Wild Raspberries (11 page)

“That one was rotten.”

Tyler leaned against one of the porch supports and let his cane swing back and forth in a slow arc. Dan watched it swing and then let his gaze track up from the hand that held it to the wide shoulders. Hard to think about running in any direction but forward now he knew that body better.

“I was expecting you to come after me, wanting to talk.” There was a twist of derision in the final words, but as Dan’s view on emotional, heart-to-heart talks was that they were best avoided, he didn’t mind.

“If I’d gone after you, I’d have punched you out. You were being one aggravating bastard, you know that?”

“And me crippled and helpless.”

Dan snorted. “Yeah, right. I get the feeling that breaking both your arms and legs wouldn’t slow you down much.”

Tyler looked bemused. “I’m not the fucking Terminator. And hand-to-hand isn’t something I’ve done much, outside of training.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dan bent down again and this time came up with a stone the size of an egg in his hand. He threw it with an accuracy that would’ve made him an asset on any baseball team, always assuming anyone chose him, threw it fast and hard at Tyler’s head.

The stone smacked into Tyler’s hand an instant later, inches away from its target, and stayed there for the count of three. Then Tyler tossed it aside, his face unreadable, and turned on his heel.

“Damn you, get back here!” Dan yelled. His head was aching, he was filthy, and he didn’t give a goddamn crap if it was honest dirt. If Tyler thought for one fucking minute that he’d intended that stone to hit, when he knew damn well Tyler would catch it — “I’ve worked my fucking ass off in your garden and the least you could do is look at it.”

Tyler paused on the threshold without looking back. “I told you to leave it.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t always listen to people telling me what to do.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Tyler glanced over his shoulder. “You’d better listen to this. I’ve told you what I am. What I did. I’m not likely to go nuts and blow your head off your shoulders while you’re here, but don’t fool yourself that you can put a smile on my face by wiggling your cute ass at me and doing some chores.” The cane was banged down hard against the wooden floor, providing a period to the conversation, and Dan stood in the sunlight, with no one to vent his rising temper on.

He thought of tearing up everything he’d replanted, wiping out hours of labor in a few satisfying moments of destruction. He could do it; Tyler wouldn’t be able to stop him, even supposing he noticed what was going on and came to take a look. Like Tyler even fucking cared about the plants, anyway. Dan felt protective toward them suddenly, as if they, like him, were victims of Tyler’s ingratitude and frankly fucking pissy attitude. He ended up in the shade, slumped against the rain barrel, the curved wood cool and damp, his gaze fixed on the neat rows of vegetables a few yards away, his fingers restlessly shredding a piece of vine. The sap was pungent and sticky, but he barely noticed. Green and red… stop and go… What did Tyler want him to do? They’d slept together last night, but Dan couldn’t see that happening again. He wasn’t sure he even wanted it to. Tyler was touchy as hell, all guilt and bitterness, and Dan didn’t need that crap in his life, even for a few days.

He couldn’t forget the Tyler who’d fed him soup, though, and carried him through the woods. The Tyler who’d seen what he needed and given it to him without hesitation, his mouth hot and sweet.

Lost in thought, half asleep in the intense drowse of the late afternoon, the small thud of Tyler’s cane was as much background noise as the birdsong, but he roused as Tyler came around the corner of the cabin, some instinct making him want to get to his feet. He ignored it. Unless he stood on top of the rain barrel, Tyler was always going to be taller.

“You need to eat,” Tyler said finally, breaking the silence Dan had built. “I made supper.”

“Thought that was my job.”

“Yeah, it is, but seeing as you were out here, and even hopping on one foot I’m capable of getting something out of the freezer and nuking it in the microwave, I went ahead. I’m reckless like that. Hell, I even did garlic bread to go with the chili.”

Chili on a blazing hot day shouldn’t have sounded good, but it did. Garlic bread, dripping with butter, and a cold, cold beer, sounded even better.

“I’m going to need to shower.”

“We can eat outside,” Tyler said. “And after, I’ll take you to the stream behind the cabin and you can scrub off the top layers in there. I dammed it last year and made a pool; it’s not deep, but you can sit in it and it’ll come up to your chest. Shouldn’t be cold on a day like this; it’s in full sun all afternoon.”

“That your way of apologizing?” Dan stared up at Tyler, who looked like a chunk of mountain, dark against the sky.

“No.” Tyler nodded at the vegetable plot. “This is: it looks good. Thank you.”

Peace, mellow and golden, washed away the last of Dan’s anger. Somehow, he didn’t think Tyler apologized often, but that would do.

