Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Martin missed Tyler already, acutely aware that he’d become his touchstone over these last few days. They’d met up every evening and eaten dinner together, spent some time talking about life, and a lot about geology and coffee and anything else that sounded interesting. Staying here was something he owed to Justin, Adam, and himself. But he also needed to do this so he could confront the last of his ghosts.

Today was the day in which Adam was returning, and Martin understood that was why he’d been given tasks that took him away from the main offices. First thing, to clean the River cabins, which he’d finished by ten, and then on to delivering groceries to the families who’d just arrived for their stays. A family of seven was in Tyler’s freshly cleaned cabin, and it seemed odd to see new people in the space that had become his safe place and the place where he’d found himself falling in love.

Because he had fallen in love. Something monumental had shifted in his life, and it was all due to Justin pushing him and Tyler not letting him go. Tyler didn’t know it was Justin and Adam he’d talked about, but releasing the grief and guilt had been cathartic, and one day if Justin and Adam were okay with it, maybe he could tell Tyler everything.

Justin had said it would be easier if Martin was away from the ranch so he could talk to Adam first.

Martin had been working with Jay on the ranch accounts. Not that accounts were his thing, but at least he was good with numbers. Justin asked him to report to Nate at the stables and he wasn’t looking forward to it, but he’d try his damnedest to make sure that whatever he did was done quietly and efficiently. His only worry was that Adam was back and somehow he’d be waiting for Martin, and his reaction would probably tear down the fragile confidence he’d started to build. Justin never once said how he thought Adam was going to react to Martin being here. In fact, he was evasive, and Martin didn’t want to push.

Today Justin would be explaining to Adam and his partner, Ethan, that the man responsible for hurting Justin and Adam was here.

Later Martin might not have somewhere to stay, and he’d already packed up his meager belongings in case he needed to run.

It wasn’t much. His Martin Graves ID, what little money he had, the cell phone he always kept fully charged, and the rainbow crystal that went with him everywhere. He was ready to go and had made sketchy plans that would never pan out.

The only bright spot among the worry was the text he’d received this morning.

I miss you. Wish you could make it out here. A man can hope. x

Martin wasn’t sure they would ever see each other again, but over the past couple of weeks, meeting Tyler, experiencing something normal, had changed him, and he knew it. He wanted to see Tyler again, he just wasn’t sure he’d head for the city to do that.

It wasn’t Nate waiting for him with the horses, but Justin, his hands pushed into his pockets. There was someone else there, a man with a baseball cap pulled low on his face. At first, Martin didn’t recognize him, but as he moved closer, his chest tightened, and his steps faltered. He hadn’t changed much from when he was fifteen. This had to be Adam.

Adam. Fuck.

Justin turned to the man and said something low enough that Martin couldn’t hope to hear him. Then he stalked toward Martin and brushed his shoulder as he passed.

“Please don’t fuck this up,” he muttered. “Or I will find you, and I will throw you off Ember Bluff.” The way he said it made Martin feel like this Ember Bluff place was a high point on this land.

The rational side of his brain yelled at him to run, but his conscience made him stay . I owe Adam.

“In here,” Adam called as he vanished into the stable. What was waiting for Martin in there? He didn’t want to think; he didn’t deserve anything less than Adam’s anger, and it would be so easy to walk away. It wasn’t as if he had to stay here. It was only his fucked-up head that demanded he attempt to make amends. No sane man should walk into the gloomy darkness of the stable if he was being sensible.

Justin is right; you owe it to Adam for him to say his piece.

He clenched his fists, then relaxed them a finger at a time, repeating the motion until the fluttering panic in his chest stilled. Then he held tightly to the rainbow quartz in his pocket. The crystal helped him focus, took him to a calmer place, and when he walked into the barn, he was mostly resigned to handling whatever happened next.

Adam was just inside, the cap pushed back, and Martin got his first look at the grown-up version of the boy he’d once known. The noises in the barn faded as he stared as if everything in his life so far had been leading up to this moment where he finally faced the second boy his father had hurt.

