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Chapter Eighteen

Sam placed the chicken just so on the open sandwich and drizzled the garlic oil over it, judging the look of the dish with an expert eye and then taking it and the ham on rye out to the waiting customers. Ashley was baking, Kirsten had come home and was in charge of the coffees, and the restaurant had an air of peace—much more than the room in the cabin where he’d left Justin to face his family alone.

Sam couldn’t help thinking that he should have stayed. Justin had gripped him hard, clearly looking for Sam to be a physical barrier between himself and his family and friends. Sam almost felt guilty for leaving him; there had been desperation in Justin’s eyes.

“How’s things ?” Ashley asked as she slid a tin of cake mix into the oven.

Sam hoped that was triple choc chip, because that cake was to die for. “Is that TCC?” he peered in through the glass door.

“Stop changing the subject,” she admonished.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Gabe came back. He told me what’s happening.” She glanced behind them at the restaurant. They were light on customers.

Sam turned to face her, hoping his expression was innocent. Clearly not, because she punched him on the arm. “Gabe will keep you up to date,” he said, rubbing his arm and frowning at her.

“You can tell me. What’s it like having him back?” She lowered her voice a little, leaned over to half whisper.

“You’d have to ask someone who knew him before.” Sam took off his apron and smoothed down his shirt. “Look, have you got this?”

Ashley glanced at the few customers still here mid-afternoon. “Of course.”

“What are bookings like?”

“No one for tonight, but I need to prep for lunch tomorrow. We have a ladies’ group of twelve in for lunch.”

“Okay, you can handle that.” Sam couldn’t believe he’d even had to ask her; he always knew exactly to the last person who would be eating here.

Thing was, he had more important things on his mind. He went to the pantry area, putting some food together: pulled some leftovers out of the large fridge before adding bread and a few other bits and pieces. Justin wasn’t doing so well at keeping food down, but Aaron had said that should ease. The sexy paramedic also said he needed an MRI, which Justin, of course, had said wasn’t necessary.

“You’re taking food?” Ashley asked.

Sam jumped a mile. Damn woman was sneaky at scaring the shit out of him. “Yeah.”

“Here.” She thrust a container of TCC bake at him. “Take this as well.”

“Thanks, I will.”

“Do me a favor? Gabe’s up at the house. Tell him to get his ass down here. I need the company.” Then she added in a whisper, “I need way more gossip.”

Sam nodded. He didn’t want to get in the middle of a domestic, nor did he really want to see Gabe, who wasn’t taking all this Justin stuff very well.

Needless to say, for Ashley, Gabe would do almost anything.

Sam walked to the house Gabe shared with Ashley and her kids, Kirsten and Josh.

Josh answered the door. “Gabe isn’t well,” he said, with a frown on his face. “I made him coffee, but he’s grumpy.”

Sam nodded and placed the bag of food inside the door. “I’ll talk to him. Oh hey, Josh, I forgot butter. Could you go to Branches and get some for me?”

“Butter?” Josh looked dubious, his gaze flicking from Sam to the back porch, where Sam guessed Gabe was sitting. Was Josh at that age that he knew he was being fobbed off? “Okay.” Josh finally agreed and scampered past Sam.

Which meant Sam had Gabe to himself, so he stalked through the house and out to the back porch with the gorgeous view up to the mountains.

“Hey,” Sam said, startling Gabe, who looked really lost in thought.

“Hey, back.”

“Message from Ashley. Get your ass to Branches and tell her more about what the hell is going on.”

Gabe laughed. “She has a way with words.”

“And she has you by the balls,” Sam agreed.

“Just like I want it.”

“You’re whipped.”

Gabe stood up and stretched. “I was just sitting here, thinking about Justin and Adam.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam didn’t want to have an in-depth conversation with Gabe, who looked very close to becoming emotional. But somehow he couldn’t move; he was rooted to the spot.

“How am I supposed to deal with this?” Gabe asked, sounding plaintive.

Sam pressed his lips together and then huffed a breath. “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

“I should probably get my head out of my ass, right?”

In answer, Sam smiled. “I’m going back up there with food. Tell Ashley more, and then she’ll stop asking me.” He turned to leave.

“Sam? Wait. I wanted to ask you….”

“What?”

“In the shack, when you first saw him, did he say anything to you about where he’s been, what he’s done?”

“Nothing.”

“Would you even tell me?”

“I would. I promise you.”

Sam managed to get away before any more questions could be asked. At Branches, he took the butter from Josh and hoisted the bag over his back before climbing onto his dirt bike.

