Fall Guy (28 page)

"Why Mexico?"
Ithaca demands
.

"I think she loves being on the beach. And the real estate market is decent
," E
van muses. "Also, my mom loves vacationing. And this is kind of like a permanent vacation
." Her hand has a vice grip on mine.

"
I hear that. My mother constantly
says she needs a vacation after she takes a vacation with us." Ithaca jabs at her dinner with the tines of her fork.

E
van's laugh bubbles out politely
, but her words rip at me. "Maybe that's why my mother didn't take me along."

"Ithaca." My mother finally swoops in with laser eyes and a set, hard mouth. "That's the end of your little question and answer session. Evan is a guest of your brother's, and we don't put our guests on the spot like that." She turns to Evan.
"I apologize. Ithaca is…
" She glances at
my sister and grits out, "…a
free spirit."

"She means a 'pain in the ass,'" I whisper. Evan bites back a smile.

"So,
Benelli
,
speaking of vacations,
you mentioned
Lala
might be coming with us on our trip to the Cayman Islands this fall?" my mother asks, taking a delicate bite of her pumpernickel bread.

I grimace and shoot a look at my plate I don't dare direct at my mother, no matter how much I want to. Evan sits a little straighter at my side.

Even
Benelli
loo
ks a tiny bit
shocked that my mom would play her hand so obviously. I guess she's more threatened by Evan than I initially thought.

"Yeah.
Her family was thinking of doing Bermuda right around the same time, but we thought it would be more fun if we had each other for company."
Benelli
lays her phone aside for a minute and throws me a pleading glance, I guess hoping that I'm not pissed about her and
Lala
taking their schemes to whole new levels.

Mama purposefully keeps her eyes off of Evan, as if she's not sitting next to me. "Well, that's just silly. We've all been friends for so long, it's like our families are married in. I'll give her mother a call and see if we can't all arrange something. What do you think,
Tobar
? Maybe we could rent a villa for the adults, and keep the kids in another one. They could have some privacy, we could have some privacy." She nudges his arm, and he gives her a distracted look.

"Whatever you think,
love
. I have some big shipments coming in right around then, so I may need to fly down later." He rubs the back of his neck and up through his thinning, graying hair.

My mother never disagrees openly with my father, but she offers a quiet, "It's our one vacation together all year,
Tobar
. I understand that work is important, but family always needs to come first."

The words are in answer to my father's statement, but her dark blue eyes bore into me when she says it.

"Family vacations are wonderful,
Jazmin
, but we need money to afford them, and that's where the boys and I come in." He take
s her
hand and rubs it.

She looks at him, her face twisted with shock.
"You and the boys?
Tobar
! The children have never missed a vacation."

My father tucks a huge, scarred hand on the side of her face, rubbing his thumb on her cheekbone, his fingers loosening little pieces of her dark hair from her bun.

"The
children
are grown men, love. When I was Remy's age, we already had two kids and
Benelli
on the way. I was working on getting us a second mortgage and opening the Florida branch of our demolition company. It's time you stopped treating them like children."

It's a gentle scold, but I'm shocked my father brought it up with Evan at the table. My mother's blue eyes flash at him.

"My sons will always be their mother's children."

My father is a wise guy. He knows better than to push any more buttons. "Let's save this conversation for when it's closer to our v
acation time. You make the reservations
, and the guys and I will work hard to see that it all goes according to your plan, okay?"

Mama nods, but takes an extra-long gulp of her wine. Colt finally can't stand another second of this tense, stomach-curling dinner away from h
is beloved football.

"Mama, Pop
, may I please be excused?" he pleads. "Coach went through a few new plays he wants me to practice."

"Dinner is dinner," Mama objects. "You spend too much time with football. By the time your brothers were your age, they were working for your father."

Colt nods to his plate, working hard to keep the aggravated scowl off his face.

"Yes, ma'am," he murmurs.

Luckily, Colt doesn't have to wait too long before we run out of awkward, stupid, griping things to talk about and dinner is over. Evan attempts to help clear the table, but Mama and
Benelli
shoo her away in a move that's less 'you're our guest' and more 'you don't belong in our kitchen.'

I seethe on Evan's behalf. I love my family, would lay down my life for them, but they're doing their best to deliver a clear cold-shoulder that will make Evan feel pushed right out of our world.

Which is good.
I should be glad.
She doesn't belong with all this insanity anyway.

So why am I feeling so panicked that this dinner, which I knew would be all kinds of catastroph
ic, wound up being so quietly
catastrophic beyond even my expectations?

I feel like an imposter. Wearing this sweet dress that isn't mine and isn't me, sitting at the big cherry table and keeping my mouth shut while Winchester's mom does her damnedest to make me feel like an intruding outsider. She goes on and on about
Lala
, who
,
I assume from the look of pure horror on Winch's face, is his ex. She talks about family and how everyone has to work together and be together and eat together and give up their dreams together.

Ugh!

Not only did she warp every fairytale image I had of big families and their cheerful camaraderie and overabundance of lo
ve, she made it clear to me why
Winchester Youngblood has been so reluctant to take even a baby step forward in our relationship.