“I’m Adam.” Adam held out his hand, and even though Martin’s first instinct was to run, he took it without hesitation. Adam didn’t shake it though. Instead he gripped Martin and pulled him closer, staring up close at him. There was a distinct lack of hatred or aggression in Adam’s expression. In fact, it seemed he was searching deeply for something. Then he frowned and shook his head, evidently not having found what he was searching for. “I don’t remember you,” he said, sounding disappointed. Then he sighed and released his hold. “I thought you being there when something so intense happened, a memory that strong, might just be enough that I would remember it.” He was rambling, then scrubbed at his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Martin asked on instinct. Adam seemed physically well, but his eyes had a distance to them.

He shook his head, then nodded. “Yeah, anyway, Justin says that you’re the son of the man who locked us up and tried to kill us.”

Christ, it couldn’t get much blunter than that. What could he say in response that would make any damn sense? “I want to say?—”

“He also said that you were the one who left the doors open so we could get out, and that you advocated to keep us alive and in fact took some beatings for us and were a victim as much as we were.”

Justin had said that?

“There wasn’t anything else I could do. My dad?—”

“No, don’t talk about him or the others,” Adam said. “I don’t need to talk specifics.”

“But—”

“No, it’s best that way. Maybe the memories of them will come back to me one day, but right now, I don’t want the details. I have the scars and what everyone has told me is enough to have me make sense of things, and that is all I want.”

“If you’re sure,” Martin murmured, but all he could think was that he needed to be able to apologize and take the hits and make things halfway right.

“So, you negotiated to keep us alive and left the doors unlocked. You let us go. Right?”

“Yes, but?—”

“Thank you,” he said simply.

Martin cringed. “No, I was part of it. I didn’t have much choice, but I could have done more. It’s my fault?—"

“So, do you know how to ride?” Adam interrupted with a warning look, taking the whole not-talking thing very seriously.

Martin wasn’t following the change in direction of this conversation at all. “I’ve never ridden a horse.”

“Well, you own a horse, and you need to learn how to ride. Let’s go.”

Own a horse? What did Adam mean?

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m going to teach you to ride. It’s actually one of the things I never forgot. I guess because it’s a muscle memory thing.”

“Wait. No. Fuck.” How could Adam be so calm? “How can you even look at me?”

Adam turned back to face Martin. “Jamie Crane right? I mean, that’s your real name?”

“It is… was.” He couldn’t bear to use the name now. Just the sound of the syllables made him feel sick to the stomach.

“Well, I know we’re not supposed to call you that in case people hear and track you back to your dad. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“I guess?—”

“See, I have problems with my memory.” Adam tapped his head. “Some things come back to me. Recently I’ve been recalling more, mostly about this dog I used to have when I was a kid. Scout his name was, some kind of collie cross. But some parts of it I’ll never get back.”

The guilt swallowed Martin whole. “Fuck?—”

“I rely on the people around me, and Justin told me you were trapped as much as we were, that your father had a black soul, and that you didn’t want to hurt us. So I trust Justin with my life. He’s one of my best friends, and he’s not the kind of person who would lie to me. Can you stand there and tell me he’s lying about any of that?”

Martin shook his head. He had been trapped, abandoned by his mom, abused by Xander, forced to live a life that wasn’t right, brainwashed through his respect for his dad. David Crane had the blackest soul of all men, and he’d locked his young son up when he was surplus to requirements. But no, Martin had never wanted to hurt anyone. That was the real truth in his heart; he’d just been desperate to survive.

“See, horses don’t care about your past.” Adam was changing the subject and stood next to a huge black-and-white horse. “They care about how you live in the present, about how you treat them, and what gifts you bring to them.” He stroked the white mane, tangled his hands in the coarseness of it, and sighed. “I’m a lot like a horse, really, only flapjacks are my go-to snack, not apples,” he said, then smiled. “This is Cookie, probably named because he’s black and white, which makes him look like an Oreo, or at least that’s what I think. He’s new here, came to us with a bit of a past, via a rescue place, and he’s yours.”

“Sorry? What?” Martin decided he wasn’t hearing right. Did Adam actually say that this big black beast of a horse was his? Since when did he own a horse? He’d never even owned a goldfish, let alone a big-ass horse.

“Everyone who lives and works here has a horse; yours is Cookie,” Adam said with deliberate patience. “We think he’s six or so now, docile, badly beaten down by previous owners, but still with a spark in him that we can gently encourage.”

Was Adam talking about the horse or Martin himself?

“I’m not staying at Crooked Tree,” Martin began but stopped when Adam threw him a glance and huffed a laugh.

“Yeah, you are. Now, let me talk you through this.”

