A Cowboy's Home (23 page)

Adam looked happy, not scared, or anything
that indicated he knew Justin was watching. Unbidden, Justin’s
thoughts went back to that moment when he had knocked Cole out in
the forest.

“Just forget me,” he’d said to Adam, fucking
idiot that he was.

Who said that and expected it to go well?
Because Adam had peered into the darkness with hope.

“Okay?” Sam asked from the doorway. He was
leaning against the jamb, hands in his jacket pockets, his blue
eyes focused on Justin.

Justin watched Adam dismount and tie off Easy
before running his hand through the horse’s mane. Justin had
thought of Easy often, of the link he’d had to the beautiful
animal, and it had never failed to make him sad. “Yeah, I will
be.”

“Ready?” Ethan said outside, then took Adam’s
hand and squeezed tight, sending a look of such love and adoration
at him that Justin couldn’t breathe for a second. To see his
brother so happy, to see Adam alive and well… he was overwhelmed
with it all.

They stopped near the door, and Justin shrank
back, right into Sam, who stood behind him.

“Whatever happens,” Ethan said to Adam,
“however he reacts to this, you have to know that I’ll always be
there for you, always love you.”

Justin’s heart twisted in his chest. He
couldn’t breathe as he listened to his brother’s words. Not even
Ethan thought whatever Adam wanted could end well. What was Adam
going to say?

“You’re scaring me,” Adam said. “You don’t
think he’ll like it?”

Ethan cradled Adam’s face. “It’s Justin. He’s
not the same man anymore.” Ethan’s tone was gentle. For a moment,
Adam stared at him, and Justin couldn’t see Adam’s expression
because he had his back to him, but he could see Adam stiffen in
Ethan’s hold.

And then everything happened in a rush.

Justin stalked to the front door and pushed
it, skidding to a stop just outside. He wasn’t going to sit
passively by while Adam pulled up a memory or asked questions that
Justin didn’t want to answer.

“Justin?” Adam asked, confused.

Ethan moved between them, clearly reacting to
the tension in Justin.

“I said I didn’t want to talk,” Justin
shouted, and Adam stumbled into Ethan’s hold, away from him.

Spending time with Adam was dangerous. What
if Adam remembered what had happened and hated him?

“I just wanted you to see Easy,” Adam
said.

And those simple words made Justin feel like
the worst human being alive because all he wanted to do was run in
the opposite direction.

“I’m sorry, I got it wrong.” Adam sounded
defeated and began to walk back to Easy. Abruptly he stopped, and
turned quickly. “No,” he snapped. “I’m not backing off. You don’t
get to be angry with me over anything.”

“I’m sorry.”

Adam didn’t stop. “Easy is yours, and I was
doing a nice thing.”

Justin stared at him, flicked his gaze at
Ethan who looked way past pissed. Then Justin moved toward Adam,
close enough to talk, not close enough to touch. “Adam,” he said,
hunching in on himself. “Thank you.”

And then he pulled Adam close and held him
tight, and Adam buried his face in Justin’s neck, just like Gabe,
just like Ethan.

Justin thought there were tears.
He was overloaded with so much emotion, far too much
to process, but Sam didn’t step forward for him, and more telling,
Ethan stayed back and let Justin hold Adam.

“I’ll be inside,” Sam said softly. He moved
away and Ethan went with him.

Justin held Adam and waited, making the most
of this almost-calm before the storm. “You okay?” He asked the
useless question and got a chuckle for an answer.

“Not exactly,” Adam murmured. “I’m sick of
this emotional shit.”

“Me too.” They parted, and Adam walked over
to Easy. Justin followed.

Adam looked up at Justin’s face. “It
was
you I saw in the woods that time, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Adam smiled. “You hit Cole. He was
pissed.”

“I’ll apologize to him one day,” Justin said.
Although that day would never arrive, Adam didn’t have to know
that.

They stopped by Easy, and Justin held out a
hand for his horse to nuzzle, which he did, with a soft
whumph
. His nose was
velvet, and Justin buried his face in Easy’s mane and inhaled the
scent of horse. He’d missed this, desperately missed Easy, the
horses, the ranch, the scent and touch and sounds of the place.
He’d given it all up for revenge, and for the longest time, up
until today, that had been enough, his focus and purpose in
life.

