A Desperate Man

by Tia Fielding

  “We’ll grab Lennox with us when we go, give you a while longer to sleep. Be up at nine, buddy,” Quinn told the kid who beamed tiredly, clearly ready to go back to sleep whether he knew it or not.

  “Okay!”

  When Aaron and Quinn finally set their alarm for eight thirty and cuddled up under the motel sheets, Quinn felt a modicum of peace.

  “You okay?” he asked Aaron quietly.

  “Yeah. I will be.”

  “Same.”

  And that was all they were going for anyway, wasn’t it? To be okay eventually, somewhere far away from Spruce Creek. This was just the first leg of their journey there, but one day, they’d be content and all together and nothing would change that if Quinn could help it at all.

  “Now sleep. We’ll get the car and the antibiotics and an obscene amount of takeout breakfast stuff and go wake up Charlie later.”

  “The man with a plan,” Quinn teased, kissing Aaron’s neck.

  Snorting, Aaron shook his head against the pillow. “Time one of us had an actual plan, eh?”

  Chapter 22

  Aaron didn’t believe in happy endings, not exactly, but he was a fan of new beginnings. And nothing came easy that was worth having anyway, in his experience. Reaching Vermont and renting a place surrounded by trees didn’t suddenly make everything better—they were all way too stubborn to not butt heads every couple of days or so—but it gave them something to work on.

  Charlie was having difficulties settling, because she figured now that the danger was gone, why not go back to Spruce Creek?

  “Go back?” Quinn asked one morning, lifting his brow as he fried bacon in the pan. “What the fuck for? That place was a dead end, Charlie, and it was sucking the life out of you.”

  “Like you two won’t?” She tossed her head. “Besides, my dad’s still there.”

  “Your dad’s a dead end too.” Quinn smirked. “Take it from someone who knows.”

  “Okay!” Aaron got between them before things could get too heated. “Charlie, you promised you’d give it a few months at least, remember? If you still hate it then, I’ll drive you back to Nevada myself.” He put a hand on Quinn’s shoulder, his fingers digging in. “And maybe stop being an asshole, okay?”

  Which was like telling water to stop running downhill.

  “He’s right,” Charlie said. “About my dad. But that doesn’t mean I want to hear it! You don’t have to tell me like it’s news, Quinn, like you think I’m stupid enough that I don’t already know it!”

  Quinn showed her his palms in apology. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Well, it’s what I heard, okay?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Jesus. Every day it was hackles up with these two, and Aaron knew he wasn’t much better. The rubber tips of his crutches squeaked on the floor as he made his way over to the breakfast bar—he’d been taking it easy with his prosthetic since things had come to a head in Spruce Creek. Too much running around that night had caused pressure sores on his stump that were slow to heal.

  Quinn was walking wounded too. He wore a sling to keep his arm supported, and bitched about it too. Now, as Quinn turned back to frying the bacon one-handed, Aaron could almost see the gears ticking over in his thick skull and figured it was only a matter of time before he got pissed and tugged the sling off in a fit of childish pique.

  So could Charlie, clearly. She took the spatula off him and nudged him out of the way.

  Aaron snorted.

  Jesus. They were a bunch of petulant goddamn children.

  Quinn shot him a look. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothin’,” Aaron said. “Except that the only one of us under this roof who isn’t acting like a spoiled brat is the actual child.”

  Lennox, as though he’d sensed he was being talked about, bounced down the stairs into the open living area of the house’s ground floor. “Oh, bacon!”

  He climbed up onto a stool next to Aaron at the breakfast bar, and grinned when Aaron tousled his hair.

  Lennox was a great kid. The best parts of Charlie and Quinn put together, with something that was uniquely him as well: he was a happy kid, and Aaron didn’t remember either Charlie or Quinn being particularly happy. Not surprising, given the families they came from. But Charlie had done a great job with Lennox. He was sure of himself, because he’d always had Charlie to support him. Their weird little pseudo-family might have thrown any other kid, but Lennox hadn’t seemed bothered, even when Charlie had sat him down—Quinn almost vibrating out of his skin beside her—and explained that Quinn was his biological father.

