Timber Lake (The Snowy Range Series, #2)

by Nya Rawlyns

  There were others...

  Him laying saddles and whatever he could get his hands on to keep their tent from flying to Idaho, Sonny doing the Hercules imitation, holding their small world up and cussing a blue streak. He’d heard the words, muffled—sometimes yanked away by the howling gale or buried under the ping of icy pellets—but swearing he’d show the elements what a tent pole looked like when the going got tough.

  He’d nearly died of laughter.

  But then he’d also nearly died of hypothermia. If it hadn’t been for Sonny sharing his warmth and keeping him from falling down that hole where nothing much mattered, where you gave in to the weight on your eyelids, said fuck this, I’m done... Seamus Rydell had saved his bacon that night.

  Had he said thank you? He couldn’t remember. Maybe it didn’t matter. For him, it wasn’t the words so much, but the being there, working together. That’s what counted, finding a man you could depend on. When you did, a man paid in kind. With loyalty, sometimes with affection. Maybe even love.

  Seamus Rydell was like tabs on a file folder. The main label was the researcher, with a list of bona fides and tags that told you what the man did. They didn’t say squat about who that man was. Sonny was the name those closest to the man knew him by, a shortcut to parsing out the bits that mattered to colleagues, family, and acquaintances. Tex was the traveling companion who became his friend, then his lover. Mister Zero was the fantasy, the icing on the cake, the one who gave as good as he got.

  He’d fallen hard for all of them.

  But now, after it was too late, with his lover gone MIA, Michael didn’t know what to think, how to feel, who to be. He tried on sorry for a time. It wasn’t a good fit, mostly because, when he dug deep and took a hard gander at what he’d done—claiming credit for the takedown—truth was... he’d do it again. He knew Sonny had bolted for D.C. That much his boss had shared. As to where exactly, Paul had simply shrugged and blown him off, like it was his fault, his alone.

  And it was troublesome that Paul knew the truth, yet he did nothing about it. No running to the cops, no full disclosure, no sitting him down and saying nice try, son, but let the man stand on his own two feet, you carried enough of the burden, let Rydell share it with you.

  Not that Michael disagreed, particularly on a philosophical level, but he knew how bad telling the truth could get. Mostly he knew he had a debt that needed paying. Saving Dr. Rydell’s reputation was all he had to offer. The man was returning to Washington, no matter how Michael ached for a different outcome. Once he accepted that, then making the decision to protect his friend had been easy and all too simple.

  The world had already branded him a hot head, a shoot-from-the-hip wild man. And if Sonny hadn’t done it, if somehow he’d gotten free, he knew he’d have cut the trapper down like vermin, without a second thought. And he told himself he’d rest easy at night.

  But he hadn’t. Instead, the man he cared about above all others was bearing the burden without having had the opportunity to vindicate his actions to the world, and to himself.

  He woke up every morning asking himself, what the hell have I done?

  Michael felt rather than heard someone approach. He hoped Hank had brought him a beer as his willingness to step outside his comfort zone was dying a fast death. The mood he was in wasn’t conducive to making small talk with a stranger.

  Resting his chin on his arms, he said, “Listen, Hank... about...”

  “Hank’s at the house. He sent me down to find you.”

  The cool night air bled from Michael’s lungs, leaving his chest hollowed out and his head near to bursting as blood pounded through his veins. Terrified he was hallucinating—his imagination running wild and putting words in his head to confuse him—Michael whispered, “Tex?”

  “Michael.”

  Still not able to bring himself to look at the man so close he wore his body heat like a benediction, Michael whispered, “Why are you here?”

  “I’m your date.”

  “Fuck you are.”

  “That depends.” There was a lilt to Sonny’s voice, a teasing Michael recognized from their hours together, passing the time, enjoying each other’s company. The kind of teasing Mister Zero brought to the party.

  “Depends on what?” Michael trembled as their shoulders brushed.

  Sonny’s voice deepened, his tone now serious. “We need to talk.”

  “Talking’s not going to change anything. Not now.” A scrape of boot on hard ground, a hiss of breath told Michael he’d hit the mark. That sorry he’d flirted with briefly reared its ugly head, but so did the hurt, the knowing he hadn’t been worth staying for.

