The Ranchers Son (21 page)

“I want to
remember Justin,” Adam said.

“Yeah, well, let’s
say for now I’ll remember him for both of us, okay?”

Adam didn’t really
have much choice in that, but with recollections and feelings twining to piece
together a reliable narrative, surely it wouldn’t be long before he recalled
what had happened to Justin.

He hoped so.

A few days passed
without incident. Adam could see Ethan was on edge, almost jumping at shadows,
but he couldn’t help his lover, so he tried to distract him.

“When do you go
back to work?” was the latest question.

Ethan was avoiding
answering directly. He made references to “making decisions,” and “looking at
all his options,” but there was something he wasn’t saying.

Adam had finally
convinced Ethan to talk to him. They even walked down to Branches for coffee;
Ethan promised he’d explain about work and what was happening.

Only, nothing went
according to plan.

Ethan came to a
dead stop about six feet from Branches, his gaze firmly fixed on a car in the
parking lot—a rental car, small and bright red—and a tall man literally
unfolding himself to get out.

“What’s wrong?”
Adam asked. He looked from Ethan’s face and back to the man, and abruptly a
memory smacked into him with all the subtlety of a brick.

He started running
at the same time as the man in the parking lot did. He knew this man.

Cole
was here.

His brother was
here.

They reached each
other by the bridge. Cole’s hug lifted Adam off his feet; his grip was so hard
that it really freaking hurt.

None of the pain
mattered—Cole was here.

Cole, who loved
him and looked out for him, who protected him from their dad. Cole, who taught
him to write his letters and took care of anything that might hurt him.

“Fuck,” Cole was
saying over and over, “I didn’t believe them, but it’s you.”

He finally set
Adam down, but gripped him by the biceps and held him firmly, examining his
face, his dark eyes wet with emotion.

“Hey,” Adam said.
He knew this man. He didn’t have a single missing memory about what Cole meant
to him, everything flooding back: all the feelings and emotions and the small
moments locked in his room, hearing their dad crashing about outside,
threatening all kinds of shit for imagined transgressions.

“Jesus,” Cole said
and hugged him again. “Fuck,” he repeated. His vocabulary was restricted mostly
to curses and exclamations of disbelief.

They parted again
and, this time, Adam got a better look at his big brother. Cole had a black eye
and looked like shit.

“You look like
shit.” He said the first thing he thought. “Is the Navy hard work for you?

“Sailing ships
isn’t easy, kid. And you look pretty shit, too.”

They teased each
other. Arm in arm they walked up to Ethan, who held out a hand to shake Cole’s.
Cole pulled him into a hug instead, cursing, but this time with added thank-yous.

And all Adam could
think was that all he needed was one more huge meet-up to happen, and his
memories might all come flooding back.

Later, when he and
Ethan were alone, he would tell him exactly what he recalled about the last few
words they’d exchanged, when fifteen-year-old Adam told Ethan he was in love
with him.

How he’d recalled
saying the words even as another memory formed clearly in his head.

And how, at
twenty-eight, he still felt the same way.

Dinner was a huge,
messy, complicated affair. Adam got to meet Josh, Ashley’s youngest, who had gone
to Germany with his school, and had only come back that morning. He was a good
kid and he loved Gabe, that much was obvious. In fact, Josh gave so many hugs
to both his mom and Gabe, that Adam thought they might lose their patience with
him.

I don’t think
we ever hugged Dad.

The thought came
unbidden, and he caught Cole’s gaze. They exchanged rueful grins. They were
back together, with all their shared secrets and experiences, and it felt
right. Even if he was remembering the bad stuff.

“Okay,” Sam announced, bringing in a huge
pot and placing it in the middle of the large table. “Boeuf bourguignon,” he said.

“Beef stew,” Gabe explained to Josh, who’d
stood up to peer inside the large pot.

They ate until the pot was empty. Sam joined
them and proved to be the life and soul of the party. He was vivacious and loud
and opinionated and funny, and Adam’s mood stayed high as they chatted about
seafood that Sam was sure Adam would love.

The table hushed, and Adam realized he’d
missed something. He turned away from Sam to see what it was, to see Gabe
kneeling on the floor right in front of Ashley.

Gabe cleared his throat and even shot a
quick look at Adam. Was he looking for reassurance? Adam gave him a small smile
of encouragement.

