THE SMELL of frying bacon grew stronger as Jesse stepped from the hall into the living room, and the smile on his face grew larger as he let the promise of salt and grease draw him into the kitchen the way it had done every Saturday he could remember waking up to in this house. The only difference on this Saturday was that it wasn’t his mother standing at the stove with spatula in hand.
This Saturday it was Dustin. Jesse’s bare feet scarcely made a sound as he left the hardwood of the living room and stepped onto the cool tile of the kitchen.
Last night had been wonderful. The sex had been amazing—more than amazing—for all that it had been expected when Jesse accepted Dustin’s offer to come to his home, and the quiet tenderness in the moments after had been just as wonderful. Something Jesse wasn’t used to, something he hadn’t even been interested in experiencing after the deed was done with the men he had been with in the past. But something as deeply intimate as the sex itself, and something he wasn’t sure he would have wanted had it been anyone but Dustin pressed against him in the afterglow. And it was something he wanted to share with Dustin again. Dustin hadn’t asked him to leave his bed last night, and Jesse had made no move to do so, and perhaps the most amazing of all, Jesse had slept more peacefully in Dustin’s arms than he would have ever thought he could in Miller’s Creek.
He circled his arms around Dustin’s waist from behind as Dustin murmured a quiet “Good morning” over his shoulder, and Jesse hummed in answer as he ghosted a kiss over Dustin’s bare skin. Dustin’s sweats and the ones Jesse had thrown on after digging them out of his suitcase were the only clothes separating them, and Jesse’s arms tightened as he pressed into the heat of Dustin’s back and set his chin on the shoulder he had kissed. The bacon was crisp enough for Jesse to call it done, and he watched in sleepy satisfaction as Dustin lifted the strips from the skillet and deposited them on the paper-towel-covered plate to drain. A bowl of beaten eggs sat beside the plate, ready to be scrambled in the grease.
“Mm, a man after my own heart,” Jesse said playfully as Dustin poured the eggs into the pan, then added a healthy sprinkling of salt and pepper, “though if you add a little cheese to that, I’ll be yours forever.”
“And here I thought it was my charming smile that would win you over,” Dustin answered lightly, squeezing Jesse’s arm with one hand as he lifted the spatula again. “Grated cheddar in the fridge, and if you bring the coffee back with you, I can get a pot going if you want more than juice.”
“It’s not your smile, it’s your eyes,” Jesse teased, nipping his shoulder and dropping one hand to caress Dustin’s cock through his sweats. “And I definitely want more than juice,” he added, “but since you’re busy right now, I’ll settle for coffee for the moment.” A soft moan was mixed with the laugh Dustin gave as Jesse squeezed the cock in his hand, but Jesse then let him go to pull the cheese and coffee out of the refrigerator.
Breakfast was unhurried and delicious, and Jesse relished their easy conversation as they split the bacon and eggs and shared the juice and coffee. He asked more about Dustin’s work in Bartlesberg, and was surprised to learn Dustin had once lived there, before deciding to move to Miller’s Creek when the press of a big city became too suffocating. Jesse told Dustin in return about his own work at the Attingwood Journal, how he had advanced from intern to associate writer and one day hoped to do more for the paper than cover the community activities in the city, and take on more than only the occasional foray into covering the juicier stories in Attingwood.
“Ambitious,” Dustin accused lightly, smiling between bites to make sure the comment didn’t sting.
“Or just tired of sharing a cube farm with a couple dozen other writers with varying degrees of annoying habits,” Jesse amended firmly, and the exaggerated descriptions he gave of those habits had Dustin laughing while they slowly emptied their plates.
Only when the topic of Jesse’s work turned toward Doug did Jesse begin to brush over the details instead of elaborate on them, but Jesse didn’t want to risk spoiling the comfortable atmosphere that had grown over breakfast by talking about the man who had until very recently been the center of Jesse’s infatuation. The six years he had wasted on that show of poor judgment had been enough.
But his interaction with Douglas Keats couldn’t be put behind him forever when he still worked for the man, and the ringing of his cell as he carried his plate to the sink reminded him that he still had a job to do. He knew it was Doug by the ringtone, though the apologetic smile he gave Dustin as he quietly explained “My boss” was merely answered by Dustin taking the plate from his hand with a wink. The sound of the running faucet followed Jesse into the living room, and he heard the dishes being loaded in the dishwasher as he thumbed the connection on his phone open.
“Hey, Doug,” Jesse said, not pretending for an instant he didn’t know the exact reason Doug was calling him on a Saturday morning. The first story on Jacob Palmer was done and on Doug’s desk, and the next one was already making Doug anxious.
Doug confirmed the suspicion the moment he spoke. “Hey, morning, Jesse. I hope I’m not waking you up, but I wanted to let you know the article you sent last night was exactly what we were hoping for. The publishers were impressed, and they’re already making room for your second story in the print run for Wednesday’s edition. I know that’s not going to give you a lot of time to dig up the real details of the Palmer massacre….”
