Karl spread the low-burning fire and closed the fire screen. Dan got their clothes sorted from the dryer, and they dressed in strange silence. It was too much to think about and carry—their kiss, the revelations about Axe, what to do about it—and Dan ground to a grim standstill. But then Karl took and held on to his forearm as they exited the cabin. He guided him to a small outbuilding, and the contact reassured him.
“Wait here.” Karl hauled the overhead door open to reveal the usual assembly of garage stuff and a large, sturdy ATV. He kicked it to life and steered it outside.
Dan found enough wits to shut the door, and Karl handed him a helmet and patted the seat behind him. He climbed aboard, grateful for the excuse to grab hold of Karl and fit closer than close as Karl navigated his gravel driveway down the mountain and rode the shoulder of the road that followed the curve of the cove.
At the opposite side, Dan lifted his cheek from Karl’s back and squinted into the mist and the brassy, green-glowing sky. He wouldn’t have been able to find Karl’s cabin in the trees if he didn’t know for sure that it stood there.
Karl climbed the road that overlooked where Axe’s boat was docked. Still gone. They went cross-country to the station and pulled up in time to watch the other team lift off. Karl stashed the ATV in the shelter of the hangar and took Dan’s helmet.
“We should eat and rest, in case we’re called. They could need backup, and with this weather moving in….” Karl’s eloquent shrug spoke for itself.
Dan’s feet dragged. Exhaustion weighed him down. He’d gotten far more than he’d bargained for when he impulsively followed Karl that morning after overhearing Karl with Bennett. He was pretty sure Karl meant for him to overhear and that he meant for him to overhear earlier when he discussed the boat with Yaz—but he didn’t have the energy to mind.
They went into the mess, and Dan let them shove whatever was hot onto a tray. He sank into a chair and belatedly remembered something to drink. Karl remedied that. He brought them mugs and the whole glass coffee pot and sat down right next to him. Their knees touched, and Dan didn’t pretend not to press his harder to Karl’s as he ate without tasting a thing. That was all he could do, but it provided the lifeline he desperately needed.
Chapter Eight
WHEN the alarm called them back to the station yesterday, they rested and had uneventful duty hours. Sleep was amazing and strange. He listened to Dan’s deep breaths as he had night after night, but he heard them differently. Or Dan sounded different, more settled, and Karl was attuned to that. In the morning Dan was tucked into his pillow, and he smiled a silent greeting at him across the room when he opened his eyes. It did all sorts of crazy things to where his mind and blood raced.
They left early to check out the cabin, just in case Dan missed something, but he didn’t seem to have. Karl kicked the chimney rubble, stepped back into the surrounding weeds, and stood hands on hips. As Dan went over what happened during his search, irrational fear gripped Karl with a cold hand. The crumbling wall could have killed Dan.
“I’d agree there doesn’t seem to be anything of use here.” Karl resisted calling Dan back from tromping over the wreck and lifting random boards.
Karl hoped to find a super convenient and tell-all clue, like a meth bookkeeping ledger, if there was such a thing, or a letter for Dan tucked in the floorboards. But between reality, Dan’s initial search, and the clear ruin that Swift’s cabin had become, he knew there was no such thing.
Dan tested a length of what looked to be some of a wall with firm presses of his foot. He stepped onto it, and the boards creaked alarmingly and began to shift forward in a slow-motion landslide. Dan’s arms flailed, and he caught his balance as though on a surfboard. Everything slowed almost to a stop and then moved as though liquefied and slithered under Dan’s stance toward the edge of the yard.
Karl’s blood seized—surged—and he leaped onto the remains of the front porch, grabbed Dan’s outstretched wrist, and wrenched him back onto stable ground. Hunks of lumber, corrugated metal, and foundation stones tumbled over in a groaning heave and crashed through trees on their way down the mountainside.
Karl landed hard on his feet in the grass, and Dan wheeled around and landed on him. Karl caught Dan’s hip with one hand and brought the other up to splay on Dan’s chest. His temper shot away from him in a quick burst.