“Ashley, will you and Josh and Kirsten
marry me?”

Ashley didn’t even have to think about it.
“Yes. Oh my God, yes.”

Everyone cheered and whistled, and there
was so much love around the table that abruptly Adam needed some air.

Cole must have felt the same way, and they
walked outside together into the cooling April night, huddling in their coats
against the bridge.

“You don’t know how good it is it to see
you,” Cole started. “When you left, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to
live through.”

“I still don’t know why I left, not really.
I don’t know what I saw or why I promised to stay away.” Cole pulled out
cigarettes and lit one. “I didn’t know you smoked,” Adam commented.

Cole exhaled a perfect circle of smoke and
shook his head. “It’s a new habit. Keeps me calm.”

“Does it really?” Adam was curious. Their
dad had smoked, and he’d reeked of nicotine: his breath, his hands. He wasn’t a
social smoker—lighting up wherever the damn hell he pleased, or that was what
he said.

“No, it’s something I picked up after Mary
and I divorced. Navy life, you know.”

“What is it you do?” Adam asked. “In the
Navy, I mean.”

Cole took one final drag, exhaled, and then
put the cigarette out on the brick. He didn’t throw the butt on the floor, just
held it.

He wasn’t looking at Adam in the face, and
instinct had Adam thinking bad things. Cole was a big man, way bigger than him.
He was the same height as Adam, but he had muscles on muscles, and there was a
dangerous edge to him. It was a wonder he fit in any kind of uniform.

“I’m a SEAL,” he admitted. “They couldn’t
reach me because I was—” He paused, clearly searching for the right words. “—busy,”
he finished lamely.

Adam’s mouth fell open. Cole was a Navy
SEAL? “No shit.”

Cole shrugged and smiled. “Yeah.”

Adam punched him in the chest, not hard—a
love tap, nothing else. “My big bad SEAL brother.”

“Yeah.” Cole said with pride on his face,
but he was also saying it as if he wasn’t sure he should be showing any pride at
all.

“I’m so proud of you,” Adam said.

“There’s something else.”

“I’m not sure anything can beat you being a
SEAL.”

“You’re an uncle. I married a girl I met
just before I tried out for the SEALs. Poor woman said yes. Her name is Zoe,
and we had a baby boy. He’s just two now.”

“I’m an uncle? What’s his name?”

“Bradley. We call him Brad.”

And like that they stood by the bridge and
talked, and one by one Adam pieced together some more memories. Added to that
was the fact his brother sounded like the best brother a man could wish for,
that Adam was an uncle, and his place in the world was becoming more grounded
and settled. He had a purpose.

He liked that feeling.

The dinner broke
up at ten or so, and it was obvious that Cole would be staying in the Strachan
house. Ethan announced he would be up later, which caused Cole to smirk and
made Adam feel loved and wanted. Ethan wasn’t going to be put off him now Cole
was back, and that was a good sign.

“You’re in my old
room, though,” Adam said. “If that’s okay? I was using yours.”

Cole didn’t argue;
he didn’t seem to care. Although he did hesitate as they crossed the threshold
into the house. “All I need is a floor,” he said. He stopped and did a full
three sixty. “Seems smaller somehow.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah. You know
the old man filled it with all his bluster and his crap.”

“I don’t really
remember, but from what I hear, he was a mean bastard.”

Cole turned to him.
“Yeah, quick to temper and use his hands.”

Adam felt like he
wanted to be honest with Cole. “That’s why I can’t sleep in my room, I can’t
settle myself to sleep when the feeling in there is wrong, so I’ve been using
yours. I’ll move out.”

Cole stopped Adam
with a hand to his arm. “I’ll sleep out here, if that’s okay.” He dumped his duffel
on the sofa and sat in the middle of it, bouncing to test it out. “Beats the
sand,” he muttered.

“Is that where you
were?” Adam asked. He sat down next to his brother and knocked shoulders.

“I can’t say,”
Cole said, then changed the subject. “So, you and Ethan
,
then.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a good man.
Kept on looking when I couldn’t. Kept the hope the same as I did. He loved you
the same as I did.” Cole slumped a little and yawned. “Well, kind of different,
I guess, seeing as you’re sharing a room.”

“How did you know
that?”

“I didn’t, but I
do now.”

