Chapter 6 #3
She gave a soft grin, and he closed the door before the temptation overtook him to stay and curl up on the Queen Anne wingback chair and watch her sleep.
Oh boy. Twenty-four hours ago he’d been staring at the ceiling, ruing how easily she drove him to his last nerve.
Back downstairs, his brothers had cleared away the game and returned to the kitchen. He joined them.
Hudson stood at the kitchen island, stirring something that smelled like chocolate and cinnamon. The others sat at the table, their expressions serious.
“She okay?” Kennedy asked.
“Stubborn. Frustrating. Too tough for her own good.” Jericho ran a hand through his hair. “But yeah, I think so.”
Hudson grinned, sent a look at Sully.
“What?”
“Just . . . you know. Old times. That thing between you.”
“There’s nothing between us now.”
Sully nearly choked on his hot cocoa. Grabbed a napkin.
“Here.” Hudson slid a mug across the counter. “Some chocolate to go with that lie.”
“It’s not—listen. She’s got a life in Juneau. Besides, today was a good warning of what I don’t want.”
“Which is what?”
He cocked his head at Sully’s question. “Harley has always been impulsive. Too fierce for her own good. And just like I said years ago, she’s going to get herself killed. And I can’t watch that.”
Although his own words pinched. “I won’t let him hurt you. Whatever it takes, I’ll keep you safe.” Well, for right now, yes.
He took a sip of the cocoa, tasted the bite alongside the chocolate. “Mom’s hot cocoa recipe.”
Malachi accepted his own mug. “With the secret ingredient?”
“Cayenne pepper isn’t secret if you announce it.” Sully took another sip. Nodded. Turned to Jericho. “You say you can’t watch and yet, here she is, in our house.”
His mouth tightened and he stared at the cocoa.
Sighed. “Fine. Yes.” He looked up. “I regret a lot about leaving her.” He looked at his brothers.
“Leaving you all, really. I . . . I should have come back after my first deployment. Shoulda helped you with this place, Hud. And Mal.” He looked at Sully.
“And I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when . . .” He glanced at Kennedy.
She put a hand on his arm. “God was here. And that’s all we needed.”
Still. “I guess I just . . .”
“Hey,” Hudson said. “The crash took us all out.”
“No.” He met Hudson’s gaze. “You don’t . . .” And here went nothing. “Dad and I had a big fight right before he took off that night.”
Kennedy released his arm.
“We were on a video call. He was waiting to leave—the weather window was closing—but I was going in country, and . . . anyway, I was approaching the deadline to re-up and called him to tell him, and he got . . . well, I think he thought it was a one-time tour.”
The argument rung in his head, just the important part. “I thought you were coming home. The legacy I want isn’t just this resort—it’s you. You were made for this. Don’t throw it away, son.”
“He wanted me to come home and take over the resort, and I turned him down. And then hung up on him.”
No one moved.
Yep, his last words to his father had been in anger. So, that was a joy to live with.
“Dad always thought you’d take over,” Hudson said quietly.
Jericho looked at him. “Yeah.” He ran a hand behind his neck. “I always thought that he was prepping you, Hud. You were the levelheaded, smart one.”
“But you were—are—the oldest.”
“I didn’t want it!” He winced at his own words. Schooled himself. “All I saw was . . . well, I just knew it wouldn’t work. Anyway, we fought, and then he got in a plane and died. Because of me.”
And now he’d dropped a cluster bomb into the kitchen, everyone sort of frowning.
“If I hadn’t delayed him taking off—”
“He didn’t die because of a storm, J,” Sully said softly.
Jericho looked over at him. “What?”
“Yeah. We got the FAA report about a year later,” Hudson said. “Barry Kingston brought it over, went over it with us. He thinks the fuel was contaminated.”
Jericho had nothing.
“Dad was a master pilot. And sure, even the best of pilots can go down in Alaska, but Barry said there is evidence that the fuel line froze and starved the engine. It stalled and Dad couldn’t restart, and the low visibility made it impossible to land. It looked like the storm, but . . .”
