A Desperate Man

by Tia Fielding

  “You were right, I did need sleep,” he admitted, and Karen gave him a tired smile.

  A nurse came in and Karen nodded at him. It seemed like he’d been on the shift all night.

  “I’m going to go get breakfast. Quinn here is keeping an eye on Ian while I’m gone,” she said before slipping out of the room.

  “I’m the nephew,” Quinn said, giving the guy a little wave.

  The nurse chuckled. “I’m Gio. She told me you were here with her.”

  Gio went on checking things here and there. None of it made sense to Quinn, he wasn’t in any way hospital equipment savvy despite having been hooked to them himself a couple of times more than he’d like to admit. But even Quinn knew that the way Gio’s eyebrows twitched when he took another reading wasn’t a good thing.

  Gio pressed the call button, and just as he moved his hand off it, Ian’s body tensed and a loud beeping started from more than one machine.

  For a moment that stretched on, but must’ve been less than ten seconds, Quinn sat there in shock. This was really it. He felt numb, then his senses pinpointed to the bed and what was going in and around it.

  Tearing his attention away, Quinn got out of the chair as medical personnel started to filter in, and with one last look at his uncle, he left the room.

  He stayed leaning to the wall next to the door to Ian’s door. By the time Karen walked toward him, raised her gaze and spotted him, the nurses and doctors were already gone.

  Quinn had just enough time to rush to Karen and catch her as she collapsed.

  The drive home took forever. Karen sat in the passenger’s seat, never saying a word during the whole drive.

  When he drove into her yard, she turned to look at him.

  “Thank you, Quinn.” Her voice was raspy from the crying. “I’ll start the funeral arrangements for hopefully tomorrow. We had a plan with the funeral home and the priest Ian liked the most, so it should be…” The words drifted off mid-sentence as her gaze wandered away from his face.

  He knew grief and shock. He reached over to squeeze her fingers. “Do you want me to stay?”

  She jerked, then smiled sadly at him. “I’ll call or text you. Ian wanted to be buried at midday, so once it’s all settled…”

  “Tomorrow. Alright. I’ll come by first thing in the morning.” He gave her hand another squeeze and let her go.

  The way she held herself and even the way she walked seemed numb. Quinn wondered if this was how Aaron’s mother had looked after that night.

  He watched Karen until she was inside the house, and then drove off, toward Aaron’s place. Quinn didn’t want to, couldn’t be alone right then. It was only afternoon, but he needed company and he didn’t have it in him to go find his no-good fucking cousin yet.

  Chapter 16

  Aaron didn’t hear from Quinn for the rest of the day. Charlie came by after her shift to collect Lennox, and brought takeout burgers from the diner. They ate around the rickety kitchen table, and then Charlie told Lennox to go put his bag in her car.

  She lingered for a moment at the front door, watching to see he did as he was told. “Feels like a storm coming, doesn’t it?”

  Aaron pressed his mouth into a thin line. “Something’s coming.”

  “Have you heard from Quinn?”

  Aaron shook his head.

  “I don’t like this waiting game,” Charlie said, her breath coming out in a sigh. “Makes me antsy.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Aaron thought of the few beers left in the refrigerator, but no. Not tonight. Not when he might need a clear head at any moment. He couldn’t deny the itch was there though, the thirst. He’d told Charlie he wasn’t an alcoholic, but maybe he was a hell of a lot closer to one than he wanted to admit. “What are they saying in town?”

  “Either that Ian’s already dead, or that he’s strong as an ox and will outlive us all.” Charlie’s mouth quirked into a wry smile. “Nobody knows, basically.”

  “Mom?” Lennox yelled from the car. “What are you doing? Are we going home?”

  “He’s not usually this much of a brat,” Charlie said.

  “Don’t lie,” Aaron said, trying to keep a straight face. “He’s your kid, of course he is.”

  She snorted and then punched him in the shoulder. “If anything happens, call me, okay?”

  “Yeah. Same to you.” He watched them drive away.