“I’ll stand outside, and you pass out the food,” he said and stood up fast, his stomach a hollow just waiting to be filled.

he path to the stream was a good one; the previous owners had made it, and as it began and ended on his property, Tyler kept it clear and wide, unlike the access road. He used his cane and leaned on Dan in what was an unspoken apology all of its own, and they arrived at the steam within a few minutes. Birdsong, an agitated chatter of it, announced them. Once, Tyler would have been able to move through an open wood like this without disturbing as much as an ant. Off his game.

“Wow.” Dan gave the small glade an appreciative look as they left the path to walk on ground covered with calf-high grass and studded with wildflowers Tyler had learned the names of the summer before, with the help of a book from the town library. “Real pretty.”

It was, although with dusk approaching they were going to get eaten alive in an hour or so when the bugs came out to feed. Tyler sat down on the blanket Dan spread at the water’s edge, his back against a rock, and sighed, replete and relaxed. Above his head, leaves hung without movement, captured in the syrup-heavy heat, and at his feet the stream, rain-fed and high, tumbled over rocks and sand on its way to join the river that wound through Carlyle. The pool he’d created was full and more clouded with silt than usual, but it looked tempting even so. It was dammed with rocks, the gaps between them chinked with mud and moss and smaller pebbles, and it was about ten feet wide and three deep. It was meant to soak in, not swim in, and he often did, a beer in hand and his skin cool and fresh as the water lapped around him. In late spring or early fall, he finished the beer on the walk back; the water was too cold to sit in for long, but now, at the height of summer, it was just right.

“Man, oh, man.” Tyler watched lazily as Dan began to undress, his earth-stained clothing hitting the ground, heavier than when it had been put on. “Even my sweat is sweating.”

“Hot day.” The line of Dan’s spine was a hollowed-out groove a thumbprint wide, a tongue’s lick narrow. Tyler watched Dan’s wiry muscles flex and stored the sight in his memories, to take out and consider sometime in the future, when this pool was iced over and Dan was long since gone. Dan shucked off his shorts and stood, bare and brown, his ass and the top of his thighs the only place on him that wasn’t tan.

Dan snorted and transferred his gaze from the pool to Tyler. The ardor in Dan’s eyes was for the prospect of a cool dip, Tyler told himself and tried to believe that he wanted it that way. “Hot chili, you mean. You really do like to spice it up, don’t you?”

“If your second helping hadn’t been bigger than your first, I might think you didn’t like it.” Tyler grinned. “It’s been in the freezer for a month; you’d think that would have cooled it off some.”

“I think it just concentrated the heat,” Dan said fervently and blew upwards over his flushed face. “Whew.”

Dan didn’t seem at all concerned about standing there naked and carrying on a conversation. Tyler gave into the temptation to tease and let his gaze drop down and a knowing smile curl his lips. On cue, Dan’s dick began to rise and stiffen, but Dan just glanced down, grinned cheerfully, and patted it.

Tyler had cleared away all the stones on the bottom of the pool, not wanting to slip on any that grew a coating of green algae; Dan peered in, saw the sandy bottom and stepped in and sat down in one smooth motion, letting out a whoop as the cold water struck heated flesh.

“Oh, God, oh, God, cold, cold… You told me it would be warm!”

Tyler chuckled heartlessly and ducked out of the way as Dan’s flailing sent water spraying out, glittering in the leaf-filtered sunlight. “It usually is, but the storm means the water in there isn’t getting the chance to settle and warm.”

“Bastard,” Dan said without heat and settled back. “Feels good now I’m numb all over.”

Tyler smiled, wishing he could slide in next to Dan, as bare as he was, and get his hands on cool, slippery skin. He’d warm them both up. “Yeah, it does.” He decided to soak his feet and took off the running shoes he was wearing, then peeled the bandage off his ankle. The water met his skin, cool enough to burn, and then numb, the rush of it like a gentle massage against the swollen, bruised ankle. Dan was right; it felt good.

They sat there for a while, Tyler not inclined to speak and Dan picking up on that and staying quiet, too, his eyes half-closed, his body floating, swayed back and forth by the water. It couldn’t last, though; silence didn’t seem to come naturally to Dan.

“Why did you pick here to live? You from around here?”

Tyler’s accent was as neutral as he could make it and if needed he could broaden it to pass for a native of a dozen states. An expert might have been able to pinpoint his birthplace, but most people accepted whatever he told them without suspicion. “No.”

“This is the farthest I’ve ever been from home,” Dan told him, giving back more than he’d received, but, then, Dan didn’t have any secrets, did he? “Never seen the ocean. I’d like to, though.”

