Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Ronan
Elias’s eyes met mine the minute I walked forward. There was no turning back now. Our gazes were locked until Dawn grabbed my arm and squealed excitedly.
“Oh, my stars! My, how handsome you’ve gotten, Ronan. It has been so long. How are you, son?”
I was such a fucking softie. I had tears spiking in the corner of my eyes at seeing the woman who practically raised me. Unlike my broken mother, whom I was always mending, Dawn Cross was the woman who put me back together, and seeing her now, I realized how much I had missed her.
“Hi, Missis Cross. It is so good to see you again.”
I picked up the fragile woman in my arms, lifting her up to my height and giving her a squeeze that was probably tighter than her bones could handle, but she hugged me back.
“Oh, keep those muscles to yourself, young man! Jerry will go gettin’ jealous with how much you have grown.”
She was razzing me, but her eyes were as misty as mine. It felt so right to be under this roof. I remembered every crack of paint on the walls to the wobbly nail in the deck out back. The Cross’s house was my childhood, my escape, my home.
Maria walked over to us, blocking Elias from my view. He seemed to duck out of view and snuck away to the back area near the bedrooms.
Never thought you were one to run away, Elias Cross.
He was probably praying I would leave.
I should. It wasn’t my right to be here.
“Ma, What are you burnin’?” Maria said, waving her hand over her face and trying to hold back a cough.
There was billowing black smoke from the oven, and when Dawn opened the hinged door, it made us all choke on the cloud of smoke.
“Oh…shoot! Fire! I messed up our venison!”
Dawn’s face fell, and I smiled through the hazy black cloud. Maria ran to open the windows, and I grabbed a mitt to waft the thick smog out of the house. There was no saving the gamey meat. When the room finally cleared, we all stared at the charred remains of that poor deer.
“Uh, you sure you’re not a hunter, Missis C?” I teased, and she whacked me with her oven mitt.
“Oh. You are still such a bad boy, aren’t you? Haha! I definitely killed that thing worse than Pop did.”
The back door opened, and Jerry Cross stepped into the house. The chill outside blew in toward us, and Maria shivered, backing away from the kitchen.
“Ugh, it is so cold! Hi, Daddy! Get anything else?”
Jerry untangled himself from the layers of winter clothes and shook his gray hair, letting the snow fly off toward his daughter.
“Hey, now!” she said in protest, and we all laughed.
Jerry swiveled his head over to my direction.
“Who is…Get out of here,” he said, and I stiffened for a second.
But then the one man I ever considered a father ran at me like a linebacker and tackled me in a hug. He was shorter than me, but that didn’t stop him from yanking me down to his level and tussling my hair with his knuckle.
“I can’t believe it! How are ya, son? Last I heard, you moved to the big fancy city of Vegas. You’re back? We missed you, boy!”
He extended his arms and seemed to look at me for the first time, identifying the changes from over the years.
“Well, no, not a boy. Damn, you are a man now, ain’t you.”
I smiled and returned his play-fight stance. Jerry was getting older and more tired. I could see it in the way his back didn’t fully straighten. There used to be a room filled with trophies of his hunts, but now they were collecting dust. He wouldn’t say it, but I could tell he was struggling.
“I can’t beat you, old man. I found out some important things in my life, and one of the most important things was not to wrestle a Cross.”
Jerry smirked in a half smile that reminded me so much of Elias that I got a pang in my heart.
“Lookin’ at you now, son, I doubt I could stub your big toe.”
I laughed. If he only knew how fragile I actually was.
“It’s all just for show,” I said with a shrug, and Maria walked in between us.
“Daddy. I’m sorry to ruin your reunion, but Mama said that dinner ain’t gonna happen if you couldn’t get more meat. We don’t have nothin’ left in the deep freeze, neither.”
Jerry looked sad, his pained expression resting on his knee. He had a slight gait since he had walked in, and I knew he was hiding it, but he was in pain even now.
“You know what, Jerry,” I said, reaching forward and making him sit in the dining chair near us. “I am pretty rusty on my huntin’ skills. Mind If I get this one?”
Jerry gave me a look that told me he knew what I was doing, and he smiled at me with all the love a father should have for a son. These people had always been my parents. It was my fault I ruined this, and losing Elias was just one of the many people I’d loved and lost that day.
“You need to keep your huntin’ knowledge strong. That gets rusty, and you’ll starve and lose all those fancy muscles you got now.”
