“His father was torn apart.” Ruth tilted her face up, a few errant snowflakes striking her cheeks. The air was growing colder, and off in the distance, dark clouds were beginning to roll over the mountain’s crest. “He’s going to have questions. Probably ones that you won’t be able to answer, but once he’s ready to ask them, he’s going to come to you first. This would’ve been a hell of a lot easier if his father had been honest with him from the beginning. What could happen in the future when he has a kid and—”
“Are you asking me to turn the other cheek in this?” Gibson hissed between clenched teeth. His nostrils flared, and a ring of gold began to bleed around the edges of his irises. “He just tried to kill Ellis. And if Zach hadn’t stepped in, he probably would’ve tried to kill me. Who’s to say, even if he saw Ellis change and the two of us were there, that he wouldn’t finish the job? I’m not taking that kind of animal into my protection, into my circle. That’s asking too much.”
“All I’m asking you to do is to keep an open mind,” the old woman murmured, turning slightly when Martha called out to her from inside the cabin. “You grew up with Pat, played with him when you were a child. Yes, his mother kept you apart after his father died, feeding him those lies that he gorged on all his life, but now he knows the truth, and that’s a hard thing to learn about who you are, about who your father was.
“The Kellers might not have been the ones to savage Sheriff Brown that night, but something—perhaps someone like you—did. Pat is still going to want justice for his father just like you wanted for your brother. You need to keep that in mind.” She took her hands out of her pockets, then rubbed at them until they pinked back up. “Now, I’m going to see what Martha wants, and maybe if the snow isn’t too thick, we’ll trudge up to the rock stand and make sure Pat’s not still up there.”
“If he is there, call us,” Zach said, ignoring the irritated snort Gibson made next to him. “You might need help with him, and I can do that at least. But in the meantime, I’m not going anywhere, Gibson. Not now. Probably not ever. I promised you that back there. I meant it. Every word. So we should probably see what Martha needs us to do so she and Ruth can get back home.”
“Did you even think that maybe I don’t want you here?” Gibson’s face was closed off, but anger simmered in his eyes. “You don’t have a say in this, in what happens. It probably would be better if you climbed in the car with them and went back down—”
Zach took a deep breath and resisted the urge to cross his arms over his chest before facing Gibson. For all of his talk about the duality of their nature, it was pretty obvious the wolf ran hot in Gibson’s blood, especially when he or anyone he loved was threatened. There were a few times when Zach could clearly see a divergence in how his life was going to turn out unfolding in front of him. This was one of those times, one of those moments.
If he walked away, if he climbed into Martha’s rattletrap of a vehicle, then he would essentially be walking out of Gibson’s life. Zach was not only unwilling to do that, he couldn’t. But if he was going to have a fight with the only man who’d ever made him feel the heartbeat in his own chest, savoring the life he’d been gifted, it was going to have to be now and over probably the most important person in Gibson’s life. He was going to have to fight to stay by Ellis’s side, and at the same time demand respect, even when he disagreed with something Gibson felt deeply about.
“I’m going to pretend—no, I’m not to play at this—you are going to need help, and whether you want to admit it or not, you’re going to need me. I know you’re angry. Hell, that dead sparrow we passed on the trail down knows you’re angry.” Zach stepped forward, taking away a little bit of the space between them but keeping his arms loose at his sides, watching Gibson’s reaction. “You’re doing what Ellis does when he feels cornered. Lashing out at me because you’re pissed off and I’m here.
“Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not somebody you can shove into a box because you’re done playing with me. That’s not how this works. That’s not how we’re going to work. And what the we part ends up being, I don’t know, but I’m not going to let you shake me off because I don’t fall into line behind you. That’s also not how this works.” He hooked his thumbs into his jeans pockets just to give himself something to do, to steady his stance. Gibson’s expression went from thunderous to thoughtful, and Zach continued, “I’m going to go inside and see what Martha needs us to do to keep Ellis comfortable. If you want to join me, that’ll be nice. If you want to take your pissiness and use it to chop wood, that would be fine too. So long as whenever you come through that door you leave that shit behind you. I’m not holding it against you, but I’m also not going to swallow it. I care too much about him—and you—to walk away.”
Zach got as far as the cabin door before Gibson finally spoke up. There was a rumble of a clearing throat, and then a whispered baritone chased after him, Zach’s name spoken as sweet and smooth as honeyed whiskey.
“I’m sorry. And you’re right… about everything.” Gibson reached out and laid his hand between Zach’s shoulder blades. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll be inside. I think the woodpile needs some work.”
“WHEN WE were growing up, I was Ellis’s shadow. Everything he did, I wanted to do. If he went out for the baseball team, I wanted to join as well, even if I wasn’t old enough to compete in the same league. He hated it, but I was his baby brother, and even if he didn’t want me tagging along, he never made me feel small.” Gibson cradled his mug, the sharp acrid steam from his black tea wafting over his face. He could smell the sugar in the brew and watched the froth across the surface of his tea turn as he moved his hands. “He was always the strong one, even if he was a bit of an asshole—okay, a hell of an asshole—he was my hero, the guy I wanted to be when I grew up. And seeing him like this, finding him like this, made me realize he needed me to be strong too.”
They’d been watching Ellis sleep for nearly three hours. The night and the storm struck a dance across the mountain nearly as soon as the women said their final goodbye. Nearly half an hour later, Ruth called with the news that Pat Brown walked into the sheriffs’ substation, put his badge on the intake counter, then walked away. He’d last been seen throwing some things into his truck, then heading down the highway, ignoring every call made to his phone.