Getting Over It: Sapphire Falls Book Six (19 page)

Now he realized he didn’t. Or hadn’t. And what did that say about their three and a half years together? What did that say about her ability to trust him? How about
his
ability to inspire her trust?

Ty smiled and nodded at something his mother had said without really hearing it and then went back to pondering. And watching his brothers.

Tucker sat at the end of the table, his arm draped over the back of Delaney’s chair. To his right sat two boys, Charlie and David, to Delaney’s left sat the other two, Henry and Jack. Tucker was a family man. As of only a few months ago. But it looked good on him. Tucker had a sense of contentment about him that Tyler had never seen.

Across from him, Hope and TJ were visiting with Ty’s parents. But it wasn’t the conversation Ty found interesting. It was that TJ also had an air of satisfaction about him. Like he’d finally taken a deep breath and relaxed. He was happy.

And then there was Travis.

The second Bennett brother came into the dining room carrying his baby daughter, Whitney. Whit was not quite two weeks old, but she had her daddy polishing her tiara already. Travis handed her over to her mother, Lauren, and as Travis looked down at them both, the love in his own was so obvious Ty felt his eyes widen.

Of the three of his brothers, Tucker was the only one Ty had ever really imagined in love. Tucker had wanted a wife and family since he was about six. But it had now happened for all of them and they made it seem so easy.

Ty had thought it would be easy for him too.

Hailey was a handful, but she’d been a predictable, fun handful. He knew how to make her spitting mad, how to make her laugh and how to make her moan.

What he didn’t know was how to comfort her. How to empathize with her. How to encourage her.

He’d never imagined that she would need all of that.

He was seeing emotions from a female who didn’t have many of those. Or didn’t let on that she had many. And he was no expert in dealing with female emotions. Or any emotions.

He didn’t deal with a lot of family emotion. They were all here together and had each other. He’d been raised in a loving family that was so
there
for each other it was sometimes overwhelming. And the rest of them were…better at it. His older brothers took care of things. They’d rarely depended on Ty, the baby, for anything. By the time he’d been old enough to take care of things or be supportive, he’d had three older brothers doing it all. He’d just been able to do his thing and not worry about anyone else’s feelings or problems.

He didn’t deal with a lot of friends’ emotions either.

Some of what Bryan had felt and demonstrated after the accident and diagnosis and through rehab had been tough. Ty was used to pushing through, working harder, channeling his emotions into his sport. And he was used to two main emotions from the people around him—determination and pride.

The men he raced against were hardcore athletes like Ty. Yes, they got frustrated and happy and other things, but mostly they were determined and proud of what they did and accomplished.

But he wasn’t friends with them. He respected them and didn’t mind hanging out with some of them. But his friends were Bryan and Chris. And they were easy. They were fun-loving, laid-back guys who looked at life as a party and the world as their playground.

The worst either of them ever felt was hungover, and Ty knew that would pass.

Until the accident, he’d never seen Bryan sad or scared or angry. And he hadn’t known how to help his friend through it. Which had made him question that relationship as well. If you couldn’t encourage your friend through the worst time of his life, how good a friend were you?

Then there had been
his
emotions. He’d been scared for Bryan and had wanted to scream and yell and hit something when he’d heard the diagnosis and prognosis. And he’d hated every second of feeling things were out of control. The most out of control he ever liked to be was filled with elation after a win or overcome with pleasure when in bed with Hailey.

He’d taken a break from all of the worry and frustration and anger with Bryan. And now he was face-to-face with even more
emotion
with Hailey.

He wanted to fucking punch her mother—or rather her
stepmother
. And her father. He wanted to hug Hailey. And fuck her—but that one wasn’t new.

Had he been attracted to her because she was strong and confident and hot? Because the emotions he saw from her were annoyance—caused by him on purpose—happiness and passion and nothing more?

Well…maybe…yeah.

And now she was more than all of that and he didn’t know what to do.

But he did realize he was a jackass.

His mom offered him another piece of pie but he declined. He really did need to get back to training. His mother’s cooking wasn’t going to help. After eleven years of being gone and her not being able to feed him regularly, she was going to be feeding him a lot.

“You ride bikes too, right?” David asked Ty from two seats down.

He looked over at his pseudo-nephew. “Yep. Sure do. Have lots of medals for it.” But he grinned. He knew the boys were into dirt biking, not bicycle biking.

David’s eyes rounded. “Medals? Really?”

“Uncle Ty doesn’t ride real bikes,” Tucker said. “He has to pedal his. There’s no engine.”

David wrinkled his nose. “You ride kids’ bikes?”

From an eight-year-old that was pretty funny. “I ride a kick-ass Quintana Roo that’s so cool it would make you cry.”

David didn’t look convinced. “Bikes like that don’t go as fast as dirt bikes.”

“I go faster than anybody else I race with,” Ty said with a shrug. That was
mostly
true. There was usually only one other guy going faster than Ty. He worked on not scowling.

“Bikes like that aren’t
loud
like dirt bikes,” David said, clearly trying to one-up Ty.

Delaney laughed. “Loud is very important to David.”

Ty grinned. “Well, I sure as hel—heck, whoop it up loud when I
win
.” He probably needed to work on watching his language now that he was going to be around kids more.

“Dirt bikes can jump ramps and stuff,” David said.

“I can jump ramps with my bike too,” Ty said. “And I have a friend who can do flips and stuff with his bike.”

David’s eyes widened, as if he forgot to act unimpressed for a second.

Just like Ty had forgotten that his friend could no longer do flips with his bike.

Even getting back
on
a bike was a long time down the road for Bryan.

