The Ranchers Son (12 page)

Ethan closed his
eyes and shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. Fuck, all I seem to be doing today is
apologizing. I know he’s alive and out there somewhere, and I believe I’ll find
him. I don’t even know why I snapped at you.”

Adam sat up and
swung his legs to the floor. “Because this is the stressiest fucking situation
I have ever been in, and it can’t be a walk in the park for you either. I’m not
Justin, and it must seem so cruel that it’s me you found.” He stood up and
stretched tall, then left the room.

“No,” Ethan said
from behind him, “that’s not right.”

He caught up with
Adam at the door and gripped his arm. It hurt, but Adam didn’t give away a
reaction that would make this situation any worse. Of course Ethan would prefer
it was Justin here; he was Justin’s big brother.

“It’s okay—”

“Don’t,” Ethan
said. He didn’t snap the words; he didn’t sound angry, more tired than
anything. “You’re alive, you’re here. Don’t ever feel like I sit there wishing
you weren’t here and it was Justin instead.”

“Ethan—”

“I’ve held hope
for so long, and I’m not stopping now.” Ethan released Adam’s arm as if he’d
just realized what he’d done. “Sorry.”

Adam smiled at
him. “All we do is apologize. Do you realize that?”

“Yeah.” They
stared at each other for a bit, and then Ethan appeared to shake off the
connection. “We could stay in a cabin or something instead of your place?”

“We?”

Ethan shrugged and
dipped his gaze. “Thought you’d like company, in case….”

“In case?”

“If you needed
anything.”

Actually, the idea
of sleeping in this place with the oppressive feelings of long-forgotten issues
was something Adam had hoped to avoid. But with Ethan here as well, maybe he
could get some sleep.

The meds had edged
off, his back and chest were sore, his head ached, but he was home.

He just wished he
could remember home.

They went down to
Sophie and got some extra blankets, the bedrooms cooler than they’d experienced
in the hotels. Adam said he didn’t want to shiver and Ethan agreed. There was
no sign of Marcus, and Adam was relieved at that. He wasn’t sure he could be
the person Marcus needed right now. Marcus asked questions Adam couldn’t
answer.

Sophie made them
promise to get breakfast at Branches in the morning, assuring them that she
would make sure no one else would be there, and that they should come to the
house afterward if they wanted to.

“She’s nice,” Adam
said, more to say something than anything else.

“Yeah, she is.
Sophie and Dad have been together a long time now.”

“But not married?”

Ethan didn’t
answer vocally, but his shrug spoke volumes.

To Adam, the sense
memory of Cole’s room was so different to his own. He felt
safe
in this
room. Perhaps running to his older brother was something that happened a lot.
Maybe Cole protected him.

“You mind if I
sleep in here tonight?” he asked. “I know this isn’t my room—” Then he realized
he was being stupid asking that. This was his house; he could sleep wherever he
wanted.

“Cool with me.” Ethan
didn’t seem to have picked up on any of the internal concerns that Adam had.

Ethan’s cell began
to ring and; as soon as he could fish it out from his pocket, he answered it.
“Hey. … Yeah, okay. … You want to come here? … No, nothing. … Thanks, Ryan.”

“Everything okay?”

“It was Ryan—Sheriff
Ryan Carter. Says he needs to interview you officially.”

“Okay, yeah, I
guess that will need to happen. Not that I can tell him much.”

“He asked if you
recalled anything. I told him nothing. He’s coming out tomorrow afternoon
around two. We can meet here or….”

“Here is fine.”

Adam glanced
around the small kitchen. Everything looked so clean, and there was even food
in the fridge. Apparently Nate coming back first had given people time to sort
out enough food to keep Adam happy.

“Why did they make
up both beds?” he asked out loud.

“Sorry?” Ethan was
looking in the fridge, and he pulled out sodas.

“Sophie put food
in the refrigerator, or I assume it was Sophie. Everything is so clean, but
they—whoever did it—they made up both beds.”

Ethan frowned.
“Everyone took it on themselves to keep this place tidy, check it over every so
often, and Sophie would have immediately considered food a priority the minute
she heard you were coming home. As to having both beds made up, maybe they
imagined you wouldn’t want to sleep alone in this place.”

Resignation made
Adam slump into the nearest chair, a hard wooden one at a scarred wooden
kitchen table. Ethan slid a cold Coke toward him and waited patiently for a
response. Adam didn’t have one. Instead he watched the rhythmic movement of
Ethan’s fingers as he moved the can in small circles on the table, spreading
the damp condensation from it in an ever-widening wet spot. The table had seen
a lot of action, it was old and worn. He and Cole and their father had likely
sat around it at some point.

“Did you take your
pain meds?” Ethan finally asked.

“Not yet.”

He yawned. “I
think I’m going to go to bed.”

“Good idea.”

