A Cowboy's Home (22 page)

Justin sat on the bed and Sam took the chair
by the window. Justin looked up at Sam; his gray eyes filled with
pain and he lowered his voice. “What do I tell Adam? What does
Ethan want me to say? It’s my fault Adam even went there with me.
He should have been at home, with Ethan, with the horses.
Safe.”

“Umm….” That sounded like a serious question.
“I don’t know. I guess you don’t have to tell him every little
detail.”

“Does he have…
y’know
?” Justin pulled a small piece of ham out from his
sandwich, putting it in his mouth and chewing.

“
Y’know
what?” Sam couldn’t quite make
out the question there.

“Scars? Like me?”

Sam didn’t know. He’d seen some discoloration
on Adam’s neck, a darkening of skin, but he’d never seen him
shirtless, much to his disappointment, so he didn’t know. He
imagined that if Adam was as scarred as Justin was, he would have a
way of holding himself, a stiffness like Justin had.

Or maybe that was just the way Justin
was.

“I don’t think so.” Unconsciously, Sam
pressed a hand to his neck, “Maybe here, a little.”

“But nothing like me. Like the ones I
have?”

“I don’t think so.” Now it was Sam’s turn to
poke at his sandwich; he couldn’t concentrate on the food even
though he was hungry. “How long were you in the hospital? With the
burns, I mean?”

“I don’t know exactly .Two years, four
months, three days.” His tone was flat, and Sam imagined the agony
of being stuck in a hospital, counting the days down.

“That must have been…”
Hard? Terrifying?
Soul Destroying?
What word could he use to describe what he
imagined?

“I was in a coma for a while, the longest
time, actually.
The edema was so bad I
struggled to breathe, but luckily the burns were all on my back and
thighs, my front was clear—my chest, my face.
It could have
been so much worse. I woke up, and I couldn’t think, not through
the pain. I turned eighteen in hospital, and I wasn’t allowed to
contact my family, they said everyone was in danger.”

“They?”

Justin looked thoughtful. “Saunders. He said
that, and I believed him. I was a kid.”

Sam was finding this so hard to listen to.
“Was there anyone? I mean, did you have anyone to hold your hand
when you woke up? When you were going through PT? When you were in
pain?”

Justin stared at him steadily, and Sam
realized he had the answer there in the
stony
, dead-eyed gaze.

“Yes. Saunders. He was there, waiting for me
to wake up, spinning this hatred in the room and inside me. Telling
me that my family was in danger, and that he had the names of the
five men who hurt us and left Adam to burn to death.”

“
I’m so sorry,
Justin.”
Sam reached over from the chair and gripped
Justin’s hand. “Adam is okay,” he reassured.

Justin withdrew his hand from Sam’s touch to
play with his food again. Then, in a quieter voice, he said. “I had
something to live for. I was going to find the five who hurt Adam,
and I was going to kill them. Five lives for his.”

“I understand.”

“How can you?” Justin snapped, but then he
sighed. “I was too far gone down that path, I knew I was letting my
humanity dilute. God, that sounds pretentious, but I knew what I
wanted to do and it didn’t matter who got hurt. The Unit used that.
I didn’t have an identity, I was dead. So with a new name I was
able to go undercover.”

“To make things right,” Sam said. He could
understand that. When his parents kicked him out, he had wanted to
make something of himself,
despite
them, and he had. He was
happy, but nothing he had done would ever impress parents who
wanted him to be straight, married, and working in the firm with
his druggie brother who could do no wrong.

Bitterness rose inside him and he pushed it
down. Now wasn’t the time to think about the shit in his own life,
not when Justin was fighting demons a hell of a lot bigger than
Sam’s were.

“I feel sick,” Justin placed his plate on the
small side table next to the bed. “I’m sorry, I can’t eat.”

“What can I do?” Sam stood up and filled a
glass with water, placing it next to Justin. “Are you okay?”

Justin’s expressive eyes filled with pain,
his forehead creased in a frown. He looked older then, more
world-weary, the weight of everything pushing him down. “I don’t
know what I’ll ever be able to say to Adam.” His voice was small;
his fear was apparent.

