Chapter Thirteen

 

 

 

Kegan pulled the wire tight and wrapped it around a transformer before he snipped the end off with wire cutters. He’d spent the afternoon fixing fences, a job he thoroughly hated. He usually had one of the hands tend to them, but he had needed to keep busy and away from the house and Charlie.

He should have told her the whole truth about why he and Trevor had started sharing women. He hadn’t lied to her, at least not completely. The sharing had started the way he’d told her. He just hadn’t told her why it had started, why it continued, or why he needed it.

Deep down, he knew Charlie wouldn’t judge him for what his old man had done. Hell, she had seen the bruises, split lips and missing teeth that were part of his life growing up. But she hadn’t known the full extent of the abuse and he didn’t want to hurt her with those kinds of memories. Truth be told, he didn’t want to think about what had happened in that fucking hellhole, let alone have to relive it.

He damn sure didn’t want her to ever find out his reaction to it.

He angrily threw the snips in the back of the truck and moved down to the next break.

He was on the last of the fences when he heard hooves coming up hard and fast. He leaned back against the post and wiped the sweat from his brow with his bandana as he watched Trevor approach. Kegan could tell by the hard set of Trevor’s jaw and the tense way he sat on his mount that something had pissed him off.

Trevor swung down from the saddle then stalked toward him and stabbed a finger at him. “You have to tell Charlie the truth. All of it.”

“Tell her what, Trev? That my old man was an even sicker bastard than she ever thought? That not only did he beat the shit out of me weekly, he also got his fucking jollies off on beating women?” He ran a shaky hand across his face and tried to steady his pounding heart. “I don’t want her to have to imagine that kind of sick depravity. It will hurt her and I can’t stand the thought of that.”

Trevor leaned beside him, their shoulders resting side by side where they stood next to the post. “She’s already hurting and doesn’t think you trust her enough to tell her everything.”

“This isn’t about trust and you know it. It would hurt her a lot more if I told her everything.” He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Then we’re going to lose her.”

“No, we won’t. I’ll talk to her. My past doesn’t have anything to do with what we have now.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. As soon as Charlie asked you about the sharing, the pain radiating off you was so thick in the room, we all nearly choked on it.”

Kegan moved to put his tools in the truck. Dammit, why in the hell couldn’t the ugly part of his past stay buried where it belonged? He was happier than he had ever been in his life. Charlie had been the one thing missing and now he felt complete. He was fated to be with her, just as he was Trevor. The three of them had something good, something pure. He refused to let his past tarnish it.

“She moved out of the house.”

Kegan whirled around to see a bleak expression on Trevor’s face. “She left the ranch?”

“No, she had Cade help her move her belongings to the guest house. Guess she can’t do this either.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Kegan could barely control the anger that steadily built inside him. He had struggled to put his past behind him, fought against the power his old man had over him, yet somehow the bastard still wielded it.

Trevor reached out, placed his hands on Kegan’s shoulders and ignored his anger—or at least didn’t acknowledge it.

“Look, we’re asking her to trust us without question. To live in our home, share her heart and body with us and trust us not to hurt her. Yet you’re not willing to trust her with the truth. I hate that you have to rehash this shit. I would love nothing more than to kill that sick fuck for what he did to you. Hell, I wish I could talk to Charlie about this for you, but I can’t. She needs to hear it from you, needs to know you trust her.”

Kegan didn’t want to admit Trevor was right. He wanted Charlie to give him everything, to both of them, yet he wasn’t sure he could give her the same. What if he sickened her when she learned the truth, the whole truth? He could lose her. That prick of a man he was cursed with as a father had already made him miss far too many years of Charlie’s life, he couldn’t stand the thought of losing one more day.

Trevor squeezed his shoulders. “Hey, we’ll do this however you want. I’ll stand by whatever decision you make and we’ll deal with whatever happens together. Right?”

Kegan slapped Trevor on the back and pulled him into a tight embrace. “We might lose her if I tell her.”

“Yeah, we might. But we’ve already lost her if you don’t. Your call, man.”

Shit! Losing Charlie was not an option. He’d tell her what he could—she didn’t have to know everything. Hell, he’d make up something if he had to. No sense hurting her with all the fucked-up facts.

He patted Trevor’s back one last time. “Let’s go. I’m not losing her again.” He spun away and headed for the truck. “I’ll meet you back at the barn.”

Kegan didn’t need to look back to know Trevor followed. Regardless of what Trevor said, he wouldn’t have let Kegan walk away without saying something to Charlie. No doubt he’d have convinced him and wouldn’t have been above using any and all means necessary. The man didn’t take no for an answer and when he wanted something, he was ruthless.

What he wanted right now was Charlie.

