The Ranchers Son (10 page)

Jay sighed and
leaned on the fence next to Adam. “You mean like an instinct, knowing you
should be with someone.”

“I guess.”

“Then yes, I would
hope that the link I have with Nate would be strong enough to tell me I have
someone who loves me.”

They fell silent,
and through the window Adam saw Ethan talking to the waitress, saw her smile up
at him and then cast an understanding look his way.

Great, I’m a
figure of sympathy for a complete stranger now.

What Jay said,
about a link… was that what had made Adam pull Ethan’s name from his brain? The
only word besides “Crooked Tree” that made any sense to him.

Did that mean he
and Ethan were connected on a much deeper level?

Ethan and Nate
joined them. Nate spoke first. “We’ll go ahead and talk to Marcus, explain what’s
happening.”

“Marcus is my
dad,” Ethan reminded Adam.

“I’m not stupid,”
Adam said and regretted it as soon as it left his mouth. That sounded angry and
more than a little sarcastic, and he wasn’t feeling those emotions at all. He
was just confused and tired and sore. “Sorry.”

“It’s good to meet
you,” Jay interjected to break the whole shitty silence thing they had going
on. He held out a hand, which Adam shook. “And you ever need a quiet place, my
office is always there. And I’m separate to this, okay. I can listen without
knowing a thing about your past.”

Adam felt
pathetically grateful and leaned in for a semi-hug, backslapping, and a quick
hold. He liked Jay; his smile and his understanding were exactly what he
needed.

Nate held out his
hand to shake and then instead pulled him in for a hug, squeezing briefly and
only letting him go when Adam couldn’t stop a little groan of pain.

“Sorry, shit, I
didn’t mean to hurt you.” Nate began to apologize then changed direction
mid-sentence. “I missed your face, Adam. I thought you were—I’m so damned happy
you’re alive.”

He and Jay left,
and Adam stood outside the diner staring at the Jeep as it disappeared into the
distance. Ethan didn’t say anything to interrupt his thoughts, only stood next
to him with a reassuring hand on his arm.

“Do you have a
photo of my mom?” Adam asked as they walked back to the car.

They climbed in,
and Adam couldn’t help a gasp of pain as he attempted to buckle up. Ethan
helped him without saying a word, then passed him a bottle of water and more
pain meds. Adam took both and swallowed the pills gratefully; anything to take
the edge off what he was feeling at the moment. His body ached and his head
hurt, and as for his heart? That was bruised, and tears threatened to fall.

“Here.” Ethan
passed his phone to Adam.

Adam looked at the
screen and the brunette’s face. “This is her? Mom?”

“Tegan Winters. She
married your dad in eighty-two. Cole was born in eighty-six and you two years
later. She died in ninety-four just before her thirty-second birthday.”

Extraordinary
grief gripped Adam, hit him and cut him off at the knees, leaving him bereft.

She didn’t look
like the waitress. His mom was softer, more beautiful, but she had long dark
hair, and although Adam couldn’t see her eye color in this photo, he knew they
were blue.

“My eyes are
brown,” he said. He couldn’t help feeling disappointed in that. “But my hair is
the same color.”

“Your dad had
brown eyes,” Ethan said.

“And he died in…”

“Couple years back.”

“So it really is
just me and Cole.”

“I’m sorry, and
not just for that.” Ethan twisted a little in his chair so he could face Adam.
“I’m sorry if not telling you things is the wrong thing to do, but I don’t know
what’s for the best.”

“I understand.”

Ethan looked so
broken, so utterly drained, and bruised ribs or not, Adam acted on instinct,
leaned forward, and kissed Ethan on the cheek. “We’re okay,” he said softly.

Ethan looked at
him with a spark of fire in his eyes; he cradled Adam’s face. “I missed you
every day.”

“Ethan—”

“Justin was always
in my thoughts, it killed me that my little brother vanished, but you had a
very different part of my thoughts. All the hopes and plans went with you, and
I was lost.”

Adam’s chest
tightened, and the tears that had threatened slid from his eyes in silent
acknowledgment of what was inside him. “I want to remember,” he murmured. “I
want it all back. I want to stop us both feeling lost.”

“What if you don’t?”
Ethan’s voice broke. “What if you don’t remember anything, what if we never
find Justin…?”