Martin didn’t have space to argue, and he watched, dazed, as Adam dressed the horse in all kinds of things. Or tacked up, which was the official term, and he really tried to concentrate. All he could think was that Adam had said he was staying and that somehow Justin and Adam didn’t hate him as much as he deserved.

That was a blow. Something that rearranged his world order and left him unsettled and out of place.

They took it slow when they rode away from the stables, or at least Adam reassured Martin that the pace he set was slow, only his ass hitting the saddle didn’t agree.

“Loosen your hold,” Adam murmured, reining in his horse and helping Martin. “Imagine you had the bit in your mouth and someone was yanking on it, and you can begin to have empathy.” There were several more adjustments, and by the time they made it to a large lake, he was actually managing to rise and fall with Cookie’s movements, although he wasn’t exactly enjoying the ride. There was a horse tied off already up here by a wide lake, and next to it was Justin, who’d clearly been waiting for them both.

He came straight over as Adam dismounted. “Okay?” he asked, the single word dripping with questions. Are you okay? Did you talk to Martin? Do I have to kill him?

“Fuck’s sake, Justin, what are you doing up here?” Adam snapped. “Did Ethan tell you to come?”

Martin missed the answer, busy as he was trying to get off Cookie and nearly falling on his ass, but he could see Justin’s shifty expression.

“He’s just worried,” Justin defended.

Adam sighed noisily. “I know. But I can do these things on my own, you know.”

Justin shrugged, embarrassed, and Adam thumped him on the arm in a mock punch. Then the two bro-hugged, all backslapping and with linked hands, and something shifted inside Martin. When he’d left the doors unlocked, all those years ago, he’d prayed to any god that would listen to him that the two men be spared the fire, and seeing them here, grown and as friends, he felt as if that single prayer had been answered. If that was the only thing to come from his life, then he was happy. He noticed the huge boulder to one side, and it reminded him of the camp, and he climbed it and sat on the top, a view out over a beautiful lake, the mountains beyond. The last thing he wanted to do was get into any kind of heavy conversation with Justin and Adam right now.

“Catch.” Justin tossed a bottle of water his way, and he caught it reflexively. Then he passed a water to Adam before holding his own aloft. “To not thinking about the past,” he offered.

“Not being able to think about the past.” Adam smirked. Then they looked expectantly at Martin.

What did they want him to say? His past was a horror, his future unsure, but what did the two of them need from him? He raised his water in salute; the words to match the gesture were harder to come by. Then it hit him that what made the best sense was to say what was in his heart.

“To you both,” he murmured. And he meant it.

“So we’ve been talking,” Justin said, clambering up to sit next to him. Adam followed, and took a seat on the other side so he was the meat in a Crooked Tree family sandwich.

“There’s a job here if you want it,” Adam said.

“Jay said you know your way around finances. Sam wants you to work with him.”

“Sam?” Martin was dubious about Sam specifically wanting him.

Justin rolled his neck. “He said something about meatballs, and that was his reasoning. I didn’t ask.”

Adam joined in. “You could split your time: finance, Sam, working with the horses if you want, and we can set up a more permanent place for you to live. There’s not a lot of money here, but it’s a home.”

“I’m not sure,” Martin began.

“Give it a week,” Justin said. “Then maybe another week after that. Nothing is stopping you from leaving, but right now, I can’t see why you’d want to.”

Tyler was one reason why. But the thought of living in a city, when there was so much sky here, so much peace, was appealing. Could they find a compromise for however long this affair lasted?

“A week,” Martin agreed. “But I have something to do first. Could I have two days?” The money from his work with Tyler had arrived in his account, and there was enough to book a trip.

“Two days,” Justin agreed. “But come back, and I promise I will tell you why I didn’t kill you.”

“I will.” He shook hands with Justin and Adam, then they sat in companionable silence staring at the water. He wondered whether they were looking at the distant point where the mountain peak touched the sky or whether their view was nearer. One day he might know them well enough to ask them.

When he got back to the staff cabin with its shared space, he hid in his room and pulled out his cell to text Tyler the news, but he tried to write it and ended up backspacing so many versions that in the end he gave up. Tyler wanted him to go to Billings, to commute to Butte, maybe get a job, and that wasn’t what he wanted to do. He didn’t want a city or chaos or journeys in cars.

But he knew one thing he did want, and there was only one way to get it.