Jericho wasn’t following. “The fuel froze?”
“It could have been contaminated with water, or even syrup, but yeah.”
He frowned at his brothers. “And you didn’t tell me?”
Hudson’s mouth opened.
“This might be the part where we mention that you didn’t come home after your second deployment,” Sully said, a coolness in his tone.
Right. He held up his hand. “Okay. So, was there an investigation?”
“Not really,” Hudson said. “It was still chaos here after Harley’s dad died, and the FAA in Anchorage had other things on their plate—”
“Dad was a state senator, for Pete’s sake! Certainly—”
“It’s Alaska, Jericho. Small planes go down all the time, without any sabotage.” This from Sully. “Although yeah, I’m with you. Someone killed them.” His voice softened. “But it wasn’t you.”
He drew that in. “And you’ve all just been sitting on that.”
“Trying to keep afloat,” Hudson said. Sighed.
“Right.” He took another sip of cocoa. He liked the way it burned a little in his throat.
“So . . . we gonna talk about how close it was today?” Kennedy asked.
The kitchen fell quiet except for the soft whir of the refrigerator. Outside, snow swirled past the windows, muffling the world in white.
“Mars’s dangerous. It could have been a lot worse,” Hudson said.
“He was always dangerous.” Sully’s face hardened. “He enjoyed hurting people. Even back in grade school. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they moved to Anchorage.”
“They hung around in the summers and then moved back and started to terrorize the community.”
Malachi set down his mug. “Word on the street is that the dope they sell is laced with fentanyl.”
“There were three overdoses last month in Copper Mountain.” Hudson scrubbed a hand over his face. “College kids, here for skiing.”
Harley’s brother stumbled into Jericho’s mind, then. A few years younger than him, Gabe was funny. A snowboarder. “Gabe Tatum had a lot of potential before the Sorros boys found him.”
“He was always running around at the edge of trouble with them,” Sully said. “I never figured out why. His dad was the sheriff—”
“Maybe that’s why,” Hudson said. “There’s nothing worse than expectations. Especially if you feel you can’t live up to them.” He looked at Jericho, gave him a grim, tight smile.
So maybe Hudson had heard him.
Maybe even understood.
Hudson turned away, put the pot of cocoa in the sink.
Jericho emptied his mug. “I think that’s why Harley is so driven. It’s not just about Gabe. It’s about making sure what happened to him doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
“And now she’s tracking Mars down,” Malachi said.
“She’s good at what she does.” He didn’t mean to admit that, but, “She’s right—she does know him. Or, at least, she’s done her research. She warned us about getting too close. We need to be smarter next time.”
A scratching sound made him turn. Orlando stood in the doorway, whining softly.
“I thought you were with Harley, buddy.”
The dog looked over his shoulder, back toward the stairs, then at Jericho.
He padded over, sat, his tail swishing. Jericho knelt, caught his head in his hands. The animal had stopped trembling, seemed more himself in the past couple hours. He blinked at Jericho, his brown eyes almost worried. Then again, Orlando always looked a little worried.
Still. “Yeah,” Jericho said softly. “Me too, boy.”
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked. He stiffened, stood up.
“Easy.” Malachi’s voice was quiet. “House is settling. We’ve got cameras, motion sensors.”
“And us.” Hudson straightened. “All of us.”
Jericho considered his brothers—Hudson with his easy smile hiding steel, Malachi’s quiet strength, Sully’s fierce protectiveness. And Kennedy, who’d brought light back into Sully’s life. Even in their loss, they’d come here.
Yeah, he’d stayed away too long.
“We’ll figure this out,” Sully said. “We’ll keep her safe.”
He sighed. “I wish it was that simple. Mars is . . . determined.”
“Deadly,” Kennedy said.
Orlando whined and pressed closer, as if reading his thoughts.
“I know, boy.” Jericho scratched behind his ears. “We’re not letting anything happen to her. Not this time.”
Because losing her once had nearly broken him.
Losing her again just might destroy him completely.