  “Oh!” Lennox had said, forehead creasing for a moment. Then he’d shrugged. “Okay.”

  He’d taken the revelation on the chin.

  Quinn, Aaron suspected, was still struggling with what it meant. He got extra prickly if Charlie even mentioned going back to Spruce Creek, and Aaron knew that had a lot to do with Lennox. Quinn might not have been Lennox’s father in any way that counted up until now, but it was clear he wanted some kind of relationship going forward. It was also clear that Charlie, who had been fiercely independent for years, was struggling with giving over any control of either her life, or her son’s. She’d almost bitten Aaron’s head off the week they’d arrived at the house, for suggesting he and Quinn could cover the rent for a while.

  Quinn’s phone buzzed, and he tugged it out of his sling and answered it. “Byrne.”

  Aaron met Charlie’s gaze. The fact that Quinn hadn’t used the surname MacGregor in a decade was still something they were both getting used to.

  “Yeah, hold on, Day,” Quinn said. He lowered the phone, and nodded toward the back porch. “I’m gonna take this outside.”

  He slid the thick glass door open and stepped onto the porch.

  Cool air blew in from the woods that surrounded the house.

  The place was great. It needed a little work, and the landlord had seemed a bit flakey, but Aaron had got him to agree to a reduction in rent if he and Quinn did some maintenance around the place and cleared the yard when it needed it. The landlord had also mentioned he’d tried to sell the place, but put it up as a rental when he got no takers. So maybe if the place worked out—if they worked out—that was a discussion they could revisit in the future. If they made it through these first few weeks without killing each other, at least.

  Charlie set a plate of bacon and eggs down in front of Aaron, then one for Lennox. Then she got her own, and turned the heat down on the burner so that Quinn’s didn’t burn.

  Out on the patio, Quinn was pacing back and forth as he talked.

  They ate in silence for a while.

  Charlie sighed. “It’s a lot to adjust to.”

  “It is,” Aaron agreed.

  Charlie narrowed her eyes at him as though she was searching for sarcasm. Then her expression softened and she shook her head, her red hair catching the light. “But I’m trying, I promise.”

  “Hey, I know you are. Listen, it was a big deal, asking you to throw your lot in with us. I get that. But I think we’ve got a good chance of making this work.” He felt his chest swell as he looked at her and Lennox. “Out of everything in that town, in my childhood—you and Quinn are the only things worth keeping. Our friendship, that summer…it meant everything, Charlie, and I don’t want to throw that away without giving it a second chance.”

  Charlie blinked, her eyes shining. She reached past Lennox and took Aaron’s hand. “Me too, Aaron. Me too.”

  * * * *

  They drove into town after breakfast. White Deer Lake was only a small town, barely large enough for the police station that sat on its main street.

  “You want us to wait for you?” Aaron asked as they dropped Quinn in the parking lot.

  “Nah.” Quinn shook his head. “Day’s fixed it up so I can use a video link from here, and at least I don’t have to go all the way back to Nevada to do it, but it might take a while. You guys go on. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

&
nbsp; There were no easy answers, no quick wraps up. The fallout of what had happened in Spruce Creek might last for months yet, maybe even longer. But that was okay. They were safe now, and they were together. Everything else, they could deal with.

  * * * *

  Whatever Quinn was doing at the police station, whatever questions he was answering, took hours. Aaron and Charlie and Lennox checked out more of White Deer Lake—there wasn’t a lot more to check out, honestly—and then got some groceries and took them back to the house, which was about a fifteen-minute drive out of town.

  They made lunch, and ate it on the back porch.

  “So, I saw a notice in the window of the craft store,” Charlie said. “It said they’re looking for help. I might give them a call later.”

  “Sounds good,” Aaron said. Work was something they hadn’t thought much about yet, but at least Aaron and Quinn had some savings to fall back on. Charlie didn’t. “I can’t say I was expecting a town this size to have a craft store.”

