“SEE? I told you we wouldn’t fall in the creek.”
The triumph in Geoff’s voice was loud as he hopped down the few inches from the limestone shelf to the cave floor, but Jesse could have told him the shelf was safe. He’d climbed along it before. He had fallen in the creek before too. It wasn’t that bad.
But it hadn’t been November then either. Or this long after dark. It would really be cold if they fell now.
“Look at this place!” Geoff went on, turning in a circle with his eyes up toward the ceiling.
Jesse looked too, following the beam of light from the flashlight Geoff swept over the rock, but he apparently didn’t see what Geoff saw. The ceiling wasn’t that high or that special. The cave itself wasn’t that special. Geoff seemed to like it, though.
“I bet no one has been in here for years.”
Except for whatever lived in here. Jesse’s grandpa had always told him there were things in the woods that would eat little boys who wandered into it after dark. Especially little boys who poked around the caves where the things lived. Jesse may not be a little boy anymore, but he still believed his grandpa.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be here when whatever lives in here comes back,” Jesse said softly. Geoff had been speaking so quietly it was nearly a whisper, so it only felt right that Jesse should keep his voice down too.
“Don’t be a chicken, Jesse,” Geoff hissed. “Whatever lived here is long gone. And besides, I said I had something to show you.”
Geoff said he would like it too, though Jesse wouldn’t be able to see anything in the dark.
“Then shouldn’t we have brought more than a flashlight?”
“Stop being a wimp,” Geoff whispered back, but Jesse was glad when Geoff brought the flashlight down and did… something that made the light spread out from it. It didn’t reach back to the farthest shadows of the cave, but it at least made the place they were standing more visible. He could see Geoff now, even if there were still plenty of shadows around him.
He could see Geoff even better when he bent to put the flashlight on the ground, twisting something again so the light spread even more.
It wasn’t like it was daylight, though. And it still didn’t reach the shadows at the back.
Jesse shifted his feet as he dug his hands deeper into his pockets. “If whatever lives in here comes back….”
“They’re not coming back, Jesse,” Geoff hissed again, but Jesse thought he still looked nervous, dragging his hands up his thighs as he straightened over the flashlight. And if Geoff thought he had reason to be nervous….
“Nobody’s coming back here, Jesse,” Geoff went on. “Nobody even knows we’re here, remember? You didn’t tell your parents you were coming here, did you?”
No, Jesse hadn’t. Jesse hadn’t even told his parents he was leaving the house at all. He had snuck out his window, the way Geoff had told him to.
“And my parents don’t care where I go,” Geoff said then. “So nobody is going to be looking for us.”
And nobody was going to find them if whatever did come back. Jesse was sure of that, though he didn’t say that out loud. Geoff had to have known that too, though the way he leaned one shoulder against the cave wall and tilted his head back said he wasn’t worried enough about it to leave.
Jesse was, though, and as far as what Geoff had wanted to show Jesse in here—
“Have you ever touched yourself, Jess?”
Jesse’s eyes widened, but Geoff’s had narrowed to almost a squint as he looked back at Jesse and smiled.
“Now let me show you something.”
Jesse had begun to shake his head as Geoff slowly straightened, and he licked his lips nervously as Geoff uncrossed his legs, then moved his hand to draw Jesse’s gaze lower….
Jesse heard the sharp catch of breath when Geoff pressed his palm to the thick, heavy bulge under the denim at his crotch….
JESSE BOLTED forward, his elbow slamming into the steering wheel and his knee banging painfully on the lower edge of the dashboard. His heart hammered hard enough to make breathing difficult, and his eyes stared over the controls without seeing them as the gasp in his ears faded into the silence of the banks of Miller’s Creek.
Then he breathed out a curse at himself and Geoffrey Meyers as he dropped his head back to the headrest.
Coldness leeched into his awareness as his lungs began to work, and the numbness in his fingers told him he had been here longer than just a few minutes. Dropping his gaze to the dashboard clock brought another curse to his lips.
