Cole’s fingers tingled with the need to comfort Ned, but the less they touched the better, and as the sobs got more intense, he took a deep breath and made the mourning dove coo. He’d never mastered the technique Ned used, and it came out as a pathetic squeak, but he hoped Ned would understand what it meant, so he repeated a few times.
“I… It’s… it’s just so hard to be sober,” Ned uttered through his tears, finally tipping the jar.
The alcohol splashed onto the frozen earth, creating thin rivulets that soaked into the snow. Chained to the wall, smacked around, even at the gallows, Ned had always managed to stay calm. This was the first time Cole had seen this new Ned break down, and while his heart longed to pull him close, it was obvious that he shouldn’t. Not if he wanted to ever leave this place.
“It is now. But I’ve met men who’d given up the bottle. It gets better with time, they said.”
What he didn’t voice was that all those men lived in towns, had friends and families. Sobriety would be so much harder for someone dwelling in the mountains with just a horse and a dog for company. Stealing from strangers who came into his territory. Hiding his true identity behind a monster.
Ned rubbed the tears away with his sleeve, flushed with regret and shame. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave some for yourself?” he asked, glancing Cole’s way with reddened eyes surrounded by pale, damp lashes
Cole poured out the contents of two jars at once, happy to see them soak into the snow-covered ground. “I’ve already joined you in sobriety.” He’d even forced Lars not to drink in the house, which had ultimately led to his death. But Cole didn’t want to think of it anymore.
Ned poured out another jar with more ease. “What about alcohol for cooking?” he asked, despite surely knowing the answer.
Cole chuckled, amused despite the serious nature of this discussion. Another jar went to Lars in the afterlife. “Who the hell uses booze for cooking?”
“The French.”
Cole laughed again. “No. I bet it’s just something people say.”
Ned shook his head with a smile despite tears still rolling down his face. “You’re ridiculous. What do you think porter cake is made with?”
All at once Cole could taste Ned’s aunt’s cake on his tongue as if he’d just taken a bite, and he remembered how sweet it had been with the handsome man at his side, how fast his heart had rattled when Ned had leaned in to steal it from him.
Good times.
Once they disposed of the moonshine, Cole demanded to know about any more liquor Ned might’ve been hiding, and following a threat or two, Ned revealed a stash of several whiskey bottles in a hole under the floor, hidden beneath the bed. But that wasn’t the end of it.
He led Cole to the other room, the one filled with odds and ends—additional blankets, crates, tools, and the like. Another hidden compartment lurked under the floor there, but while in the bedroom Ned had only removed one plank to gain access, this one had a proper trapdoor, and Cole’s eyes widened as Ned showed him the underfloor space. It contained booze, yes, but once the crates and bottles were out, it became clear that a narrow tunnel extended beyond the walls of the cabin, complete with wooden supports, as if it were a mine meant for dogs and cats.
“Are you looking for gold, or something?” Cole asked in disbelief and crawled down to stare into the endless darkness stretching too far to see. He’d have to crawl in order to move around in the narrow tunnel that smelled of cold and damp, but it definitely led somewhere.
Ned groaned. “I made it after the wolves trapped me here. I vowed I’d never let them do so again. Spent the whole summer diggin’. I mean, I think that’s what happened. It was a bit ago. It leads to the barn, so I could get to Nugget and ride off.”
It was quite ingenious for a raging drunkard.
Cole shook his head. “Well, I sure hope elves won’t crawl in here through—” He stalled, because that joke would have been only funny to Lars, since he’d often mocked his mother’s belief in the little creatures from the myths of the old country.
“You mean fairies?” Ned frowned. “No, no, no… but there’s ghosts, and they don’t care about no walls.”
He clearly wasn’t in on the joke.
“Ghosts don’t exist, Ned,” Cole muttered and crawled out of the tunnel. Ned’s nonsense reminded him that Lars was also underground, and not that far away.
“They do, and now we have one more in the house.” Ned shook his head and shut the trapdoor while Cole rubbed his arms, trying to get rid of the cold sensation in his bones. “They move things around, sometimes rip off the window shutters… It’s why I boarded everything up.”
Cole swallowed and looked at the window, which he and Lars had uncovered with no unnatural consequences. Ned had probably messed up his home in a fit of drunken rage, and had no recollection of it. “If ghosts were real, I’d be followed by a whole pack of ‘em.”
Cole watched Ned move the final box of whisky to the main room, to make sure none of the bottles disappeared. He could already imagine Ned claiming that the ghosts took them.
“Let’s just hope Lars finds peace,” Ned grumbled. “I’ll get the liver cooking. And… it’s so late—you won’t be going tonight, will you?” he asked, glancing over the shoulder with a tense set to his mouth
“No,” Cole said, taking the heavy crate out of Ned’s hands. “I’ll stay tonight.” Their eyes met, and the sense of mutual understanding pulled him by the balls. In the night, they’d fuck again, and he found that he longed to crawl under the covers already and gorge himself on Ned for as long as his presence there could be explained with practical reasons.
“It might snow tomorrow again. It’s not good to travel alone in this weather. You’ve seen the wolves… Maybe you’d be wise to plan for a longer stay.”
A chuckle broke from Cole’s lips. “You’re pushing your luck, O’Leary. If it snows tomorrow, I’ll think through my plans, but I’m not staying here forever.”
Ned groaned and threw the liver onto the griddle as the vegetables cut by Cole simmered in a pot next to it. “Wouldn’t it be better, though? To stay? After Lars’s stunt, people will be looking for us in the area.”
The smile dropped from Cole’s lips and left him cold. Lars had been the very reason why Cole had been able to straighten up his act. He’d been the one to talk to lawmen and the face of their two-man team. Without him, Cole didn’t have a source of income. Unless he moved somewhere no one bothered to look for him.
He had no home. No friends. Nowhere to go. He could consider finding work with the circus again, but he had no idea where Jan’s little empire had travelled to. Nor would he want to get entangled with people like that again. He’d become too attached to the easy-going atmosphere and had let his guard down. As much as he’d enjoy visiting them all, were he to stumble upon his old friends, staying with them posed too many risks.
“Ned, you know why I can’t stay,” Cole said more firmly.
“‘Cause you hate me? Didn’t seem like it last night.”
Cole put the crate on the table and counted to ten, focusing on the utensils resting in a wooden cup rather than on Ned. Once again, his weakness was used against him, and he loathed it. “I don’t hate you anymore. I understand why you’ve done what you’ve done. But that doesn’t mean I agree with it, or that I’ve forgiven you. You destroyed my life, and I suffer the consequences.”