“What happened, Justin? Back then, I
mean.”

Justin sighed and stroked Easy, who was
looking for treats. He didn’t want to talk about that, but he
guessed he didn’t really have a choice. Might as well get it out of
the way quickly. At least, when he left, Adam might have some
things straight in his head. “What do you remember?”

Adam raised an eyebrow. Clearly he hadn’t
been expecting Justin to say a thing. “Oh, I guess, not too much, I
have bits missing, and when I saw you, all I could recall was that
you were protecting me. It was an instinct, though, rather than a
true memory. After all, you did look out for me a lot.”

“I did try to look out for you, but that last
day, I couldn’t.”

“Maybe you could tell me some of what
happened.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”
And I
can’t tell you everything; because I want to leave here thinking
you’ll still call me your friend.

Adam knocked shoulders with him. “I remember
bits and pieces. Fire, I remember that a lot, and it’s
horrible.”

“The guys who had us, they didn’t want us
running and telling others what they were doing, so they dealt with
it.”
By covering us in chemicals and setting a timer on
explosives.

“By trying to kill us.” Adam said that so
matter-of-factly.

“Yep.”

“But we got away.”

“That bit is sketchy,” Justin admitted. “I
was pretty badly hurt. Woke up in the hospital, and was told you
were dead.”

“But you never came home.”

“I couldn’t.”

“You want to talk about that?” Adam’s voice
was gentle.

“Not yet.”

“Okay, I get that. I have one question,
though, from my memory, or sense, or whatever.”

Fuck. I can’t do this. Please don’t ask me
any more questions.

Justin swallowed as Adam looked sideways at
him. “Did you lie on me, cover me to stop the worst of the fire
burning me?”

“Adam….”

“No, I mean, I know you did. I remember the
pain, and then you shoved me from behind, and there was fire.”
Adam’s voice hitched. “And then you were dead.”

Adam stood up, and in a smooth move he lifted
his T-shirt over his head and turned his back to Justin. There was
some discoloration on his skin that went up to his neck, but
nothing major. In the center of his back there was a beautiful
tattoo of a horse, and Justin caught his breath. It was stunning
work.

Justin was relieved at there being no scars
like his.
That’s one thing I did right, then.

“I showed you mine, you show me yours,” Adam
said, in a half-teasing, half-serious tone.

Justin looked up at him in disbelief. “What
the hell?”

“I want to see what they did to you, what you
took to save me.”

“Adam….”

“Please.”

Justin stood, shaky, and completely fucked
over by the emotion in Adam’s eyes, by the need, hope and sadness
that shone there. He crossed his hands at the base of his T-shirt
and began to lift it, hesitated for a moment, and then yanked it
off in one move. He turned away from Adam and waited for the
horror, the comments, for Adam’s memories to flood back, and for
hatred to replace cautious welcome.

“
Shit
,” Adam cursed, “That must have
hurt. You’re an idiot.”

That wasn’t what Justin had been expecting,
and he turned to face Adam, his T-shirt balled in his hands.
“What?”

“Taking the brunt of the fire. You’re a
heroic idiot.”

Temper and fear twisted inside Justin’s head;
he didn’t want to hear that kind of thing from Adam. “It was my
fucking fault you were even there!”

Adam didn’t blanch, he looked at him
steadily. “How so?”

“I went after the gunshot. I should never
have gone, and you followed.”

“So, you told me to go with you?”

Justin frowned. No, he hadn’t asked Adam to
go, but he and Adam did things together. Hell, if Gabe had been
there as well, then the three of them would have all been captured,
tortured, and left for dead. “No, I was a stupid kid, and you
looked out for me. I was angry at myself, and you, and Ethan, and I
just went after the noise. And you did your usual thing—you
followed me.”

“See, there it is,” Adam said with a shrug.
“I followed you. Now we have that shit out of the way, care to fill
in some blanks?”

That was it? Justin had just told Adam
point-blank that everything was his fault, and all he got was a
shrug.

“Holy fuck.”

