Page 3 of Forbidden Secrets
“She can stay with us if she wants.I’m six and responsible.I’ll take care of her.”Addy must’ve realized inviting the dog to stay required parental approval because she asked, “Mom, can Pancake stay with us?Please?”Did every kid in America make “please” into a long drawn-out entreaty?
“Ah, no.Pancake belongs to Mister Gage and he wants to take her home.Why don’t you find her ball and maybe we can coax her to her feet.”
Addy scooted out from under the dog’s massive head and trotted after the ball.
Gage jammed his hands in his pockets.His serious expression, which had barely eased when talking to Addy, returned.“Pancake likes kids and has trouble with boundaries.She bothers you, chase her off.She’ll eventually get the message.”
“You met my daughter.You’re more at risk of her appropriating your dog than Pancake being shooed away.”
Addy returned.“Here, Pancake, here.Here’s your ball.”
Pancake sprang to her feet and stood quivering, proving she had indeed been faking it.With the dog’s attentionlaser-focused on the ball, Addy tossed it in the air and Pancake leaped to catch it.
Gage produced a leash from his pocket and snapped it onto the dog’s collar.Pancake immediately dropped her head and stared at the ground, the ball in her mouth.
Gage tugged on the leash.“C’mon, Pancake.”He raised his gaze to Mel’s.“Now that she knows there’s a kid here, it’ll be a battle to keep her away.”
“We like dogs.Pancake can visit us any time, right, Mom?”
Addy’s utter confidence that Mel would back her up meant there wasn’t a chance she’d disagree.“Yeah, we like dogs.Pancake is welcome.”
Gage shook his head.“You say that now.You’ve been warned.”
With the reluctant Pancake plodding after him, occasionally turning her head to gaze woefully at Addy, man and dog disappeared into the trees.
***
Wearing only sweatpants, Gage wandered into the kitchen, Pancake following him, her nails tapping on the tiles.He scrubbed a hand over his face.He’d thought he’d broken the cycle of night terrors, yet here he was with the groggy hangover from the nasty dream clouding his brain.At two in the morning he’d lunged up in bed, breath jammed in his throat, heart racing.He’d been back in that black hellhole, Tino standing over Rafe, fingers smeared red.Blood dripping from the long-bladed hunting knife forming a puddle in the dirt.
Tino, a cartel enforcer out of Mexico, was a sadistic motherfucker.The nightmare brought back horrific memories and made Gage queasy.Shackled to the wall, chains cutting into his skin.Straining with all his might to break free.Knowing escape from the compound was impossible.Tino had become the focus of his rage.Gage could only hope to somehow kill the evil bastard and take out as many of the others as he could before they ended him.
But he hadn’t been able to do a goddamned thing to stop the twisted fuck from using that knife on his partner.The worst part had been the utter helplessness of watching Rafe die as the life drained out of him.
Head bent, Gage rubbed a hand across the back of his neck.The night terrors had left him alone for the past couple months.Maybe the bureau-mandated therapy had helped.But last night he’d been slammed back into the memories, and the aftereffect felt like his soul had been ripped from his body.
He dropped his hand and punched the start button on his coffeemaker and stared at it until the smell of fresh brew began to permeate the air.
Pancake headbutted the back of his leg.
“You’re not subtle, you know that?”In the mudroom adjacent to the kitchen, he scooped dog food into her dish.She stared at the kibble, then at Gage.“It’s your own damn fault.Vet says the canned shit makes your farts into toxic gas clouds.Now you get straight-up kibble.”He could have sworn his dog sighed before giving up on the guilt trip and digging in.
Gage grabbed socks and a heavy shirt from a basket of clean clothes.He hated folding clothes.He also hated grocery shopping, but he liked to eat so that was another chore on the list for today.Socks on, he buttoned the shirt against the chill.Having inhaled her breakfast, Pancake nosed her way through the dog door.He didn’t have a fenced yard, but his dog generally stayed close and did her business out in the trees, same spot every day so it was easy to clean up.
He returned to the kitchen and grabbed a mug from the cupboard.It had a heart around the sappy words “Best Brother Ever.”It’d been a gift from Emery at Christmas.
Gage wasn’t anyone’s brother anymore, but he couldn’t bring himself to toss it.His best friend’s wife refused to leave him to his solitude and generally bullied him into attending family events.When he’d pointed out they weren’t his family, her wounded look had stung.Which had been exactly her intent.Now the mug was somehow the one he reached for first.He filled it with coffee, blowing across the top before taking that first hit while standing at the sink and looking out the window.
The view never failed to center him.He figured living in the mountains helped him heal more than the therapy.There was Payback Mountain towering mightily behind the ridge that rose like a shelf about a quarter mile behind Bluebell Lane.The mountain sky was a deeper blue than any place he’d ever been, and the tall, shaggy pines swept up the slopes like an advancing army.
He often saw deer, and had even seen bear a couple times.When he and Rafael had been in that hole in the ground, he’d thought he wouldn’t live long enough to see anything like that again.Rafe hadn’t.
Gage took nothing in his life for granted.
He shifted his gaze to the house across the way.Meeting his neighbor had been like a sucker punch to the face.He didn’t like having that kind of reaction to a woman.And the kid?Little Addy was a firecracker.She’d grinned up at him with twin dimples, her top teeth missing, and a light shining in her eyes that had him rubbing a hand over his heart.That’s how kids should be.Happy and free, not worrying whether the electricity would stay on, or if your sister would survive her diagnosis.
Addy was a dead ringer for her mom, minus twenty-odd years.Same dark hair that was nearly black but not quite, same deep brown eyes with glints of gold, same pointed chin.Melanie hadn’t smiled so he didn’t know if the kid’s dimples came down that side of the gene pool.And while Addy’s hair went down her back, the mom’s was cut short, a thick cap that left the long curve of her neck exposed.
It wasn’t even eight and the older couple who’d been there the day before were coming up the driveway from where they’d parked a pickup truck.The woman carried a caddy of drinks and the old guy a white paper bag Gage would bet had the Three Sisters Bakery logo printed on it.He had a sudden craving for their blueberry lemon muffins.He didn’t go to the bakery often because invariably there’d be some old geezer looking for someone to shoot the shit with.There wasn’t much Gage disliked more than making idle conversation.
