Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

TULLY

Telling Dev about the subpoena and the requirement to go to Texas for the paternity test was a shitty way to end our night together.

But it was also necessary.

Dev’s expression shut down just like I knew it would.

I sat up and wrapped my arms around my knees so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “Don’t shoot the messenger,” I said under my breath as he cursed and reached for his phone, flicking on the bedside lamp and throwing the covers back.

As soon as my words were out, he stopped blustering. There was a beat of silence before he let out a breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He leaned over and cupped the back of my head before gently turning me around to face him. “I’m not upset at you. I’m just… upset.”

“I am, too.” I hadn’t meant to say that, exactly. I’d intended to say, “I understand.” But when my words came out, I realized they were true.

Dev looked surprised. “Why are you upset?”

“Because I don’t like to see you so worried, and hurt, and frustrated. And because I don’t want Lellie to have to go through this. It’s also unnecessary since anyone with functioning eyeballs can see she’s your daughter.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed and turned toward me, reaching for my face. Before he could say anything, I added, “And because I know you don’t want to go back to Texas.”

Dev’s large hand on my face was warm and gentle. I closed my eyes and leaned into it, wishing I could turn back the clock half an hour and put us back in our intimate little bubble.

“You’ll come with us, though,” he said, sounding calmer than he had in a while. “And while we’re there, we’ll go to Katie’s and see what needs doing.”

“What about Lellie?” I could tell he knew what I meant. Would he keep her?

His jaw firmed, and his eyes hardened. “I’m sure as hell not letting the Scotts raise her. I care about her too much to allow them to shape her beliefs into the hate they preach. As for whether I’m going to keep her… the answer is yes. I told you I’d been thinking about it, and it really hit me today that I… I can’t stand to give her up. Maybe that’s selfish of me?—”

“It’s not.”

“Yeah?” Dev’s eyes met mine, their hazel depths pleading for reassurance. “There might be people out there who know more about parenting than I do and are maybe even better suited to it than I am, but… there is no one in the whole world who loves her as much as I do.”

“I know.” I said the words with my whole chest, believed them to the core of my being. “I’m so happy for you. Both of you.”

“I’m scared shitless,” he admitted. “I have a lot of things to think through. Hell, I don’t even know what the schools are like here. And I’m going to have to hire an amazing nanny who loves her as much as I do. I can’t do it myself, and I don’t want to rely too much on my friends when they have lives of their own.”

My heart warmed to see him finally turn this corner. “I’ll help.”

Dev leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “You already have. Thank you for not letting me run away from her.”

I held him close and moved the kiss to our lips. “Are you saying I shouldn’t let you run away from me, either?”

There were clearly plenty of things going through Dev’s head, but he chose the easiest route. “Not tonight anyway.”

I let the words stand without challenging them. Instead, I indulged myself in pushing him back on the bed and climbing on top of him to kiss him again and again. We made out like horny teenagers, hands everywhere and lips not far behind, until we ended up sideways on the bed in a sloppy sixty-nine. My obsession with his foreskin was a little unhinged, and I kept pulling off him to slide it back and forth before leaning back over him to tease it with my mouth. Every time I did that, he made a strangled sound in his throat that made my cock throb.

When we were finally empty and trembling, sweaty and gasping, I reached for his hand and tangled our fingers together.

We didn’t speak, but I felt miles closer to him than I had before. Dev seemed to finally be dropping some of his walls with me, and I was grateful for it. After a while, we got up and shared a quick shower before drying off and slipping into bed together again.

The windows were open, and the night air was cool. It was a pleasant change from Dallas, where I wouldn’t have dared open my windows in summer.

We settled back down so I was lying on my front with my head turned on the pillow to face him. Dev was on his side, trailing lazy fingertips along my back.

“What changed your mind about Lellie?” I wondered. “Spending the day with her? I would have thought that much alone time with a toddler would do the opposite.”