Jesse heaved a silent sigh as he stopped listening and ran his hand through his bed-messed hair, sinking down to the couch as he did so, and then letting his gaze wander to the gray winter world outside the picture window. He could have recited in his own mind the sales pitch Doug was making on behalf of the Journal. No, he wouldn’t have a lot of time to dig into Jacob Palmer, but he had already proved he could put out quality work on short notice with the article he’d submitted last night. The publishers had no doubt his next article would be as impressive as the first, and the articles as a whole would be better than a resume when it came to advancing from associate writer to Journal reporter. The powder blue cubicles would be left behind as he moved into an office of his own, and the pay increase would allow him better than the two-bedroom apartment he currently rented and called home, while the trade-in he could get for his car….
Jesse had heard it all before, and he didn’t need to hear it again, but then Doug said the one thing Jesse hadn’t been expecting amid the pep talk, with the same change in tone Jesse had heard the moment before he had closed the door to Doug’s office behind him.
“And don’t forget the other perks, Jesse. Not all the benefits are strictly business affiliated.”
Jesse stared at the tree across the street with the same growing disbelief he had leveled on Doug in his office and felt the same sense of disgust bloom in his stomach as he breathed through his nose and chose his words. Doug’s brilliant blue eyes may have been the start of far too many wet dreams in his past, but Jesse had finally opened his own eyes to what lay behind them. His words were flat and crisp as he spoke them.
“Give me a day to see what I find here, and I’ll send you the next story tomorrow.”
Nothing more than that. Jesse had already given Doug far more than he wanted to admit.
“No need to give up your weekend completely,” Doug answered with a quiet laugh that made it clear he thought he was giving Jesse a prize for giving in to the demand. “As long as it’s here on Monday, we’ll have time to review and edit it before it goes to print.” A pause fell over the connection as Jesse continued to stare at the tree. Then…
“I knew you could do this, Jesse,” Doug finally added quietly, and Jesse closed his eyes as the sincerity that always got to him sounded in Doug’s voice again. “And as much I know you didn’t want to do this at all, it’ll be worth it in the end. You’ll see.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve still got work to do to make it happen, so I need to let you go,” Jesse said, forcing his voice to remain even. God, he hated how easily Doug could slip back into his good graces with just a mere touch of honest sincerity. And he hated how his own resolve to keep distance between him and Doug wavered every time he heard it. He didn’t hate Doug after all; he just didn’t want him any longer.
The sound of the dishwasher starting reminded him there was a man in the next room he did want—and one who didn’t have ulterior motives.
“I’ll send you something tomorrow,” Jesse repeated and added a quick, “talk to you later, Doug,” before ending the call with a firm press of his thumb. The phone rattled quietly as he dropped it on the coffee table.
Dustin was draping a dishtowel over the sink as Jesse stepped back into the kitchen.
“Everything all right?” Dustin asked as Jesse crossed the distance between them, and the honest concern in Dustin’s eyes made Jesse smile as he reached out to take Dustin by the hips and pull him closer.
“Yeah, just a reminder that I should be working instead of playing while I’m here,” Jesse answered simply. He didn’t stop pulling until Dustin was pressed against him from chest to thigh, and he covered Dustin’s lips in a slow, languid kiss before Dustin could question further. Dustin’s arms slipped over his own as he settled his hands on the small of Jesse’s back, and Jesse pulled Dustin’s hips firmly against his as he slipped his tongue briefly past Dustin’s lips.
Then he slid his lips from Dustin’s mouth to trace the pale scar on his chin with his tongue and moved his hands to gently knead the globes of Dustin’s ass. His words were warm against his own skin and Dustin’s as he whispered, “Shower with me?”
The caress that Dustin gave Jesse’s ass was answer enough.
PULLING OUT of the driveway was another surreal experience for Jesse. He had never done so himself at thirteen, but he had watched through the windows more times than he could count when his mother, father, or Uncle Pete was at the wheel. Yet he had never paid as much attention to the act as he did now.
Even in the bleak light of morning, Jesse could tell the changes he had noticed last night were more extensive than he had realized. The siding was new, as he had known even seeing it in the dark, and so was the storm door. In daylight, he could see the window frames had also been replaced, as had some of the windows themselves, and the brick-lined flowerbeds underneath them were an addition his mother had often talked about but never done. Even the top of the tree in the backyard looked different from Jesse’s perspective from the street—smaller now, obviously cut back to keep the branches from damaging the roof. That was something his father had said needed to be done, though it hadn’t been his father who had done it. It may not have been Dustin either. It could have been done by the family named Morgan, who had once lived here too.
But the house Jesse remembered was still there, and Jesse swore he could still see it under the polish and repairs. Then he was forced to turn his eyes to the street.
Dustin wasn’t coming with him, but Jesse couldn’t blame him. Digging into Jacob Palmer’s past was something that had fallen to him alone, and Dustin had his own Saturday routine, a combination of cleaning and work, to get done. Nothing that couldn’t have been put off if Jesse had asked for company, but nothing Jesse planned to do for his second article for the Journal made that company necessary. He and Dustin had exchanged cell phone numbers before he had left the house, however, and a visit to the office of the Miller’s Creek Sentinel would be his first stop. A stop at the library tucked between the houses on the other side of Main would be his last. Both would have archived newspapers from the time of the Jacob Palmer massacre, and either might have pictures that were taken before the scene or after it. All of it would form the basis for his own story of the event.
