The sun was blinding when Skip put the pot of coffee on. He hadn’t slept much. Chad had burned with fever all night between bouts of vomiting. He held him when the fever turned to chills, and held the bowl when he threw up.

His fever had broken around dawn, and Skip had left him to sleep it off. He’d hoped to get some work done in the first chapter of his book. He remembered sitting down in his chair and turning on the lamp. He needed coffee. Strong coffee.

“I thought you didn’t drink coffee?” Chad said from somewhere nearby. His voice sounded weak.

“Only when I need to stave off an attack of the walking zombies.” Skip added more grounds to the filter and checked the water reservoir. “Feeling better?”

Chad leaned on the island, holding his head in his hands, as if he had a headache. “Did I catch your stomach bug?”

“Looks like it, or you went back to that gas station for some of their battery acid coffee. I don’t remember where it was. Felt like food poisoning.”

“Feels like death,” Chad mumbled and dragged a stool out to plonk his ass down. “That smells good, but I’m too afraid to drink anything.”

Skip set a glass of filtered water in front of him. “Keep that down and I’ll give you plain toast.”

Chad nodded and sipped the water. Skip leaned over the coffee maker, willing it to spurt out enough to fill a cup, even a half a cup. He wasn’t picky. “Why don’t you go take a nap?”

“I did take a nap… in my office chair. Or I stared at nothing for three hours. My head is killing me.” He opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Tylenol, swallowing two pills dry.

His phone rang and he hit the side button to turn the sound off before checking to see who was calling.

His heart jumped into his throat and he swiped to answer the call. “Sam? Hey? What’s going on?” Sam never called him. She’d send him an email if she needed to contact him. The only times she’d ever called him wasn’t just to say hi.

“I’m sorry to call you. I know you’re probably up in the woods somewhere, doing whatever you do, that you think no one knows about…” Her words were rushed and agitated. “Skip, I think I did something bad. I can’t shake this feeling that I made things worse.”

“What?” Skip felt her alarm as if she were sitting right across from him. “What did you do, Sam?”

“Jillian called me yesterday morning. I didn’t think anything about it. I answered and we talked a little. She’s looking for Chad. He’s not answering his phone. She thought he’d be with us. She called us “you people,” Skip, like it’s an insult. You people with a sneer in her voice. I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have realized. I told her we laid Colt to rest and Chad went with you. She hung up on me.”

“Oh God.” He had to clutch the island to stay on his feet. “Brian! Brian is at the house. Do you think she’d go to the house? To my house? Do you think she’d… how did she sound? Sam?”

“I don’t know, Skip. I didn’t know her that well. I remember that she was quiet and would always give us this glare like we were puppy murders. But… she sounded… unhinged.” Sam sounded like she was on the verge of some kind of break. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know she had my number. I didn’t recognize the number. I shouldn’t have answered.”

“It’s okay, Sam, it’s fine. I’m sure it’s fine. Thank you for letting me know.” Skip assured her. “Let me go. I need to call Brian to check on him and… Doc. What the hell is his husband’s name? I should know my own son-in-law’s name.”

“You’d think?” Sam laughed like it was a joke. He heard the fake cheer. He felt it deep in his gut that this wasn’t good. “Okay. Love you. Be careful.”

Skip disconnected, and looked up at Chad who held his phone to his ear. He looked strange. Too pale. There were smudges of purple beneath his eyes. His shoulders were rigid. He’d fallen back into his Marine stance. He disconnected and tried again. This time disconnecting quickly. “She’s not answering.”

Skip turned off the coffee maker without pouring a cup. He didn’t need caffeine to wake him up anymore. He had enough fear-fueled adrenaline pumping through his veins to jump-start a whale. He hit Brian’s name in his call log and waited for it to go through. “Straight to voicemail. He turned off the ringer. He’s probably at work. I don’t even know what today is.”

“Thursday.” Chad quipped, swallowing some of the water and two of the pain pills. “I think. Could be Friday.”

“Okay.” Skip looked around the kitchen as if searching for the answers to life. “Okay. Time to go. You can stay if you want. I need to get home. I don’t know why. I don’t want Brian to be there alone if she shows up at Cliffside.”

“He should be fine. She doesn’t know who he is. She won’t mess with someone she doesn’t know. Her grudges are personal.” Chad followed him to his office where Skip pulled out his computer bag and stuffed his manuscript and notes in with his laptop. The manuscript he was supposed to start working on a month ago. He spotted the picture of him and Brian on the beach that was taken last year before he’d retreated to the cabin to work on the new edits for the re-releases. He held the picture out to Chad. “He looks exactly like I did when I was in my twenties. He’s a dead ringer for me— the last time she saw me. You know her. What would she do if she thought her little boy was off with a man she was convinced had molested him?”

“She’d go after him.” Chad turned on his heel and bolted up the stairs taking them three at a time. Skip put the picture down and set his case by the stairs before he followed him up to grab some clothes and a few essentials.