The low rumble of his laugh made me smile. “No. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good day… until she had a meltdown in the car on the way home. But before we went to the mountains, I stopped at the sports store to get a hiking backpack to carry her in. It’s owned by a couple I’ve gotten to know fairly well. Nice guys, both of them.” He paused. “I was surprised to find out they’re trying to adopt. And they’re having a hard time of it. They’re the world’s most perfect couple. Smart, hardworking, kind. They’re super involved in the community and well-loved by everyone. They’d be the perfect dads for her, but…”

He trailed off, and I waited patiently while he gathered his thoughts.

“It made me nauseous to think about handing her to them,” he said roughly. “And if I can’t imagine giving her to them…” His lips tightened, and his nostrils flared. I could tell he was overcome with emotion. His voice came out in a whisper. “How could I give her up, Tully?”

I shifted over to give him a hug, holding him tightly and hoping it made him feel supported and less alone. His arms tightened around me as he tucked his face into the side of my neck.

After a few moments, he pulled back and met my eyes. “If I can’t give her to Jackson and Lake, then I sure as hell can’t let the Scotts take her from me. They probably think they’re dealing with someone who can’t afford to fight them, but they’re wrong. And I will spend every last cent fighting for her.”

We talked about the necessary visit to Dallas, about dealing with Katie’s house and personal effects, and about the most likely methods the Scotts would use to try to discredit him. Surprisingly, Dev didn’t seem worried about them succeeding. I got the feeling from a few things he said that he had friends in high places, as well as deep pockets and never-ending commitment.

What he didn’t seem to realize was that the playing field wasn’t always fair, especially if judges were old friends with the plaintiff or biased against single parents and/or gay men. I’d seen plenty of situations where the legal system didn’t adhere to the principles of justice and fairness.

I refrained from mentioning them to him—Dev needed all the encouragement he could get, and he needed to stay focused—but there was nothing to keep me from doing a little legwork in the background. I’d made a name for myself in law school for my ability to research the hell out of things very quickly.

I knew his attorney in Texas would be glad to receive any relevant case law research I could find. Susanna was known for being smart, focused, and relentless. Her brother Tomas was a friend of mine from law school, which was why she’d been willing to take Dev’s case on such short notice.

Susanna charged what she was worth, though, and I found myself wondering again about Dev’s financial situation. He said he had a lot of money… but how could a ranch hand, even one who was careful with money, save up enough to save his horse and his daughter in the same week? I knew I couldn’t ask, but I worried about it anyway.

What I wasn’t going to do was worry about my own situation right now. Technically, doing research on Dev’s case was in my purview as Katie’s attorney, but I was pretty sure Orris wouldn’t see it that way. Which meant I would simply make sure he didn’t find out.

Despite mentally preparing arguments against the Scotts in court over and over—a futile practice since I wouldn’t be making them—I managed to fall asleep quickly. As usual, morning came early on the ranch, and I was awakened by Dev’s attempts at sneaking out of bed.

“Fuck,” I grumbled. “It’s still full dark.”

“You sure you grew up on a ranch?” Dev’s sleep-roughened voice was sexy as hell, especially since I could hear the smile in it.

“I left it for a reason,” I grumbled into the pillow.

His warm hand caressed the back of my head and down between my shoulder blades. “Go back to sleep.”

I shook my head and stretched. “Nah. I’ll get up and help.” But when I stood, I felt the residual soreness of the previous night’s amazing sex. “Maybe no horse riding, though,” I muttered.

Dev looked back over his shoulder and grinned at me. “Yeah?”

“Don’t look so smug. It’s just because it’s been a while.” I moved toward the living room, where my stuff was heaped in a corner.

“How long?” he called from the bedroom, where he was pulling clothes out of a dresser drawer. My eyes lingered on the pale muscles of his ass.

I thought back. “God. Probably three years? I dated a guy a few years ago, but we’d been broken up for a while before I met you.” I didn’t add that I hadn’t liked anyone enough since then to do more than swap quick orgasms before going our separate ways.

Dev came out of the bedroom dressed in jeans and a wash-worn T-shirt. The faded logo indicated it was from his days playing polo at Yale. I pointed to it and snickered. “Are we representing our troubled youth today? Our checkered past? I didn’t get the memo. Let me change shirts. Pretty sure I have one from Jimbo’s Feed and Seed somewhere around here.” I pretended to rifle through my suitcase.