And with Dustin having moved Jesse’s luggage to Jesse’s old—and Dustin’s current—bedroom before Jesse had left, Jesse knew he would be seeing Dustin again before the day was over. And if tonight turned out as well as last night had….
The thought failed to fully materialize, the ends of it vanishing like mist as he drove past the squat, weathered house that had been Geoff Meyers’s home. Unlike his own former home, this one hadn’t improved over the years. The muted blue paint had faded and peeled rather than having been redone, and the siding had warped and split, rather than having been replaced. One of the darkened front windows showed a crack large enough to be visible from the street, while the screen of another could be seen lying haphazardly in the yard instead of leaning against the house, ready to be replaced. The yard itself hadn’t been cared for any better, showing as many bare splotches through the dry and trampled weeds as overgrown areas where the weeds had been spared human traffic. Jesse couldn’t help wondering if anyone lived in the run-down house now, or if it had been vacant since the Meyers family abandoned it.
Or why it had never been torn down if no one chose to live behind the same walls that had housed Geoffrey Meyers. The same people that had shunned Jesse and his parents should have seen to that, since Miller’s Creek liked to separate itself from its ugly history. Allowing the memento of Geoff’s house to remain even after all these years….
Jesse shook his head, letting the motion shake him back to the present. He wasn’t ready to face anything involving Geoff just yet. He would have to at some point—it was a part of the assignment Doug had promised the Journal execs he could handle—but he didn’t have to do it right now. He turned his gaze back to the street as he left Geoff’s tattered home behind him, and wished he was back in Dustin’s arms as the sight of it lingered amid the memories that crept back….
“YOU WON’T get in trouble as long as you don’t get caught, you idiot,” Geoff snapped, though Jesse would swear he was more aggravated at missing the target of his rock than at Jesse’s hesitation to sneak out of his house. But Jesse’s father had already told him he didn’t want Jesse hanging around with Geoff any longer. He had promised to ground him for more than the two weeks he grounded him last time if he caught Jesse again, though that was probably because old Ms. Anders had called to complain about the mischief Jesse and Geoff did at the library, though. His father hadn’t threatened to ground him when Mr. Carter complained about his gnomes, after all. But then again, returning the gnomes to the garden was probably easier than putting all the books back in place on the shelves.
Especially since Geoff had mixed them up this time instead of merely turning them upside down. Jesse had only mixed up a few.
“And besides, I want to show you something in the cave,” Geoff went on, picking up another rock and tossing it over the target again. It was really just an old metal barrel, but Geoff had painted a bull’s-eye on it. Geoff’s parents had never threatened to ground him for anything they got caught doing, but then Geoff’s parents never seemed to care much about what Geoff did to begin with. Jesse didn’t really like Geoff’s parents most of the time, but that didn’t stop him from wishing his own parents would let him have that kind of freedom.
He glanced over his shoulder at the blank windows of Geoff’s house as Geoff picked up another rock. Then the sound of the rock hitting the metal barrel made him turn back around. A black mark smudged through the white center of the target Geoff had made.
“And don’t worry, Jess,” Geoff said then, though Jesse wasn’t sure if he liked the smile that was on Geoff’s face as he turned to find Geoff watching him. Not that he would tell Geoff that. Jesse had seen Geoff watching him before, and it wasn’t like a smile was anything he should worry about.
Even if his smile turned a little creepy as Geoff added, “You’re going to like it—”
THE TIRES of the Corolla squealed sharply against the pavement as a car crossing the intersection made Jesse slam on the brakes. Neither of them had run a stop sign this time, though it was apparent that only Jesse accepted the general rule concerning unmarked intersections. At least as far as the driver of the dented blue Focus was concerned. The car had entered the intersection from Jesse’s left.
A muttered curse slipped through Jesse’s lips as the Focus continued to cross the intersection in front of him, but at least he had avoided two accidents in the same number of days in Miller’s Creek. And Main Street was just one more block away.
The greasy smells from the diner were unsurprisingly strong even before Jesse parked in front of the Sentinel’s tiny office, though with the breakfast Dustin had fed him still filling his stomach, the smell of food didn’t earn the diner more than a glance as Jesse stepped onto the pavement. The number of cars parked both across the street and in the angled parking said it was far busier this morning than it had been during Jesse’s visit the day before, but he had little doubt that Artie would again be in his self-assigned booth sharing coffee with his cronies. Weekends were no different than weekdays when it came to the work to be done by farmers, and routines were all but set in concrete for someone as used to keeping them as Artie.
Artie was welcome to them both. Jesse had his own work to do.
The Sentinel’s office would only be open until noon, according to the white painted letters on the smudged glass door leading into the foyer, which gave Jesse just over two hours to find what he wanted in the archives that he knew, from his aspiring paperboy days, were kept in the basement. The only boon was that he wouldn’t have to search the actual paper copies. Digital copies had begun being made even before he had left Miller’s Creek as a teen, and he had little doubt the hard copies were stored elsewhere, most likely in a storage facility owned by the publishers in Bartlesberg. The basement certainly wasn’t big enough to store them here.