The fragile
connection between them subsided.

Justin.

And then,
abruptly, it was Adam reassuring Ethan. “We’ll find him. I’ll remember
everything, and we’ll find your brother. I promise.”

Ethan didn’t call
him on the fact that he couldn’t promise a thing. Instead, he started the car
and drove them to that night’s hotel.

Nate and Jay had
left for Crooked Tree. They would tell Marcus, tell everyone that Adam was
alive, and pave the way for Adam arriving.

Ethan and Adam would
spend one more night in a hotel and travel the rest of the way to Crooked Tree in
the morning.

When Adam felt the
edges of his mind give way to sleep, tucked up in the Holiday Inn, with the light
out and Ethan’s soft breathing in the next bed over, he had one thought.

Please don’t
let Justin be dead. And please don’t let anyone hate me because I’m the one who’s
alive.

The closer they
got to Crooked Tree, the quieter Adam became. Ethan wanted desperately to say
something clever to put him at ease, but not a single word sounded right in his
head, so he stayed silent. Five miles from the ranch, he pulled the car over
and stopped the engine.

“What’s wrong?”
Adam asked and peered out the window. “Are we there?”

“I stopped because
this is close. We’re
really
close.”

Adam had slept on
and off all the way from Billings. Not even the pills he’d taken had made him
sleep soundly last night. The fact they were in Montana was playing with his
head; add Crooked Tree Ranch to that, and Ethan knew Adam was stressed.

“Do we walk from
here?” Adam glanced at Ethan with a confused expression. “I don’t think we do,
because I remember bits of this road.”

“You do?”

“I think so,” Adam
murmured.

His gaze was now firmly
fixed on the view of the Blackfoot River outside the car. Beyond that, the
mountains rose dramatically behind grassed meadows.

“Really?” Ethan
couldn’t stop the hope that filtered into that one word.

“I haven’t seen
photos of here. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Ethan nodded and then
spoke when he realized Adam couldn’t see that. “Stunning.”

“There’s a pool.
It’s a heated one, but not a rectangle, not a real one.” Adam turned in his
seat to face Ethan. “I remember that I would swim. The water was warm and the
trees bent over the water. Tell me.”

“Silver Pool. Maybe?
It’s a mineral spring and is heated geothermally. It’s not hot, but it’s warm
enough to swim. The water spills over into the lake. We all loved that place—you
and Justin especially. Is there anything else you can remember?”

“I don’t know. The
feelings are weird, like a TV show I haven’t seen for the longest time.”

“Are you okay to
do this, Adam? I stopped because we could go somewhere else if you want.”

Adam huffed a
laugh and turned to face him. “Where else do I go? No one misses me in whatever
life I had since I left here, and I have no place to stay. This is my only link
to anything real.”

“You do have
somewhere to go. We could stay in my place in Missoula for a bit. If you need
to.”

Adam smiled at
him, a soft, sad smile that broke Ethan’s heart.

“That would be
delaying the inevitable. Let’s go.”

Ethan started the
car and rejoined the road, with so many worries and thoughts of what could go
wrong in his head that the remaining five miles vanished in an instant and all
too soon they were driving down the entrance road and pulling into the parking
lot by Branches.

“There’s a
restaurant here,” Adam commented.

He hadn’t made a
move to get out of the car; something was keeping him in his seat.

“Something Jay is
working on with Sam—he’s the chef there. And there’s Jay’s office.” He pointed
up past Branches to the edge of Jay’s office. “And beyond that are the three
houses. Dad in the first one, Nate and his brothers at the top, and your house—yours
and Cole’s—in the middle.”

Adam looked
surprised. “I have a house? We have a house?”

“Between you and
Cole, you own 33 percent of Crooked Tree.”

“That doesn’t make
sense,” Adam said.

“Your dad, Oliver,
owned that much, so it passed to you and Cole when he died.”

“No, I get that,
but I mean… I have a house, a stake in this place, and seems like I had
something with you, and good friends. Why would I have left?”

Ethan didn’t have
an answer for that one. He saw the small group of people walking down from the
direction of the office and knew this was the moment they’d been building up
to. At the front, Marcus walked with purpose and Ethan’s chest tightened.