And, for the first time since I met him, I feel a sinking sense that maybe he and I really aren't meant to be. Maybe our relationship is being blocked by obstacles neither one of us have any hope of overcoming. And maybe, for the first time in my entire life, I see all the distinct warning signs and can get out of thi
s before I get myself into a
mess I can't rebound from.

For the first time,
I cannot say I didn’t see it coming
, because this is clearly a train-wreck just waiting to happen
,
and even I'm not that blind.

Defeat buckles me right between the shoulders. I have never felt so sapped of strength or will. I'm sitting on the wide, open front porch of the Youngblood's palatial house wondering if I will be able to deal with walking away from Winch and leaving him here, without me, for good.

"Would you mind if I tossed a few passes with Colt?" Winch asks, rubbing my hand in his. He's all
apology
tonight, and I feel miserable for it. I feel miserable for everything that's happened on this sticky, messy foul of an evening. "You could go in the kitchen with Mama and
Benelli
," he offers.

I stifle a sigh and give him a sensible glare. "Really, Winch? I'm
just as willing as you
to pretend tonight wasn't as horrific as it
actually
was, but sit in the kitchen alone with them? I don't have a death wish, thank you very much."

He puts an arm around my shoulders and leans his head on mine. I turn my face so my nose brushes his cheek, and I can smell the clean clover smell that always seems to cling to his skin. "I knew we should have waited to do dinner."

I pull back and raise my eyebrows. "Waited for what exactly? It was inevitable that your family would hate me--"

"They don't hate you," he interrupts, but his words are so unsteady, he can't even convince himself he means them.

"No, you're right." His eyes snap to attention, bright with hope. "If I thought they hated me, I'd be implying that they
actually worried that I pose some
kind of threat. I'm something nasty they stepped in on the way to better things. They're just going to wipe me off the bottom of their shoe and never give me a second thought."

His eyes go brighter, but it's not hope this time.
Not at all.
This time, they're wild with rage.

"Don't you dare say that about yourself," he snarls, his hands digging into my shoulders. "You hear me?" I know my eyes have gone wide with shock, and that may be what makes him loosen this hold, and what extinguishes the
rageful
look in his eyes, replacing it with something so promising, it makes my entire body tremble. "You are the most goddamn amazing person I've ever met. And my family is just
gonna
have to learn to love you as much as I do, because I'm not letting you go.
Ever.
No matter what anyone
thinks.
You're worth fighting for. Okay?"

He looks so sweetly sure, his battered, purple-bruised face still heart-
stoppingly
handsome. I trace my fingers very gently around the damaged skin of his eye and the slight swell of his nose.

"I don't like the idea of you fighting about anything anymore." He starts to protest, but I put a finger over his lips, gently, because they're broken up, too. "Winch, I almost threw up watching that today. I've never seen anything so horrifying and brutal in my life. And it tore me up that it was you.
That you were hurting.
And then tonight--" I drop my voice and look over my
shoulder,
just to be sure no one from his family is near
by
. "Tonight it was like no one cared. No one even asked about what happened. That whole awkward dinner where everyone got lectured about how amazing family is, but no one thought
to ask
how you got your face bashed in or if you need medical attention?" My voice goes thick and I take a few long, deep breaths.

Winch wraps his arms around me and smooth
e
s my hair with his hands.

"It's okay. It's all over. And I promise
,
I'm getting away from all that. I am. I'm sorry you had to see what you did today. That's why I didn't want to take you. That's why I told you to stay by the car."

I throw my hands up.

"Seriously?
Seriously, just stop and
listen
to yourself. My being there saved your ass. You could have been arrested or trampled by the crowd. And my not being there wouldn't mean it never happened. I'm glad I witnessed it, because I knew exactly how horrible it all was, and I'm
hellbent
on making sure that never, ever happens again to you. Okay? And I may be the only person in your life who can give you some perspective. What happened to you was scary and terrible. I am
freaked out
about it, and I'm even more freaked out that no one else if freaking out with me. This isn't normal, Winch."

I snap my mouth closed when I realize how loud my last words were. I have no idea who heard, and, right now, I just don't care. Someone has to stand up to all this strange denial before Winch winds up beat
en
into a coma or worse.

"Listen, we can talk about this all later okay? Let's go, I'll spend a few minutes with Colt like I promised, and then you and me can get the hell out of here, okay? Forget this whole day ever happened."

He presses my hair back on either side of my face with both hands and kisses me, full and soft and sweet on the lips. I move my hands up and hold him around the neck for an extra-long second.

I don't want to get sucked into this. I don't want every day we spend together to end with his plea for a redo. And I hate Winch's constant insistence that we forgot things happened. Maybe that's why crazy shit keeps happening to him. Maybe it's because he's always charging ahead, into the next disaster, never learning from what happened before.

He leans down and offers me his hand, but I shake my head. "Go ahead. I don't want Colt to feel rushed. I'll be right here when you get back."

Winch's eyebrows press together.
"You sure?"

"Positive. Go."

I watch him walk away, throwing an odd look at me over his shoulder now and then, and try to figure out what I'm supposed to do now that things have gone so wrong in a way I can't possibly fix.