Stepping through the door, Jesse found the office was cleaner than he would have thought it would be, and the familiar smells of paper and ink had Jesse smiling even before the woman tapping on a computer at a desk near the back looked up to acknowledge him. Jesse didn’t recognize her, but he still felt a sort of camaraderie toward her as she passed the unused workstations and stacks of recent issues with a smile of her own. It was the same camaraderie he felt toward anyone in the field of journalism. Even the drones in the blue cubicles of the Attingwood Journal. He shifted the notepad and pen he carried from his right hand to his left as the woman drew within speaking distance and offered her his hand, as he answered the question in her expression with the words he had spent the last six years honing to perfection.
“Good morning. I’m Jesse Ellis, from the Attingwood Journal….”
THE BASEMENT was every bit as cramped and claustrophobic as Jesse had expected it to be, but the computer archives were expertly organized, much to his relief. The image of Jacob Palmer, however, was even darker than Jesse remembered it, and it wasn’t the age of the print or the black-and-white shades of the image itself that made Jesse think so.
It was the same picture from the same paper Jesse’s grandpa had shown him when Jesse was still little more than a child, and the story that accompanied it said the same words he had heard from his grandpa’s mouth as he’d read the article out loud despite Jesse’s parents’ objections. But seeing the picture now, when he was old enough to fully understand the words and exactly what story they told, seemed to cast a shadow over the face of Palmer that had nothing to do with the lighting. While the parts of the story Jesse had either missed or discounted in the midst of his childhood now stood out in his journalistic mind.
Jacob Palmer had been a schoolteacher—no one had ever challenged that—but he had also been the sole breadwinner in the home he shared with his parents and grandmother, something he appeared to resent if the comments made by his neighbors in the aftermath of the massacre were any indication. Palmer had also inherited his father’s flash-fire temper, given the number of people who recounted as much when describing the relationship of the Palmer father and son. Additional accounts of the fights often heard taking place in the Palmer household, day and night, were given as evidence.
But all of that had been well known and well reported to the paper at the time. All of that was common knowledge, simply because they had lived in the area and the town of Miller’s Creek. It didn’t tell anyone anything that all the townspeople didn’t seem to have already known…
While only one mention was given to the student Jacob Palmer had taken under his wing with the offer of private tutoring, with only a single reference to the accusation made by a “concerned citizen” that the tutoring had nothing to do with “book-learning.”
Artie’s comments in the diner the previous morning came back to Jesse as he lingered on those glossed-over details, but even though Jesse could hear those words spilling out of the old farmer’s mouth, it was what Kim had said that stuck in his mind.
“He would have never been allowed to teach school at all if that was true!”
And he wouldn’t have, not even in a world as different as the 1930s. Though what would have happened if the accusation had been made and believed and assumed to be true by people as set in their views as Artie Bennet, in a place as isolated as Miller’s Creek….
Jesse jotted down notes concerning that particular avenue of research for when he made his way to the library, but the realization of what he had truly found didn’t hit him until he wrote the last of his notes in the dog-eared notebook he had brought with him.
Jesse’s heart began to beat faster as he reread his hastily scrawled words, and then he lifted his gaze from his notes to stare blindly at the dust-strewn basement around him.
Seventy-five years after people had died in a terrorizing act of violence at the hand of Jacob Palmer, a vague reference in an old paper, combined with the views of an old farmer, may very well paint the picture of Jacob Palmer as shady, but “shady” didn’t explain what had pushed Palmer to the point of committing mass murder.
When added to the exasperated comment made by Kim however….
Jesse glanced back at his notes. Nothing was certain, but he knew he may have found the first hint in decades about what had changed Jacob Palmer from a teacher to a killer.
“KEEP IN mind the library closes at three, and Mrs. Weatherford is liable to lock you in if she forgets you’re hunched over in the corner.” Dustin’s smile had been directed at his plate, but he turned it on Jesse as he popped a french fry into his mouth.
Jesse dipped his own french fry in ketchup before lifting it up to eat. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to yell real loud if she turns the lights out on me,” Jesse answered, holding the salty morsel in front of his mouth. “Either that or riffle through her desk and steal her candy bars before I call 9-1-1.” The french fry vanished an instant later.
He hadn’t been sure Dustin would be free to join him for lunch at the diner, but Jesse had nevertheless made use of the number he had added to his cell that morning in hopes that he would be. And not even Artie, seated two booths away, stopped Jesse’s smile when Dustin had walked in ten minutes later.
Jesse couldn’t hold back his smile now as he chewed. He finally explained that the old librarian, Ms. Anders, had always hidden candy bars in her desk when she worked at the library over a decade ago. And no, while Jesse had been tempted, he had never actually stolen one, though he had heard other kids brag about scoring a chocolate treat. His activity in the library had been limited to study, and then only when his parents had made him do it there. Except for the one time he had gone with the school for a field trip in the fifth grade…
And all the times he had gone with Geoff Meyers in the fall before his last winter in Miller’s Creek. The lunch in his stomach suddenly turned heavy as the memories of that time in his life made his voice trail to silence.
He had never realized until now that the last time he had set foot in the library, it had been in the footsteps of Geoff Meyers, following willingly as Geoff marched through the doors at the top of the library steps. It had been only days before Geoff had taken him to the cave, and Ms. Anders had looked up from her desk with a smile that quickly fell away when she saw who had rung the bells over the doors this time. It had become a pensive frown as her gaze had settled on Geoff—and for the first time the frown had stayed in place as her gaze then slid to Jesse. Jesse couldn’t say why he remembered that particular fact now, or why it bothered him fifteen years later when it hadn’t bothered him at all the day it happened.
