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“I knew your mother,” Cal said. “Lot of years ago. You were probably about three or four.”
Before his mother had nearly died, before Roberto had been forced to hide them all. Before Roberto had murdered the lover Raeg had taken when he was barely twenty.
He wasn’t talking about his mother. Selena Raegent was, as far as he was concerned, as much a part of the past as his father. Her mother’s love had contributed to the death of a woman who hadn’t deserved to die, just as Falcon’s mother had.
He and his brother had walked away from them years ago, and they had stayed away. Roberto would stain his hands with the blood of the women his sons loved and never look back; they knew that, their mothers knew that. And their mothers agreed with it because, as they had argued, loving a woman came with trust and men could never understand nor accept that their love could be flawed, and they would trust those women even with secrets that could see other lives destroyed.
Lives such as that of the sister their parents protected now. It wasn’t just their lives, their mothers had reminded him and Falcon, it was their sister’s life as well.
“Raeg, there’s no canceling this,” Cal reiterated. “Summer would have canceled it if it was possible. She wouldn’t have chanced you knowing her plans once the two of you left if she could have kept it from you.”
“For God’s sake, why are you pampering his poor little feelings?” Brody sneered, the youngest son obviously less than pleased with his father. “You know what the hell is going on in that house. Those two can’t take a woman without the other helping. They’re disrespectin’ Summer every time they crawl into her bed with her.”
Raeg wasn’t a violent person. He’d been known to keep his calm even when staring down at the lover he hadn’t been able to protect so very long ago. He’d learned young that losing his temper, to allow others to see his pain, was the worst mistake he could possibly make.
There was something about the words though, the sneering, smug-ass tone of voice that exploded through his head and had him moving before he realized what he was doing.
He swung around, grabbed Brody by the neck with a well-practiced grip that the younger man would have no idea how to break. And he tightened his fingers just enough to make breathing difficult, to assure the bastard that he could kill him in a heartbeat if that was what he wanted to do.
He could hear Bowe and Caleb yelling at him, and each time they thought to get too close, he tightened his grip on the other man’s neck until they backed off.
“I could kill you between one heartbeat and the next,” his voice was low, guttural, as he stared into Brody’s eyes. “And trust me I will if I ever hear you say something like that in regards to your sister again.”
“Fuck … you…” Brody gasped, anger filling his expression, pure stubbornness tightening his jaw.
“Let him go, Raeg,” Cal ordered from behind him. “Brody doesn’t know your secrets, he only knows you’re rippin’ his sister’s heart from her chest. How else is he supposed to feel? Yet, all three of her brothers have held back for her sake. I’m sure she’d expect you to do the same.”
Yeah, she would. That didn’t mean he should, but he knew he couldn’t kill the jackass, no matter how badly he wanted to.
He loosened his hold slowly, finger by finger, until he was stepping away, staring at the other man warningly. This would be a very, very bad time for Brody to keep pushing him.
Turning to follow his brother, Raeg found himself facing Cal instead and the compassion that filled the older man’s eyes.
“The heart wants what it wants,” Cal stated gently. “And her heart’s been set on the two of you for years. All of us have known it. And when you leave, her heart will no doubt go with you. Would you really deny her a little happiness after that? A husband that can stand by her side, give her the children she’s always dreamed of having, and grow old beside her? Or is that love selfish, Raeg? Does she have to be just as lonely and as alone as you and Falcon will be?”
Not alone or lonely. She should be with him and Falcon. She shouldn’t have to worry about her heart following them, they should be there, they should have the choice of being there with her. A choice that would only endanger her.
“Dragovich is a saint compared to what could strike out at her because of us,” he rasped, realizing his heart was racing, his breathing was hard, heavy. “Staying isn’t an option. It would show we care…”
It would show she was a weakness, a possible confidante. Someone who could one day learn their secrets, or be used against Raeg and Falcon to force them to reveal their secrets. Either way, it placed her in a monster’s crosshairs.
“Then you should have been man enough to stay out of her bed,” Cal stated softly. Understanding flickered across his expression. “Either way,” he breathed out heavily, “it’s too late to worry about it now, just as it’s too late to cancel these parties. And once she marries, it will be too late to come back. Summer will always honor her vows, no matter the temptation to do otherwise, and you know that. So be sure when you walk away, that you’re going to be able to keep from walkin’ back.”
“Go to hell,” Raeg snapped, his lip lifting in a snarl of fury before he pushed past the other man and left the barn.
It might be too late to cancel the party, but it wasn’t too late to cancel Summer’s role in that party, he decided furiously. Summer would have to see that. She was an intelligent, logical woman. She’d understand that this party simply couldn’t happen. God only knew who Dragovich had working for him. It would be someone the family trusted, and from what he’d seen that was damned near everyone they’d introduced him to in the past week he and Falcon had been there.
And it wouldn’t be just one person. The Russian mobster knew how to hedge his bets and how to plan for contingencies. When the first attack against Summer hadn’t succeeded, he would have already known how and where he was attacking the second time. Dragovich was just waiting for that time to arrive.
Stepping onto the porch leading to the front door of the Calhouns’ home, he ignored the two armed men who sat with all apparent laziness in the chairs positioned close to the door. They didn’t speak and neither did he. He pulled open the storm door and stepped inside, his gaze moving automatically to the living room where Summer sat in a padded rocker, watching the tiny face of the child she slowly rocked and hummed to.
The sight of it was like a punch to the gut and a fist to his heart. This was what he and Falcon could have had if life had been different. The woman both of them loved and a child conceived by one of them.
God, how he ached to give her that child, he thought painfully. To see her growing round, the love she felt for that child and for the men she shared her life with glowing within her face.
Moving silently across the room, he stopped just in front of her and waited as her head lifted, her expression causing that inner darkness he always lived with to howl silently in protest of ever letting her go.
“We need to go home, now,” he told her softly, loath to disturb the babe sleeping in her arms.