He glanced down at his shirt and then grinned up at me. “You mean my chukkered past.”

I stared at him, forcing myself not to snort. “You did not just make a polo pun, you snotty diva.”

He sniffed and adopted a highbrow accent. “I’ll have you know the Yale Polo program began in 1903. For almost a hundred years, it was played in the Armory, which was used as a cavalry training center during World War I. In fact, the first polo at Yale was recorded in 1886.”

“You tell a story almost as good as my grandpa, and he’s been dead for thirty years.” I made a fake snoring noise.

Dev’s grin was adorable. I could tell he was passionate about the game. “Polo started two thousand years ago. It actually has a fascinating history. It’s one of the oldest recorded sports and has even been used for military training.”

“Know what the actual oldest sport is?” I asked. “Besides running, which was more of a survival thing than an actual sport.”

“Don’t say it,” he said, rolling his eyes as he headed to the kitchen.

“Two men wrestling. And thank god for that. Cave paintings showing this glorious invention date back fifteen thousand years in France, and I, for one, am an avid fan.”

We continued teasing each other while Dev moved to the kitchen and pulled out ingredients for smoothies. He dumped a mountain of frozen fruit, fresh spinach leaves, protein powder, and greek yogurt into a massive blender before turning it on.

He quickly poured the concoction into two travel mugs before handing one to me. “Coffee’s downstairs. Let’s go.”

We made our way downstairs, where Indigo was already pouring coffee from the large carafe in the tack room into a travel mug with rainbow and cartoon stickers plastered all over it. Dev moved over to a desk against the wall and swiped the laptop’s trackpad to wake it up. “Tully, while we’re riding out to feed the stock in the pastures, you can go through this tutorial video on the stock management software we use. Basically, today, we’re going to do a final check on who’s going where and whether everything’s up-to-date in their record. If they need vaccines, shoes, et cetera. Everything should be in order, but we want to make sure. Then tomorrow, you can help us manage the orders and double-check everyone’s going where they’re supposed to before updating locations and status for the stock being moved.”

I was relieved he was allowing me an important role without any further encouragement. For a moment, I was disappointed he hadn’t wanted me to mount up and join them on horseback, but then I realized he trusted me more than Indigo on a stock management software program. “No problem.”

He met my eyes. “And if you get done before we return, you can go up to the big house and check on Lellie.”

My heart went soft. “Want me to do that first?” I asked in a low enough voice Indigo wouldn’t hear.

He shook his head. “Hopefully, they’re already up, and I don’t want to look desperate.” He winked at me, which made my heart speed way back up.

After grabbing coffee and swallowing down half the smoothie, I followed the two of them out to the main aisle of the barn and watched as they fed and checked on the high-needs stock housed inside. Once they were done, Dev scribbled some notes on a scratch piece of paper and handed it to me. “Once you learn how to update stock records, you can add these notes from this morning, okay?”

I agreed and headed back to the tack room while they left to feed the horses in the farther pastures.

The computer work went by quickly. The system was easy enough to learn, and I finished everything Dev needed before taking off to the ranch house to find Lellie.

“Tuh-wee!” she said when Way led me into the kitchen from the front door. She was sitting in Jo’s lap at the kitchen table, waving her milk cup at me. I wanted to run to her and pull her into my arms, inhale the baby scent of her, and… take her back into my keeping.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. But for some reason, she felt a little bit mine , and it was going to be nearly impossible to say goodbye when the time came.

“Hi, babygirl,” I said, shoving the strange swell of emotion down. “How’d you do on your sleepover?”

She chattered at me without her usual intelligible language. I understood about a quarter of her words at best, but I was overjoyed to see she was plenty comfortable and happy with Silas, Way, and Jo.

I declined Silas’s offer of coffee but accepted the offer of bacon from the leftover slices resting on a paper towel.

Way glanced my way from where he was finishing his breakfast at the table. “Dev giving Indigo a hard time?”

I swallowed the salty bacon and reached for another piece. “Don’t think so. He calmed down last night after we got home.” Suddenly, I realized what I’d said. “Back! After we got back .”