It was afternoon. Late afternoon. At least late enough that he could effectively say he had wasted an entire day. And it could only be the lack of sleep from the night before that let him fall asleep slumped in the seat of his car, with neither the cold nor the cramped conditions being pervasive enough to wake him.
Geoffrey Meyers had done that.
Memories of the dream made him close his eyes again. Every bit of it had been real fifteen years ago, and none of it had been more than an adolescent fear of what Geoff had wanted that night—until that day months later, when Jesse had seen it all again under the branches of the neighbor’s tree.
So why had the cave become the nightmare instead of the night in the cemetery?
“Because that was the act directed towards you, rather than around you.”
Or so was the diagnosis from his therapist. Not the high school one, the professional one in the downtown office in Attingwood. The same one that had called the vision under the tree itself a “perceptual anomaly” and prescribed the medication that eased Jesse back into sleeping without the fear of nightmares. The one who had promised confidentiality before Jesse ever opened his mouth. Jesse hadn’t taken the medication in years….
For the first time in years, he wished he still did.
Opening his eyes to the clock again confirmed that it was too late to hit the library to research the old articles about Jacob Palmer’s massacre, and returning to the diner—the town’s main gathering spot—wasn’t what he wanted to do so close on the heels of Artie’s vicious revelations. But he didn’t need to do either to give Doug his first taste of Miller’s Creek for the Journal—he really could write the introduction from what he already knew of the story and the town.
Which left the Hometown Inn the only other place he could go for both work and solitude. He could go to the grocery store for snacks and beer since the diner was out and the convenience store farther away than he wanted to drive. Over-the-counter sleeping pills would be available there too. Alcohol and pills weren’t a good mix, but he was willing to take the risk.
He flexed his fingers, then turned on the engine and waited only long enough to switch the heater to full blast before putting the car in reverse.
GOING TO the store had been a mistake. Jesse knew it the instant he saw the outline of the headstones from the grocery store parking lot. They looked gray and stark in the fading light of the day and seemed much closer to the store than Jesse remembered them being. Maybe it just meant the graveyard had grown. Or maybe Jesse didn’t remember it quite the way it was.
But he remembered the grave on the other side of the property. Geoff Meyers had been buried there.
And he was still buried there.
Jesse swallowed back the sudden urge to leave as he tore his gaze from the cemetery and looked at the store itself. It wasn’t the same store he remembered. The name as well as the building itself had changed over the last fifteen years, with the sign already lit in preparation for the falling night and double doors now opening in the center at the front, instead of single doors leading in from either side. Shopping carts were just inside a newly built foyer as well, and Jesse pulled one free without hearing the squeak of wheels that always happened with the old carts at the old store. Then he turned his back on the parking lot and the cemetery and concentrated only on getting what he would need to last through the night.
Beer was at the top of his list, but the homemade mustard from Mr. Denton’s deli turned out to be something he would have to do without. The deli wasn’t even there anymore. It had become a produce section, with bins of onions and potatoes sitting where tables had once been placed, and arrangements of other fruits and vegetables replacing the counter where Jesse and his mother had placed their orders. The prep area was likely simply storage.
Jesse felt the disappointment keenly, even if he should have known better than to expect to see Mr. Denton still making sandwiches. He guessed he was stuck with whatever he could find on the shelves, even if nothing he selected was particularly appetizing.
The sleeping pills he picked last.
“You should keep in mind Miller’s Creek doesn’t have a hospital before you add sleeping pills to all that. Or a dentist for that matter.”
Jesse whipped his head up at the sound of the smooth, familiar voice and felt his heart skip when he found the same green eyes from the gas station looking back at him over the top of his grocery cart. The man was wearing the same clothes he had worn early that morning, still without a coat, though he had thrown a faded red hoodie over his flannel shirt. His cheeks were a little darker now too and his eyes a little more tired, and his own purchases fit easily in the basket hanging loosely from his hand. Nothing more than paper towels and eggs, from what Jesse could see. But the same charming smile Jesse had seen at the coffee counter was again on his face, and it didn’t waver as he turned his gaze back to the contents of Jesse’s cart.