I snorted. Maria looked over at me, and I suddenly felt awkward, annoyed at the simple sweater and jeans I had on. Maybe I should have worn something looser. I worked my body harder than anything else in my life.
The obstacles in my life I met with fucking breaking my muscles in the gym. Over time, all the bullshit created a relatively healthy routine, and the skinny boy with pebbled abs became the man with a hardened body.
“I work on my cars a lot,” I said, absently walking away with Jerry to escape Maria’s intrigued gaze.
“Whatever you’re doin’, you should do it with Eli. My boy is a good man, but he needs to get out of that church sometime. Even a priest needs some fresh air once in a while.”
He handed me the rifle and gear that was placed on the dryer near the door.
“Speakin’ of,” he said, and I held in a breath.
Don’t say it.
Just let me freeze my ass off alone and shoot the damn deer for the family.
“You should take Eli. You boys got a lot to catch up on anyhow.”
I started to protest, but he shoved the other gun in my hand and spun me around toward the hallway.
“Thank ya kindly for doin’ this for us. We sure do miss you, son.”
I bowed my head in a quick nod and kept my damn mouth shut.
With a sigh, I walked through the familiar hallways, images popping into my brain from the past. Memories of Elias and my stupid-ass adventures hiding behind the crawl space in the walls, freaking Maria out by hanging her dolls on doorknobs by their hair and to…that wall.
I stopped at the end of the hallway and stared at the white smooth surface.
My hand had a mind of its own, reaching out to run my fingertips down the white clouds on the wallpaper.
After all these years, it was still here.
“Reminiscing about your rendezvous with Maria?”
I jolted and pulled away from the…past. Elias was standing in the doorframe of the bedroom opposite the wall. His hands were in his pockets. The man was wearing gray sweats and a form-fitting T-shirt, making him look like an athletic model in a commercial.
I didn’t know this, Elias.
Every time I didn’t see that freckled strawberry-blonde boy in front of me, it took me a moment to adjust.
“Your dad wants us to go hunting,” I said, clearing my throat and straightening just a bit straighter. We were similar in height, just barely an inch or two apart.
I had the slightest edge on him, but I was happy to be able to see his curls growing back in. I didn’t like his hair being so short. I needed the curls I knew so well, the soft hair that wrapped perfectly into my grip.
Elias sighed. “Yeah, I had a feeling this was coming…he’s not well.”
I frowned when my suspicions were confirmed. ‘Not well?’ Jerry was like my father, and the news hit hard in my gut. “What’s wrong with him?”
Elias shook his head, not willing to give up more information than that. The unsaid hung between us. ‘You aren’t family, so you don’t need to know.’
“Ma was excited to see you again. She’s been getting distracted easily, and Dad takes longer to hunt nowadays, and well, she…” he answered my unasked question.
“Oh,” I replied. That was such a lame answer, but I didn’t really know what else to say.
“I missed them, too.”
Elias ran his hand through his hair, leaning against the door frame. I tried to prevent myself from biting my lip at his profile.
“You don’t have proper clothes for hunting, Ronan.”
I blinked, my gaze breaking from his body.
“You need to take some of mine. It’s too cold outside for…” he trailed off, and his eyes scanned my body.
I felt my muscles ripple under his scrutiny. I wanted him to enjoy the man I had become. Elias walked through the door he stood at and started rifling through a closet. He threw a few sweatshirts at me and a pair of snow pants.
I stripped off my muscle shirt and grabbed the offered items mechanically. Elias turned around and froze.
“Oh shit, sorry,” I said. “I forget nakedness is a sin.”
Elias didn’t break his gaze from my body, and his blue eyes seemed to simmer.
“Nakedness isn’t a sin in itself,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper as he walked toward me.
I couldn’t move my feet. My hands were frozen with the damn shirt half on my wrists.
He was so close I could feel his heat on my exposed flesh. I hardened instantly, reacting as I always have with his presence.
“But that doesn’t mean…” he said, but he stopped himself.
His words were a soft whisper on my lips, but I didn’t dare move.
“Doesn’t mean what, Mon Pur?”
My dick was pressing into his body, but he didn’t pull away from me. His blue eyes were piercing, filled with rage, pain, desire, and something else lurking beneath the surface like a storm in the deep.
I held my breath, unwilling to let the magic of this moment slip away. He parted his perfect lips, and his next words left me breathless.
“That doesn’t mean the thoughts your bare form has awakened inside me aren’t sinful.”