Getting to Her: A Sapphire Falls BONUS Novella (11 page)

“So you’re miserable,” Tucker said to Travis.

“Yep,” Travis replied in a very miserable tone of voice.

Ty bit into a French fry and barely resisted the urge to sigh with bliss.

It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Travis’s misery, but he was seated at one of the big round tables in the Come Again with two of his brothers and a plate of fries. It was hard not to be happy.

His training regimen included a strict diet that did not allow for fried foods. He only let himself indulge when he was in Sapphire Falls and at the Come Again. He was gathered with his brothers with the purpose of getting to the bottom of Travis’s heartbreak over Lauren Davis, a Sapphire Falls pseudo-transplant, but that didn’t mean his taste buds couldn’t enjoy the meeting.

Lauren was Mason Riley’s best friend and business partner, and ever since Mason had fallen in love with non-native Adrianne Scott and had moved the research portion of their business to Sapphire Falls, Lauren had needed to make occasional trips to town.

And apparently, she’d been driving Travis a little crazy for most of the two years she’d been visiting.

Over the past few weeks—or maybe it had only been days; Ty couldn’t really keep track as it seemed everyone in Sapphire Falls ended up falling in love fast and hard—Travis and Lauren had finally hooked up.

Now she’d left to go do something with their work in Haiti and Travis was here alone and miserable.

“Because she left or because she hasn’t been in contact?” Ty asked.

“Both,” Travis replied.

“Explain to me again how telling her you love her was a bad idea?” Ty wanted to know.

He knew a little about finally connecting with a woman he’d been crazy about for years and how it felt when she left.

But he wasn’t telling his brothers that. Just like he was vague about why he was in Sapphire Falls at the moment. Or why he was in Sapphire Falls any of the times he’d been visiting over the past year and a half.

They’d all noticed that his visits had become more frequent, but Hailey had insisted their relationship—though she called it an affair, which made him grit his teeth every damned time—stay a secret from everyone.

He got it.

She was the mayor. He was a hometown golden boy. Their private life would never stay private. And she sometimes needed dates to events that he couldn’t attend. She couldn’t have people speculating about them when he wasn’t here. Additionally, his agent had done a hell of a job painting Ty as the playboy of the triathlon circuit. It was true that the general public didn’t know much about triathlons and few followed the sport. But since Ty had come home with the silver for the US instead of the gold, his agent had been working to make Ty a big name anyway. Bigger, possibly, than if he’d been the gold medalist. His image was that of an adrenaline junkie who loved the spotlight, big parties, gorgeous women—lots of them—and crazy stunts.

It wasn’t who he really was. At all. He was a disciplined athlete who was in a monogamous relationship with a girl from his small hometown. But the media loved him and the spin had increased his value to sponsors. Which, of course, made his agent happy. And as long as Hailey and his mother knew that the party guy with a new woman on his arm at every public event was all just for show, he was okay.

He did love the spotlight and the razors he endorsed were actually pretty damned good and this was an okay life. For now. It wouldn’t last. He was a professional athlete. He depended on his body to make a living. A body that was aging all the time and could end up injured at any time.

So he was living this for now. Until he had a gold medal hanging in his case. Then he could retire. He already had an idea for his retirement gig—a training center where he could coach and train new athletes.

But he was still only a silver medalist. So he and Hailey had this long-distance, see-each-other-every-few-weeks thing going on.

The biggest problem with their setup was that they never had sex when he was in Sapphire Falls. The only touching and kissing were stolen moments, and there weren’t anywhere near enough of those. Not to mention that every single time he saw her, or talked to her, or shared space with her in Sapphire Falls, he was torn. He loved the time with her, just hearing her voice and seeing her smile and watching her interacting with their friends. But he hated every second that he wasn’t able to touch her, whisper naughty things in her ear, dance with her and make her laugh.

In Denver, it was a different story. She kicked off her heels at his front door and they spent the weekend relaxing, having fun, laughing, and having hot sex on every surface of his house.

But it always ended. She always had to eventually pack up and come back to Sapphire Falls.

So yeah, he knew a little about saying goodbye to the woman he loved.

He’d done it more times than anyone should have to, frankly.

“I tried to use her feelings for me to get her to stay instead of going and doing what she wanted to do,” Travis said, staring at his beer. “But I do love her.”

“So go tell her that,” Ty said, taking a bite of a French fry.

“What do you mean?”

Jesus, did Travis have any idea how amazing it was that he could say how he felt, that he could be with the woman he loved, that he could tell the world? “Go there and tell her you love her. Then she’ll know it’s not an either-or thing.”

Travis frowned. “Just go there? To Haiti.”

“Why not?”

Okay, so Travis wasn’t great at shaking things up. He liked things steady and stable. He’d recently made a trip to DC with Lauren—a huge step—but that had been way outside his comfort zone and Haiti was…well, there wouldn’t likely be tuxedos there like there had been in DC but it still wasn’t Travis’s own backyard, which was where he was most comfortable.

Tucker, who was sitting to Travis’s left, making his way through a huge Reuben, chuckled. “Because DC was the first time Trav has ever even flown. If it weren’t for Husker football games in Lincoln, he’d never leave home.”

Travis frowned at Tucker. “Hey, you’ve never flown either.”

Tucker nodded. “Don’t need to fly to get what I want.”

Ty sighed. All of his brothers felt that way, for the most part. Sapphire Falls had everything they needed and wanted.

“It’s not about the flying,” Ty said. He’d flown all over the world to participate in major triathlon events. He was sponsored by companies that flew him first-class and he attended parties a lot like the one’s Lauren did. Sure, some of his partying happened in night clubs, but he’d worn his share of tuxes too. “It’s about being willing to do something new and strange.”