“I’d forgotten you
were an asshole,” Adam grumped. Then he brightened. “Actually I’ve forgotten
everything about you. Maybe that’s a good thing.”

Cole leaned into
him. “You’re the asshole, little brother.”

“Whatever, Cock Breath,”
Adam responded in age-old tradition.

And there it was
again, another recollection of words he used to say to his brother.

“Bring it, Spider
Puke.”

“Oh my God, I
remember that nickname,” he announced. And he did, in all its technicolor
glory, him in his Spiderman PJs with vomit all down the front. The name had
stuck, and now it was back in his head.

A knock on the
door had Adam answering it, surprised to see Ethan hovering on the doorstep.

“Why did you
knock?” he asked, although he knew the answer. He didn’t wait for Ethan to
respond, just grabbed some of his lover’s shirt and yanked him in. “Get in
here, idiot.”

“Thought you might
want time with Cole,” Ethan said.

“I do, but I want
him to know us as a couple.” Adam attempted to explain, aware he sounded like an
idiot, albeit a poetic one.

“Get in here, E,”
Cole yelled from the sofa. “Shut the door and bring beer!”

Adam grabbed beers
for Cole and Ethan, water for himself, and they all sat on the sofa, wriggling
around until Adam was half on Ethan’s lap so that he could face his brother.

“Okay, Ethan, just
to get this out of the way,” Cole said. “You hurt my little brother, and I will
find you and kill you, and you won’t even see it coming.”

Then he ruined the
whole effect by smirking.

But Adam felt
something warm in his chest at the threat, and at Ethan’s answer.

“Don’t plan on
ever hurting him.” He punctuated the announcement with a kiss.

The three men
talked for the longest time, until it was clear Cole was giving in to sleep.

“Time to sleep,”
Adam announced. And when he lay on his brother’s old bed, wrapped in Ethan’s
arms, listening to the sound of Ethan’s rhythmic breathing, he relaxed.

And he felt safe. Utterly
safe and completely wrapped in love.

Only as he was on
the edge of sleep did he realize that Cole’s arrival meant he and Ethan hadn’t
covered what was going on with Ethan’s work, or made it up to Silver Pond.

Tomorrow’s
another day.

Ethan reined in Diablo
and tried to make it look as if the horse had stopped as opposed to Ethan needing
to take a few moments to gather his thoughts.

The fork that was the
path up to the lake was there in front of him, and the shiver down his spine
wasn’t unexpected. The last time he’d been up here had been in the mad search
to try and find Justin and Adam. He’d swum every inch of the lake, of Silver Pond,
checked every part of it, and then he’d left and never gone back.

Cole drew up next to
him; he was riding Juno and looked unsettled in the saddle.

“You okay?” Ethan asked
to take the attention away from himself.

“I prefer boats,” Cole
muttered darkly. “Always did.”

For someone who grew up
around horses, it struck Ethan as funny that Cole had moaned about getting up
on the back of Nate’s mount. Cole had never been the greatest with horses,
finding a mountain bike the better way to get around the ranch. He didn’t have
horses in his blood like Nate did.

“Suck it up, Sailor,”
Adam teased as he moved past the two men.

Cole gave his brother
the finger, and with a press of his heels, followed Adam up the hill and onto
the new trail that would eventually level out at the lake and on to
Silver Pond.

Recently too many memories had cascaded into
Adam’s mind at once, and Ethan was scared and not afraid to admit it.

Ethan desperately hoped that Adam recalled
Justin—that he pulled back every memory of what happened—and then he equally
didn’t want it. He saw the pain in Adam when a memory hit, the headaches, the
frown. At least he wasn’t passing out now whenever the past hit him hard.

Ethan caught up with the other two, but hung
back and let Adam lead wherever they needed to go. Adam said he’d know, and if
he didn’t know, Ethan knew he’d make it up.

Announcements like that made Ethan love the
man even more. For someone with so much shit heaped on him, he was remarkably stable.
A few breakthroughs in temper, and some down times, but for the most part he
was thoughtful and focused.

Adam was trying really hard to remember
Justin. Too hard. He wanted Ethan to talk about him, and sometimes that was the
worst part of all this.

In keeping the hope, Ethan had to focus on
a future Justin was a part of, and not think about the past where Justin
vanished.

