Rob didn’t take the kids directly back to the cabin. Instead, he walked them around the side and knocked on the door that opened to the stairs to Justin and Sam's apartment above the restaurant. Sitting with Aaron at dinner had just reminded him of everything he couldn’t have and the reason why he was at Crooked Tree.

Enough messing around, Rob.

He needed to find a family for Bran and Toby. Fantasizing about no-holds-barred sex was not the way to do that.

Focus.

There was no answer to his knock, but Rob had seen Justin go around this way only twenty minutes before and hadn’t seen him come back. Added to that, Sam wasn’t behind the counter of Branches, so he assumed they’d be together. Of course, he might be interrupting sexy times, but he had Bran and Toby to think of. He still hadn’t pinned down Sam and Justin in one place to get to know them. They needed to see what good kids the boys were and that they'd fit into the Crooked Tree extended family well.

“What are we doing here?” Bran asked and kicked at a stone on the doorstep that led to the apartment entrance.

“Visiting.”

Bran sighed like the put-upon eight-year-old he was. “We don’t want to be here. Anyway, Toby is tired.”

“No, I’m not,” Toby defended. He did seem tired, but Rob was amazed because that was the first time he'd spoken for himself in direct opposition to his brother.

“Yes, you are,” Bran said and tried to take his hand.

Toby stepped away. “Am not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not—”

“Guys, cool it a little, okay?” Rob interrupted the standoff. “No arguing, or you won’t get the cookies that Sam always has in his place.” The lie about the cookies was enough to get them to stop sniping, although Toby was as mutinous as a five-year-old could get, and Bran was glancing everywhere except at his brother. Rob knocked again, praying to anyone who listened that Sam or Justin would open the damned door before he had to break up sibling issues. Still nothing.

So he knocked again. And again. Louder each time.

And finally, he heard steps on the stairs.

“Something had better be on fire!” Sam called through the door, then swung it open violently. He was disheveled, his hair standing on end, his jeans unbuttoned, shirtless, and there was stubble burn on his face.

Yep, we totally interrupted their alone time. I should feel guilty, but I don’t.

“Rob?” Sam looked down at the boys and then back up at Rob. “Is something wrong?”

“No, we just thought we’d visit,” Rob said cheerfully. He knew better than to expand on the reasons. Keep the story simple, don’t give Sam a chance to turn them away. Okay, so guilt was front and center at his lack of transparency, but he had to be hard here. This was the best chance for a home for Bran and Toby.

Don’t apologize because that shows you accept you’ve interrupted.

“Uhm, okay.” Sam glanced behind him up the stairs, then back at Rob. He was doing a lot of that, clearly off-balance.

“Yeah,” Rob prompted and waited.

“You want to come in?” Sam asked finally.

Rob smiled then. “We’d love to. We hear you have a constant supply of cookies.” He watched Sam blink at him as if he wasn’t following the conversation. “The kids love cookies.”

“Toby’s too tired for a cookie,” Bran snapped and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Am not!" Toby shouted back and, thank the heavens, Sam seemed to take pity on them. Either that, or he didn’t know what the hell else to do.

“Come in. I have cookies,” he announced and stepped back from the door. He went up first, taking the steps two at a time. “Justin! We have company!”

“Who the fu—?" Justin appeared at the top of the stairs and cut off his curse when he spotted the children. "What's wrong?"

Was that everyone’s default setting around here, or was it just when it was anything to do with Rob?

Rob reached the top of the stairs, herding Bran and Toby before him, until they were all in the small sitting room, with the kitchen through an arch in the corner and a bedroom beyond an open door.

Justin went over and shut the bedroom door, then turned to Rob and waited. Rob shrugged because he hadn’t thought this far ahead, not really. They were in the house, and this was the point Bran and Toby showed what fabulous kids they were and how easy it would be for Sam and Justin to take them in. So why did he feel so stupid that everything had gone to plan?

Isn’t that what I want?

“Sit, please,” Sam said and shoved cushions onto the floor, making room for Rob. “Bran, Toby, you want some milk with the cookies?”

At least Bran didn’t kick off about Toby and what he thought his brother didn’t need right now, and Toby simply nodded with enthusiasm, albeit somewhat sleepily.

He and Justin couldn’t exactly talk there; but he had some things to get sorted out, the first being his weapon. So he didn’t sit but walked the short distance to Justin.

“Do you have a lockbox you can store my gun in?” he asked under his breath.

Justin’s eyes widened. “What?”

“I don’t want the kids to get hold of it.”