  He didn’t sleep well that night. Thoughts of Quinn kept him tossing and turning. Was Quinn okay? Was Jimmy coming for him next? Not for the first time, Aaron realized he had absolutely no idea how things worked in the MacGregors’ world. Quinn had always obviously loved Ian—actual love, not just the fearful obedience he’d shown his father—and Aaron had never understood that. It had seemed impossible that you should be able to love a man like Ian MacGregor who, even if he wasn’t the worst of his clan, still had very dirty hands. Aaron’s life had always been simpler: his parents had been good people and he’d loved them. He hadn’t known what it was like to love a bad person. Not until Quinn.

  Unease stirred in his gut.

  No, it wasn’t that simple. Quinn wasn’t a bad person, not back when they were teenagers, and not now. Everyone had always thought he was though. Everyone except maybe Aaron’s dad, who’d told Quinn that he deserved better, that he was better.

  Aaron’s fitful sleep was disturbed for good just past seven in the morning, when Charlie turned up with Lennox again.

  “Call me if you hear anything,” she told him.

  “You going to work?” Aaron asked, eyeing her diner uniform.

  “I have bills, Aaron,” Charlie said. “I don’t get to burn my bridges in this town. Not until I have to.”

  Aaron didn’t like her answer, but neither of them had heard from Quinn yet. They were stuck waiting until they did, so what did it matter if Charlie worked a shift at the diner while they killed time? He nodded. “Okay.”

  “If anything happens…”

  “I’ll call you,” Aaron said. “I know.”

  Charlie climbed back into her car and drove away.

  Lennox watched her, his nose wrinkled, and his fingers gripping the straps of his backpack tightly.

  * * * *

  It took Aaron about two hours to realize he had nothing to feed a kid. Or himself, either. The few slices of bread he had left were half stale and half moldy, and he didn’t even have anything for the kid to drink except tap water.

  “Let’s go to the grocery store,” he said, and Lennox grinned and scrambled to his feet.

  Aaron remembered his last trip to the grocery store, and how he’d been juggling his crutches and his grocery bags, and what a trial it had been. Today he was wearing his prosthetic, and Lennox was happily lugging their basket of soda, bread, peanut butter, and snacks. Aaron pretended not to notice when Lennox slid a pack of Junior Mints into the basket.

  The sudden flash of memory hit him hard.

  Ten years ago, in this same store, and this exact same aisle. Watching Quinn, a too-innocent-to-be-real expression on his face, pick up a pack of candy and slide it into the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie.

  Aaron’s jaw had dropped.

  “What are you gonna do, sheriff’s kid?” Quinn had asked in an undertone, eyes dancing with mischief. “You gonna call your daddy?”

  A thrill—part outrage, part desire—had rushed through him. And later, he and Quinn had shared the candy in the gully off Albertson Road, trading candy and kisses back and forth, grinding against each other until they came in their jeans.

  Aaron blinked, and stared at Quinn’s kid. Jesus. Quinn had a kid—strange how Aaron sometimes almost forgot, then it came back for another hit in his gut.

  Lennox was no MacGregor. He blinked guiltily up at Aaron, his hand wavering over the Junior Mints in the basket. “I can…I can put them back?”

  “Keep ‘em,” Aaron said. “Hell, get another box.”

  Lennox grinned broadly, and put another box in the basket. “Thanks, Uncle Aaron
!”

  “Uncle Aaron,” someone said from behind him.

  Aaron turned quickly, his heart racing. Shit. It was Jimmy MacGregor, standing right here in the candy aisle of the local grocery store like it was any other day, and his father wasn’t lying in a hospital bed in Vegas right now. Like Jimmy hadn’t put him there.

  Aaron resisted the urge to reach out and pull Lennox closer. You didn’t show weakness or fear. Not with a guy like Jimmy MacGregor. That had been true since elementary school.

  “Cute,” Jimmy said, a crooked grin breaking out on his face. “Real cute, Larsen.”

  “Hey, Jimmy,” Aaron said. “It’s been a while.”

  “Sure has, sheriff’s kid.”

  When Quinn used to call him that, there had always been a note of teasing challenge in the words, like Quinn was saying it to rile Aaron up, but not in a cruel way. There’s none of that in the way that Jimmy said it. Jimmy wielded the words like a knife, knowing that they’d wound. Wanting them to draw blood and leave scars.

