Nicole Edwards - Travis

Curtis kissed the top of her head and grinned. “It looked like two men kissin’, darlin’. I wasn’t going to stand around and take notes.”

“Let’s just hope he finds happiness sometime in the near future. That’s all we can hope for,” Lorrie said with a sigh.

Yes, that’s all he hoped for any of his boys. They were good men, just as Lorrie and Curtis had raised them to be. Gay, straight, whatever. Curtis didn’t care, and he knew his wife didn’t either. They just wanted them to be happy.

It was the only thing that mattered to them.

As he sat holding his wife, Curtis couldn’t help but wonder when he’d made his sons believe otherwise. Because up to this point, neither Travis nor Ethan had been open and honest with them about their relationships. They seemed to forget that having seven boys meant their eyes and ears were sharper than some – even now. They’d had no choice but to hone those senses. Turning your back on one little rugrat was asking for trouble, but seven… That was a recipe for disaster. Those habits were hard to break.

And no matter how much their boys thought otherwise, Curtis and Lorrie saw a lot more than they gave them credit for.

♂♀

If Travis thought standing in Kylie’s house yesterday, or seeing her at Moonshiners, had been hell, he was certain he wouldn’t survive this day.

When he pulled up in front of her house a few minutes ago, he’d been surprised to see her waiting on her front porch. Part of him expected her to stand him up, which he would rightfully deserve. The fact that she looked just as surprised to see him wasn’t lost on him either. And now her fresh lavender scent filled the interior of his truck, causing him to swallow hard and pretend to be unaffected – for her benefit only.

 “Where do you want to go?” Travis asked Kylie when she buckled her seatbelt after getting situated.

 “I don’t care.”

Ever since she left him standing in the parking lot of Moonshiners yesterday evening, he had done little else besides think about her and anticipate seeing her again.

In fact, as soon as he left Moonshiners last night, Travis had gone straight home, knowing that he wasn’t going to be decent company for anyone other than himself at that point. He’d fought the urge to bring Gage back to his house as well.

Needing some time to think, mostly about how he was going to explain to Kylie what she’d seen, he had tried to ignore the need that had his body humming to life. Unable to get away from the images in his mind, he’d finally given in to his own hand in the shower.

Hadn’t helped.

Between alternating thoughts of Kylie and Gage – some of which overlapped into intensely erotic fantasies – he decided to forego trying to get himself involved in a situation that might make things worse before he had a chance to set Kylie straight.

Travis put the truck in Drive and pulled away from the curb. Since it was obvious Kylie wasn’t going to give him any suggestions, Travis took it slow while he thought about where they could go to talk. He wanted to avoid anywhere public and thanks to the time he’d spent there when he was in the Army, Travis knew there wasn’t much to do in the small town Kylie lived in, so it didn’t take him long to make a decision. Coyote Ridge might not be the most logical place, and surely Kylie would question him, but for some reason, Travis wanted to give her a little glimpse into his world – let her see him as a person and not just the man who hightailed it out of her life when the honorable thing would’ve been to stick around and work it out.

Today, taking her to his home town just felt like the right thing to do.

“Where are we going?” Kylie asked when they entered the on-ramp to Interstate 35 South.

“I want to show you something,” he told her, not going into detail because he didn’t want her to put the kibosh on his plans before they even happened. When she didn’t say anymore, he took that as a good sign.

Several minutes later, with only the sound of the tires speeding along the pavement to fill the strained silence, Kylie finally spoke up. Travis was surprised it took her that long.

“So, um, what was it like growing up with six brothers?” She didn’t look at him as she asked the question, but Travis didn’t need her to. She was making small talk, and right now, he appreciated it.

“It wasn’t easy.” Flipping on his turn signal, Travis changed lanes, preparing to take the next exit. “There were seven of us, and my parents, in one house. Maybe it was easier that we were boys, and we were all into sports and such, but that much testosterone in one place was combustible at times.”

“I can imagine. How’d your mother survive it?”

“She’s the strongest woman I know,” Travis told her. Lorrie Walker had a backbone of steel, and she didn’t take any shit from her boys. With Curtis around to knock a few heads together when needed, she managed to run a tight ship while they were growing up. In fact, she still did. And when she spoke, they listened.