“And it’s taken you all this time to ask me?”

“I had it out of reach and under control.”

“You had a weapon at Crooked Tree? All this time?”

Rob lifted an eyebrow in silent condemnation of the comment. Of course he would be armed. He bet Justin was still carrying around a weapon, and he sure as hell knew there were rifles on the ranch.

Justin muttered another curse, and pushed open the bedroom door. “In here,” he ordered, and Rob followed at a more leisurely pace. As soon as he was in, Justin shut the door again and then locked it before opening the closet and pressing a button to reveal a fake wall.

“Sam doesn’t even know the code,” Justin advised as he entered it into the lockbox before pressing his thumb to a pad. The box snicked open, revealing two pistols, a Sig P226, and a Glock. Rob recognized them. Justin had been damn handy with the Glock, and it had been his pride and joy.

“When was the last time you used one of this?”

“That’s none of your fucking business,” Justin snapped. Then he closed his eyes briefly. “Not since Sam,” he murmured and then stepped back to allow Rob into the space.

Rob pulled his own gun out, twirling it on his fingers, the movement familiar, then checked it was empty, slipping the bullets in there alongside Justin’s and placing his weapon on top. Without ceremony, he shut the lid and heard the locks connect instantly.

“Don’t tell me the code.” Rob didn’t want to see the gun again. He wasn’t leaving this world putting a bullet in his brain. He was going to fall asleep and never wake up.

“What?”

How did he get Justin to understand he was done as much as Justin was? Not in the same way, not by choice at first, but he had other things to do in the next month or so than use a weapon on anyone. So he manned up and placed a hand on Justin’s shoulder.

“The kids are my kryptonite,” he said. “What Sam is to you,” he began. “The reason I’ve stopped.”

Justin softened a little. “Really?” He was asking for the truth from Rob, and he would know if Rob was lying. Maybe he was the only one in life who would.

Rob just needed to make sure of something first. “If anything happened to you, J, I would be there for Sam. You know that, right?”

There was that frown again, marring Justin's expression, as if he was waiting for the lies to drop and not fully understanding what Rob was saying. Then it became something more; raw, naked fear.

“What did you do, Rob? You said there was no danger!”

“No. Shit, no. I promise you there’s nothing wrong. It’s not that. It’s just if you got ill, or you got hit by a car, you know I’d drop everything.”

Justin crossed his arms over his chest, and his lips thinned. “And even if we could find you to help us, what would you do for Sam? Kill the illness for him? Shoot the driver of the car? Hug him?”

The words hurt because they were true. “I’d be proactive. I’m not exactly the hugging type.”

“That’s much is true.”

“Bran and Toby are everything to me now, my complete focus.” He wasn’t lying. He didn’t have anything else left to worry about.

“I can see those boys mean something to you.” Justin admitted, almost reluctantly.

Rob wanted to say that doing that was out of character, that he didn’t want to connect with Bran or Toby, that he was done, but that didn’t fit the narrative he was trying to go for. He needed to convince Justin that the boys meant something to him. Then when the end came, Justin would feel responsible for them, and they would have him to turn to.

Sam knocked on the door and called out, and Justin pushed back the false sliding wall and then closed the closet.

They didn’t speak as they walked out, but he saw Sam’s concerned gaze and knew that there would be some talking between him and Justin when they were alone.

“You left us with him,” Bran accused, and Rob took in the full picture. Bran and Toby, holding hands, standing by the small table, and staring at him angrily. Yeah, even Toby, and that was a new thing. The cookies were on the table, along with two glasses of milk, and it seemed as if the “leaving them alone with Sam” thing hadn’t gone well.

“I was just inside with—”

“He tried to lift up Toby!” Bran shouted, which only caused Toby to hiccup a sob.

Sam was flustered. “I didn’t mean to upset him. I was just helping him onto the high stool. I’m sorry—”

“We don’t know him!” Bran sounded hysterical. “And you left us! We want to go back to the cabin.”

Sam and Rob exchanged quick glances, and Sam seemed at a loss. Pretty much how Rob had felt since picking the boys up. This was not good.

He tried to calm the situation down. “Let’s eat the cookies and—”

“Toby needs to go to bed.” Bran was mutinous, his thin shoulders drawn back as if he would take on everyone in the room just to keep his brother safe. Did he not think that Rob could keep them safe? If it came to it, Rob could take Sam down in a second. Justin would take longer of course, and there was the whole thing with Rob's back.

“Uncle Rob!” Bran’s demand cut into his deliberations, and with a quick look of apology to Sam, he and the boys left.

