He'd been so lost that night. So fucking lost.
"What did you do?"
"I apologized. Mariel left in tears, saying that I'd broken her heart. I just sat there on my couch, absolutely numb with shock. It was the closest in my life I've ever come to taking a drink. I was wrecked. I had no fucking idea what to do."
Lissa snuggled up against his side, tucked herself against him, and draped her leg and arm around him, as if she were the one protecting him. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, pressing a kiss to her tousled hair. He couldn't believe that he wanted to be here, in bed, with Lissa, after the shit he'd gone through, but something about having her wrapped around him felt right. More than right. It felt like she was holding his head above water, somehow keeping him from being sucked into the abyss of his memories. "So, how did you find out, then?"
"At six o'clock that morning, my agent started pounding on my door. He was drunk off his ass, and pissed off beyond belief. Apparently, his girlfriend had kicked him out of their hotel room, and he was blaming me."
Lissa placed her palm over his heart and rubbed small circles. "His girlfriend? What did she have to do with you?"
"His girlfriend was my lead guitarist. Mariel."
Her hand stilled. "Seriously?"
"Yeah." He took a deep breath, trying to distance himself from the emotions of that night, of when his agent had drunkenly blurted out the story. "Apparently, they both knew that it was his kid, but they thought my name on child support checks would be very profitable. So, they agreed to pass it off as mine, and then after the baby was born, Mariel was going to break up with me and marry him." The words felt dead in his chest as he spoke. Empty. Hollow. Like it had happened to someone else in another life. Not to him.
Lissa stared at him. "He knew she was sleeping with both of you? And he didn't care? I don't understand."
"Apparently, they were an item before I started dating her. They were both so freaked out that I would quit singing and take away their livelihood, that they agreed to do whatever it took to make me keep singing. As it turned out, Mariel having sex with me was the golden ticket, so he was okay with it...until she kicked him out that night because she was so upset that I was going to figure it all out."
There. That was it. The whole fucking story. The one that the press hadn't been able to get out of him. The one he hadn't even told his brothers. He hadn't told a single soul...until now.
"Oh, Travis." Lissa tugged on his shoulder, pulling him toward her. He turned, and the moment he was facing her, she wrapped her arms around his head and pulled him to her. He closed his eyes, resting his face against hers, stunned by how the simple act of her embrace seemed to loosen the grip of the past. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.
"I'd been with my agent for years. He was like the dad that I'd never had. I trusted him with my career, my dreams, and my money. For months, he'd looked me in the eye, knowing that he was sleeping with the woman I thought was the mother of my child. I'd had no fucking idea." He pressed his face in Lissa's hair. "For months, I went over every single interaction with both of them, trying to figure out what I'd failed to see, trying to understand what clues I'd missed, trying to explain to myself how I'd been so fucking stupid."
"You're not stupid, Travis." Lissa's arms tightened around him, turning her head so her cheek was against his. "You're human. Despite your horrible upbringing, you still had the capacity to love someone, to believe in a second chance, to trust someone. That's beautiful. It shows that your mom and dad didn't destroy you."
He laughed softly, trailing his hands through her hair, concentrating on the silkiness of the strands. So soft. So beautiful. So pure. "That's far too optimistic, sweetheart. I was a fool, a fucking loser who was so desperate I would have believed anything to keep from throwing myself off a cliff...literally." He flexed his jaw and took her hand, winding their fingers together. "After that, I swore to myself I'd never trust anyone like that again. Not a woman, not a friend, no one."
She watched their entwined hands. "Except your brothers?"
"I'll always be there for them," he said, "but yeah, I'm not asking for a two-way street. Chase, Steen, and Zane have wives now. Kids. Their loyalty is no longer to their brothers first, and I know that. I accept that, but I don't want to get pulled into it. I haven't seen much of my other brothers. I'm all in for them, no matter what they need, but I'm not going to put myself in the position of needing to count on them. I'm done." He brought their joined hands to his lips and feathered kisses across her knuckles, one by one. "You know, for that brief time when I thought I was going to be a dad, I thought that music had finally brought me to a place of redemption by making me a father. I thought it had all been worth it, and..." He shook his head. "It was all a lie."