“That Meyers boy was as worthless as his damn parents, is what he was!”
The sound of Artie Bennet’s voice snapped Jesse back to the diner, but the heat that warmed his cheeks was from more than the frown Dustin was giving him over their greasy fried lunch. There were enough people between the booth he and Dustin occupied near the window and Artie’s in the center that Jesse had thought they would be spared having to listen to the old man today.
But he should have known better than to think a full diner would curb the sharp, sour tongue of someone like Artie Bennet.
“And that Ellis kid weren’t no better once he started hanging around that Meyers brat! Followed him around like damn puppy until he started turning as bad as that whole drunken family—”
“Artie!” Kim’s shout came from the other side of the diner, from the other side of the counter, where she was pouring coffee into the cup of a man who could have been a salesman or a funeral director, given the suit he wore. Nobody else bothered wearing a suit in Miller’s Creek on a Saturday.
“Jesse?” Dustin asked quietly, his tone jerking Jesse’s head back from the irritated waitress. But he never got the chance to tell Dustin he was all right. Artie’s bellowing rant stopped his words.
“Goddamn worthless kids didn’t have no business fooling around in the cemetery where good, respectable people are laid to rest! Didn’t have no business looking for that Palmer bastard at all!”
“Jesse,” Dustin said again.
“And you can bet that Meyers boy is rotting in hell right along with Jacob Palmer for killing a man he had no right to be killing—!”
The food was forgotten as Jesse met Dustin’s eyes, but not even the concern he read in the brilliant green depths could match the horror he felt growing in his own. Dustin didn’t know that it hadn’t been Geoff alone in the cemetery that night, didn’t know what had really happened there… knew nothing except for what Artie spat out in front of everyone.
“And if things worked like they should, that Ellis boy would be rotting right along with them!”
“Artie!” Kim’s shout was nearly a shriek this time, but it was effective. Artie and every other table in the diner fell silent, and every eye including Jesse’s and Dustin’s turned to Kim with a wariness about what would happen next… until Kim’s exasperated expression turned into an apologetic smile that she turned toward Jesse.
Every eye in the diner save Artie’s followed.
Making him the center of their attention was an accident, Jesse knew, but it didn’t make it less uncomfortable, knowing he would be the center of gossip that would inevitably begin the moment they were sure the scene was over. Knowing he would be subjected to the furtive glances as the scene and the words were repeated and embellished, and knowing he would be the talk of the town once again, given the number of witnesses who had seen it.
Just as he had been the talk of the town fifteen years ago.
“Jesse,” Dustin said a third time, his voice low and firm, but Jesse shook his head, then shook off the hand Dustin had laid on his arm as he pushed himself from the booth. He felt every eye watching him as he made his way to the door.
The bitter winter air didn’t stand a chance against the heat of his anger as he shoved the door open and stalked outside.
Maybe he should have stayed. Finished his lunch with Dustin and given everyone a chance to settle back into their own concerns instead of bringing even more attention to himself. Maybe he should have at least stopped by the register to pay, instead of leaving the bill for Dustin when it had been Jesse who had invited Dustin to lunch.
Or maybe he should just get his fucking job done in this town and then let Miller’s Creek rot in hell while he went back to his own life in Attingwood. He had a lead on Jacob Palmer that nobody had been aware of for seventy-five years—something that could very well be the key to the advancement he was after. He had his apartment already leased for the next six months and access to bars and other places he could visit without needing to listen to the judgment this town had no business delivering. Access to men who would never even ask about his past as long he promised them a good fuck—
“Jesse!”
Dustin’s voice was loud and startling, and Jesse swung around through a sheer knee-jerk reaction as the footsteps behind him grew closer. Dustin was jogging to catch up to him, the hood of his sweatshirt bouncing with his steps, each one of which rattled on the gravel-strewn asphalt that was inherent with every side street in Miller’s Creek. Especially the side streets on this side of Main—the east side, where the streets led down to the waters of Miller’s Creek itself.
Jesse turned and started walking before Dustin had caught up to him, but the distraction had been enough for his anger to drain away, leaving a pool of resentment and disgust in its place and ensuring his steps weren’t too quick that Dustin wouldn’t catch up in seconds. He hadn’t paid attention to where he went once he stormed out of the corner diner, but walking to the creek somehow seemed fitting with Geoff again so clearly in his mind.
It was where the cave lay.
The cave where Jesse had, for the first time, told Geoff no.
The pounding footsteps finally pulled up beside him as Dustin slowed to Jesse’s pace, but Jesse didn’t look at him. His gaze instead swept over the houses that had been here nearly as long as the town, every one of them showing their age as much as Miller’s Creek itself. He had passed them a hundred times as a kid, on his way to and from the creek, on his way to the school hidden in the residential streets on this side of Main, or merely because, with no other reason to be here than it just happened to be where he was. Yet never once had he paid attention to the houses here, until now.