Adam swallowed his
pain pills and made his way into the back bedroom. It was dark, but not much
past 8:00 p.m. Still, it was late enough for Adam to consider getting some
sleep. The tablets would help with the pain, and he really needed sleep. As he
settled against the cool pillow, Adam realized that the wounds on his face
didn’t hurt quite so much. His cheekbone didn’t feel so raw and his lip cut
hadn’t opened all day. Tenderly, he pressed a hand to his chest, but let out a
sharp yelp when it was obvious his ribs were far from healed.

“Everything okay?”
Ethan was at the door, calling through the wood. “I heard you yell out.”

“My bad,” Adam
said, dismissing it. “Nothing to worry about, just the ribs.”

There was a
distinct pause before Ethan said, “I’m next door, Adam, if you need me.”

“Thanks. Night.”

He wanted the conversation
to end now. The idea of needing Ethan filled him with half interest and half
avoidance. Instead, he closed his eyes, shuffling a little on the unfamiliar
mattress and hoping to hell he’d sleep.

The flames licked
at his skin and he could hear the screaming, but it wasn’t him. Justin was
there, lying silent now, his clothes burned away, his face flat in the dirt,
his back blistered with the heat and chemicals.

“You fuckers!
What the fuck did you do?”

The words slammed
into his head, the ice of water a shock to his heated skin, and Justin still
hadn’t moved.

Justin, please.
Just breathe.

He looked down at
his hands, reddened from where he’d protected his face. He’d been back from the
blast, but the flames had shot up and into Justin, bypassing him by inches. Only
Adam’s neck was burned, only part of his body hurt.

But Justin…

Was gone.

The screams
started up again, but it wasn’t Justin. It was him as the acid of pain and
grief crippled him and he fell to his knees. They held a gun to his head and he
closed his eyes. They were going to kill him.

He didn’t care.

His last thought
was that Ethan would never know they’d tried to go home… that Ethan would think
he meant nothing….

And he woke to the
darkness of his brother’s room with Ethan sitting next to him, murmuring words
of sympathy and support, trying to calm him down.

He was crying. That
was more than his imagination in a nightmare. It was real.

Ethan gathered him
close, supporting the precarious balance of him, and kept on talking, telling
him to breathe, demanding that he listen to the words.

Was Justin really
dead? Had a memory slipped in through the iron wall his mind had built around
everything that had happened to him over the missing years? He had scarring on
his neck. It wasn’t that obvious, but the skin was darker there and rough to the
touch.

Had that been from
what happened in the dream?

“Scoot over,”
Ethan said.

Adam didn’t argue.
This bed was bigger than the one in his old room, and there was enough space
for him to lie back and allow himself to be held. Ethan was a strong solid
presence, but for the longest time Adam lay there staring up into the darkness.

Staring at the
ceiling long after Ethan’s breathing had evened out and he was asleep.

Dawn painted the
room with a soft hue before Adam finally closed his eyes. And in all that time,
thinking, considering, he had made a decision about what to tell Ethan.

Sheriff Ryan
Carter was a big man.
Imposing
and
commanding
were two adjectives
that came to Adam’s mind as Ryan took the chair on the opposite side of the
room from him.

Jay had offered
them the use of his office for the informal meeting and had made himself scarce
after brewing coffee and handing out cookies, which he told them had been made
by his sister.

Adam hadn’t met
the sister yet, but he assumed that would be on the list for what remained of today.
Jay had left, and Ethan had gone with him, although Ethan promised he’d be
outside if Adam needed him.

“It’s good to see
you,” Ryan said, folding his frame into the small space and wriggling a little
to get comfortable.

He was too big for
this office—Ryan must have been six-five and built, his uniform stretching over
his muscles.

“We know each
other?” Adam asked, although he knew the answer because Ryan looked like he’d
seen a ghost. He had that shocked expression on his face that Adam had grown
used to seeing.

“Not close. But my
brother, Saul, had to eject you from the bar when you were fourteen and I was
out back doing homework.”

“I was in a bar?” Adam
asked. That idea didn’t sit well with him and he considered his attitude to
alcohol. He’d not really had a chance to make a choice on drinking yet; his painkillers
and muscle relaxants were way too heavy to add alcohol.

“You and Justin,”
Ryan said with a fond smile of remembrance. “Actually, it was more Justin. I
think you just tagged along for the ride. Anyway, we’re locals, so you’ve
always been around, school and so on, until you weren’t here anymore. Which
leads me to a whole series of questions.”

“Shoot.”

“First of all I
need to ask whether you have anyone you want here with you as you answer these
questions? You can have Ethan back in if you think it would help.”

“No,” Adam
answered sharply. Then he softened his voice with a rueful smile. “I’m okay.”
What he really wanted to say was that he’d dreamed Justin was dead, and he
couldn’t bear to say that in front of Ethan, not yet.

