chapter twenty-seven

chassie sat in the same place at the kitchen table an hour later when edgard returned to the house. he snagged a beer from the fridge and straddled the chair opposite hers.

finally she looked up. "you didn't kill greta, did you?"

"no. her reprieve might be short-lived though when trevor catches wind of it."

edgard took a long, slow drink and eyed the bandage on her forehead. "you should've told him."

"leave it be, edgard."

edgard sighed. not that he blamed her, but chassie'd been extremely grouchy all day. hadn't helped matters hearing trevor snap off the news he was considering his father's offer to run the glanzer ranch on a permanent basis. not that edgard believed trevor would follow through. it reminded edgard that sometimes trevor could be thoughtless and a little mean to those he loved just because he didn't know better.

"sorry. it's just..." chassie sipped her warm milk, scowling when she realized it'd gone cold. "trev didn't seem the same."

"trevor is different when he's around them. breaking free from his family was the best thing he ever did. i can't imagine why he'd jump back in that cesspool when he's created utopia here with you."

chassie offered a wan smile. "you're so sweet."

"i try." he scrutinized her face and glanced at the clock. "you take your meds?"

"yep."

"you hungry? want me to fix you some supper?"

"no. i'm tired. i really just wanna lay down."

"let me help you upstairs."

"no. stop fussin' at me, ed. i'll just crash on the couch."

"i like fussin' at you, so tough up." edgard stood. "will you at least let me tuck you in?"

"i'd like that." chassie pushed to her feet and grabbed the cordless receiver. "and if it'll make you happy, i'll tell trevor about the rodeo tattoo greta's hoof left on my forehead if he calls back."

"good girl." he kissed the area around the bandage and herded her into the living room. after covering her with a blanket, he headed upstairs to shower.

twenty minutes later, the receiver nearly dropped from chassie's nerveless fingers.

her whole body had gone numb and she blinked with disbelief, all thoughts of sleep forgotten.

"chass? who was that on the phone? trevor?"

"no. it was keely mckay."

"what's wrong?"

the words stuck in her throat.

"sweetheart, you're scaring me, what's goin' on?"

"my cousin cameron mckay is missing."

"what?"

chassie swallowed. her mouth still felt dry as dust. "the army sent notification to the family that cam and two other guys were left behind on patrol in iraq."

"shit."

"yeah. remember when kade mentioned it was as if that whole family had gone on vacation together? that's why."

"jesus. how long ago?"

"a week."

"a week? what happened?"

"they're not sure. a bomb exploded, knocking out the first two vehicles in a caravan. cam and his guys got out of their vehicle to help the injured when two more ieds were detonated. people scattered and took cover. in the mass confusion of smoke, casualties and gunfire, the vehicles remaining in the caravan were ordered to retreat. the brass didn't realize they'd left cam and the other guys behind until they'd returned to camp."

edgard didn't say a word.

"the army sent search parties out. found nothin' so far." she squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn't block out the horrors filling her brain. "they may never find him or a trace of him. or the others. how do you deal with that? at least with dag..."

"hey, now. take a deep breath. i'm not gonna tell you everything is gonna be sunshiny rainbows, but sometimes no news is good news."

chassie folded her arms over her chest. "know what i hate?"

"that your aunt and uncle and cousins kept this information to themselves?"

"how did you know?"

"because it's damn near impossible in a close-knit family to know where to draw the line. carolyn and carson elected to keep their immediate offspring in the loop. it is their right. i can't imagine that was a painless decision with the way the mckays seem to live in each other's back pockets."

"you're defending them?"

"no, querida, i'm trying to give you a different perspective on how different people deal with a difficult family situation."

"what do you know about difficult family issues, ed? trevor told me your family was all sunshiny rainbows"-she tossed his words back at him-"about you bein' gay.

that you had complete acceptance and their support of your lifestyle. how can you possibly understand-"

without a word, edgard stormed from the room.

chassie was flabbergasted he'd taken off mid-sentence, so she followed him to give him a piece of her mind. "i'd appreciate it if you didn't walk away as i'm talkin' to you, edgard. it's rude."

