Chapter 12

CHAPTER

TWELVE

"When you asked if I needed another set of hands last week, this is not what I was expecting, but I'll take it."

Colton reached out his bottle of beer and tapped it against Bear's at his words. They were both sitting leaned back against what would be the final climbing wall of an obstacle course for the kids coming to camp in a few days.

"Honestly, it wasn't what I was thinking of either, but I've had a hell of a time designing and building it."

Colton had arrived in Oak Creek four days ago, leaving almost immediately after hanging up with Bear. He'd gone home, packed his shit, put stuff in his truck and driven to Wyoming. Tony had almost had a fit—if the fourteen thousand messages on Colton's phone were any indication—but Colton didn't care. He hadn't told his team leader or any of his team where he was going. He'd just taken off.

Colton's head was still messed up, he still wasn't sleeping, he barely felt like he was hanging on… But at least if he was going to go down, he would go down here at home. Not that that changed anything.

Being here felt important and right, but he hadn't wanted to let on how much he was struggling. So, when the idea of creating some sort of fun activity for the kids got discussed the first morning Colton arrived, he jumped on the idea of designing a small but challenging obstacle course on the Linear Tactical property.

"You know your parents met on one of these things, right?" Bear asked.

"Oh yeah, I've heard the stories. Maybe at some point, somebody will consider restarting the Wild Wyoming Adventure Race."

"Please, no." Lincoln was walking around rechecking the structural integrity of everything. "You have no idea how many times I've heard the story of my dad's face being trapped in your dad's ass when that rappelling line broke."

Both Bear and Colton chuckled. The rappelling was part of the adventure race that Boy Riley had won multiple times, but in this case, there had been sabotage, and Baby Bollinger, Lincoln's father, had almost died.

Somehow when the story got told now, the danger of plummeting one hundred yards to his death got brushed aside, and Baby made it sound as though Boy Riley's passing gas in his face was the most dangerous part of that day.

"The kids are going to love this," Bear said again as Lincoln continued his study farther back on the course. "And the fact that the great Colton Harrison developed it and will be providing tips on how to best navigate it…that will be icing on the cake."

The great Colton Harrison. It was all he could do not to scoff.

"I'm just happy I could be part of creating it."

Colton was even more glad that he could have something on which to focus his attention. Working himself into exhaustion, first with the design and then with building the obstacle course, had kept him busy. And, more importantly, had kept everyone from paying too much attention to the state of his mental health.

He still hadn't gone into town. No one had questioned that either since everyone had been trying to help with the obstacle course and all the other final elements for the camp.

But now, it was done.

"Have you gone to see Ella yet? "

Colton glanced over at Bear, not entirely sure how to respond.

Lincoln saved him, calling out from one of the obstacles. "You know, if we change the angle of this wall, it would allow the rope swing to get greater trajectory when someone jumps and grabs it."

Bear glanced over at Lincoln to see exactly what he was talking about, and Colton took a sip of his beer to hide his sigh of relief. Because he didn't want to answer his friend's question about seeing Ella. Except for the people who had been working on the obstacle course with him, nobody even knew he was in town.

He just wasn't quite sure what he was going to say to anybody, especially Ella. Again, not that he was here to see her anyway.

His hermit-like behavior hadn't been a topic of conversation for anyone or even part of his own thinking because they'd been working from dawn until late in the evening to get this obstacle course ready. But now, that time-filler was done, and he wasn't sure what he was going to do.

Bear got up and walked over to stop their cousin from doing anything drastic like rebuilding the wall, but Colton stayed where he was.

And grimaced as he felt a tremor start once again in his hand.

Goddamn it.

He jumped up to his feet. He could not go through this again. He walked over to where Lincoln was still discussing the pros and cons of a steeper climbing wall and how it would affect the rope swing. Bear was amazingly patient with their cousin, given the fact that if the man had made his concerns known a few days ago during the planning process, there would be no need to rebuild anything now. Not that rebuilding was needed—this wasn't Olympic training; this was just something for the kids to have fun on.

But if they did change the wall, it would at least give Colton another few hours of something to do.

"Actually, Lincoln may have a point." Colton thumped his fist on the climbing wall. "It won't take very long for us to rebuild this at a steeper angle. "

Bear's eyes grew wide. "Are you kidding me? You're actually agreeing to this? My to-do list is already ten thousand items long, it's eight p.m., and we've been working on this for three days straight."

"Yeah, but?—"

"No." Bear's tone brooked no refusal. "There's plenty of other stuff that still needs to be done before the kids get here in a few days."

