Redemption FinalWPF6 7 (3 page)

“I wonder how many more will—“ Sue began, but Joe didn’t
wait to listen the ranger’s frequently uttered frustration at the number of
people who arrived at the bottom without a place to stay. He followed the other
man out the door.

Keeping a safe distance, Joe tried to hear beyond the wind
and wondered if this was one of the Diné ancestors come to call. The man he
followed stalked with the grace of a mountain lion moving through canyon,
intent on his prey. Joe watched as he knocked once on the door of a cabin and
then entered without waiting.
Spirits do not knock and they do not slam
doors.

Joe pressed his fingers to his eyes, and then looked again. He
fought through the noise in his head and found reality. His lover hadn’t killed
himself—hadn’t planned on coming to be with him.
What the fuck is he doing
here?
The wind whispered and Joe knew the truth. His lover was here to
steal what he’d promised to protect.

The man was a liar. A cheat. Not dead. You couldn’t excuse
that type of behavior. Someone had to put a stop to it.

Chapter Two

“I let a guy suck my dick once,” Uriah said. He squinted
through a whisky-induced haze and tried to focus on the faces of the two people
seated opposite him at the small, wooden picnic table.

Diane’s mouth opened. Shut. Opened again. Then she looked
away and shook her head, as if to clear the image. When her gaze met his again,
she blinked rapidly underneath raised brows. Then he remembered—that was a sore
subject.
God, how could I have been so stupid?

The hike…the heat…the stress. Especially the stress over the
cancelled room reservation. That was the real reason they’d come to the canyon
in the first place.
Jesus, what a cluster fuck.

In just a matter of a few hours, he’d gone from nearly
kicking Gabe’s ass to getting shitfaced with him and Diane outside the cabin
they were now sharing. And playing some damn version of truth or dare.
Did I
really just admit getting blown by a dude? Shit, I’m drunk.

Gabe squinted at him. “S’that right? Did you like it?”

“Nuh uh. All you get is one answer. S’Diane’s turn to go
next.”

“Not playing,” Diane said. “I’ll take the drink instead.”
She sat across from him, looking as beautiful as ever. All long legs and golden
tan, her dark blonde hair spilling around her shoulders.
God. Has there ever
been a time I haven’t loved her?
He shook his head. She deserved to be
married to a standup guy. Not like…he shied away from that thought. Yeah,
married to a good guy…someone like Gabe was what Diane deserved. A doctor, no
less. He looked down at his large, callused hands, and frowned. 

Gabe swung an arm around Diane’s shoulder and ruffled her
hair. “Aww…come on, Dee. Tell us something we don’t know. What’s your biggest
fantasy?”

Uriah loved how Gabe was so easy with her, throwing out
nicknames and endearments.
I wish I could be like that. Maybe when this is
all over….

Diane shook her head sharply. She picked up the bottle,
looked at the label and gave an experimental sniff. A cough exploded from her
throat from the smell. “Shit!” She slammed the top of the wooden picnic table
with her palm. “Damn, Gabe. Couldn’t you have brought something smoother?” With
her eyes squeezed tight, she made a show of tossing back a swallow of ginger
ale instead of the whisky.

Gabe slapped Diane on the back, and laughed. “Come on,
lightweight. I think maybe you’ve had enough.” Then Gabe groaned as he started
to untangle his legs from the picnic table. “You guys really going hiking
tomorrow? ‘Cause I gotta tell you…I think I might have broken something.”

“Moving slow, old man,” Uriah said. He grinned and bit back
a laugh at the outraged expression on Gabe’s face. Then he tried to move and
discovered his own muscles had stiffened and no longer seemed to be entirely
cooperative.
Shit.

Uriah tried to avoid drawing attention to his difficulty moving
by casually leaning to the side and lifting his leg over the bench. He
overbalanced, corrected, then kept right on going.
This is like fucking slow
motion.
Landing hard on his back, his breath escaped on a whoosh. Two
startled faces looked down at him.

To give him credit, Gabe didn’t laugh. Not at first, anyway.
Diane did, though. Lord, she howled and hooted until tears ran down her cheeks.
Uriah blinked up at the two of them, and felt the first rumble of laughter in
his own chest, just before it exploded in a loud, uncontrollable burst. He
laughed until his eyes stung, until the tears leaked. Deep belly laughs that
tightened the muscles in his stomach and made it harder to breathe. He laughed
until he remembered why he was here at the bottom of the canyon, and then his
laughter turned to a strangled sound that that threatened to loosen his grief.

