Sticks & Stones Read online

  “You won’t be the first, Slick,” Deuce responded easily.

  Even if he wanted to, Zane honestly didn’t know if he could manipulate Deuce. The man was too much like Ty. Zane shifted in the armchair and shrugged. “What are you curious about?”

  Deuce narrowed his eyes and glanced at Ty again. “You got him on the hook, man, ask away,” Ty advised, smiling slightly.

  Deuce nodded and glanced back at Zane speculatively. “I think I got my answer. But we’ll talk later,” he decided as he pushed himself out of his chair. “Right now I gotta see a man about a shovel,” he said easily as he walked past and toward the front door.

  His lips curving into a rueful smile, Zane watched the man walk out, knowing he’d let himself be outplayed. Now, Deuce would know he could broach the subject at any time, and he knew Zane would have been thinking about it and dreading it all the while. “Goody. Something to look forward to,” he muttered before looking up at his partner.

  Ty was watching his brother, smiling slightly as Deuce let the screen door bang shut. The look in his eyes was almost one of pride. “Pain in the ass, ain’t he?” he asked softly as he looked back at Zane.

  “Like someone else I know,” Zane said pointedly, though he smiled to offset it. It was obvious Ty loved his brother very much. It was odd to find brothers just two years apart in age and not see at least one point of contention between them.

  Ty shrugged unapologetically. “He’s a hell of a lot smarter than I am,” he warned.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Zane said. Then the proverbial light bulb came on. He shifted his full attention to Ty. “That another reason you brought me here?” he asked mildly. “Your shrink brother?”

  Ty met his eyes and sighed. “If it was, would you be pissed?” he asked.

  The corners of Zane’s lips turned up. “Probably,” he admitted. “But I suppose I’d forgive you.”

  “Good,” Ty grunted. “’Cause you caught me.”

  “I’m too comfortable to kick your ass right now. Remind me, and I’ll do it later,” Zane said, leaning his head against the back of the chair, scooting his feet on the floor so his legs stretched out. Ty nodded agreeably, looking like he thought he might have dodged a bullet. But Zane wasn’t ready to let him off the hook. “What does your brother know?”

  Ty cleared his throat and looked toward the kitchen, where his mother was making quite a bit of racket as she prepared her pies. He stood and nodded for the front door. “Let’s take a walk,” he murmured.

  Zane sighed before pushing himself up and out of the chair, and he gestured for Ty to lead the way. Ty pushed through the screen door and put a hand on Chester’s shoulder in passing before clomping down the steps into the front yard. When they got into the soft grass, Zane started patting his pockets, looking for his cigarettes.

  Ty shook his head and held out a pack, shaking it at Zane tauntingly. Zane grimaced and swiped at it. Ty easily evaded him and slid the pack into a hidden pocket inside his jacket. “No ruining my mountain air with cigarette smoke,” he said sternly. He didn’t hint at when, where, or how he’d gotten Zane’s cigarettes from him.

  Zane growled softly. “And you can ruin it with cigar smoke? I’m not even smoking half a pack a day,” he reasoned. “I could sure use one right now.”

  “Why? What’s to stress about?” Ty asked easily. “You’re on vacation, Garrett.”

  “Think about that question real hard, Grady. Put yourself in my place,” Zane instructed. “I’m in a strange place with strange people, and I’m really afraid I’m going to say something wrong.”

  “I don’t lie to my family, Zane,” Ty murmured. “Although if you tell anyone but Deuce that we’re fucking there might be problems,” he amended. He gave Zane a wry smile and shrugged. “They’ll find out eventually. But not this weekend,” he said good-naturedly.

  “It’s not something I’d make normal dinner conversation out of,” Zane said, wondering about the “eventually” comment. “But you can tell me why Deuce knows, when I didn’t even know he existed until about… eight hours ago?”

  “He’s my brother,” Ty answered seriously. “We have very few secrets.”

  “But we do,” Zane finished for him.

  Ty opened his mouth to respond but closed it again with a sigh. His lips quirked in a smile. “I wasn’t keeping my brother a secret from you, Garrett,” he said wryly.

