Cut and Run 09 Crash & Burn (39 page)

“What are they?” Ty asked. They’d been so caught up in trying to find Nick, and then Zane, that no one had even looked at the final transmissions from the CIA.

Zane retrieved his iPad, flipping until he found it. “An A. Two H’s. Two O’s. And an R.”

Nick coughed and curled onto his side, holding his ribs. Ty and Zane both turned to him in concern. Nick was glowering, his green eyes blazing as Kelly sat on the bunk next to him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Oohrah, boys,” Nick said through gritted teeth.

The word hit Ty hard, and he met Zane’s eyes as molten rage filtered through him. Burns had used the word as his code, his way to get into all that blood money.

“Who’s sorry he’s dead, now?” Nick asked as he settled his cheek against Kelly’s leg, pulling a blanket over his head.

Ty tried to fight back the anger so he could think. Zane’s hand came to rest on his back, gentle and soothing.

“I’ll call Clancy. See if I can catch her before they get on a plane.”

The others were silent as Zane flipped through his phone. He sniffed as his phone rang. He perked up when Clancy answered, and he quickly told her the code word they’d uncovered and what to do. “We have no more than forty-eight hours to move before the NIA catches up. If you can’t get it done in twenty-four, we need you here. Then we head to Miami. Finish this.” He ended the call after another moment, glancing around. The news felt woefully inadequate.

Ty wrapped an arm around him, hugging him close. “It’s going to be okay.”

Zane met Ty’s eyes solemnly. “That’s a lie.”

“I’m always lying about something, Zane,” Ty said softly.

“I know,” Zane replied just as softly. He smiled, though, squeezing Ty’s knee to soften the blow of the words. “We going to sleep down here?”

“That was the plan.”

“My old room in the house is empty.” Zane glanced at the bunk behind them, where Kelly was holding Nick’s head in his lap. “There’s spare rooms too.”

Kelly nodded. He gazed at Owen and then Digger, then at the bunk above him and finally at Nick, who had fallen asleep as Kelly stroked his hair. “This feels like home enough.”

Zane’s eyes went soft and sad. Ty leaned forward and ran his fingers through Zane’s hair, brushing across his skin when Zane turned his head. When Zane stood and headed for the door, Ty trailed after him.

“Well, fine then!” Digger shouted after them as they left.

Dinner was a solemn affair, considering how many people were involved. Sidewinder ate in the kitchen to give the two families time alone.

Mara, Earl, and Chester were all there safely, and Zane could see relief in the more relaxed lines of Ty’s shoulders. He’d insisted he hadn’t been worried the last few days, but Zane knew his husband.

Something he let slip out loud without thinking as they ate.

“I’m sorry, husband?” Mara asked, her voice reaching a pitch that made the dog raise his head and growl. Silverware clinked. All conversation stopped.

Ty blinked at her with his mouth open.

Zane cleared his throat and reached to pet Mara’s arm. “Just the civil ceremony,” he said quickly. “We’ll do the rest whenever it’s a good time. We . . . we were tired of waiting.”

“And you can’t call your mama and tell her you got hitched?” Mara shouted at Ty.

“She gon’ beat his ass,” Digger observed from the kitchen.

“Well, Ma, I’m sorry, but I’ve kind of had a rough week!” Ty yelled back.

“Tyler,” Earl growled.

Ty glanced at him, looking mutinous, but he bit his lip and sighed. “Sorry, Ma.”

“Mara, stow it ’til later, huh?” Earl added. He went back to cutting his steak. After taking a bite, he nodded. “Congratulations, boys.” He gave Zane a wink and said nothing more about it.

Harrison, though, got up from the head of the table and came over to him. When Zane stood, his father embraced him tightly. He didn’t say anything, just hugged him. Zane realized he’d actually been more concerned about what the Gradys would say than his own parents, but this small gesture from his dad meant the world to him. Zane held on to him for a few extra seconds, then released him and sat back down, trying to conceal the grin bubbling up as his father forced Ty to stand and hug him as well. Even Beverly managed to offer them a smile. Zane held a tiny flicker of hope in his heart that she would come around. If they lived out the week.

