Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

ADAM

Adam stood patiently to one side of the stables, one hand holding Easy’s reins, the other pushed into his pocket.

He’d been standing in this same place for twenty minutes while the crew arranged parts of the barn for filming, and every molecule of him was iced over. The only thing that was keeping him going was coffee and the apologies that people kept making every time they walked past him.

“I swear, five more minutes,” Micah explained.

And as he’d done last time, Adam simply nodded and watched Micah scurry away. The sun was bright, the glare from the snow caused problems with these scenes, and one of the cameras had broken. At first it was going to be ten minutes, then another five, and then five more….

“Fucking freezing,” Gabe cursed at his side.

The day was typical Montana, where the season couldn’t decide how much of winter to cling onto. The snow had stopped falling, but the air was icy and pricked at exposed skin, despite the sun.

“You don’t have to stay here,” Adam said. Gabe had only arrived a few minutes ago, watching out for Lightning, who was restless and stamping at the hard ground. “I can take Lightning as well.”

“No, I’m good,” Gabe said without hesitation. He stamped his own feet and exhaled a cloud of white into the air. “How are things?” he asked after a moment’s silence.

Same question, different setting. His best friend was forever checking he was okay, not quite over the shock of Adam landing back in their lives, even after this time.

Adam gave his usual response. “Things are fine.”

“Saw Justin earlier.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He looked like shit, like he hadn’t slept in a week.”

Adam made a noncommittal noise and moved from foot to foot to encourage blood flow.

After a short pause, in which Adam assumed he was considering what to say, Gabe asked, “What is it with you two?”

“Who?”

“You and Justin, of course. Everything was going okay, but since Christmas it hasn’t been the same.”

Since Christmas, when all my new dreams seem like memories.

“You don’t get to ask me questions, Gabe. Remember we agreed you wouldn’t push?”

He felt instant guilt because this whole thing with Justin wasn’t about memory loss—or at least he was pretending it wasn’t.

Gabe huffed. “This isn’t only you, this is Justin as well. You’re avoiding each other.”

“It’s personal,” Adam said with a quick glance at Gabe.

Gabe looked hurt, but it cleared quickly. He’d been the most supportive person at Crooked Tree apart from Ethan, reclaiming his position as one of the two best friends Adam had in his life. Not that he could remember much about that friendship; some flashes of his childhood, some stories he’d heard, and under all that, a feeling that he was close to Gabe and Justin.

He just couldn’t get the images out of his head, of Justin in his dreams.

Then, hearing that he’d been Justin’s target even though Justin hadn’t known it was him? Adam had accepted that at face value one evening as they played cards, drank beer. They’d been a little tense, but they’d gotten the words into the open.

But the day after, things were no different, and the act that Justin and he were playing out—the one where they talked to each other in public, even stood to be in the same room as each other—was just that: a horrible, heartbreaking act.

Ethan was way past just being anxious about his brother and his lover. And Sam fretted about everything. Now Gabe was getting involved, stuck in the middle, as usual.

“What can I do to help?” Gabe asked. “Because I want to help. I’m here, and you can tell me anything.”

Gabe was attempting to broker a peace, and that was fine on the surface. But what if there could never be peace between him and Justin now? What if forgetting all the good things he had with Justin meant that the bad things would consume him.

What if he only remembered things that meant he would hate Justin?

Why would his brain do that to him?

“Nothing,” he said. Then he lied, just to make things easier. “We’re okay, I promise. I’m just going through one of those memory things.” He knocked shoulders with Gabe. “I hope they hurry the fuck up filming this bit, I’m turning into an icicle.”

Gabe smiled at him, and Adam relaxed and smiled back. I can do this.

“Ready, guys?” Micah appeared from the left and gestured for them to follow.

Lightning and Easy were starring in the movie, with Jordan’s character talking to them in the barn. The heroine whose name Adam couldn’t recall was to come in and talk about Jordan’s character’s place in her life. And through all of it, Easy and Lightning had to stand in the stables and look, in Micah’s word, horsey .

As it turned out, the horses were wonderful doing their bit, and Adam got to watch the actors go through their paces.

Evidently this was a kissing scene. An angry kissing scene. There was arguing, with Jordan’s character telling the heroine he was leaving the next morning and the heroine accusing him of leaving them on Christmas Eve, and what about that tree he’d promised her daughter they’d put up?

Adam couldn’t recall if he liked romance movies from before-memory-loss, but he was enjoying the whole process, and when the director yelled “Cut” after a fifth take and the crew clapped, he joined in, as did Gabe.

There were some extra shots to be done, but the horses were okay to stay where they were, and that left Adam and Gabe free. The sky was darkening, and all Adam wanted to do was get back to his and Ethan’s place to chill. So, he said goodbye to Gabe, who frowned and sighed dramatically.