Colton knew he was right, but damn it. "Are you sure?"

Bear looked like he might actually take a swing at him. Colton couldn't blame his friend. He knew he was being unreasonable. Lincoln was pretty much always unreasonable, so that was understandable. But Colton wasn't usually in the crazy camp with him.

"Are you messing with me right now?" Bear asked.

Colton forced a smile onto his face. "Yeah. Of course I am. I'll stop."

"Good. Because I expect this sort of stuff from Linc, but there's no need to encourage him. This course is amazing just as it is, and the kids are going to love it. Now, I'm going home by way of the Eagle's Nest for a bite to eat first. Anyone interested?"

Colton knew he should rip off the Band-Aid and head into town. See everyone and get it out of the way. But he couldn't when he was walking such a fine line and didn't have control of his body the way he wanted.

"Rain check for me. I'm going to make it an early night."

Bear was distracted enough not to push it. "Lincoln?"

"Yeah, I'll meet you there in a few minutes."

Bear shook his head. "So help me God, if you guys rebuild this climbing wall…" He didn't finish the threat as he walked toward his car, looking down at his clipboard with the never-ending checklist.

Bear's car hadn't even started before Lincoln said, "I estimate that we could rebuild this in just under six-and-a-half hours if it's just you and me working on it. Roughly three hours and forty-five minutes if we can find a third person. "

Colton held up a hand to stop Lincoln before he continued with exact estimates for how long it would take with five people, six, seven… No doubt he'd already done all the calculations in his computer of a mind.

"I don't think rebuilding is necessary." Although he was tempted. "Like Bear said, the kids are going to love it just as it is. Plus, if we're up half the night working on this, Bear will never let us hear the end of it tomorrow."

Lincoln continued to study the climbing wall for a few more seconds before turning to Colton and nodding. "Yes, Bear will be upset. And I do understand that there are more important things to do than this."

But the tightness around Lincoln's lips indicated he obviously didn't like it. Colton slapped him on the shoulder with a chuckle. "The kids will never know."

Lincoln's jaw clenched. "But I'll know, and I'll have to live with it."

That was obviously a line that had been said to his cousin over and over during his life. Colton wasn't surprised.

"That and the fact that I am not allowed to teach hacking skills to the children next week. Which is ridiculous. Understanding certain hacking principles will do nothing but help make them less susceptible to being hacked."

Colton laughed at the despondency in Linc's voice. "You going to catch a bite to eat with Bear?"

"Yes. I enjoy the chicken potpie the Eagle's Nest has on weekend nights. You are not going to come?"

Colton shook his head. "Nah. I'm not very hungry."

Lincoln was still studying the wall. "Ah, I misunderstood. I thought it might be because of your abnormal physiological reactions to seemingly temperate events throughout the day. Are you ill?"

Colton froze. Nobody else had noticed him trying to keep his crazy under control. But Lincoln, who had difficulty reading the simplest of nonverbal cues, had picked up on it—or at least the physical reactions his body was having. Fortunately, the other man was unable to put together that it was panic attacks.

"I think maybe I'm coming down with something. But I'll be fine. I just need rest."

Lincoln looked over at him and then nodded. "Rest is good for illness. The body is more able to heal itself when it is fully rested."

If Colton could manage to get a good night's sleep, maybe his fucked-up brain would start healing itself.

Maybe not.

"I'll catch you tomorrow, Linc."

Colton walked toward his truck, not wanting to say much else to Lincoln, lest he put together what was actually happening. He got into his truck and drove it toward the bunkhouse. He didn't know why he was staying here rather than at the place his parents still owned just outside of town.

Actually, he did. As soon as his parents found out he was staying in town, he had no doubt they'd be coming for a visit. He'd been avoiding them for good chunks of two months—only talking to them enough that they didn't initiate some sort of intervention. He wasn't ready to see them yet here.

As long as they thought he was on the road focusing on work, they wouldn't get too concerned. But if they knew he was here, they'd swoop in. He was also thankful his brother Tucker had been sent on some extended mystery mission overseas and wasn't around. Tucker tended to be a jokester, but hiding what was going on from him would've been nearly impossible.

That was the problem with being too close to your family—they figured things out damned quickly.

He parked his truck outside the tiny cabin Theo had given him to use, not that he'd been there very much. Hell, he didn't want to go in there now either. The dark looked stifling, and he knew sitting there with his own thoughts was only going to lead to a long night.

He tapped the hood of his truck as he walked by. "See you soon."

No doubt, he would be sleeping out here if he even slept at all.