Two six-packs of beer were the most prominent items in the cart, but the snack cakes, chips, and frosted Pop-Tarts certainly didn’t look any healthier. Jesse never pretended they were, but with the Hometown Inn lacking both a refrigerator and a microwave, he was pretty limited on his options. He supposed he could have picked up some cold cuts and a loaf of bread since a Styrofoam ice chest and bag of ice were on the list for his beer, but he hadn’t decided to do it yet, since he knew most of those would go to waste. He only needed enough for tonight, and what he didn’t eat of these would do for his trip back to Attingwood.
The man eyeing his cart obviously thought Jesse simply had a sweet tooth. Jesse gave him a quiet laugh as he cleared the matter up.
“Yeah, I guess ‘healthy’ kind of takes a backseat to ‘convenient’ when you’re hungry and you don’t have silverware,” Jesse told him, matching the man’s easy smile with one of his own. “But I guess I can hit the juice aisle before heading to the register.” He smiled a little wider as the green eyes moved back up. “And maybe see if this place sells coffeepots to go with the coffee they have on aisle two.”
The man gave a laugh of his own, just as Jesse had hoped he would. “Just make sure to watch the handle,” he said with a wink, and Jesse gave a relieved sigh that whatever wrong foot they had got on that morning wasn’t wrong enough to make the man hold a grudge.
And God, he was as gorgeous as Jesse remembered. Even rumpled and tired as he was from his own day out of town, the man’s long, lean body and handsomely scruff-shadowed face still made Jesse’s heart pound and other parts of his body take notice. The mossy green eyes coupled with his captivating smile only made both reactions stronger.
Outside of Kim’s, his was the only friendly face he had met since his return to Miller’s Creek, and Jesse still owed him an apology.
“Look, I’m really sorry for acting like an asshole, you know, at the gas station this morning,” Jesse told him, settling his laugh into a smile that wasn’t the least bit joking. “I really wasn’t trying to be rude, and I should know better than to try to talk to people unless I’m awake enough to be polite.” He switched the package of sleeping pills to his left hand and held out his right. “I’m Jesse, by the way. Jesse Ellis.”
The lingering dread of a repeat of Artie Bennet’s outburst at hearing his name dissolved the instant Jesse saw the man’s smile widen, and the warm grip of the man’s hand had Jesse sighing in relief in mere seconds. It was a strong grip too, and one that lasted longer than entirely necessary, though it never occurred to Jesse to break it.
“Dustin Weaver,” the man said easily, the smoothness of his voice relaxing Jesse even more, though Dustin’s eyes grew a little sharper. “And as much as I hate to sound insulting, you’re still looking a little rough around the edges. You did manage to get a room at the motel across town, didn’t you?”
Jesse felt his skin heat as Dustin’s words brought his exhaustion into full awareness. “Oh, yeah, the place was pretty vacant,” Jesse answered, laughing at himself as well as the motel in general. “And believe it or not, I did manage to sleep for a few hours there despite its—” he grimaced at what he had walked into “—condition.”
“You mean, mold on every wall, dirt in every corner, and furniture from a 1970s thrift store?”
Dustin’s amused listing brought another laugh to Jesse’s lips. “Yeah, that about covers it. And Mr. Mosely was crankier than usual when I dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night, but he managed to wake up enough to give me a key.”
Dustin’s eyebrow went up, and Jesse heard too late what he had said.
“Do you know Mr. Mosely?”
Jesse let out his breath. Too late to change his words, but if Dustin had recognized his name already….
“Yeah, from a long time ago,” he explained carefully. “I actually grew up in Miller’s Creek, at least until I was thirteen. We moved to Attingwood after that.”
“Ah, and I guess the Hometown Inn has been here for a lot longer than that,” Dustin said simply, and Jesse felt another wave of relief that Dustin accepted the explanation as a complete answer.
“I can believe it by the looks of it, anyway,” Dustin went on. “It probably should have been condemned by now, but I can see them wanting to keep it around for the historical value. It definitely needs work to get up to code, though.”
