"Sit," he ordered as he urged them toward the couch and then dropped into his recliner.

To his surprise, Travis looked nervous. Curtis fought the urge to smile.

"Dad, there's something you need to know about me," Travis finally said after several minutes. The sound of the women in the kitchen slowly becoming background noise.

"What's that?"

"I..." Travis stopped, glanced over at Gage then back. "There're actually several things."

"What is it, boy?" Curtis said gruffly, wanting Travis to get on with it because he knew his son would feel better once he got it out in the open.

"Kylie and I are married. We've been married for about ten years now, although we were only together for a couple of weeks after the wedding."

"Hmmphh. Go on." Curtis already knew this part.

He'd initially been saddened that his son hadn't told his mother or him when it happened, but they figured Travis had a good reason. Since they trusted their boys to come to them when they needed to, neither of them had confronted Travis about it. Curtis couldn't deny that the relief that he finally had was enormous.

"I made the mistake of leaving her because I thought she wouldn't understand me. I'd fallen in love with her and married her because I wanted to be normal. I had second thoughts, and I didn't want her to be dragged into my world, so I left. When I did," Travis paused, glancing down at the floor between his legs. "When I did, I left most of myself behind."

Curtis knew that too. Granted, until recently they hadn't known where Travis had left himself or why, but for the last decade, Travis had indeed been different. He'd been broken, and it killed Curtis to watch, but he'd done it for years.

"She came back into my life unexpectedly," Travis once again glanced at Gage before he continued, "but she wasn't the only one who made a huge impact on my life recently."

Curtis didn't say a word.

"Look, Dad. This is fucking hard," Travis sighed. Gage moved closer to Travis and placed a hand on his back.

The gesture alone spoke every single word Travis was having a hard time finding, but Curtis didn't mention it. These boys had found something with one another that doesn't come around but once in a lifetime. Sure, Curtis had a hard time understanding how things might work for three people in a relationship, but it wasn't his place to question it. No one questioned him when he fell in love with Lorrie. No one told him that it wouldn't work despite some of the odds. Not that Curtis would've stood for it if they had.

It wasn't his place to determine what would or would not make his boys happy. It was his job to support their decisions and to love them unconditionally. And quite frankly, as long as they were happy, Curtis could pretty well come to terms with anything.

"I love them both, Dad," Travis blurted finally, his head slowly coming up until their eyes met.

"That right?"

"Yeah."

Curtis didn't say anything more, wondering if Travis had any more revelations he wanted to lay on him.

"Don't you have any questions, Dad?" Travis finally asked, his chest puffing out as though he were preparing for an argument.

"I do have one. Wait, two actually," Curtis replied, sitting up in his chair and mirroring Travis' posture. With his forearms resting on his spread thighs, he stared over at his boy.

"What's that?"

Curtis paused, looked into the kitchen, then back at Travis.

"How'd the bed work out for ya? Your mother and I bought the biggest one we could find. Figured you'd need it if the three of you were gonna be sleepin' there."

Travis' eyes went wide, but he managed to keep his jaw from hitting the floor. Without answering the first question, Travis said, "And I'm sure I don't even want to know, but what's the second question?"

"Oh, that's an easy one. When are your mother and I getting grandbabies out of you three?"

Travis paled, all of his color draining from his face even as the small smile tipped the corner of his mouth.

Gage took things a little better. He fell over on the couch.

Laughing.

Chapter Fifty Two.

Two weeks later...

"Daddy. Melissa," Kylie greeted her father and his fiance as they walked in through her front door. She'd spent the last hour pacing back and forth in front of the door, so the moment they arrived, she was already waiting.

At one point, Travis laughed as he sent her outside to wear down the wood on the porch. She tried that for all of ten minutes, but resumed her pacing inside for fear her father would pull up, and she wouldn't have a chance to prepare herself. Now that he was standing in her entryway, she wasn't sure whether her pep talk mattered. She forced a smile and clenched her hands into fists to keep them from shaking.

"Little girl," he said as he leaned over and let her kiss him on the cheek.

"Wow, Kylie, this is beautiful," Melissa said as she turned in a wide circle, looking at the house. The look of awe on Melissa's face made Kylie beam with pride. "You're actually going to sell this place?"