Lissa sighed. "It's not a lie. Music has changed your life. It's brought you amazing things, including betrayal, yes, but you touch the hearts of millions of people. That's amazing. Can't you see that?"
"It's a shell of an existence. I thought it would be cool, but it isn't. It has no meaning."
She frowned. "Of course it has meaning. Every song you write has depth."
"Not anymore." He sighed. "Listen, Lissa, I don't want to talk about my music. This is the same conversation that Mariel had with me, trying to make music matter again, I bought into it, and it was bullshit, so I'm not interested in going there again."
She raised her eyebrows. "So, you're giving up?"
"No. I'm smartening up. It taught me a lesson I should never have forgotten." He searched her face. "I told you this not because I wanted advice or to change. I wanted you to understand why I can't be the man you deserve, so you would never think it was you. I also..." He swore, not sure how to explain it. "But that's why I needed to meet you. I need to be shown that there is one person in this world who is good, who I can believe in, who wants nothing from me. You don't care about my money or my career, and you don't care about my bad boy reputation from high school. You owe me nothing, but you somehow give me a foundation again." He smoothed her hair back from her face, searching her eyes. "You have a truly beautiful soul, Lissa. I need to be around you. I want to be with you every second of every minute, because it's only then that I feel like I'm alive again...but I can't stay. I have to leave, and you need a life, one that's better than any I could ever give you." He swore. "I can't ever be the man you deserve. That part of me is dead forever. I can't ever get that close again. With anyone. Not even my brothers."
She sighed, tracing her fingers across the frown on his forehead. "I don't understand how you think there's no joy left in your music. Even the way you talk is beautiful, like poetry. The words, the emotions, the journey. Your songs are still inside you, Travis. The reason that Mariel was able to make you believe in love was because she was right that you aren't truly broken. Yes, maybe she was being self-serving, but you heard her because it was true. Don't let this one woman define you, and take away your music."
He shook his head. "It was gone long before her. Singing became about money, sales, concerts, and trying to find a way to please my fans. It lost meaning for me right about the time I signed my first deal." He shrugged. "My brothers will get my money when I die. It will set them up for life, and give their kids a shield to protect them if anything bad ever comes for them. I used it to protect Mira. I'm giving a bunch to Zane for the camp he's setting up on the ranch for youth who have fucked up lives. I'll use it for whoever needs it. So, I sing for the money it will give them. It's enough."
She studied him for a moment, then, to his surprise, she shook her head. "No, it's not. It's not enough. You're wasting your life and your talent."
He scowled at her, his mood darkening at the words so reminiscent of the ones Mariel had used to reel him in. "Really? You abandoned an engineering dream so you could earn money. You did the same thing."
She sat up, frowning at him. "No, I abandoned a career path I was pursuing for money and prestige, so that I could open my heart to m
y daughter. I might not be rich, and I might have weeks like this where I can't be with her as much as I want, but I have an amazing kid, some great friends, and, I've learned that I love to bake. I love her. I love this town. I love that my life has meaning." She searched his face. "Don't close your heart, Travis. Maybe you don't want to be romantically involved, but at least welcome your brothers. Chase said you aren't even going to see him while you're here. You said you haven't met Steen and Zane's wives. They're super nice, Travis. You have family already. Don't rob yourself of that. If you don't need the money, and you hate singing, why keep going?"
He scowled. "What else am I going to do? It's all I know."
"What do you love?"
"Nothing! There's nothing I love. I just..." He swore. "I just exist. It's what I do. I exist, I avoid drinking, and I beat the hell out of my punching bag."
She shook her head, her expression almost like...disgust. No. He had to be wrong. She'd never condemn him. She understood him.
