When the Devil Wants In

by Cate Ashwood

Matt pushed the thought from his head, reminding himself that Casey hadn’t been completely stable. John had been cleared, and that was more important than Casey’s ramblings. They’d be dealing with the fallout, maybe forever, but Matt couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of relief.

  “You thinkin’ about it?” John asked. They were sitting on the back porch, John’s feet in Matt’s lap.

  Matt shrugged. “Not not thinking about it.”

  “Someone order barbeque and beer?”

  Andy rounded the corner carrying a six-pack and a brown paper bag already dotted with grease.

  “What’re you doin’ here?” John asked, a half smile on his face. It had taken a lot to get John to forgive Andy. In John’s mind, regardless of how many rules Andy broke to make things right, Andy had no business accusing him in the first place. Things were better between them now, but Matt knew it would take a long while before their lives, their friendship, would return to normal.

  Matt didn’t mind. John smiling was still a rare sight, but when it happened, it made everything else fade away.

  “Brought by dinner to celebrate. Just got out of a meetin’ with the captain.”

  “That was quick,” Matt said.

  Andy set the bag down on the edge of the porch and began pulling cardboard containers from it. “Yep. Said it was a clear-cut case. No IAB investigation needed.”

  “That’s great news.” Matt took the beer Andy offered him.

  “It is. They’re still piecing together the details of who Cletus—Casey Randal—really was, but so far it looks like everything he said in the letter lined up with what the forensics pointed to. The results aren’t back from the lab yet, but they’re just a formality now. They’re diggin’ into his finances, phone records, emails, stuff like that, but for now it looks like he went off his meds and things escalated from there. Still not sure why. Might never know,” Matt said.

  “Nope. See what the rest of the investigation turns up, but for now, it’s outta our hands.”

  “You wanna stay? Have a beer?”

  “I can’t. I promised Claire I’d be home for supper.”

  “Isn’t this supper?” John asked.

  “Nah. Thought I’d bring some food by for you guys.” Maybe Andy still felt the need to make amends with John, but he teased, “Neither of you can cook worth a damn.”

  John snorted a laugh but didn’t say anything.

  “Well, thanks,” Matt said. “It was a nice gesture.”

  In truth, John was a fine cook, and the day after the shooting, his mother had brought by enough food to fill two freezers. John had been there when she’d stopped by. Matt had watched the exchange, knowing the casserole she passed to him wasn’t just a casserole.

  In the span of three days, all their lives had changed irrevocably. Matt had no idea what would come next, but he had a job he loved, a partner who had become a friend, and most of all, he had John.

  A few days later, they attended Chloe’s funeral. Bell and Marty invited them to sit with the family. They grieved together and put Chloe to rest beside her brother. At her graveside, watching her casket, covered in flowers, as it was lowered into the ground, John stood stoically next to Matt. Before the first pile of dirt was shoveled onto the grave, John quietly took Matt’s hand. A simple moment, a confession all its own—seen by all but shared between them for comfort and support.

  John had never touched him in public before, and Matt hoped it wouldn’t be the last time. He hoped John was slowly recovering from all his wounds. But only time would tell.

  For the moment, though, hope was enough.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  JOHN PULLED on his boots and tied them as he watched Matt walk around his bedroom. He was already in uniform, both of them ready to head out for the day, but John wanted to pull him back to bed. Sadly, he had other things to do.

  When Matt went to the window and cranked up the little air conditioner, John said, “You should turn it off when ya leave.” As he stood up from the foot of the bed, he added, “Gonna kill your electric bill doin’ that.”

  Matt glanced over his shoulder at John. “Better than killing myself in this heat.” Maybe it was the look on John’s face, or maybe Matt just realized what he’d said, but either way, he winced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean….”

  “S’okay,” John said, taking another step toward Matt. He pulled him close and held his eye. “Ya don’t need to be walkin’ on eggshells for me.” The dust hadn’t exactly settled for John. It’d only been a couple of months since losing Chloe, but some things were getting easier. He didn’t lie awake at night thinking about her. At least not every night. The images of Casey with his brains on the wall, of his own hands covered in Casey’s blood, didn’t flash up in front of him for no reason anymore. For the most part. “It ain’t been easy,” he said quietly. “But I’m not fallin’ apart anymore.” That much was true, at least.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to… talk to someone?”