Way tilted his head at me, Silas made a funny noise in his throat, and Jo looked up from where she’d been helping Lellie with her cup.

I played it cool by choking on the bacon and gasping for breath.

They all continued to stare at me until I calmed down. I made sure to keep my eyes averted. From everyone.

“The two of you slept together!”

Shockingly, the exclamation came from Jo. Silas, Way, and I swiveled our heads in her direction as I tried not to choke again.

“Aunt Blake!” Way cried with a laugh.

“Jesus,” Silas muttered before turning to me. “She’s right, though, isn’t she?”

“Don’t answer that.” Dev’s voice was cool and collected, coming into the room like a serene tide. “And I apologize for my friends.” He said the last word with a hiss as he shot each of them a glare.

None of them looked repentant in the least.

Silas studied him. “You’re looking relaxed,” he said dryly. “And if I had to guess, I’d say you’re looking more relaxed than you’ve looked in… oh, say… two years?”

Bacon shot up my nose, and I tumbled off the stool. Thankfully, Dev grabbed my elbow to keep me from hitting my head on the counter as I coughed.

“Cut it out,” he snapped at his friends. “Or I’m about to tell Jo what really happened in Vegas.”

“What happened in Vegas?” Jo and I asked at the same time.

Way’s cheeks turned pink, but it was Silas who held up a hand. “Fine. Save the details for later if you insist, but if you won’t tell me, you’ll sure as shit tell Landry.”

“Give me more credit than that,” Dev said, reaching past me for the last slice of bacon without removing his hand from my elbow.

Way shook his head. “Even I know that man can get any gossip out of anyone. He has magical methods.”

“It’s called tequila shots, and it only works on Silas,” Dev said before muttering, “And Kenji.”

He squeezed my elbow before walking toward Lellie. As soon as she noticed him, she squawked. “Dah!”

“Hi, precious girl,” he said with a big smile, leaning over to pull her out of Jo’s arms. “How’s my favorite tiny human today?” He pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her messy curls. She shoved her cup at him proudly, causing him to praise her for drinking her milk like a good girl.

As he took her over to the large kitchen window to show her what a pretty day it was outside, I noticed I wasn’t the only one staring. Way, Jo, and Silas were all watching him intently.

“She belongs with him,” Silas said softly so only I could hear.

“Yes.”

“How do we convince him?”

I opened my mouth to say he was keeping her, it was already decided, but then I snapped my teeth closed. It wasn’t my place to say, and I knew firsthand how critical it was to keep someone’s confidence in private matters. “We give him the support he needs to see he can do it,” I said instead. “We help him see it’s possible.”

Silas turned and met my eyes. The man’s gaze was intense. It would have been intimidating if he’d held any power over me, but he didn’t. “You’re on his side,” he said as if the news surprised him.

Technically, I was supposed to be on Lellie’s side. But I’d come to realize that was the same thing.

“Yes,” I said softly.

He tilted his chin down before looking back at Dev.

“Good.”

The two days of roundup passed in a whirlwind of activity. Somehow, the morning after Trigger’s emergency visit, Dev managed to talk to Indigo enough to learn he was better with kids than ranch horses. After a quick shift in duties, I saddled up and rode with Dev, Way, and Natana while Indigo and Jo watched Lellie and Silas and the new hire from the vet’s office checked out stock and loaded trailers.

It was crazy busy, exhausting, and wildly entertaining. Natana was a trick rider in the Majestic rodeo, so she had stories and stunts for days. Somehow, I’d missed that Way was also the mayor of Majestic, and a national news organization had caught wind of it and came out to do a feature story on him. The photographer and reporter had stayed to get some coverage during roundup, which ended up bringing other Majesticans out of the woodwork as well.

The ranch was bursting with guests. Way’s sister Sheridan brought out tables loaded with food and cold drinks, and several of their neighbors started asking questions about who Lellie belonged to.

It didn’t take Dev long to claim her. In fact, all it had taken was one confused older man glancing between Lellie and Sheridan and saying, “I thought you weren’t due for a while yet?”