"Break the cycle, Travis." She leaned forward, searching his face. "Seriously. You have an amazing family who would do anything for you. You have all the money in the world. You can do anything that matters to you. Find it! Stop letting bad people run your life! If I had that kind of money—" She paused, her brow furrowing.
He should be pissed at her lecture. He knew he should. She was riding him about things that were deeply personal, giving him speeches too much like the ones he bought into before...but he wasn't mad. He was... Shit. He didn't know. No one had ever talked to him like that before. The words were similar to what Mariel had thrown at him, yeah, but the emotion, the conviction, the lack of personal agenda, the honesty... It made him think. It made him think that maybe he could be more. That maybe he could do something. That maybe there was a chance he didn't have to be who he was.
But he'd thought that before, right? And he'd had his ass busted.
But right now, in this second, it felt...different. Like the future was suddenly, precariously, unwritten, undetermined, and unfettered. "If you had that kind of money, what?" he prompted, suddenly desperate to hear her answers, as if she could shed some kind of great light into the darkness that consumed him so ruthlessly.
She cocked her head, her face thoughtful. "I'd sing."
He scowled. "No. I wasn't asking what you think I should do. What would you do?"
"I just told you. I'd sing—" She glanced at the clock, then gasped. "I open in fifteen minutes. I gotta go." She scooted off him and raced into the bathroom, abandoning him in less than a second.
She'd walked out on him. In the middle of a discussion that had felt pretty damn significant. What the hell?
His mood growing blacker by the moment, he threw off the covers and stalked across the room and into the bathroom. She was already in the shower.
"What do you mean, you'd sing?" He jerked the curtain back, and promptly forgot his question.
Her hair was on top of her head in a soapy pile, and she was frantically scrubbing. Rivulets of soapy water ran down her back, over her hips, as if they were creating art on her skin. She was soft and round, her curves pure female, vulnerable and beautiful. During the night, it had been dark, so he hadn't really seen her, but now, he was stunned by his response to her.
She answered easily, clearly not minding his presence, making him realize that she hadn't bailed on him. She'd just had to get ready for work. "I've always loved singing. I used to sing in private, all the time, practicing for when I became famous. I used to have these visions of walking out on the Grand Ol' Opry stage and showing all of them that despite their treatment of me, they hadn't killed the beauty of my soul."
He stepped into the shower, drawn both by her, and by the dreaminess of her story. He remembered when singing had been a dream as well, but his dream had been to get the hell out of Rogue Valley and earn enough money that he never had to be dependent on anyone again. Her dream had been about the glow of her inner soul. No wonder he'd lost the joy. He'd never had it from the start. Not like her. "You wanted to be a singer? Really?" He grabbed a washcloth and ran it over her back, awed by the curve of her shoulder blades, the angle of her spine, the fullness of her hips.
"Yes, but I can't actually sing very well." She turned to face him, tipping her head back to rinse the suds from her hair, her hands flying through her hair with ruthless efficiency as she rinsed it. "So, if I had money and time, I'd take voice lessons until I became a decent singer. That's what I'd do."
"I like that dream." He ran the washcloth over her breasts, the ones that he'd kissed only a few hours earlier.
"Me, too." She put some sort of conditioner on her hair, and then began to brush it through, her movement quick and efficient, not a seduction.
He wanted a seduction. He wanted to linger. "Let me." He took the brush from her hand and began to brush her hair, the bristles sliding through her wet locks.
Lissa closed her eyes as he brushed, her arms falling to her side as she surrendered to him, pausing for a moment. For one minute, maybe two, they stood there under the hot water, steam rising around them, while he brushed her hair. It was so simple, so innocent, so intimate, and so personal. A moment frozen in time, where nothing else was around to taint it.
Then she stepped back into the water, tipped her head back, and rinsed the conditioner. "Is this it?" she asked, her eyes still closed.
"Is what it?"