  They’d had this conversation more times than John could count. “I’m sure.” In truth, he had talked to someone. Talked a lot, actually. He just hadn’t bothered with a shrink.

  The first week after it all happened, just after Chloe’s funeral, John and his daddy took a day, went out away from town, and fished from sunup to sundown. John had still been shell-shocked, still fighting off nightmares—nightmares that seemed to come even when he was awake. But he stood there, on the riverbank in a spot he’d never stepped foot on, a spot his daddy liked so much he’d kept it a secret.

  He and Ray talked for the first time in John’s life about his tour in Panama and then in the first Gulf War, where he’d been on the ground, seen things no one should ever see.

  “It’ll never go away,” his father had said. “Not altogether.” He’d paused to cast his line out. “Just need time is all. Time’ll help.” After a long moment, Ray added, “You and that fella ya like got a lot more in common now than before, I reckon. Let it bring ya closer together, rather than put a wedge in between ya.”

  John had been so surprised in that moment, so stunned that his father would mention Matt at all, that for one heartbeat, he’d forgotten every bad thing that had ever happened. “I will, Daddy.”

  Ray only nodded, watched as John cast his line. Then he said, “Just remember he’s not the only one who’s seen things, not the only one who might could help.”

  And that was that. He and his father went out every week now. Sometimes they’d just stand in silence together, let the solitude and the quiet heal their wounds. And sometimes they’d talk about Chloe, talk about the good things they remembered about her. John wasn’t alone. He wasn’t alone with his grief, and he wasn’t alone with the heartbreak that comes from seeing things you’d rather not. And that seemed to help more than anything.

  Matt’s voice brought him back to the present. “You’re a million miles away all of a sudden.”

  “Just got a lot on my plate today is all.” With a sigh, John leaned in and kissed him, tender at first before he deepened it, let his tongue slide against Matt’s, wrapped his arm around Matt’s waist. Again, he was tempted to throw Matt down on the bed and make him late for work. In the end, though, John pulled back, let himself smile when he looked at Matt. “We best both get on with our days.”

  Matt narrowed his eyes. “What’s so important today that we can’t leave in another twenty minutes?” He was already sliding his hand under John’s shirt.

  “Things,” John said playfully as he pulled back. “Lotsa things.”

  “You’re up to something, but I don’t know what.”

  “Ain’t up to anything,” John lied. He didn’t need to tell Matt all his secrets, did he? He grinned at the look on Matt’s face—exasperation, curiosity, happiness.

  Matt brushed one more kiss against John’s lips. “You’re a pain in my ass.”

  “I was last night.”

  They both laughed as they walked out the door.

  John watched him
pull out onto the road before he bothered starting his own truck. Matt didn’t know, but John had taken the day off. He needed to swing by his place for a change of clothes, get a few things. He and Matt weren’t exactly living together, but John spent more nights at Matt’s place than his own lately.

  They hadn’t come out as Magnolia Ridge’s Big Gay Couple, but everyone around them seemed to know, even if very few ever acknowledged it. John had gotten some disapproving looks, even a curse or two muttered at him from some of the folk down at his momma’s old church. But for the most part, it hadn’t mattered at all. Chloe had been right about that too.

  He swallowed hard and rolled his window down, but his phone rang before he had a chance to pull out of the driveway.

  “Hey, Momma.”

  “I didn’t wake ya, did I?”

  “No, ma’am, was just fixin’ to get on the road.”

  Ilene let out a small breath and said, “I’m glad I caught ya, then.” Without further explanation, she charged on. “I was just readin’ one of them pamphlets Pastor Mark gave me.”

