by Cameron Dane
Hunter switched to rubbing Herc’s other shoulder when the scrape of something wood or metal on tile screeched softly in the barn. Seek and destroy instinct kicked adrenaline through Hunter’s system. A quick assessment of the open office gained no suspect and had Hunter spinning to the closed door to his left. He turned the knob, shoved the door open in one fast shot, and charged into the room.
Fuck. Hunter’s heart almost stopped for the hundredth time today. “Jesus, Aaron.” Hunter immediately homed in on the wiry, dark-haired kid tucked between the bed and the wall -- with a familiar terrier on his lap. “Nobody is supposed to be here.” Hunter quickly slipped back into his sweaty shirt. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry.” The boy nudged his smudged glasses back up his nose. “Whisky ran under the bed and wouldn’t come out.” The small dog, clearly in heaven, wagged her tail into the wall with every scratch Aaron delivered to her ears. “I had to move it to get to her.”
Hunter tried his best to glare at the happy dog. “Whisky isn’t supposed to be in the stables, you know.” The dog was so old she hardly left Cain and Luke’s porch anymore.
“Don’t get her in trouble.” Aaron wrapped his skinny arms around Whisky and clutched her to his chest. “It’s not her fault. I carried her in here.”
After taking a seat on the bed, Hunter shifted to face Aaron and drew his knee to his chest. “Can I ask what you’re doing hiding in here? Misters Hawkins and Forrester wouldn’t think it was safe for you to be in the red barn without one of them with you.”
Aaron picked repeatedly at a tear in his jeans. “I needed to come here to think.”
“Does anybody know you’re here?”
“I told Cassie I talked to Mr. Forrester and that he said I could come.” Deep red slashes quickly bisected Aaron’s freckled cheeks. “But I didn’t. Mr. Bailey was getting ready to come fetch a horse, so I told Cassie he said I could hitch a ride with him. But he didn’t, and I didn’t.” Aaron switched to chewing the edge of his lip. “I walked.”
Hunter made a mental note to call Mrs. Hawkins, just in case she talked to Hank and Aaron’s story crumbled into dust. “That’s a long walk. You must have wanted to come here to think real bad.”
“I need to see if I can love horses the way Mr. Forrester and Mr. Hawkins do.”
Hunter scrunches his brows. “All right. Did you decide?”
“Not yet. Not really.” Aaron stopped for long minutes. He put his full attention on the dog, loving on Whisky to the animal’s great pleasure, but finally looked up and blurted, “I need to like horses, though, because I don’t think I really like the cows. And if I don’t like something Connor likes, then I’m not gonna be enough of a real cowboy for him to love me and want to adopt me.”
“Aaron. Jesus, man.” The kid put an arrow right through Hunter’s heart. And Hunter didn’t have much undamaged space left to take many more hits. “I promise you that’s not true.”
The boy surged to his knees. “But he’s always so happy when he’s telling me stuff about the ranch and showing me how things work. Only I really like all the stuff with the money and the stocks and the numbers Mr. Quick and Mr. Gainer teach at the youth center. Mr. Quick explains everything about the stocks, and I just understand it, like that.” Aaron snapped his fingers with a surprisingly loud crack. “Mr. Quick is really awesome, and I really like going to his classes, but now I think I shouldn’t go to his classes anymore. Connor is smart, so when he picks me up tonight at the youth center like he said he’s gonna do, then he’s gonna see how much I like the stocks and the money better than his cows. That won’t be good. Mr. Quick is back, so that means he’s gonna tell Conner about how good I am in his class.”
Aaron barely paused to gulp in a fresh lungful of oxygen, and Hunter found himself too wrapped up in the kid’s dilemma to hint Alex might not make that class today after all. Not after what Hunter had done to him.
Aaron got the fresh air he needed and finished, “I don’t want Connor to know how much I like the stock stuff because Connor likes cowboys. His other kids are already becoming cowboys and cowgirls. And I really want Connor to like me or he’ll change his mind about adopting me, and I really want him to adopt me.” Tears didn’t fall, but Christ, Aaron’s chin wobbled worse than jelly on a turbulent airplane.
