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“But if bringing Allen into the family makes Mac happy, who are we to stand in the way?”
It was her turn to frown, her stomach knotted. “You made it clear six years ago that being a Sinclair is a bond all of you shared, and I didn’t. My growing up here meant nothing. So what would make you soften that stance now?”
Trent’s expression was inscrutable, his mouth a grim line. “Six years ago I hadn’t lost my baby brother to a drug addiction. Six years ago I hadn’t watched my father nearly die of a heart attack. Six years ago, I was a self-centered jackass.”
His unaccustomed humility made her uneasy. She counted on Trent to be a rock. She didn’t need his self-abnegation. Not now. Not with so much riding on the outcome of the next several days.
She glanced at her watch. The hours had flown. It was midnight—the witching hour. That dark moment when everything bad in life was magnified into a crushing burden. No longer able to sit still, she stood up and went to the window, her back to Trent.
Her breath fogged up the chilled glass. “So what do we do?” She wanted him to come to her, take her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right.
But as always, Trent was not a man to be easily understood or bent to a woman’s will. She sensed him watching her, but he remained where he was. “I have to think,” he said gruffly. “Too much is at stake to make any snap decisions. Will the boy take a nap tomorrow?”
The boy. Trent still couldn’t say her son’s name. “Yes.” She drew a heart in the condensation on the windowpane.
“Then let’s you and I take a ride in the afternoon. We’ll go to the far side of the meadow…where the creek cuts through the aspen. No one will interrupt us. We’ll talk and decide what to do.”
Trent was speaking matter-of-factly. Nothing in his tone or demeanor suggested a hint of passion. But unbidden, her mind jumped to memories of the night they’d shared in the cabin, and she felt her face heat. It might as well have been happening again at this very instant, so vivid was the recollection of each perfect minute.
Her moans and cries. His hoarse shouts. The rustle of the straw beneath the quilt. The snap and pop of the fire. The comforting drone of rain on the metal roof.
His touch lingered on her skin. She breathed in his crisp masculine scent. His hard body moved over her and in her. Soft sighs, ragged murmurs…pleasure so deep and swift-running she drowned in it.
She was glad they weren’t facing each other. Her face would have given her away. She stiffened her spine, drawing on every ounce of self-possession she could muster. She turned to look at him and almost flinched at the intensity of his gaze.
For one blazing instant she saw raw, naked hunger beyond comprehension in his narrow gaze. A predatory declaration of intent. But he blinked, and it was gone.
Had she imagined it? Did he still desire her, or had her actions in concealing the letters destroyed the fragile bond between them?
She bit her lower lip, unsure how to proceed.
Trent’s posture had relaxed somewhat. He leaned against the wall, looking tired and discouraged. Seeing him so vulnerable hurt her somewhere deep in her chest. He had taken on so much responsibility in the last few weeks. And her revelation about the letters, necessary though it was, had only added to the load he carried.
She toyed with the cord that controlled the wide-slatted wooden blinds, unable suddenly to meet his gaze. “I’ll be glad to go with you tomorrow,” she said quietly. “To talk things through. But in the end, it has to be your decision, Trent. Mac is your father. You know what’s best for him and your family. I think he could help us get to the bottom of Etta’s correspondence and what it means. But if you think he can’t handle it, we’ll destroy them and no one will be the wiser.”
He ran a hand through his rumpled hair. “This is a hell of a mess. I need to call Gage and Sloan.”
“Can they come back so soon?”
“Gage is due here in a week anyway, because we all agreed to give the old man a month of our time to help get things at the ranch back up and running. And Sloan, well, I’m pretty sure he’d come back under the circumstances. They deserve to know the truth about Jesse’s problems, but I don’t know if we can wait to talk to Dad about the letters.”
