A Cowboy's Home (13 page)

“Gone to get Ethan.” Sam delivered the words
softly, with no emotion or added comments.

Even so, the world fell away from Justin’s
feet. “No,” he murmured. “No, he can’t. Witness protection. Rob
said—” His thoughts weren’t making sense, only that him being here
put everyone in danger, and the one person he’d wanted to protect
most was coming here. Ethan couldn’t know he was there, or that he
was alive. What if Rob tracked him down? He wouldn’t stop at
Justin; he’d take out anyone who might know anything, who could
compromise state secrets. He would have to.

Because, it was what they did.

No one knows I came to Crooked Tree. It’s
the ideal place to hide.
Rob wouldn’t think I’d do something so stupid, so
suicidal.

“Earth to Justin? Come in, Justin?”

“What?” Justin had spaced out, but his brain
could only handle so much stress at one time.

“You need some clothes.” Sam held out some
sweats, and for a second, Justin didn’t understand. Then he glanced
down and realized he was completely naked.
Which meant Sam would have seen his back.

Sadness washed over him, guilt and a healthy
amount of fear following straight after. One-handed, he took the
sweats, seeing a bright pink T-shirt underneath. He refused to let
the self-disgust take hold, though; his back was a badge of honor,
proof of the horrors he had seen and done. He just typically kept
it hidden. The fear was that people asked too many questions, ones
he didn’t want to answer.

“You want some help?” Sam asked, although he
didn’t move.

“No.” A stubborn need to get himself dressed
gave Justin more than enough energy to at least put on the shirt,
which was a little tight but serviceable. Then he eyed the pants.
Soft and elasticized, and all he needed to do was balance on one
leg.

Fire burned in his thigh as he attempted the
awkward moves, and all the time Sam watched him.

“I can help,” he said at least three
times.

And all three times, Justin ignored him.
Finally, just as Sam opened his mouth for the fourth time, Justin
gave up and thrust the pants out to him.

Without comment, Sam helped, his face way too
close to Justin’s junk, and self-sufficient Justin was pissed at
himself that he couldn’t do as simple a thing like get dressed.

“I’ll stay if you want me to.”

Sam hovered, and Justin wanted to shove him
away, if only that were possible. “Stay with me when?”

“When Gabe gets back with Ethan.
If you think you need me to…
I
dunno. Hold you up, or stop Ethan from killing
you.”

Justin blinked at him, dissecting the
statement. “The chair is holding me up fine. And I have to go
before Ethan gets here, before anyone else—”

“No worries.”

Sam moved away from the door so Justin had a
clear run. Suspicious, Justin narrowed his eyes at him.

Sam continued. “Your temperature’s still
high. You could have a concussion, so I don’t imagine you’ll get
far, and clearly your wound needs more attention, but yeah, you can
go. No one’s stopping you.”

Sam crossed to a corner of the room, picked
up Justin’s boots, and placed them next to him. “You’ll need
those.”

Justin looked down at the boots, still
ingrained with dirt and blood that had darkened the light-colored
leather in patches. The laces were loose, but as he looked at them,
Justin saw the damn things as a symbol of everything he couldn’t
do. Pulling them on, tying the laces.

There was focus in Sam’s gaze, a challenge.
“I’ll give you an hour before you’re unconscious on the ground
somewhere,” he offered.

Temper ignited in Justin’s belly and he
narrowed his eyes at the man who’d so casually told him he was
fucked. The anger spilled out of him in a loud burst. “Do you know
what you’ve done?” he shouted. Or he attempted to shout, because he
ended up coughing straight after, his throat raw.

Sam shrugged again. He did a lot of that.
“Saved your life, mostly,” he said.

He moved swiftly to stand toe to toe with
Justin, arms crossed over his chest, chin tilted, and looking up at
him, his expression thoughtful. “What I don’t get is why you want
to leave. Didn’t you come here to be home?”

“Home?” Justin didn’t know whether to laugh
or cry. His home was wherever he was sleeping, be it a hotel, a
motel, or a shack in the backwoods of Montana.

Sam supported Justin’s elbow when he swayed,
but he shrugged off the touch and Sam stepped back with a sigh.

