LITMIR.BIZ

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This game was a long-running tradition with them. Well, he’d think of an excuse later. Nothing was coming to him right now and it’d have to be something big.

      So he said, “Yep. Hope you’re ready to lose your money.”

      “No, man. That’s you.”

      They laughed and exchanged small talk about the game while Trav tightened his cinch and Chase checked his rigging for any sign of damage before he put it in his gear bag. Travis stopped talking in the middle of a sentence.

      “We got company,” he finally said.

      Chase turned around, and for a minute, he just stared. It took a second to get his mind around the fact that it was Shane staring back at him.

      “Hey, Shane,” Travis said, but Shane didn’t answer.

      “Shane?” Chase said, disbelieving. “What the hell? Why didn’t you tell me you were comin’ down?”

      Shane didn’t say a word. He stood there looking at him with such a terrible expression on his face that a sudden coldness trickled down Chase’s spine. He dropped his gear, reached the kid in three long strides, and grabbed him by the shoulders.

      “Talk to me,” he said. “Is it your mom?”

      Shane tried to pull away, but Chase wouldn’t let him.

      “My mom and you,” Shane said, his voice hard as the look in his eyes. “My parents. Who go ballistic if I lie to them.”

      Chase knew then, but he asked anyhow. Stalling for time like the coward he was.

      “What about us?”

      “Oh, nothing,” Shane said, his voice sliding upward. “Nothing at all but just telling me the biggest lie in the universe.”

      Tears sounded just under the surface. Clearly, the kid was about to lose it—and he’d be even more undone if he started bawling in front of Travis, so Chase let his hands drop to his sides and stood still, silently cursing the fact that Andie Lee hadn’t warned him this was coming.

      The least she could’ve done was give him a heads-up.

      The tears sprang into Shane’s eyes then and he narrowed his lids to hide them. He took a step backward that was like a hammer blow to Chase’s chest. He couldn’t lose him. He’d already lost Andie Lee.

      And this was his kid, no matter who’d fathered him.

      Control. Winning. He was older and supposedly wiser. He was known for his charm. He’d bring the boy around.

      He took a deep breath. Now. Why did she have to tell him now?

      Cowboy up, Lomax. Get a handle on it.

      “How come you say we’ve been lying to you?”

      “Andie Lee told me. She said my real dad is some other dude I don’t even know.”

      Why now? She must be trying to tie up all the loose ends of her life before she got married. Married. Which she’d refused to do with Chase.

      He felt twice betrayed. He should’ve been with her when she told Shane. Of course, he had to admit that he’d never volunteered to be. He’d always believed that she ought not to tell him at all.

      And he’d been right. The stricken look on Shane’s face proved it.

      Had that Blue guy she was supposedly in love with advised her to do this, after all the years she’d put it off? Couldn’t she think for herself?

      Dimly, in the back of his mind, he remembered that she’d said she was going to do it, but goddamn it, he’d thought she would let him know when.

      “You both lied to me,” Shane said, his voice cracking again. “You’re not my dad.”

      “I am your dad,” Chase said, calm and forceful as he could be with such a chasm of fear opening in him.

      He knew how kids could be. He knew how he had done his own dad when he was younger than Shane was now. He had left him without a word and never looked back.

      Of course, his dad had been a drunk and a wife-and-kid beater.

      Chase had always been good to Shane. Surely that’d make a difference here.

      “It’s true I’m not your biological father but I am your dad, Shane, and you’d better remember that. I’ve got your back and I always will.”

      A fire burned behind the wetness in Shane’s eyes and his voice scorned him for lying. “No way!”

      He dropped both the bags he was carrying and balled up his fists.

      “You could’ve told me but you didn’t. You let me believe it. That’s a lie just as much as if you’d told one. You lied to me, just like she did.”

      The enormity of the anger coming from Shane dumbfounded Chase. And the hurt. That was the worst part. This kid was hurting and furious and he didn’t know what to do about it and he was dumping it all on Chase, wanting Chase to dispose of it for him.

      I’m your real dad.

      Pretty ironic. This was the kind of problem that real dads were supposed to take care of. How did they?

      Resentment tamped down his fear. One minute he was minding his own business, putting up his gear and getting ready to head to the hotel and the next he had a hysterical kid on his hands.

      By instinct, looking for help from anywhere, he glanced over his shoulder to see if Travis was still there. For all the good he could do, since he wasn’t a father, either.

      All Chase’s own dad had ever done the one time Chase dared to tell him off was to give him a beating. And that was the day Chase left home—well, what had passed for a home—forever.

      “I oughtta bust your face,” Shane said. “Liar.”

      Chase stuck out his chin. “Take your best shot. It’ll make you feel better.”

      Shane made a fist, drew back and slammed it with lightning speed into Chase’s jaw.

      “You carry a pretty good punch for your size,” Chase said, working his jaw to loosen it enough to speak. It hurt.

      “I’m not gonna fight you, Shane,” he said. “And I won’t try to defend myself except to say that I couldn’t be the one to tell you and you know it.”

      He waited. Shane just glared at him for a long time, and then he wilted.

      “Shit,” he said. “You’re already bleeding, don’t you know that?”

      It was the first time Chase had thought of the slam to his head since the sports med guys had dabbed it with alcohol. As soon as he did, he could feel the sting and the ache again.

      “You’re right. Andie Lee should’ve told me,” Shane said.

      Andie hated it when Shane wouldn’t call her “mom.” The boy didn’t know how lucky he was to still have his mom.

      “I’m not faulting her,” Chase said. “I was there all the time—I was your daddy—and you were too little for such useless news, even when y’all moved out. Your mom just kept putting it off until she thought you were ready.”

      “Yeah, sure,” Shane said sarcastically.

      “If it’d been up to me, you still wouldn’t know,” Chase said.

      He just stood there and watched Shane’s face, wondering what he would do if the boy turned and walked away.

      And what if he didn’t? Chase would have to deal with him. Damn. Shane could carry a grudge like nobody else, so this wouldn’t be over in a day or two.

      To be fair, though, this really was a big deal and kids that age took even little things to

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