Ryan pulled out a
folder and placed it on the desk between them, glancing up as he opened it,
then smoothed out the contents.

“What we know from
2004 is that the last time you and Justin were seen was by Henry up at Silver
Pond. You were swimming and everything appeared normal. After that you
vanished, you and Justin both. There have been no sightings of either of you
since then.”

“We were
swimming.” Adam closed his eyes and concentrated on the idea of swimming,
imagining his arms cutting through the water, feeling the coolness on his skin,
and he settled his breathing.

Nothing. Not even
a sense memory or a feeling.

“Sorry.” He opened
his eyes and looked at Ryan directly. “I don’t have anything to add about
that.”

“But you do have
something to add?” Ryan asked perceptively.

Adam caught his
upper lip between his teeth and dug his nails into the palms of his hands. The
slight burn of pain stopped him from crying, which was exactly what he wanted
to do at that moment.

“I have these…
feelings,” he began. Ryan nodded encouragement and didn’t look as if he
believed Adam was going mad. “I knew about Smoke, my horse—not that it was a horse,
but I could link the word Smoke. And then I have dreams. Well, nightmares,
actually.”

“Can you give me
any details of the nightmares? Anything that might be a concrete thing?”

Adam touched a
finger to his neck, to the slightly rougher skin there. “I have scars, and last
night I dreamed I was in a fire, an explosion.”

“Do you know
where?”

Adam shook his
head. “There are trees, a cabin, and fire.”
And Justin lying unmoving on the
floor.
But he didn’t add that. To say the words meant that his worst fears
were true and Ethan’s brother was dead.

“Does it feel
local to here? Do you recall any details at all?”

“All I know is
that it hurt and burned. There were chemicals, a smell of burning, and Justin
was there.”

“Was he burned as
well?”

“I think so.” Adam’s
voice was a little shaky and he coughed to clear his throat. “But that’s just a
nightmare, something I could have made up in my head. You can’t tell Ethan
yet.”

Ryan made a note on
the file. “Everything you say in this room is between you and me.”

“But he’s a cop. He
can find things out.” Adam stopped himself there, aware he sounded like he was
hiding something.

Ryan didn’t call
him on it; he looked at Adam steadily. “I haven’t written down anything about
Justin, other than you recall he was there.”

“I dreamed he was
there,” Adam corrected hurriedly.

“Exactly. But you
want my advice?” He paused and Adam waited for the rest of it. “Don’t have
secrets.”

“I don’t know if I
can tell what a secret is and what isn’t,” Adam said. “I just know I don’t want
Ethan to think Justin is gone.”

Ryan nodded. “Is
there anything else you want to tell me?”

“No, there’s
nothing.”

“Ethan knows how
to contact me if you recall any details you think I should know.”

They shook hands
and Ryan left
.
Ethan
came in to get him and
it took
all of Adam’s willpower not to fall into Ethan and
just
hang on tight. Ethan smiled at him, an
encouraging smile, and it was enough, along with Ryan’s words, to break him.
Everything came out of him in a rush of heat and emotion.

“I dreamed about
being burned, and Justin was there, and I don’t know if what I saw was the
truth, but he wasn’t moving.”

Ethan stopped in
his tracks, his smile vanishing in an instant. “Really?” he asked, and his
voice was quiet and small.

Adam stepped
closer, held out a hand in entreaty. “It was a dream, Ethan.”

Ethan backed away,
but it wasn’t so much to avoid Adam as to find something to lean on. All the
positive energy in the man seemed to have slipped away. “I always knew this
could happen.”

“You don’t know if
it’s real.”

“What are the
chances he’s still alive? Maybe my dad was right.”

Temper and focused
determination sparked inside Adam, something that had eluded him in a while.
“Stop that,” he snapped, and he stepped right up into Ethan’s space. “You were
looking for us, and you found me, and not once did you give up on us.”

“But you saw—”

“I had a
dream
,
Ethan, it was nothing more than a dream, my subconscious playing tricks on me,
making a construct to fit with the fact I have burn scars on my neck.”

Ethan raised an
eyebrow. “A construct?”

“Shit I make up,”
Adam qualified.

“I know that, but
that’s a word that doesn’t seem right coming out of your mouth.”

Adam grimaced, “The
freaking doctor was always using it, something about the construct of my
current to former to… shit, ignore that. I’m angry with you, stop deflecting.”

“What did I do?”
Ethan’s eyes widened and he looked like he didn’t know what the hell Adam was
talking about.

“You gave up,”
Adam poked Ethan squarely in the chest. “Maybe only for ten seconds, but for
that short time, you lost hope. We’re not giving up, okay? I’m going to
remember everything and we
will
find Justin. Alive.”

By this time they
were so close that Adam could see the different striations of color in Ethan’s
gray eyes.

Ethan said
quietly, “I won’t give up.”