  Sonny paused long enough Michael figured that was that, but then he continued like he hadn’t heard the weak challenge. The words seemed to come with a struggle, though—the thought half-formed. “About why I left...”

  Bumping his forehead on his arms, Michael interrupted. “I know why you left.”

  “I’m not sure you do.”

  Michael tilted his head, eyes glued to fists gripping the top rail, the knuckles paled even in the dim light cast from the barn door. He sensed the debate beginning, the recriminations that would follow, a pattern he’d allowed by taking matters into his own hands. By making a decision about a man’s life without asking.

  He was in the wrong. He was also hurt. Handling the one was hard enough, handling both was like him ripping his chest open and yanking out his heart and handing it to Seamus Rydell, still beating.

  Straightening his shoulders, but still not looking Sonny in the eye, Michael said, “Explain it then,” unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

  They watched the mule moving about restlessly. Michael wondered if the animal could sense the tension, feel the discord and the tentativeness making their air heavy, breathing it hard. Michael solved the problem by not breathing at all as Sonny explained, slowly at first, then picking up speed as he got past what sounded rehearsed to the part where neither of them was comfortable.

  Sonny fleshed out about his family, how he grew up, bits and bobs Michael already knew or guessed. The aunt in Congress. Her expectations. Sonny’s own fears that he’d disappoint people he cared about, but mostly fearing he’d never stand on his own two feet if he didn’t own up to what he wanted to do with his life.

  Voice rising and falling, the researcher spoke to his pride in his work. The son and brother and nephew spoke to his responsibilities. The friend who had saved him spoke to the words still hanging between them, most of it unspoken, but the words that had made it out still carried sharp edges, still wounded long after the fact.

  Michael nodded, listening, absorbing how the impact of those ripples on a still pond spread and rebounded off a far shore, only to make their way back to interfere and come to cross-purposes. Some of the waves dissipated, others grew, often larger than warranted from the disturbance of a single pebble. He mouthed, “Mountain out of a molehill.”

  Backing away from the fence, Sonny sat on a rocky outcrop, his hands clasped between his knees. He was bare-headed, backlit from the light flooding from the barn door, the sun-bleached shaggy curls like a halo around his head. Michael turned to face him, crouching on his heels but keeping his distance. Sonny hadn’t gotten to the end of his story. Until he did, Michael had no idea which way the wind blew.

  Taking a chance, Michael interrupted the flow, admitting, “It wasn’t my intention, making it seem like you couldn’t handle it. That wasn’t it at all.”

  “I know. It took me a long time to realize it.” Sonny’s voice hitched. “In some ways, what’s done is done. But it took me months to work it out in my head, to understand why you sacrificed your own career for me.”

  “Do you, Tex, do you really get why I did it?”

  Avoiding the question, Sonny continued, “When I finally got my head on straight, I went to work for my aunt. Helped her with developing some environmental policy changes.” He grinned ruefully. “Got taken down a few notches as an
unpaid Congressional intern. Learned a thing.”

  “Like what?”

  “That there’s no room in D.C. for princesses and wide-eyed innocence. I thought I knew how shit worked when I helped Aunt Martha campaign. I didn’t, not by a long shot. Everybody’s got an agenda. Everybody’s got secrets. The trick in succeeding is learning to compromise and waiting until the time’s right.”

  Puzzled at how all that fit together, Michael asked, “Is it? The time, is it right?” And if it was, what the hell did it mean?

  Staring at the ground, Sonny whispered, “I don’t know.”

  “Can I say something?” Michael didn’t bother waiting for an answer but forged ahead, digging into the sorry cave and yanking it out. It wouldn’t ever fit quite right, but a man needed to own up to being wrong, even if he was bull-headed enough to do it over and over again, because wrong came in shades of caring that didn’t always make sense. Mostly what he needed was to air the hurt, to give it wings.

  “I think I understand now why you took it the way you did, but I didn’t mean it like that, not at all.”

  Sonny nodded and brushed at his eyes, both of them acknowledging the misunderstanding that night at Timber Lake, each of them taking baby steps toward reconciliation. Working back toward friendship.