  “I think it sells souvenirs as well,” Charlie said. “This place gets pretty busy in the fall. If I don’t get the job, there’s a brewery with a restaurant about twenty miles away that’s also hiring, but I honestly wouldn’t care if I never had to carry another hot plate in my life.”

  “You’ve looked into it,” Aaron said, a smile tugging at his mouth.

  Charlie rolled her eyes. “Don’t act like this is a gotcha moment. Of course I’ve looked into it.” She gazed down into the yard, where Lennox was playing with the remote-control car Quinn had bought him the other day. “Quinn’s right. If I go back to Spruce Creek, I just get pulled back into all my dad’s bullshit. And he’s my dad, and I love him, but Lennox deserves better than that.”

  “I mean, so do you,” Aaron said softly.

  Charlie rolled her eyes like she thought he was kidding.

  Aaron hoped she’d believe him one day.

  * * * *

  Aaron went and collected Quinn from the police station after almost five hours. He’d expected Quinn to be glowering and short-tempered when he strode out into the parking lot, but instead he was talking to some guy in a suit, and smiling, and walking like he had a weight off his shoulders for the first time since Aaron had seen him again in Spruce Creek. When he saw Aaron waiting, he said something to the guy in the suit, shook his hand, and then jogged over to the car. He slid into the passenger seat, and sighed.

  “You okay?” Aaron asked.

  “Yeah,” Quinn said. “I’m worn out, but I’m good. I’d kill for a beer though.”

  “We’ll get a six pack on the way home, if you want,” Aaron said. “You and Charlie can share.”

  He didn’t spell it out that he was quitting drinking, but he didn’t need to. Quinn reached over and squeezed his hand and smiled.

  Aaron pulled out onto the main street. “So everything’s good with your handler?”

  Quinn leaned his head back against the headrest and laughed. “Day? He wants to punch me in the balls because of this whole mess, but he wants to punch the taskforce in their collective balls even harder, so I think by the time everything in Spruce Creek wraps up, he’ll have calmed down a lot.”

  “What does that mean? Wrapped up?”

  “With the Skulls,” Quinn said. “And Henderson. The DPS Investigation Division is going to rip through the Spruce Creek Sheriff’s Department like a hurricane. They’ll probably bring the feds in as well. It wouldn’t surprise me if they reopen the investigation into your dad’s death too.”

  Aaron gripped the steering wheel.

  “But Henderson sure as hell won’t ever see daylight again,” Quinn said. “I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”

  “What for? For stopping me from killing him?”

  “I’m not sorry for that at all,” Quinn said. “He deserves to live a long, long time in prison. I hope he lives another fifty years and hates every one of them. No, I’m sorry it turned out he was an evil son of a bitch. I’m sorry he wasn’t the man you thought he was. That shit hurts, I know.”

  It didn’t though, not at the moment. Aaron was still mostly numb, but he recognized that feeling. He’d had it after Afghanistan. The anger, he knew, would come later. He’d work through it. He would, because Will Henderson had stolen his life from him once. He didn’t get to do it twice.

  They stopped for beer, and Aaron grabbed sodas for him and Lennox.

  “I talked to the new interim sheriff,” Quinn said as they left town, and trees flashed past the windows.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. She’s from Carson City. She’s got her work cut out for her,” Quinn said. He quirked his mouth. “Turns out she needs a place to stay that isn’t one of the trailer parks. I said I’d get you to give her a call.”

  “She seem like a good person?” Aaron asked, wondering why it really mattered.

  “Yeah. Real straight up.”

  Aaron could live with that. He could live with the idea of the house in Spruce Creek still being the sheriff’s house, even if it was a different sheriff. As long as she was a good person, someone his parents would have liked. That seemed important. Not to anyone else, probably, but it mattered to Aaron.

