In the Eye of the Storm (20 page)

The thought of Leo and Shayna together made Elle’s blood boil and her stomach turn. Unfortunately, Shayna Clyde wasn’t just some dowdy, slutty tramp from the local watering hole. She was Trey Callahan’s ex-wife. She’d nearly destroyed his life years earlier. Now she had moved on to destroy Elle’s—and Amy’s.

Feeling her stomach clench again, Elle inhaled a deep breath.

It had been four months since the night she’d caught Leo and Shayna together in her bed—four months since her seemingly perfect marriage had evaporated before her eyes. She had spent most of her time since that night on the reservation with Mamaw, using Amy’s love for her grandparents as her reasoning for the time she spent away from her husband. Her family hadn’t questioned her. She had always spent a lot of time with her mother and grandmother.

Finally, a week earlier, Elle decided that trying to fix something that was irretrievably broken was impossible. Leo had betrayed her in the worst way and she knew she could never trust him again. He’d begged her for another chance—pleaded with her to go to counseling with him. He’d promised to do anything as long as she didn’t leave him. She had held her ground, and for the first time in her life, she was venturing out on her own.

Her choices of places to go were limited to three. There was the ranch with Dusty and Faye, which was getting more crowded by the day. Joey still lived there and Faye and Dusty had a two-year-old son, Lucas, and another child on the way.

Her next option was Trey’s place. He and Kylie had a nice, little house in Riverdale, Montana. They too, had a little boy, one-year-old, Brody. Unfortunately, the idea of facing Trey right then was not an option for Elle. Of all of her brothers, he tended to be the most volatile. The minute he found out about what Leo had done and with whom, there was going to be bloodshed somewhere.

That left Beau and Kate. They had a nice, big house in Magnolia, a beautiful suburb just outside of Seattle. Elle had seen pictures of it on her computer. Her brother was a star baseball player for the Seattle Reign. He and his wife, Kate, had more space than they knew what to do with. While they had welcomed a daughter, Sophie, nine months earlier, she was still a baby and didn’t take up much room. Plus, Beau was gone a lot, on the road with the team.

Unfortunately, tonight he was home. She wasn’t sure she was ready to let him in on what was happening with Leo. He was close to Trey—always had been. It wasn’t likely that he was going to keep her situation a secret.

She heard her phone ring and looked at the caller ID. It was Leo. He’d been blowing up her phone since she’d left Arizona. She wasn’t about to answer the call. Instead, she pressed her foot on the gas and sped down the highway.

Exactly one hour and fifty minutes later, she drove up in front of Beau and Kate Callahan’s house. The first thing she noticed was that the pictures she’d seen didn’t do the place justice. It was
huge.
It was all detailed stonework on the front. There was a large wrought iron fence around it. Elle knew Beau had gone through serious problems with overzealous fans and even a stalker at one point, who had ended up being a murderer. He’d obviously spared no expense on security.

Kate had given Elle the code earlier and she used it to open the iron gates. She drove up a winding driveway and pulled to a stop, just to the left of the front door.

“Does Uncle Beau have a swing setZ wonhe was?” Amy asked from the backseat.

Elle forced a smile, knowing things had been hard on Amy for the past few months. The four-year-old had no idea what was going on with her parents. “I’m not sure, baby. Sophie’s a bit small for swings yet.”

“But I want to swing.” Amy’s face crumpled up into a pout and her eyes filled with tears. She was clearly exhausted and emotional.

“We’ll talk about swinging later. Right now we need to go inside and say hello to Uncle Beau and Aunt Kate.” She undid her seatbelt and climbed out of the car, thankful for the opportunity to get out and stretch. A moment later, she had Amy free of her car seat and the two of them made their way up to the large, wooden front door. Amy pushed the bell more times than was necessary before her mother could stop her. Elle didn’t get the chance to scold her daughter. The door opened and she was engulfed in her big brother’s bear hug.

It felt good to be in Beau’s embrace, after so long. She hadn’t seen him since his wedding, eleven months earlier. He looked the same, of course. All the Callahan men were similar, with dark eyes and black hair, much the same as Elle’s own. All but Trey, who had blue eyes, like their father.

Beau let her go and reached for Amy, gathering her eagerly up in his arms and kissing her before beginning a tickle attack that had Amy hooting and hollering for him to stop.

Kate appeared out of nowhere, a baby in her arms. This was the first time Elle was seeing her niece in person. She hadn’t been able to come when little Sophie was born. All she’d seen were pictures over the internet. The pictures of the baby, like those of the house, didn’t do her justice. The little girl was adorable, with a thick head of black hair and big, round dark eyes, just like her daddy’s. Elle felt tears spring into her eyes again. Her big brother had a baby. It didn’t seem possible.

“Are you going to back up and let her in?” Kate asked, grinning up at her husband, who had the decency to wince.