“I take it you’re up on all the building codes in the area?” Jesse smiled to keep the question from sounding like a challenge, but his natural curiosity made it sound direct nonetheless. Dustin’s smile nearly made his knees weak, however.
“I’d better be, since I work with new building construction in Bartlesberg,” Dustin answered, eyes twinkling in the fluorescent light of the store. “And I’d tell you about it if I didn’t think it’d put you to sleep faster than those are going to do.” A nod of his head indicated the package of sleeping pills Jesse was still holding, and Jesse looked down at them with a defeated sigh. They were a generic brand, since the Miller’s Creek Food Mart carried a limited variety of everything, but it wouldn’t take much to turn his exhaustion into near-comatose sleep. At least he hoped it wouldn’t.
“Yeah, well, if you’ve got to sleep on a bed older than you are, you do what you have to,” he said resolutely, looking back to Dustin’s face. He smiled again when Dustin’s laugh said he had taken Jesse’s added drama correctly. God, was Dustin easy to talk to.
“Hence the beer and sleeping pills,” Dustin concluded with drama of his own, along with another glance at Jesse’s cart. Then he met Jesse’s eyes with a considering look in his own. Considering… and something else Jesse had no trouble recognizing. He had seen it any number of times in the bars in Attingwood, and had worn it in his own eyes more than once. And it was exactly what he had wanted to see at the coffee counter.
“But listen, if you don’t mind going home with a stranger, I’ve got a couch you can crash on. I promise I’m not a serial killer, and I don’t plan to rob you, and I can pretty much guarantee you my bathroom is cleaner than Mr. Mosely’s.”
The offer was a perfect mix of genuine suggestion and pick-up line, and there was no way to stop his heart from pounding at the thought of going home with Dustin Weaver. He had wanted to do that since last night, when he got his first look at the startling green eyes, the bristly jaw and scarred chin, and the long, lean body under the worn denim and flannel. The same denim and flannel he wore now, hugging him in the same places it had then. Oh, Jesse definitely wanted to go home with the man, and he admittedly wanted to do more than crash on the man’s couch, something that might be crossing Dustin’s mind as well, given the steady gaze and knee-weakening smile that hadn’t left Dustin’s face.
“Promise me you don’t have a wife or girlfriend waiting to torture the next victim you bring to the house, and I may consider it,” Jesse answered, and the laugh he got in return was even more heartening. He had never picked up a guy in the medicine aisle of a grocery store before—or been picked up amid packages of aspirin and cold tablets either—but he was definitely liking how this first experience was turning out.
“None of the above, though if the neighbor’s cat happens to be around, I can’t promise you won’t get a few claw marks. But don’t worry. He’s had his rabies shot, so you shouldn’t need more than a few stitches.”
“Sounds like I should buy some tuna or a dog,” Jesse laughed. Then he sobered to a smile and tested the waters just to be sure he wasn’t reading their interaction entirely wrong. “But if you’re serious, and you’re that sure I won’t murder you in your sleep or rob you blind….”
“You’d never get away with it,” Dustin told him firmly, winking as his smile nearly turned into a laugh. “This is Miller’s Creek, remember? Half the town already knows you’re here even if they don’t know your name, and the other half will find out before lunchtime tomorrow. Try anything untoward in this place and the gossip will nail you faster than the cat will.”
Jesse’s snort was broken by a laugh of his own. “Well, yeah, I guess there is that.” But Dustin seemed entirely serious in his offer, and Jesse wasn’t going to turn down the chance to get to know him better.
Especially when it would get him out of that cesspit of a motel.
And would likely make sure the night ended exactly the way Jesse wanted it to.
“Well, since you put it that way….” He watched Dustin’s eyes as the man heard his answer before he said it. “Yeah, I’d appreciate sleeping on your couch, if you don’t mind the company. But listen, I do have work to get done tonight. I really am here to do some stories on—”
“Jacob Palmer,” Dustin finished, and Jesse let out his breath, hoping Dustin wouldn’t change his mind knowing Jesse’s work would have to come first. He didn’t want to have to put his work first.