Mother of God. “Let me explain something to you about Mr. Hawkins -- Conner,” Hunter corrected, just to make sure Aaron knew of which Hawkins brother he spoke. “He is super smart. Maybe not exactly in the same way as Mr. Quick” -- Hunter’s stomach tumbled just in saying the man’s name -- “but still very, very smart. He loves his ranch and his cattle -- you are right about that -- but it takes more than knowing about cattle to run a successful ranching operation. He is a businessman too. He knows lots about stocks, and I’d bet if you were to ask him, you would be shocked just how much he does know, and that he probably built Hawkins Ranch to what it is by making lots of smart investments in the stock market.”
Aaron perked up. “For real?”
“For real. If you decide you like horses, or maybe you change your mind about cattle, then that’s great. But it’s not going to change how Connor and Cassie feel about you. They love you already. And do you know how I know?” When Aaron shook his head, Hunter shared, “Because when I worked for them, they talked and bragged about you just as much as they did their other kids.”
“Really?” Behind the dirty lenses, blue sapphires sparkled in Aaron’s eyes.
Hunter nodded. “Everything they tell you to your face is real. They say the same stuff behind your back.”
Just as fast as the kid rode a high, he slumped and frowned. “So I’m gonna get in trouble for disappearing and miss my stock market class today for nothing.”
“When does your class start?”
“At four o’clock.”
A quick glance at Hunter’s watch confirmed they had plenty of time to get to town. “Let me radio Luke to explain the situation and tell him I’m going to give you a ride.” He got up but paused at the door and looked back at the kid still sitting on the floor hugging the little dog. “You know,” Hunter began gently, “I bet if after your class, you tell Connor everything you just told me, everything will work out just fine.”
“’Kay.”
“Now you sneak Whisky back to the porch while I talk to Luke,” Hunter instructed. “I’ll meet you at my truck.”
Aaron jumped up, tucked the dog under his arm, and ducked under Hunter’s arm to exit the room. As Hunter watched the kid leave, he couldn’t help thinking about Alex and how much admiration Aaron had for him. Pride filled Hunter, even as he knew he would never let himself close enough to Alex again to share what an honor it had been to know him.
* * * *
Alex’s face throbbed, his chest and stomach hurt when he moved too quickly, and he knew every person he’d crossed paths with today had wondered what the hell had happened to him. Nobody had dared ask him to his face, though, so he let everyone believe something had happened while he’d been away. Only Rand knew Alex hadn’t come back from Georgia with bruises, and he was probably touching down in Miami right about now.
Not that it mattered. Alex still didn’t know what to do about Hunter, but none of the possible scenarios involved Alex ever telling anyone Hunter had lost control. Nobody would ever know what had truly happened this morning. Hunter barely functioned in society now; if he had to walk around town with people looking at him with knowledge of the violence in him, fearing him, it would kill him. Perhaps literally.
Standing in the youth center, Alex waited for a moment to chat with Ty Boone before his class began. He wanted to touch base with the young director to see how the parents and guardians of his students were responding to their children taking his course. Even though school had not started up yet, Alex often found when kids could get excited about money and learn its real value in the world, it then easily transitioned to an ability to pick up math and even some of the sciences. An obs
ervant adult would notice the small changes around the home.
Just as Alex stuck out his hand and accepted a high five from one of his students, Ty opened his office door, and Alex heard him say, “You’re doing me a real favor here, Deputy Stuart. I owe you a dinner as a thank-you.”
A statuesque, dark-haired woman emerged from Ty’s office first. “I don’t think so.” She tightened the ponytail holding her long tresses off her face. “But nice try.”
Ty came into view. He leaned against the doorjamb, wearing a lopsided smile that would melt every heterosexual woman and homosexual man’s heart. “One day you are going to see me as more than that sixteen-year-old kid you arrested and tried to interrogate. One day you are going to say yes.”
It could capture every straight woman’s heart, apparently, except for Deputy Max Stuart’s. “No, I won’t.” Not one bit of her demeanor read as playing hard to get. “Have Corey call me,” she said as she backed toward the doors. “We’ll see if we can work out fair rent and get him moved in.”
Every teasing, flirtatious twinkle disappeared from Ty’s face, leaving a subdued young man in its place. “Thank you again for opening your home to him. It’s…it means a lot to me.”