“It’s not that far away,” Tyler said. “Three hundred, four hundred miles, depending on if you’re heading for a city or not. You can do it in a day, easy.”

“A day there, a day to look around, a day back.” Dan slapped his hand down flat on the water with an emphatic smack. “Too many days away when there’s work to be done.”

He wasn’t sure why he said it, but the words came out of him like breath, impossible to hold back. “We can go tomorrow if you like.”

“What?” Dan gaped at Tyler, his jaw sagging. Tyler shook his head, amused by the kid’s shock. “You’re crazy.”

“Only alternate Fridays.” Tyler picked up a stone, flat and dark, streaked with white. It fit snugly into his palm and he weighed it for a moment and then sent it skimming down the stream, one hop, skip, jump, until it sank, lost. “Damn. Three. I’m off my game.”

“The water’s too rough.” Dan gave him a sidelong glance. “Tomorrow’s not a good idea. Your ankle hurts, and if we went there I’d want us to be able to do stuff, you know?”

“If you like, when you leave I can drive you over there and you can pick up your journey from the coast. Might be easier to get rides; lots of tourists.”

“They never stop; too scared and their cars are full of kids and suitcases.” Dan’s face had lost the startled glow it had held a minute earlier. “Maybe. I’ll think about it. Thanks.”

The chopped-off, jerky words sounded hurt. Tyler ran through what he’d said in his head and couldn’t come up with anything that might have upset Dan, unless it was the reference to Dan leaving. The implications of that weren’t hard to work out. Fuck. He’d been stupid, his guilt-fueled impulse to help a kid he felt sorry for — a kid he’d come close to shooting — no kindness if it’d left Dan feeling tied to him. Tyler held few illusions about himself, and he’d seen the horror in Dan’s eyes when he’d told him what his job had been. Dan hadn’t been thrilled or impressed; he’d been scared. Given that reaction, Dan’s willingness to stick around had to be rooted in something that was, from Tyler’s point of view, worse.

Because however brief Dan’s attraction to him was — and Tyler couldn’t see it lasting long — it wasn’t something that should have happened at all.

You fed him, fucked him, tracked him down in a storm; what the hell did you expect?
a voice jeered in his head.
You’re just a big, fucking hero, aren’t you?

Oh, yeah. A hero. He even had a medal somewhere to prove it.

And just to prove that heroes could be selfish, stupid jerks, he pulled his feet out of the water and went over to Dan, going down to his knees and leaning over to kiss him.

Judas kiss. Because he wasn’t an option for Dan and making Dan think he was —

Dan’s tongue flickered against his and wet, cold hands left cool patches on Tyler’s face and then his neck and back as Dan, on his stomach now, hung onto him. God, he needed this. Months, years of loneliness, had been stored in a space too small to hold them. Dan had opened the lid and they’d poured out. Pandora’s fucking box, but Tyler didn’t fool himself that there was any hope lurking at the bottom.

“Wish you could fuck me,” Dan whispered against his mouth. “Before I — before I go. I wish you would.”

“Dan…”

“I’ve done it before,” Dan assured him. “With Luke. I — it hurt, yeah, but I want to.”

“It wouldn’t hurt if I did it,” Tyler told him, without conceit but with a sharp stab of anger at the absent Luke, who’d probably been in a hurry, who hadn’t cared even that much about Dan, enough to make it good for him. “Well, not much. Doesn’t have to hurt.”

“I figured that out,” Dan told him and let go. He sank under the water and then surfaced to shake himself like a dog, droplets flying. “Mosquitoes are coming out; want to head back?”

“Sure,” Tyler said and wondered what had just happened, and what he’d committed himself to in the space of a few words and a couple of kisses. “Let’s go home.”

***

They played cards until it got to a reasonable time for two adult men to go to bed. They didn’t need to wait; Tyler got the impression that Dan would’ve been happy to have had sex as soon after walking through the door as was reasonably possible, but Tyler wasn’t a fan of fast and impulsive. He’d once spent a month watching a target he could have taken out a dozen times, just so that when it came time to make the kill, the exact, precise angle at which the man’s head tilted when he swallowed the final mouthful of his wine was locked in his mind.

The red wine had spilled out like blood from the man’s mouth, trickling down to splash and stain the crisp, white shirt that was pierced through with a bullet. The blood and wine stains met and mixed, but he’d known which was which, even from as far away as he’d been. The wine glass dropped, broken in an icy tinkle, like sleigh bells. He hadn’t heard it break, not really, but the sound chimed in his head for hours and stopped him from sleeping. The next target had been his last; he couldn’t shoot someone with shaking hands, and Tyler, who always prided himself on needing one shot, clean through the heart, had slaughtered the man, pumping bullets into him until he stopped twitching — arms, head, chest, leaving the man a rag doll torn apart by a dog.

