The Terms of Release (6 page)

“If you don’t mind, we’ll go to your place. Your folks’ house is weird if they’re not there.” He got a grin, Adam’s dimples carved deep.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

They stopped at Adam’s truck again, then headed out. His Penny was on the porch, her tail thumping as she stared the stranger down.

Adam waited, letting Sage introduce them. ’Course it helped that the man held a pizza.

“This is my little girl, Penny. Penny, this is Adam.”

She sniffed, licked, then dropped her head on her paws, soaking up the last of the sun.

“She’s a good girl.” They walked inside and Adam held up the bag. “This is pie. There’s an ice pack in there, but you might want it in the fridge.”

“Pie?” Sage couldn’t help his grin. He’d missed his dessert, and he was stupidly pleased that he could have it again tonight. “Can you put it in there, please? I got to clean myself up some.”

“You bet. Wilma says hey.”

“I’ll have to tell her thank you.” He headed to his little bedroom and stripped off his work shirt, found a clean T-shirt, and gave himself a spit bath in the sink with a washrag and a bit of soap. It would work.

When he got back, Adam was digging out plates and paper towels, looking natural in Sage’s kitchen.

“There’s Cokes in the fridge, iff’n you want. I got Sprite and Dr Pepper both.”

“Oh, I like the good Doctor. Which do you want?”

“I’ll take a Dr Pepper too. It cuts the grease.” Sage had himself a wee wooden cafe table, with two tall chairs. He’d made them for Momma when he was a teenager in woodshop, and she’d kept them.

“Sure.” Adam finally came to the table and laid everything out. The pizza wasn’t as hot as it had probably been when Adam had shown up, but it was cheesy and spicy and good. Sage ate, not sure what to do, focusing on the food, on not bumping into Adam, not spilling.

He didn’t have cable. He had a DVD player and a copy of
Tombstone
and one of
8 Seconds
. Neither of them were really pizza movies.

“That was good.” Adam sat back, patting his belly, which was nice and flat.

“It was. Thank you. I haven’t had pizza since….” Since he was a teenager. “…a long time.”

“Well, you’re welcome.” Adam leaned his elbows on the table, looking right at him. “Look, I’m sorry if I’m being pushy. I just—somehow, I want to get to know you.”

“Why?” Why on earth would a cop be interested in learning about him? He was an ex-con, totally out of place here, and he’d have kept his shame in California if he could have. He couldn’t figure out how to not help Daddy, though, and he owed his folks, big time, so here his happy ass stayed. “It’ll get you in trouble, won’t it?”

“Oh, I reckon it will make some folks mad.” Shrugging, Adam sat back and held up his hands. “I do that anyway.”

“So, uh. You were in the Army? Everyone says you’re a hero.” Sage felt about as stupid as anything.

“I did one tour in the Med, one in, uh, someplace a lot less pleasant.” Adam picked up the plates and went to wash up. “I’m not sure a stint in the Green Zone in Baghdad makes me a hero.”

“You should take the compliment. There’s nothing wrong with being a hero.” Right? Heroes were… heroes. The alternative was whatever he was. Or a supervillain.

He wasn’t a supervillain, right? He was a cowboy.

“I try to. I saw a lot of shit going on over there.” Adam chuckled. “Want some pie? Or is it too soon?”

“I’ll probably wait a bit. Do you want a cup of coffee?”

“Sure. I’d love one.”

Sage made a pot of Folgers, fed Penny, wiped out the sink, and poured two cups. “Black, right?”

“Yep.” Adam watched him in the most unnerving way. There was no speculation, no maliciousness. Just pure, intense interest. It was like being caught—a butterfly on a pin.

He handed the coffee over, then sat, about as wigged as he could
be.

“Do you need me to head out, Sage?” Those dark brown eyes were too damned knowing. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Really.”

“No. No, I just… I don’t know what to do.” Everything was new. Everything. He had a place of his own, sort of. He had someone there. He had things that were his. He’d been so young when he went in that he didn’t know how to process any of it.

“Okay. Cool. I mean, cool that you don’t want me to leave.” Cheeks heating, Adam glanced away, then back.

“We’re a pair, huh? I got a deck of cards. You play cribbage?”

“I do. I used to play with my aunt.”

“Wanna play?” That was friendly, right, but not gambling, like poker.