“I can use the help with the mortgage,” Max replied. “It’s not a problem. Bye.”
Max left, and Alex stepped to Ty’s side. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“My hands were tied to help someone,” Ty replied, his focus still on the door Max had just vacated. “He is of legal age, just barely, and that puts him out of all the private and government-run places I can approach to find him a temporary place to live. Any place I could get him into would take him out of Quinten, and he doesn’t want to leave here.”
Alex imagined Ty could still see Deputy Stuart’s lovely form. Grinning to himself, Alex said, “It seems like you found a solution.”
“Let’s hope. Anyway” -- Ty snapped out of his trance and swung to face Alex -- “I’m sorry for your loss.” He offered his hand. “Sarah mentioned someone very important to you passed away.”
As Alex clasped his hand to Ty’s, the fresh memory of packing up Mack’s uniforms and dog tags overrode all else -- even what had gone down with Hunter just this morning. “Thank you,” Alex managed to say, his voice only a little gruff. Alex hadn’t talked to Sarah, but Sarah, Jace, and Jasper had sent flowers to the funeral, so Alex knew Hunter had informed them of Mack’s death when he’d called to give them a heads-up that he would be out of town. “It’s true. I did lose someone I loved a lot.” Alex felt his shoulders slumping and deliberately pushed himself up straight. “But now I’m happy to be back.”
“We are too.” Ty chuckled, and his surprisingly deep voice resonated in the open room. “It’s not that we aren’t very grateful when Mr. Gainer is here to teach your course, but he’s a huge guy, and he has a way about him that intimidates some of the kids.”
“Rand is a very serious man,” Alex agreed, laughing too. During their introduction for the course, he’d seen not only the kids but the adults zip their lips the second Rand stood at the front of the room. “I’m not sure he even understands the word relax.”
“The kids certainly all behave in his presence. I’ll give him that.”
Alex opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment Aaron entered the youth center. And -- Jesus, Mary, and Joseph -- Hunter stepped in right behind him. The boy shook Hunter’s hand and then ran across the big, open common area to the room where Alex would hold his stock market class. Alex waved at Aaron, but Hunter looked up and spotted Alex right then, and nothing else existed. Hunter locked in on Alex, his eyes tracking, surely assessing the angry, red bruising he could see on Alex’s face, as well as certainly picturing the ones hidden by Alex’s clothes. All color fled from Hunter’s face. He grabbed on to the door. Alex’s heart cracked seeing Hunter absorb the evidence of his actions, and as crazy as it sounded, with his face feeling like it had been on fire all day long, he ached to go to Hunter and offer him comfort. Hunter’s passionate argument for Alex to stay away still resonated inside him too, though, tearing him in the polar opposite direction.
The longer Hunter stood at the door, the sicker he looked. Abruptly he tore away and disappeared. Alex’s legs screamed their desire to run after him, and his heart did too. His brain focused on the kids in his classroom getting restless, though. After telling Ty he wanted to speak to him again before he left -- since he never had gotten the chance to ask what he’d wanted to -- Alex heeded his brain and headed into a roomful of kids.
HUNTER BARRELED DOWN the stairs and smacked right into his sister. Fuck.
“Slow down for a minute, Bro.” Sarah grabbed his arm and steadied herself. As fast as she touched him, Hunter could see the conscious decision cross her eyes, and she took her hand off him. “Where’s the fire?”
“Nowhere.” Facing Sarah only reminded Hunter of yet another way he’d fucked up in life. He’d been a terrible brother. “I just have to go.”
“Wait a minute.” She zigged when he zigged and blocked his escape. “I need to talk to you.” Her eyes, exact in color to his, tormented Hunter. He would never again look in the mirror and find the clarity and peace that existed in Sarah’s gaze. “Please.”
“I can’t right now,” Hunter argued. Not after seeing Alex’s bruised face and cut lip and knowing worse lay under his clothes.
“Then tomorrow,” Sarah said. “I want you to come to the house tomorrow.” She actually touched his hand and caressed the bruised knuckles. “Promise me.”