“Whatever you say will be right,” Sam
said.

“How do you know that?”

Sam didn’t know that, not exactly, but he’d
gotten to know Adam, and that was enough. “Adam is a nice guy. You
could tell him every detail, and I think he’d just hug you and try
and help. Or you could tell him nothing and he’d make allowances
for you.”

Justin stood up fast, wincing in pain and
placing the flat of his hand to the wall to steady himself. “He’s
forgotten it all; his brain has actually given him an out. What if
I say something and all that agony and fear forces its way back
into his memories? I could mention a name, or an event, or the
weather, and the floodgates would open, and he’d have it all. I’ve
had years to come to terms with what happened, and what has Adam
had? Twelve years of nothing.”

Sam searched for something supportive to say,
wanting the day to roll back until it was just the two of them,
kissing and talking. “Adam has Ethan to help him.” He regretted it
immediately when Justin bowed his head and hunched his
shoulders.

“My brother, yeah. He really is a good man.
He’ll look after Adam.” Justin’s tone was fierce. “That’s how it
should be now.”

Evidently Justin assumed Ethan would be there
for Adam, but not for Justin.

“Ethan is plenty strong enough to look out
for his little brother as well.” Sam cleared their plates away,
taking them to the kitchen, scraping the uneaten food in the
garbage, his sandwich half-eaten, Justin’s not even touched. Maybe
after today was done, if Justin was hungry, Sam could create
something more appetizing than bread, filling, and chips.

“What about you?” Justin asked, when Sam went
back into the bedroom. “Where will you be?”

Sam held himself back from announcing he
would stay right there if Justin needed him. Instead he smiled. “I
need to get some work done.” And he did; he wasn’t lying. The
investment plan was new and he had to make Branches work. It seemed
like forever that he’d been in the cabin, but in actuality it was
only a few days, and he knew Ashley could handle Branches.
Everything would be okay.

Justin didn’t look disappointed, no flicker
of anything in his eyes, not even a frown marring his forehead.
Instead he smiled, nodded, and hobbled to the bathroom. He shut the
door.

That left Sam feeling like shit. Justin
wasn’t going to ask him to stay because he was a fucked-up hero
type who believed sacrifice was the only way to get things done. So
maybe it was up to Sam to figure it out and do the right thing.

He knocked on the bathroom door.

“What?” Justin snapped from inside.

“I’ll stay with you if you like, until you
go,” he called through the door.

Silence, and Sam strained to hear anything, a
sound, a word, any little bit of something that meant Justin had
heard him.

Finally, he heard two words and knew he’d
done exactly the right thing.

“Thank you.”

Sam had said a simple “I’ll stay with you if
you like, until you go.”

Justin stared at himself.

The man who stared back from the mirror in
the bathroom was a stranger. Not in looks. Nothing much had changed
over the past twelve or so years. He still had an innocent-looking
face that everyone seemed to trust instinctively. His blond hair
was a little long and untamed, but his gray eyes were bright even
though the skin around them was dark with fatigue.

So much relief had flooded him at those words
that he’d been dizzy with it. He’d had to grip the vanity tight to
stop himself slumping to the floor.

He left the bathroom, but didn’t want to
talk, climbed onto bed and fell straight to sleep. Sam had been the
little spoon again last night, with Justin instinctively cuddling
him, but all they’d done was sleep.

Justin woke before Sam, staring up at the
ceiling and thinking back on last night.

Adam had been unable to look Justin in the
eyes, and Justin wondered if Adam would ever look at him with
understanding, or would Adam’s memory loss trap them in this weird
relationship where neither knew what to say.

Ethan was worried about Adam. Of course he
would be, he was in love with the man, and Justin had been gone so
long.

Marcus looked at Justin like he couldn’t
comprehend what he was. Gabe might have hugged him, but he still
seemed wary.