  Zane jerked his head to the side in silent comment but was smiling slightly when he again made eye contact. “That’s not a denial.”

  Ty rolled his eyes. “Of course we have secrets. Everyone does,” he claimed as he turned and started walking again. “I don’t want to know that you keep your Maxims under your mattress, and you don’t want to know that I cry when I watch Bambi. That’s what makes partnerships work,” he rambled with a wave of his hand.

  A soft laugh forced its way out of Zane, and he shook his head at his partner. He raised a hand to stifle a sudden yawn. He’d slept a few hours in the late afternoon yesterday, but not since then. Ty noticed it and sighed, stopping their walk and turning to veer back toward the house. He took Zane by the elbow first, though, and pulled him closer until their chests almost touched. “Try to relax, huh?” he said in a low voice. He just barely let his lips graze Zane’s. “You’re no fun when you’re tense,” he whispered mischievously.

  “Ah, but I am fun otherwise,” Zane said as he smirked.

  “Only when you’re naked,” Ty assured him as he stepped away. “Come on. You can nap on the couch while Ma makes me and Deuce peel apples,” he added, almost sounding as if he looked forward to the prospect.

  TY HAD just left Zane on the couch and was heading for the door again to track down Deuce when Mara stuck her head out of the kitchen doorway.

  “Ty?” she called after him. “I need your help for just a minute,” she requested before moving back into the kitchen.

  “I’m gonna get you a stepstool for Christmas this year,” Ty told her with a smile as he came into the kitchen behind her, obviously anticipating needing to get something off a high shelf for her.

  Instead, Mara set out a plate and sat down in front of it, knowing Ty would sit opposite her. The plate was filled with rolled strips of leftover pie crust, baked and covered with cinnamon and sugar. She always made the little rolls out of her leftovers, and Ty had loved them since he had had to stand on a stool to see over the countertops.

  “Oh, yeah,” Ty said with relish, and he reached out to grab one, popping it into his mouth as he pulled out a chair and sat down. “What’s up, Ma?” he asked in amusement. The roll was stuck in the side of his cheek like he was storing it for later.

  Mara smiled fondly at him, but the smile fell quickly, and she frowned. “You brought your partner here to hide behind him,” she observed. “Why?”

  Ty sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. He was silent as he chewed, either contemplating how to answer or planning on remaining silent until they were interrupted.

  Mara knew how her son’s mind worked, mostly. She didn’t understand his deep love for that Bronco or his absolute hatred of the Yankees or his desire to go out on his days off and shoot paintballs at his buddies. But she did know her boy well enough to know that she wouldn’t get answers out of him if he didn’t want to give them.

  Even before he’d been trained by the Marines in case of capture, Ty had always been good at playing it close to the vest. If you found out something about him, he either wanted you to know it, someone else betrayed his confidence, or he was trying to get out of bigger trouble. The day he’d come to her when he was eight years old and admitted he’d broken a window with a baseball was also the same day she’d discovered he’d shot the oven with a BB gun.

  Her lips twitched as she remembered. She still had that BB gun in the top of her closet. He’d never get that thing back.

  Ty was looking at her speculatively, still trying to decide how or whether to answer. She took the opportunity to
look him over with the critical eye of a mother. He looked worn and tense. His middle finger was slightly crooked, and she wondered how he’d broken it. His wrists also had light scars all the way around each of them. She knew the origins of those marks only because Richard Burns had called them while Ty was in the hospital recovering from being chained to a wall and bricked into a hole by a serial killer. She wondered how many other scars her son had accumulated that she couldn’t see.

  Ty leaned back and sighed heavily. Finally, he shook his head and said, “I’ve been sort of… lost.” He shook his head in frustration as he searched for the right words to explain. “And Zane, he’s not himself lately either,” he continued. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him or with me or how to help either of us. I guess I’m hoping coming up here will give us some… answers.”

  Mara nodded in understanding. She didn’t like to give advice, and she knew Ty would ask for it if he wanted it. Since he hadn’t, she moved on to the one thing she knew always helped Ty when he was antsy. “Feel like some hard work?” she asked him hopefully.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ty answered without hesitation.