He hadn’t seen his
dad in months. The last time had ended in an explosive row about Ethan not
wanting to work on the ranch, about how he’d abandoned his birthright. Usual
shit, but enough to have put him off even visiting. Sophie was next to his dad,
holding his hand, and he was glad for that; she had a steadying influence on
Marcus.

In the same group
was Nate and Jay—friendly faces—and Gabe, Nate’s younger brother, Adam’s friend
from way back.

“I can’t do this,”
Adam said urgently.

Ethan glanced over.
Adam was as white as a sheet, his hands balled into fists, his eyes filling
with tears.

They only had a few
minutes before the group reached them. “I’ll go. I’ll drive you away if that’s
what you want,” Ethan said. “Tell me what you want.”

Adam looked at
him, wide-eyed and breathing heavily. “They’ll want me to be Adam…. I don’t
know how to be Adam.”

Ethan gripped a
hand, forcing Adam to unclench it, lacing his fingers with Adam’s and holding
tight. “I’ll be right next to you,” he promised.

“Shit, Ethan.”
Adam muttered. “Your dad… how can I even look at him?”

“Adam—”

“I’m not his son.
He’ll want to know why I’m here when Justin isn’t. He’ll….” Adam trailed away
and bowed his head, tears falling freely. “I’m scared.”

“Scared of my dad
hating you’re not his son?” Ethan summarized. He leaned in and bumped
shoulders, as close as he could get in the car. “You want to go to my place?
You want me to take you somewhere else?”

Adam didn’t answer;
he breathed through the tears and kept a tight grip on Ethan’s hand. “I have to
be okay. This is fucking stupid. What kind of man does this make me?”

“You’re not stupid.
Jesus, Adam.”

Ethan looked up to
see the small group of his family and friends stop a little way from the car.
Sophie was talking to Marcus; Nate stood a few steps forward, forming a barrier
between Adam and Ethan and the rest. He could step out and tell them that this
wasn’t right, that Adam wasn’t ready. He’d do that, and it could be for the
best. “Adam? You want me to talk to them? We can do this another time.”

Adam looked up at
him, his dark eyes filled with pain, his brow creased. “No.” He swallowed. “I
can do this.” Then he squeezed Ethan’s hand. “If you’re with me, I’ll be okay.”

Ethan had never
seen anything as brave before in his life, and he wasn’t sure he would ever do
so again. “Wait here.”

He got out of the
car, went around Adam’s side and opened his door, offering a hand, which Adam
took. Ethan helped him out, and when they closed up the car and stood close
together, he could feel Adam shaking.

“It will be okay,”
Ethan lied again. He’d say anything to stop Adam from shivering in fear and
shock.

“Okay.” Adam
looked right at him, focused in on Ethan’s face.

Ethan made to
release Adam’s hand, but all Adam did was grip tighter. “Don’t leave me,” he
said.

Together they
stepped away from the car and up the slight incline to where the group stood,
and then two things happened at once. Adam’s steps became more confident, and
Marcus walked toward them. They met in the middle. Marcus held Adam tight, and
Ethan hoped to hell Adam would pull away before his ribs were crushed again.

Adam was crying,
Marcus was crying, Sophie was there, Nate as well, Jay hovering, and just
beyond, Ethan saw Nate’s brother Gabe waiting, hesitating, his expression
marked with shock.

“Thank God you’re
alive,” Marcus said over and over, and allowed Adam to move back and away a
little. “Nate tells me you don’t have memories.”

Ethan held up a
hand. “Dad, don’t jump on him straight away—”

“I wasn’t,” Marcus
said.

He looked hurt at
the accusation, but Ethan wasn’t falling for it; he’d been on the pointed end
of a Marcus inquisition before. “Just, let’s get somewhere to sit and talk.”

“I only wanted to
talk,” Marcus said.

Ethan cast his dad
a glance; he’d sounded broken, not defensive. Vulnerable.

“The house,”
Sophie interjected. “I have coffee on.”

Sophie gripped
Marcus’s hand and led him back up the hill. Nate offered a nod of understanding
and then followed them.

Which only left
Gabe.

Adam squeezed
Ethan’s hand.

“This is Gabe,”
Ethan murmured. “He was a good friend of yours and Justin’s when you were
kids.”

