Bury the Hatchet

Chapter Sixteen - Bury the Hatchet

HUNTER

I couldn't decide who I was angrier with: Tallie, for having gone to see Kade even though I'd made it perfectly clear there was no reason for her to involve herself with my asshole brother, or Kade, for having said a fucking word to Tallie about Carrie. My pulse was throbbing in my temples, a frantic beat that mirrored the way I wanted to pulverize something with my fists.

It pissed me off even more because I'd come home from practice ready to talk to Tallie about going to the game tomorrow and the Ice Breaker on Thursday, getting her involved with the other guys' wives like she'd been wanting to do. I had hoped to start introducing her to that aspect of my life, and now this other side of things had blown up in my face.

Yes, I should have brought up the subject of Carrie with Tallie before now. This marriage might not be going anywhere in the long term, but at least for the time being, Tallie was my wife. She deserved to know these things so no one could blindside her with them. If it hadn't been Kade, someone else would have likely let that cat out of the bag sooner rather than later. It just happened to be Kade who'd let loose with it, and it happened to go down sooner than I had been ready for. So even though my brother had no business saying a fucking word to Tallie about anything, part of the fallout was on me for not getting my act together and explaining my relationship with Carrie so there could be no misunderstandings.

If I'd been upfront about things, explaining all of this before Tallie and I had even gotten married, she wouldn't have had any reason to doubt what I told her, and she would have known enough about my brother to steer clear of him. But since I hadn't and she'd gone to him without a full understanding of who and what he was, there was no telling who she would believe.

If Kade had felt the need to bring Carrie up, I had no doubt he'd done so to get back at me for placing him in Horizons to begin with. He'd put up a hell of a fight when Dad and I had dragged him into the center, getting a few licks in against both of us before we'd finally subdued him. That just went with the territory with my brother. Depending on the day of the week and whatever he happened to be on, he somehow possessed a superhuman strength. We'd been lucky to get him into that facility at all, and I had no doubt he had been plotting his revenge against me the entire time he'd been there. He surely blamed me. He always had, since his very first stint in prison, because I'd been the one to call the cops and have him arrested. Never mind the fact that he was the one in the wrong.

Getting mad about anything my brother had done this time around wouldn't help anything, though. I'd learned that lesson. What he'd done was done. All I could do now was try to fix those things that could be fixed and move on with whatever I could salvage of my life. That's what I'd been doing for years. I'd become a master at it, or at least I liked to think so.

"What did he tell you? About Carrie?" I asked Tallie once I could find my voice again. It was possible that he'd only brought up my ex to explain about Kaylee and where she was now, but I wasn't going to hold my breath about that.

She reached for the wine bottle on the counter, carried it to the table, and refilled her glass again. If she wasn't careful, in no time she'd be as drunk as she'd been that day on the beach, especially since she'd barely eaten a bite of her dinner. Wine and an essentially empty stomach were not a good combination. Granted, it might help with the pain of the burn, but that didn't mean she needed to go overboard.

"Enough," she murmured after taking another sizeable swallow.

I didn't want her drunk, and if she stopped now, she shouldn't get to that point. At least I hoped so, because I wanted to have a reasonable, adult conversation. We needed to clear things up, and we both knew what alcohol did to her: it sent her libido into overdrive. I absolutely wouldn't mind having a romp in the sheets with her, but I'd be damned if I would do it while she was drunk. Not going to happen.