“Don’t Mason me. I saw how that social worker looked at me. Same way you always look at my brothers. Like trouble’s just around the corner. She doesn’t trust me. She let me fill out all the paperwork and stuff, but I could tell. And you could fix that, but you won’t.”
“I can’t.” I couldn’t believe he was asking this of me. Unable to sit any longer, I pushed away from the table, strode to the opposite side of the room. “I’d be turning my back on everything I am, everything I’ve been for twenty years in law enforcement. I can’t do that. Not for you, not for anyone. And trust me, if there was ever anyone I’d compromise myself for, it would be you.”
“But it’s not me, is it? Not ever going to be. You’ll deny it if Jimmy spews any rumors about us, of course. Can’t have a hint of tarnish on your shiny halo. And you’ll end this thing with me because it’s the right thing to do. Well, screw right, Nash. And screw you.”
“I’m not telling you to lie,” I said roughly. “If they ask you point-blank—”
“Of course you’re not asking me to lie. You’re not asking me for a damn thing.” His voice was tortured, and I no longer had a clue what he wanted to hear from me.
“I’m not.” I had a feeling it was the exact wrong words, but I didn’t know what else to say. “You’re the one who’s asking for impossible things—”
“Not anymore. Not asking you for jack crap now.” Mason’s eyes narrowed as his face hardened. “I thought you had a heart, Nash. I was wrong.”
I do. And it’s breaking. But I didn’t say that. Didn’t stop him when he stalked to the door. Didn’t call him back with an offer to talk to the social worker. Didn’t tell him I’d go easy on Jimmy if only he’d stay. Didn’t tell him that I loved him and that it was killing me to see him like this. Didn’t cry when the door shut behind him, even as my eyes burned. It was better that I’d left the words unsaid, not told him the truth in my heart.
I knew how to be a good cop. I knew how to do my job. I knew how to be a respectable man, but I wasn’t sure I knew how to be the man Mason needed. He needed someone proud to walk down the beach with him, someone unencumbered by this job, this past, this pressing sense of responsibility that I just couldn’t shake.
Disgusted at myself, I threw my long-abandoned dinner in the trash and poured myself a shot. Not to get drunk—I had to be back on duty too soon for that—but to feel the burn, to feel something, to remind myself that I wasn’t the hollow, cold man that Mason thought I was.
He thought I had no heart, but the truth was that he was it. He was my heart, my world, my everything. And hell if I knew how to walk around, do my job with that heart missing. Hell if I wanted to. I’d never thought of myself as lacking in courage, but I was going to have to find some extra in hurry if I wanted a chance to make this right.
Twenty-Four
Mason
“I told them. I’m ready to go home. You need me.” Wheezing with the effort, my dad sat up in the hospital bed.
“And the doctor said another day or two. You’re lucky you’re not losing the leg. Yet.” I slumped in the visitor’s chair in his hospital room. My everything hurt and I was beyond tired, to the point that the empty bed on the other side of Dad was pretty tempting.
“I’ve got to talk to Gunnar. See if we can scrape together the bail money for Jimmy, maybe do a deal—”
“There’s no money.” I rubbed my head. I’d had a nonstop tension headache since Jimmy’s first phone call, made worse by my argument with Nash. “None. I balance your checkbook. You had to borrow twenty from me for the prescription co-pay. Gunnar doesn’t have it, either.”
“But you—” He had that wheedling tone that I hated, and I held up a hand, cutting him off.
“Everything I have is sunk into the tavern. I had to do some creative rearranging to find the fee for my lawyer—”
“Your lawyer?” He made a dismissive noise. “Your poor brother is rotting over there in the jail. That public defender has it out for us.”
“The world is not out to get the Hanks.” I was weary, so damn weary of being a Hanks. How did I manage to share DNA with Jimmy and Freddy? It was like Jimmy had learned absolutely nothing from Freddy’s crimes, letting Chester and who knows who else talk him into vandalizing businesses. And oh, yeah, it was all just allegations right now, investigation pending and all that, but I knew in my gut that Jimmy was in on the vandalism. It might come down to whether Chester tattled on him, but the spray paint in his car was damning enough for me. “And yes, my lawyer. They’re not giving me Lilac fast enough. I need a lawyer for this hearing tomorrow.”