“Mom’s making triple choc chip,” Josh said, with no small amount of excitement. “You coming over later?”

TCC tray bake was code for Josh and Sam sitting and joking about how many slices they could eat.

“Definitely. Save me some.”

Before Josh could pin him down, he throttled back and sped up the hill and into the forest.

What he found when he got to the cabin wasn’t the best situation. Apparently, Justin wanted to be alone. Ethan had taken to sitting outside the cabin, with a view through the window of Justin’s room, and Marcus sat in the gloom of the kitchen, nursing cold coffee and looking pretty sorry for himself.

“I brought food.” Sam tossed a wrapped package at Ethan, then grabbed plates from the cupboard and plated up chicken salad for Marcus. He did the same for Justin; without knocking, he entered Justin’s room.

Justin was sitting on the chair by the open window, just to one side so that he could see out without Ethan seeing him. He turned slowly when Sam shut the door behind him.

“Thought you’d like to try eating.”

Justin closed his eyes and nodded, opened them, and stared right at Sam. “What did you bring?”

“All kinds of things, but we’re starting with chicken and rice. It’s kind of bland, but that should be good for you.”

He passed the plate and a fork to Justin and then sat on the windowsill and waited for him to take the first bite. Bruising was more evident on Justin’s neck, likely from where he was hit or had fallen or something.

“How long is it since—When you…?” Justin closed his eyes again.

“Are you okay?”

“Just a headache. It’s actually better. Just feel dizzy. How many days has it been since the cabin? I feel out of control, like I can’t get a handle on time.”

“It’s Wednesday, and I found you Sunday, so three days. Aaron came to see you again last night, and you slept.” Sam gestured to the salad. “And now, you’re eating.”

Justin got the hint, forked chicken into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “’S good,” he murmured.

“When are you leaving?”

Justin looked up at him. “As soon as I can.”

“What about your dad, and your brother, and Adam?”

“Don’t,” he said with heartfelt emotion.

Sam didn’t push it. Instead he watched Justin eat, categorizing each mark on his skin. Justin’s stubble was more a short beard now. The T-shirt he wore showed enough of the burn scars to make Sam recall everything he’d seen earlier, and of course there was the head injury, which was sore. “How’s the thigh?”

Justin winced. “Couple of days and it should be on its way to healing.”

“And your head?”

“I feel better, not so unsteady.”

Sam noted that the answers given were simple but full of optimism that everything was going to be okay. Was Justin trying to convince himself or Sam? “You don’t have to pretend with me.” Why he said that, he wasn’t entirely sure. Probably a mix of never having someone to talk to, and feeling somehow connected to Justin, like he was responsible for him.

Justin finished the chicken and rice, and put the plate on the sill, next to Sam. “Why do you think I’m pretending?”

“Because you don’t strike me as someone who is a cautiously optimistic kind of guy. You’re fixed and focused, and you have a handle on all the variables in any situation. Agreed?”

“Uh-huh,” Justin sounded like he wasn’t sure which direction Sam was going in.

“So let’s get the variables all laid out, and you can see what matters and what doesn’t.” And then Sam leaned forward, right into Justin’s space, and delivered what he hoped was the killing question that would snap Justin out of his isolation. Maybe even make him lose his temper. At least that would be an emotion Sam could deal with. “First off, tell me why you were okay with dying.”

Justin coughed, probably a combination of surprise and recently swallowed chicken.

Sam waited until he stopped coughing and then asked him again. “Why, Justin?”

“I got hit on the head,” Justin said. But he wasn’t looking at Sam; he was looking out of the window, staring into the distance. “It made me confused.”

Now it was Sam’s turn to be skeptical. “Uh-huh.”

“What do you want me to say?”

Sam paused and then held out a hand to help Justin up, which he took, and then they walked to the bed. Justin climbed in, Sam next to him, and as though it was the most natural thing in the world, Justin leaned on Sam.

Sam played with his hair. “I don’t like to think that you can’t see a way out of wherever you are.”

“What are you? Some kind of spy whisperer?” Justin stiffened against him.

“Is that what you are?” Sam asked cautiously. “A spy? Because that would explain a lot of things.”

Justin was quiet for the longest time. A spy might imply some kind of network of other spies, with accountability and a hierarchy of responsibility. Nope, he certainly wasn’t a spy. “No.”

“What are you, then?”

Now that was a leading question. “I don’t expect you to understand any explanation I could give.”