They were uneasy memories to endure sitting across from Dan at the kitchen table, playing poker for matchsticks, Dan’s fast, sloppy shuffling reflected in his play. Dan knew all the rules and had a certain feel for the cards, but he didn’t remember what had been played the way Tyler did. The pile of matchsticks in front of Tyler was proof of that.

Tyler was also far from willing to take Dan at his word and fuck him. There was no rush on that, either. He liked fucking and being fucked, with the right partner, but Dan was so raw and jumpy that he’d have to be careful. He didn’t like being careful. He used sex to get off and forget, and careful meant he had to think too much. He didn’t want to look down and watch his dick sink deep into Dan’s ass, as obscene and sweet a sight as it got, and think about anything but the tight squeeze of Dan’s body around him. He was used to partners who could deal with what he handed out, or let him know if it was too much, or they wanted more, without hesitation. He had a feeling that Dan wouldn’t take rejection well, which made him feel irritable in spite of the buzz of arousal he was getting from the knowledge that he’d have company in his bed again. He didn’t want to hurt Dan’s feelings, and if that meant going along with Dan’s plans, well, was that really such a chore?

Shit, why couldn’t he just make up his mind? It should’ve been a simple choice, to fuck or not to fuck, but life had stopped being simple from the moment he met Dan.

When Dan went to get them a bowl of chips to soak up the beer they were drinking, he prodded his ribs cautiously. Tender, yes, but as long as Dan didn’t have his weight on him, Tyler thought he could manage something more energetic than they’d done so far. The cut on his hand was healing well, the edges of the gash held together by Anne’s careful stitches. Tyler had always bounced back fast from injuries; that hadn’t changed.

He watched Dan as they played another hand. Salty lips from the chips, bright eyes from the beer, perched on the edge of his chair, his body language telling Tyler he had a good hand as clearly as if Dan had laid the cards out on the table, face-up. Tyler’s cards weren’t bad, but he wouldn’t have folded if the best he held was eight high; he wanted to see Dan’s expression blossom into a grin when he won big.

When it came, it was worth losing some thirty matchsticks. Dan whooped, slammed his hand on the table, and looked delighted and smug, which was cute enough on him that all Tyler could do was shake his head ruefully, feeling an indulgent smile spreading over his face like butter on hot toast.

“I got you that time!” Dan crowed. “Read ‘em and weep.”

Dan’s complete lack of anything resembling a poker face was enough to make Tyler feel like shedding a tear or two, but he kept that to himself. “Oh, I’m crushed. Of course, as it’s the only hand you’ve won all night…”

“I was lulling you.”

“Lulling. Right.”

Dan winked at Tyler and began to count his winnings. Tyler rolled his eyes and tossed the empty box across the table. “When you’ve finished gloating over them, put them back into the box. I don’t think my nerves will stand another hand.”

“Wise move. Because I was all set to clear you out.”

Tyler stood and ruffled Dan’s hair as he passed him. “In your dreams, boy.”

He didn’t miss the way Dan pushed into the caress like a cat wanting to be stroked, but he kept moving toward the bathroom. He was able to walk around the house without his cane for short trips at least, which made him feel less helpless, although his ankle was still bruised and weak. He supposed if he wanted to keep Dan with him, he should exaggerate his injuries, not downplay them, but it wasn’t in his nature to do that. He was about ready to admit to himself that he’d like it if Dan stuck around for a while, but if Dan had his heart set on seeing the world — and Tyler could understand that after Dan had spent his life on a farm in the middle of nowhere — then Tyler wasn’t going to stop him.

He brushed his teeth with an unnecessary vehemence, and by the time he’d spat out the foam and rinsed his mouth, he’d made up his mind. His job had taught him to value life, even as he took it away from people his government had deemed unworthy. He appreciated each breath he took, each day he survived. He’d been resting here, hiding away, and he wasn’t ever going back to his old life, but it didn’t mean he had to live like he was already in the ground. Dan wasn’t a solution to his problems, any more than he was an option for Dan, but it didn’t mean that the two of them couldn’t enjoy some friendly fucking and, yeah, a trip to the ocean. If Dan winning a hand was cute, Dan seeing the vast blue sparkle of the Pacific laid out in front of him, misted over in an early morning haze, would be a sight to remember.