Anxiety rose within him. Fighting to draw a slow breath, to calm himself down, Ty considered his options. He didn’t want to admit that the smell of her would make him crazy, didn’t want to own the fallout, the fact that he’d been had. Lying here with her scent surrounding him, though? Totally worse.
Chucking pride aside, he looked first at Cade and then Eli. “Mackenzie Malone lied.” That was, apparently, all it took to free the words he’d held in check. He dumped the whole story at his brothers’ feet, starting with how he’d first met Kenzie and ending with him walking away from her less than an hour ago. Nothing was left out. Nothing was off-limits.
When he finally finished, Cade and Eli were quiet. He didn’t understand. He hadn’t expected them to grab their ropes and scout the tallest tree for a hanging, but neither had he expected them to hold their opinions to themselves. They were all opinionated. Always had been. Rule of thumb said they werealso brutally honest with one another under every circumstance. Nope, he didn’t get their silence at all.
“She lied. She admitted it.” He rubbed at the crease between his eyebrows. “So why do I suddenly feel like a total dick?” Shifting around in bed, he adjusted his pillows and looked first at one brother and then the other. The way they both avoided eye contact sent up his internal “shark in the water” flag. “What did you guys do?” No answer. He pushed himself higher up his headboard. “One of you will tell me or I’m calling the women in.”
“No need for that,” Cade said, sinking to a crouch beside the bed.
Ty rustled up a teasing smile. “Chickenshit. Emma’s a total softy.”
His older brother quirked a brow, the gesture speaking volumes even though all the man himself said was “Keep telling yourself that, little brother.”
Eli pulled up the room’s only chair, dropping into it as though he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders. He still wouldn’t look at Ty.
The action, or inaction, seasoned his brothers’ hesitation with discomfort and flavored it further with guilt. He was about to call them both on it and demand answers when Cade finally broke the silence.
“You have to understand, Ty, that we thought we were going to lose you, first physically—” he reached up and pinched his upper lip hard enough to turn it red “—and then emotionally.” Blue eyes met Ty’s brown ones. “You checked out on us after you came home. None of us in this house were willing to risk losing you, either physically or mentally.”
Ty stared at the other man. “When you did you go all Dr. Phil on me?”
Cade didn’t bat an eye when he answered, “When it seemed to all of us that you’d stopped caring whether you lived or died.”
He flinched. “Well, that was about as subtle as a kick in the nuts.”
Cade exploded off the floor, at eye level one minute and in Ty’s face the next. “You want subtle, discuss the nuances of fine wine with Emma. From me you get the hard truth, little brother.” He grabbed Ty by the front of the shirt. “There’s not one of us who wouldn’t have done worse than we’ve done if it meant saving your sorry ass when you were too broken to do it yourself.”
Blood rushed through Ty’s head at a frenzied rate, the swooshing white noise so powerful it almost drowned out the sound of his voice in his head. “What have you done?”
Cade looked over at their eldest brother.
“Answer me,” Ty shouted, startling the two men and bringing Emma racing into the room.
“What happened?” she demanded, breathless. Her gaze traveled the room and came to rest on Cade’s ruddy complexion. “You told him.”
Ty zeroed in on his future sister-in-law. “They haven’t told me anything.”
She joined the rank and file, fixing her gaze anywhere but on him.
“Emma. Please.” He didn’t remotely regret the pleading in his voice. Every second that passed left him feeling sicker, more certain he’d somehow committed the worst mistake of his life.
Emma moved to stand by the side of the bed, edging Cade out of the way and, at the same time, placing herself between Ty and Eli. “Get out.”
“This is between us, Emma.” Eli’s admonishment was soft yet firm.
“I would have respected your position if you’d admitted everything when you and Cade first concocted the idiotic plan. But you didn’t. Now you’re refusing to tell him what you’ve done because you don’t have the guts to own your mistake.”
“I would’ve thought you’d have learned from that,” Reagan said from the doorway.
“I did.” Eli stood and faced his wife. “He’s my baby brother, Reagan.”
“He’s agrown man, Eli. You and Cade have to stop trying to keep life from happening to him.” The brunette closed the distance to her husband. “I’m with Emma on this. Get out.”
Cade crossed his arms over his chest. “What are you going to do?”
“What you two should have done from the beginning,” Emma answered. “Give him the truth.” Cade opened his mouth, no doubt to argue, and Ty watched Emma shut the big man down with a single look. “If you’d owned this before, I’d have kept out of it. You didn’t, which means Reagan and I are going to clean up the mess you two have made. We don’t need your help—”
“Or your blessing,” Reagan added.