Zach was of the opinion that Brown needed space to come to grips with his life and his bloodline. Gibson was more concerned about the man coming back to finish what he’d started, but something inside of him—something visceral and human—whispered the same words Zach threw in his face before they came inside.
Pat Brown’s world was never going to be the same. His shadows were now going to hold monsters instead of just the darkness, and every dog he saw he would question, looking for an intelligence a normal canine would not possess. He’d built his life and convictions on a lie, a slippery ground yanked out from underneath him in a rush of truth and blood. When they’d been children, Pat’s tender heart made fishing for dinner impossible, and he’d taken home more than a few injured rabbits the Keller boys would’ve turned to stew. The irrational, enraged man who’d shot Ellis hadn’t been the child Gibson’d known, and today peeled back all of the layers of anger choking that little boy’s gentle soul. Afterward, Gibson had wondered out loud if he’d seen something in Pat Brown—a tinge of remorse in his eyes when they’d left him behind—a sliver of ingrained mercy and a need to do the right thing. That drive was probably the reason Pat wanted to wear the badge his father had, to be the man his father had been, but today he found out there was more to the man than he’d ever known.
“Was Ellis the only asshole?” Zach murmured from his spot on the couch next to him. Gibson shot him a glance, but the other man masked his smirk with a judicious sip at his cup. “I kinda got the feeling that the two of you pretty much gave everybody a run for their money.”
“Those aren’t the kind of feelings I want to give you,” he admitted. “But that’s going to have to wait. Ellis—”
“Ellis is our top priority right now. Besides, it’s been a hell of a long day, and I’m going to admit it, it’s kind of weird seeing him as a human being.” From his place on the sectional, Zach had to lean forward to get a good look at Ellis sleeping on the futon, most of his body wrapped up in a pair of soft quilts Martha pulled out of the linen closet. “I just keep worrying he’s… going to stop breathing or change back. I guess I’m still scared, and I can’t even guess how you feel about this.”
“I haven’t seen my brother—really seen his face—in nearly two years.” He chuckled, remembering the thick black bristles half covering his brother’s features. “The beard’s a surprise. I’m pretty sure he’s going to have to use a machete to get it off. He’s skinny. You might not see that, but he is. There isn’t a lot of fat on him. Being a wolf burns that off of you, and he spent most of his time ranging over the hills. Did you see how callused his hands and feet are? There’s just so much that I hadn’t taken into account, I hadn’t even realized would happen if Ellis shifted human again.”
“Has anybody else been wolf this long before?” Zach moved, and Gibson held his tea up to avoid spilling, smiling when the man tucked up against his side. “Is there anyone you can ask? Anything written down? Someone must have gone through this before.”
“Everything I know about what I am I was told,” Gibson replied, shaking his head. He put his cup down, the aftertaste of tea turning bitter on his tongue. If Pat Brown’s world had been changed by learning the truth, then Gibson’s was blown apart with the realization he knew nothing about how to help his brother. “I’m glad you’re here. Before when—”
“As far as I’m concerned, you left that outside. And from the sounds of things beyond the windows, the storm took it away.” Zach’s mug joined Gibson’s on the table. This time when he leaned back, there was no pretense about the space between them. Sliding an arm around Gibson’s waist, Zach waited until Gibson looped his over Zach’s shoulder. “Whatever you need, I’m here. I keep telling you that, and I get that you might not believe me, because why would you when your whole family abandoned you when you needed them the most? You pulled me out of the lake. I sure as hell can hold on to you now so you don’t feel like you’re drowning.
“I don’t have any answers about being human again, only the ones I learned when they were putting me back together, so maybe I can help there. Ellis is going to have to learn how to walk upright again, learn how to balance and speak.” His grin edged on the line of grimace, then turned sweet. “And he’s going to get angry. I know I sure as hell did. Because his body isn’t going to do what his mind tells it to do. It might go faster than mine did because, well, the two of you heal scarily quick, but those emotions are still going to be the same. Have you thought about what you’re going to do afterwards? After he decides he’s human enough?”
“I’m—” Gibson paused, staring down at the face of an angel he’d rescued from a frozen lake. With so much uncertainty ahead of them—ahead of him and Ellis—he didn’t have the right to ask Zach to stay by his side. Then he got a soft, gentle smile and his heart ached to catch the moon for the man he held against him. “I’m hoping that whatever I choose to do, whatever happens after that, I’ll have you to do it with me. So what do you say? Are you willing to take a chance on a lost wolf?”
Eight
“IT’S ONLY a few hundred yards, Ellis,” Zach said, hoping he sounded encouraging. They’d fallen into a routine in the past six weeks, one that included keeping Ellis company as he fought to regain control of his body. “Hopefully, Gibson’s done with that chapter of his and we can have an early dinner if the pot roast survived. Ruth insists that Crock-Pot recipe is foolproof, but I don’t think it’s been three-fool tested.”
He kept his smile to himself when his teasing drew a small chuckle from the taciturn man trudging next to him. In hindsight, Zach realized Ellis knew exactly how many more yards it was to the cabin since he’d grown up on the mountainside, but the former wolf never seemed to mind Zach’s need to fill the silence between them. Their days were nearly cookie-cutter copies of the day before. Zach would join the brothers at noon to have a quick sandwich or ramen. Then he helped Ellis with the physical therapy exercises Martha suggested while Gibson spent a few hours working on his next romance novel.