“At one time, it meant a great deal to you.”
“Not anymore ….”
“Why not? Everything that’s important is still here, waiting for you.”
“It’s not the same.”
“No, but you’re not the same, either. You’re older, wiser, can appreciate life differently.”
“I want my old life back!” he screamed out to the heavens above him.
“Do you? What part of that life do you want back that wouldn’t be there if you wanted them?”
“Taylor!”
“She’s the best you can come up with? You no longer love her. If she told you she would marry you right this second, would you?”
“No.”
“Why not, if you love her as you say you do?”
“Go away ….”
“Why. Not?”
“I don’t want talk about this.” Rolling to his side and away from Silas, he nudged Suki off his chest to sit up. Before he could stand, she plopped herself down on his lap, whining.
“Why is she crying?”
“Dogs are sensitive. She feels your pain. Suki will stop if you pet her.”
Unable to handle the low whine, he started petting her. The sound stopped.
“I thought Moses was going to give her to a new owner.”
“He did. She’s sitting on his lap.”
Reaper looked up. “Moses is giving her to me?”
“I can’t think of anyone else who will love or treat her better.”
“I don’t want her.” He let his hand slide off her fur.
“You’re lying, just like you’ve been untruthful about your feelings for Ginny.”
Suki started whining again. Automatically, Reaper started petting her again.
“I don’t have feelings for either of them,” he denied.
“How much pain do you have to go through before you stop deceiving yourself? You almost killed yourself, Gavin. At what point is the pain too unbearable that you can’t ask for help?”
Reaper shook his wet hair back. The rain and wind had stopped at Silas’s arrival, leaving a dampness in the air that had his clothes uncomfortably clinging to him.
“Everyone asks me that question. And I’ll tell you the same thing I told them: Who can I talk to? You don’t know what happened to me, and I don’t want you to. But to put it plainly, it was vile and disgusting. Who should I share those experiences with? My brother? Fuck no! The Last Riders? Hell fucking no. A psychiatrist? They can piss off. A support group? No, I don’t need other people’s nightmares in my head. I have enough of my own.”
“You can talk to me.”
“You?” Shaking his head, Reaper looked up from Suki. “You don’t have any concept of how to help me.”
Silas’s grave expression didn’t change at his sarcasm. “I’ve comforted you many times, Gavin. You just didn’t know it was me.”
“Are talking about when I stayed at your house?”
“No.” Silas placed a dried leaf next to him, and as he rose from his haunches to stand, the leaf twirled under his hand. “I’m talking about the many times—”
Reaper’s eyes followed the leaf spiraling upward as Silas raised his hand higher into the air.
“—I comforted you when your body was so racked with pain from those tormentors’ abuse that you clung to life from sheer will.” Silas brought his hand down, the leaf falling softly to the ground. Raising his hand back in the air, he made an imaginary circle before lowering his hand again, until his hand pointed toward him. Then, as he flicked his fingers open from his closed fist, Reaper felt a burst of wind blow over him … and heard the wind whispering to him …
Survive …
Endure …
I promised you revenge …
I promised you love … a love that was waiting for you … just for you ….
“I’ve kept my promises to you, Gavin. You survived, you endured, you got your revenge, and I promised you Ginny. She’s been waiting for you … She’s still waiting.”
This was so beyond the bounds of belief that his mind refused to believe what he had seen, what he had heard. Seeking to disprove what his eyes and ears told him, he opened his mouth to deny what Silas was telling him when another set of headlights lit up the area.
“Damn, I knew he wouldn’t stay home,” Reaper heard Silas mutter as he turned toward the truck that parked beside his.
Reaper didn’t have to wait long to know who the newcomer was, recognizing the irritating quality of his swagger immediately.
“Where’s the dude he took off with?” Greer looked around eagerly.
“He went over the cliff,” Silas answered for him.
Greer Porter sauntered to the edge of the cliff, looking down. “Damn. I wanted to shove my boot up his ass before you killed him off. I don’t know why I listened to you,” Greer berated Silas as he walked toward them.
“It was an accident.”
“Yeah … sure. That’s the last time I listen to you, cuz.”
Reaper looked back and forth between the two men. “You’re cousins?”
“Shh …” Greer went back to the cliff. “You sure he’s dead?”