“Dogs are sensitive. She feels your pain. Suki will stop if you pet her.”
Unable to handle the low whine, he started petting her. The sound stopped.
“I thought Moses was going to give her to a new owner.”
“He did. She’s sitting on his lap.”
Reaper looked up. “Moses is giving her to me?”
“I can’t think of anyone else who will love or treat her better.”
“I don’t want her.” He let his hand slide off her fur.
“You’re lying, just like you’ve been untruthful about your feelings for Ginny.”
Suki started whining again. Automatically, Reaper started petting her again.
“I don’t have feelings for either of them,” he denied.
“How much pain do you have to go through before you stop deceiving yourself? You almost killed yourself, Gavin. At what point is the pain too unbearable that you can’t ask for help?”
Reaper shook his wet hair back. The rain and wind had stopped at Silas’s arrival, leaving a dampness in the air that had his clothes uncomfortably clinging to him.
“Everyone asks me that question. And I’ll tell you the same thing I told them: Who can I talk to? You don’t know what happened to me, and I don’t want you to. But to put it plainly, it was vile and disgusting. Who should I share those experiences with? My brother? Fuck no! The Last Riders? Hell fucking no. A psychiatrist? They can piss off. A support group? No, I don’t need other people’s nightmares in my head. I have enough of my own.”
“You can talk to me.”
“You?” Shaking his head, Reaper looked up from Suki. “You don’t have any concept of how to help me.”
Silas’s grave expression didn’t change at his sarcasm. “I’ve comforted you many times, Gavin. You just didn’t know it was me.”
“Are talking about when I stayed at your house?”
“No.” Silas placed a dried leaf next to him, and as he rose from his haunches to stand, the leaf twirled under his hand. “I’m talking about the many times—”
Reaper’s eyes followed the leaf spiraling upward as Silas raised his hand higher into the air.
“—I comforted you when your body was so racked with pain from those tormentors’ abuse that you clung to life from sheer will.” Silas brought his hand down, the leaf falling softly to the ground. Raising his hand back in the air, he made an imaginary circle before lowering his hand again, until his hand pointed toward him. Then, as he flicked his fingers open from his closed fist, Reaper felt a burst of wind blow over him … and heard the wind whispering to him …
Survive …
Endure …
I promised you revenge …
I promised you love … a love that was waiting for you … just for you ….
“I’ve kept my promises to you, Gavin. You survived, you endured, you got your revenge, and I promised you Ginny. She’s been waiting for you … She’s still waiting.”
This was so beyond the bounds of belief that his mind refused to believe what he had seen, what he had heard. Seeking to disprove what his eyes and ears told him, he opened his mouth to deny what Silas was telling him when another set of headlights lit up the area.
“Damn, I knew he wouldn’t stay home,” Reaper heard Silas mutter as he turned toward the truck that parked beside his.
Reaper didn’t have to wait long to know who the newcomer was, recognizing the irritating quality of his swagger immediately.
“Where’s the dude he took off with?” Greer looked around eagerly.
“He went over the cliff,” Silas answered for him.
Greer Porter sauntered to the edge of the cliff, looking down. “Damn. I wanted to shove my boot up his ass before you killed him off. I don’t know why I listened to you,” Greer berated Silas as he walked toward them.
“It was an accident.”
“Yeah … sure. That’s the last time I listen to you, cuz.”
Reaper looked back and forth between the two men. “You’re cousins?”
“Shh …” Greer went back to the cliff. “You sure he’s dead?”
“I’m sure,” Silas snapped.
“How? You go down there and see?”
“Why don’t you go down there and check for a pulse?”
“I didn’t bring my hiking boots. Guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Will you two please leave?” Reaper broke into the squabbling.
“I take it he ain’t convinced?” Greer snorted.
“You interrupted just when I showed him.”
“He don’t look convinced. He still wantin’ to take a nose dive into the wild blue yonder?”
“Greer, you’re making me want to take a flying leap. Will you shut up for a few minutes so I can finish talking to him?”
“Go ahead.” Greer huffily folded his arms across his chest. “I ain’t going to say another word.”
“Now that would be a fucking miracle.” Reaper’s head fell back in bitter laughter.
“The boy’s lost it, hasn’t he?” Greer stared down at him pityingly.
Lifting his head up, Reaper caught Greer’s expression. “Don’t look at me that way. That’s how The Last Riders look at me when I can’t take a drink—”
“Why can’t you drink?”
“Because I’m an addict! I let myself have only one drink, when I kill one of the fuckers who … hurt me.”
“Raped you. That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it, Gavin? It isn’t a dirty word … What they did to you is a crime.” Silas sighed, going back to his haunches. “Greer and I both know.”
“Who told you? Am I being gossiped about in town?”
“I was with you, and Greer came to you in the hospital. If you let yourself remember, he helped you cope when you were in the rehab center. We can both help you now, if you let us. You don’t have to suffer through this alone anymore. You never did. You just have to get to the point where you’re willing to allow us in to take the pain away.”
Reaper raised his hands to his eyes, furiously rubbing them as if he could erase the memories plaguing his mind more than any deadly infection ever could.
“Hell, I know how to fix this.” Greer stomped away.
“Sorry,” Silas apologized. “He’s part of the reason the Colemans don’t claim the Porters as kin.”
“I heard that!” Greer bellowed from inside the truck. “It’s the Porters who don’t claim the Colemans.”
Coming back, Greer gave Silas a beer, then gave one to Reaper. Opening his own, Greer turned toward the cliff to raise his beer up in a toast. “Sorry I wasn’t here to shove my boot up your ass.” Greer snickered. “I might come back in a couple of days in my hiking boots and take a piss on your rotting body.”
Silas raised his bottle to take a drink. “If his eyes are open, it’ll be bad luck.”
“I’ll wait a couple of weeks, then. The animals will have picked him clean by then.”
Greer tilted his beer bottle toward Reaper. “Go ahead and drink up. I’ll make sure you don’t go craving it.” Uncaring of getting his pants wet, Greer plopped down on the ground next to him. “How long it been since you’ve had one of these bad mamas?” Greer then took a joint out his shirt pocket. Lighting it, he took a hit, savoring it before handing it over to Silas.