“Silas, this is Gavin. He’s a friend of mine.”
Friends? Reaper didn’t correct Ginny, letting it ride. Maybe in another lifetime they could have been friends, but not in this one.
“We’ve met.” Silas took another step under the light hanging on the side of the building.
Ginny looked up at Reaper in surprise. “You’ve met my brother?”
“I didn’t know he was your brother. It was a long time ago. We met at the diner,” Reaper roughly supplied the information.
“Been a long time.” Silas nodded at him. “Good to see you again. Haven’t seen much of you since you’ve come back to town.”
“You knew I had been kidnapped? I haven’t seen you, either,” Reaper said flatly. “Surprising in such a small town.”
Silas gave a laconic shrug. “Don’t get out much. This is the first time I’ve been out of my house since I quit my job. I heard a Last Rider went back with Ginny; didn’t know you were the one called Reaper. Everyone in four states knew you were missing back then. You were kidnapped.” The way he stated it could have come across as a statement of fact or a question.
Silas’s reply and expressionless face sent his bullshit meter rising. Viper had been able to keep the details of his kidnapping out of the media, yet Reaper wasn’t naïve enough to think that a slip from anyone from The Last Riders, Predators, or the hospitals he had been in would provide a leak that would allow the whole truth to come out.
“How’d you know a Last Rider went with her if you haven’t been in town?”
“Just because I don’t come to town doesn’t mean I’m can’t pick up a phone.”
“Silas’s mother is a little bit of a gossip,” Ginny explained.
“Not much in town gets past her ears.”
Reaper found it pretty damn cagey. Silas’s noncommittal response didn’t provide the answer from where he had gained his knowledge.
Silas’s gaze went to both of them. “You both look like you could use a good meal and some rest.”
“We could. Ginny can call you when she wakes.”
“My sister is coming home with me. Ezra and Fynn are keeping a big kettle of stew and cornbread warm. Plenty for you too. The boys are making a spare bed for you in case you decide to stay.”
“We’re staying at the hotel,” Reaper shut the offer down.
“Silas … we could be contagious.”
Ginny’s attempt at trying to ease the terse situation didn’t help. The two men were engaging in a battle of wills, which Reaper was determined to win.
“Ginny and I have everything we need here. A friend of mine booked rooms for us and has already set us up with food.”
“We saw. We’ve already loaded the food up to take with us.”
The battle of wills had just escalated in a direction Reaper had failed to register until it was too late.
“We’ve?”
Silas raised his hand in the air, closing it into a fist when it was above his head. Then Reaper saw other shadows move, blending into the light from various positions around the hotel. He counted five men as they moved closer.
Silas lowered his hand. “I wasn’t the only one who came to welcome Ginny home.”
“Then it was a wasted trip,” Reaper said. “We’re staying here.”
“Then,” Silas matched his ultimatum with one of his own, “we’re staying here too. We’ve already rented the rooms on both sides of yours.”
“How did you know which rooms we rented?” Reaper regarded him suspiciously.
“Wasn’t hard to figure out which two rooms were for you and Ginny when we saw Knox packing a bunch of groceries inside both rooms.”
“Pretty good guess.” Silas didn’t appear to register his sarcasm.
“Been known to make a few good ones when the occasion calls for them.”
As they talked, Reaper was aware of Silas walking closer.
“There was no point for you to rent rooms here. Ginny and I were set up to stay here.”
“There is a point when there’s no need for either of you to stay here when I have plenty of rooms to spare. Why stay cooped up in a small room when you can have all the outdoors at your footsteps? You seem like a sensible man. What makes more sense: Staying here, when you know Ginny will sooner or later answer her door to one of us, or move into my house with just me?” Silas moved in for the kill in his argument.
“If you’re so worried about you two being contagious, the only place you could go in town is to The Last Riders’. Personally, I wouldn’t, heard a couple of the women there are pregnant.”
“More information coming from your mother?” Reaper asked caustically.
“Could be.” Silas gave a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t rightly remember who told me. Am I wrong?”
“No, you aren’t.” Ginny tiredly leaned against Reaper. “Is there anywhere else we can stay?”
Reaper looked down at her, seeing she was asking him and not her brothers, leaving the decision in his hands.
Every place he could come up with had drawbacks, and none that would be as safe as to what the Colemans were offering.
“You might not have been in town the last few months, but how about the rest of your brothers?” Reaper asked Silas, not giving in to what could be Ginny’s safest option without considering the safety of everyone involved. If he had to pitch a tent behind the church, he would.
“They come into town even less than me.”
“Silas is the only one who isn’t a homebody,” Ginny teased her oldest brother.
“They could get sick,” he told her before giving in. “We could have been exposed. It’s going to be a waiting game to see if we get any symptoms, which means they’ll have to wait it out with us before coming back to town again.”
“If Ginny goes anywhere else but with us and gets sick, we’ll get infected anyway, because no one will be able to keep us away from her.” Silas took a step off the sidewalk as he talked. “As to the food, all the groceries that Knox sent you was enough to feed an army. Plus, we already have three freezers packed full. I reckon we’ll do fine.”
“You have three freezers?” Reaper regarded him skeptically. For people who never came to town, they seemed to have an overabundance of food.
“Have you watched TV lately? Nothing to do in the mountains but hunt. Ginny looks like she’s ready to drop. The only one Ginny and you will be in contact with is me. That’s why the boys are staying back. Isaac and Matthew share their own place, Jacob and Jody each have theirs, Moses has his. Ezra and Fynn both live with me, but Ezra is going to move in with Isaac and Matthew, and Fynn will be going to stay with Jacob. See? We have it all worked out.”
“Gavin, it’s up to you.”
Ginny leaving the decision to him when all her brothers were standing there, putting his say-so over the brothers she loved and trusted, placed a burden on him to consider the best recourse for her. The problem was that he had other options available to him, but all of them involved leaving her unprotected.
It rankled with him that Silas had never filed their father’s will. Their reappearance in Ginny’s life could have another motive, and until he could assure Viper that Ginny was safe with them, he didn’t feel good leaving her alone.