Chapter 27
Travis
"Hello," I say nervously from beside Harlow. "Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, good to see you again." I nod politely and ignore the need to vomit. My eyes go from her grandmother to her grandfather.
"Is it?" her grandfather, Billy, says. He is the stamp of what a cowboy is. Every single time I’ve met him he’s wore his white cowboy hat and jeans. He also has always scared the shit out of me. "Heard you got married." He glares at me.
"You must have heard wrong," I say, the pit of my stomach sinking.
"I’m a lot of things," he replies, sitting up in his chair. "But hard of hearing isn’t one of them." His eyes go even smaller, and the glare would have anyone quaking in their boots.
"Oh, please." I hear laughter from beside him and turn to see Charlotte just shaking her head. "It took me six times to call you for breakfast this morning."
"Dammit, woman," he says, chuckling. "I’m trying to be serious." He leans and kisses her lips. "He was scared." He points at me, and I can’t disagree with him.
"Oh, please," Charlotte says, then turns to me. "Welcome back." She smiles big. "I saved you this time. I won’t the next."
I nod at them both and pick up my hand that is in Harlow’s and kiss her fingers. "There won’t be a next time."
"Well, I think there are other people here that are waiting to say hello to us," Harlow reminds me. "Or at least ask him if he’s married." She hits me with her hip and tries to hide the smile while I groan.
"We’ll see you later," Charlotte says, leaning back in her chair and looking out.
When we get far enough away, I look over my shoulder to see Billy still staring at me. "See, that wasn’t so bad," Harlow says as we walk deeper into the yard.
"Easy for you to say, he didn’t glare at you," I mumble and then bump into a girl who is running. Her pigtails are lopsided, and she smiles when she sees Harlow.
"Auntie Harlow." She jumps into her arms. "Gabriel is chasing me and telling me that he’s going to take my nose." She covers her nose right away, believing he can take her nose.
"Elodie." She says her name, and my eyes widen; when I saw her last she was just a little thing just learning to walk. "I’ll protect you." She looks just like Willow.
She looks at me. "Who are you?"
"This is Travis," Harlow says. As soon as Gabriel comes behind her, he looks over at me and stands there with his chest puffing out. He’s a teenager now, and he’s definitely gotten bigger.
"My dad called you a ding dong," Elodie says, and Harlow tries not to laugh.
"That’s not true," Gabriel says from behind her. "He called him a dipshit."
"Gabriel McIntyre," Harlow says his full name. "Watch that mouth of yours."
"Sorry, Aunt Harlow." He shrugs. "Just passing along the message."
"Well, do it kindly." Harlow kisses Elodie on the cheek and puts her down.
"How kindly do you call someone a dipshit?" Gabriel folds his arms over his chest, and if he was tatted, he would look exactly like his father, Ethan.
"I think it’s ding dong," I joke with him, or at least I try to, and he laughs even though I know he really doesn’t want to laugh.
"There you are,” Quinn says when he gets close to us. "Mom has been looking for you," he says to Elodie, who leans toward him and he takes her in his arms.
"Dad," she says, and he looks down at her. "Is ding dong nicer than dipshit?" His eyes go right away to Gabriel.
"Oh, my," Gabriel says, trying not to laugh while he grabs his neck. "In my defense, I was just repeating what you said about Travis."
"Okay," Harlow interjects. "This is enough." She points at Gabriel. "You need to make sure everyone knows that he’s not a dipshit and that he was never married."
She then turns to Quinn. "You need to watch your mouth in front of people before I tell Mom that you are swearing in front of the kids.” Quinn just glares at her. "And you." She turns to me. "I’m sorry that this isn’t as easy as I thought it would be, but I’m sure the next time will be better."
"One can hope,” Quinn says and then Harlow glares at him. "Fine, I’ll be nice." She folds her hands over her chest. "Nicer than I am."
"Now"—she looks at me, and all I can do is smile—"time to go see my parents."
"And to think I almost didn’t come today,” Quinn says. "Let me go first and hand Dad Elodie. He can’t shoot him if he has a child in his arms."
I laugh and look around to see none of them laughing with me. "He’s joking, right?" I say as Harlow slips her hand in mine and turns to walk away from them.
We stop and talk to a couple more of her cousins, and I do get the glare more often than not, but I know in the end they are being somewhat friendly because of Harlow. Instead of calling me a dick to my face, they are waiting for me to walk away before doing it. "Auntie Harlow." Sofia runs to her, and I stop in my tracks at her beauty. Harlow’s face goes into a huge smile when she sees her, and her arms automatically open for her.
"There is my girl," she says, hugging her, and my heart slowly starts to speed up when I see them together. She is giving all of this up for me. I swallow the lump in my throat. We walk side by side as she talks to Sofia about everything going on in her life in the past two days. We walk through the grass, and I smell the food and look over to see her father, Casey, by the grill with her two uncles, Beau and Jacob.
"Here we go," I mumble to myself and see the three men, all with a beer in one hand and spatulas in the other hand, look up and glare at me.
"Smells good," Harlow says, letting my hand go while she walks over to her father and kisses his cheek. She mumbles something in his ear while she walks over to Beau and Jacob.
I take a deep breath, seeing her smile with them, and then they all look over at me and nod hello. All but Casey; he just brings his bottle to his mouth and takes another pull of his beer. I put my hands in my pockets, knowing that I’m going to have to sit down with him eventually and get it all out. I’m more nervous about that than anything else. Not having his approval will hurt Harlow, and I can’t do that to her. No one says anything to me, which is even worse than asking me if I’m married.
"Okay, we are going to go and see Mom," Harlow says, and I nod at the guys and turn around to walk with her.
"I can’t eat any of the food," I say, and she laughs.
