Troy's Surrender (5 page)

Troy walked out of the bathroom, toweling off his hair. He stopped in the doorway. Rafe was sitting on the bed, waiting for him. Troy was suddenly acutely aware that he was wearing a small towel around his hips and nothing else. He shifted and casually dropped his hand, trying to cover more of himself with the second piece of cloth. As it was only a hand towel, he didn’t have much success.

“Hi,” he said, probably a bit stupidly.
“Hi, yourself.” Rafe had changed into a clean pair of jeans and plain white tee. His hair was still wet from the rain, the curls more pronounced than usual. They curled around the harsh features lovingly. Troy’s fingers itched to trace the curves of the waterdarkened spirals.
“What are you doing here?”
Rafe leaned back on his elbows, studying Troy with unreadable eyes. “Thought we could talk.”
Troy dropped the towel in his hand to the floor and headed for his suitcase. Clothes. If they were going to talk, he needed clothes.
“I thought we covered everything yesterday,” he said, trying to find a clean pair of underwear.
“Not about that.”
“About what, then?”
“About us.”
Troy stood quickly, losing his grip on the pair of boxers he’d found. Rafe watched them fall, lips quirking in amusement at the smiling image of Scooby-Doo plastered all over the cloth.
Troy scowled and planted his hands on his hips. “Us? What us? You didn’t get smacked on the head out there, did you?”
“No, I’m thinking quite clearly.” Rafe’s eyes darkened with lust. Troy followed his gaze and nearly started cursing. His towel was gaping. A lot.
He turned around, giving Rafe his back. “I don’t think there really is an us.”
“No? Because you just risked some seriously scary weather for me. That implies an us.”
“You hate me, remember? The guy who’s been lying and spying?”
“A man is entitled to change his mind. Besides, I had some time to think. Brutus makes a good listener.”
“You and that bull.”
“Don’t go there. What I’m trying to say is no matter why you came here, things have changed. Tell me the truth. I promise to believe you. How much information have you actually passed on?”
“Nothing,” Troy admitted. He bent over and yanked up the boxers, not really caring about the ridiculous print. He happened to like Scooby-Doo. Besides, the boxers weren’t as prone to ill-timed gaping.
“See what I mean? You may have come here with bad intentions and we might have met under a lie, but you couldn’t go through with it.”
Troy whirled around, scowling darkly. “You don’t know that. Maybe I just haven’t had time to turn in my report. Maybe I’ll whip out of here tomorrow and rip your cozy little life apart.”
Rafe smiled. “You won’t.”
“And just why won’t I?”
“Because you care about me.”
Troy sputtered. Damn, couldn’t the man just punch him in the stomach already and get it over with? “What are you? Pollyanna in drag?”
Rafe just laughed.
Troy dropped onto the mattress beside the cowboy with a groan, burying his head into his hands. “What am I even supposed to say to that?” he muttered into his fingers.
“How about, ‘Wow, Rafe, you’re so smart, how did you ever guess?’”
“Don’t push it, cowboy,” Troy growled.
Oh, God, there went that laugh again. Deep and rich and stirring feelings Troy didn’t even know he was capable of. Pollyanna attitude aside, Rafe was more right than Troy was willing to admit. Out loud, at least. He decided to change the subject before this conversation went even farther into forbidden territory than it already had.
“You know, you’re probably the most unusual man I’ve ever met.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you, Pollyanna. When most people find out they’re being investigated, the first thing they want to know is who hired me. You never asked.”
Rafe shrugged. “Didn’t need to. I’m a pretty harmless guy. Keep to myself, you know? Figured if someone wanted dirt on me, it was probably those blasted developers. They come sniffing around my land every couple of months, like time and taxes. Predictable and inevitable.”
“Then maybe you should have asked. Or I should have told you. But you didn’t really give me the chance, did you?”
Rafe chuckled. “No. I’m giving it to you now, though.”
Troy took a deep breath. Okay, this could go one of two ways. Either it would be a total disaster or the best news ever. With his luck? He leaned toward total disaster.
This was normally the part of the relationship where Troy went running. The part where things got tough. But he didn’t want to run this time. So, he was going to do something completely unlike him. He was going to voluntarily offer information and support.
Damn.
Troy finally told himself to man up and just get the words out. “I was hired by Mark Morgan. Your—”
“Mark?” The words came out in a hoarse croak. Rafe’s face had gone ashen white.
“Oh, hell.” Troy sat up and shoved the other man’s head between his knees. “Don’t pass out on me, man.”
Rafe shoved him away, sitting back up. He swallowed hard a few times before he could get the words out. “That’s not possible. Mark died. Years ago.”
