The Farther He Runs: A Kick Novel

by Lynda Aicher

  Finn eased out of him on a low curse and grunt. Tanner winced at the sting, and the unfamiliar trickle of come that trailed warm and slick down his crack. The sense of loss was the most startling thing, though. He wasn’t prepared when it swept through his chest to steal his breath.

  Relief had been the only thing he’d felt when he’d bottomed in the past. This new sensation knocked him back more than anything else that’d changed between them.

  He drew Finn down, uncaring about the mess or anything but keeping Finn with him. He couldn’t lose him. Now more than ever, this—Finn—was all that mattered.

  Chapter 20

  The wind snapped at Finn, nailing his back before it shifted around and shoved at his front. He breathed in the briny tang and dropped another armload of sticks into the growing pile. Earthy undertones hung heavy from the grass that Tanner had cut earlier. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, gaze traveling across the yard to Tanner. His back was to Finn, arms raised as he sawed at a dead branch that hung over the driveway.

  They’d been tackling his overgrown lot a bit at a time, depending on his stamina and the weather. Yesterday’s storm had mellowed to a brisk day by noon and they’d broken free of the cabin for fresh air and a bit of space.

  This was good. The confirmation kept ringing in his head despite the various other doubts and threads that wove in and out. Some poked at the belief, others left a shadow with no real substance.

  His heart was lighter, though, along with his steps. Chris, Kick, the accident—none of it could touch him out here. He didn’t have to worry about that stuff, which allowed him to focus on the basics of getting healthier and deepening his connection with Tanner.

  A shot, then another, rang through the air, distant yet distinct. He jerked around, stared into the woods.

  “Get down!”

  What? Suddenly he was tackled to the ground, Tanner’s arm coming up to protect Finn’s head as they landed. The air rushed from his lungs, shock buzzing with the blast of adrenaline.

  “Stay down.” Tanner lay on top of him, his weight crushing Finn into the soggy ground. Tanner was scanning, head down, gaze tracking through the tree line. “Sniper. Shit.” He rolled off. “We’re in the open. Get to cover.” He pointed to the trees, yanking at Finn. “Come on!”

  Finn struggled to catch up with what was happening, threads fluttering in the rush of shock and mixed signals. The gunshots were far away, harmless to them. But Tanner wasn’t with him, not in the present moment. That truth caught and held when he was able to breathe again.

  “Finn!” Tanner slapped him across the face, a sharp bite. His eyes were glazed, memories holding him trapped someplace far from where they were. Then he dipped and hauled Finn into a fireman’s carry before he could protest.

  Tanner sprinted across the yard, strides long. Each step jarred Finn’s stomach, but he didn’t struggle. Tanner’s hold on his leg and wrist was close to painful in his intent to get Finn to safety. Another shot pierced the air and Tanner hit the tree line at a full run, crashing through the underbrush and twisting away from branches to get within the cover it provided.

  Finn grunted, ducked his head to protect his face from the bushes and twigs that blew past. He was still processing events when Tanner dropped to his knee and rolled him to the ground.

  It’d all happened quickly. One moment he’d been standing on the freshly cut grass, the next he was being laid out on the wet leaves at the base of a large Douglas fir. Tanner was patting him down, apparently looking for injuries. He peered around the tree, hand slapping his hip, mindless that there was no gun there.

  “Is anyone down?” Tanner asked. He jerked his head around, eyes wide as he scanned Finn again. “You’re good, right?”

  Finn nodded. “Yeah. I’m good.” He’d play along for the moment. He had to collect himself before he could help Tanner. Another shot had Tanner dropping to the earth beside Finn.

  “I think there’s only one shooter,” Tanner said by his ear. He glanced behind them, deeper into the woods. “We’ll have to go that way, circle around to take him out.”

  Finn took a slow breath, yanked in the threads, and tried to think logically. Tanner was deep in a flashback triggered by the gunshots. He had to navigate what Tanner believed to be true while bringing him back to the present.

  “Hold on, Toe Pick.” He made his voice firm. “Let me call it in.” He pointed at the yard. “Watch for movement.”