When dinner was over, the Sidewinder boys and Liam all flowed out into the courtyard, disappearing right before Zane’s eyes in all different directions. “What are they doing?” he asked Ty.

“Perimeter check. It’s not the first one they’ve done.” Ty watched them go as he pushed through the screen door and held it open for Zane. Zane thanked him quietly, his mind still elsewhere and his body moving mostly on autopilot. He was trying to pick out the figures in the night, but Sidewinder was gone. He heard one loud yip from the left and then cackling laughter.

He glanced at Ty, who was smiling off into the darkness.

Chester was already easing into one of the numerous rocking chairs on the front porch. He’d apparently claimed it as his own almost immediately upon arrival, and no one seemed willing to argue with him or his shovel.

Since landing in Texas, he’d also acquired another object to carry with him everywhere he went: a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun from Harrison’s gun case.

No one seemed willing to argue with that, either.

He cleared his throat as the screen door squeaked, spit a wad of tobacco into a paper cup, and pulled his shovel and his shotgun into his lap without saying a word. Zane was a little wary of the man after what he’d witnessed in West Virginia, but he also had even more admiration for him, if that was possible.

Zane was basically looking at Ty’s future, right now.

Ty flopped into one of the chairs beside the old man and threw his feet up onto the railing. Earl was right behind them, and he pulled two more heavy chairs across the wooden boards of the porch. Zane sat in one of them with a murmur of thanks.

Harrison settled in beside Ty and propped his feet on the railing as well.

Zane grinned as he watched the other men. This was his family. His husband. His father. His father-in-law. Chester had even told Zane to call him Grandpa. Zane leaned back in the chair and extended his long legs, crossing them at the ankles. It felt weird to be relaxing when the world seemed to be burning out there, but if he had learned one thing from Ty, it was to take what fate gave you in that moment and not question it.

There was a long moment of comfortable silence as they settled in, taking in the deepening cool in the air accompanying the setting sun, and the growing sounds of the ranch as darkness fell: The horses in the distance, the dog off barking at his shadow. The hoots of nonindigenous owls that Zane soon decided were some sort of communication between Sidewinder as they made their perimeter.

“I miss my tiger roaring,” Ty finally mused.

Zane and Harrison both chuckled. “I don’t,” Harrison said with a huff.

The screen door squeaked again, and Mara and Beverly both came out to join them. Zane was so surprised to see his mother that he stood, awkwardly offering his chair to her as if there weren’t five other empty ones sitting around.

“Thank you, Zane,” she said, and she sat primly on the edge of the rocking chair.

Ty got up and rearranged some things, making room for Mara. She was holding something in her hands that Zane hadn’t noticed at first glance, and after she sat, she handed it to Ty. It was Annie’s old practice violin.

Ty took it in both hands, holding it gently. He looked pained as he ran his fingers over it.

Beverly cleared her throat, displaying her discomfort through her stiff shoulders and rigid spine. “Mara was telling me you can play, Tyler,” she said. “I was hoping you might do us the honor of a song or two.”

Ty stared at her for a long moment, until even Zane was uncomfortable with the silence.

“I . . . I would be glad to, ma’am, but I’m afraid I may not be able.”

“Why not?” Mara asked, her brow creasing in concern.

Ty grimaced again. “The way my hand’s been all beat up. If it requires me to stretch, it won’t do it too well.”

“You can’t play anything?” Earl asked, sounding almost sad.

“I haven’t gotten up the nerve to try,” Ty admitted. He was stroking the old violin, not raising his head. Zane watched him, frowning. He wondered if Ty was telling the truth or if he shied away from the instruments he had been known for in New Orleans just like he shied away from singing now. The loss of that talent seemed such a tragedy.

“Will you try?” Zane asked.

Ty looked up at him in surprise, and his worried frown faded into a gentle, sad smile. He took the bow in one hand and settled the violin against his chin. He began to tune it by ear, and the sounds of the strings whining their way to the right pitch brought back memories of Zane’s childhood, of sitting in his room reading while Annie practiced down the hall, of the musicians warming up before his wedding to Becky.