The morning after I’d lost my freaking head at Nash’s place, there had been a scrap of paper shoved under my kitchen door.
Call Julie Turner. Family lawyer. Decent person. Local. She’ll help.
The note wasn’t signed, but I recognized Nash’s blocky writing. I’d said some pretty awful things. We both had, really. But he’d thought enough to give me a recommendation for a lawyer, and that counted for…something. What, I wasn’t sure, but it was something, and Julie’s rate was far better than someone from Eugene or Portland. Hiring an attorney from out of the area was what Brock and Logan had wanted me to do.
I’d recognized Julie from Pride Night at the tavern—she was our librarian’s partner, an older woman with a calming demeanor. She’d managed to arrange for a visit with Lilac hours after our first meeting and thought I had a decent chance of getting the emergency placement. She’d immediately become my favorite person in the world. But, of course, Dad would begrudge me her fee.
“If I could leave this damn bed, they’d give her to me—”
“Dad.” I didn’t have it in me to sugar coat the truth. “You’re sick. You can barely get around these days. Your place is a wreck. They’re not giving you custody. Like it or not, I’m our best shot.”
“I wish your sainted mother was here.” His eyes filled with tears, not the first time since this ordeal had begun.
“Me, too.” God, how I wished that. The social workers might have looked askance at the house, but they would have given her custody, and she would have known what to do to keep Jimmy and Dad in line.
“Or that you had a…someone. Single, young guy…like you…” Dad stumbled for words.
“They’re not denying me because I’m gay.” The social worker seemed to have far more issue with me being a Hanks than being gay, and Julie was convinced that it was just a matter of jumping through all the right hoops for DHS.
“Of course not.” Dad wasn’t going to confess to any bigoted assumptions, and he bristled like I was accusing him of something. “Jimmy’s the one who’s…hard on you, not me. I promised your mother…” Another big sniffle.
I seized on his emotional reaction. “She’d want me to do this. Want me to step in and do what’s right for Lilac.”
“She would.” Dad looked at me through bleary eyes. “God, I loved that woman. Didn’t deserve her.”
“No, you didn’t.” I laughed, trying to break up the mood. My parents had been far from perfect, but they’d loved each other almost ferociously and been intensely loyal to each other. I’d always wanted a love like that, albeit a saner one, with a partner deserving of my affection. I’d wanted to know how it felt to love that deeply.
And now I knew.
And it sucked.
I’d lit into Nash because I was hurting, because nothing in my damn life made sense anymore, and because I wanted someone to be there for me, and I wanted it to be him. And it wasn’t ever going to be him. So I’d lashed out.
I knew deep down that he’d only been doing his job. I didn’t want special treatment. I just wanted…him. Us. A future where we dealt with crap like this together. But a future where we were a couple wouldn’t ever happen, and rage over the unfairness of that had made me say a lot of shit, most of which I didn’t even remember. All I knew was that I loved Nash and he didn’t love me back and the timing of that realization was absolutely worthless.
>
“Don’t see why you can’t get Flint to drop the charges.”
“Jimmy’s gotten to you, I see.” I wasn’t sure when Jimmy had been allowed a phone call to Dad, but it didn’t matter. Gossip traveled fast around these parts, and I’d known that Jimmy and Francine wouldn’t keep their traps shut in jail.
“It’s true, then? You and him…” Dad pulled a wounded face, begging me with his eyes to deny it.
But I was tired. Very tired. So I shrugged. “Does it make a difference? He’s not going to drop the charges. He can’t do that.”
“Does it make a difference? Of course it makes a difference!” Dad’s face turned purple, and he gestured wildly. I needed to calm him down or I’d have a nurse in here on my case. “That Flint has had it in for our family since before he was an officer. His father did, too. Their whole family looks down on us. He’s just using you.”