Hunter whipped his hand away, knowing it would hurt her, but Christ, he’d used that hand to bloody a man’s face less than twelve hours ago. “Okay, I will.” Freedom came in the form of a wiry friend waving to him from across the street. “I see someone I have to talk to before he gets away. Bye.” Hunter jogged across the street and fell into step beside Corey.
“Corey. Hey, man,” Hunter said, breathing easier already. This kid hadn’t known him forever or fucked him or gone to war with him, and thus the constant pressure bearing down on Hunter’s back instantly eased. “How’s it going?”
“Hey, dude.” Corey glanced up from his cell phone. “I might have just gotten some good news. Can I bum a ride off you to this address?” He showed a text message to Hunter. “I need to go talk to someone about a room to rent.”
“Sure.” Hunter indicated they needed to cross the street. “But where’s your truck?”
Corey grimaced, and his skin mottled with red. “Someone smashed in the windshield. I can’t afford to get it fixed right now.”
Waiting for the road to clear, Hunter narrowed an assessing stare on the slender young man. “Is someone harassing you?”
With a shrug, Corey said, “Not more than the normal stuff I get anywhere I go.” A space in the traffic cleared, and both men jogged to the youth center parking lot. “It’s no big deal.”
“If someone starts pushing you around,” Hunter said, “you let me know. I haven’t forgotten you helped get me that job at Forrest-Hawk. You looked out for me” -- Hunter unlocked the passenger door for Corey -- “and I will return the favor.”
Once Hunter had climbed in behind the wheel, Corey responded, “Thanks, but I have to handle this kind of stuff myself. If I’m always getting help, people won’t ever see me as a man.”
“My help is there if you want it.”
“Thanks, dude.” Corey offered his fist for a bump.
For one of the few times since losing his fingers, Hunter knocked Corey’s fist with his gloved hand rather than his good one. The scraped knuckles on his good hand reminded him too much of the monster he’d become. “Let’s go find this house.”
* * * *
Alex said good night to the last of his students, as well as the girl’s mother, and went back into the colorful classroom to gather his files. A moment later, a soft knock sounded at the door. He looked up and naturally smiled. “Hi, Sarah.” Seeing her instantly conjured warmth in Alex. As an only chi
ld, Alex had started thinking of her as the sibling he always wished he could have. She was someone he actually liked and wanted in his life. “Thank you for the flowers. Tell Jace and Jasper the same for me. It meant a lot.”
“I wish we could have done more.” Her brow pulled, and after relentlessly tapping her fingernails into the door for a full minute in silence, she finally said, “Listen. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.” Alex leaned against a low bookshelf and crossed his legs. “Shoot.”
“I know what I want as my thank-you for helping you.”
“Great.” Alex grabbed a piece of paper out of a printer tray. “Tell me what it is, and it’s yours.”
Sarah sucked her lower lip into her mouth but then blurted, “I don’t want you to give up on Hunter.” Alex jerked upright, but Sarah quickly put up a stop sign with her hands. “I know he’s hard to love right now, but you’re a good man, and he needs dependable, good people in his life.”
What the hell? Alex’s mind spun on the heels of her bombshell. “Sarah…” Crap. “I don’t know what Hunter has told you about us but --”
“He hasn’t told me anything,” Sarah interrupted. “But your friend died, and he went with you to Georgia. That has to mean something. Earlier I saw his knuckles all scabbed up, and he was clearly distressed, and now I see your face.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots.”
“It’s not --” Alex clamped his mouth shut. Motherfucking shit. “I can’t really talk about it. I not only don’t know what he has disclosed about our relationship, but also about himself. I don’t feel like I have the right.”
“I understand. I don’t want you to anyway. That’s not why I’m here.” Fidgeting first with her hair and then her shirt, Sarah visibly struggled to blink back tears. “I just know my brother is really struggling right now. He’s in a bad place. But he truly is a stand-up person. He has a big heart. He did something not a lot of people do anymore -- he signed up to be a part of the military because he believed in what wearing a uniform stood for.” She paused to take a breath, and Alex could tell this conversation made her incredibly uncomfortable. “Normally I would never ask a person to give a second chance to someone who hit him. But in this case I know Hunter, and I know deep down he is not a violent man. He’s worth loving.”