Saunders hadn’t come back with anything on
Justin being in witness protection; in fact he’d given Ethan a fuck ton of
nothing in the way of help. Just locked files and red tape so deep not even
Jen’s hacker brother-in-law could find his way through.

The trail narrowed and the three of them
moved into single file, Adam ahead, Cole and a huffing, temperamental Juno
behind him, and Ethan in the back. Maybe a quarter mile more and the path would
end. A few more minutes of safety and the last part of the ranch would be
spread out in front of Adam.

Adam stopped when the path ended. Cole attempted
to, but Juno decided to veer off to the left. Ethan reined in next to Adam and
looked at him expectantly. Frustration was carved into Adam’s face, and he
looked at Ethan with a scowl before shutting his eyes, still frowning.

“You don’t have to try so hard,” Ethan
murmured.

He dismounted and tied Easy up, drawing
Juno to the same place and watching Cole curse and moan as he dismounted.

“I bet Nate told his fucking horse to piss
me off,” he groused, although the words were said with a quirk of his lips.

“Yeah, ’cause Nate talks to horses,” Ethan
said.

“Nate has magic where horses are concerned.”
Cole scruffed Juno’s muzzle and got an answering snort for his attempt to bond.

“Juno here is the most placid horse in this
entire place.”

“Tell that to my ass,” Cole said.

“SEALs are real wimps,” Ethan teased, sure
he was going to get a rise from Cole.

It worked, but when he found himself in a
headlock, shouting uncle, he realized he may have pushed it a little too far.

“Who’s the wimp now, Allens?”

“Guys!” Adam’s voice interrupted their
horseplay and both men separated quickly.

“What?” Ethan asked.

Adam had dismounted and now stood at the end
of the jetty that jutted out into the lake. He crouched at the side and peered
into the water. “Come see this. I don’t know what it is.”

Ethan and Cole walked over and crouched
next to Adam. They both got a face full of scooped water.

“Fucker,” Cole spluttered.

All Ethan could feel was lightness inside
him that Adam was smiling.

“Owned a cop”—Adam drew a one in the air—“and
a SEAL”—he added another one and grinned. Then, before either Ethan or Cole
could react, Adam began to remove his jeans. “So, where do we need to swim?”

Ethan hesitated. It was April; the water would
be cold until you swam enough to get to Silver Pond over to the left of the
lake. That water was part of a geothermally heated spring-water pond, but it
wasn’t reachable by horse or on foot; you had to swim there. When the boys
disappeared in March of 2004, it had been unseasonably mild but, even then, the
investigating cops had near laughed away the idea that the boys had been
swimming.

They didn’t understand that all the boys at
the ranch were hardened to the cold water because what was at the end was a
pool of pure, idyllic warmth.

“About thirty yards that way,” Ethan said
and pointed at the outcrop.

The sun was warm on their skins. Not the
warmth of summer, but the chill-edged heat of spring promise.

Adam dipped a toe in the water. “Fuck, it’s
cold.”

Ethan didn’t hear the words; he just stared
at Adam in his shorts, with his entire raft of tattoos now in plain sight.

“Jesus, Adam, what did you do, sleep with a
tattoo artist?” Cole traced the horse tattoo on Adam’s back. “That is
gorgeous.” He flexed his own arm to show off the thick band of tribal design he
had around his bicep.

“Nice work,” Adam commented, but Ethan
could see he was distracted.

The comment about sleeping with the tattoo
artist had to have hit a nerve. He could see it had when Adam glanced at him
with a look of confusion in his eyes.

“Race you,” Cole said and, with a smooth
dive, he was in the lake and making his way to the pond. He’d always been the
best swimmer out of them all, but to see him literally power through the water
was impressive.

“He’s pretty cool,” Adam noted. “As big
brothers go.”

“Yeah, he is.”

“Still, the idiot left me here just with
you, and there is no way I’ll be able to swim.”

Ethan touched his arm, “So we’ll float
over, I’ll support you.”

“Okay, deal.” Adam rubbed a hand on his
chest and looked over the water at the rapidly vanishing Cole.

“You sure about this?” Ethan asked. He
stood closer and rested his hand over Adam’s, right over his heart. “What if
you get cold? Your face and ribs—”

“I’ll be okay. I need to do this.”

“Let’s take it slowly.”

“You mean I can’t dive in—all SEAL-dramatic—and
then power over using all my big, brawny muscles.” Adam raised his arm and
flexed his muscle, which was quite impressive and likely a result of working at
a ranch in Wyoming.

