A Cowboy's Home (11 page)

Now the difficult part: they had to get
Tom—Justin—up onto the horse.

“How about I get up there first,” Gabe said,
shifting Justin’s weight, his face contorted with
determination.

Justin groaned and opened his eyes, but they
were unfocused, and he stumbled as Sam let his legs drop gently to
the ground. At least if Justin was half-conscious he could assist
them to get him up on the horse.

Somehow they managed it, with Gabe scrambling
up on Lightning’s back to support Justin.

“Rob will kill me,” Justin
muttered—moaned—his words slurred. “He’ll have to.”

“C’mon buddy. Stay upright,” Gabe said as
Justin listed to one side. “I’ll meet you down there. Stay aware,”
he added to Sam, and then he pressed his heels into Lightning’s
flanks, and with a skitter of hooves, they moved off.

Sam wheeled his bike away from the scene and
then stopped. He went back into the shack and found and pocketed
the gun. He scouted around and picked up anything that looked like
it might be Justin’s, plus the bag with the clothes. Then he was
back on the bike and on his way down the mountain.

He caught sight of the horse and men ahead
but stayed back. There was no way he wanted to spook the horse. At
least Gabe had succeeded in keeping his seat, gripping Justin hard.
Sam had visions of them sprawled on the ground, and Sam not knowing
what the hell to do next.

When they reached the cabins—and thank fuck
no one had seen them yet—Gabe chose the most remote of them, a
cabin Sam knew was empty, and had been all season because of some
issue with subsidence in the rocks behind it. Nate had taken Sam
out there a couple of months back to get input into the kitchen
they were refitting.

At least it would be a roof, and a bed, and
maybe hot water.

He killed the engine,
stowed
the bike in the trees, way off the path, and slid
his way down the remainder of the slope to the back of the cabin.
By the time he got there, Gabe had almost managed to get Justin off
the horse, but at the last slide, Sam was there, taking his weight
and stumbling back. Justin was taller than him and built under his
scruffy clothes, solid and muscled.

“We don’t have keys,” Gabe said.

The cabins were all built to be sturdy,
strong and safe, and Sam shook his head. What the hell were they
going to do? He tried the door in hopes that somehow their luck
would be in, but the damn thing was locked up tight.

Gabe smacked the flat of his hand on the
wood. “I guess we could go to the office for a key.”

“Yeah, and explain that how?” Sam snapped. He
couldn’t help it; adrenaline was fading and he felt shaky and
confused by it all.

“Do you have any better ideas?” Sam wished he
did. “We need to break a window,” Gabe added.

“Really? Shit.” They lowered Justin to the
ground gently, and Sam looked around for a brick or something,
finding a large chunk of rock about six feet away. He hesitated
before he smashed in the glass by the door. This was them saying
that instead of doing the right thing, what medical concerns
dictated, and getting Justin to a hospital, they were hiding him
away, even as ill as he was.

“Sam?” Gabe was kneeling now, with Justin’s
head in his lap. The look was asking for Sam to make the ultimate
decision.

So Sam did. He took off his jacket and
sweatshirt, and then broke the pane, muffling the sound as best he
could with the sweatshirt wrapped behind the rock. The glass fell
in, and in a second he was reaching around inside to find the
internal lock. He had to stretch right up on his toes to do it,
hoping he wasn’t digging into the remnants of the glass. Finally,
he closed his fingers on the lock and managed to undo it. He
immediately opened the door. Between them, they got Justin inside,
Gabe supporting under one arm, Sam the other.

The cabin was dark, all the drapes drawn, and
it had the smell of disuse. On the counter in the kitchen were tubs
of paint, along with
cloths
and
paintbrushes, and piles of wood leaned against it. The cabin was
obviously scheduled for maintenance, but God knew when. The image
of people appearing and finding Justin shot into his mind.

“This is wrong,” Sam blurted. Loudly, because
even though Justin had made him believe they needed to stay quiet,
he was too much out of his depth. “I need to call 911. We need to
get help.” He was getting close to losing his shit completely, and
he shook his head. Justin wasn’t dying; he just had a fever, right?
They could leave it a little while, get him cleaned up, and see
what was happening under the grime?

Because Justin was one of the boys who’d
vanished, right? Ethan’s brother. And he was in pain, and
desperate, and Sam didn’t want to put his life in danger.