“That’s a pretty nasty story, from what I’ve heard about it,” Dustin went on. “Though what I’ve heard is pretty much what the papers say about it every year. The old folks in town can get pretty carried away with their own versions of it from time to time, but the basics stay the same.” He shrugged as he turned to gaze back to Jesse’s cart. “That, and there apparently was a kid a few years ago looking for his grave—”
“Yeah,” Jesse cut in, sharp enough to draw Dustin’s gaze back up. Fifteen years ago, to be exact. And damn Dustin for bringing up Geoffrey Meyers again. But he wasn’t going to let Geoff or Jacob Palmer ruin his conversation with Dustin again and kicked himself firmly enough to make sure he didn’t.
“Yeah, I know the story,” he added, softening his tone and hoping it was enough. “But Jacob Palmer is the only story the paper is interested in right now”—a lie, but the differentiation between “right now” and the actual anniversary kept it from being a blatant one, or so Jesse told himself to believe—“so I’m not going to go into the incident with Geoff Meyers—”
“You remember the kid’s name?”
Jesse stopped short, but it took him a moment to realize there was no accusation in Dustin’s question. Only curiosity.
“Yeah,” he added, plainly and simply, forcing himself to assume a professional distance from the event. “That incident was news too, just not as big as the Jacob Palmer killings. And when it comes to selling papers, it’s the big stories that count.” God, he sounded like Doug again and had marched a whole lot closer to a bald-faced lie than the hedging he had done so far.
If Dustin really wanted to take Jesse home with him, Jesse seemed to be intent on changing his mind. Shit, why couldn’t he have met Dustin in Attingwood?
“Well, you’re the professional, so I guess I’ll take your word for it,” Dustin told him, backing away from the topic just enough to take a neutral position. “And Jacob Palmer should give you enough to fill the paper without adding this Geoff Meyers to the mix. This time of year, all you have to do is mention him to get an earful.”
“Yeah, and the trick is going to be separating the truth from the personal opinions,” Jesse muttered. Then he threw a smile at Dustin in hopes of smoothing the waters a little more. “And since I was assigned the stories without the option of turning them down, I guess I should warn you I can get a little touchy about them. I really don’t mean to be an asshole”—Dustin was listening to the apology in Jesse’s words, thank God—“but you can feel free to tell me to shut the hell up if I start being one anyway. Or just threaten to send me back to the Hometown Inn. That ought to work too.”
Dustin’s laugh told Jesse his apology had been accepted, and the reemergence of the smile Jesse was hoping to see came through as Dustin spoke his next words.
“Well, in that case. Shut the hell up, and come on. My truck’s outside, and I can give you a lift to pick up your things. We can come back later to pick up your car.” He turned his eyes back to Jesse’s cart. “And if you trust my cooking as much as my hospitality, I can probably make you something that won’t set you up for heart surgery. Or a root canal.”
Jesse followed his gaze and had to admit his choices for an evening meal might not have been the healthiest he could make. “Should I put the beer back too?” he asked then, intending it as banter, though it wasn’t until he asked the question that he realized he hadn’t considered whether Dustin even drank, or worse, drank too much. But thankfully Dustin answered his sudden concern without missing a beat.
“It’s the same brand I drink, so it’s your choice,” he said easily, then gave Jesse an unquestionably flirtatious wink. “And I can always drink yours while you drink mine.”
The reaction in Jesse’s body was instantaneous, and the idea of doing a more physical variation of exactly that came to his mind fast enough to heat his cheeks and probably redden his skin. But he managed a challenging smile as he picked up a package of Pop-Tarts, then tossed it from hand to hand.
“Let’s just see how it goes once I see this couch of yours first,” Jesse answered. “In the meantime”—he glanced at his cart again and knew he couldn’t just leave it in the aisle for the stockers to put back—“feel like getting a little exercise?”
