Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Tyler went from sated to alert in an instant. He didn’t know what had happened, but somehow the word beautiful had triggered Martin in some way. He’d been one hundred percent into it, Tyler was sure of it, but now he’d run, and Tyler didn’t know what to do next.

He’d never seen this before.

He tucked himself away, wrinkling his nose at the cold wetness, and then pulled up his jeans before heading directly to Martin’s tent.

“Martin?” He couldn’t exactly knock on a tent, but he called soft and low and tapped the upright. “Are you okay?”

Silence.

“Martin?”

Still nothing, and Tyler wasn’t going to push things by going in and demanding to know what had happened. He’d gotten the sense that what they’d just done had been hard for Martin, and all he wanted to do was hug him and listen to him talk so he could help. That clearly wasn’t happening tonight.

“I’ll be here if you need me,” he said softly, then wondered what the hell to do next. At first, he decided he had sex- brain, and that explained why he wandered aimlessly up to the installation, then back down again. Until finally, he wrapped himself in his coat against the swiftly cooling night air, then sat for a while on the drop rock and listened to the water. It was obvious what he was really doing: he was waiting for Martin to come out of his tent. When it passed ten p.m. and nothing happened, he resigned himself to going to bed, taking his time, writing up notes, or at least pretending to write up notes, all the while watching Martin’s tent. There was no light in there, no sound of movement, and if he knew Martin better, then maybe he’d just be able to go over there and demand to talk to him.

But he didn’t. They’d known each other for a very short time, he’d gotten off against him in the dark, a fumbled, desperate match of hands and cocks. Martin was quiet, focused, shy, but other than that, what did Tyler know about the man who’d gotten under his skin? Nothing. He checked in with Crooked Tree with the sat-phone, and then he had nothing left to work on, which meant he could sit and stare at Martin’s tent.

He was almost in bed, literally zipping up his sleeping bag when he heard the shouting. It sounded like an argument, yelling, cursing, and he was up and out of bed in an instant, forcing his legs into pants and wondering why he’d refused to bring a rifle as everyone had wanted him to. Not that he would have used it—he hated weapons—but just waving it around could’ve been a good thing. All he had was a tranquilizer gun, which was like a simple tube and meant to be used in case of emergencies with wild animals. Any self-respecting bad guy would take one look at the thing and laugh Tyler out of town. He pocketed it anyway and grabbed a flashlight. Then he stepped out into the darkness and turned in a full circle, letting the beam of the flashlight find every nook and cranny.

Only after he took his bearings did he realize the shouting was coming from Martin’s tent and had actually become less shouting and more cursing. And sobbing? Martin was in there crying? Tyler didn’t stop to think, and the zipper was undone, leaving the entrance to Martin’s tent gaping, as he stepped in.

The punch knocked him on his ass, flat to the ground, the flashlight spinning away from him, coming to rest by the cot and casting a wide glow. A snarling Martin sat on Tyler and held him flat, but in the soft light, Tyler could see it wasn’t actually Martin there. It was Martin, but his eyes were glazed and his movements jerky and uncoordinated. He was in the middle of a nightmare, sleepwalking, a hole dug into the floor of his tent, his entire front covered in mud, and his eyes wide with fear.

“Martin, it’s me, Tyler. You remember me. I burn bacon.” He kept talking with a low voice. “I’m the idiot geologist, and you probably need to wake up because you’re going to hurt yourself. Why are you covered in mud? What have you been doing? Come on, Martin, wake up for me.”

He knew that conventional wisdom suggested he shouldn’t wake him up, but Martin was heavy, and it hurt, and when light flashed off a trowel in Martin’s belt, Tyler knew this had to come to a stop. He bucked up to get Martin off, and Martin rolled back, coming to a crouch, and fuck, the trowel was in his hand, held up like a weapon. He advanced on Tyler, murderous intent in his expression.