  Jimmy looked rough. He had deep lines around his eyes, and at the corners of his mouth. There were shadows under his eyes that looked permanent, and his teeth were stained. Nicotine and caffeine or something worse, Aaron had no idea.

  Jimmy grinned, and then stepped forward and helped himself to the Junior Mints in Lennox’s basket. “Thanks, kid.”

  And he turned and sauntered away.

  It was so bizarre that Aaron wondered if it was possible he’d imagined the whole thing.

  Lennox let out a slow breath. “That was Jimmy MacGregor,” he whispered loudly.

  “Yeah,” Aaron said.

  “Mom says not to talk to the MacGregors,” Lennox said. He took another pack of Junior Mints from the shelf and put them in the basket. “But she talked to her friend Quinn that time, and he’s a MacGregor.”

  “Quinn’s not like the others,” Aaron said. “Come on, let’s pay for all that.”

  He walked slowly toward the register, making sure that Jimmy was well and truly gone.

  * * * *

  In the parking lot, with Lennox sitting in the front seat of the truck with the windows rolled up so he couldn’t overhear, Aaron called Uncle Will.

  “What’s up, son?” Uncle Will asked. He sounded tense.

  “I just ran into Jimmy MacGregor inside the grocery store,” Aaron said.

  Uncle Will’s voice sharpened. “Did he threaten you?”

  “Nope. Well, not in any words.” Guys like Jimmy MacGregor always knew how to menace people without stepping over that line where the law could do something about it. He’d been a bully all through school, though he’d mostly ignored Aaron. Other kids hadn’t got off so lightly. “Listen, he only just left the grocery store. If you get a deputy here straight away, they might be able to catch him still.”

  “For what?” Uncle Will asked.

  “To arrest him!” Aaron glanced at Lennox through the dusty windshield.

  “Aaron, I don’t have any evidence yet,” Uncle Will said, his voice slow and patient like it was when he explained something to a child.

  “Everyone knows he shot Ian MacGregor!”

  “What people know and what I can charge folks with are very often two different things.” Uncle Will sighed heavily. “Go home, Aaron. The situation is under control, okay? I promise.”

  But what about Quinn? The longer Jimmy was a free man, the more danger Quinn was in. Except he couldn’t tell Uncle Will who Quinn really was, not after Quinn had sworn him and Charlie to secrecy.

  “How is it under control? Jimmy MacGregor is a free man!”

  “Aaron.” There was a hint of steel in Uncle Will’s voice now—he was suddenly very much the sheriff. “I’m telling you that it’s under control, okay?”

  Aaron squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and tried his hardest to believe that. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Go home,” Uncle Will repeated.

  Aaron went home.

  * * * *

  The news hit Spruce Creek that afternoon, like a ripple of water traveling through the dusty streets and filling every hole. Aaron heard it from Charlie when she picked Lennox up; Charlie had heard it from her manager at work, who’d heard it from one of the MacGregor clan.

  Aaron was numb and jittery at the same time.

  Ian MacGregor was dead.

  Aaron was in two minds about it. Ian MacGregor wasn’t a good man—or at least not where the law was concerned—but he was still the fairest of the MacGregors, and the most stable. Not like Robert, and not like Jimmy. Not even like Quinn, who had such wildness in him still.

  Aaron thought about Quinn, and worried about him. He also thought about the beers in the refrigerator, and then went and took them all out. He lined them up beside the kitchen sink and opened every one. Tipped them all down the drain. He hated how much it hurt him to do it, because hadn’t he always told himself it wasn’t an addiction? It wasn’t that bad? A lie.

  The beer swirled away, and Aaron made a coffee instead; black, and as bitter as he could stand it. It burned his throat as he gulped it down, but it took the edge off his cravings for now.

  It was dark and he was sitting in the den when he heard the faint knock at the kitchen door. He climbed awkwardly to his feet and moved into the kitchen. He didn’t turn the light on. He didn’t want whoever was outside to see him before he saw them. Old habits meeting new paranoia.

  “Who is it?” he asked, reaching for the crutch leaning against the wall. Better than nothing if he needed a weapon.

  “It’s me.”

  Quinn.

  Aaron shoved the crutch away and crossed to the door. He drew the latch back and opened it. “Holy shit. Are you okay?”