“What the fuck are you doing? I’m not here to watch you go over the damn mountain and be forced to figure out how to haul your bones back up.”
“We’re here to look around, so I’m looking around.” Dan stumbled to a halt and rested his hands on Karl’s arms. He didn’t seem to mind or be cowed by Karl’s sharp tone or even notice he’d nearly died. “Jeez.”
Karl wanted to snap back that Dan should pay more attention, but standing so close to him, Karl could easily recall kissing Dan and how Dan let him. It had been a rash moment of weakness, but Dan’s distress and the set-apart atmosphere of his cabin made him temporarily forget that he shouldn’t. Dan’s lips were soft, ready to be responsive if he pushed for more, and his taste sweet under hints of coffee and brine. He had no such excuse to kiss Dan again.
“I can’t believe I let you come here alone.”
Dan frown-laughed. “You had no idea I was even coming here that day, so it’s not like you let me or it’s your responsibility or anything.”
“Terrible excuse,” Karl muttered, annoyed with himself for saying it. He glanced around. Deep tire tracks rutted the overgrown entrance and the patch of front yard. “Were those there when you were here last?”
Dan followed his gaze and shook his head. “It seemed like no one had been here for months. But the guys at the station said they heard it’d gone down, so not like it was a secret. Do you think anyone came here looking for… whatever we’re hoping to find?”
“Probably not. I mean, why bother after leaving it abandoned for so long? And you said your search was thorough.” Karl took a half step back but couldn’t quite let go of Dan. “Most likely explanation is someone heard about its demise and came to rubberneck and grab some salvage.”
Dan surveyed the pile of rubble. “Salvage what?”
“There’s plenty to grab and make something from—the chimney stones alone are worth the effort. We’re big on upcycling around here.”
“Upcycling? How California of you.”
Karl grumped a smile, and Dan’s pulse thumped harder under his hand. He liked that responsiveness and imagined it in another setting, with Dan’s cheeks flushed from a much different kind of exertion, eyes sparkling and breath heavy, sprawled under him with that heartbeat answering his demands.
He cleared his throat, extricated himself from their loose clutch, and ignored how Dan’s hands briefly tightened as though to hold him in place. They stood in silence for a bit, and then Dan turned to sweep a final, searching gaze over the cabin site.
“Axe lived in at the station, right?”
“Yes.” Karl walked to the felled chimney and toed at the stones, just in case. None wiggled or conveniently fell out to reveal a magical, missing clue.
“So can we go through his room? The stuff he left behind?”
Karl was brought up short. “We sent it all to your mother.”
Dan stepped near again as something troubled flitted over his expression. He reached out and ran a finger along the cuff of Karl’s jacket—a sign of distress that Karl had picked up on—and Karl instinctively raised a hand to urge Dan in closer.
“My mom is dead.” Dan shook his head at Karl’s low noise of concern, and his smile was watery but steady. “Not recently, and it wasn’t a shock by the time it happened, given how she’d been living—drinking… everything. It’s never easy to bring up and be all casual about, but it doesn’t jack me up or anything.”
“She was listed as next of kin for Axe. He probably forgot to update it after her passing.” Karl had firm hold of Dan again, and with their faces tucked together, he couldn’t fight his desire to comfort an
d touch.
Dan sighed and leaned into him. “No. He didn’t forget. She died before he joined up.” He shifted side to side and then flattened his hand on Karl’s sternum. He used it to push away, and straightened, his mouth a determined line. “We need to get the address where it was sent. And I need a phone signal.”
“I have an idea where we can get both of those. But we have another stop to make before we get there.” Karl spared another look at the cabin and then walked toward his Jeep. “You know, you could probably make a claim on this property, since Axe owed it.”
“I don’t want anything to do with it.” Dan paused, breathed out, and turned his back on it. “Maybe I can figure out how it can be salvaged for upcycling and then just left to nature.”
Karl nodded and made sure Dan was following. He scanned the horizon in a 360.
“What?”
“Just making sure.” Karl motioned in the direction of the ocean. “What do you see?”