“You’re not going anywhere, Justin. Just face
it,” Sam said.

There wasn’t time to say anything else
because the sound of horses drifted from outside, then men’s
voices. From the laughing and joking, it would seem Gabe couldn’t
have dropped the J-bomb on Ethan. That meant Justin’s brother was
walking in here completely cold.

“I don’t get why I have to come out to see
this. You owe me a beer.”

Ethan’s voice, just outside the door. Justin
stared, transfixed, and then the door swung in.

Ethan stood on the threshold, and the smile
dropped from his face as he paled and his hands turned into fists
at his side; his mouth fell open.

Shock.

Justin let go of the chair, stumbled, and Sam
was there immediately, stepping to his side and supporting him
under the elbow.

“Ethan,” Justin said, his voice a croak. He
didn’t want to be here, putting everyone in danger just being in
the same room as them, but to see his brother up close, for Ethan
to see he was truly alive, that had to be worth the pain.
Surely?

“Jesus,” Ethan said, his voice husky too. He
shook his head. “Justin.”

Gabe stepped in to stand next to Ethan and
placed a hand on his arm, reassuring him.

Ethan moved, and Justin tried to move, and
they met somewhere near the chair. Ethan hugged him, gripped him so
hard, buried his face in Justin’s neck, and Justin held back. They
stood in each other’s arms for the longest time.

Justin didn’t even open his eyes. The path
that had taken him from Ethan, from his family, wasn’t one he’d
chosen, but he did it to protect his family.

And to get revenge.

All he could do was cling to his older
brother, as he’d done as a child, and desperately wish, for just
one moment, that Ethan could make it right.

Ethan was crying. His shoulders shook as he
just said Justin’s name over and over, and somewhere inside
Justin’s icy heart, he found the love he had for his brother. And
it made him sick with the need for more.

Ruthlessly, Justin pushed it down. If Ethan
ever knew what he’d become, he’d turn away from him. There was
never going to be reconciliation or a true reunion.

Finally they separated. Ethan cradled his
face; his gray eyes, so like Justin’s own, were red and wet with
tears, and he attempted to speak, but nothing was coming out.

“I’m sorry,” Justin murmured. Although
inside that same icy heart
there
was no apology for what he’d done, what he’d had to do, even if the
path of revenge had been based on lies other people had told
him.

“I never stopped looking,” Ethan said
brokenly.

Justin dropped his chin, couldn’t look him in
the face.

Ethan used a finger to tilt his chin back up.
“Look at me, Justin. I never stopped, okay?”

“I know. Please go. Leave me.” His tongue
felt big in his mouth, his head pounded. “People want me dead. I
have warrants out for me… Ethan….” His
vision
blurred, his thoughts spun, he felt sick. He
shoved himself away from Ethan, and all he saw was Sam reaching for
him as he crumpled to the floor.

Justin was dreaming the same dream. The one
he had so often. It started with fire, but he’d trained himself to
wake up before the burning got to be too much.

But this time it was a waking dream, and he
was hot, his skin wet with heat. He couldn’t escape the fire or the
people around him.

His dad crying, and Adam stood watching him,
in shock. Adam wasn’t fifteen, he was a grown man, and he wasn’t
saying a word.

The dream changed. Justin couldn’t hear
words, only sense actions. The whole narrative, from running into
danger that day so long ago, the fire, the recovery, to the promise
he made for a boy he thought he’d killed.

His dad was there. Marcus was thinner and
grayer, but Justin had kept an eye on his dad when he could, seen
him age slowly through a telephoto lens. He even knew about the
cancer that had begun to wreak havoc on him, but he still hadn’t
come home. How could he? With Justin staying away, his dad had a
chance to beat the cancer. If he’d gone home, he’d put everyone in
danger.

The Unit, or what was left of it, would never
let him rest now. Justin had gone rogue, had killed two men in the
Unit, and he needed to be eliminated before he shared state
secrets. He was under no illusion that this was how it worked.
Justin was a weapon with no accountability, built to get the job
done outside the lines, and he had broken the rules. Outlived his
usefulness.