“Jesse, stop.” Dustin’s voice was low and heavy, though the hand he placed on Jesse’s arm didn’t force Jesse to obey. It simply urged him to, and Jesse found his steps slowing in answer, though with no conscious effort in the act. But Jesse didn’t stay still. He continued to shift even after they stopped walking, looking over the houses again, taking them in quickly now, and finally setting his gaze on Dustin as every word from Artie Bennet’s mouth echoed in his mind.
“You know it’s me he’s talking about, right?” Jesse asked suddenly, taking the bull by the horns as he ripped his gaze from Dustin and swept it blindly past the houses around them. “I’m the ‘Ellis boy’ who followed Geoff around like a puppy, who wasn’t worth two cents the moment I started hanging out around him, and who didn’t have any business fooling around in the cemetery looking for the grave of Jacob Palmer fifteen years ago.” He couldn’t look at Dustin, even though the houses had begun to blur. “And I’m the one who should be rotting in hell right along with Geoff Meyers because of it.” His voice was a harsh rasp as he repeated Artie’s words.
“Yeah, I figured that,” Dustin said blandly, unexpectedly, and clearly enough to snap Jesse’s gaze back, though Dustin didn’t flinch from what he saw in it. Instead he met Jesse’s eyes squarely, his green eyes as unblinking as Jesse’s brown ones. “When you told me your name. When you told me you had lived here years ago, had moved when you were still a kid, it wasn’t hard to figure out. Miller’s Creek isn’t big enough for there to be two Jesse Ellises growing up on these streets at the same time.”
Jesse tore his gaze from Dustin again and felt the muscle in his jaw jump as he turned his eyes to the sky and curled his hands into fists.
“When you said you were here to do a story on Jacob Palmer, I told you that the people of this town talk about what he did every year. Remember that?” Dustin went on, his voice a little louder, as if Jesse couldn’t hear him.
But Jesse did. It had been the night they first met, in the convenience store outside of Miller’s Creek, before Dustin had even known Jesse’s name. Before Jesse had known anything about Dustin Weaver beyond his handsome face and strikingly green eyes.
Before the longing that Jesse had felt at the coffee counter had become an immensely satisfying reality.
“But that’s not the only story they talk about in November, Jesse,” Dustin told him, keeping his voice steady. “They also talk about the two boys who went looking for the grave of Jacob Palmer fifteen years ago, how they found a man sleeping in the bushes instead, and how they killed him in a fit of rage—”
Jesse jerked his gaze from the sky and twisted away from Dustin with a ragged, wordless curse.
“—and they talk about Geoff Meyers, and how he was sent to an institution, how he committed suicide in his hospital room—”
The pacing Jesse began was little more than a tight circle, his gaze turning up as he searched for the outlet he needed.
“—and how Jesse Ellis should have been put away in the same institution and found the same fate—”
Jesse’s sudden wordless cry could have been a curse or a sob as he shoved his way past Dustin.
“—until someone like Kim tells them to shut the fuck up.”
Jesse’s steps froze. He stared at the houses in front of him, not even aware of the peeling paint on the outer walls or the brown stalks of dead flowers in the planters on the porches. The street itself seemed to grow unnaturally quiet as he heard Dustin’s words repeat themselves in his mind, but his heart was loud in his ears. Then the sound of a slow footstep behind him was followed by the sound of another. Dustin was a shadow at his side as he slowly stepped around him, and Jesse turned his head to see his face as Dustin continued moving, until they again stood face-to-face. His eyes were still calm, were still unblinking, but they held Jesse’s gaze firmly. Jesse couldn’t have turned away even if he had wanted to.
“People like Artie Bennet are going to talk, Jesse,” Dustin went on quietly. “And they’re going to believe whatever they want to, and there isn’t a damn thing you’re going to be able to do to stop it. And as much as you don’t want to hear it, you already know that what other people say is something you can’t control.” He paused as he studied Jesse’s eyes. “The only thing you can control is how you handle it.”
Jesse snorted then, breaking eye contact at last at hearing words he had heard so many times before, so many years ago. “Jesus, you sound like a goddamn therapist,” he bit out, glowering at the houses again.
Dustin’s voice was hard this time. “I should. God knows I’ve talked to enough of them.”
Jesse jerked his head back, and he watched Dustin raise his hand to brush the scar on his chin. A cold knot began to twist in his stomach as he raised his eyes to Dustin’s. He had said there had been an accident….
“Two people died the night I got this,” Dustin told him, dropping his hand but not his gaze. “In the accident I caused when I fell asleep at the wheel and crossed the center line. It was nearly four in the morning, on the highway outside of Bartlesberg, and I chose to drive home when I should have stayed put. The only reason I didn’t end up in jail was because I wasn’t drunk.”
“Dustin…” Jesse began, shock weakening his voice as well as his own indignation.
“That was three years ago, Jesse, but for a very long time it was like it was yesterday. For a very long time, every time I got behind the wheel, I saw the accident as clearly as if it had just happened. I saw the cars. I saw the blood. I saw the bodies. And worst of all, I saw the faces of the mother whose son I killed and the man whose daughter had died on the side of road. I saw them just as I had seen them that night in the hospital, when I listened to their screams when they were told their children wouldn’t be coming home.” Dustin’s eyes had turned vivid. “While I simply had to wait my turn to get stitches.”
The blood had drained from Jesse’s face, and his voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper. “Dustin, my God, I’m so sorry….”