Dev had hopped down from the saddle, grabbed Lellie from Sheridan’s arms, kissed her on her fat cheek, and said, “She’s mine, Mr. Jenks. This is my daughter, Lellie.”

The older man had looked just as confused as before, but Lellie’s adorable smile had won him over in no time.

If only she had that smile now.

Roundup had ended only Saturday, and here we were on Monday, already on our way to Dallas in a private jet Silas had somehow arranged, though it felt like the sun had barely risen.

And Lellie was not a fan of this change to her routine.

“I think we should give her something to chew on,” I suggested again over the sound of her screaming. “It’s probably her ears.”

Dev shot me a look while Lellie continued to thrash in her car seat. The plane had only been in the air a few minutes, but Lellie had been screaming for at least a half hour.

“Fine,” he said, shoving the backpack at me. “You figure out what to give her, then. Everything we brought is mushy.”

He was right. As I rifled through the bag, I found overripe bananas, cut-up strawberries that had softened in their own juice, pumpkin bread squares Jo had packed, and little fingers of peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Shit,” I muttered. There wasn’t anything that would help her work her jaw to pop her ears.

“PB&J,” I said desperately, pulling out a piece of the sandwich and saying a silent thank-you to the universe when she shoved it into her mouth. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, and her eyelashes were spiky-wet. I reached out a thumb to wipe them away, but before I could reach her other cheek, a pristine white cotton handkerchief appeared.

I glanced up at the stranger who’d arrived with the plane before murmuring my thanks. Kenji was slender and poised, dressed immaculately in designer suit pants and a crisp Oxford shirt. He looked like a Japanese cover model who’d been recruited by Brooks Brothers to make business attire look sexy and chic at the same time.

He hadn’t cracked a smile since I’d met him last night.

We’d made our way up to the main house for dinner after showering the dirt and sweat of roundup off and had been introduced to Kenji, who’d arrived sometime during the afternoon.

“He’s here to accompany you to Texas,” Silas had said before whisking Dev away to his study, where the three of them presumably talked about things they didn’t want me to overhear.

I’d wanted to ask Dev about it when we returned to the apartment, but he’d excused himself to check on Trigger as soon as we’d gotten Lellie down for the night.

Roundup had kicked my ass, so I’d fallen asleep on the sofa before he’d returned. Thankfully, he nudged me awake just long enough to move me into his bed with him before I fell right back to sleep.

And now I couldn’t ask him because Kenji was right here.

After wiping Lellie’s face of tears and now peanut butter and jelly, I glanced apologetically from the ruined handkerchief to Kenji. He waved my concerns away. “It happens.”

“Thank you for arranging for the plane,” I began, shifting on the soft leather sofa situated across from the one Kenji sat on. “I was going to ask my firm to send theirs. It was generous of Silas to do this for Dev.”

Kenji opened his mouth to speak, glanced at Dev, and closed it again. Something seemed off, and it made me uneasy.

“Is this Silas’s plane?” I asked, looking between the two of them. And if it was, what the hell did Silas do for a living? I’d thought he was a business consultant.

Dev shifted in his seat. “It’s owned by a company the group of us co-founded.”

I attempted to glare at him while keeping an eye on Lellie. He was part of a group of friends who owned a plane ?

He cleared his throat. “Technically, it’s the company’s plane.”

“And you and your friends own the company,” I prompted. Kenji remained conspicuously silent.

“Yes.”

I closed my eyes and counted to ten, trying desperately to remember none of this was any of my business. When I opened my eyes, Kenji was gone. Thankfully, Lellie had stopped crying and was now reaching for the bag of strawberries. I helped her pick them out of the bag one at a time while Dev decided how much to trust me.

Finally, I sensed him lean toward me. When he spoke, his voice was lower. Softer.

“I met the guys at Yale. I think you knew that. We worked on a project together that went very well.” He leaned over and ran a wet wipe over Lellie’s hands before continuing. “After college, we started a company together. A business consulting firm that specialized in taking ideas to market and finding financing.”

“Venture capital.”