  John smiled even though his mother couldn’t see him. When she told him three weeks ago that she’d found a nice new church that taught homosexuality wasn’t a sin, well, John hadn’t known what to say. She’d been going to First Baptist down on Cherry Blossom Lane her entire life. Her parents had gone there, grandparents too. She’d meant it as a peace offering and an icebreaker, something to bring them together again, and it had worked. “Shoot,” John said, laughing softly. “How many more pamphlets does he have for ya? Ya been readin’ everything he hands ya for almost a month now.”

  “Dozens, I wager. I got a list of websites he wants me to look up too.”

  “He sounds like good people, Momma.”

  “He is. But that ain’t why I called,” she said. She paused so long John thought to ask if she was still there, but after another moment, she said, “Did you know you was born this way? That ya can’t change it? It’s just who ya are, son.”

  John nearly laughed. It was so hard for him to hold it in. She’d been bombarding him with gay facts since her first day with Pastor Mark. “I had a notion, yeah,” he said evenly. He didn’t want her to feel like he was making fun of her.

  “Well, I didn’t,” she said matter-of-factly. “I had no idea. But it also says here—with scripture to back it up—that so long as you do right, so long as you carry the light of Christ in your heart, it don’t matter if you’re gay or straight or whatever else.” She paused, let out a relieved-sounding breath. “You do, don’t ya?”

  In truth, any light John had in his heart was from his family, from Chloe, and now Matt, but he didn’t think it was too far from the truth when he said, “I do, Momma.”

  “I’m so glad to hear ya say that,” she said soberly. “When I thought about you….” Her voice cracked, and she sounded like she was near tears. “Thought about you in hellfire for all eternity, I just couldn’t take it.”

  “You don’t gotta worry about me and Old Scratch, Momma. Devil ain’t gonna get me.”

  “I know, son. You’re a good boy.”

  He wasn’t so sure about that, but he reckoned he was good enough. “I love you somethin’ fierce, Momma, but if you’ll let me off this phone, I’ll be home in twenty minutes.”

  She laughed then and said a quick goodbye.

  EVERYTHING HAD taken John longer than he’d anticipated. When he got home, his momma had wanted to talk, and she insisted on feeding him breakfast—not that he was complaining. By then he’d wanted another shower because the heat had skyrocketed to over ninety, and not even the air-conditioning could do enough to counter it. Then Melonie had called to make sure everything was ready—it was—and to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He hadn’t.

  “Want some good news?” she asked.

  That was a nice change of pace. Good news. “I’m always in the mood for that.”

  Melonie laughed and said, “Charles up and moved.”

  John did like the sound of that. He’d been waiting for Thompson to come back and haunt them all. “Where to? How’d you find out?”

  “Up to Chattanooga,” Melonie said happily. “Met some new girl to terrorize.”

  John felt sorry for the new girl, but he was grateful they didn’t have to watch over their shoulders in town anymore. “Your divorce final yet?”

  “As of last week, yeah.”

  Charles had given up his parental rights to Birdy, hoping he wouldn’t have to pay child support. The judge had still ordered it. She seemed to dislike Thompson almost as much John and Melonie did. “You ain’t gonna see a dime from him,” John said. “Not with him out of state now.”

  “I wouldn’t have seen a dime from him anyway.”

  That was true enough.

  By the time he got off the phone with Melonie and had a lengthy conversation with Birdy about what kind of puppy she wanted for her birthday, he was near an hour later leaving than he’d hoped. In the end, it didn’t matter. He waited for ten minutes in the parking lot before he got the text.

  John pulled his truck around to the inbound Delta lane. He’d only seen a few pictures, so John wasn’t exactly sure who he was looking for. Through the crowd of people milling around, greeting one another, he spotted one man on his own. Short brown hair, skin just dark enough it could be a deep tan or natural, a little taller than Matt, bigger frame, with muscles John could see from under his clothes. The guy looked up from his phone and smiled when he saw John’s truck.

  Yeah.

  Santiago had landed.

  He threw his truck into park and got out to greet Matt’s best friend.

  “Santiago?”

  With a wolfish grin, Santiago said, “Call me Gabe. Matt’s the only one who refuses to use my first name.” He reached out and shook John’s hand. “You must be the cowboy.”