Travis wasn’t sure how much about him that Kylie cared to know, but he wanted to share himself with her. He would ignore the fact that he was about ten years too late in doing so. And he was probably setting them both up, but at this point, he didn’t know what he had to lose. As far as he was concerned, he’d lost everything already…

“My parents just celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary last year. My brother Kaleb got married not too long ago, and Zane, the youngest, is planning to get married later this year, we hope. Oh, and we just found out that Zoey and Kaleb are expecting,” he explained.

“Wow, that’s great.”

“Yeah. They’re proud. Mom’s already started turning one of our old rooms into a nursery for when they come over.” Travis kept his eyes on the road.

“Will that be your parents’ first grandchild? I mean… Do you have any children?”

“No, Kylie. I don’t. I’ve never even had a serious relationship after you, and no, before you ask, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Are you and Gage…?”

Wow, if that wasn’t a loaded question. Were they what? There were so many ways to answer that, but none he figured Kylie would be happy about.

This wasn’t where he thought this was going to go. Shit.

“Let me explain a few things to you before you jump to the hard questions, all right?” He wasn’t about to attempt to do that while they were driving. He needed to be able to look her in the eye, and the least she could do was hear him out. He didn’t deserve more than that, but as far as he was concerned, they both deserved to hear the truth.

Kylie nodded, but she stared out the window without saying anything more for long minutes. Travis fought the urge to drum his fingers on the steering wheel. He didn’t want to let her think he was nervous. He wasn’t.

He absolutely wasn’t.

He was so fucking nervous.

“Are you the oldest?”

Travis welcomed the questions for the first time in his life because it was easier to answer her about his family than to dig around in his head trying to make sense of his own irrational thoughts. “Yeah. Then there’s Sawyer, Kaleb, the twins Brendon and Braydon. Then Ethan and Zane. Zane’s the youngest, he just turned twenty six.”

“Do they all live in Coyote Ridge?”

Nodding his head, Travis kept his eyes on the road. “We all live on our parents’ ranch. Not together though. Well, except for Kaleb. He and Zoey just moved into her family’s home on the adjacent land beside the resort.”

“They live with her parents?”

“No.” Travis smiled. “Her dad wants grandkids, so he moved into the guest house so Kaleb and Zoey could have the big house. That’s the house Gage took you to.”

Kylie got quiet again, and Travis wondered whether it was because she was remembering that day.

“I couldn’t imagine growing up in a house with that many kids.”

And Travis couldn’t imagine it any other way.

“How’s your sister?” he asked before the silence could get too unbearable.

Kylie never had introduced him to her family, mainly because they lived several hours away. Until last night, he’d never laid eyes on her sister, but Kylie always talked about her. They were close, he remembered.

“She’s good. I think she needed some time away from my dad and his girlfriend, so she came here for a week. I’m hoping she’ll get some rest, but last night, after I went to bed, I heard her on the phone. I think she’s talking to one of your brothers.”

Travis wasn’t going to correct her and tell Kylie that her sister was talking to two of his brothers. The twins considered themselves a team. A two-for-one special they liked to tease. If Jessie was getting involved with them, Travis was pretty sure she’d be getting with both of them.

He wondered what Jessie’s straight-laced sister would think of that. Did she only see things as black and white? Was her world void of all shades of gray?

For the next half hour, they talked about inconsequential things like the weather and traffic as they made their way back to Coyote Ridge. Based on the way she fidgeted in the seat, it was clear that Kylie was just as nervous as he was. And that was all sorts of fucked up because Travis didn’t get nervous. Ever. Except apparently when he was in close quarters with this woman.

If Kylie was surprised that they’d arrived in his hometown, she didn’t show it. Rather than try to explain himself, Travis drove through town as though this were just any other day, offering some details of where he grew up, taking her on a brief tour of his old stomping ground. After driving by the high school that he and his brothers graduated from and pointing out his parents’ house, Travis continued on until they reached the site where Alluring Indulgence was being built.