Chapter One
Brady
Brady set the bottle of milk on the table, noting the small amount left at the bottom. He scribbled the number down on his chart before nestling the tiny pink and brown piglet back into the bin with his brothers and sisters. The little creature scurried away in relief, as if Brady were a huge monster whose claws the piglet had narrowly escaped from.
"Don't look at me like that, buddy. I'm just the only reason you are even alive right now. That's all." Immediately after, Brady felt shame at trying to guilt the poor little animal.
He snagged the biggest of them, a female, the last left in the bin who still needed her first morning feeding. She squealed softly and wiggled, not quite used to being manhandled. Brady had only been hand-feeding them for a little over a day. Ever since he arrived home to his clinic to discover their mother had disappeared. There had been no signs of a struggle and none of the other animals were missing, so Brady felt comfortable in not classifying it as an animal attack. It was as if she had simply decided soon after labor, that motherhood wasn't for her.
When Brady had told Robert Foster, the sow's owner, that she had run away leaving her piglets behind, that ass Foster had told him to let the little ones die. Foster wasn't all that bright, but he knew that hand raising piglets was a difficult task that was often unsuccessful. Lucky for these little guys, Brady had a heart. Lucky for Brady, the piglets had had at least a few feedings off of their mother before she up and left. He hoped that would be enough for them to survive.
As Brady was about to settle the piglet on a soft blanket, he felt a warm sensation fill his palm and run down his arm. Unable to leave the pig for fear of her wandering off the table, he wiped his soiled hand on the blanket instead of washing it immediately. "Oh, the glamorous life of me," Brady mumbled.
He wasn't normally this sullen. Not these days anyway. Brady tried smiling at the pig. He was the friendly, solid, and dependable veterinarian for the tiny mountain town of Riverside. Since his mother had died a few years earlier, he had put his head down and chugged through life, a predictable train traveling over comfortable tracks, not knowing or caring what was passing him by. Until an old friend had popped out of the forest a few months ago, reminding him of everything he didn't have. And would never get.
The piglet grabbed hold of the nipple quickly. Brady had saved the easiest for last on purpose. Not only did the piglets need feeding every three hours, but Brady also had many other animals in his care. At that moment in his barn he had a mare recovering from colic, a dairy cow with infected udders, three huskies with sprains, and a mean goose that had been abandoned by his owners for being such an asshole. Brady couldn't blame the owners for that one, the goose was really a jerk.
Then there were the countless drop-ins that Brady accepted throughout the day. Every time he spoke with his old college buddy, Declan, on the phone, he would tell Brady that he needed help and if he wasn't going to get it, then he needed to take less clients. How was Brady supposed to choose? He wasn't just the only vet in the rural mountain town, he was the only vet within a fifty-mile radius. Turning away an animal could be the same as killing the animal himself.
"Where you at?" a loud voice boomed from Brady's front door. The noise startled the piglet off the bottle she'd been happily eating.
Brady sighed loudly. He'd been waiting for this confrontation, recognizing Foster's loud, obstinate voice. If he didn't know better, he'd say the man also sounded a little drunk. At ten in the morning.
Settling the tiny pig in the bin with her siblings, Brady made sure the heat lamp was the correct distance away from the farrow. He didn't want to come back to a bin of bacon.
He must have still been grinning at his dark joke because when Brady answered the door, Robert Foster scowled.
"What's so funny?" Foster asked through the thin screen. He might have been good looking, if Brady hadn't known he was actually a cruel and ignorant person. His animals often came in with injuries that did not look accidental. Brady had tried calling animal services on the man more times than he could count. Somehow, Foster always knew when they were coming and by the time they made it out to his farm, he'd had the problem solved. "Find my sow? Is that why you are so happy?" Foster asked. He braced his hand high up the door frame as he leaned over, making himself comfortable in Brady's doorway.
"No, I didn't." Brady didn't bother opening the screen door for his uninvited guest, Foster burst through anyway.
"You're lucky I like you and there isn't much competition up here. Might go out of business if people learned you let their animals just up and walk off."
Brady ground his teeth. Never mind that the sow didn't need to be left in his barn in the first place and was left there without his permission. Foster could have handled the birth on his own farm. But, he hadn't wanted to deal with it and had basically dropped the poor girl off at Brady's clinic.