Tyler was on his feet in an instant, poised to get the fuck out of the tent. “Wake up!” he shouted and hurled the nearest thing he could find, a shoe, right at Martin’s chest. In an instant, Martin appeared to snap out of the nightmare, his features relaxing, his eyes clearing, and then there was shock on his face as he stared, horrified at the trowel, and he let it slip to the ground, cursing loudly. He stumbled back until his legs hit the cot, and then he sat heavily and buried his face in his hands. After a while, as his breathing slowed, he pulled his hands away and examined them as if it was the first time he’d seen them, picking at mud ingrained in his nails.

“Shit,” he said with feeling.

Tyler could’ve backed away, gone to his own tent, not even tried to get involved here. A man was entitled to privacy, but when he glanced up at Tyler and his eyes were wet with tears, Tyler acted on instinct and sat next to him. He put an arm over Martin’s shoulders and squeezed a little.

“It was just a nightmare,” Tyler said encouragingly, as if that would make it all better.

Martin cleared his throat and then coughed. He was cold and began to shiver. Tyler pulled a blanket around him before zipping up the tent and shutting them inside. Martin shuffled uncomfortably and threw a worried look at the tent entrance, but he didn’t say anything.

Tyler joined Martin again, and stole one of the other blankets to wrap around himself.

“You want to talk about it?”

Martin laughed humorlessly and shook his head. “We still have to work together,” he said as if that explained everything.

“I heard some words,” Tyler said. “I can make my own assumptions. I heard ‘no.’ Actually a lot of ‘no’s’ and ‘get out,’ and the name Xander.”

Martin shuddered and scrubbed at his eyes. “Xander,” he repeated.

“Was this all my fault? I know this isn’t about me, but if I did something I shouldn’t, then please tell me what I can do to fix it.”

Martin was deathly quiet for a long time, but for once, Tyler managed to stop himself from talking and instead waited for Martin to talk.

“He used to call me beautiful.” Martin’s voice was raw, probably from the shouting. “Xander did, I mean.”

“Is he an ex?”

“God no. But he was the first person who hurt me. Had sex with me.”

Tyler picked up on the inflection of the words immediately. Had sex with me .

“Okay…” Tyler left it open so that Martin could either talk to him or not. Something awful lived in his nightmares, and it was up to Martin whether or not he wanted to share.

“I’m heading south after this,” Martin murmured, and Tyler strained to hear. “I can’t stay at Crooked Tree, so I’m heading south, getting as far away from here as possible.”

Wait. Was the pain that Martin was experiencing due to something at Crooked Tree? Had they hurt him? They’d all seemed kind of cool, even Nate with his no-drones obsession.

“Did something happen at the ranch? Is that where Xander is?”

Martin flinched at the name, then shook his head. “No. Crooked Tree has good people there. Family. Real family.”

None of this was making sense, and Tyler thought maybe they should stop talking now and leave everything to be examined in the light of day. Or not. Whatever Martin decided.

“Do you have a family?” Martin asked abruptly and stared right at Tyler.

“Mom, Dad, a younger sister, Siobhan.” He waited for more questions, but when none came, he pressed on. “Mom and Dad are professors at Seattle University. My sister is married to a journalist and has three children who keep her busy. She’s also a graphic artist, so she works from home. You don’t need to know all that.”

“I want to know. Tell me more.”

“Siobhan is four years younger than me, and she’s tiny, like she comes up to my chest, but she has three boys and keeps them in line with this look she has perfected. She kind of stares at them, and I’ve seen it in action when her youngest, Petey, stole cookies, and his face was covered in chocolate, like he couldn’t have been more than five, and he was standing there with the evidence on his face, denying it all. She just gave him this stare, and he unraveled in about ten seconds. She got all the confident genes, but I ended up with my dad’s love of geology and the nerdy brain with it.”

“They sound cool.”

“Yep, and her kids are just as confident. Petey, he’s seven now, Lewis ten, and the oldest is Jamie.”

A cloud settled over Martin’s face, and the relaxed state he’d been slipping into disappeared in an instant.

“I have something else to tell you,” he whispered. “My real name isn’t Martin.”

“What do you mean?”

“My real name is Jamie.”

His real name? What the hell?