“You could try.”

“I just clean up messes no one else wants to handle, stop people getting hurt on US soil.”

Justin held his breath, hoped that this was enough to stop Sam asking questions. Sam tugged a little at the simple statement, and Justin nearly whined at the way the sharp pull of pain grounded him.

“You weren’t in witness protection, were you?” Sam whispered. “Not like Adam, I mean.”

Grief sparked inside Justin. All those years thinking Adam was dead, while all that time he’d been hidden away. “In a way, I was.”

“You either were or you weren’t, which is it?”

“No one knew who I was or that I had a family somewhere. I didn’t use my own name, spent years working on single cases.”

“A lone wolf?” Sam said. “Sounds like it to me, all covert and spy-like.”

Justin sighed and closed his eyes. He could get used to laying here, with no one to deal with, no one to kill.

Sam was quiet too, and they lay there, still and silent.

Then Sam asked a question, and just the words were enough to have Justin’s chest tightening.

“You have faint track marks on your arm, Justin. Aaron didn’t notice them, I know they are old, but, maybe… do you want to talk about that?”

No! He did not want to talk about it. He wasn’t built to talk things through. Sam was right; he was a lone wolf, but at the same time he was tired of it, done with it. Done with the lies and the hate, but still he couldn’t stop, because he had unfinished work to do.

And there it was. The moment everything crashed back at him. He shoved himself away from Sam, his hair catching in Sam’s fingers, but still he pulled until he had distance between them.

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to talk about it,” Sam said, as if he was attempting to gentle him with words. But his voice was distant and distorted, even though Justin could see his lips moving.

Justin scrambled back, grasping at bedclothes, rolling to his knees on the floor. Fight or flight kicked in, and Sam was right there, talking at him, inches away.

Justin’s fist flew, connected with Sam’s face, and the shorter, slighter man flew backward. Justin crab-walked until his back hit the wall. He used the wall to stand, stumbled to the door, and opened it. Someone blocked his exit.

Justin shoved and punched. Strong arms held him; abruptly, a voice broke through his panic.

“Justin, listen to me, breathe… Justin .”

Ethan’s voice.

And Justin was being laid down, and fingers tangled in his hair, and he turned toward the person who was talking to him.

“He’ll be okay,” the voice said.

Sam.

“You’re bleeding, Sam,” Ethan said.

“I’m okay,” Sam answered.

“He didn’t mean it, I’m sure. It’s just a panic attack,” Ethan explained.

Ethan was defending him to Sam, and a flicker of warmth curled inside Justin to hear those words. Justin screwed his eyes shut tighter; he couldn’t breathe, his chest was tight, and his head hurt.

“I know he didn’t mean it,” Sam said. “He’s not well, and Ethan, it was my fault. I saw something… I asked him if he wanted to talk about something I saw.” Justin felt Sam’s touch on his arm, but he didn’t fight it.

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” Ethan snapped. “What happened?”

“They’re faint, but my brother, he…. It’s a long story, but d’you think Justin’s coming off something? Some kind of drug?”

“Fuck,” Ethan said, the word sounding more tired than spoken with fear. “Why do you think that?”

“Because he might be dealing with addiction, and even though it’s not injections, he could be…” Sam massaged Justin’s scalp as he spoke next. “You think we should call Aaron? Get him back here? Get methadone or something? I don’t know, he might not have been…. I don’t know.”

Ethan closed his eyes, and went utterly still, clearly thinking about what to do. He opened them again. “Just give him five minutes to calm down, and we’ll ask him.”

Justin’s panic eased a little and the conversation around him became more intense, with words like medics and rehab , and a tone of resignation in Ethan’s voice.

“That explains a lot,” Ethan said. “If he’s dealing with addiction, I mean.”

“No,” Justin snapped, although his voice sounded weak and just this side of freaking pathetic. “Not using anything.” He kept his eyes shut and his face buried against Sam, inhaling his scent and using that single sense to focus himself. What had Sam asked him? Something about working on his own… being a lone wolf?

The panic pinched at him again, like it wanted to take him back down. But he wasn’t going to let it. Justin had spent twelve years pushing every reasonable, considered emotion down under the focus to kill. He wasn’t letting himself feel anything, not just yet.

He settled his breathing, focusing on the in-and-out of his chest, listened to the rhythm of his heart, and finally he opened his eyes.

Justin had things to say, and he might as well say them right there and then, with Ethan, Gabe, Adam, and his dad.

And Sam.