But Sam? Cute, sexy, blue-eyed Sam? All he
did was support and watch, and he’d kissed Justin like he actually
wanted to. Justin was clearly starving for affection, that was it.
He knew Marcus wanted to hug him and hold him and never let him go.
But he didn’t deserve that kind of love. Ethan wanted answers. Gabe
stared at him like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. And as
for Adam? He just looked confused, and kept massaging his temples
like he had a permanent headache. Justin knew instinctively that
his Dad, Ethan, and Gabe, they all loved him, were pleased he was
home. More than pleased. And Adam would remember one day. But right
now, Justin had Sam, and that was all he needed to have him feel at
peace.

The weight on his chest lessened a little. If
Sam was here, then Justin could try to be the man that the others
needed him to be. The son, the brother, the friend. Even if he had
to pretend to be something he wasn’t.

Was it right to ask Sam to stay with him?

Sam woke up next to him, wriggling away,
grumbling something about coffee. Evidently Sam wasn’t a morning
person.

Justin showered, leaning against the cold
tiles whenever he felt like he wanted to slide down the wall. He’d
brought in the clean clothes Gabe had given him—soft sweats again,
and a lime green T-shirt. He checked the T-shirt in the mirror,
pulling it lower at the front so it would ride up at his neck and
hide the scarring on his back. He had to make sure it didn’t reveal
his lower back too.

What am I doing? Sam has seen it all.

He had nothing else he could do to delay
going back out there, and he opened the door.

There was no sign of Sam at first, but he
heard movement in the bedroom and followed the noise. Sam was
making the bed, tidying it up. The window was wide, the drapes
open, and it made it less like a sick room and more somewhere that
he and Sam could kiss again.

That kiss. What did it mean?

“Why did you kiss me?” Justin blurted out and
then bit his tongue when Sam glanced up at him. Sam was bent over
the bed, tucking in corners, and he was just right: his ass would
fit into Justin’s hands just right, he was just tall enough, and
his perfect taste was what Justin wanted.

Something about Sam spoke to Justin in a way
he’d never felt before.
Life
and
promise
and
future
.

I am so
stupid.
It must be the medication wrecking my
equilibrium.

“Because I wanted to.” Sam finished off the
cover and stepped back, right into Justin, who moved at the last
moment. And they slotted together just fine—Sam shorter than
Justin, his ass in just the right place for Justin to press hard,
and he wrapped his arms around Sam’s front and held tight.

“It was weird,” Justin said.

Sam laughed. “I’ve never had my kisses called
weird before.”

“Not weird, then, just I wasn’t expecting
it.”

Sam didn’t move much or say a word; he rested
his head back on Justin’s shoulder and that was it, Justin wanted
another taste of him, however wrong that was. All that made sense
at that moment was that Sam was there and Justin wanted him. He
pressed his fingers to Sam’s chin and tilted his head, and they had
an awkward, messy, sideways kiss. Sam finally turned so they could
deepen it.

Something was wrong. And for the longest
time, however hot the kiss was, Justin knew something was off.

Then he realized. “Your hands,” he murmured
between kisses.

He didn’t have to say anything else; Sam
chuckled and twisted his fingers into Justin’s hair. Pinned like
that, they kissed, and they only separated when the sound of horses
and talking reached in through the open window. Adam and Ethan
hadn’t actually made it away from the cabin; they sat astride their
horses under the trees.

“But why?” Justin insisted.

Sam smoothed his hair, a soft smile on his
face. “I like kissing you, for however long I get to do it,” he
said with promise.

Justin wasn’t hard. He wanted to be, but the
kiss was more about grounding himself; the worries about what would
happen now were too big for him to handle, and it
damped
down his arousal. He crossed to the
window, wanting to see Adam and Ethan before they realized he was
watching. What he saw had his throat closing.

His horse,
Easy
. Adam was riding
Easy.

“And you really think it’s okay to do that?”
Justin heard Adam say.

In defense of what he was feeling, Justin
wrapped his arms around himself and felt his shoulders dip. He
wasn’t ready for whatever Adam was talking about.

Ethan talked back and reached for Adam’s arm.
“I love you,” Ethan said.

His words reached Justin and twisted another
knife into the ball of guilt he carried inside.

Adam leaned across his saddle and kissed
Ethan, and they spoke again, but it was lovers’ whispering and not
enough for Justin to hear.