*

Gabe reached down, “Come on, Uriah. Let me help you up.”
When Uriah’s paw closed around his hand, he tried to ignore the spark that
flowed between them.
Jesus.
The young man was drunk, clearly in deep
emotional distress.
And he’s here with his wife, for Christ’s sake.
Gabe
told his fucking dick to stand down and pulled Uriah to his feet.

Despite Uriah’s damp eyes and the emotional pain he seemed
to be experiencing, Gabe didn’t immediately step back. The noble thing to do
would be to push the young man toward his wife.
Fuck noble.
Maybe he was
a little drunk, too. For a long moment, they stood chest to chest, just looking
at each other. Gabe fought the urge to reach up and wipe the dampness from
Uriah’s lashes. He could smell the younger man, the soap from the shower, smoke
from the ranger’s campfire, the whisky on his breath. As Uriah moistened his
lips with the tip of a pink tongue, Gabe’s gaze fastened on the lush mouth, and
he wanted to taste the plump bottom lip.

This could go wrong in so many ways and none of them could
exactly get in the car and drive away. Uriah leaned forward slightly, but Gabe
placed a firm hand against the other man’s chest. “Not tonight, college boy.
It’s time we all slept this off.” He pushed the still damp-around-the-eyeballs
and now slightly pouty man toward his wife.

“Here you go, Diane. I’ll let the two of you get settled and
try not to wake you when I come in.” Her wide eyes held a silent plea, and he
imagined she didn’t want to be alone with her husband right now. Tough shit. He
didn’t want to be alone with either of them, let alone both of them. Gabe
ignored the devil on his shoulder that called him a liar. He grabbed the nearly
empty bottle from the table and walked into the night.

****

I am in big trouble
. Diane just couldn’t decide who
was the most dangerous…Uriah or Gabe. The heat that flared between the two men
was every woman’s fantasy. Okay, maybe not every woman, but certainly hers. For
a minute, she’d thought they were going to kiss. She decided right then if they
did…she was going to beg to watch. Or join them. With a deep sigh, she wrapped
her hands around Uriah’s massive forearm, and steered him toward the door.

Even though the cabin was tiny, the small air conditioning
vents on the floor just couldn’t push out enough cold air to reach the top
bunks. They’d followed Phantom Ranch tradition and moved the mattresses to the
floor in order to create one large bed. It gave them the best chance at the
cool air. It might keep them cooler, but there was barely room to walk.

“Ow! Hey….” Uriah said. He banged his elbow on the narrow
doorway as they shuffle-staggered inside.

“Oh shut up, you big goon. It’s not my fault you drank so
much. Come on, you need to get some sleep.”

As soon as the door was closed behind them, Uriah slid his
shorts down his thighs.

“Oh, Jesus, Uriah, put that thing away,” Diane said. She
laughed. “Honey, you can’t sleep nude, you have company. Gabe was nice enough
to share his cabin. You don’t want to scare him away by flashing Moby Dick.”

“Umpf,” he said. He staggered and swayed as he pushed the
shorts the rest of the way down his legs and kicked them aside. Then, like a
giant pine felled by an axe, Uriah went down. Diane was eternally grateful he
was semi aligned with the mattresses. There would be no moving him, now.

Diane sighed again. She changed into a cami and her
underwear, brushed her teeth, and crawled onto the mattress. She poked Uriah’s
shoulder. “You could have a least fallen on one side or the other—but no…you
needed to take the entire middle. Hope Gabe isn’t squeamish about sleeping next
to another man.”

He gave a grunt, gathered his pillow under his head, and
turned his face to the side.

Diane was beyond exhausted. The sun, the heat, the brutal
descent down the steep trail had done their best to strip away the truth of why
they were there. Before the thoughts could intrude and chase the much-needed
sleep away, she heard Uriah mutter under his breath.

“Yeah, I liked it just fine.”

Chapter Three

Bacon never smelled so foul, Gabe thought as he stared
around the canteen with bleary eyes.

“Nectar of the gods. Thanks, doll,” he said to the server
who plunked down a large cup of coffee. He burned his tongue, too impatient to
wait for the life-sustaining beverage to cool. With a thunk, he set the mug on
the table and pretended his hands weren’t trembling.