He knew the land and patterns like his own skin. Learning and knowing its ways had given him the jump on many developing situations and saved his hide on more than one occasion. He wanted to teach that to Dan.
Dan took several minutes to scan all around as Karl had. He came to a stop again, facing the water, a flat dark bruise in the distance.
“Clouds from the southwest, and way out you can see rain curtaining down, yellowish sky to the east, mist starting to cling to the mountains, and I think the temperature is dropping.” He checked his watch. “And yup, it is. So is the barometer.”
Karl sidled up against Dan so he could point from Dan’s perspective. “Keep watch of those clouds. Southwest is usually the generator of our biggest, strongest weather. The barometer dropping even up here is another indicator—giving us that mist—as are the conditions to the east. If out east stays blue and clear? We have a good cushion against the weather cooking up over the ocean making land. It’ll still wreak havoc out there, so it’s good to think about the shape of the cove, the currents, and the shipping lanes.”
Dan leaned back to follow Karl’s directions and wound up cradled against Karl, chest and legs and in the notch of his raised arm. Karl soaked in Dan’s heat—warm even in the chill air and wind that ripped across this peninsula of land and into the sea—and Dan’s proximity. He turned to point out indicators of tidal flow and wind direction, and their noses brushed. Dan pushed forward, and Karl watched his soft lips part. He anticipated a kiss rather than a question.
“I always figured the east side of the cove was better protected from the west, given its frontal exposure to the ocean. But the station hugs the eastern curve, so does that help protect it from getting the worst of it?”
Karl worked to process the words and zoned out when Dan licked his lips. He licked his own, and Dan’s gaze dropped to them, lingered, and then shot back up again.
“Yeah. Yeah, mostly.” Karl’s voice cracked. He was getting too distracted, too often, too easily. “The station is out in the middle of things there, but really, where better to be?”
“True enough. I’m going to time how long before that rain gets here. If it does.” Dan looked around again. “I think we’ve pretty much exhausted any would-be leads here.”
Karl agreed. Worthwhile to return and make certain, but still disappointing. They got into the car, and he put in the clutch to roll down the hill without turning on the engine. He cranked it at the stop sign and headed west.
“If I stay on long-term up here in nowhere Alaska, I want a nice little house that has a view of the ocean.”
“What?” Karl heard what Dan said but still wanted it repeated.
“A view of the ocean—like your place. See the weather and always hear the waves. That’s where I’d live out here, if not at the station.” Dan drummed his leg, and Karl looked over to catch the rise of color on his cheeks. “I mean, you know.”
Karl grunted so he didn’t tell Dan that that sounded great and he’d be welcome. From their short time sharing a room, he knew they were compatible—both no fuss, respectful of space and habits, with similar preferences for how they spent their downtime. He’d come to like the sound of Dan puttering around the room while he read, or Dan reading quietly while he saw to his daily tasks.
He could too well imagine other ways they’d be compatible, and after letting his mind wander in contemplation of that, he had to lift a leg and shift to a less constricting position. So much for not thinking about it anymore.
“Did your brother join up because your mom died?”
“Kind of. It was always his plan—well, that or pro surfing. He tried that for a while, together with some lifeguard jobs, and he only struggled at it. But the Guard took him the minute he walked into the recruiting office. I think he tried surfing to stay at home longer, but that kind of instability can’t last. The Guard fed him and actually paid him.”
“So, who looked after you once he was gone?” Karl didn’t like the idea of Dan growing up alone, and it came out in his voice.
Dan smiled at him. “I was fourteen when he left. We figured out how to get by with him home just often enough while I kept my head down in school and at part-time jobs. I got myself through high school with the help of a nice neighbor lady who always had a soft spot for us, and joined up the day I turned eighteen.”
The bottom dropped out of Karl’s insides as he processed the magnitude of Dan’s quiet, no-big-deal recounting.
“I’m sorry.” Karl snagged Dan’s wrist and held on tight. “You don’t act like you need it and it’s not pity, but I’m still sorry. I grew up thinking I hated my parents for being so intrusive—involved, protective, supportive—and wouldn’t trade that for anything now. I can’t even imagine.”