“Well, I never
cry
on my bike,” David said, referring to Ty’s comment about how cool his bike was.

“You do too,” Jack said. “When you crash.”

“Shut up.” David glared at his brother.

“Well, I cry when I crash too,” Ty said. He shook his head. “I crashed on a mountainside a few months ago. That hurt like a bi—big…time…pain.” He caught himself in time.

David still didn’t seem impressed, but Charlie leaned in. “You crashed on a mountain?”

Ty glanced around the table. In his quest to be tough and cool with his new nephews, he’d opened his big mouth. His dad and brothers didn’t know about the accident either.

His mother didn’t say anything, but she was frowning.

It was his father, Thomas, who said, “You’re strutting around here like usual, making as much sense as you ever did, so I assume you’re okay. Tell us what happened.”

Ty grimaced. Fine. It was time. “Bryan and I were up on a highway and a truck crossed the middle line. We swerved and went over the side.”

“And?” Thomas prompted.

“Hit my head pretty hard and twisted up my knee.”

“You can be more specific than that,” Thomas said with a frown.

Ty sighed. “Knocked me out. I woke up in the hospital with a nasty headache and concussion. Tore my ACL.”

TJ scowled at him. “You had surgery and didn’t tell any of us?”

Ty shook his head. “I didn’t have surgery.”

“You don’t have to repair that?” But he was asking Hope.

Hope was a nurse. Ty sat back and let her take it.

Hope shook her head, watching Ty. “You don’t
have
to repair it. If the patient doesn’t do high-intensity activities and doesn’t have issues with instability.”

TJ looked back to Ty. “And you’re okay without surgery? You’re a professional athlete.”

Yeah, he was aware. “Should be okay. I have a brace I’ll wear and I’ve had to work back into it slowly.” Which had sucked. To go from running ten miles on a typical day to having to jog gently on a treadmill had been the most frustrating thing he’d been through in his athletic career. He wasn’t quite back to ten but he was getting there. And he hadn’t had any knee problems with it. So far. He also hadn’t really pushed it yet.

TJ sat studying him for a long moment, making Ty shift on his chair. There were only two men who could make him do that and they were both at this table—TJ and their father.

“Taking it slowly means not competing for a while,” TJ said.

Ty simply nodded.

“That’s why you’re back here,” TJ said. “To recover.”

At that, Ty shook his head. “I’m back here to stay,” he said.

“How are you going to make a living?” TJ asked. “Will your endorsements still be intact if you’re not competing?”

Ty took a deep breath. “That’s in the air. Some of my sponsors feel like they can still use my name for a while. But, yeah, my marketability will decline with time.”

“And then what? Have you been saving? Investing?”

Ty looked at Hope. She rolled her eyes. Sometimes TJ acted and sounded like a man twenty years older than he was. Since Hope had come into his life, he’d definitely mellowed some, but she’d only been here for a couple of weeks. And this was TJ. No one was going to make him fun-loving and fancy free all the time.

“I have been saving
and
investing,” Ty confirmed. “And I have a new project I’m working on.”

“Like what?” Tucker wanted to know.

“A training facility,” Ty said. “Right here in Sapphire Falls.”

“What kind of training?” David asked. “Tucker has a bike track that I train on.”

He said the words so seriously, Ty didn’t dare grin. He talked to his family enough that he knew David was the daredevil of the bunch. He lacked any fear of the ramps and curves and dips on the dirt bike track and loved to go fast and hard whenever given the chance.

“Kind of like your training,” Ty said with a nod. “A place where people who are interested in triathlons can come and practice their sport and learn things from me.”

“What’s a triath—thing?” David asked.

“A triathlon is a race where you bike, run and swim.”

David looked like he thought that sounded pretty dumb. “Why do you have to teach people to run and swim and ride a bike?”

Ty grinned at him. “I hope they already know how to do it all when they get here. I’m going to give them a place to practice and teach them how to build up to the point where they can be in races and stuff.”

“Your name will be a big draw for that, I would think,” Ty’s father said.

He nodded. “I hope so. My agent thinks so.”

“Your Uncle Ty has a silver medal from the Olympics,” Delaney told the boys.

David tipped his head, looking
slightly
impressed at that. “Who got the gold medal?” he asked.

Ah, but not totally impressed. Ty smiled. “A guy from Great Britain.”

David shrugged. Maybe Ty would show him his medal. Or his autograph from the gold medalist.

Or maybe he would quit caring what an eight-year-old thought of him.

But he’d probably start of by showing him the medal.

“What’s the plan with the training facility?” TJ asked.

“Levi Spencer has agreed to financially back it with some local investors,” Ty said.

“Like who?”

“Whoever wants in,” Ty said.

“You don’t have them lined up?”

“Uh, not yet.” Ty frowned.

“You think people will be willing to come to Nebraska to train?” Travis asked.

Ty nodded. “This is where I started. And I intend to incorporate the most important part of my training here.”

“What’s that?” Delaney asked.

“The community support and involvement,” Ty said.

“How will you get the community involved?” Kathy asked.

“When we build, we’ll hire locally. And after the facility is running, I’ll have to hire people for maintenance and such. The community will also have a chance to use the facility as a fitness center. I’ll make sure they get to know the athletes. They’ll be able to see them training, get to know them personally. We’re going to turn my new house into a boarding house for people who come to train here and we’ll be hiring someone to run the place, cook, etc. We’ll have to get the grocery store on board with ordering certain food items for us that they don’t typically stock. That kind of thing.”

No one said anything, and Ty looked around the table. “What?”