“You didn’t have to,” he said. “I’m saying it. I’m pathetic.”
“You said you have a bonus coming,” Caleb reminded him. “Use that to start saving, maybe make a safe investment. I can hook you up with the guy who has been managing my money while I was in the Army. I trusted him enough to give him say-so over my money when I wasn’t capable of looking after it myself. It was his smarts, not mine, that put money in my bank account.”
Kent leaned his head on the rail, and covered his face with his hand. “I screwed up, Caleb,” he repeated. “I screwed up so bad.”
“Maybe you better be specific,” Caleb said. “What exactly did you do to screw up?”
He swallowed hard and dropped his hand. “I thought I needed to do something to get things right. One last bet. Get some money in the bank and then walk away. Cut the gambling thing altogether. I had a tip on a sure-thing horse, but I needed to bet big to make this the last time, to make it count.”
Caleb went still. “You used a bookie and lost.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I lost. And now, if I don’t pay up, they’ll pretty much break every bone in my body.”
Caleb knew. He’d seen an Army buddy get devoured by a gambling habit. Even for someone well trained, a half-dozen baseball bats can do a hell of a lot of damage to an unarmed man. He’d survived because he had enough training to get out alive, and the Army had intervened and straightened his ass out. But not before his brake lines had been cut, and he’d crashed into a tree to avoid another car.
“How much?”
Kent’s head fell back against the wall. “I bet my entire bonus, like an advance on the money I knew I had coming. It seemed a perfect plan. I thought I could pay you back and get money in the bank and—”
“How much, Kent,” Caleb said sharply.
“Twenty,” he said, and looked at Caleb. “Twenty thousand.”
Caleb cursed. “Twenty thousand dollars? Are you flipping nuts?”
“Caleb, I thought—”
“Don’t, Kent. Don’t tell me you thought, you planned, you knew. Because you didn’t. You’re right. You screwed up.” He stood up and paced the porch, pacing off anger, before he stopped. “I’ll give you the damn money, but you are paying me back.”
“Of course,” Kent said. “I’ll write you a post-dated check for bonus time. I swear, Caleb, my bonus covers this. I swear. I know I screwed up. I know.”
“You’re damn right you’re paying me back every dime, and you know how I know? Because it’s coming with conditions. Like help. And not help you tell me you’re going to get. Help I arrange on my terms.” Caleb ran his hand over his jaw. “I need a week to get the cash, so tell your bookie you’ll have it by next weekend. Then, you need to lay low.”
“I leave for another week out of town on Sunday,” he said. “New York. A long ways from Texas.”
“I suggest you go sooner,” Caleb said. “Get the hell out of town until I get you the money. As in, the first flight out tomorrow.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I have no money for the extra days.”
Caleb cursed again. “That entire thousand I gave you is gone?”
“I tried to win back the money,” he said.
“I’ll meet you at the bank after my jump in the morning to give you something to live on,” Caleb said. “But don’t let me find out you gambled it away.”
Kent held up his hands. “I swear, man. I’m done. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“And every drink is an alcoholic’s last,” Caleb said. “You have a problem, Kent. You aren’t going to get better without help.”
“I’ll get help,” he said. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“You’re right,” Caleb said. “You will.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out his wallet and handed Kent what cash he had. He couldn’t have Kent stay at his place without Shay flipping out. “Stay in a hotel. I’ll go by your house with you after the bank tomorrow, so you can pack.”
Kent hung his head. “I don’t want Mom and Dad and Shay to find out about this,” he said. “Please.”
“I’m not going to promise that,” Caleb said. “Right now I’m going back to bed. I have an early jump. Meet me at the Hotzone office at nine.” Caleb didn’t wait for an answer. He headed inside, shut the door and leaned against it. Damn it. He should have come home more often. He should have stayed in touch with Kent. Maybe he would have seen this before it became this kind of problem.
“Caleb?” Shay peeked around the corner.
Caleb heard Kent’s truck pulling away, and he motioned her forward. “You’re safe. He’s gone.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, looking nervous, as if she were afraid of the answer, her hands in front of her, fingers twisting together.
His gaze swept her slender body, which was covered in one of his T-shirts. He liked her in his shirt. He loved her. And damn if he didn’t want to take her back to bed and work off his frustration, but it wasn’t that simple.
He closed the distance between them and took her hand, sitting down on the couch and taking her with him. She curled by his side. “Caleb?”
“Everyone is fine, if that’s what’s worrying you,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Or they will be. Kent is in some trouble.” He went on to detail what had been said between him and Kent.
“I have ten thousand saved,” Shay said. “I don’t have it all, but—”
He squeezed her hand. “I’ve got the money, Shay, and I don’t care about the money. I care about getting Kent right. You’re the expert here. What’s our best move?”
“A family intervention and a treatment center,” she said. “Which hopefully his insurance will cover. It should. I know he has excellent benefits through his company.” She hesitated. “Mom and Dad, me and you have to be strong as a unit. We can’t do anything to risk that right now.”
Tension coiled inside Caleb. “You mean us. You don’t want to tell them about us.”
“Not until we deal with Kent,” she said. “They’re going to be devastated. They may overreact to you and I if we do this now. They may just need an emotional outlet and direct it at our relationship. It’s human, Caleb.” She touched his face. “I don’t want to risk them seeing us as a part of something bad going on. I want them to see this as wonderful. Like I do.”
Caleb took her hand in his, and he was willing to accept her logic…for now. But he had a gut feeling—and his gut feelings never failed him—there would be another reason to stay silent after this one, and another after that. Until Caleb was forced to say no more.
And the very fact that he knew it would come to that had him questioning what she really felt. She said she loved him, but wasn’t it a given that she would love him on some level? They were family. He loved his fellow Aces. They were family, too—brothers. But did she love him the way he loved her? He didn’t know. He didn’t know if she knew, either.