and they were all staying at the same backpacker’s hostel. Maybe they—and their new friend Amy especially—could keep an eye on Cady for a few days. He was fairly certain she’d be okay.
Then the disapproving faces of Cady’s parents jumped onto the big screen of his mind and he instantly felt guilty. He was responsible for Cady, not Amy.
“Let me think about it,” he told Jaeger. But he knew he couldn’t leave Cady in Hanoi by herself.
“No worries,” Jaeger replied. “I’m glad that you’ve reconciled yourself to traveling. Connor was worried that you wouldn’t but I knew that our parents’ adventurous spirit was still in you, albeit deeply buried.”
“It’s not like I have a choice, Jaeger. That was the ultimatum Connor and Linc gave me, supported by you, I might add.”
Yeah, he enjoyed traveling but he was still pissed that his uncle and his brothers refused to allow him to join Ballantyne’s until he’d taken a gap year or two.
“You know why, Beck,” Jaeger said, his deep voice low and concerned. “You’ve been operating at warp speed since you were a kid. You finished school early, partly because you’re brilliant, but mostly because you worked your tail off. You made the national swim championships because every moment you weren’t studying you were in the pool. When you gave up competitive swimming we thanked God because we thought you might finally get a life. Date some girls, have some fun, get into some trouble. Not you. You went off to college and got your master’s in business in record time. You’re twenty-three years old and you’ve spent the past ten years working your ass off. If you come back to Ballantyne’s, you’ll do exactly the same thing. So we don’t care if you sit on a beach for the next eight months or if you enter an ashram, but what you aren’t doing is going straight to work.”
Beck gripped the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He’d heard this lecture a hundred times before.
“Anyway, this is a stupid conversation because we all know that you love traveling.”
He did. He loved the freedom it gave him, loved the anonymity. While traveling, he was Beck, no surname attached. For the first time in fifteen years he felt marginally free, a little at peace, a lot chilled.
“Do you think that tying yourself to Cady while you travel is a good idea?” Jaeger asked.
“What are you talking about?”
Beck glanced at Cady, who met his eyes and gave him that quick, sunburst smile that always jump-started his heart.
“According to her social media posts, she’s ditching school and spending the next year traveling with you.”
What the hell...?
“She’s going back to school,” Beck said, forcing the words up his tight throat.
“Uh...not according to Sage, who follows both of you on social media. It was girl speak...something about her loving you enough to continue traveling with you.”
A large bead of sweat rolled down his temple and into his heavy stubble. A loud bell clanged in his ears, and his stomach felt like it had taken a ride on a death-defying roller coaster.
That wasn’t the plan. He needed them to stick to the plan.
“That’s not happening.” He managed, through his panic, to push the words out.
“Look,” Jaeger said, impatient, “I’ve got more important things to do than talk about your love life. Just let me know about ruby-hunting in Yen Bai.”
Using his phone, Beck pulled up her social media account and yep, Cady had posted something about not returning to college and extending her trip with him.
Beck pocketed his phone and gripped the railing separating him from the floor-to-ceiling windows. He dropped his head and stared at his grubby boots. Fear, hot and acidic, burned a ring of fire around his heart, up his throat and coated his mouth in a bitter film.
She was supposed to be a three-month fling. This wasn’t supposed to get this intense, this quickly. He’d been banking on her going home, heading back to college. Her leaving had been his safety net, the way he stopped himself from falling all the way in love with her. If she stayed with him, he doubted he could resist her and then he’d be up crap creek in a sinking canoe.
He wasn’t prepared to go there. If he loved her and lost her...
Hell, no. Not happening.
Why hadn’t she spoken to him first before blabbing online? He knew that her choosing him over her parents was her way of making a statement but hell, hers wasn’t the only seat on this train. He had a right to decide whether he wanted to keep traveling with her. He couldn’t bear to see her go but he couldn’t risk his heart by her staying.
Devil, meet the deep blue sea.
The only rational option, his instinctive reaction, was to stick to the plan they’d decided on back in New York. She needed to go home, go back to college and he’d see her at Christmas. The only deviation he was prepared to make to that plan was to send her home as quickly as possible. They were in an airport and that could be accomplished right now.
Because if he didn’t walk away today, he knew that he never would.
His decision made, Beck walked over to her and picked up his backpack with one hand and grabbed hers with another.
Cady pulled out the earbuds and slung her smaller backpack over her shoulder as she stood up. “What’s up?”
When Beck gestured to the familiar logo of an American carrier at the neighboring gate, her eyes flashed with joy. “Oh, my God, we’re going home?” she squealed, dancing on the spot.
He just looked at her, wanting her to understand without having to say the
words. After a little confused silence, the light faded from her eyes and color leached from her face. “You’re not coming with me?”
Beck shook his head.
He dropped the backpacks at his feet and slapped his hands on his hips. It took him a while to find the words he needed. “Jaeger wants me to meet him in Vietnam to look for rubies with him, and you can’t come with, and I can’t leave you on your own.”
Cady’s bottom lip trembled and she rocked on her heels, looking like he’d sideswiped her with a stick, but he continued. “It’s only two weeks early, Cady, and it’s not like you were enjoying yourself.”
“I love spending time with you! In fact, I had just decided that I want to stay, to ignore my folks’ disapproval, to get into the hang of this. I want to be with—”
Beck jumped in before she could finish that sentence. “You’re going back to school, Cady. That was always the plan. I’m just sending you home two weeks early.”
Cady took a step back and her eyes filled with tears. “You’re sending me home?”
Oh, damn, bad choice of words. “I’ll be home for Christmas. We can reevaluate then.”
“You’re sending me home?” Cady repeated his words, emphasizing each one.
“Christmas is in three months—”
Cady’s lips firmed and she folded her arms across her torso. “Do you love me, Beck?” she demanded.
Ah, no. Not this question. He could love her, he silently admitted, and that was why she needed to go back to the States. Falling in love with Cady, with anyone, wasn’t something he was prepared to do.
When he didn’t answer, Cady grabbed his arm, her nails digging into his skin.
Beck jerked his arm away and forced himself to meet her eyes. Oh, damn, he wished he hadn’t because, as long as he lived, he’d remember the betrayal he saw within them, the pain he’d caused. Cady lifted her hand to grab the fabric of his shirt just above his heart, twisting it in her fist. “Don’t do this, Beck. Don’t throw us away, don’t toss me aside. We can fix this.”
“That’s the thing, Cades, I can’t be fixed.”
It was a special type of hell, Beck thought, to watch a heart break. It was even worse when you were responsible for it breaking.
Copyright © 2017 by Joss Wood
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Maureen Child for her contribution to the Texas Cattleman’s Club: Blackmail miniseries.
ISBN-13: 9781488011641
A Texas-Sized Secret
Copyright © 2017 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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