And there it was, the gut punch I’d figured was coming. Nash hadn’t used me, or at least, no more than I’d let him. But my dad’s words still tickled the back of my brain, an itch I wasn’t ever going to be free of. Had this been just sex for Nash? It had slid way past that for me, but maybe it had always only been physical for him. He’d let me go, after all, let me rant and rave and storm off and hadn’t come after me, hadn’t texted. He’d left the note, but that was the sort of neighborly kindness he might do for anyone.
“No one’s using anyone.” My voice was rough and shaky.
“I get that you don’t want to…be alone. But why not Adam? Someone closer to your age?”
I had to laugh at that. “Adam’s like my third brother. The good one. We’re never going to hook up.”
“Flint won’t ever give you a future,” Dad said firmly. And I knew he was correct. There’d been no future here, right from the start. “This is one more strike against us, one more thing to hold over our heads—”
“Take a breath,” I ordered. “It’s not like that. He’s not like that. You and Jimmy and Francine need to stop spouting stupid conspiracy theories, especially if you want me to be able to help Lilac.”
And that was where my focus had to stay—on helping Lilac, on saving what was left of my family. Much as I wanted to go to Nash, fight for a future together, I couldn’t allow myself the luxury. Family had to come first, just like his job did for him. Dad was right about one thing—there was no future here.
Nash
My phone rang ten minutes before I needed to drive to the station. My heart galloped. It wouldn’t be Mason—hadn’t been Mason since our argument in my kitchen, but hope was a stupid thing. And it wasn’t like I would know what to say even if it was Mason. I didn’t have the right words for him yet, wasn’t sure if there even was a way to fix things between us.
And sure enough, it was my mother’s number flashing on my screen. I leaned against the kitchen counter, taking my time to hit answer.
“Nash. Sweetheart. How are you?” Something about the strain in her voice told me this was more than just a welfare check.
“I’m good. Heading to the station in a few, so I don’t have much time—”
“That’s fine. I just wanted to talk about me coming down, end of next week.”
Oh, hell. I’d forgotten about my father’s birthday. She always liked to put flowers on his grave and Easton’s, treating the occasion as some sort of macabre holiday. My neck tightened at the thought.
“Is Trisha driving you?” I didn’t like her making the long drive on her own, and public transit wasn’t a realistic option way out here. No way was she suffering the bus to Coos Bay.
“Yes, her and the kids, too. You’ll…have room?”
That had never been a question in the past, and the hesitation in her voice had me on edge. “Of course. Guest rooms for you and Trisha, and the kids can do the slumber party in the living room again.”
“Oh, good. I wasn’t sure you’d be free…”
“Work’s a bear lately.” I deliberately misunderstood her. “But I’ll make the time to take you out to the cemetery.”
“That’s not what…I shouldn’t have to tell you this…” Then don’t. I braced myself for her next words. “…but there’s awful rumors swirling about you. Terrible things. About you and a Hanks. I said there was no way, of course. You wouldn’t take up with…someone. Not again. You wouldn’t risk your career like that. Not for a Hanks.”
Oh, I would. And I did. And I’d do it again. “Mom, you know I’m gay.”
I’d never said the words before, not directly anyway. We’d danced around the issue when she’d been set on moving up to Portland, and we’d always couched any further discussion in vague terms that weren’t doing either of us any favors, not anymore.
Her sigh could have sliced the county in half. “Yes, but I thought you learned your lesson with that teacher—your preferences can’t be public knowledge. You know that, Nash.”
She made it sound like a taste for rhubarb pie over apple. I sighed right back, because I shouldn’t have to explain this to her. “It’s not something I can just turn off. Steve was a good man. Better than I deserved. And I’m tired. Tired of skulking around in secret, hiding people I care about because of the job.”
“So it’s true? You and this Hanks kid? Oh, Nash.”
“He’s not a kid.” The age difference might still be something I was coming to terms with, but I wasn’t going to let her dismiss Mason that way. “He’s twenty-eight. And he’s nothing like his family—”
“They’re all the same. Users and losers, your father always said. Oh…what would he say about this? Have you thought about that at all?”