PICKING UP Jesse’s suitcase and laptop from the Hometown Inn had been fast and painless, and the absence of Mr. Mosely from the desk eliminated the need to see if the memories of Jacob Palmer he had stirred up that morning had dislodged something more reliable out of his mangled mind. Not that he would have spent much time in the motel’s office if it had. Dustin was waiting, and anything else regarding Jacob Palmer could wait until tomorrow. He would still have to do something for Doug tonight, but nothing too intense, and nothing that would interrupt his night with Dustin for more than an hour or so—nothing that Jesse honestly couldn’t start while Dustin cooked, and finish once he had helped Dustin clear the dishes. And the promise of an Internet connection also meant Jesse wouldn’t have to wait until tomorrow to send it to Doug, which in turn would make Jesse entirely justified in turning off his phone once work and dinner were over. And with those distractions out of the way and no interruptions on the horizon….
Sex was the obvious answer. But after that?
Jesse wasn’t used to being home alone with a guy—in his home or theirs—without the answer to that question already being a given, but the answer had invariably been “go home.” But with Dustin already home and his couch becoming Jesse’s temporary one… conversation seemed to be the only other answer.
Not that Jesse would complain. Dustin’s relaxed manner and readiness to laugh made it easy, and Jesse found he actually liked talking to the man.
“So, you work in Bartlesberg and live in Miller’s Creek?” Jesse asked, turning away from the houses leading into Miller’s Creek to gaze at Dustin’s handsome profile. “That’s got to be a pain when the worst of winter hits. If I remember right, they don’t pay a lot of attention to clearing the roads around here.”
“They actually do better than you think,” Dustin answered with a quiet laugh. “And I only go into Bartlesberg a couple of times a week, unless there’s a project that needs me to be present more often. The rest of the time I can work from home. The wonders of the Internet have even got this place a step or two closer to modern-day America.”
“Which I’m sure goes over well with the lifelong farmers in the area,” Jesse answered with a chuckle as he turned his gaze back to the town. He was thinking of Artie, though not with the same flash of anger he had felt that morning, and he knew Dustin was the reason for that. It was amazing what good company could do to his mood.
Dustin stopped at the same stop sign Jesse had nearly run that morning, and then went straight, heading into the downtown area. Jesse watched the buildings pass with the same sense of nostalgia he had felt earlier, though the for sale sign in the old flower shop was nearly invisible now that night had fallen, and both the furniture and the antiques store were now dark, closed for the day and appearing as much abandoned as the actual abandoned businesses. Only the Miller’s Creek Café seemed open for business this time of night, and the light from the windows facing Main Street provided the only light on the street other than the streetlamps spaced along the block. A glance through the windows as they passed showed the restaurant unsurprisingly busy, given it was the only restaurant in town.
The left turn Dustin took at the intersection next to the diner surprised Jesse a little. It put them on the road with the angled spaces where Jesse had parked that morning, though Dustin drove past them and continued straight through the next intersection as well. Then one more block, and another, and the right Dustin took—
Put them on the same street where Jesse’s own house had been when he was thirteen.
Jesse felt himself tensing up, but it was true he hadn’t thought to ask Dustin where he lived before agreeing to go home with him. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that Dustin would live so close to his old home—or so close to Geoff’s. His eyes found the shadow-darkened single-story house where Geoff had lived the moment the truck passed in front of it, and he continued to watch it pass without breathing at all… until Dustin said, “Jesse? Are you all right?”
Jesse jerked his eyes to Dustin, but the shock of seeing Geoff’s house again—seeing it look every bit like he remembered it—robbed him of any answer other than a short, painful sigh. Then Dustin had to pull his eyes away from Jesse as he slowed in front of his own home…
And Jesse’s breath froze a second time.
The slat-board siding had been replaced with a newer and darker exterior finish, and a roof had been added over the porch at some point during the last fifteen years. But the large picture window facing the street was the same, and the view of the tree across the street would be identical to what Jesse had seen the last time he had looked through it. Dustin may have invited Jesse to sleep on his couch and probably in his bed… but Jesse had never dreamed either would be in his old home.