4. Aiden

Chapter Four

AIDEN

"What're you doing here?" Seth asked.

It was the same deep, steady timbre from the lake. Aiden was shocked he hadn't instantly recognized him from that alone. He heard that voice in his head practically every day—usually when he was about to do something stupid. It always made Aiden feel safe, no matter what brand of chaos was surrounding him.

"It was you, wasn't it?" Aiden asked bluntly.

Seth's expression remained stoic. He looked older, but not in a bad way. There was something appealing about the changes in his face. His jaw was sharper, and the sun had carved deep lines at the corners of his eyes that Aiden wished were from laughter. His mouth was hard now. He was no longer the boy Aiden remembered, the boy who'd been his savior a dozen times over, but Aiden supposed time did that to people. They'd all changed, and none had as good a reason as Seth.

The wind shifted, and Seth's cheek flinched ever so slightly at the sudden lash. He lifted one eyebrow as if he had no idea what Aiden was talking about.

It was one tiny little step away from the supercilious expression Aiden's mother had worn that morning. He hated that expression; it was like a cattle prod straight to his backside. Before he could think better, he'd already bolted forward and jabbed Seth in the chest with a hard finger. "Don't bother denying it. I know it was you. How could you just leave me there, you asshole?"

Seth's eyes narrowed. "The ambulance was on its way," he said coolly.

"What if I'd died before the ambulance got there?" Aiden poked at him again, aggravated that Seth could barely feel it through his weatherproof jacket.

"You didn't." Seth grabbed his offending finger, quick as a rattlesnake, and bent it just enough to make Aiden jerk his hand away. "But if this is your way of saying thanks—noted."

Aiden took a deep breath. This wasn’t how he’d wanted it to go. His mouth always ran away with him, blurting whatever was floating closest to the surface of his brain, and he almost always regretted it. "I did want to thank you," he said earnestly. "Seriously. I would've died out there if it hadn't been for you."

Seth's gaze caught and lingered briefly on his bruised face. He glanced away, looking conflicted, and bent to retrieve the hay bale he'd dropped. "You were stupid," he said gruffly, pushing past Aiden and heading into the barn.

"Is that why you didn't stick around? Survival of the fittest?" Aiden asked, trailing behind him.

"That's how life works."

"You don't believe that," Aiden protested, looking around curiously as he entered the barn, noting the broken equipment and dwindling feed supply. The warm, familiar scent of alfalfa and timothy grass enveloped him, better than catnip, relaxing muscles he hadn't even realized he'd tensed.

Seth was watching him closely, clocking his reaction. "How do you know what I believe?" he asked.

I did once. Aiden caught that one before it flew out of his mouth. Instead, he waggled his eyebrows and said, "You pulled that elk calf out after me, didn't you?"

"No sense leaving the job half done."

Aiden laughed, itching to loosen him up and bring back the smile that had always lurked behind his quiet eyes. "Mia thought you were a poacher," he said lightly. "Little does she know that you're the kind of guy who probably still wears Captain America undies in secret."

Seth scoffed under his breath. Call him an optimist, but Aiden figured it was a sound that wanted to be a laugh. He pointed to a rod and tackle box propped in the corner and grinned. "Let me guess—you were ice fishing?"

"With a license," Seth added wryly.

"Never doubted it." Aiden hopped on top of the meager haystack, carefully selected the greenest alfalfa straw, and popped it into his mouth. "How's Tessa?" he asked.

"Fine," Seth remarked, barely looking at him as he turned his attention to a busted saddle sitting on a workbench.

Aiden wasn't offended that he wouldn't look him in the eye. Seth was the kind of guy who liked to keep his hands busy, and with running the ranch alone, he wasn't a man with a lot of time to waste.

"Is she still away at college?" Aiden asked.

"Her financial aid fell through, so she's home for the winter."

"I haven't seen her around."

"She doesn't like to drive," Seth said without looking up, "and I don't have much time to bring her down the mountain."

They'd progressed to compound sentences, at least. That was progress. Aiden chomped his alfalfa straw, sucking the sweet green flavor onto his tongue, and refused to be discouraged. Seth had spent so much time alone he'd probably forgotten how conversations worked. Aiden wasn't an idiot; he knew he wasn't welcome. Seth didn't want him here. But the way he saw it, fate had thrust them back into each other's lives for a reason. He wasn't about to let himself be shoved back out in the cold—not until he'd repaid Seth for saving his life, anyway.