“Gabe. You were
there when Justin fell out of the tree,” Adam said.

Gabe took a step
closer. Adam closed the gap, and finally they stood face-to-face.

Ethan watched
Adam’s expression. Confused, sad, then a small smile.

“Fucking hell,”
Gabe cursed before extending a hand. “I’m… I don’t know what to do here. I want
to hug you, but I know… shit. I’m Gabe.”

“I know,” Adam
said. “You have a horse you called Lightning.”

Gabe’s mouth fell
open. “You remember that? You remember me?” He sounded hopeful, but Adam shook
his head.

“No, these things
just… happen. I seem to remember horses a lot.”

Gabe hesitated,
but Adam took the initiative and hugged him.

Gabe clung on for
dear life. “Welcome back, Adam. Fuck, I missed your face.”

To his credit, his
dad didn’t ask about Justin until at least an hour after they all sat around
the big dining table. Sophie had coffee ready, and there were cakes that Gabe
said were from his girlfriend. Ethan refused to feel guilty about not knowing
Gabe had a girlfriend; he had a job in Missoula, and there were reasons why he
hadn’t been to Crooked Tree. S
till
, seeing Gabe happy, and Nate too, he
realized he had missed so much.

Then there was his
dad. He looked older, frailer, not the rugged, ruddy-faced rancher who worked
with the horses. This man was quieter, with the toll of the years and the grief
he carried marked into every line of his face.

“And you don’t
remember anything about Justin?” Marcus asked. A hush fell over the table. Marcus
coughed. “Or why you left? What happened? Do you remember any of it?”

Adam sought Ethan’s
hand under the table, and Ethan was happy to hold on if it helped. Adam needed
that grounding touch, and Ethan had to be honest, it felt good to be the person
Adam turned to right at that moment.

“I wish I did,”
Adam said finally.

“Being here,
though… it could help, right?” Marcus pressed.

“He can’t promise
anything,” Ethan defended when Adam didn’t answer immediately.

“I wasn’t talking
to you,” Marcus said without apology. “I was talking to Adam.”

“Fuck, Dad, you
don’t stop, do you?”

“It’s okay,” Adam
interrupted Ethan, and that was probably a good thing given Ethan’s hackles
were up at the tone Marcus had used. “I hope that being here will help me get
my memories back,” he said.

That was clearly
the best thing to say, as Marcus sat back in his seat, looking like a weight
had been lifted.

“I could get my
son back,” he murmured to no one in particular.

Yeah, Dad,
because you only have the one son.
The words were on the tip of Ethan’s tongue, but he
didn’t say them out loud. What was the point? When Justin vanished, Marcus
became a very different dad. Obsessed with finding his youngest son, to the
point where Ethan and his relationship with him deteriorated.

But it wasn’t all
his dad’s fault, and Ethan knew that for sure. He’d pulled away.

“I want to remember.”
Adam interrupted Ethan’s introspection. “I’ll try anything to get my memories
back.”

Ethan heard the
words and dread gripped him. What if Adam recalled the life since Crooked Tree;
what if he had a boyfriend? A family? A career?

What if Ethan had
found him
only
to lose him again?

And how could he
even be thinking this when Justin was still missing?

Abruptly, he
couldn’t breathe and not even holding Adam’s hand was making him stay at the
table. He pushed back his chair, shaking his hand free, and for a second he
stared at his dad, wanting to spill out so many words: excuses, pleas for his father
to love him. Fuck. The shit was circling in his head so bad that his chest was
tight.

A hand on his arm,
and Nate was there, right next to him, with Gabe behind him.

“I’ll stay with
Adam,” Gabe said, and then Ethan was tugged out of the room and into the cold
night air.

Nate pulled him—near
dragged him away from the house and down toward the bridge over the river,
where he stopped and encouraged Ethan to lean against the brickwork.

“Breathe,” Nate
said firmly. “In… out… in… out.”

Ethan focused on
Nate’s voice, on the grip of Nate’s hands on his arms, and he tried to still
the emotion that threatened to choke him.

Grief started in
the deepest recess of his heart, a prickle that grew and grew until it became
something huge, overwhelming and all-consuming. He tried to focus on Nate’s
voice, but all he could feel was the grief.