Page 99 of Tate
She nodded, and as she got on the horse, as she settled her arms around his waist, her body against his, she couldn’t help but wish that she might be a different girl.
“What do you mean, you’re not going to the CMGs?” Kelsey held a serving plate, wiping it with a towel, and looked at Glo like she’d just suggested she might move to Canada and take up dogsledding. “We have to go—we’re up for an award.”
“Can’t we just…you know, videotape something?” Glo set the punch bowl she’d just cleaned on the granite counter. Overhead lights spilled across the great room of the lodge, now quiet as the guests had left. Knox was flying Reuben and Gilly off to Helena to catch a plane for their honeymoon to Hawaii.
Tate folded up a chair and carried it and two others to a stack in the corner, in the process of arranging the living room back into its normal state.
Ford had left earlier with Scarlett—Glo noticed them sneaking out of the house. She didn’t blame them—she’d wanted to sneak out of the house and clear her head of all the romance in the room. Knox and Kelsey had spent the evening dancing, the man leaning down to whisper into her ear something that turned Kelsey a little pink. And of course Gilly and Reuben—to look at a man like Gilly did and know he wouldn’t walk away with your heart…
Yeah, way too much romance because Glo’s gaze had more than once fallen on Tate, the way he cleaned up in a suitcoat, jeans, his cowboy boots, and a fresh shave. The man could break hearts in a pair of joggers and a T-shirt, but this attire had him at his best—the aura of tough cowboy emanating off him like a country song.
Too bad it also reminded her of his regular gig—standing in the shadows, watching her throw herself at Sloan. She’d lost herappetite after that image emerged and hung around too long in her brain.
Until Tate had found her, pulled her into his arms on the dance floor, and made her believe all was forgiven.
She never wanted to leave the Marshall Triple M. Not if it meant returning to the mess she’d left in Nashville.
“My mother has a political event in Atlanta that day, and she can’t spare the security staff,” she said now to Kelsey, ruing the fact she’d opened her big mouth.
“The CMGs have their own security. And we have Tate.”
“How much danger is there?” Gerri handed Glo a rinsed china plate. She’d insisted on washing the heirloom china by hand and Glo had offered to help. Please, give her something to do before she did something dangerous and overwhelming and walked out into the starlight with Tate and lost herself forever.
It was probably too late, anyway.
In the back of her mind, she couldn’t get past the story of Tate walking into an ambush. Of him hiding under the bodies of his brothers and a twelve-year old boy. Sneaking out at night with a broken body and hiding in the wilderness. The way he’d told his story, too, so detached, his voice almost cold in the retelling…she’d been quietly weeping.
He’d been betrayed by someone he trusted, a child, and it cost him in a way she might never understand. It had made her want to fix it, to soothe away the memory. But he hadn’t talked about it further when she’d finally come inside. Just taken her in his arms and kissed her like she might be nourishment.
“I don’t know, really,” Glo said in answer to Gerri’s question. “Enough that Tate didn’t want to let anyone else protect me this weekend.”
Gerri laughed as she washed another plate. “Oh, honey, that’s not why Tate brought you back here.”
Kelsey was grinning too.
“What?” Glo asked. She put the dried plate on a stack.
“You’re good for him,” Gerri said, handing her another plate. “Even he knows that.” She turned back to the sink. “When he came home from Afghanistan broken, healing from his wounds, he was so dark. He didn’t speak for days sometimes, and then when he got better, he started going out to the shooting range on the edge of the property and he’d spend hours there. And when he wasn’t shooting, he was in therapy or working out. As if he could sweat away the demons inside.”
Glo looked over at him, across the room. He was stacking folding chairs, his jacket off, his sleeves rolled up past his forearms. Yes, he was a powerful man, and she had seen him fierce and focused. He glanced over at her and smiled, his eyes shining.
Maybe shewasgood for him. Huh.
“Then he started going out to the Bulldog Saloon at night. Not very often, but sometimes I’d find him on the sofa in the den the next day. Once Knox had to pick him up at the local jail for a drunk and disorderly. I think he and Knox had it out, and when Orrin found out—oh, Orrin was angry. Dressed him down like he might be thirteen. Told him that he was a hero and should start acting like it.” She handed Kelsey another plate. “Tate left the ranch not long after that. He’d call me every few weeks and let me know where he was. Bozeman, then Cheyenne, then Vegas. I think he worked as a pool boy in Vegas…” She glanced over at him. “And I’m not sure I want to know what else.”
Glo didn’t elaborate on the fight, the Bratva, and whatever past Tate had tucked into the dark, secret places. Even she didn’t know and wasn’t sure she wanted to, either.
“It just about destroyed him when Orrin died. I’m not sure they ever made up, and it breaks my heart.”
Tate was shoving one of the big couches in place under the massive stone fireplace.
“And then he showed up with you, Glo. You and the Belles, and for the first time in years, I heard him laugh again. Tate was our rascal, the troublemaker, but he was also my smiler. Refused to let his pain show. He broke his arm when he was six—fell off a horse—and walked around for two days acting like it was fine.”
She handed Glo another plate. “Never wants anyone to know he might be afraid or overwhelmed or hurt.”
Well, who did? It was easier, safer to pretend. To be okay. Because what if you acknowledged your pain and no one cared?
“But with you, Glo, it’s like I can see little glimpses of the boy I knew,” Gerri said. “The one who waved to me from the end zone after scoring a touchdown. He’s happy again.”