"What were you doing lugging hay back in from the pasture?" he asked, nodding toward the bale Seth had been carrying. "It's supposed to go to the cattle, you know."

"I was taking it out to them when I saw your truck pull up, so I turned around."

"You're carrying each bale by hand?" Aiden asked incredulously. "Don't you have a feed truck?"

Seth was beginning to look annoyed. He glared down at the broken saddle tree as if he wished it was Aiden's neck. "Radiator's busted," he said irritably.

"Ouch." Aiden paused. "How many head of cattle are you running now?"

"Forty."

That wasn't even a quarter the size they'd maintained when David was alive, but hauling enough hay out to the herd to supplement their winter diet would still be an exhausting ordeal without a truck. A distressed sound caught in the back of Aiden's throat, and Seth's head came up. His expression turned vicious, and Aiden quickly deflected.

"Tessa's—what? Nineteen? Twenty?" he asked. "She's got to be bored out of her mind up here with only you for company. Why don't you bring her into town and let her help with the prep for Winterfest? It's all anybody can talk about."

Seth grunted but didn't bother replying. Aiden didn't let it discourage him; he was just warming to the topic. He'd always loved Tessa. She was thirteen years younger than her older brother, and she used to have the worst crush on Aiden. It was obnoxious how she'd followed him around as if attached by an invisible leash, but he never minded much. He'd always wanted siblings, and he'd take a cute little girl with messy pigtails over the silence of his own house any day.

"The mayor's been trying to rope folks into a skijoring competition," he continued, blithely ignoring Seth's disinterest. "Can you believe that shit? Letting a horse in a full-on sprint pull people on skis through a jump course? The guys are hoping to get me to try it, but nah. I'm not crazy."

He'd left himself wide open for ribbing with that last remark, but Seth didn't take him up. That was fine; Aiden could easily carry a conversation for two. He'd broken the ice accidentally the day before, so he figured he could break this ice on purpose. It wasn't even a struggle. Even after all these years, he slipped effortlessly back into their old pattern: him sitting there jawing; Seth listening quietly while he worked.

There was something so calming, so grounding, about watching Seth work. Everything he did was meticulous; his attention to detail was always immaculate. That was just his nature, but Aiden supposed his habits were much stronger now, reinforced by past mistakes.

After all, the one and only time Seth had been distracted had resulted in the biggest mistake of his life—a mistake that destroyed his father's business overnight. After a night of hard drinking with Aiden, a hungover Seth had mixed the wrong dose of supplement into the herd's winter feed. Within a matter of days, nearly two hundred cattle had died. They dropped by the dozens each day, bloating in the fields, and not even Doc Riley could cure them. It had felt like a battleground, treating animals for pain where they lay and then hauling away the carcasses with the help of shocked and judgmental neighbors.

Aiden still felt nauseated whenever he thought about it.

"You want me to bring that busted saddle into town for you when I leave?" he asked impulsively.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because Gus hates me." Seth's tone was flat, but he yanked at some loose stitching around the stirrup with extra viciousness. "He stopped doing business with me years ago."

The alfalfa straw dropped from Aiden's open mouth. "He—what? Why? That old man doesn't hate anyone."

Seth's hands stilled, white-knuckled on the busted saddle tree. He turned his head ever so slightly as if he wanted to look at Aiden from the corner of his eye but was holding himself back. Frustration was etched into the harsh lines of his face when he asked, "How else was he supposed to react? Dad was one of his best friends, and the strain I put him through drove him to an early grave."

"That's bullshit!" Aiden sputtered, nearly choking on his indignation. "He can't blame you for a heart attack."

Seth shook his head like he was trying to dislodge a gnat buzzing at his ear, and that gnat was Aiden. "A heart attack right after he was forced to declare bankruptcy. That's all that matters to most folks."

"But that's crazy," Aiden protested. "What have you been doing all these years? Driving all the way to Baker City whenever you need a repair?"

"I make do."