At the same exact time, Brady had thought his friend Asher and Asher's mate Caleb were dead and had been in the process of getting into his truck to drive to a place Brady only knew the name of to get help. It was nice that it turned out his friend wasn't dead, but when Brady returned it was to no Robert, no mother pig, and a farrow of tiny piglets.
Getting the pigs into a warm environment and assessing their health had been the more important task. Brady had called Foster to inform him what happened and what should be done. He'd decided to simply scream at Brady instead.
"You are always welcome to take your animals elsewhere," Brady responded coolly. He was too tired to take Foster's shit, something he could normally do with a fake smile.
"What was in your Wheaties this morning, Doc? Now with more backbone?" Foster stomped through Brady's living room like he'd been invited in.
"No. I haven't had a chance to eat breakfast yet, Wheaties or otherwise, because I have been too busy caring for your litter of piglets. There is absolutely no reason why you can't take them and do exactly what I am doing."
"There is a reason. I don't want to. Besides, it is payment for losing my pig." Foster poked his head in the kitchen and dining area, sparing the pigs no glance before looking down the hallway that led to the bedrooms. "Where is your friend? Folks said he was coming back again."
It was clear Foster was fishing for information and Brady was not going to take the bait. Brady had always thought that Foster skated by on his classic good looks and easy, smarmy smile. Folks in Riverside generally fell over themselves to accommodate him, and when they didn't, he just needed to wave his family's big estate in front of their faces.
Brady couldn't say for sure if Foster was gay, despite him having hit on Brady multiple times. It could be that Foster didn't get by on his looks at all, rather he got by on being nosy and finding out things about people that they would rather other people didn't know. Secrets were especially dangerous in small towns. A lot of times, people hated what they didn't understand.
Or, maybe Foster wasn't gay or propositioning Brady at all and Brady was just lonely enough to see something where nothing existed. Not that he would ever be lonely enough to do anything with Robert Foster. Arrogant animal abusers just didn't do it for him.
These days, nothing did it for him.
"I'm not positive which friend you are referring to. I've had a small handful of renters in my open room in the past year. Which did you mean?" Riverside had a bar, a post office, and a general store but no hotel. Brady had been lending out the extra room ever since he was a child and his mother had handled the business. When she passed, lending the room had been his one constant. The house was too quiet without another person around.
"You know which one I mean. The big one, never says a word to anyone but you. Been coming down since you were a boy and your ma ran this place."
Brady swallowed through the sharp pang of panic and despair at the verbal mention of his mother. She'd been gone for five years now, but there were some days he couldn't even think about her without feeling as if he was ripping the band aid off a fresh wound, opening it all up again. "Asher trades in town, he talks to all kinds of people. Just not you."
"Guess that's true. Been so long since I'd seen him last, thought he might have died up there. He ever tell you who he killed? Man doesn't go up to the middle of nowhere for no reason. Probably one of them serial killers." Foster paused as if waiting for Brady to agree. He didn't and would not. "That's probably why I never seen him curling up with any of them women around here. Those serial killers get off on killing."
"Did you have a specific reason for stopping by or can I get back to my animals?"
Foster stopped in the hallway. He'd been pacing that space, looking over the pictures hung on the wall. "You know, I've never seen you curled up against anyone in town either."
Brady's heart raced. He was frozen in place, afraid to make any movement like it would unintentionally out him.
"Maybe, you aren't into—"
"I've grown up in this town, Robert. Same as you, I know what is around here and it isn't for me." At least that was true. Good thing since Brady was a miserable liar. Not bad at it, just bad at dealing with the repercussions.
He wasn't sure if he could call himself closeted. His mother had known he was gay, Asher knew, and of course, his one other boyfriend had known. And that boyfriend's entire frat house—that was a story best left ignored. With his mother gone and Asher pretty much gone, no one in his current life knew of his preferences. Life was easier this way. The one summer he'd tried to live in the big city as an out and proud gay man had ended in heartache and hospital bills.
When he had moved back--a mere three months after leaving--with his tail between his legs and his arm in a sling, Brady had decided then sex wasn't important in his life. The transition to celibacy had been extremely easy.
The animals in the barn started making noise, neighing, mooing, barking and squawking. He glanced at his watch and saw that lunch time was coming. He still hadn't finished breakfast duties.