"The last of our moments?" She wiped the water out of her eyes and looked at him, her brown eyes steady and unblinking. "When I get out of the shower, do you go back to being Travis Turner? Will you go off to your concerts and appearances? Is this where it ends?"
A cold terror suddenly seized his gut at the thought of never seeing her again after this moment. "I'm in town for the week."
She didn't move. "That doesn't answer my question."
He went still, his heart suddenly pounding. He wanted every minute with her for the next week. He wanted to work in her kitchen, make love to her all night, and talk about shit that he'd never talked about. He wanted to meet her daughter. He wanted to brush her hair. He wanted to help her out in the café. But he had so many things he was supposed to be doing instead. "I have a lot of obligations this week."
Her face was impassive. "I understand. But I can't survive this week if I'm constantly watching the door of my café, wondering if you're going to come, and then being crushed every time it's not you. If you walk out the door and tell me you're not coming back, then you can't come back. Then I can treasure the night for what it was, and move forward. If you walk out the door and tell me you'll see me tonight, you have to come back. I know this is a short term thing, but I need to know if it's one night, or seven." She lifted her chin. "I waited for Rand for a very long time. It's absolute hell not knowing. Either way is fine with me, but I need to know."
Something twisted inside his gut. "You'd be crushed if I didn't walk in the door?"
"If I was hoping you were, and you never did, yes." She didn't look away. "I need to get downstairs in four minutes, Travis. You have to decide before I leave." She gave him one more look, then turned off the shower, grabbed a towel, and sprinted into the bedroom to get dressed.
Travis stood in the shower, not moving.
Four minutes.
Four minutes to decide whether to grab hold of the one thing that made him care if he lived, or to let her go before he ripped her light out by dragging her into his hell.
He knew she wasn't tough. She was vulnerable, and yet she'd trusted him. She'd given him her faith, and he knew damn well if he hung out with her for seven days, it would hurt like hell to let her go. He didn't care if he suffered, but if she suffered?
No. He wouldn't do that to her. He just wouldn't.
He had to let her go now.
Chapter 15
Travis still hadn't come out of the bathroom by the time Lissa was ready to go. Her heart got tighter and tighter the longer she waited, until she felt like she couldn't breathe.
; She realized she'd made a horrible mistake by sleeping with him. One night with him, and already the thought of him walking out of that bathroom and telling her that he wasn't coming back was crushing her.
How had she fallen so hard so fast? She knew he was leaving. She knew he had trust issues. For heaven's sake, she'd already fallen in love with one man who lived a life on the road. She knew that it didn't work. How on earth had she somehow gotten all twisted up with Travis already?
But she had.
It was too late to protect herself. Whether it was over now, or in a week, her heart was going to break when it ended. Would it be better to escape now, before it got worse? Or better to embrace it fully and make it the most it could be?
She stood in the living room, unsure whether to just walk out, or to tell him she was leaving.
She thought of the day she'd told Rand she was pregnant. He'd said he needed to think about it. She'd let him, and then he'd left. And now Travis was thinking about it.
Her fists tightened. She didn't want to be with a man who had to think about whether he wanted to be with her, even if it was for only a week. She deserved a man who would lunge for her, grab her hand, and tell her that he wanted every last second with her that he could have, no matter how crushing it would be to part.
That's what she deserved.
The fact that Travis was stewing in her room, trying to decide whether to grace her with his presence for the next week, told her all she needed to know. He wasn't worth wasting time on.
For so long, she'd been certain she didn't need a man. So certain that being a single parent was best. But after a night with Travis, she realized she'd been wrong. Yes, she didn't need a man. At all. But the right one could make the sun shine a little bit brighter with a little less effort. The right one could erase some of the shadows in her heart...which also gave him the power to create even more.
God, she didn't need any more shadows. She really didn't. Travis might have brought sunshine, but the way she felt right now was nothing but shadows, and she didn't need that, not from him, and not from anyone.
A Real Cowboy Never Walks Away (Wyoming Rebels Book 4) Page 12