“Sorry. Come on in.”

Elle stepped into the foyer and Beau shut the door behind her, Amy still squirming in his arms.

“Can I play with baby Sophie?” Amy asked, leaning away from her uncle’s arms to view her new cousin.

Kate smiled widely. “Of course you can. How about if you and me go into the playroom and give your mom and your uncle a chance to visit for a bit?”

“You don’t have to—” Elle began, but she was too late. Beau had already set Amy down and she was following Kate down a long hallway.

Elle avoided Beau’s gaze, knowing what she was going to see when she looked into those eyes of his.

“So you drove all the way here in that freaking rattle trap?” he asked, obviously referring to her car.

“I did. It made it fine.”

“It’s on its last leg, Elle. Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have bought you a plane ticket.”

“I wanted to drive. Show me your house.”

“Later. What’s going on?”

She’d expected this. Her family was nothing, if not intuitive. While Beau was definitely the calmest of them all, he was still very protective. “Nothing’s going on,” she denied, takZ wonhe wasing it upon herself to walk into the large front room. There was a huge picture window that looked out over the water and the Seattle cityscape. The view was breathtaking.

“Where’s Leo?”

The question made her wince.

“Okay.” He folded his arms over his broad chest matter-of-factly. “Now that I know
who
the problem is, why don’t you tell me
what
the problem is? Sit down.”

She didn’t feel like sitting so she kept looking out the window.

“Did he hit you?”

Elle whirled around, surprised. “What? No. Leo would never hit me.”

Beau looked relieved. “Good. I didn’t want to have to kill him. So what
did
he do?”

She realized he wasn’t going to give up until she spit out the truth. She took a deep breath. “I found him in bed with someone else.”

Beau narrowed his eyes and then let out a curse. He was momentarily speechless. Eventually he let out a sigh. “Maybe I’ll have to kill him anyway.”

“It was Shayna, Beau. I found him in bed with Shayna.”

This time
shocked
didn’t begin to cover Beau’s expression. He stared at her as though she’d grown a second head. Then he let out a string of curses so vile that it burned even her ears—and she’d grown up with mostly men.

“Beau—” she said, stepping toward him.

He held his hand up, obviously too angry to speak. When he finally did talk, his words came out in a deadly tone. “Does Trey know?”

“If Trey knew, Leo would probably be dead by now.”

The realization of her words must have dawned on Beau because he blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Sonofabitch,” was all he said.

Elle suddenly felt ready to sit down and took a spot nervously on an easy chair near the window. Beau remained standing, clearly too keyed up to sit still.

“Who knows about this?”

“Just you. I found out four months ago. I’ve been spending most of my time with Mama and Mamaw. Leo has been staying with different friends. Danny’s not speaking to him either.”

Danny Redfeather was Leo’s brother. As if things weren’t complicated enough, Danny, also Trey’s former best friend, had been responsible for breaking up Trey’s marriage to Shayna. During the last months of Trey and Shayna’s ill-fated matrimony, Trey had found Danny and Shayna in bed together.

Naturally, the whole thing had been a real mess. Trey had met Kylie Rhodes, his current wife, and moved on. But there was still strain between him and Danny whenever they were in the same room together. And now there would be even more strain, with Leo insinuating himself into the triangle.

“I don’t give a crap about Danny Redfeather,” Beau said, between clenched teeth. Obviously, he wasn’t Danny’s biggest fan either.

“He and Shayna ws Patrick. I c

ere seeing each other again on and off. This hurt him too,” Elle defended, though she really wasn’t sure why. She hated what Danny had done to her brother. But now that Trey was happy and had a family of his own, it seemed a moot point to make him feel better. wonhe was to keep on holding things against Danny. Not only that, Danny was good to Mamaw and Mama&s had been. Elle’s grandmother and mother loved the Redfeathers and were very close to Leo and Danny’s parents. They’d all been like family until Shayna had come into their lives.

“He’s gotten what he deserves for getting involved with a skank like Shayna again. I don’t feel one bit sorry for him. You shouldn’t either.”

“Beau, he’s been nice to me since this happened. He’s been nice to Amy.” That was an understatement. Danny had gone above and beyond the call of duty, helping Elle out with money and anything else she needed to get to Seattle. While he hadn’t liked the idea of her traveling so far alone with Amy, he’d done what he could to make it easier for her.

“He’s not relevant in my equation. Leo is. I’m going to kill that bastard.”

“He’s Amy’s father,” Elle reminded him, suddenly exhausted. She’d already experienced a myriad of emotions over her husband’s betrayal. She was finally through the
angry
stage and the
hurt
stage. She was now at the
get the hell out of this mess
stage. She’d already contacted an attorney and put the wheels in motion. Leo just didn’t know it yet.

“I don’#8212;he alway