Zane smiled serenely as Ty started a slow, melancholy waltz.

He was a little rusty. So was the violin. But the tune filtered through the night with an otherworldly oddity, taking over the music of the wind and giving the evening an eerie, haunting sway.

When he was finished, the world once again fell into silence, and to Zane everything seemed darker and sadder for the loss. He gazed at Ty like the man could rope the moon.

From the darkness came a round of clapping and a few whistles.

Ty was smiling crookedly. Earl and Mara sat with their hands clasped together, and Chester appeared to be asleep. Harrison was nodding as if in approval, and to Zane’s surprise, Beverly had her fingers over her lips, watching Ty as if she might be seeing him for the first time.

“That was lovely, Tyler,” she whispered after a few moments. “Thank you for sharing.”

“Thank you for asking, ma’am,” Ty whispered, like he was afraid his voice would destroy the peace the music had created.

Beverly stood and wished them all a good-night, then retired into the house. Silence threatened, but the wind chimes tinkling down the porch and Ty’s ever-fidgeting fingers idly plucking the strings of the violin battled against it.

“I had an idea,” Zane told Ty after a few seconds. Ty raised his head. There was strain around his eyes and mouth, tension in his shoulders, that spoke of exhaustion and fear. Zane’s heart broke as he met Ty’s eyes, but he smiled anyway. “Brick & Mortar.”

Ty blinked a few times. “What?”

“The store. That’s what we’ll call it. Brick & Mortar.”

Ty peered at him for a long moment, not quite able to smile, but obviously trying. He nodded, the sadness in his eyes almost unbearable. “I like it,” he choked out. He nodded again, then looked down at the violin in his lap.

Zane jumped when his burner phone rang, and he dug it out. “Clancy?”

“It’ll take two weeks to get that money moving.”

Zane’s heart sank. “We won’t last two weeks with the NIA on us.”

“We got it rolling here. We’re coming home to help you.”

Zane’s nostrils flared as he concentrated on keeping outwardly calm. “We’ll see you in Miami. And Clancy?”

“Yeah?”

“Excellent work.”

Clancy was silent for a long time. When she answered, it was a choked, “Thanks, boss.”

Zane hung up and lifted his gaze to Ty, who was watching him with that same wistful sadness. It seemed to Zane that Ty had known all along it would come to this.

“You boys leaving in the morning?” Harrison asked.

“Yes, sir,” Zane managed to say. He was still staring raptly at Ty, and he had to tear his eyes away. “Staying longer will just put you all in more danger. The longer we wait, the worse it’ll be.”

“I wish it was anyone but you,” Harrison said, and his voice wavered.

Zane fought to swallow past the lump in his throat. “It has to be us.”

Earl’s chair creaked against the floorboards as he rocked. “I couldn’t hope for a better man to be at my son’s side in a time like this,” he said, and Zane was shocked to see his eyes glistening. Their eyes locked, and Earl gave him a nod. “Not a better man.”

Zane couldn’t manage to respond.

Someone cleared his throat from the bottom of the stairs, and they were all surprised to see Nick standing there. He’d been too quiet approaching, even with his ribs tightly bound and his knee in bad shape. “Perimeter’s clear, Six. We’re heading in.”

“Aye,” Ty managed, and they watched Nick melt back into the moonless night. Another figure silently joined him, helping him limp away.

Earl stood and took a deep, unsteady breath. “Early morning coming. Best to get a good night’s sleep.” He gave both Ty and Zane a long, tight hug. Mara did the same as she followed him. “Good night, boys. Harrison.”

Harrison was nodding like he just couldn’t manage to find words. Zane knew how he felt. He supposed “good night” was so much easier than “good-bye.”

“Night, Dad!” Earl shouted to Ty’s grandfather.

Chester gave him a modified salute, his gnarled fingers waving through the air before gripping his shovel again. It sat on his thighs as he rocked.