"That's the plan," Kylie answered quickly. "Are y'all hungry? I need to check on the casserole in the oven. Want to help? You could follow me if you'd like." Kylie wasn't sure exactly what words were coming out of her mouth, she just knew they continued to flow. Considering how nervous she was, she could've been speaking gibberish, and it would've made sense to her. Maybe not anyone else, but her mind was such a jumbled mess, she couldn't find it in herself to care.

Just as she was leading Joe and Melissa toward the kitchen, Travis and Gage came through the living room toward them, both of them looking so handsome she wondered if she would start crying. Ok, maybe that was just an excuse. She just felt like crying. She didn't care why she did it.

Her father was there. He was there to meet Gage and Travis, and Kylie was doing a miserable job of handling the situation. After everything went so perfectly with Travis' parents, she'd built this moment up in her mind, and this certainly wasn't how she envisioned it working out.

Travis leaned down and placed a quick kiss on her mouth. "It's going to be fine, baby. I promise you," he whispered in her ear as he stood to his full height, his confidence helping put some of the starch back in her spine.

Wait. No. No, it didn't help at all. As soon as she looked at her father, all of the starch disappeared again.

Kylie needed to turn the air up, the room was suddenly way too hot.

Realizing she was supposed to be the hostess, she looked at the four people now staring at her. "Daddy. Melissa. I'd like you to meet Travis Walker and Gage Matthews. Travis, Gage, this is my father, Joe, and his fiance, Melissa."

Kylie watched as her father looked over the two men who had become her very lifeline. In fact, the only reason she was standing here with her father in the same room as the two men she loved was because of them. They insisted she introduce them. In person. After she procrastinated, for two weeks Travis had asked for her father's phone number.

Yes. Chicken that she was, she'd given it to him. And, solid rock that he was, Travis had called Joe and asked if they could come to Dallas to meet him. To everyone's shock, Joe had insisted that he come to Killeen and meet them at Kylie's. She still wasn't sure the reason for that, but she hadn't questioned any of them.

"Dinner is almost ready," Kylie said, her voice quivering, but she could do nothing to stop it. "Melissa, would you mind helping me?"

"Sure, honey."

Without waiting to see whether her father was going to talk to Travis and Gage or just stare them down, she led Melissa into the kitchen. Being that the space was fairly open, she could see them as they continued to stand in the middle of the living room.

"Ky," Melissa said, placing her warm, gentle hand on Kylie's arm. "You know it's going to be perfectly fine, don't you?"

Kylie turned to face her future stepmother, staring at her like she was an alien from another planet and had just bestowed the key to the universe. "How do you know that?" she whispered. She had to clear her throat in order to find her voice.

"Because your father wants you to be happy," she said, taking Kylie's hand. "He's not here to interrogate them. You need to remember, he loves you. Very much."

"But..." Kylie wanted to ask Melissa if she thought it was normal that she was introducing two men to her father. Two. Not just one. She wanted to ask if they even realized exactly what was going on here. The way the woman was acting, Kylie was beginning to think maybe she hadn't been clear about the situation.

Two. Both men. For her. Not just one.

Ok, she really was going to have to fix that air conditioner.

"See, look," Melissa said, gripping Kylie's shoulders and turning her to face the three men who... were now sitting on the sofas in the living room. Laughing.

Ok. What was going on?

Didn't they know that this was not normal? That a girl didn't bring two men home to meet her father? Or in this case, bring her father to her home to meet two men.

Two men that she loved.

She did love them. A lot.

"Take a deep breath, Kylie." Melissa's tone was steady as she wrapped a warm arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. "Ok, now look at me."

Kylie tilted her head and glanced at Melissa, unsure exactly what she was supposed to do next. This was the most awkward situation she'd ever been in before. Even worse than the birds and bees talk that her father had insisted on having with her when she was sixteen. Considering she'd been in high school by then and had learned more in sex education class than she ever wanted to know, she'd told him he could spare them both the embarrassment.

He had thanked her for that.

"Do you love them?" Melissa asked, interrupting the random trail her thoughts were heading down.

"Of course I do. I love them very much," Kylie mumbled as she stared at Gage and Travis who were sitting in the living room. Sitting. With her father. "Are you hot?" Kylie asked Melissa and then pulled away. She shook her head and tried to clear the fog from her brain.

