Stars & Stripes (Cut & Run 6)

In the rocking chair, Chester began to hum. It wasn’t a song yet, merely a cadence with a certain familiar ring to it. It was one of the songs Ty whistled and sometimes made up his own words to: “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”

Chester began to laugh, rocking by the fireside with his shovel in his lap.

Ty bit his lip and glanced at Zane, trying not to smile. Zane rolled his eyes. “Galloping crazies.”

Ty squeezed his hand. “Well, you said you liked horses.”

Ty sat on the edge of his old bed, looking down at the cast on his hand in the soft light of the bedside lamp. In all the times he’d thrown a punch in his life, he’d rarely broken one of his own bones in the process. It was a metacarpal this time, one of the bones within his hand. And it hurt like a bitch. His entire wrist had to be immobilized, hence the bright green cast on his arm.

It was a common fistfight injury, but Ty still couldn’t believe his dad’s jaw had broken his hand.

“Figures the old man would break my hand,” he grumbled.

Zane was behind him, leaning against the headboard. “I’m going to start calling you Tytanium.”

“That’s clever.”

“I know.”

“Does it hurt that bad to hit me?” Ty asked.

“Yes.”

“Good,” Ty said, mollified as he looked back down at the cast and plucked at the loose cotton on the edge. He knew Zane wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t sure what he could do about it. He glanced over his shoulder again. “It’s sort of funny.”

Zane’s eyes were dark and his face was expressionless, but one corner of his mouth curled up. “Why is that?”

“Oh, come on. The one time I take a swing at him, and he still comes out better than I do? There’s funny in that. Like Charlie Brown with the football.”

Zane smiled a little and rolled his eyes. He reached up to touch Ty, sliding his fingers along the base of his skull into his hair.

Ty leaned back into the touch, closing his eyes as relief washed over him. He couldn’t shake the sense of impending doom that was always under the surface, but he’d learned to live with it. The only things that mattered were that Zane was here with him and his parents had taken the news infinitely better than he’d ever imagined.

They had every right to be pissed at him, not only for lying to them, but also for running. He turned and crawled toward Zane, stretching out to lay his head in Zane’s lap.

“I always thought there’d be this huge weight lifted off my chest after they found out.”

Zane’s hand moved to stroke through Ty’s hair. “You’ve been carrying that weight a long time, Ty. It’ll take a while not to feel it as much.”

“Maybe you’re right.” He looked at Zane, reaching up to touch his face. “Talk to me, darlin’.”

Zane smiled. “I love the way you say that.” His fingers drifted across Ty’s forehead. “What do you want me to talk about?”

“Don’t be dense. What do you think about all this?”

Zane looked down at the quilt for a long moment, his lips compressing. “I’m angry.”

“I know you are,” Ty said gently. “Talk to me about it instead of taking it out on me later.”

Zane huffed, but they both knew it was valid. “I’ve never liked the relationship you have with your dad. It’s always seemed to me he was more a gunny than a father. But it’s not my place, you know? To criticize him.” Zane paused. “But watching him hurt you? That’s unacceptable to me. Possibly unforgivable.”

Ty nodded. He knew that his relationship with his father, outwardly, hit all of Zane’s hot buttons. But Earl was a good father; he had nothing but happy memories of growing up. Maybe Earl was more of a gunny than a dad, but it had worked. Sure, there was strain there, but he’d challenge anyone to show him a perfect relationship between father and son. Tonight had been the first time Earl had ever raised a hand to one of his boys.

“It’s . . . complicated,” he offered, even knowing it would sound weak to Zane’s ears.

Zane’s brow creased, but his anger was mixed with dismay as he spoke. “But you’re afraid of him, Ty. How can that be right?”

Ty sat up, looking at Zane in surprise. “I’m not afraid of him.” But there were things that made him almost ill to think of: Knowing he might have disappointed his father. Seeing shame or contempt or any number of other reactions he’d imagined when he let his father down. That all added up to making Ty tense when he thought too hard about it. All he’d ever wanted was to make Earl proud of him; he’d spent thirty years trying. “And at the same time I am terrified of him,” he realized as he looked at the USMC signet ring on his finger.

Zane shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what . . . to do. It tears me up to see you dealing with this, and I can’t help.”

Ty sighed and turned to sit cross-legged on the bed beside Zane’s hip. “He’s my dad, Zane. I don’t need you to do anything. You don’t have to protect me. You don’t have to defend me—or us—to him.”

“I can’t just not feel the need to protect you, Ty. That’s not going to happen. You’d probably better not expect us to ever be much in the way of friends.”

Ty smiled and patted Zane’s knee. “Dad can take care of himself. You don’t have to be buddies.”

Zane gave an unconvincing nod.

Ty turned himself around to lay his head back in Zane’s lap. “He’s been angry with me for a long time. They never could understand why I left. And I could never tell them, not really.”

“Sometimes telling doesn’t help,” Zane said. After a pause, he added, “I told Mother what a great opportunity the FBI would be for me, and to this day she just can’t, or won’t, understand why I left home.”

Ty looked up at him, trying to see his eyes. “What happened with your family, Zane?”

Zane answered with a heavy sigh. “My family wasn’t like yours.”

“Is that why you left Texas and never looked back?”

Zane was quiet for a moment. “I wasn’t willing to do the job I was born for. I wasn’t wanted there unless I intended to take over the ranch.”

“Zane. I doubt that’s true.”

“You don’t know them, Ty. My sister and my dad are good people, but Mother . . . she scares me. I hate being around her.”