Ethan’s voice had him turning, and too late
Justin realized he hadn’t pulled on his shirt again, and it was
Ethan’s first time at seeing what a mess his skin was. Not that
Justin usually cared what people thought of it. Hell, he never let
people near enough to worry. No one looked at his back when he was
fucking them, or when they were on their knees.

“Those… that… fuck,” Ethan cursed.

“Yeah,” Justin said in his best nonchalant
voice. “A long time ago now.” He drew the shirt over his head and
smoothed it down.

“I wish I’d been there for you,” Ethan said,
emotion in his voice.

Justin punched his brother on the arm. “Glad
you weren’t.” Then he rubbed his belly in an exaggerated move. “I’m
hungry.”

Sam took everything in hand from there,
cooking pasta for an early lunch, making a tomato base, adding
herbs and all kinds of bits and pieces, and the other three sat at
the table and watched him.

Justin was very good at not talking about
anything specific, citing tiredness as a reason to go to bed to
rest. He hugged Adam and Ethan equally hard, but he’d already made
the decision.

He’d told Adam enough. He wasn’t staying here
any longer. He would hide in bed for the rest of the day and then,
he was leaving under the cover of darkness.

Tonight.

Sam lingered in the kitchen after clearing
away their evening meal, muttering over the fact that the plumbing
in the kitchen wasn’t one of the things they’d fixed properly.
Justin left him to it after his offer to help was met with a scowl.
Clearly the kitchen was Sam’s place, and not to be interfered with
in any way.

Justin yawned as exhaustion from the injury,
from talking, hell, even from thinking, caught up with him, and he
lay on the bed. He could still see Sam from there, and for a few
seconds, imagined that kind of domesticity as the norm.

Just as quickly he recalled the bullets, and
the fear, and the fact he was a killer, and shut down, pushed the
idea of being with someone to the back of his head. He was way too
fucked-up
to get
to that
point.

He rolled onto his side and shut his eyes;
somehow he slept.

When he woke he was disoriented, lying on top
of the covers. Next to him, Sam was facing the wall; his breathing
was steady and he was clearly sleeping. He’d fallen asleep reading,
by the looks of it, and he was fully dressed.

As Justin was.

So, what had woken him?

Something prickled at the top of his spine,
awareness that he was being watched. He reached for his weapon, but
remembered the gun wasn’t under his pillow but was in the drawer;
he cursed himself for letting his guard down.

“Hi, Justin,” Rob said from the darkness.

Justin turned to face him, knowing this was
it, the end of the road.

“I’ll go with you,” he said simply.
Away
from here, away from Sam and my family. Don’t hurt them.

“No need for that,” Rob said.

The moonlight filtering through gaps in the
drapes highlighted the metal of a gun, but it wasn’t pointing at
Justin. Rob was utterly still, sitting on the windowsill, his form
responsible for the drapes being apart. The gun rested on his knee,
held in one hand, and as Justin’s eyes grew accustomed to the dark,
he saw Rob was completely relaxed.

“You don’t need to do this,” Justin
whispered.

He didn’t want to wake Sam. If this was Rob’s
way of dealing with the situation, by killing him and Sam together,
then he didn’t want Sam to know a thing about it.

“Who’s your friend?”

“No one.”

Rob shook his head. “No one who cooks you
dinner and then clears up the kitchen. No one who finds you asleep
in bed and presses a kiss to your forehead before he lies next to
you to read?”

“He’s not a part of this.” Justin smoothly
swung to place his feet on the floor. The drawer holding the gun
was a whole other movement away. No way would he get there before
Rob put a bullet in his head.

“I know.”

“Then leave him out of it. I’ll go with you,
and you can get this over and done with, and he doesn’t have to
know.”

“Uh-huh.”

“One favor, though, take me off Crooked Tree
land, I don’t want the kids or my family to find me.”

Rob was silent and Justin tensed. Maybe he
could get to his gun, but Sam was in the line of fire, and Rob was
as good as Justin had been at finishing the jobs he was given.

“No one will find you,” Rob eventually
said.

Professional courtesy was something Justin
hadn’t expected, but maybe nebulous friendship counted for
something. “And you won’t hurt Sam?”

“I have no intention of hurting anyone.”

Justin was relieved. More than relieved, he
was done. This was the inevitable end to his life; it had just come
twelve years too late.