  When they got back to the house, Charlie and Lennox were in the backyard. Charlie was sitting on a blanket, reading a book, and when she looked up and smiled at them as they walked out onto the back porch, Aaron saw that same girl from that summer all those years ago. Just hanging out, reading her books, and dreaming of different worlds while he and Quinn hung out and made out and bickered in the background. He knew then that this could work, that this would work.

  Lennox was playing with his remote-control car again. He raced up onto the porch when he saw them.

  “Want a soda?” Aaron asked him. “Take your mom her beer, and you can have a soda.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Aaron,” Lennox said. His gaze darted to Quinn. “Thanks, Un—um, Dad.”

  He grabbed the drinks and skipped back down into the yard.

  Aaron leaned on the porch railing and nudged Quinn with his shoulder. “You okay?”

  “It’s like a punch in the gut every time he says it,” Quinn said in a low voice. “I like it, but I hate that I wasn’t here for him, and for Charlie.”

  “You told your mom yet?”

  Quinn snorted. “I’m working up to it. I talked to her last night. She’s ecstatic about us being so close and I don’t think she’ll calm down any once she hears she has a grandson. Aunt Karen’s staying with her now, but I’m thinking Karen hasn’t said anything because mom would’ve flipped and called me immediately. Apparently Karen’s glad Jimmy got arrested. She says Karen was always worried he’d never see thirty, but maybe now he will. I guess at least if he’s in prison, he’s alive.” He took a swig of his beer. “She heard from Arthur too. He and his family are okay. They’re laying low, of course, because of the cops.”

  “You going to tell Day your mom knows how to contact Arthur?”

  “Nope.” Quinn took another swig. “Arthur’s got dirty hands, but no more than mine, and he always played fair. If the cops want him, they can find him themselves.”

  “You’re talking like you aren’t a cop.”

  Quinn’s brow creased, and he shrugged. “Maybe I’m not. Not anymore. Maybe it’s time I quit, and found something else to do with my life. I’m tired of that world. Undercover work, it’s…” He shook his head. “You’re living in the gutter with the rest of the rats, and you tell yourself you’re better because you’re working against them, but are you really any better when you’re doing exactly the same things they do?” He sighed. “I couldn’t go back to that now, anyway, not with Lennox. I know he doesn’t need a dad, but if he wants one, I want to be there for him.”

  The remote-control car buzzed through the grass.

  “I want to do right by him,” Quinn said. “And by Charlie. And by you.”

  Aaron’s heart swelled, and his eyes stung. “Same.”

  “I want to start aga
in,” Quinn said. “I want to get it right this time.”

  Down in the yard, Charlie read her book and Lennox played with his car.

  “We will, Quinn,” Aaron said. He leaned in to kiss Quinn, the tip of his crutch squeaking on the porch boards. Quinn tasted like beer, and summer, new beginnings. Aaron released him at last, holding his gaze. Quinn’s eyes were shining, and when he blinked a tear slid down his cheek. Aaron smiled, and rubbed it away with his thumb. Warmth filled his chest. “We will.”

  THE END

  ABOUT TIA FIELDING

  Tia Fielding is a Finnish author who loves witty people, words, peppermint, sarcasm, autumn, and the tiny beautiful things in life.

  Tia struggles with stubborn muses and depression, but both are things she has learned to live with. After losing the thread of her writing in her teens, Tia rediscovered the joy of writing stories through fan fiction, which later kick-started her publishing career. Tia is not ashamed of her past of borrowing other people’s characters, but has found creating her own much more satisfying, though she still writes fan fiction when the mood strikes her.

  Tia identifies as genderqueer, but isn’t strict about pronouns. Why? Because luckily, in her native language there aren’t gender-specific pronouns. Being a reclusive author living with her fur-babies is another fact of life for Tia, among the need to write that seems to be a part of her psyche by now.

  In 2013 Tia’s novel Falling Into Place was recognized by the industry’s Rainbow Awards in the Best LGBT Erotic Romance (Bobby Michaels Award) category.

  .For more information, visit facebook.com/authortiafielding.

  ABOUT LISA HENRY

  Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.

  Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn't know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she's too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.

  She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.