  John laughed softly, met Gabe’s piercing blue eyes. “Ain’t much of a cowboy, but close enough.”

  Gabe tossed his bag into the back of John’s truck, and they got in. “You sure he doesn’t suspect?”

  John pulled out from the curb and edged his way into the traffic around the airport. “He suspects somethin’, but no way he suspects you.”

  Gabe leaned back and rested his head on the seat. “Yeah, I figured you’d be good at keeping secrets.” There was nothing accusatory in his tone, but he added, “I don’t mean that in a bad way, just given your….”

  “Yeah, I get it,” John said. He flashed a small smile at Gabe just to let him know he meant it.

  They were both silent for a long while. John had spoken to Gabe a few times, met him over Skype at Matt’s insistence. But when he’d decided to bring Gabe out for Matt’s birthday, that first call had gone well. Gabe had an easy way about him. He came off as overconfident and maybe even a little full of himself when he was joking around, but there was a kindness in him too, something John had recognized quick enough.

  Once he merged onto the freeway, John asked, “You sure you’d rather stay at the Inn? We got plenty of places to put ya.”

  Gabe snorted a laugh. “I bet you do, Cowboy, but I’d rather have my own bathroom.”

  John rolled his eyes and couldn’t help laughing. He didn’t know if Gabe just hit on everyone he met, or if he liked to rattle John. Either way, John found it amusing. “Can’t say as I blame ya. Just sharin’ with Matt is enough to make me wanna throttle him.”

  “You two married yet?”

  He could hear the tease in Gabe’s tone, knew he wasn’t serious, but just the thought sent a quick spark of panic through John. “Only been together a few months.” Maybe he sounded more defensive than he’d meant to.

  Gabe let out a bark of laughter. “It was a joke, man.”

  John shrugged and glanced at him. “I’m not sure I appreciate your sense of humor.”

  “Not looking to settle down?” Gabe asked, shifting in his seat to see John better. “You know Matt’s ready….”

  “I’m settled. Just
don’t see a need to go talkin’ about things like that is all. We’re early days yet.” He’d had the same conversation with his momma. Apparently, being gay wasn’t a sin anymore, but fucking still was.

  “I’m just messin’ with you.” Gabe laughed again, and John wanted to smack him.

  He glanced at Gabe. Something about the guy’s expression—the knowing grin, the glint in his eyes—reminded him of Chloe. For the first time since she died, he laughed softly at the thought rather than feeling like he wanted to cry. “Yeah, well, you should take a nap or somethin’,” John said, trying to keep his tone light.

  “Slept on the plane,” Gabe said. “But I think now’s a good time to discuss your long-term intentions toward my best friend.”

  Yeah. Chloe would’ve loved him. Dammit all.

  THE DRIVE from the airport felt endless. Gabe took advantage of the hour and a half to get a rise out of John at every turn. He’d never been so relieved to park his truck and hop out. John had to beat down his nerves as he walked into the precinct. He hadn’t been back since the day they interrogated him, and he wasn’t too keen on going in there now. But this was more important. He’d even roped Andy into helping him, making sure Matt wasn’t out on patrol or off on a call when he came in.

  “Hey, John,” Cathy said from behind her desk. “How’re you doin’, hon?”

  “I’m good, thanks,” he said as he stepped closer. “How’re things with you?”

  “Same ol’, but I’m doin’ all right.” She looked around him to see Gabe. “Is this the big surprise we been waitin’ on?” she asked, interest obvious in her tone. John couldn’t really blame her. Gabe stood out for sure.

  Gabe stepped up and said, “Gabriel Santiago.” He shook her hand and for one second, John wondered if he’d go all the way and kiss the back of her fingers. Thankfully, he didn’t. Cathy probably couldn’t have handled it. Would’ve passed out cold.

  “Well,” she said, her voice breathier than it had been a moment earlier. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She buzzed them through, grinning. Once they cleared the door, she said, “Straight on back. He don’t suspect a thing.”