“Sure I do.” Adam rubbed his hands together. “I’m way better at cribbage than Boggle.”

“Boggle is okay. My mom likes it.” He found the board and the cards, then handed them to Adam to shuffle. “I’m more of a math person.”

“Me too.” Having the cribbage board to focus on helped, and it seemed to help Adam too.

They discarded and started playing, and Sage found himself relaxing, actually chuckling as he stole a point from Adam. Adam seemed easy in his skin, laughing with him, grumbling about mulligans.

His knees started screaming at him after about three hands, and he shifted, searching for an easy position.

“You okay, man?” Adam asked after Sage had moved around for the third or fourth time.

“Yeah. I got….” He tried to figure out the best way to put it. “…bad knees.”

“Oh hey, if you want to move to the couch or something, I’m not picky.”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind. Penny won’t be evil.”

“Oh, I may not know feeding and ranch work too much, but dogs I get.” Adam moved the cribbage board to the coffee table and helped Sage get settled. The warm touch of those big hands shocked him—not a static electricity kind of shock, but something deeper, more like the buzz after you’d peed on a live fence.

“Thanks.” Sage sat down, his knees hating him.

“Do you need something? An ibuprofen or whatever?”

“No. I don’t take stuff.” He never took anything.

“Okay.” Chewing his lip, Adam stared at his legs. “Do you have any Bengay?”

“Yeah. I’ll be okay. I just get sore. I’ll bet there’s rain coming. I’m like one of those bobbing birds.”

Adam laughed. “I have an ankle like that. Popped it coming out of a troop carrier on a drill.”

“Oh damn. That sounds like it hurt.” He was kneecapped his second night in maximum security. He guessed he knew pain, but it wasn’t something he shared.

“It did. I reckon we’ve all got stuff to deal with, huh?”

“Yes, sir. We all do.” He dealt the cards again. He was at least six pegs ahead, and he was about to have the best hand of the night. He had all tens and fives. “Were you and Angel close?”

“As kids? I guess as close as any cousins. I mean, we saw each other a lot up until middle school. Then we started drifting, I suppose.”

“Ah.” Sage could remember the first time he saw Angel. He’d fallen in love—fallen hard too, even though he hadn’t known what that meant at the time.

“You were, uh, real close, huh?” Those dark eyes carefully looked away from him, but he thought Adam was more embarrassed than judgmental.

“We were lovers.” He wasn’t going to lie about that either, damn
it.

“Yeah. I mean, I figured.” Adam shrugged a little. “He was wild, but he did care about people.”

“He was a stupid kid, but so was I. I guess lots of folks are, at eighteen.” Maybe not as stupid as Sage.

That got him a blinding smile, direct and honest. “Hell, Sage, eighteen only comes in stupid.”

“No shit on that.” He grinned back, and it actually felt like he could breathe.

“There was this night, right after graduation. I reckon you and Angel had already left town. I was about to leave for basic. Anyway, I got jacked up with Robbie Marton. You remember him?”

“I do.” Robbie had been the only openly queer boy Sage had known, back then. There’d been a handful of them who had been into guys, but it had been quiet as all fuck. Robbie, though, that boy had been on his knees for all of them, any of them.

Adam shook his head. “We were trying to impress each other, I guess, and I was in my dad’s old truck. Let me tell you, I never even saw that tree coming. I was glad I didn’t smoosh Robbie’s head.”

Sage blinked, then he caught on, and he hooted, laughing hard. “Lord, lord, man. Ain’t no one told you it’s bad to get blown while you’re driving?”

“Shit, if someone had told me that then, I wouldn’t have believed it. Getting blown was all I thought about.” Adam started laughing too, and before he knew it, they were cackling together, slapping their thighs with it.

Idiots. They were both idiots.

He guessed that was okay. It was good to be able to let loose with someone, and Adam was easier to be with than anyone he’d met in a long time.

Adam beat him on the first game, he took the second, and he looked over. “You want to play again? There’s the pie.”

“I’d love to, but we can break for dessert.” Waving him back down, Adam grinned. “Mind your knees. I’ll get it.”

“You sure?” Sage nodded in thanks. “Appreciate it.”

“No worries. I know where stuff is now.”

Like there was a lot of space. Or stuff. But his kitchen had what he needed. Adam found a couple of plates and brought back pie and forks, along with the coffeepot for refills.