Brady was too busy for a sex life.
"I have a full barn and now a full kitchen." He motioned to the bin of piglets.
"I don't want those wrinkly pieces of trash. They'll die long before they are any use to me. I want my sow back," Foster said, going from conversational to obstinate in a snap. Brady couldn't trust a man who went from friendly and joking to mean and violent without warning.
"I'm a vet, not a tracker. I can't help you with that."
Foster crossed his arms over his chest. "You lost her, you bring her back."
A number of physically violent responses flashed in Brady's mind. He pushed his glasses up his nose instead and gathered his feeding supplies. "I am worried for your pig, as I would be for any animal that may be in danger, but the fact remains, I do not have time to go out into the forest looking for her. I am too busy taking care of the litter she left behind."
An ugly gleam shone in Foster's eye before he went into the kitchen with Brady close on his heels. "These are what is keeping you from doing your job?" Foster asked, snatching one of the little piglets from the bin. The tiny pink and brown body squirmed and squealed. "I can take care of this issue for you." He held the scared baby pig over his head.
Brady lunged forward with his hands outstretched but Foster was taller than him. "No, stop!"
Foster laughed once and Brady saw red. He swung his fist around and punched him in the gut, catching the pig when Foster dropped him. Brady cuddled it in his arms for a second before placing it back in the bin. He grabbed the bin and walked it to his pantry, locking the door. By the time he was finished, Robert had caught his breath and was fuming.
He stomped forward, reaching out to clamp his hand around Brady's throat. He slammed him against the pantry door with a loud thud. The air whooshed out of his body and he struggled to breathe it back in.
"I am so nice to you and still, you are just a frigid asshole," Foster seethed. "You aren't better than me."
Brady would have explained that he never felt better than anyone in Riverside but with his air flow cut off, that was impossible.
"I should kick your ass right now," Foster threatened. The man sneered horribly. "Or maybe I'll just bend you over this table and fuck you so you know who is in charge here." The obvious smell of alcohol on the man's breath made his threat all the more valid. People did crazy things when they were mad and drunk.
Brady's mind blanked, unable to think past the threat. Fear like he had known only one time before raced through him and he began to struggle. Foster held his throat tighter and used his legs to press Brady's against the door.
Out of nowhere there was a loud thud and then something that sounded like a snarl. Robert's hold loosened, and the weight of his body disappeared as he was pulled off of Brady and slammed against the ground.
"I think you should leave," said an unfamiliar voice. With his back to Brady, all he could see of the man was that he was tall and broad and had chin-length dusty blond hair.
"Who the fuck are you?" Foster asked between wheezes.
"I'm the guy who is going to kick your fucking ass if you don't get the hell out of here," the man replied with no bravado. It was as if he was simply stating a fact. The chair was wood, the sky was cloudy, and Foster was going to get his ass kicked if he didn't leave.
Foster scrambled to his feet and for a moment, Brady thought he might not go, but he must have seen something in the stranger's face that made him change his mind. He hurried out of the kitchen in not quite a run but almost as fast. The second Brady heard his screen door slam he turned to the pantry, unlocking it he grabbed the bin of pigs and set them on the table, searching for the one Foster had grabbed. If he had squeezed just a little too hard, the animal could be injured.
Behind him, the man cleared his throat. "Sorry if…that wasn't something you wanted. Like if that was just a lover's quarrel or something."
Brady held the pig to his chest. He was nearly certain there were no injuries other than emotional. He whirled around to the man. "Lover's quarrel? No way, I'm not ga…" He looked up at the man head on and lost his thought. The man's flannel was unbuttoned, and he wore no undershirt. While the man's chest was something Brady could have looked at for days, his eyes eventually slid up to the most gorgeous, chiseled face he had ever seen. Soft green eyes looked back at him, somehow managing to look calculating as well as kind. The man scratched his chin and Brady had the sudden, overwhelming urge to scratch it for him. Would the skin there be rough? Of course it would be, with that shadow. "I'm…" Brady tried again but found he was unable to lie to this man. He had to be imagining the sudden wave of lust in the other man's expression. In fact, he was sure he was imagining it when the man looked down at the pig Brady still held to his chest.
"You're getting peed on."