  Tanner eyed him, blinked. “On it.” He arm-crawled past the tree, stopping a few feet later. Finn kept his eyes on him as he tugged his phone from his pocket. His hands were shaking, but he attributed that to the adrenaline and not his injuries.

  He found Jenny’s number and called her. He stayed where he was, focus still on Tanner. He flinched when another shot blasted in the distance. Finn clocked it to their south, the threads already pulled together to link it with past events to form a likely conclusion on where they were coming from.

  “Finn,” Jenny said, a smile in her voice. “What can I do for you? Everything okay over there?”

  “Jenny,” he said quietly, “I need your grandsons to stop their practice shooting.” Tanner whipped his head around, frown creasing his brow. Jenny’s land was a mile away and the shots were into target boards backed by hay bales. He and Tanner weren’t in danger of being killed.

  “Oh. Damn. I’m sorry. I didn’t think. They’re here for Christmas break and—”

  “It’s okay,” he cut her off. Tanner was glancing around, confusion overtaking his earlier focus. “I have a visitor. He’s just off a rough mission.”

  “Boys!” The yell rang through the phone. “You have to stop. Now. No more shooting.” She came back on. “Is he okay?” She had experience with warriors returning from battle, her son having been deployed to Iraq twice before he was killed during his third tour.

  Tanner stared at him now, his face pale, mouth working but no sound coming out. “Yeah.” They’d be fine. “Thanks, Jenny.” He ended the call and stowed his phone back in his pocket.

  He moved slowly when he finally went to Tanner. Tanner’s gaze never wavered, understanding blazing in them. His breaths quickened, rapid heaves that raced into panic by the time Finn reached him.

  “Tanner.” He sat beside him, his own pulse calm. He could handle this, get Tanner through the break and in his own head again. They’d all been there. Yanked into the past by a random trigger. “You back?” He laid a hand on his arm, let it rest there.

  Tanner jerked his gaze to the contact. He was still on his side, braced on his arm. He swallowed, his free hand shaking when he lifted it to grasp Finn’s.

  Finn hauled him in, Tanner coming freely into his embrace. He clung to him, shudders racking down his back with each choked sob that broke free. The dry rasps and deep inhalations tore at Finn, but there was little he could do except hold him tighter and wait for it to pass.

  “I’m here,” he said, solid assuredness in his voice. “It was just Jenny’s grandkids doing target practice. We’re good. Safe. No one’s shooting at us.” He kept up his soft reassurance until the trembling eased and Tanner quieted.

  He didn’t lighten his hold, though, and if anything, Tanner hugged him harder, their awkward position on the ground not hindering him at all. Finn rubbed his back and ignored the damp sneaking in to chill his clammy skin. His hip ached, the joint protesting, but he didn’t move.

  The wind gusted through the treetops, catching on the evergreens to whistle through the branches. His phone rang, startling them both. Finn tensed and Tanner drew back. He wiped at his face, blew out a breath. “Do you need to get that?”

  “No.” Whoever it was could wait. No one was more important than Tanner. “How are you?” He kept a hand on his arm, studied him for tells or signs.

  “Functioning.” Tanner glanced around, avoiding Finn’s eyes. “Here at least. Not in…”

  Wherever. The location didn’t matter. It was the events that remained. The cold dread and linger
ing chill that sucked at reality and laughed at the idea of “the past.” No one ever got past war. It didn’t end—ever. Not for the ones who’d fought in it.

  Tanner shivered, and then so did Finn. Shit. His thermal stuck to his back and the wind cut through his fleece with no mercy. “We should head in. Get warm.”

  “Yeah.” Tanner gave an absent nod and climbed to his feet. He held out a hand and helped Finn up, not saying a word when Finn lurched forward because his leg gave out. He caught himself and flexed his knee to get the circulation moving again. Just like a seventy-year-old man would do.

  “I thought you were going to die.”

  Finn jerked his head up, heart dropping at the devastation on Tanner’s face. Just the thought of Tanner dying, of his being killed by sniper fire or some fucking terrorist, sucked the breath from his lungs. To have that play out in real life, even if it was a trick of his brain, would gut him.

