Page 25 of Texas Hold Em'
He tore his gaze from the wall. “You have nothing to be sorry about. Shit happens. I fucked up and I had to leave it all behind.”
“And you picked Reno,” I said, smiling slyly. “Why?”
He laughed. “It wasn’t my first choice. Hell, it wasn’t a choice at all. I passed through one night and stopped for a drink at a bar. A bunch of assholes rolled in looking for trouble. I was piss drunk and bitter. I’d only left home about a week ago and I had a chip on my shoulder the size of Texas. They wanted a fight, so I gave them one. Only I was outmatched ten to one. They had me out in the back alley and were wailing on me when Jackson and some of his boys pulled up.” Tex grinned at the memory. “We unleashed hell on those fuckers. Pounded them right into the dirt. I felt invincible. Afterward, Jackson bought me a beer, and I guess the rest was history.”
It all made a little more sense to me now.
Jackson and the others had given Tex a home after he’d torpedoed the only one he knew. No wonder his loyalty was so ferocious. All the men would have done anything to protect each other.
Tex leaned forward and pointed to a thin white scar along his lower back. “I got this that night from a broken beer bottle. Brody sewed me up right there in the bar after hours while Gabriel and Grant played darts. It feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago all at once.”
“Home isn’t a place,” I said, reciting wisdom my father had shared with me ever since I was a young girl. “It’s wherever your people are.”
Tex lifted his beer and knocked it against mine. “Amen to that.”
We sat in comfortable silence for the next few minutes, and in the quiet passing moments, I thought about the sacrifices Tex had made for his family back home. Did they think about him often? Did he ever battle inner demons and question his decision? Did he long to check up on them? To pick up the phone? To ask how they were? To see if they still thought of him?
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.
He was a hard man to read. On one hand, he was hard as nails and guarded, but on the other, he was vulnerable and honest, almost soft.
Did the situation with Walter Bates feel similar to the mess he left behind back in Austin? Was Bates the kind of enemy he’d provoked back home and had to flee from to protect the people he cared about? Did he worry about everything coming apart again?
Did he think about running?
“We’re going to get him,” I said without thinking.
Tex turned to me with an arched eyebrow.
“Bates,” I clarified. “We’re going to get him. I know what it’s like to worry about the people you love because of choices you’ve made. And I promise I will do everything I can to help you stop Bates. He doesn’t deserve to walk around free after what he’s done, and one way or another, we will all play our role in bringing down his empire. Brick by brick, stone by stone, until the bastard has nothing left but the four walls of a cell.”
Tex nodded slowly. “I like your grit.”
And I like your eyes,I thought as I gazed into their depths, full of more turmoil and pain than I ever realized, but full of hope too.
I finished my beer and got to my feet. “We should try to get some sleep.”
He set his beer down and nodded. “Yeah, go ahead. I’ll see you in the morning.” He settled deeper into the sofa.
“No,” I said, holding out my hand and nodding toward the bedroom. “Come with me.”
He came. We pulled the blankets down, slid under them, and settled onto the plush pillows. At first we lay on our backs staring up at the ceiling, but I craved closeness and rolled into him. He wrapped an arm around me and said nothing as I rested my cheek on his chest and listened to his heartbeat. The drumbeat steady and strong.
I closed my eyes, sighed, and listened to his breathing even out as he drifted off to sleep first.
Perhaps there was more to this biker than initially met the eye.
Perhaps he was right about the law getting in the way sometimes.
My heart kept me awake for another half hour or so. Everything I thought I was, and thought I wanted, was becoming muddy and unclear.
Who is Carrie Hart, and where is she going?
CHAPTER 11
JAMESON
“Jameson! Open the fucking door!”
