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“I’ll remind you of that when we come over for dinner one night, only to realize it’s a surprise wedding and she’s shoving us both down the aisle.”
He laughs, but I’m not kidding. It’s totally something she would do.
I watch him as he grins, relaxed in his seat like we didn’t just endure an hour of wedding plans after two days of dating.
“You know my family so well, and I know nothing at all about yours,” I say over the roar of the motor.
His smile disappears instantly.
We coast to his dock, and he starts tying off. I wonder if he’s about to dismiss me the way he usually does when I pry.
“My family isn’t like yours. Your brothers may drive you crazy, but they’d never hurt you or wrong you in any way. They have your back no matter what.”
I finish tying off the back of the boat, and he lifts himself out before turning to offer me a hand.
“Are you saying you have a brother?”
He nods slowly. “Our relationship is likely beyond repair, but for a few weeks out of every year, we pretend we don’t hate each other for the sake of our mother. Those are holidays that I go home, vacation weeks they come out here, and special occasions when I go to visit them.”
My stomach flips, because it’s the first time he’s ever shared anything about his family. I knew he visited them, because I always go through withdrawals when he leaves Tomahawk.
Seriously, I don’t know why I didn’t consider my feelings for him sooner.
He looks around, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. He grabs my hand, and he doesn’t meet my eyes as he guides me onto the bank then up those fifteen steps to his door. But he talks while we walk.
“I moved out here because I needed a change, something that didn’t remind me of everything that had happened. Hell, I wasn’t here hardly five days before your uncle showed up, introduced himself, and told me there was a beard challenge. Then he informed me of the consequences if I didn’t accept.”
He grins like he’s thinking back, and I grin too, because I can actually see it in my mind.
“Even though I kept to myself, I still started growing that damn beard. It was just too ludicrous of a request to ignore. And before I knew it, I belonged to Tomahawk. It fit me. And I never wanted it tainted with my past. I never wanted to give up what this place gave me back. And so…I never told anyone anything about my past. It was better to be a mystery than an open book.”
He guides me inside his house, and I follow behind him, unsure how much to press for.
“What happened between you and your brother?” I decide to ask.
He turns to face me, blows out a breath, then gestures for me to sit down with him. I do, but he pulls me into his lap, nuzzling my neck with his nose.
“A woman.”
I tense. Obviously.
I suddenly hate asking any questions.
“I dated a girl in high school,” he goes on, “and the night of senior prom, right before we left in the limo, I got down on one knee and proposed to her.”
Yeah…can’t breathe. He proposed to someone?
I don’t even know her and I hate her. Which is a new brand of crazy I’m not used to. It’s also annoying, because I liked thinking of Benson as a virgin—no, I’m not delusional. It was just my fantasy.
“I thought we were in love. Hell, she was the only girl I’d ever been with.” He keeps talking into my neck, and I’m thankful he can’t see the inane panic on my face.
“She said yes. I should mention she was six months pregnant at this time,” he says, leaning back to look into my eyes.
My heart plummets. He has a kid?!
Dizzy and lightheaded, I sway a little on his lap.
“Almost four months later, my kid was born. Or so I thought. My mother insisted on a paternity test, because she was convinced Sadie was lying. I went along with it just to prove her wrong. Sadie was reluctant, but she agreed. She regretted that when the paternity test showed the baby wasn’t mine.”
This time, my heart plummets for a different reason, because he looks away. I can practically feel his pain vibrating off him.
“I’d already baby-proofed our house—my mom’s house. I still lived at home. She already lived with us, and my mother was going to help us raise our kid while we went to college. It definitely shattered me to learn she’d been pregnant with another man’s baby—had cheated on me. I was still debating on if I could forgive her for the sake of the kid…but it was twice as devastating when she announced the baby was my brother’s.”