 

* * * *

 

Belongings unpacked, shower taken and glass of wine in hand, it was no surprise to Charlie when there was a knock on the door just as she sat down. She knew Kegan and Trevor wouldn’t let her move out of the main house without some kind of explanation, but she’d hoped to at least have a few minutes alone, maybe finish her glass of wine or the whole damn bottle first. It would have been a waste of a good wish to hope for one night alone.

She knew when she’d considered the guest house, she was going to try to force Kegan’s hand. She sucked at poker but had bluffed in hopes that Kegan would fold and open up to her. On some level she knew it was her own insecurities that had brought her to this point—her scars ran wide and they ran deep—but what choice did she have? Some things were easier to overcome than others, and learning to trust again wasn’t one of them. Sighing, she thought about ignoring them, but after the incident with the locked bathroom door, she knew it wouldn’t hinder Trevor. She tightened the belt of her robe and headed to let them in.

“And to what do I owe this little visit?”

They stood outside her door, both of them looking as incredible as ever, hats in their hands.

Kegan wore a tight pale-blue shirt with mother of pearl snaps. The blue intensified his eyes so they were the first thing she noticed about him, though the hard body was a close second. Trevor had chosen a tight black T-shirt to go with his oh-so-loose jeans, and the color of the fabric had the same effect on his eyes as Kegan’s had. But it still wasn’t the first thing she noticed about him since he hid his eyes behind a thick wave of his dark curls. The first notable thing was how tight the shirt was where it tucked into his low-hanging jeans and how it accentuated the triangle of muscles that pointed straight down to his groin.

She hesitated at opening the door up farther, knowing the moment she did, they would barge in and overwhelm her. Looking the way they did and the effect they had on her body, how could they not? “I was just getting ready for bed.”

Without an invitation, Trevor pushed past her and headed for the living room. Kegan shrugged as his gaze followed Trevor. “Sorry to bother you. We were hoping to talk.”

She stepped out of the way and held the door open wide. “By all means, just make yourselves at home. No need to wait for an invite.” Sarcasm made her words sound harsher than she’d intended. Another of those damn defense mechanisms ingrained in her.

Charlie took a seat at the farthest end of the couch, pulled her feet up under herself and sipped her wine. She couldn’t find it within her to start this conversation, unsure of which emotion would take the forefront, afraid it would be the grief that won out. She chose to stay silent. She had jumped into this with the two of them without fully thinking about the ramifications beforehand. She wasn’t about to make that mistake a second time.

Kegan sat in the chair directly across from her while Trevor stretched out at the opposite end of the couch. “Why did you leave the main house without saying anything?” Trevor barely kept his ire hidden, which was just fine with her. Ire she could battle against.

“Oh sorry, didn’t realize that I had to ask for your permission.” She swirled the wine around in her glass and took a sip before she continued. “I made it clear from the beginning that I had the option to decide how much contact I had with the two of you as long as I stayed for the full thirty days. Don’t tell me you’re going to go back on our agreement?”

Kegan shot a warning glance at Trevor before he answered, “We’re not here to force you to come back. We just want to talk to you and find out why you felt you had to leave.”

Well if he wanted to tiptoe around the issue, then so could she. “I’m just beginning to realize that the agreement was made before I really had a chance to think it through. I let my body make the decisions for me instead of logic.”

“Bullshit,” Trevor growled. “Everything was going just fine until you asked about why we shared. I’ve told you, Charlie, don’t lie to me. It pisses me off.”

“And just what do I have to fear from you when you get all pissy? Neither of you have been totally honest with me—or each other, for that matter.” She wouldn’t allow Trevor to take over the conversation and spin it in his favor. She had already made up her mind and the only question now was what she was going to do next. “I don’t need thirty days to know that the sex between us is amazing, you’ve already proven that. It’s all the other things that I’m not so convinced would work out.”

“It’s only been a few days, Charlie. Please let’s just give it a little more time.” Kegan shifted in his chair uncomfortably. She could tell he was holding back and that wasn’t something she could ever accept.

“No, Kegan, I don’t have to give it a little more time. I’ve been waiting for you for eight years, living half a life.” She could feel the tears build and refused to allow them to fall.

Charlie didn’t cry, and dammit she had cried more over the last few weeks than she had in years. Just one more thing she was tired of. She stood then turned her back on both of them as she went to the small bar and poured another glass of wine. She drank half of it down before readdressing them. “You’re asking me to accept both of you at face value and to trust you, yet you don’t seem to trust me.”

Kegan stood and started toward her, only to stop, as he seemed to think better of it and stood a few feet away. “It’s not about not trusting you, Charlie, I swear. When you asked me about why I shared women with Trevor, I didn’t lie about how it started.”