“I’m not opposed to new things,” Travis said.

Ty and Tucker both chuckled.

“You were the first one down in Hailey’s office at city hall when they wanted to repaint all of the streetlight poles but wanted to use a new color,” Tucker said.

“It’s Sapphire Falls. The streetlight poles should be blue,” Travis said.

Ty rolled his eyes. “You were pissed at Dad for days after he chopped the old apple tree down.”

Travis sighed in resignation.

“And you hung on to your last truck way past the time you should’ve let her go,” Tucker said.

“It’s crazy to get something new just because the odometer hits a certain number,” Travis protested.

Ty and Tucker laughed. Ty wished he’d been around the past several days to see Dr. Davis mess-up Travis. It would take quite a woman to jar Travis out of his ways.

“You tell yourself whatever you need to,” Tucker said. “But you don’t like new things. You’re happy. Things are just how you like ’em and you’re not interested in changing that up.”

“I’m not opposed to change,” Travis said again.

“What about traveling? Leaving Sapphire Falls once in a while? Sleeping in a bed that isn’t covered with a quilt your grandmother made?” Ty asked.

“Seeing the Grand Canyon would be cool,” Travis said.

Tucker laughed and Ty grinned.

“What?” Travis wanted to know.

“The Grand Canyon isn’t exactly…” Ty started.

“Exciting,” Tucker filled in.

“You’ve never been,” Travis said. “How do you know?”

“I have been. And the Grand Canyon is safe,” Ty said.

Travis frowned. “What’s that mean?”

“It means,” Ty said, “that it wouldn’t be much of a risk or take you very far outside of your comfort zone. It’s a big hole in the ground. It’s amazing, and beautiful, but it’s not like it would change your life.”

“It could,” Travis argued. “I’ve read about people who go out there and feel something change inside of them and suddenly they give up their big corporate jobs and move to Arizona.”

Ty rolled his eyes. “You don’t have a big corporate job to give up.”

“But I have a job I could give up to move to Arizona.”

“You’re missing my point,” Ty said, pointing at him with the end of a French fry.

Travis gritted his teeth. “Maybe you’re not doing a very good job of making it.”

“My point is that when we talk about traveling away from home, your first suggestion is the Grand Canyon. A very outdoorsy, big, beautiful place where people camp and hike and fish and canoe on a river. A lot like around here. You didn’t say New York City or LA. You definitely didn’t say Rome or Paris. Because those places would require you to do something really new and different.”

Travis looked as if he was going to argue. Then he sighed. “I’m boring.”

Ty shook his head. “You know who you are and you have what you want. People spend lifetimes looking for those two things and never finding them. You’re…lucky.”

Ty envied his brother. Brothers. All three of them. They had known early on what they wanted out of life and it just happened that what they wanted was right out their front door. Travis wanted stability, Tucker wanted marriage and family, and TJ wanted to be in control of what happened to and around him.

Ty loved his life. He was having a great time. He was proud of his accomplishments. But he also lived with a constant… nervous energy. There was a consistent nagging feeling that there was more to do and he was going to miss it and it was all on him to make it happen. He was driven, motivated, goal-oriented. But he envied the men at that table, who felt content rather than restless.

“And that means,” Ty went on, “you’ve never been motivated to try anything new.”

Which was also true. He envied his brothers’ contentment maybe, but he also knew there was a big, wide world out there full of amazing things and experiences.

“Being content is okay,” Tucker said, as if reading Ty’s mind. He bit into his burger and chewed for a moment. “Of course,” he went on after he’d swallowed, “content isn’t the same thing as excited.”

No, it definitely wasn’t.

“Being excited is good,” Ty said, nodding.

Being excited
was
good.

Ty saw something in Travis’s expression. Travis was considering leaving Sapphire Falls. Not permanently, of course. But he was thinking about going after Lauren. That was big. That was awesome. If Lauren Davis could get Travis Bennett off of his farm and out of this town, she really might be able to cure world hunger.

“If you have a chance, try legim. It’s pretty good,” Ty told him.

“You’ve had Haitian food?” Travis asked.

“Of course.” He’d tried all kinds of things in his travels.

“How’s it compare to Mom’s meatloaf?” Travis asked.

“Nothing will ever compare to Mom’s meatloaf,” Ty said with completely sincerity. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t discovered some other pretty awesome things. And some other pretty horrible things.” He shuddered.

“Do I want to know?” Travis asked.

Ty shook his head. “The point is, man cannot live on meatloaf alone. I know what’s out there. I know what I like, don’t like, want and don’t want because I’ve tried a lot of things.”

And that absolutely applied to Hailey.

In high school, Hailey had been his idea of the ultimate woman, the perfect specimen, the dream girl. But his sample size had also been small.

That was no longer the case.

And he was still crazy about her.

“Now we’re talking about women, right?” Tucker asked. “Tell us more about the women you’ve tried and what you like and don’t like.”

Ty laughed. “You read about a lot of it in the tabloids, didn’t you?”

Thanks to his agent.

His brief fling with fellow Olympian Selena Wyatt had been hot and fun, but short-lived and not the crazy, dramatic affair they’d played it up to be. They’d had some fun, but it had quickly fizzled and they’d decided to amicably part ways. Their agents had worked in the same firm, unfortunately, and when they’d told them about their split, their agents decided they still had some story left in them.

Ty and Selena had gone along with it reluctantly at first. But as they’d gotten into the role-playing, they’d had some fun with big, crazy romantic gestures and very public displays of affection.

They’d also staged very public, dramatic displays of anger and angst.