By the time they got back to the cabin, all three of them were in a mutinous silence. Bran wouldn’t let go of Toby’s hand, Toby was trying to yank free, and Rob? He followed and knew that he was completely fucked. There was more to Bran and Toby’s story than he was aware of. This wasn’t just about protecting a little brother.

“Can I talk to you, Bran?”

“No, Toby is tired.”

Bran didn’t even check him, following Toby into their room and shutting the door.

I should go in. I need to find out what has happened. Why is Bran so scared? Rob was sick at the assumptions he couldn’t help but make. He lasted about thirty minutes, when all was peaceful and then quietly opened the door. Toby was fast asleep, Bunny wrapped in his arms, but Bran sat bolt upright in bed, staring at the door as if he’d known that Rob would go in. Rob sat on the end of the bed and didn’t know where the hell to start.

“Did someone hurt you? After your mom died, when you were looked after?” he asked.

Bran tipped his chin, a mutinous expression on his face. “No. Because no one can hurt us. I won’t let them. Not even you.”

Another layer of hardness eased inside Rob. His nephew was so strong and brave, watching out for his little brother, facing off against Sam, refusing to allow the world to hurt them. He still had questions.

“Did someone make you think you had to be like that? Did someone hurt you?" he persisted, feeling so out of his depth. He needed a child psychologist. Or at least a member of the family he was leaving the boys with. Maybe he should go and get Ashley. Might they respond better to her than to Sam and Justin?

"I said no. Anyway, no one cares anyway. You didn't find us or care what happened to us,” Bran stated. “But they made us go with you anyway so they didn’t care either.”

Bran lay down then, turning his back to Rob and snuggling close to Toby. Rob had this weird feeling that Toby was Bran’s own kind of Bunny, easing his worries, keeping him calm.

Christ, this is all so freaking convoluted.

Rob sat for a while. Wasn’t he caring by wanting to provide a home for them? Wasn’t he showing that they meant something to him by finding them a forever family? Of course, they wouldn’t realize that until he was gone, but they didn’t need him to care. They needed someone else here to care.

“I do care,” Rob murmured, and he wasn’t lying. For the first time ever in his adult life he was thinking about the place in his heart where love was kept. He saw a slight shift of the covers, indicating that Bran had heard him. “Good night, Bran.”

He left them, shut the door the way they always wanted, and dug his notebook out of his backpack. Writing this down might make sense, and he wrote down the names of the potential parents. Sam and Justin were still at the top of the list. He and Justin had a connection, and he would feel obligated to help. That much Rob knew. Also, they were good people, clearly in love, and hell, Sam must be strong to be able to hold Justin at night and chase away his demons. Their apartment wasn't big, but this cabin was permanently empty by all appearances, so there was no reason Sam and Justin couldn’t be parents in here.

Then there was Gabe and Ashley, two children already, one on the way, but she was lovely, and Gabe seemed a strong, steady, devoted husband. Nate and Jay were on his periphery as well. They were already uncles, and the boys would slot in very well.

He added therapy to the list. Because, hell, there were things wrong here, and him leaving would make everything worse.

Unless they hate you, then they will be glad you’re leaving.

When he’d finished writing it all down, the picture was better than he’d been thinking. One of those couples would have the boys, and then he could leave and find his own way to make things right for himself. The doctors had said three months. He’d already used up a month. Rolling his neck, he felt the satisfying crack and then pulled a soda from the fridge, determined to decompress.

Did it surprise him to find Aaron sitting on his back porch? Probably not. He’d been half expecting him to arrive all day.

“What are you doing here?”

Aaron stood. “Been thinking about this all day,” he said, then covered the short distance between them and gripped the back of Rob’s neck, tilting it a little and then kissing him, pushing him back, hard, against the wall of the cabin, so forcefully that pain spiked up Rob’s spine. He could tell Aaron to cool it, or go with the flow, and fuck, he was already turned on, conditioned to lust as soon as he laid eyes on the man. So he switched their positions to ease the pressure on his spine, and it was him pushing Aaron against the wood, deepening the kiss, with Aaron gripping his hair and yanking his head back forcefully, biting his neck, then soothing it with his tongue.

“You wanna take this inside? I'll hold my hand over your mouth, so you're quiet.”

Rob wasn’t taking what they had anywhere near where the kids slept. He wanted Aaron as he wanted a random guy in a club. He wanted hard and fast and desperate, and he wanted it now. But he also wanted nasty and sordid and all the things that defined his quick hookups.

“No,” Rob snapped, “not inside.”