Charlie held Kegan’s gaze, the look of pain in his eyes nearly her undoing. She wanted to take away his pain, but if he wasn’t able to share the reason for it with her, then there was nothing she could do.

“This isn’t about the first night that you shared a woman with Trevor. You looked at me with so much anguish I couldn’t help but wonder what caused it. Was it sharing women—me—that hurt? You’re not saying anything, so I’m left to draw my own conclusions.”

“Shit… I mean…” He fidgeted with the leather gloves in his hands. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. Having you here has been the best thing that has happened to me. I wasn’t upset about sharing you with Trevor, it feels so right. Your question just stunned me for a minute and I remembered some painful shit that I fought a long time to bury.”

Charlie forced herself to stay where she stood while her arms ached to wrap around him in comfort. Another part of her needed to understand everything. Kegan leaving her had been one of the most painful things she had ever experienced in her life and she needed to understand why it had happened before she could ever truly let the pain go.

Trevor came up beside her and reached for a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. “Let’s have a seat, huh? We’re not going to let you go, so we might as well get comfortable while we talk this out. I know I have all night.”

The man just exuded confidence—Charlie envied him that. He seemed so sure that there wasn’t anything they couldn’t work out. She wished she felt the same. She looked at Kegan, his eyes pleading, and she found herself walking over to take a seat at the end of the couch. Before she got comfortable, Trevor pulled her to the middle between the two of them.

“Don’t make us fight over who gets to sit next to you.”

She rolled her eyes at the silly grin he had on his face, but didn’t try to move away. “Do you ever take anything seriously?”

He poured two drinks and handed one to Kegan. “Of course, I take a lot of things seriously. I just happen to know that the problem we’re facing right this moment can be overcome. You claimed that we don’t trust you, we plan to prove that we do. Problem solved,” he announced, raised his glass in toast, then drank a good measure.

The absolute confidence in Trevor’s voice shook her resolve to keep the two of them at arm’s length.

“Don’t ever be afraid to ask us anything or to tell us what’s on your mind. If we don’t know how you feel about something that’s bothering you, how can we fix it?” Trevor continued. He made it seem as easy as deciding to take a stroll in the gardens. She wished like hell she could feel half of his ease.

“I—It’s not so much trust… Well, it is, but that’s just part of it.” She took a deep breath and swallowed hard around the lump that had formed in her throat. “It’s… I look at you and Kegan and see what you have together and how much you trust each other and I can’t help but feel like an outsider. I’ve been an outcast my whole life and I don’t want the rest of my life to be the same way.”

Kegan wrapped an arm around her, caressing her shoulders as Trevor stroked her thigh. “Charlie, you could never be an outsider with us. We want you to be our equal. Like three parts of a whole,” Kegan said with complete conviction.

She looked up at him, needed to see his eyes as she dug deeper. “Then why couldn’t you tell me why you were so sad when I asked about the sharing? I know that you’ve told Trevor. I could see it in the way he looked at you and understood your pain. I waited to see if you would trust me enough to share it, but you didn’t. I want someone in my life who can give me their whole heart. I refuse to accept half.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. I just don’t want to burden you with that kind of pain. You already know too much about my father and I don’t want you to live with that kind of hurt in your heart. At times I felt that the weight of it would crush me, destroy me, and I would never want you to feel that because of me.”

She touched Kegan’s face, gently caressing the stubble along his jaw. “I need to know all of it, Kegan. I need to understand what you feel. If I can’t handle the bad, then what right do I have to accept the good? I’ve wanted you since I can remember ever wanting anything. Now you’ve come back into my life and asked me to be with you, but that in order to be with you I have to accept Trevor too. I have to understand that need, to know that this isn’t just some phase you two are going through. How do I know that you won’t tire of it—tire of me? Will either of you force me to make a choice between the two of you later?”

Kegan threw back the rest of his whiskey and winced as it burned down his throat, then handed his glass to Trevor to refill. He took the full glass and stared into it, perhaps trying to find the answers.

He finally looked back up at her, his eyes brooding. “You know my old man was a mean bastard. Beat me most every day of my life as far as I can remember. But I wasn’t the only one he seemed to enjoy whipping on. More than once I saw his handiwork on the women he’d share his bed with.”

Kegan’s whole body was tense, the muscles in his shoulders twitching with the effort. Charlie rubbed along his arm with a soft stroke of her hand, silently letting him know she was there for him.