Chad was pulling on a pair of fatigues when Skip entered their bedroom. He hadn’t unpacked from the trip up. Not entirely. His leather duffel bag was still sitting where he’d left it, full of clothes. He changed into clean clothes and grabbed his wallet and keys. Sunglasses. He patted his pockets. Phone. He pulled his phone out of the pocket he’d left it in.

“Ready?” Chad came out of the bathroom smelling minty. Skip ran in and brushed quickly. He didn’t bother rinsing. When he came back out, Chad had his pack and a few shopping bags in one hand and Skip’s duffel in the other.

“Ready.” He turned off all the lights on the way down the stairs and checked the front door with Chad following. He grabbed his computer bag and headed for the mudroom door.

Chad stopped at the washer and glanced up at the top shelf. “You should take that.”

Skip didn’t think twice. He grabbed the gun holster and put it in his computer bag.

They loaded the Jeep while Skip tried to call Brian again. He called the office at the park only to find out Brian had taken the day off. He should have had someone go check on him. He should have called back when that thought occurred to him. He didn’t have time to think straight. He had another call to make.

“It’s a long drive. I’m sure he’ll turn the phone on at some point,” Chad said to be helpful, while hiding that he was still trying to get through to his mother. “At least, what, like fifteen hours if traffic is good?”

“Closer to twenty, but we’re not driving.” He headed down his mountain, taking the turns too fast and sped through town, stopping when he hit the parking lot in front of the local hangar. “Grab the gear. They’re gassing her up now. We should be there in a few hours.” He stopped as a thought occurred to him. “You will be okay in a small plane, right? Flying doesn’t trigger you?”

Chad stared at him, jaw slack, before composing himself. “I… no. I’m fine in the air, unless someone starts shelling it from the ground.”

“I’m not expecting any ground-to-air missiles today, but this is southern Oregon, anything could happen.” Skip grabbed his personal gear and went inside the little office. He handed his keys off to the attendant for Cat to pick up his Jeep and watched as his craft taxied out of the hangar.

“You have a Cessna TTx… holy shit,” Chad said from behind him. “That’s… like… awesome. Why do you have a fucking airplane?”

“Why else? Because I can.” Skip almost forgot that he had somewhere to be in a hurry. The look of pure awe on his lover’s face sent him into a tailspin. This… this man. This was what he wanted— A life spent putting that look on Chad’s face. The mechanic climbed out and walked around the plane signaling that he was ready. “Come on. We have a long way to go, and a short time to get there.”

Chad followed him out; he stowed their gear in the back of the plane while Skip went through the checklist with his mechanic. Less than half an hour later, they were airborne and headed back to California with Chad humming a song from an old movie that sounded familiar but Skip couldn’t place it.

“So, this is what the life of a bestselling author is like? Mountain retreats and million-dollar personal aircraft, an adventure park and a mansion on the California coast. And a bookstore.”

“I have a penthouse in New York too. For when I have to meet with my editors in person. But… no, I haven’t even made a million dollars with my writing yet. I may never. Writing doesn’t pay as much as people think. I’ve done well in the last few years, but not enough to afford the life I’ve lived. That comes from my grandparents. The carnies on one side with the land, and the graft to set up shop in the shadow of a California land baron. And a mother who fell in love with the carnie’s son. Leaving me with all of it. Every damn square acre of old California land, and a fortune in the bank. So Saffron lives up to both sides. I’m a wandering gypsy, and a capitalist pig. Keeps people guessing.”

Chad’s lips quirked into a smile that faded away quickly. “I’m sorry that your son might be in danger because of me.”

“Meh, I’m not worried too much about Brian. He’s a smart kid. He’ll figure out something’s wrong. I’m more worried about bringing my boyfriend home to meet my son, if you want the truth.”

“Emphasis on the boy part,” Chad said the light gone completely from his eyes now. “I remember what we talked about last night.”

“You’re more of a man than any man I’ve ever met, Chad. Maybe even more of a man than I am. And if you remember, then you remember that I said I love you. I don’t toss those words around freely anymore. The only person I’ve said that to and meant it with my heart is my son. The unconditional love of a father. And that is not the love I’m feeling for you. I’ve never met anyone who makes my heart sing and ache at the same time. I didn’t know it was possible.”

“Could be a relapse of the stomach flu,” Chad said, a smirk curling his lips.

“Could be,” Skip replied. “Don’t puke in my plane.”

“Yessir,” Chad answered, the smirk coming through in his voice now. Skip’s body reacted to the word. He tried to suppress a groan, but Chad heard him. “Keep your mind out of the gutter, Saffron, and your eyes on the road.”

“I’m going to live to regret that, aren’t I?”

“Probably,” Chad replied. “Sir.”

Skip groaned again, and eyed the autopilot, long enough for Chad to laugh. God, he loved hearing Chad laugh. His laugh made Skip happy. He felt young again.

And that thought gutted him.