“You know about Mark?” Oh, damn. Troy was getting that churning sensation in his gut, the one that usually meant everything was about to go to hell and beyond.
“Yeah, but…God, just when I thought…” Rafe shot to his feet and started pacing again. “Don’t do this to me. Mark is—”
“Your half brother?”
“My baby brother,” Rafe corrected.
“Well, he was alive and kicking when I talked to him yesterday. I wouldn’t lie about this, Rafe. I may be a bastard sometimes, but I’m not cruel. Not like that. And not to you. Never to you.”
“Oh, God.” Rafe deflated, just folding in on himself. Troy reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him back onto the bed. Troy didn’t move closer to the bigger man, but he left his hand where it was. And if it kept up a soothing rub on his forearm, well, Troy couldn’t seem to help it. Damn, was he actually comforting someone? Ken would bust a gut if he could see this. Then he’d start in with a nice, long, annoying round of I-told-you-sos.
Rafe’s face scrunched up. Troy couldn’t tell if the guy was about to hurl or cry. He would prefer neither. And if he couldn’t be that lucky, he’d rather make a grab for the trashcan. He was so not good at emotional stuff, especially other people’s emotional stuff. The comforting arm rub was about the extent of his experience.
“Okay, Rafe, maybe you were right last night. This whole blasted mess has gone on long enough. Why don’t you tell me about Mark?”
“Just…he’s really alive? Mark is okay?”
“Yeah, man.” Troy moved his hand to Rafe’s shoulder, kneading the tight muscles. “Mark’s fine.”
“Oh, God,” Rafe said again. He covered his face with those big hands, rubbing at his eyes. “I just…I never thought…”
“Complete sentences are usually a plus in a conversation.”
Rafe lowered his hands to give Troy an annoyed glare. “Bastard,” he said. But Troy’s words had the desired effect. Some of the lines eased in that rugged face and the dark eyes lightened a touch.
“Mark was…Dad screwed up, you know? I remember him and Mom screaming about it. She was so pissed off. And when the girl came up pregnant, it got worse. Mom forgave him, eventually, but she never really forgot. And I don’t think she ever really trusted Dad after that. But Mark, well, he was the innocent one in it all, you know? His mom got real sick after he was born. Mom, she couldn’t resist a baby, so we took care of him for a while. We got attached, both of us. He was so tiny and helpless. He was my baby brother and I loved him. His mom got better and Mark went back to her. She was a great lady, kind and gentle. I always figured that if Dad had to go and screw up, at least he had sense enough to pick a good one. Mom and I, we couldn’t let Mark go. So he would come sometimes and stay with us. He was little, maybe three or four. He probably doesn’t remember.”
“I know he doesn’t,” Troy interrupted gently. “He doesn’t think you know about him at all.”
“But that’s…hell, this is really screwed up.”
“Yeah.”
“I was nineteen when Mark was born. I took that first year after high school to earn some money for college, so I saw a lot of Mark then. Summers after that. Then Mom died. Alyssa, Mark’s mom, she came to the funeral. I guess the two of them spent time together. Weird, I know, the wife and the girlfriend. But Alyssa didn’t know Dad was married when she slept with him. It took her longer to forgive Dad for that than it took Mom to forgive him for the affair.”
“Sounds like they were both exceptional women.”
Rafe smiled with remembered pleasure. “Yeah, they were something. I dropped out of school to help Dad with the ranch. Alyssa got a job offer and moved away. I kept in touch with her, visited when I could. Sent money whenever I had something to spare. Mark deserved the best, you know?”
His tone thickened, voice dropped. “I remember it so well. I was a month shy of twenty-four. I came in off a two-day ride. Dad met me at the door. I’d never seen that look on his face before. He said…he said he had bad news. That Alyssa had been in a car accident. A semi hit them full on. She and Mark died instantly. I couldn’t believe it. I’d seen Mark maybe six months before. He was five, full of life and energy. And then he was just gone. I was devastated. Dad took off less than a year later. I changed the name of the ranch, sold off the cattle. It took a lot of work, to hold things together. When Dad died, it didn’t hit me that hard. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of years. I’d moved on. It didn’t hurt, not like it did when Mark…”
Troy did something completely uncharacteristic. He leaned over and wrapped his arms around his lover’s broad shoulders.
“Hey, it’s okay.” His voice came out softer than he’d intended, some of his feelings leaking through. And wasn’t that just a kicker? Big, tough PI, brought down by a soft-spoken rancher. He just wanted to fix everything for the man. And while he couldn’t erase the past, he could definitely do something about the future.
“Let me make a call,” Troy said. “We’ll get Mark out here, sit him down and give him a lecture. What the boy should have done in the first place,” he added in a mostly-to-himself mutter. “What happened to him, after Alyssa died?” Rafe asked.