  “Got a whole pile of wood needs chopping,” Mara told him.

  Ty was already standing. He grabbed several more of the crust rolls and tossed them into his mouth as he pushed his chair in. “Make sure I got time to shower before dinner,” he managed to say through the mouthful, and he was heading for the back door.

  “Holler if you need help,” she called after him with a smile.

  He raised his hand and waved over his shoulder before disappearing out the door. Mara smiled and shook her head. He wouldn’t call if he needed help. He never did.

  ZANE inhaled sharply and opened his eyes as he woke with a jerk. He was looking up at an exposed beam wooden ceiling, and after a moment, his brain caught up. He sighed and let his eyes flutter shut for a long moment before he yawned and sat up. He actually felt pretty decent, even if the couch wasn’t the most comfortable he’d ever napped on.

  He stood up and stretched his arms toward the ceiling as he listened to what was going on around him. He could hear the faint sound of music somewhere, a regular series of thudding noises, and the clatter of dishes from the kitchen. He walked over to the entryway and looked in to see Mara Grady turning away from the sink with a large bowl full of apples and a paring knife.

  She jumped slightly when she saw him standing there, and then she relaxed and laughed at herself. “Not used to having you boys home,” she said with a grin. “Did you have a nice nap?” she asked.

  Zane felt a smile pull at his lips, and he let it loose. Home. “Yeah, I did, actually,” he said, hearing the faint surprise in his own voice.

  “Well, good,” Mara said happily. She sat at the table and reached for the first apple. “You want something to eat? I think Ty may have missed a few of these,” she offered as she pushed a plate of rolled dough toward him.

  “Thank you,” Zane answered, a little bemused by her cheerful nature. Ty certainly hadn’t inherited that. “Mind if I get a drink?”

  “Help yourself, honey,” Mara answered as she worked on the apples, peeling and slicing them and tossing them into a bowl.

  Zane moved over to the fridge and checked out the selection, choosing a pitcher of what looked like iced tea. He’d seen her pull glasses out of a cabinet at breakfast, so he knew where to find those. He was pouring the tea when he happened to glance out the window over the sink and froze mid-pour, the tea splattering a bit on his shirt and the countertop.

  In the small clearing behind the house, Ty was working on a pile of logs, splitting them easily with powerful, arcing swings of the axe he wielded. He’d taken off the shirt he’d been wearing and hung it on a nearby tree branch, leaving only his thin T-shirt to cover hard muscles Zane was intimately familiar with. The material was soaked through with sweat, clinging slightly, and the words were almost obscured by the darkened material. Zane could still read them, though, and they brought a smile to his face. He hadn’t seen one of Ty’s T-shirts in quite a while, and this one was right on par with all the others. There was a police car on it, and the words “The police never think it’s as funny as you do.”

  As Zane watched, Ty stopped, set the axe down, and yanked the T-shirt over his head. He wiped his face with it and then tossed it aside.

  Zane had to blink a few times as his gut cramped. Jesus. It wasn’t like he’d never seen Ty shirtless before. Clearing his throat, he set down the pitcher and picked up the damp dishrag to wipe up the mess he’d made.

  “Is that a bad batch?” Mara asked as she turned to peer at the tea. “Sometimes Earl makes it and it could peel the paint off an outhouse.”

  “Oh, no, it’s fine. I just, uh, missed the glass a little,” Zane said weakly, turning on the cold water to wash out the rag, keeping his body facing the sink. It probably wouldn’t do for Mara to see how tight his jeans were all of a sudden. It was indecent how sometimes just one look at Ty was all it took.

  “All the time you boys spend at the shooting range you’d think your aim would be better,” Mara said with a smile evident in her voice.

  Zane snorted as he got himself at least somewhat under control. He moved to put the pitcher back in the fridge. “It’s vacation. I wasn’t really aiming to do anything remotely resembling work.” As he picked up his glass after shutting the fridge door, he couldn’t help but glance back out the window.