"I’ll take the first bite." She stops walking and stands in front of me, wrapping her arms around my neck. "I’ll take one for the team."
"Never." I shake my head and lean down and kiss her lips. The minute I kiss her, everything inside me settles.
"It’s going to get better," she assures me, and all I can do is lean down and kiss her neck. I let her go and look over to see her father watching us. I stare at him, nodding, and then looking around to see Olivia with a little baby in her arms. Hazel sits next to her as I look back at Casey to see him still staring at me. I motion with my head to the side, and he just nods at me. "What the hell was that?" Harlow asks.
"That’s me facing the music." I take a deep breath. "Go sit with your mom, and if I’m not back in twenty minutes, come find me." I bend to kiss her lips and see that Casey is walking toward the barn.
"Twenty minutes, he can have you dismembered and skinned," she deadpans, and my eyes widen. "I’m kidding." She puts her hand on my chest, and I look down to see that her hand is very bare without a certain ring.
"I love you." I pick up her hand and kiss the finger where a ring should be. A finger that if I wasn’t such an idiot would probably have two rings instead of just one.
"I love you more," she says and turns to walk away from me. "Don’t let him scare you."
I put my hands on my hips, shaking my head and turning to walk toward the barn. I take a look around to see that most of her cousins are here with their own kids. I step inside the barn and see Casey standing in the middle of the barn. His legs are spread shoulder width apart, and his arms are folded over his chest. I heard a rumor that he trained with the Navy SEALs for fun. "I have to give it to you." He starts talking first. "You got some big-ass balls showing up here." He laughs. "Even more balls by asking to talk to me."
I’m about to say something when I hear someone walking toward us and turn to see that Olivia is coming. "Harlow sent me in to be the peacekeeper," she says, smiling sideways at me. "I came to make sure that you," she tells Casey, "keep your head cool." She wraps her arms around Casey’s waist, and I wonder if she is doing that so he doesn’t charge at me. "Now, what did I miss?"
"He was telling me that I have big, um." I try to think of the word that is better than balls. "That I have some nerve showing up here, and I was about to say that I had to do it," I share. "Might as well get it all out now." He just glares at me, while Olivia just looks at me. "Before I start or say anything, I just want to say I’m sorry for how I acted."
"You mean when you were a dipshit," he says, and I have no choice but to laugh loud now.
"Casey Barnes," she says between clenched teeth.
"Yeah, when I was a dipshit ding dong," I add in the words Elodie said. "I never, ever wanted to hurt her. I couldn’t let her give up her family for me." I take a deep breath in and slowly exhale it. "I know how much she loves her family and that she had a plan and I couldn’t be the one who made her change it. Breaking up with her was the single hardest decision I’ve ever made."
"What about when you asked someone else to marry you?" he says, and I know he’s going straight for the jugular with this question, and he is going to get all of the answers.
"When I broke up with Harlow, it took me two years not to have this pain in my chest." I shake my head. "When I met Jennifer, I liked her enough, but it was never like Harlow, and I thought to myself that what I felt for Harlow wasn’t as big as I remembered. I kept telling myself that it was all in my head. But one look at her again, and it’s like everything I was lying to myself about was right in front of my face." I run my hand through my hair. "I don’t even think I would have been able to marry her that day. I knew from the moment I saw Harlow that I was making a mistake." I swallow. "I want to marry her." Olivia gasps, but I don’t stop. "I know in my heart that she is the only one for me. I let her go four years ago, and now that I have her back, I’m not letting her go. You can hate me." I shrug. "For the rest of my life. I won’t give her up for it. I’ll take whatever it is you have for me. I was leaving my practice," I tell them both and they both look at me shocked. "I couldn’t do the long-distance thing and I’ve already lost so much time I just couldn’t do it. So I was going to move here and be with her. I can’t live without her. I can’t breathe without her."
"Oh, Travis," Olivia whispers, wiping the tear from the corner of her eye.
"You don’t get it," Casey says, his voice softer. "You won’t get it until you have a child of your own. But we watched her for the last four years skid through life. She was here with us, but the light in her eyes was gone. She would laugh and smile, but you could see that it was just a front. It’s the single hardest thing watching your kid not living life. She had everything she ever dreamed of, yet she was missing something." He shakes his head. "Then a month ago, she goes to your wedding, and the minute she came back, and I mean the second I saw her, that light was back. Her shoulders didn’t fall forward anymore. Her eyes would light up when she smiled. She was back, at least a little bit of her was, and then her plans would change, and you could see the dim come back." My chest literally feels like an elephant has just decided to sit on it. "She came to me and asked me to help her, and as her father, I would help her do whatever the hell she wanted, even if it was to go back to you. Even though I don’t think you deserve her."
"Let’s be honest for one more second," Olivia sniffles. "He would think no one was good enough for her."
I can’t help but laugh at her. "He isn’t wrong," I say. "I don’t know how I got as lucky as I did to get her not to only fall in love with me once but twice. I’m the luckiest man in the world and I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure that she knows how lucky I am." I look down at my feet. "I know that you don’t believe me and I’ve broken your trust. I know that I won’t have your blessing right now, but I hope in time I will get it."
"Does that mean that if we don’t give you our blessing, you won’t ask her to marry you?" Casey says.
"As much as it hurts me to say this." I swallow, knowing that if he didn’t want to shoot me before, he might want to now. "I’m going to ask her to marry me regardless of your blessing."
"Well, then," he says, looking at his wife, then looking at me. "Since you put it like that. I’ll put it like this. If you hurt her again." He’s about to say something when Olivia puts her hand in front of his mouth.
"I’ll hand you the gun myself," I declare, and he throws his head back and laughs loud.