Aiden jumped off the haystack, too outraged to sit, and paced around a bit while he gave it some thought. It was true that public sentiment had turned brutally against Seth in those first few years. He'd gone from golden boy to devil incarnate in people's eyes seemingly overnight. Small towns gloried in a good scandal, and folks rolled around in Seth's scandal like pigs in mud, but the whispers had eventually faded. Everyone went on with their lives—everyone except Seth. He was still living in the past, frozen in a moment, just like the ranch falling down around his ears.

"I don't think it's as bad as all that," Aiden said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "You've just spent too much time up here alone. How would you know how the town feels about you? You're never there."

Seth's jaw tightened, and Aiden caught a flash of darkness in his eyes. Irritation or anger, he couldn't be sure, but it turned those whiskey-brown irises nearly black. Without warning, Seth reached out. Aiden jerked back instinctively, bracing for a strike that never came. Seth's touch was fleeting, brushing against Aiden's bruised temple where the elk's antlers had clocked him. His fingers were unexpectedly gentle, but Aiden's cheek flinched at the rough scrape of calluses on his inflamed skin.

The unexpected contact shocked Aiden into silence. He stared mutely, wondering who this man was and how the boy he'd once known better than his own beating heart could have become such a stranger.

"Does it hurt?" Seth whispered.

"Nah." Aiden tried to smile, caught off guard by the sudden tenderness. He locked his jaw, clamping down hard on the shiver threatening to run down his spine. "You know how it is. I'm always banged up. That hasn't changed."

"You could've died so easily," Seth said, sounding angrier than Aiden had ever heard him—except maybe after the bear incident. He'd been furious that night, ready to finish what the bear had started and tear a strip off Aiden for his foolishness. Aiden was long familiar with being jumped on for every mistake, big or small, but Seth hadn't been angry because he'd screwed up. Seth was angry because he was scared— for him. To this day, no one had ever cared about Aiden so much. Aiden had forgotten what that felt like. He'd willed himself to forget. It made the betrayal of being shoved aside more bearable.

"Would you have ever told me you were the one who pulled me out?" he asked.

"No."

The simple denial hurt far worse than it should have. Aiden cleared his throat, trying to play off how short of breath he suddenly felt, wondering why neither of them moved to put some space between them. "Then I guess we're lucky that I've got both brains and beauty," he joked. "Now I can thank you properly."

Seth's eyes lingered on his injury briefly before flickering down to his mouth and then away. Something that looked almost like regret crossed his expression. "You don't owe me anything," he said gruffly.

“Ah-ah-ah.” Aiden ticked a finger at him, struggling to keep his voice steady and ignoring how his heart pounded. "No good deed goes unpunished. Let me take that saddle into town for you. It was your dad's, right?"

Seth nodded reluctantly.

"I knew I recognized it." Aiden's voice sounded loud and abrasive in the quiet barn. "Let me get it fixed up—my way of thanking you. Gus retired a few months ago, anyway. West Owens runs the place now and doesn't hold grudges."

Seth's expression was bemused. One corner of his mouth tugged up, just slightly, as if he wanted to smile but couldn't remember how. "You don't need to repay me for saving your life, Aiden. I guess it's just a habit from the old days."

Aiden laughed despite himself. "It's not about paying you back. Not really. It's about helping an old friend."

Seth's expression had been softening, and for a moment, he'd reminded Aiden of the boy he used to know—the one who hung the moon. But now the tension in his shoulders ratcheted up to max level. "I don't need your help," he spat, like chewing nails. "I might not be working for a fancy outfit like the Triple M, but I'm doing just fine alone."

"I wouldn't call it fancy—" Aiden began, but Seth interrupted.

"Whatever it is, it's none of my business—and I'm none of yours."

Aiden wasn't easily offended. The only time he was ever quick to anger was on behalf of someone else. But Seth's dismissive tone pricked at his ego, reopening wounds that had never quite healed. He understood that Seth had been grieving after his father's death, but the way he'd turned his back on Aiden had cut him to the core. It felt like Seth had taken a scalpel and surgically removed him from his life.

"Yeah," he shot back snidely. "You made that crystal clear a long time ago."

Seth's expression frosted over, growing remote, and he turned away from Aiden. Dismissed him. Like he was nothing. "You wanted to thank me," Seth said shortly. "You did. Now, it's time for you to head back down the mountain. I've got work to do."