“Jesus, Doc. Tie one on last night after your hike? I
thought you were smarter than that. Alcohol and dehydration are a bad combo.”
He’d know that voice anywhere. Patti Cox, one of his oldest friends and the
reason he was spending the summer in a National Park. He hadn’t realized she
was on duty. He waited until she was seated across from him before he spoke.

“Why, thank you, Patricia. I guess my years at medical
school were wasted. I should have become an EMT like you. Then I could hike to
the bottom of the Grand Canyon every week, instead of working indoors with
conditioned air.” He would have glared at the lanky, ginger-haired ranger, but
he sort of thought his eyes might be bleeding.

She merely laughed. “Touchy, touchy. So are you going to the
falls today or hanging around here at the bottom?”

“You’re just a riot this morning, Red. I am going to ingest
coffee, dry toast, and ibuprofen. In that order. Then I am going to sleep until
lunch, when I will emerge from my coma just long enough to admire the view for
five minutes. At which point I will nap until dinner.” He sipped his coffee,
winced, and paused to lightly blow on the surface to try to cool the
deliciously strong brew.

“Holy Mother of God!” Patti whispered, her gamin face alight
with excitement. “Serious man-candy, due west.”

Suspecting a ploy to make him suffer through unnecessary
movement, Gabe closed his eyes. “I’m going to puke on you if you make me move.
Go find someone else to torture.”

“Gabe, I’m not bull shitting. Quick, look. Wait! Don’t look.
Damn, he’s headed toward the showers. He must be staying—“ she broke off. Her
pale blue gaze shifted to his and she closed her mouth with a snap. It was too
much to hope it would stay closed.

“Really?” she asked. The question was layered with equal
parts awe and amusement.

“Gutter-brain,” he muttered. “If you mean really, did he
sleep in my cabin, then yes. Along with his wife, so put your tongue back in
your mouth. Their reservation got fucked up, so I gave ‘em a room. Then we
drank whisky, hence the reason I feel so shitty.”

Patti pursed her lips.
Tap, tap, tap.
Her fingers
bounced on the rim of her mug. He wanted to wait her out, but she was always
better at this game than he was.
Tap, tap, tap.

“Okay, he is fucking gorgeous. So is his wife. So what?”
Even he heard the sulky edge to his voice.

“So…did you do ‘em?”

“Jesus, Patti! What the fuck do you take me for?”

“A man slut. Duh. I’d do ‘em.”

Giving in, he laughed. “God, Red. Have I told you how much I
love you?”

“Not today.” She smiled smugly. “So are you going for it?”

“Not even close. He’s a kid. Twenty-two, twenty-three, tops.
Plus, you know I don’t like married couples. It’s always fun ‘til someone gets
hurt. And with couples…someone always gets hurt, no matter what they say going
in.” He swallowed down his finally cooled coffee, while he thought about what
he wanted to say. He needed to reroute both their thoughts.

“I’m tired, Red. I don’t like my life. I’m drinking too
much, spending too much time at the club, doing too many different scenes. And
at the end of the day, there’s no one who really matters.”

“Is that why you hooked up with Mel for the summer?” She
referred to his ill-fated summer fling. His mind drifted back to the previous
morning and the bitter goodbye with Melody. He knew better than to treat people
as objects, but that had been what he’d done to Mel. Used her to assuage the
emptiness in his life. He couldn’t blame her for hating him. He was pretty sick
of himself right now.

“Yeah. I fucked up there, too,” he said, shaking off the
memory.

“Honey, you don’t need to waste your guilt on Melody. She
picks a new guy every six weeks and then dumps them as soon as they start to
get too close. She’s only pissed because you dumped her first. Believe me.” Patti
shook her head. “God, if I’d known, you were going to be that desperate, I’d
have slept with you myself,” Patti said. She laughed and he gave a mock
shudder.

“Gah. We tried that once, remember? It was like kissing my
sister. No thanks. I like you better as a friend.” He covered her hand with
his.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Diane said from behind his back. “I didn’t
mean to interrupt.

Patti jerked her hand back, as if scalded. “Hi. Uhm. You
didn’t. I was just leaving. Nice to meet you.”

“Sit, Red. Diane, meet Ranger Patricia Cox. She is one of my
oldest friends and is certifiably insane because she climbs in and out of this
big ditch for a living.”