Ethan kissed him briefly, pressed a quick
squeeze to Adam’s shoulder, and then he turned to face the water. “You first,”
he said. “I’ve got your back.”

Adam went in much more slowly, cursing a
storm as the cold water closed over him. It wasn’t ice. Even this part of the
lake was slightly heated by the warm water spilling over from the pond. The
lake was one of those left behind when the ice age carved its way through the
mountain, with water so clear you could see the shingle and stones at the
bottom.

Ethan followed Adam staying always next to
him. Adam wasn’t so much swimming as floating with style and, every so often,
Ethan nudged him to keep up his momentum.

They finally made it to the rocks that
formed a natural barrier to Silver Pond. The warm water spilled over the top, a
waterfall of warmth, and they stayed under it until Ethan was sure Adam had stopped
shivering.

Then they clambered over the rocks and
stopped short of getting into the water. Ethan was ready to get in, but Adam
had stopped dead. He sat on the rock, his feet in the water.

“You okay?” Ethan asked, realizing it was
probably a stupid question. Of course Adam wasn’t okay; he probably wasn’t
anywhere near okay. Ethan examined him critically.

A whole lot of bruising had disappeared,
and his eye wasn’t as swollen as when they first met in the hospital. He said
his chest didn’t hurt as much; last night he’d slept without pain medication,
albeit restlessly.

Ethan knew Adam had been restless because
he hadn’t been able to sleep very much himself and had spent most of the night
staring at him.

“I’m just waiting,” Adam answered. He
reached out and gripped Ethan’s hand, lacing their fingers, then tipped his
head back to the sun.

Ethan didn’t have to ask what he was
waiting for. A memory of some sort. For a while he watched Adam, then focused
on Cole, who was cutting from one side of the pond to the other, mostly
underwater, crossing the fifty feet or so in seconds. At each turn at their end,
he would surface and check on Ethan and Adam, but he didn’t stop.

“Let’s go in,” Adam said.

Ethan focused on him then and helped him
into the water, until they were lazily floating, with Cole swimming around
them. If Ethan closed his eyes, he could almost imagine them as they used to
be. Nate would be in here with them, Gabe and Justin as well. This was their
pond, their place.

Cole had made his way over to the start of
the caves, as the boys had named the eroded indentations in the side of the
pond. Every so often he would dart out of one and into another, and at the last
one, when he came out he subtly shook his head.

He’d found nothing; there was nothing to
see.

That didn’t surprise Ethan. Visitors to the
ranch knew about the pond. Hell, it was in the brochure and on the website. Any
sign of anything that had happened that day in 2004 would have long gone, and
he knew damn well he’d gone over every part of it himself in the days after the
boys vanished.

Adam was treading water now. He must have
found a shelf of rock, steadying himself and sinking a little so the water was up
to his chin. Then he closed his eyes, and peace stole across his face.

Ethan trod water until he found the same
shelf, standing on it and ducking much the same as Adam did, and he half
watched Adam, the rest of his focus on Cole, who was now climbing the rocks on
the other side. Cole reached the top, stretching tall, hands on hips, he did a
full three-sixty before crouching down, then sitting on the topmost rock.

“I think it was a way to reconnect with
what he loved,” Adam murmured.

Ethan looked back at Adam; he still had his
eyes closed. Was he seeing memories? Ethan didn’t know what was the best thing
to do. Should he ask questions or just listen?

Adam continued. “We came here because he
told me he was jealous, angry-jealous. That he always thought it would be me
and him, not you and me.”

Ethan’s chest tightened. Was Adam talking
about Justin?

“He told me about Colin, and the dance, and
how it was all show, and why didn’t I get that it should have been me there
with him.” Adam smiled in among his memories. “I told him I’d always love him,
that we were closer than brothers, but I wanted his brother. He just said he
knew, and he was used to things not going right in his life. I knew where it
was going. He was going to use the whole “my mom died for me,” self-pity thing,
and I stopped him, called him on his bullshit, got him out of his headspace,
and we left the lake.”

Adam opened his eyes. “We left the lake,”
he said softly.

Ethan hesitated to talk, not wanting to
break the connection Adam had to the past, but he thought maybe Adam wanted
direction and that was why he was looking at him. “Where did you go next?”