Only every damn day. “Mason’s not a loser. Or using me.” If anything, I’d done the using—keeping him at arm’s length when I knew he’d likely wanted something more, something real, letting him tell me as much in Portland and then still hurting him. “He’s a business owner. Upstanding citizen. And he’s trying to stand by his family, best he can. There’s a kid involved. I like to think Dad would respect that.”
He wouldn’t, of course, not even a small amount. He’d been a hard, grudge-filled man who thought his judgment was the be-all and end-all. But I liked imagining a world where he could see someone like Mason turn their life around, become more than what they’d been raised to be, and see beyond labels and assumptions. But that hadn’t ever been my father.
Mom’s answering tsk said she knew it, too. “He’d want you to do the right thing. Break this off, whatever it is. Try to salvage your reputation. You can deny the rumors. People will believe you.”
Yes, yes, they would. I knew that. Holmes hadn’t asked me whether Jimmy’s venom was true, and I knew she’d back me up if I said he was full of shit. Whole department would, really. But that wasn’t the issue. Mason would still be the one hurting. And I wanted to go to him something awful, to comfort him, to protect him from any gossip. I’d thought that denial was the best way to protect us both, but the more I missed him, the less I thought that. Denial was selfish and would only end with me alone, more bitter than ever.
I liked who I’d been with Mason. Liked the man who was learning to cook, who laughed and smiled at the end of the day, liked the man who could show his favorite places to his guy, share his hobbies and his life and be richer for the effort. I liked Mason here in my house. Liked the sound of his voice in my big kitchen, liked him hogging space in my shower and coaxing me into a crowded tub. Simple truth was—I liked that version of myself too much to let Mason go, regardless of whether it was the smart option.
“Maybe I don’t want them to,” I said at last. “Maybe I don’t want to grow old alone. Maybe you’re okay with that future for me, but I’m not, not any longer, not since I’ve seen what I could have if I tried.”
“You don’t have to be alone. You’ve got your family, your job.”
I couldn’t believe the next words that came out of my mouth, but they tumbled out all the same. “The job’s not enough. Not anymore. I’m not like Dad. I can’t have it be my
entire life. I don’t want to be old before my time, stroking out because I never took a minute away—”
“You watch your mouth. Your father gave everything he had to that city—”
“Yes, and nothing left over for us. For you. I want something more for my life.” As soon as I said it, I believed it. I did want something more. Someone more.
“But a Hanks? Really?” My mother’s tearful voice awoke an ache behind my ribs and a tightness in my throat, but it didn’t loosen my resolve.
“He’s more than his family.” Guilt washed over me. I’d done a piss-poor job of convincing Mason of that. Made him think I was ashamed of him. Made him feel not worthy and hadn’t really corrected him, hadn’t stood up for him. For us.
And that had to change. Starting right now.
“Oh, Nash. I hope you know what you’re doing.” My mother sounded weary and resigned, but I’d never been more determined. For the first time in a very long time, I knew exactly what I was doing. My only worry was whether it would work.
Twenty-Five
Mason
The county seat was forty-five minutes south of us, with the courthouse right next to the jail. I’d had far too much experience with this drive in my life as well as with both buildings. Dad was still up at the hospital in Coos Bay, and cranky though he was, I really wished he’d been able to come with me to the hearing. Despite our argument in the hospital room, he’d given a statement to the social worker supporting my bid for custody, and I supposed that was as much as I could hope for.
This building felt too big for me, the day too momentous. The courthouse was an old stone building full of wide, drafty hallways lined with long, wooden benches. I wore my best clothes, the ones I’d worn in Portland to make the presentation to Brock’s investors, tie and all.
“This is most likely just a formality,” Julie said, patting my arm. We’d done all the paperwork, met with the social workers more than once. They’d even been to my house, looked at my car. We should have everything they wanted, but my life had shown me that should had a way of not working out. My mom should be alive. Freddy should have been smarter than to listen to his friends. Nash should love me back. Nothing went as it should.
Trust with a Chaser (Rainbow Cove Book 1) Page 20