“I nearly lost my job over that, Jesse,” Dustin went on, calmer than Jesse believed he could be, “because I couldn’t make myself go to work. I did lose the boyfriend I had at the time, because I couldn’t bear to look at him, let alone touch him. I would have lost my house because I couldn’t bring myself to make the payments.” A small smile then touched Dustin’s lips. “And then my best friend showed up in Bartlesberg and dragged my ass to a therapist, and he kept dragging my ass there week after week, until I was willing to go on my own.” A touch of amusement unexpectedly appeared in Dustin’s eyes. “Nate. You saw his picture last night, remember?”
The picture on Dustin’s refrigerator. The man Jesse had first thought was Dustin’s lover. The man that Dustin—and, somewhat unexpectedly, Jesse—owed for Dustin’s return to a normal life. Jesse’s eyes went to the scar again, though he hadn’t realized he had begun reaching to touch it until he felt a hand cover his own and felt a tug that brought his eyes up and his body closer.
“It took months for me to learn to drive without fearing a panic attack, and longer than that to drive after dark without braking at every car I passed.” Dustin’s eyes had grown serious. “But even after getting my life back in order, I still had to listen to the whispers every time I showed up at the same place someone who knew the kids or their parents happened to be. It may have been an accident, but not everyone was willing to forgive it.”
Jesse had seen the emotion in Dustin’s eyes as he made the admission out loud and felt his heart squeeze. He knew that the memory of both the accident and the aftermath were something Dustin would live with the rest of his life.
And with that revelation came another, one Jesse didn’t have to ask if it was true but already knew it was. Even so, he wrapped both of his hands around both of Dustin’s as he leaned forward for a brief kiss, then asked gently, “That’s why you moved to Miller’s Creek, isn’t it?”
Dustin’s nod was slight, and his smile was weak. “Yeah, it is. Peace and quiet was what I wanted, and that’s what I found here.” He gave a self-conscious laugh. “And what can I say? The commute did as much as the therapist in shaking off any fear I had of driving after dark.”
Jesse’s smile was real, though he couldn’t keep the sadness he felt out of it. He recognized Dustin’s attempts at making light of the situation as something he had done before, when his own therapists had finally convinced him it was okay to admit he had come from Miller’s Creek, even if they had never been able to convince him it was okay to say why. It was just a natural attempt to put others at ease, a tactic to keep from dwelling on the circumstances.
Something completely unnecessary when Dustin was talking to Jesse. Jesse used the hands he held in his own to hold Dustin in place as he closed the distance between them, and his smile didn’t leave his face until he covered Dustin’s lips with his own. He understood exactly how things from the past could still hurt and knew that even the best words in the world wouldn’t take the pain away, though simple feeling might.
For both of them.
Dustin’s lips responded to Jesse’s—slowly, but they responded nonetheless—and the kiss was both deep and gentle as neither one of them sought anything but touch. At last Dustin eased back.
“Don’t let Artie get to you, all right?” he said, his breath warm on Jesse’s lips. “He’s been talking about you as much as Jacob Palmer for years, and people have been listening to him for years. Don’t blame them for believing for a little while when they should know better. It’s just too easy to do when you don’t know the truth.”
Jesse smiled at the therapist coming out in Dustin again, but he didn’t answer with anything more than a quiet “I know.” He was sure those words had been said to Dustin after the tragic accident in Bartlesberg, just as he was sure the rumors of alcohol had risen up around it despite Dustin being sober the night it had happened.
But that didn’t mean the words weren’t true. Dustin’s smile said he knew too.
He didn’t resist when Dustin freed one hand to slip an arm around his shoulder, and he turned both with and into Dustin when Dustin headed back in the direction of the diner. His own arm went around Dustin’s waist as they started walking. Then Dustin’s lighter tone when he spoke brought another, fuller smile to Jesse’s face.
“But you know, as bad as Artie Bennet can be when he goes on a rampage, you’d be surprised how many other people there are in town who’ve hoped you turned out okay.” He gave Jesse’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I can bet it feels as strange to be back in your old hometown as it did being in your old home,” he added quietly, comfortably, letting his tone match the peacefulness of Miller’s Creek’s streets. “But you liked it here, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah,” Jesse said softly in answer, letting his gaze drift to the houses around them. “I just never thought I’d ever come back here. And as much as I’d like to say things have changed since I was thirteen….” They hadn’t, at least not from what he had seen so far. The corner diner might have a new name and the old hardware store might be an antiques shop now, but the buildings themselves were still the same, with little more than weather and an occasional coat of paint providing any change to the town at all. God only knew if the rest of the town had fared any better. Jesse hadn’t gone farther than Dustin’s house, the diner, and the familiar old newspaper office as of yet.
Dustin’s quiet laughter sounded beside him, but it wasn’t mocking. “It’s okay, Jess. Places like this never seem to change, and that’s just the way the people here like it. Believe me, I’m not judging.” He grinned as he offered another quick peck. “Besides, I bet this town has a lot of charm you’ve forgotten about.”
“You mean the rusty water tower on the other side of town, and the old feed store that is probably run by the same old man that owned it when I was a kid?” Jesse didn’t know if either of them still stood, but if they were as persistent as the people who lived in this town, he wouldn’t doubt they did.