“Thanks. I feel lazy.” Oh man. Look at that pie. Creamy and sweet, the scent of coconut making his mouth water. It looked like heaven, and he missed Wilma and Bulldog sharply.

“You should come back to the cafe. I can follow you home.”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You don’t have to. I’m offering. I mean I can’t do it every night, but I’d be happy to.”

“Maybe. We’ll see how it goes. I might stop in tomorrow.”

“Well, let me know.” Adam reached across the table and touched Sage’s wrist. “You should be able to go and do.”

“I know, but that’s it, isn’t it? You pay and pay. I’ll always be an ex-con.” He knew that. He got it. He would never get to be more than that. It was how it worked, and, he figured, why it was so hard to stay out. Shit, if you had to work this hard, at least in the joint there were understandable rules.

Adam’s mouth flattened into an unhappy line. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.”

“You know it. Shuffle the cards. Let’s play.”

Adam nodded, his tanned fingers working the cards. He shuffled, and they played, and that was that. Looked like he had himself a friend.

Weird.

He’d take it, though. Friends were important, no matter where you got hold of them.

W
IN
HEADED
into the office, whistling under his breath. It had been a good night with Sage, playing games and eating pizza and cream pie. Hell, he’d gotten along with Sage as well as he had anyone in years. Sage Redding was funny, surprisingly smart, and incredibly quick and charming. It fascinated him. Oh, he knew he ought to back the hell off, but he couldn’t. God knew, Sage needed a friend.

Grace made a face at him as he came in. “Sheriff is gunning for
you.”

“What now, for god’s sake?”

She rolled her eyes. “Someone said you took pizza to the Redding place.”

Win wanted to snarl, but this was Grace. “What I do in my off time is my business.”

“You think I don’t know that?” She dropped her voice. “Shit, Win, Ellen Redding is my sister June’s best friend.”

“I know.” He sighed. “Sorry, lady. I know this whole thing is weird.” Win gave her a smile, weak as it probably was.

“It’s not my problem. Not yours, if you don’t let it be.” Grace winked, eyes crinkling around the edges. “Just watch your butt.”

“I will.” Maybe he’d let someone else watch it for him. Oh, now. That was a new thought. He hadn’t been thinking those sorts of thoughts in a long time. Sighing, he headed in for his daily meeting with the boss.

The sheriff sat at his desk, face gone all thundercloud and lightning.

“What’s up, Jim?”

“What are you doing, boy? Spending the evening at that murdering fag’s trailer?”

Win counted to ten, not letting anything show on his face. He hoped. “You got any business to discuss, or can we skip the check-in this morning?”

“Answer my goddamn question.”

Raising a brow, Win crossed his arms. “I played cards with the man, yeah. How is this your business?”

“He killed your cousin, man. That’s not enough?”

“If Angel had survived that explosion, he would have been the one to go to jail.” Win kept his voice steady.

“He didn’t. He got corrupted by that little fuck, and he got killed. Your Uncle Teddy is beside himself.”

Privately Win thought that Uncle Teddy was beside himself about not having the Reddings’ land. That was what it came down to. Sage was just an excuse.

Thank God the women in his family were more reasonable.

“Anything else? Because we’re done with this conversation.”

“Stay away from him. This is your last warning, kid. He doesn’t need protection.” Jim looked serious as hell, eyes glittering like a snake’s. Too bad Win wasn’t scared of critters.

He just shrugged. “You watch yourself, not me. State police would be mighty interested in how you’re harassing folks like Wilma and Bulldog.”

Jim arched one eyebrow. “So now you’re protecting the head of a biker gang and his bitch? What are you, the Robin Hood of Hunt County?”

“No, I just think honest folks deserve a chance.” This was getting them nowhere, and it hurt his soul to be at odds with a man who’d been his hero once upon a time. “I’m on patrol today, so I’ll see you later.”

He didn’t wait to hear any more, and he didn’t even stop to say good-bye to Grace. Not now. He needed outside and in the heavy weight of the September sunshine. This shit sucked hairy donkey balls. It was only going to get worse, and while he knew he could take it, he sure wished he didn’t have to.

Hell, he wished none of them did, but if wishes were fishes…. Win stopped in the garage to get a mobile unit, and he checked all the systems before pulling out of the garage.

Lord, what a fucking mess.