He took a deep breath then let it out slowly. “I was thirteen the first time I walked in on him. He had a woman tied to his bed and was lying on top of her, grunting and groaning. I couldn’t help but stare. I was too scared to move, too riveted by the sight. Suddenly, he roared up to a kneeling position, still thrusting, and started to hit her. He screamed nasty curses, his blows in rhythm with each slam of his hips. When he finally got off, he slumped forward on top of her. She looked right into my eyes, her face a swollen and bloody mess, crying and begging someone to help her, but I just stood there. I couldn’t move.”

His hand shook as he drained the last of his whiskey then set the glass on the table. He didn’t raise his eyes again. “I snuck out and hid in my room. I didn’t help her.”

Charlie took his hand. “Kegan, you were just a kid. You can’t blame yourself.”

He shook his head but allowed her to hold his hand. “That was the first time it happened. I didn’t see the other women, but I heard the screams. I knew what he was doing to them and didn’t stop him or tell anyone. That last day I was home, I walked in the house and heard a woman’s screams. When I went to his room, sure as shit, there he was beating and fucking her. Something in me just burst and I let every bit of rage in me explode and beat the shit out of him.

“The son of a bitch just smiled, almost as if he was proud of me for finally using my fists. As he lay on the floor, his face a battered mess, he grinned at me with blood running out of his mouth like some fucking madman. Then he asked me how it felt. ‘Feels good, don’t it, boy? The power is a fucking rush, huh?’ That was the last time I ever saw him. It happened the same day you found me by the riverbed.”

Trevor stood and went around the back of the couch, knelt behind Kegan and placed a hand on his shoulder while stroking his hair with the other. Kegan looked up at him. When Trevor nodded his head, Kegan let out a long breath and continued.

“After I got a job with Trevor’s old man, I would go out on the weekends with the rest of the ranch hands. They bugged me because I would never mess with any of the girls. Then one night, this girl came onto me pretty hot and heavy. I was drunk and figured what the hell. I took her home that night and couldn’t get it up. At first it didn’t worry me much, figured I was too damn drunk, but it happened again. Every time I would think about having sex, these sick images filled my head and I would worry about losing control. I worried that I was just like him.”

Charlie could see the toll these painful memories were having on him. His big body tensed and jerked under Trevor’s touch. His eyes were red, as if he was holding back tears. She was sickened knowing she had forced him to relive these horrors and wished she could take away the painful memories.

“Kegan, you don’t have to tell me any more, I think I understand.”

His head shot up and he looked at her with such anger and pain, she gasped at the intensity. “No, you don’t understand, Charlie. That first time I walked in on my old man, I got fucking hard. Stood there watching him beat the hell out of someone and I got a goddamn erection. How sick is that?”

Tears rolled down his face. He brushed them away roughly. Charlie felt hot tears stream down her own face. She tried to be strong for him, but seeing his pain was overwhelming.

“I couldn’t trust myself to be with a woman knowing that the only time I’d ever truly been aroused was when I heard or saw a woman screaming in pain. The night Trevor asked me to join him with a girl he’d picked up, I explained why I couldn’t, but he wouldn’t let me say no. I agreed to just watch but found that with Trevor there, I didn’t have to worry about hurting anyone. When the sharing first started, I believed that was the only way I could have sex—with someone there to keep me under control. I could finally let go and enjoy what was happening because I knew Trevor would never let me hurt anyone. It started out as a necessity, but over the years, with Trevor’s help, I realized that I’m not my old man. I am a good man and wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Kegan ran a hand over his face, wiped away the last of the tears and looked at Trevor before he turned his gaze back to Charlie. Tenderness replaced the pain that had been in his eyes just moments before and he let a small smile touch his mouth. “I can’t imagine my life without Trevor any more than I can imagine not having you. It’s not a phase, I could never choose between the two of you, nor would I ever ask you to choose between us. I want you both—for a lifetime.”

Charlie allowed him to pull her onto his lap. She needed the contact with him as much as he seemed to need it from her. Trevor wrapped his arms around both of them, somehow completing them.

Kegan kissed the top of her head. “I love you,” he whispered, his breath warm against her scalp. “I know I’m asking a lot from you, to accept us both, but I can promise you that we will love you more than anyone ever could. We’ll make this work. We will spend every day trying to make you happy if you’ll just give us a chance.”

Trevor brushed his lips against the side of her neck as he murmured, “Give us a chance, Charlie. Listen to your heart.”

Charlie’s heart soared with Kegan’s declaration of love, words she had prayed to hear but had never thought she would. She was so overcome with emotion she couldn’t respond. The whisper of their breaths, the promise of their hearts and scents wrapped around her like their arms—a warm quilt on a chilled night. It felt right.

Charlie melted into their embrace, knew Kegan had given up a lot of himself and trusted her with his secrets. She still wasn’t sure how everything was going to work out but knew she wanted them both, wanted to try.

Her biggest obstacle would be to learn to return their trust.