“And your dad
wasn’t right to give up. Say it.”

“I’m not a kid,
Adam—”

“Say it. Say ‘my
dad should not have given up on seeing Justin and his friend Adam again.’”

Ethan closed his
eyes tight and his breath left him in an exaggerated huff. “It isn’t that
easy.” He opened his eyes again, and Adam, fascinated, watched the pupils
shrink. “He had to feel a certain way to be able to get through each door in
this journey. Had to shut himself down to deal with the grief. Hell, I ran off
to be a cop and hardly ever come home. I don’t blame him for what he had to do.”

Compassion welled
inside Adam. Ethan couldn’t see it, but he did blame his dad, and why shouldn’t
he? Marcus was a father to two sons, not just one, and Ethan had only been in
his late teens himself; he’d needed his dad to help him deal with their grief
together.

“But, Ethan, you
do blame him, and you have every right to. I don’t know everything here, but
something is going on between you two, and whatever you argued about, whatever
he did, I happen to think you choosing to have hope was the best way to be.”

They left the
office, walking a little way up the hill before Ethan stopped. He evidently had
other things he wanted to say. He cradled Adam’s face, his thumbs tracing
across Adam’s cheekbones, avoiding all the little bruises and cuts still healing
on his face. “You know, when they sent me a photo, I couldn’t recognize you
because your face was so severely beaten.”

“The freak show in
the mirror,” Adam murmured. He’d seen himself; whoever had hit him was aiming
for his face, temper-driven hits that he didn’t remember, that he never wanted
to remember.

“Your cheekbone
was fractured and your eyes could have been damaged.”

“I know, but they
didn’t break my nose, so I’m still pretty.” Adam felt like the levity was
needed, and was rewarded by Ethan smiling, just a little.

“They had a
theory, the local cops at UC, that whoever did this was interrupted and
couldn’t finish what he started. That this person who stripped you of identity
was beating your face because it was personal.”

Adam swallowed.
They’d said the same thing to him in the hospital, two cops looking down at him
with pity and shock, horror even, asking him if he could picture who had done
this. “Feels pretty personal to me,” he said.

Ethan continued
the soft stroking, and Adam’s gaze dropped to his mouth, seeing the tip of
Ethan’s tongue as it wet his lips. He was hard, the tension of the last hour
enough to have him feeling like he wanted to crawl out of his skin while
standing here trying to be all compassionate and caring, and all he wanted was
to kiss Ethan.

“We’ll find him,”
he said. More for words to say than to extend the conversation. Ethan’s fingers
stilled their movement and he slid them up into Adam’s hair, carefully avoiding
the bruised, hurt parts.

“When you
disappeared…,” Ethan began. “The last thing you said to me was that we’d talk
later. I’d told you some shit about how I felt.”

“Was it shit? You
say that like you didn’t mean what you said.”

“I was a seventeen-year-old kid
in love for the first time. You said you
felt the same way, and we had this talk about what would happen next, how you
would tell your dad what had happened, how you were sure that Cole would have
your back. But Justin came in; he saw us kissing, and he left.”

“Was he angry?”

Ethan closed his
eyes for a moment. “He didn’t look angry—sad, maybe. He just said one thing to
us, more to you, actually, and I will never forget the words. ‘Your dad will
kill you.’ Then he left.”

Emotion choked
Adam. “What happened after that?”

“I started to go
after him, but you stopped me. Said you’d find him and talk to him.” Ethan
stopped and rested his forehead against Adam’s.

“And?” Adam
prompted.

“That was the last
I saw of either of you.”

“Fuck, Ethan.”

“Justin was
arguing with Dad, I could hear it, but I didn’t see Justin.”

“Do you think
Justin would have approved? Of what you say we felt back then?”

Ethan sighed, and
the puff of breath warmed across Adam’s lips. “I like to think so,” he finally
said.

Adam rested his
hands on Ethan’s hips and tugged him a little closer. Suddenly it seemed
imperative that they be a lot closer. Ethan didn’t argue, and finally they were
as close as they could be. Ethan couldn’t fail to notice how hard Adam was.

“I really want to
kiss you,” Ethan murmured.

“You can,” Adam
said.

“It feels wrong—”

Adam wasn’t ready
for more talking about morals and timing; he wanted to feel, to let his
instinct prove that he and Ethan should kiss. He pressed his lips to Ethan’s,
tilting his head to deepen the kiss as much as he could
even
with Ethan’s
fingers still in his hair.

At first Ethan was
tense, but he didn’t loosen his grip on Adam’s hair, if anything, he tightened
his hold. Then the kiss deepened, his tongue dueling and tasting just as much
as Adam’s. Ethan was as hard, as demanding, and Adam knew for sure he was meant
to be with him. He couldn’t remember anything else, but his body knew exactly
what it wanted.