“Kind of. Also like an incubator. Technically, I still own part of it, but corporate stuff wasn’t really my wheelhouse. I don’t love working at a desk in a high-rise. That was more Bash and Silas’s thing. Landry had his modeling, and Zane had his music.”

I glanced at him. “What did you have?”

“At the time, I was working with the Yale Animal Resources Center, following up on research I’d done before graduating. I was considering applying to vet school, but I didn’t want to leave the project while it was still underway. And then my brother died. And everything changed.”

I knew his brother had died in a car crash a few years ago. Katie had told me that much. I moved closer to him and took his hand in mine. “Will you tell me about it?”

He glanced back over at Lellie before finally meeting my eyes again. “It was my fault. The accident.”

My stomach dropped. “You were behind the wheel?”

“No. But I gave him the car.”

It took a minute for the words to make sense because they didn’t actually make sense at all.

“You… gave him the car? How does that make a car accident your fault?”

He closed his eyes and held his breath for a beat, pulling his hand out of mine to rub his face. “It was a fancy sports car. He was too young… too immature. He begged me for it. I should have never listened to him. He wasn’t ready for that kind of responsibility.”

“How old was he?”

“Twenty.”

I blinked. What was I missing? “Dev. He was old enough to vote. Old enough to be in the military and get deployed in a war zone. To drive tanks. And you’re blaming yourself for how he drove a car? I don’t understand.”

He ran his hands down his jean-clad thighs. “You don’t need to understand. Just know it was my fault. I blame myself, and my parents sure as hell blame me. It was enough for them to kick me out of the family and tell me they wouldn’t take a dime of my ‘tainted money.’ They turned to their religion, which would have been fine, except they ended up going to the Church of Heavenly Victory. So instead of getting comfort from their faith, they learned how to be extra hateful and intolerant. Pastor Scott apparently made it very clear to his congregation around that time that greed and covetousness were the root of all evil.”

“That’s rich,” I murmured, thinking of the sprawling mansion Katie’s parents lived in with their retinue of servants to support it.

“Agreed. They thought I’d gone to the evil Northeast and been turned into someone they no longer recognized. An ‘Ivy Elite,’ even though I was literally working for free while wading knee-deep in horse shit every day. They figured I’d gotten my money gambling with rich kids, and nothing I said could make them change their minds. It took me a long time and a ton of therapy to realize it was easier for them to blame me than themselves or, god forbid, my brother, Matt.”

“So, did the therapist help you come to terms with the fact his death wasn’t your fault?”

I already knew the answer based on the way he spoke about it.

“Not really. He tried, but I figured he didn’t have the whole story.” He surprised me by smiling. “Don’t worry, I can hear how that sounds now that I’m saying it out loud.”

“Good.”

“I’ve spent a long time blaming myself,” he admitted.

“Sounds like it.”

He reached for my hand and held it between both of his. “It was why I didn’t want to know about Katie’s baby.”

It made a strange kind of sense. He was obviously fearful of getting close to a new family member and possibly losing them, too.

He took a breath. “But in avoiding it, I lost out on more time with Katie. I lost out on seeing her as a mom and meeting Lellie earlier. I missed things that would have enriched my life… made it immeasurably better.”

I nodded, suddenly feeling the sting of his regret in my own eyes.

“Life’s too short, Tully,” he said softly. “I don’t want to miss any more of it.”

I pulled my hand out of his so I could put my arm around his shoulders and pull him in tight to my side on the lush leather sofa. Lellie had fallen asleep with her mouth and hands coated in sticky strawberry juice.

As the sleek jet continued to rocket us toward the challenges that awaited us in Dallas, I considered how I’d felt the day I’d left Dallas with Lellie in tow.

I’d been overwhelmed with anxiety at the prospect of seeing Dev again, concern that Katie had been misguided in her choice of guardian, worry for Lellie, and reluctance to leave my work at Dunlevy, Pace, and Trumble even for a few days.

It was hard to believe how much had changed with just a short time in tiny Majestic, Wyoming…

In a short time with Devon McKay.

And I began to realize that going back to Dallas now didn’t feel at all like I was going home.