  The next part was harder. It wasn’t so much in saying the words, but in getting to the core of why they needed saying in the first place. That’s where Michael still fumbled for some kind of enlightenment. He blurted, “I was dead wrong, making that decision. And there’s no way I can make it right. Not now. Not ever. All I can do is ask for your forgiveness.”

  Sonny smiled sadly and said, “And all I can do is ask for yours, Warden.”

  “But you didn’t do anything wrong.” Michael felt his world spinning off its axis, as if he’d opened the door part way, still scared shitless to take the next step, to say why he was so hurt.

  Speaking softly, Sonny spread his hands, palms up. “I left, Michael. I walked away when you were hurt, leaving you alone to take a responsibility that wasn’t yours. All to protect me. And not because you thought I couldn’t handle it.” He stood and stared down at Michael. “It took me all this time to figure out why you did it.”

  Say it, say the words...

  “Did you... figure it out?”

  “Maybe. All I know is the one thing we needed to talk about, we never did.” Taking Michael’s hand, Sonny pulled him up. He husked, “I spent weeks thinking about how this would work. Me coming here. Seeing you. Not knowing if I was too late to make it right.” He paused, his breath hitching as he fought for the next words, then asked, “Am I too late?”

  Cupping Sonny’s face, Michael whispered, “I’d say you’re just in time.”

  Backing away, Michael put a narrow space between them, his right hand sliding down the bunched muscles in Sonny’s forearm until his fingers cupped the man’s left hand. The quivering as they joined fingers into a tight web shook Michael to his core. But it was in Sonny’s expressive eyes he saw what he needed to know, because in those golden depths lived shared hunger, pain, and sorrow. The reflection of a truth they’d yet to confront. A man exposing his soul.

  Sonny waved his free hand in the direction of the slope leading to the compound. “I still have my cabin. It’s got a real bed.”

  “What about dinner?”

  “Cookie told me she can warm it up later.”

  “How about for breakfast?” Michael pulled Sonny’s face down once more, lips brushing lips—the taste tender and filled with promise.

  Sonny breathed into Michael’s mouth, “Sounds like more than a date, Warden.”

  Flashing the patented evil grin he knew curled Sonny’s toes, Michael murmured, “I’ll let you know in the morning, Tex.”

  Time and space, son, time and space...

  They would take it one day or one night at a time for now, but in his heart Michael knew it sounded like forever.

  THE END

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Crossing boundaries, taking no prisoners. Write what’s in your soul.

  It’s the bass beat, the heartbeat, the lyrics rude and true.

  Nya Rawlyns cut her teeth on sports-themed romantic comedies and historical romances. She found her true calling writing about the wilderness areas she has visited but calls home—in that place that counts the most, the heart.

  She has lived in the country and on a sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay, earned more than 1000 miles in competitive trail and endurance racing, taught Political Science to unwilling freshmen, and found an avocation in materials science.

  When she isn’t tending to her garden or the horses, the Hens from Hell, the cats, or three pervert parakeets, she can be found day dreaming and listening to the voices in her head.

  Websites:

  Romancing Words: http://www.romancingwords.com

  Love’s Last Refuge: http://loveslastrefuge.com/

  The Men of Crow Creek: http://the-men-of-crow-creek.weebly.com/

  More from Nya Rawlyns:

  The Snowy Range Series: Suspense, gay fiction

  The Eagle and the Fox (A Snowy Range Mystery)

  Timber Lake

  The Wrong Side of Right: transgressive homoerotica

  Good Boy Bad: transgressive homoerotica

  Bad Boyfriends: M/M contemporary romance, romantic comedy

  Curling Iron

  Pumping Iron

  Jerking Iron

  Bad Boyfriends Box Set

  The Crow Creek Series: M/M contemporary erotic western romance

  Ash & Oak

  Pulling Leather

  Strapping Ash

  Sorting Will

  Flankman

  Mending Fences

  The Strigoi Chronicles: homoerotic lit, paranormal

  The Holiday Toast Duo: M/M romantic comedy

  The Christmas Toast

  The Valentine Toast

  Cole in His Stocking

  Acid Jazz Singer (Hunger Hurts)

  Skin

  Guardians of the Portals

  Dance Macabre

  Points on a Curve

  The 90 Day Rule