“I think that’s something Mark should tell you,” Troy replied. Okay, so he was a coward. He didn’t want to be the one to tell his lover about the years Mark spent bouncing around Children’s Services, the numerous relatives and foster homes. His man was going to feel enough guilt as it was. Call it selfish, but Troy had never been one to deny his own nature. He was a selfish bastard, he’d be the first one to admit it.
“God, my head is spinning.” Rafe let out a short laugh, the sound gut-wrenchingly void of amusement. “I don’t even know which way is up right now. First you, then Mark, and just the whole damn mess.”
“Yeah.” Troy hesitated. Now wasn’t probably the right time, but— “You know I would never have done it, don’t you? Hurt you, I mean. I think I knew it before I even came out here. That unless you were a complete and utter bastard, I wouldn’t be writing up that report.”
“I know,” came the soft reply.
Troy’s eyes burned and he blinked rapidly, feeling like an idiot. Why the hell should two little words mean so much to him? But they did. He squeezed Rafe into a tight hug, feeling completely out of his depth and horrifically exposed after his confession.
“Let me go call Mark,” he said.
Rafe reached up and wrapped those big, work-roughened hands around Troy’s arms, holding him in place. “Don’t take off, okay?”
How the hell did the big guy know? Troy swallowed. “Okay,” he found himself promising. “I’ll stick around. At least until Mark—”
Rafe’s vehement head shake stopped Troy’s words. “My head might be a mess right now, but I know what I want. I realized it earlier, when you came charging through the storm to rescue me.”
“You didn’t need rescuing.”
“Doesn’t matter. If you could have seen your face…you were scared to death, honey. Never seen a face so white.”
“Did you see that lightning?”
Rafe ignored him. “Look, whatever happens with Mark, whether you can get him out here or not, I want you to stick around for a while. I think we could have something and I’m not ready to give you up just yet.”
Troy found himself promising before he could stop the words from popping out. But he couldn’t resist adding, “And what if I can’t get Mark out here?”
“Then we go track his ass down.”
Yeah, that was about the answer Troy had been expecting. He chuckled. “All right, I’ll go call him. And hopefully we won’t need to do that. I’ve been working for the kid for a couple of weeks now. I think I know which buttons to push.”
“I’ll just wait downstairs,” Rafe said. “So you can, I don’t know…”
“Hey, I don’t care if you listen.”
“Yeah, but I don’t trust myself to not grab the phone out of your hand.”
Troy received a sheepish grin that was absolutely fucking adorable. It made something in his chest knot up and his cock hard. Of course, just looking at the man’s silhouette made his cock hard, but even so…
Rafe headed for the door. He paused and Troy almost missed the whispered, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied. When Rafe had disappeared from sight, Troy grabbed his cell phone. He punched in the numbers that he now knew by heart and waited for the phone to stop ringing.
“Hey, Mark, it’s Troy.”
“Troy? You weren’t supposed to call until tomorrow. Is something wrong?” The kid’s voice was anxious and cracked a bit at the end of the sentence. It was times like these that reminded Troy of how young his client actually was. Hell, if Rafe was going to feel guilty, Troy probably should, too. He should have done something about this a while ago.
“Yeah, listen, there’s been a development. I’ve already talked to Ken and he’s agreed to bring you out here.”
“Is Rafe going to settle?” Mark asked excitedly.
“Something like that. Just pack what you need for an extended stay.” Because once Rafe got his little brother out here, it was a sure thing the kid wasn’t going anywhere for a while. “I’ll let Ken explain the details on the way.”
“You told him what?” Ken screeched a few minutes later.
“You heard me the first time, you idiot.”
“I can’t just drop everything to chauffeur the kid to you. And what the hell am I supposed to tell him?”
“You’re a lawyer,” Troy pointed out. “Do what you do best. Feed him a load of bullshit.”
“I’m seriously going to wring your neck when I get out there.”
Troy laughed. “You’re welcome to try.”
Ken groaned loudly as he realized that, intentionally or not, he’d just agreed to the whole scheme. “I really hate you,” he said, but there was no heat in the words. They’d been friends for nearly twenty years. He should be used to Troy’s methods by now.
“Just get the kid out here and then you can break my nose, if you want,” Troy said.
“You going to tell me what’s going on?”
“No.”
Troy hung up on his best friend’s sputtering protests. He tossed the phone onto the bedside table and headed downstairs. Rafe was waiting in the living room. Troy greeted him wearing his Scooby boxers and a smile. He flopped down in a chair and waggled his fingers at his cowboy who had, apparently, been pacing again.