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 g*y?”
“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.