“Thanks.” Dan shifted but didn’t pull his arm loose. “It was all I knew. It could have been a lot worse, and I ended up fine. I got a lot of time on the beach, got really amazing at making boxed mac and cheese and grilled-cheese sandwiches, I read tons, and was the only cadet to show up knowing how to do my laundry, cook ramen in a coffee maker, and maintain a budget. No complaints.”
He sounded sincere, but Karl had to look him in the eye to be sure. He stopped in the road at their turn and studied Dan’s expression. “Really?”
“Really.” He covered Karl’s hand with his and blushed a pleased, bashful pink that Karl hadn’t seen before. “It’s actually kinda nice that you’d worry, but it really is okay. It wasn’t that bad, and I never thought about it being any different.”
“I get that. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. And just think, all along I’ve thought of you as some kid.”
“Well that’s good, since I’m not over the hill yet.” Dan tapped the fingers of his other hand in a pattern on Karl’s forearm. “You know, no one’s ever cared or thought to ask before. I haven’t ever told anyone either.”
“They should have. Someone along the way should have noticed and asked.” Karl’s nostrils flared, and protective anger coiled in his belly.
Dan’s half smile warmed. “Maybe, but people see what they want to see, and I made sure to be seen as doing just fine. And now here I am and doing just fine for real. I’m good with that.”
“Here you are,” Karl murmured. He watched several emotions flicker in Dan’s eyes, but none were lies or regret.
Dan tightened his hand, and the air crackled around them. He focused on Dan’s lips, the color continuing to darken Dan’s skin, and the fluttering pulse at Dan’s collarbone. Dan watched him exhale with a long low sigh rife with want he couldn’t hide, and then laughed.
Dan blinked and pulled back. “Where is here, exactly?”
It made Karl suddenly cold to remember they sat in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere. He swallowed his heart back into place, hit the gas, and turned.
“Almost there.”
Sunlight dancing on the water bounced on the approaching clouds as they came in sight of the cove. He followed a lazy S-curve down to the low shore and met up with the road that r
an above the docks. It wasn’t long, and he parked the Jeep so they had a perfect view of Axe’s boat.
“I wondered if it was back. I should have thought to GPS tag it or something. Yaz didn’t know who took it for a spin the other day. No one seems to.”
“We didn’t exactly have an opportunity for that. And I didn’t happen to have an old cell phone or a tracker handy. Did you?” Dan hopped out of the car. “Let’s go see if the cargo is still on board.”
He fought the idea for all of a second, and then he joined Dan to go down the stairs to the docks. Karl was glad for the knife he always wore strapped to his leg. He turned his radio volume down. The docks were quiet, and no one was around. They got on the boat without any trouble.
Dan produced the key but stopped at the door. He lifted the latch, and his eyebrows went up. The padlock was gone. So was the crate and all the meth.
“Damn it.” Karl opened his hands in frustration. “Someone figured the boat got bird-dogged, or it’s just bad timing and the drugs were on the move when we discovered them.”
“Now what?”
“I take it you don’t happen to have a tracker handy.”
Dan huffed and shook his head. “We should have stayed with it and figured out where it was going.”
“How? I could barely hold on, and you weren’t doing any better. We weren’t dressed for it, much less armed if necessary, and no one knew where we were, so we had no backup.” Karl stomped off the boat to the dock. As much as he wanted to agree with Dan, there was no way. It wouldn’t have worked, and it would have been too dangerous. “Someone hauling that much junk around wouldn’t have taken kindly to us if we were discovered, and if we wound up miles away in unknown territory, we’d be even more vulnerable.”
Karl wheeled around as Dan remained stubbornly on the boat.
“If you wanna hang out here, be my guest. I’m gonna go see about getting you good cell service and that address.” That didn’t quite make sense, but Karl didn’t care.
Dan huffed loudly enough to carry to Karl and then chased after him. “Shouldn’t we stick around and tail it? Something?”
Staggered Cove Station Page 11