  He hauled Tanner back in, clutching him tight as he absorbed the feel of him. Solid. Healthy. Here. “I’m not going to die.” Hell, he’d worked too damn hard getting back from almost dying to croak now. “Neither are you.” His insistence would do little against fate, though. He kissed Tanner’s neck, pressing hard to ensure that it sunk in. “At least not today.”

  Tanner’s dry chuckle vibrated against his shoulder, his hold tensing. “I hope you’re right.”

  He cupped the back of Tanner’s head, love pouring out. “Me too,” he whispered, hoping against the odds that he was right. That Tanner would make it back from his next mission. That he wouldn’t abandon Finn when they’d finally found this.

  Finn loosened his hold, stepped back to search Tanner. He cupped his cheek, that strong jaw working beneath his palm. “Go in. Get a shower. I’ll put away the tools.”

  Tanner’s gaze darted to the side, down, back to him. “I should help you with—”

  “I’m fine.” He was. He was strong now. Here for Tanner like he needed him to be. “Get the water warm. I’ll join you when I come in.”

  That got a slow smile, even if it was small. “Without your clothes this time?”

  “Definitely.” He kissed him, the touch a promise and connection in one. He’d join Tanner anywhere he needed him, as long as he could help him. And how long would that be? Time was ticking down, and they’d only figured out the now.

  The next steps were too muddled with the unknown to worry about. It was coming, though. Like the next wave of the battle, and he had no idea who held the advantage—he and Tanner, or fate.

  Chapter 21

  The fire popped, the flames low as the logs burned down. Tanner thought about adding another log to it, but that’d require getting up, and he had no energy to move. Finn was at his back, arms wrapped around him where they were sprawled on the couch. His head rested on Finn’s shoulder, the wiry strength keeping him safe from the dark edges of the flashback.

  Nightmare, really.

  He squeezed his eyes closed and shoved the irrational fear back before it could overtake him. They were safe, in Finn’s cabin. He wasn’t on a mission or stuck in the fucking desert. Finn hadn’t fought at his side in five years.

  He was both grateful for and resentful of that.

  Finn kissed his temple, brushed his fingers over the inside of Tanner’s wrist where he held it. Tanner inhaled the soapy clean scent of Finn and chased the dry, sandy dirt from his memories.

  Finn had kept his promise and joined him in the shower, holding him when the shakes had almost dropped him to his knees. The crash after a deep flashback like he’d had was worse than any sub drop he’d ever witnessed. The sense of reality that’d completely overtaken him had logged into every part of his brain and emotions as actual events. It didn’t matter that he logically knew now that they hadn’t been real—the aftereffects remained.

  Usually, he’d get drunk to shake off the lingering dregs. This was better, though. The peace was coming back. Finn understood everything. There’d been no need to explain or hide.

  “Was that your first one?” Finn asked, his voice just loud enough to carry over the music he’d put on earlier. The alternative-rock songs had served to mask the quiet, and he’d barely registered them.

  “Yeah.” Tanner didn’t pretend not to understand Finn’s question. “This time. Since I’ve been back.”

  “The gunshots, right?”

  “And you.” He swallowed, a chill encasing him in a rush of remembrance. “You were in the open. A clear target. I had to protect you.” His voice faded out at the end, his throat contracting around the fierce need that surged up. Keeping his fellow brothers safe had been his objective for so long, he didn’t know anything else. Especially when it was Finn, and everything they’d just discovered with each other, that he’d had to protect.

  “Ooh-rah.” Finn raised his fist, and Tanner tapped it with his.

  Yeah. Ooh-rah. The sense of purpose that usually came from that simple cry didn’t flow through him this time.

  He’d been a Marine his entire adult life. Joining right out of high school, against the wishes of the Admiral, who’d wanted him to go to the Naval Academy first like he himself and Tanner’s brothers had. But Tanner had rebelled. Being an enlisted Marine had become his passion after years of observing men, ranks, and class structures within the armed services on the bases they’d been stationed at.

  He’d had something to prove to himself and his family, even if it’d taken him years to acknowledge it as that.