“Don’t knock the history of the place,” Dustin chided, smiling to soften the words. “Every place has its stories. Didn’t your boss teach you that?”
“‘Introduction to Journalism’ taught me that, thank you,” Jesse pointed out, giving Dustin a gentle squeeze. “And it’s not the story of Miller’s Creek that I’m here to write about, remember? My boss wants a story on a seventy-five-year-old murder-suicide. The charm of Miller’s Creek doesn’t seem to fit into that theme.”
“Now that depends on how you write it,” Dustin answered, smiling when Jesse rolled his eyes. “So how did the town get its name? I’ve only been here for a few years, and no one ever talks about that. And I’m not sure the creek on the other side of town would be big enough to support a mill.”
“So who says there has to be a mill for a town to be named Miller’s Creek?” Jesse retorted with a laugh. Dustin’s deliberately raised eyebrow made Jesse shake his head as he let out a short exhale of breath. “An Englishman named John Miller bought some land in the late 1800s, then built a cabin and a still by the creek,” he explained simply, relating the story he had always been told of the town’s history. “John Miller then convinced the farmers to trade a little corn for a bit of the whiskey he made out of it with his still”—he could see Dustin’s smile out the corner of his eye—“and he sold the rest for a tidy profit. It was never branded, but it was called ‘Miller’s Creek Whiskey’ by the locals. And when the farmland turned into a farming town, the name Miller’s Creek just stuck.” He gave Dustin a teasing smile. “Satisfied, you history nut?”
Dustin’s smile grew wicked. “You forgot about the whorehouse he opened with his profits.”
Jesse turned his head sharply in surprise, though Dustin’s laughter was warm in his ear.
“I believe our Mr. Miller opened the Miller’s Creek Pub as a front for his whole operation,” Dustin went on easily, stroking Jesse’s back as he turned his head to look either way. They had reached the intersection in front of the diner, though neither were surprised that the only cars in sight were those parked around it. “Rumor says he made more from his side business than he did from his whiskey, but like they always say, sex sells. And apparently it sold well, even in the 1800s.”
“And smartasses never go out of style,” Jesse muttered, but he couldn’t be truly aggravated when Dustin looked back at him with that particular warmth. He quickened his pace to match Dustin’s as they crossed the street. “So why did you even ask if you already knew the answer?”
Dustin shrugged slightly, but his smile never wavered. “Because I wanted to hear the story from you. And besides”—he stopped them on the other side, just outside the diner’s door—“I know it’s not easy for you, coming back with what happened here fifteen years ago, but I still think maybe it’s time you started letting what happened that night go.” He stopped Jesse’s words with a gentle finger across his lips. “I’m not saying you should just forget what happened in that cemetery that night, because I know that’s not possible. I just don’t think you should lose the good memories of this place because of the bad things that went on here.”
Which was a whole hell of a lot easier said than done when two people had died because of the “bad things” that had happened in Miller’s Creek, Jesse wanted to fire back. But the sudden memory of the two people who had died because of the mistake Dustin had made stopped his words. Dustin may not have witnessed the beating to death of the old man in the cemetery, may have never had to come to grips with the suicide of his best friend—his first crush, if Jesse was going to be honest about Geoff, though he hadn’t been mature enough to name it what it was at the time—but Dustin had battled his own demons in the past.
Battled them and won, if the smile on his face was any indication, while the confidence that Jesse could do the same was written in his eyes as well as heard in every syllable Dustin said. And he might not be wrong.
Maybe it was Dustin’s easy nature or simply the reminder of something in Miller’s Creek besides the stories of Jacob Palmer and Geoff Meyers, but Jesse suddenly found memories reemerging that he hadn’t acknowledged in years. Memories of the normal rambunctious child he had been while growing up in Miller’s Creek, of the carnivals and bake sales that took place on the library grounds, of the times he went swimming in the creek itself, with or without the permission of his parents….
And he realized, with the sudden awareness of nothing more around him than the smells of the diner and the quiet of the street, he had been happy in Miller’s Creek once.
“I guess it’s just bad luck that Artie had to be the first person you met when you came back here,” Dustin told him quietly, moving so he faced Jesse and reaching behind him for the handle, his words bringing Jesse back to this moment in front of the diner. And the realization struck Jesse then that, against anything he had ever thought possible, right here, right now, standing next to Dustin on the cracked sidewalk in front of the diner… he was unexpectedly happy here again.
He reached for Dustin as a playful smile curled his lips. “Well, if you want to get technical about it, the first person I met in Miller’s Creek was you,” Jesse told him, stepping up to him before he could pull the door open. “And if last night was any indication, you definitely gave a good representation of what can be found here. Though you ought to think about wearing a coat if you plan to keep chasing people through the street.”
“Just remind me to grab mine the next time I join you for lunch,” Dustin told him teasingly, adding a playful wink that succeeded in making Jesse laugh.
The reality was that the warmth that had grown inside Jesse from the simple pleasure of the last few minutes was as overwhelming as the heat that bloomed around him whenever their pleasure turned physical. And as far as what anyone else in Miller’s Creek would think if they saw them like this….
Jesse leaned forward to cover Dustin’s lips in a gentle kiss.
For once, he truly didn’t care.