  He could hear the pop of the axe hitting every time Ty swung it. Each log split cleanly, no match for the power Ty could put behind the swings, lifting the axe up in a jerky motion and then bringing it down with frightening speed. Zane could see the thin layer of sweat on Ty’s skin, glistening in the dying light as his muscles bunched and shifted. His frame wasn’t bulky, but Zane knew he was solid. Solid and strong. Especially since the Bureau’s gym was as close as Ty could get to action lately. Zane shook his head and made himself turn his back on the sight before he got caught staring. With a settling breath, he joined Mara at the table, sitting across from her and pulling the plate of baked dough pieces a little closer.

  “He ain’t cut any limbs off, has he?” Mara asked wryly.

  “All accounted for,” Zane said as he took a bite of a dough roll. “So far, anyway.”

  Mara smiled without looking up from her apple. “I never worried about Ty when it came to sharp things,” she told Zane with a mixture of amusement and sadness. “Deacon, now he’s another matter. He’s not even allowed to peel apples.”

  “Deacon,” Zane mumbled before swallowing the rest of the cookie. “Unusual name.”

  Mara was nodding. ”Deacon was my mama’s maiden name. It’s a tradition ’round here, starting to die out, though,” she informed Zane as she dumped a handful of apple slices into the bowl and reached for another.

  Zane remembered now. Tyler wasn’t really his partner’s first name. Burns had introduced him as B. Tyler Grady. Ty had warned him off asking questions about it, and Zane had promptly set it aside. Zane smiled as he nabbed another cookie. “Ty’s not fond of his first name, huh?” he chanced.

  Mara was shaking her head, her eyes on the apple she was peeling. The rhythmic thwack of the axe splitting wood reached them as they sat there. “Always hated it, even when he was tiny. I think that’s why he makes up his own names for everyone.”

  “You mean his nicknames?” Zane asked fondly.

  Mara nodded again. “How many has he got for you?”

  “I really couldn’t tell you,” Zane said in the same wry tone. “Although Lone Star seems pretty popular.” He glanced to the window but couldn’t see out at this angle. “When we first met it was a different one every hour.”

  “No telling how that boy’s mind works,” Mara muttered. “He has friends he’s known for twenty years, and I still don’t know their real names.”

  Zane laughed and leaned back in the chair, extending legs to the side of the table and crossing them at the ankles. “He’s still got friends back that
far, huh? Pre-military,” he commented.

  “Oh yeah,” Mara answered in a surprised voice, as if that should have been obvious to Zane. “If he’s in the area much longer they’ll start showing up at the door too. His best friends, though, they came from the service.” She sighed softly and shook her head.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Zane said slowly. “Marines are pretty good guys.”

  Mara glanced up at him, eyes wide. She nodded. “They are. For the most part. I wonder about a person who’d choose to be one of his own accord,” she admitted, her voice low. “Grady boys have been Marines for a long time. Drafted, every one of ’em. When Ty was born, and then Deacon, I swore they’d be the first who didn’t have to fight for a living. And then Ty went and volunteered,” she said with a sorrowful shake of her head. “I was proud of him, mind you. But I cried for a month.”

  Zane didn’t know what to say to that. From what he did know of Ty, he could imagine his partner had been on fire to move when he graduated high school, and the Marines gave him his way out. He wondered if Ty knew what it had done to his mother.

  Mara looked up at him, her cheeks flushing. “I’m sorry, Zane, I didn’t mean to go into that.”

  It was easier than he thought to meet her eyes. “He’s talked about you a few times. Good things,” he said quietly.

  Mara smiled, the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth appearing briefly. “He’s a good boy. I just wish he didn’t like to shoot things quite so much.”

  Zane couldn’t stop the sharp laugh, marveling at how Mara seemed to be able to take everything in stride. “Well, I guess we’ll have to disagree, since he’s watching my back.”

  Mara nodded as she dumped another handful of apple slices into her bowl. Her face was set in a frown now, her brow furrowed and her eyes thoughtful. In the silence, Zane could hear Ty chopping wood, the occasional grunt of exertion accompanying the thwack of the axe hitting.

  “He’s probably about done with that pile,” Mara observed. “If you want a shower before dinner you best go do it now before he gets in,” she advised.