“You can talk to me,” Gabe repeated, “if you think no one else you approach is listening to you.”

That broke Adam’s heart. Gabe was assuming he was way down the list, and that was as far from the truth as possible. Gabe was the one smiling constant in his life. He never judged him or questioned him, or made him feel anything inside other than loved.

Even Ethan avoided things when they were together. And why wouldn’t he? Justin was his brother, and Adam was this half-man with a non-functioning memory and an ability to shut people out.

“I’ll always find you to talk to first,” he said, and they did a half bro-hug with back patting. “You’re never second best, Gabe.”

Gabe cleared his throat, but his eyes looked suspiciously bright. He left quickly, and didn’t look back.

Great. Now I’m fucking up friendships as well.

Adam walked in the opposite direction to Gabe, up the hill, with his hands deep in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the cold, the beanie on his head pulled as low as he could get it while still able to see. He walked a well-trod path up past the last cabin, which the Todds lived in, and into the trees. Walking for the longest time until he finally reached Silver Lake and found the rock he liked to sit on.

He sat and unwrapped one of his scarves and laid it on the rock before clambering up and sitting cross-legged upon it.

And then he attempted to center himself as he’d been shown, focusing on creating an image in his head.

He chose the ranch he sometimes saw in his dreams, but it quickly changed and became the fa?ade of a store, all glass and etched patterns. He opened the door.

The scent of the inside assaulted him.

“Hey, Jamie, you back for the coloring?”

James “Jamie” Mahone was his name while he was in witness protection; that was what everyone knew him as. He didn’t know what his real name was—he’d lived another life he’d forgotten. But at the ranch he was Jamie, and that felt okay.

“I’m booked in for ten o’clock , ” he said.

Then he climbed the curved steps that led to the studio above, looking at the pictures of tattoos that lined the stairway: dark gothic crosses and the most delicate of flowers, scripted names and more than a few dragons.

“Be with you in five,” Billy “Stretch” Molan called over, intent on completing whatever the young girl was having done to her shoulder.

From where Jamie stood, it looked like cat’s paw prints and a cursive name.

He crossed to the window and looked down at the sidewalk below. A man was there, the one who’d been following him. Or at least in his more fanciful moments, he imagined the man was tracking him. Unless it was just coincidence that the guy had been in two different places at the same time as Adam. He had dark hair, almost black, and was scrolling through a phone, a cigarette held in the other hand.

“Okay, ready for you,” Stretch called over.

Adam looked back to the station the artist was cleaning down and sanitizing. The girl had left.

How long had he been staring down at whoever was under the window? Or was time shortened in dreams? How was he contemplating that? Was he really awake?

“How are you?” Stretch asked him. “Happy with the tattoo so far?”

Jamie was very happy. The large expanse of design, a horse with the most exquisite details, was having secondary colors put on today, and he welcomed the buzz and heat and prickle of pain as Stretch completed it.

When he left, they said goodbye, and Jamie paused at the door. He hugged Stretch and thanked him for the horse. For the longest time, they stared at each other, and then Stretch cradled his face and kissed him.

“Call me,” Stretch said.

Jamie lifted a hand and carded it through Stretch’s hair, tugging him down for another kiss.

The kiss became more and the store faded away, and suddenly the man with the dark hair was right next to them.

“Fucking idiot, I told you, no!” the man snapped and pulled a gun.

And all Stretch said, in a small, quiet voice, was “It’s okay, Jamie. One day you’ll know how I always felt.”

Adam’s eyes flew open. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but the clouds were darkening; he scrabbled for his cell phone to check. He’d actually been sitting here two hours. No wonder his ass was numb and he felt like ice inside.

He scrambled off the rock, stretched out his muscles, and winced. Stupid idea, sitting on a freaking rock in the cold. Thank God he’d layered his clothes this morning.

As he walked back down the hill, the darkness pulled at him and he felt sick and uneasy. He’d never recalled in such vivid detail the man who had inked his back, and now his heart knew: he’d wanted Stretch, may have had real affection for him; certainly Stretch had smiled at him as if they had secrets between them.

The man with the dark hair had killed Stretch.

The same man who killed the security guys at the ranch. Not Justin. Another man, watching and waiting… and not saying a fucking word.

Adam’s stumbling steps turned into running, and he fell over roots hidden by the snow, crunched through ice, and slip-slid the last of the distance to the Todds’ place.

He needed to tell someone, needed to explain before the memories faded.

He made it as far as the stables when the pain in his head slowed him to a walk. A group of movie people had gathered outside the stall; their laughter filled his head. He saw Jordan there, and the cracks in his head began to split. The pain was so intense he fell to his knees, and that was that.

Game over.