"know what else is rude? to make assumptions when you don't know what the hell you're talking about. only hearing what you wanna hear and tuning everything else out.

my life ain't ever been sunshiny rainbows, so don't tell me..." edgard rattled off a long phrase in portuguese. "fuck this. forget it."

a bad feeling persisted that had nothing to do with cam. "what kind of assumptions have i made?"

he flapped his hand in the air, waving her off.

"what is it you're not telling me?" she racked her brain, backtracking on conversations that might've held clues she missed. his deflection of answering questions about his ranch. he'd talked of his last relationship and how he'd taken the man to meet his mother. his mother. whoa. then she remembered. "what happened after your mother died, edgard?"

edgard whirled around and his face was as cold and hard as an icicle. "my family disowned me."

chassie automatically stepped back in the face of his rage. "how can they-"

"evidently my mother was the only one who didn't have an issue with my so-called perversion. evidently she'd kept my stepfather and my brothers and sister in line. so i'd lived years with the lie of complete acceptance about my sexuality. the only reason my family"-he spit the word as if it tasted bad-"tolerated me was because of my mother's threats."

"what kind of threats?"

"financial threats. see, my grandparents-my mother's parents-were rich. she became their only child after my uncle ramon was murdered when i was eighteen."

"oh, ed, i'm so sorry."

"yeah, well, it gets worse. turned into a big ugly political deal, no one knew if my uncle's murder was a botched kidnapping and extortion attempt. my mother sent me to the u.s. to live with my real father's parents for the summer in some misguided attempt at protection."

"you knew them?"

"they'd kept in contact with me. luckily my english was excellent. after i passed the wyoming test as a real cowboy adept at ridin' and ropin', they took me to a rodeo. i was hooked. especially after i began to win." a ghostly smile appeared. "i stuck around for three months."

"did they know you were gay?"

"no."

"when did you...you know...figure it out?"

"first time with a girl was at sixteen. first time with a boy was at eighteen. when i turned nineteen i told my mother which i preferred. she saw no reason to keep it a dirty secret and blabbed to my entire family. everyone acted supportive. or so i thought," he added bitterly.

her thoughts drifted momentarily to dag. no one in their family would've granted him that false sense of security, even temporarily.

"i returned to the states when i was twenty-two to make a name for myself in u.s.

rodeo. figured out pdq how 'real' cowboys feel about gays so i stayed in the closet. had a few random encounters in bigger cities. was lonely as hell but making enough money to buy my own place in brazil. i stuck it out for two years before i thought about going home.

"then i met trevor. instantly fell hard, but somehow managed to keep that from him. i was just goddamn happy to be around him all the time. we traveled together as partners, relied on each other for everything until one day he began to look at me differently. and i knew he'd picked up on how i felt about him. i also knew it fucked him up. by the end of the first year of our partnership we were lovers.

"and yeah, i harbored romantic delusions about him pulling up stakes and moving with me to brazil. after another two years passed of us being together, but not really being together, i left him because i wanted his public acknowledgement of our relationship. having it in private wasn't good enough for me."

chassie bit her lip to keep from crying at the unfiltered anguish in his voice.

"goddamn, i was so childish and needy about proving to everyone that he belonged to me. so stupidly self-righteous and so very, very wrong that i threw it away on a lie."

"a lie?"

"a total fucking lie." edgard punched the couch cushion, shocking chassie and himself with his angry gesture. "sorry. it's just... about a year and a half after i returned home, my mother died in a car accident. in addition to losing the only person who'd understood me, my father- stepfather-told me his true feelings; he didn't accept me as a gay man, never had, never would. i was perverted, an embarrassment to his name, his family, to god and the church. he expected me to leave and never return. problem was, as the oldest male child i was set to inherit everything of my mother's, which meant cutting out his children."