“Yeah, it’s fucking wrong,” Gabe snapped,
grunting with exertion as he supported Justin. “But he said if
anyone knew he was here… shit, I don’t know…. Bedroom?” Gabe
huffed.

They managed to get Justin onto the bed. Sam
yanked at a drape, letting daylight flood into the back of the
cabin. He looked at Justin, at the mud and blood and vomit. They
had to clean him up; Justin needed medication, painkillers,
bandages, and a doctor. Anything but just him and Gabe, who didn’t
know what the hell they were doing.

Sam’s chest tightened with fear and he bent
at the waist, his hands on his thighs.

What are we thinking?

“Get him out of those clothes, get him clean,
call a fucking doctor,” Sam snapped, his head telling him what they
needed to do.

“Sam, he said we shouldn’t. Sam?” Gabe
sounded lost, torn between what to do for the best and what Justin
had asked them to do. “If he’s here and alive, and someone wants
him dead…. Sam, I need him alive.” Desperation tinged Gabe’s
words.

Gabe stared at Sam with confusion, utter loss
and devastation that Sam couldn’t ignore. Sam had promised Justin
he wouldn’t tell anyone, and he’d even broken that with telling
Gabe. But Justin was so ill, what did Sam do now?

Shit. Fuck. Shit.

“Can you at least help me see where he’s
hurt?” Gabe asked, ready to make that one decision.

Sam stood, immobile, considering ways around
this. How could they get a doctor there? There was only one main
road in, and if a doc came onto Crooked Tree, it would be obvious.
Hell, Nate was uber-observant, and the only local doc was familiar
to everyone on the ranch. But shouldn’t Nate know? And what about
Ethan? And Marcus? Justin’s brother and father had the loss
defining their lives, and they needed to know he was alive.

Justin groaned but didn’t regain
consciousness. Alive? For how much longer, Sam thought darkly.

Gabe looked up at Sam. “Sam?”

“Please stop asking me what to do,” Sam
snapped. Then, in a smooth motion, he fell to his knees next to the
unconscious Justin. He eased down Justin’s jeans, exposing the
bandage he’d put on what seemed like forever ago. There was no sign
of blood, but Justin’s skin was hot to the touch.

“He has a fever,” Gabe said, placing the flat
of his hand on Justin’s forehead. He pressed a hand to the thigh
wound and winced at the localized heat and swelling there.
“Something isn’t right, Sam.”

Justin muttered something, moving his head
from side to side.

“He’s been taking these.” Sam reached into
his bag and pulled out a bottle of pills. Now he looked closer, he
could see the name on the side of them: Adam Strachan. Justin must
have helped himself just as he had done in Branches. Hadn’t Adam
noticed they were gone? “These are just painkillers, that’s not
enough to fight the infection, is it?”

Unspoken was Sam’s fear:
Are we killing
him?
It was surreal, not how it was supposed to go.

Gabe looked at him again, his expression
bleak, and Sam realized it was still up to him.

He pulled the jeans down, realized he needed
to untie the boots, and cursed as he fumbled with the laces. The
skin under the denim was rough to the touch behind the knees, the
calves, but he didn’t stop to check why, focusing on removing all
the denim, then Justin’s T-shirt and sweatshirt. Between them they
managed to pull up the material, and with Gabe supporting Justin’s
weight, Sam rolled him away slightly, to pull the material up at
the back.

He was horrified at what he saw there:
twisted skin, old scars, so much past pain. The scarring, from the
nape of his neck, twisting down his back, and disappearing into his
boxers, then on again below that thin material, down the strong,
muscled thighs and beyond his knees, tailing away just above his
ankles.

Burns. A hundred burns or one burn, it wasn’t
obvious, but those were old scars.

“What?” Gabe asked urgently, “what is
it?”

Sam shook his head mutely. Who was this man,
lying injured on the ground, to have so many scars and a bullet
wound, and to have lived through it all?

Justin. His name is Justin. He’s a kid who
vanished, and he’s here for us to mend.

A fierce rush of protectiveness for Justin
was followed by a need to hurt whoever had injured him, this
brother of a friend.
“He has so
many….”
Sam tilted Justin a little more and Gabe peered
over, then blanched and sat back on his haunches.