And Adam was back at Crooked Tree too, and he
looked so
animated
. Not burned, not gone, and pain knifed
sharp through Justin. Because the Adam he’d grown up with was dead,
was gone, and Justin had been the one to get that version of Adam
killed. He may as well have put a gun to Adam’s head.

He’d been the one to cause Adam pain. He
hadn't gotten to him in time in Chicago; he’d had to watch as Webb
nearly killed him.

My fault.

And Justin had been the one to rush blindly
after the sound of gunfire all those years ago.

He closed his eyes in the dream, moving
closer to a warm body, the scent of leather, the reassuring smart
of pain as fingers tangled in his hair.

Someone was in bed with him, and that was new
in the dream.

When Justin slept, he was as alone as when he
was awake. The odd quick hookup: a woman here, a man there, random
pickups that kept him off the radar. Not once in his life had he
slept with someone past the whole
getting-off
part.

After all, how could he explain the gun under
his pillow or feel safe enough to let a stranger close to him?

“We need to be scared. People want to kill
me,” he repeated over and over in his head, but Dream Ethan wasn’t
listening, and there wasn’t any way he could get him to do so.

Pain shot from his hand to his head and he
moaned through it, pressing his head into the solid hold of the man
with the leather jacket.

“It’s okay,” a voice murmured. “You’re
safe.”

Sam.

“He’s hurt bad,” Sam half whispered. He
pressed a hand to Justin’s chest, reassured by the steady
breathing.

“What’s he trying to say?”

Justin was mumbling words about people
wanting to kill him, but they were incoherent. Sam wished he could
help Ethan figure them out.

“He was scared.” Sam tried to recall the
exact words that Justin had used. Had he actually said he was
scared? Or was that what Sam thought? And not just scared, but
hopelessly terrified of something.

“Okay.” Ethan looked to Sam. “If he has
warrants out for his arrest, we have to assume—” Ethan inhaled
sharply and bent at the waist as if sudden comprehension had cut
him off at the knees.

“Assume what?” Gabe asked.

“That he’s one of the bad guys,” Sam
simplified.

“So what?” Gabe asked urgently. “Are we
listening to him, or are we getting every freaking medical expert
and law enforcement officer within a twenty-mile radius descending
on this cabin?”

Sam looked at Marcus, gray and unmoving; at
Adam, who had gone abnormally quiet; and
at
Ethan, who wanted to call everyone he could to save
his brother. Marcus and Adam had come up to the cabin at Ethan’s
insistence as soon as Justin collapsed. To Sam, it looked like
Ethan expected his brother to die, that there wasn’t time to wait
about.

Marcus was in shock and Adam was stuck in a
cycle of confusion and horror, so it was up to Sam and Ethan to
make the decisions.

“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “He said you
were all in danger. Someone was out to kill him, and you’re all in
danger.”

Adam leaned into Ethan, who wrapped his arms
around his partner. “What kind of danger?” Adam asked, his voice
broken.

Sam pressed fingers to his temples. “He kept
saying witness protection, but I don’t fucking know,” he
snapped.

“WITSEC? What else did he say?” Ethan
demanded.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re the one who found him, you’re the one
who talked to him,” Ethan accused.

“I said I don’t know anything,” Sam snapped
back. For a few seconds, they faced off. Ethan finally subsided
with a mumbled apology. Not that Sam felt any better after, but he
hadn’t really
talked
to Justin, and no one was hearing him
when he said that.

“He needs a doctor.” That from Adam, who then
slipped back to staring at the unconscious Justin, his eyes
narrowed and his forehead creased in a frown.

Was Adam remembering things he didn’t want
to?
It seemed
to Sam that Ethan
didn’t know what to do with himself, whether he was supposed to be
with Justin or supporting Adam. He held Adam tight and wasn’t
letting go; that was kind of telling. As much as Justin coming back
was probably everything Ethan had once wanted, he had Adam to care
for and to love. And there was nothing stronger than the connection
those two men had.

Marcus spoke next. “Aaron, we should call
Aaron. Sheriff Carter’s brother.”

Sam was glad it was Marcus who suggested
that, and not himself, given the temper that sparked in Ethan.

“What?” Ethan raged. “You want me to bring
one of the Carter brothers here?”