  “You joined to prove something, right?” he asked Finn. “The Marines.” Was that what called every person who enlisted in the Corps?

  “Yeah. To myself mostly. But my family too.” He sighed into Tanner’s hair. “A Marine was the ultimate warrior. If I could be that it would prove that being gay wasn’t weak or sick. Warriors aren’t either of those things—or so I’d thought back then.”

  “And now?”

  “I know that being gay has nothing to do with what I do or who I am as a person.” He took a breath, his chest rising beneath Tanner. “It’s not my identity. Which is why the gay slurs never bothered me. They were only personal if I let them be.”

  Tanner nodded. “You taught me that. You and Chris.” That had been one of the first things they’d drilled into his head once he’d admitted to liking men.

  “We did. And that was years ago. So why the question now?”

  He shrugged. There were so many reasons and none at all. “My time’s almost up,” he finally said. His current enlistment ended in June.

  “I know.” The admission was soft, a note of pain sneaking through it.

  It didn’t surprise him that Finn had tracked it. They always had, him and Chris. They’d known down to the day when he’d be done—or reenlist. He’d done that twice now. Re-upping when they’d expected him to take the early-retirement packages that’d been offered once the military began actively downsizing. To keep his promise to join them at the company they’d all formed.

  The unasked question hung between them. What was he going to do this time? He didn’t know. So, he dodged it and lofted a question at Finn. “When are you going back to Kick?”

  Finn stiffened beneath him, his muscles tightening, breath holding. Tanner regretted the question immediately. It’d been low and deflective. They weren’t talking about the future. This was their haven, and he’d wrecked it. Fucking flashback.

  “Sorry,” he said, trying to sit up. Finn wouldn’t let him, though. He could’ve broken his hold easily, but he allowed himself to be hauled back to Finn’s chest, his emotions tumbling over the boulders lodged in his path.

  Finn wrapped his legs around him, completely trapping him in his embrace. He laid kisses on Tanner’s neck, ran a trail of them up to his jaw. The love soaked into him, the warmth chasing away his sudden fears and most of the doubts.

  “Your place at Kick is always open,” he said near his ear. “The company is yours too.”

  He scoffed out a short laugh. “Not really. It belongs to everyone w
ho works there. I don’t.”

  “You invested the same amount as Chris and me. That makes you an equal owner.” Finn paused, his breath hitching. “His interest split between the two of us. You know that.” They’d set up the initial business agreement to ensure the majority interest remained with them in the event one of them left the business, voluntarily or by an act of fate.

  “And it’s been running just fine without me for years.” Where would he fit in now? Could he even? Did he want to?

  “Apparently, it’s running fine without any of us.”

  The bitterness in his voice surprised Tanner. It wasn’t strong, yet he hadn’t imagined it. He shifted to get a look at Finn’s face, but it showed nothing.

  “Hey,” Tanner said. Finn raised a brow, his feigned innocence not working. “What was that about?” From what Tanner had gathered, Rig, Ash, and the rest of the partners had done an excellent job of keeping the company running despite the tragedy that’d taken Finn and Chris down. Rig had copied Tanner on every email update, and he’d read through them all since they’d arrived here.

  Finn stared at the fireplace, chin stubbornly set at the lifted angle that said he was either considering a response or refusing to answer.

  “They want you to come back,” Tanner said. “Rig’s been making plans on—”

  “I don’t need him to make plans,” Finn snapped. “Fuck.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, the sudden tension dropping out of his shoulders. He lowered his hand. “I don’t know if I can go back,” he finally admitted, voice cracking on the last word.

  “What do you mean?” Tanner was honestly confused. “Of course you can go back. Why wouldn’t you?”

  “And be what? The desk jockey? The exact position I’d been avoiding when we formed Kick?”

  Tanner eased his legs around so he could face Finn. He struggled for a lead on this conversation, aware a wrong move could hurt them both.

  “Adventure sports aren’t in your future.” He made it a statement rather than posing it as a question. He’d known about the concussions during Finn’s time in the Marines, and the doctor’s concerns back then. No way would high-risk activities be an option now. Not if he wanted to stay alive. “There are other things—”