“Adam said he saw him burning,” Gabe
murmured. “Oh fuck, Justin, what happened to you?”

Sam inhaled a calming breath and pulled back
the bandage he’d applied. He needed to see the bullet wound closer,
look at the detail of it with more light. God knows what he would
do then.

The wound looked clean, a little swollen, but
there could be something hidden under the skin.

“He said he was shot, that there was metal in
there,” Sam said as he touched the area.

“What? You think the bullet is still in
there?”

“The wound is a mess,” Sam said.

“This is fucked-up,” Gabe snapped, tension
and fear in his voice. “We have to call 911.”

Justin opened his eyes, reached up, and
gripped Gabe’s hand. Was he alert, really conscious? Sam couldn’t
tell.

“No,
’m
’okay,” Justin said. “Hit… ’rush… ’cush….” He raised
his other hand. Sam thought he was going to touch his head, but
there was no energy in the move and Justin’s hand fell limp at his
side.

Gabe fumbled with his phone, dropping it on
the floor and scooping it up. Everything slowed to a halt in Sam’s
eyes as Gabe thumbed to dial out. He caught the fear, the absolute
bone-numbing terror in Justin’s half-open eyes as he tried to reach
for the phone, but couldn’t.

Sam acted on instinct, placed his hand over
Gabe’s, and stopped him from dialing. “I think we need to listen to
Justin,” he said.

Gabe looked at him, horrified; he was lost,
close to tears, and his fingers tightened on the cell.

Sam eased the phone away and pocketed it, and
Gabe didn’t argue.

Sam then gently pressed his hand where Justin
had indicated and felt a lump just behind the ear. He pushed aside
the filthy, matted blond hair and located the swelling. There was
no blood, but it looked like Justin had hit his head falling. Maybe
he’d been trying to say
concussion
?

Sam thought back to what he knew about
concussions, learned from watching hockey and football. Sickness,
dizziness, ringing in the ears. Or was Justin’s confusion just
because of the infection?

“Let’s get him in a bath.” Was that right?
Sam didn’t even know. “A cool bath, and then get him to take some
more painkillers?”

For a few seconds, Gabe just
stared
, and then something must have clicked
inside and he nodded. “Let’s do this.”

With Justin somewhat lucid, they made it to
the bathroom.

Sam cursed when he saw that there was no
bath, just a huge walk-in shower. “Okay,” he said, “we can do
this.”

Leaving Gabe to support Justin’s weight, Sam
scrambled out of the bathroom to get a chair from the living area;
he placed it right in the middle of the shower cubicle and turned
on the faucet. Was there even going to be hot water? He waited and
hoped to hell there was some warmer water, and finally it came
through. Thank fuck for solar panels and the cabin not being
decommissioned fully while waiting for repairs.

He placed Gabe’s phone along with his own on
the counter. Then Sam considered how the hell they were going to
get Justin onto the chair.

In a surprise move, Justin heaved himself
away from Gabe and half slid, half fell onto the seat. The damn
thing nearly upended, but Sam used his body to counteract the move.
Tepid water sluiced over him and Justin, but all Sam did was push
back the spray from his face as he concentrated on the man on the
chair.

He lathered soap and gently started to wash
Justin from the head down. Sometimes Justin would curse, at others
he would let out a full-body shudder, but during all of it he never
tried to get away.

They skipped the groin area because Sam
wasn’t about to strip the poor guy. Hopefully the grime would soak
away. Gabe was gently washing from Justin’s feet up, and he didn’t
seem inclined to strip him either. With a groan, Justin eased up
off the seat. Gripping the wall, the shower, and any part of Sam
and Gabe he could use, he managed to stand. He pushed down his
boxers, and with his back to Sam, Sam could see the scarring was as
bad across the left cheek of his ass and down to the thigh
crease.

Fuck, the pain Justin must have gone through
didn’t bear thinking about.

Sam did his job, squirted soap onto his hands
and gently, carefully, attempted to clean as much skin as he could
reach. Finally, they had him wrapped in some towels Gabe had
managed to find in airtight packaging under the bed. At least they
had some towels and limited bedding, which Gabe used to make up the
king in the large bedroom. Justin stumble-walked to the room,
waving away help, only stopping three times to lean against the
wall. Sam called that a win.