"Actually, it's quite comfortable. Now back to you," she said with a sincere smile. "You love them. You said so. Which means you have nothing to worry about."

"What are you talking about?" They hadn't even had dinner yet. How would her father interact with them? Was he going to be mean? Would he interrogate them? Would he talk about her when she was a kid? Did he know about the resort?

So hot she was beginning to sweat.

The timer on the oven chose that moment to go off. Kylie was tempted to reach out to see if she found her alarm clock's snooze button beside her. Surely this wasn't happening. She'd spent the better part of the morning panicking, cleaning, cooking and then panicking some more. And for what? So Melissa could tell her that...

Maybe if she stuck her head in the freezer...

A booming laugh erupted in the living room, and Kylie turned around. That was her father. He was laughing. There weren't any disapproving looks, no fingers being pointed, no warnings being declared. He was laughing.

"See, I told you it'll be perfectly fine," Melissa reassured her. "Now where are the pot holders? We've got to get this out of the oven."

Kylie retrieved a pot holder from the drawer beside the oven and handed it to Melissa blindly as she continued to stare into the living room. Travis and Gage were sitting side by side on one of the sofas, her father sitting on the other across from them. They were all reclining back, all three of them holding a beer in their hand as they talked.

"That's it?" Kylie asked, turning to face Melissa. "I spent all week being sick to my stomach, and they aren't even going to talk about me?"

Melissa turned to face her, placing the pan on the stovetop as she grinned. "Oh, honey, if that's what you're worried about, well, that happened a week ago. Trust me, your dad loves you, but he's no dummy. He took care of that chat when Gage and Travis came to visit us in Dallas. You've got nothing to worry about."

"They what?"

Travis said that her father wanted to come to her house and meet them. Was Melissa confused? Travis and Gage never mentioned going to see her father. Whoa! Ok, the room was starting to spin. Pretty fast too.

"Hey, boys. One of you might want to get in here. I think she's going to pass out. I told you not to leave her in suspense like this, Joe."

Melissa's voice sounded strange, Kylie thought as she tried to hold on to the counter. Like she was one of the adults on the Snoopy cartoons.

The last thing Kylie remembered was Travis' warm arms coming around her... at the same time the world went black.

"Hey, little girl," her father's voice woke her from sleep and Kylie smiled up at him.

"Hi, Daddy."

"Feeling better?" he asked, sounding concerned.

"Fine, why?" Kylie sat up, realizing she was in her bed, but she was fully dressed and...

Everything came flooding back to her in a flash, and she glared at her father. "Melissa said you already met Travis and Gage."

"I did, honey," Joe smiled, but he looked like he was trying to hide it. "Those men of yours are pretty protective of you, you know that?"

Yes, yes she did know that. How that translated into them meeting her father, she had no idea. Instead of asking more questions, Kylie waited for him to enlighten her. She wasn't sure she had the energy to try and figure it out for herself.

Joe took her hand and held it between both of his while Kylie stared down where they were joined.

"Travis and Gage called to talk to me. Said that you were very important to them and before I started asking questions, they wanted to meet me face to face so they could answer any that I might have. Pretty smart guys you've got there."

"So you talked to them?" Kylie peered up at her father's face.

"I did. They took me to lunch, Travis told me how you and him met, informed me about the wedding and apologized for not coming to me back then. Then Gage filled in the blanks on the little reunion." Joe frowned and paused.

"I'm sorry, Daddy. I know I should've told you the whole story. But I love them," she said firmly. "I love them, and I didn't want you to be upset with them or disappointed in me."

Joe leaned in and kissed her softly on the forehead. "Little girl, I could never be disappointed with you. This is your life, and I'm proud of the decisions you've made. Doesn't mean I always understand them."

Kylie sat motionless on her bed, staring at her father. The man she adored, who loved her unconditionally. She wasn't sure where along the way she'd altered her view of him. He'd always been her biggest supporter, yet she somehow forgot that. "So you don't have any questions? No concerns?"

Joe tilted her chin up. "Trust me, I took care of all questions with Travis and Gage. I wanted to know their intentions. Like I said, they're smart ones. They came prepared. Answered everything I threw at them. And like I said, they're extremely protective of you."

Kylie's heart swelled. Her worst fear had been overcome. Her father was accepting the men she loved. "Well, I'm happy, Daddy. I promise you. They make me extremely happy."