  Quinn reached out for him, and then stopped as though he’d hesitated. He brushed his knuckles against Aaron’s chest, barely a touch at all, and moved past him into the kitchen. “You got a drink?”

  “Thought you were sober these days,” Aaron said carefully.

  Quinn kept his back to him as he checked the refrigerator. “Yeah, well fuck that.”

  “You’re about two hours too late,” Aaron said. “I tipped the last of them down the sink.”

  Quinn straightened up and slammed the refrigerator shut. He learned against the counter, and laughed. “Of course you did. That’s just my luck, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe it is,” Aaron said. He kept his tone even. “Maybe it’s not a good idea to get fucked up when Jimmy’s going to be gunning for you.”

  Quinn nodded, one hand tapping his thigh restlessly. “Yeah. I just need something, you know?”

  “Then come here,” Aaron said. He couldn’t read Quinn’s expression in the gloom. “I said, come here.”

  Quinn moved towards him.

  Aaron reached out when he was close enough and gripped him by the shirtfront. He pulled him close. He reached his other hand up to grip Quinn’s hair, and tugged his head back, and forced him into a kiss. Quinn growled, but it was all for fucking show because he didn’t make a move to push Aaron away. The kiss was rough, but when had they ever done anything the soft way? By the time Aaron released him, Quinn’s breath was coming in harsh pants. There was something like anger in his face, something like hunger too, and Aaron wasn’t sure if Quinn wanted to punch him or fuck him.

  Quinn didn’t do either. Instead, his expression crumpled and he flung his arms around Aaron’s neck, pressing his face into the crook of his neck and breaking down into silent, wracking sobs.

  Aaron squeezed his stinging eyes shut. He held Quinn tightly, running a hand up and down his spine, feeling every knot under the smooth slide of his soft T-shirt. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know.”

  It felt like a long time passed. Before Quinn lifted his face. He made no move to step away. “This is what it feels like, huh? When some asshole shoots your father?”

  Aaron nodded, his throat tight.

  “He was my uncle,” Quinn said, “but he was more of a father to me than my piece-of-shit dad ev
er was.”

  “I know.”

  “Jesus.” Quinn rubbed a hand over his face. “I gotta call my handler again. And I gotta figure out how to keep Jimmy on a leash before he hands this town over to the Burned Skulls. And I gotta somehow do that without him putting a bullet in my skull.”

  “Put one in his first,” Aaron said.

  Quinn laughed and the sound was harsh. “What?”

  Aaron held his face between his hands. “Put a bullet in his skull first, Quinn, if that’s what it takes.”

  Quinn’s mouth quirked in a smile. “I’m a cop, Aaron. I don’t get to do that.”

  “I don’t want to lose you,” Aaron said. His chest ached. “I can’t lose you.”

  “You won’t,” Quinn said. He pressed his mouth against Aaron’s in a quick, soft kiss. “You won’t.”

  “I love you too,” Aaron said, the words coming out in a rush. “I’ve probably loved you since that day you crashed my party and kissed me. I love you, Quinn MacGregor, even though it’s taken me over ten years to say it.”

  “I know.” Quinn kissed him again. “I’ve always known. You loved me way before I deserved you, Aaron.”

  Aaron shook his head. “No.”

  “It wasn’t just your dad who made me want to be a better man,” Quinn said softly. “It was you too. It was always you.”

  “What happens now?” Aaron asked. Quinn stepped away from him, and Aaron felt suddenly cold. “Quinn?”

  “I can’t be here. I can’t risk you.” Quinn moved to the kitchen door. “But this time, Aaron, I’m coming to find you when it’s over, okay? I’m not waiting another ten years for you.”

  “Okay.” Aaron’s throat swelled with tears he wanted to shed. “You’d better not keep me waiting long.”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” Quinn said with a crooked smile, before he vanished into the darkness.

  The kitchen door swung closed behind him, and the house felt emptier than before.

  Chapter 17

  Quinn battled between telling Aaron and Charlie to get out of town right the fuck now and wanting them to wait so he’d be able to go with. He wanted to keep his family safe, and so far, they were. Except Jimmy was keeping an eye on Aaron and that meant he was also doing the same to Charlie.