Page 27 of Finding Jeremy
His little speed demon. Fuck yeah. That, more than even the scratches along his hips and the beard burn on his shoulder, was the claim he’d wanted for years. No way he was letting them down, any of them. Their little family might be unconventionalfrom the point of view of an outsider looking in, but as Jeremy spotted Maddox striding around the side of the house and heard the jangle of Loki-Bear’s tags as the big dog bounded to his feet and rushed to greet him, he realized that there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for them and them for him.
Chapter 11
(Grayson)
Nothing in the world had ever had the same effect at calming his nerves as wind therapy, and the winding roads leading up into the hills outside of Foggy Basin had some of the best scenery in the world. Towering trees edged the road, glistening ponds dotted the countryside, and fields of horses; so many horses.
As a boy he’d loved to ride the ones at his grandfather’s ranch, a sixty-acre spread where his grandfather raised sheep for the wool Gray’s grandmother used in her yarn making and weaving. Watching her dye it had always been a special kind of fascinating, since fall hues had always been favorites of hers. Browns and yellows, oranges and crimsons, like the leaves when the seasons changed, there was always something whimsical about the hues she chose and the blankets she crafted from the squares she wove on her loom.
It was the best way to spend a rainy day, cozied up in the chair next to hers, listening to her tell stories of her childhood in the Ozark Mountains, where she’d been born. Barefoot and fishing with homemade fishing poles, swimming in creeks, going to school in a little country schoolhouse with just three rooms. His Grandmother’s stories were glimpses of the past much different from the ones contained in history books.
“Your great-grandfather never learned to read very well,” she said. “But he loved to hear us read to him at night from whatever books we’d gotten from the library or our readers from school. He’d smoke cherry tobacco in his pipe and rock in his chair near the fireplace, eyes half closed as he listened.”
“What were his favorites?” Gray asked.
“Ohh, he had so many, but the ones he loved the most were the little penny press novels about outlaws, real and fictional,” she explained. “Like the ones about Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and Wild Bill Hickock. He loved tall tales too. I must have read him the stories of Paul Bunyon, John Henry, Pecos Bill, and Mike Fink a dozen times over; oh, how he loved them.”
In his mind’s eye, he could picture her, nimble fingers drawing the comb through the strands to make sure each line of wool lay just right and didn’t pull the edges in. She’d always worn her long, silver hair in a braid that stretched past the middle of her back, the shimmering strands bright against her tanned, weathered skin. She loved fly fishing in the mornings and taught him to tie the lures they used to entice dinner onto the line. She’d taught him how to clean and gut the fish too, but it was his grandfather who’d always fry them up while Gray and his grandmother were out in the garden gathering whatever was ripe to add to the bounty on their table. She’d share stories then too, and he’d always listen, fascinated, while he stuffed as many berries in his mouth as he placed in the baskets they’d carried for harvesting.
“Sometimes he’d have us read newspaper to him too, but he never cared for politicians and felt like the things they printed were so far removed from the life we lived that it might as well have been on another planet. He said most of it was depressing too. War and disasters, suffering and loss.”
He could hear her voice in his head this morning, just as bright and clear as if she were right behind him on the bike. She’d have ridden too if he’d had one back while she was still living. He knew she’d have loved the sight of the swans on the lake with their brood of tiny, newly hatched babies, fanned out between them, cutting lines across the otherwise still surface of the pond. Chaos was in the lead, and Reggie was in between Gray and Chaos, with a bright blue sky overhead, dotted with only a handful of wispy clouds.
They couldn’t have asked for a prettier day for riding, though those horses in the field left him wondering if Jeremy had ever been on the back of one. If not, it might be fun to find a place to take him so he could try it sometime. Hell, Gray would love to get up on the back of one of those powerful animals again, even if it meant taking lessons. In fact, that might be the best way to go, if Jeremy was interested. Gray knew his own skills were rusty. Learning together, or in Gray’s case, relearning, would be another great way to bond. It would be nice to have that connection to his past again.
“When I was your age, I used to ride a pony to school,” his grandmother had told him one day when Gray was about eight or nine. “We each had one, and we were responsible for feeding them, keeping their stalls clean, and their coats brushed. My mama had a pretty, dapple gray that she rode whenever she went into town. She named him Graybeard and always got him an apple or some carrots from the market as a treat for getting her there.”
“I remember this one fall, when the snow came early, Mama was out on the road when the wind started swirling the flakes around her. She said Graybeard never faltered and never once let Mama take the wrong path. He brought her straight home just as Papa was saddling his horse, getting ready to go out to look for her.”
The time he’d spent on their ranch was one of several reasons he’d never had any desire to live in the city. Too packed, too crowded, too full of noise, stone, glass, and people too busy to take a moment to just pause, breathe, and appreciate the beauty in the world. Gray was grateful that he was still able to appreciate it after so many years behind bars, yet as he guided his Fat Boy up the road towards Lookout Point, he spotted a trio of deer just inside the tree line, one of them with the telltale spots of a fawn.
The deer froze for a moment, then whirled and bolted deeper into the woods, the rumble of the bikes was likely way too much for them. As he glimpsed the white tails fleeing, all Gray could think about was taking Jeremy camping and spending mornings walking along the river with him, chuckling at the antics of the raccoons and the majestic stillness of the herons and cranes as they stood along the water’s edge, hoping for their next meal to come swimming along.
The last time he’d seen a raccoon, it had been digging for mussels in the bank of a creek he’d been fishing in, just three short weeks before he’d gotten locked up. He’d taken his eyes off the fat, furry fucker for just long enough to reel in a bass, only to glance up from taking it off the hook to see the fat bastard trying to open his cooler. Man, his grandmother would have gotten a kick out of that and probably offered the waddling little critter a snack too. Picturing her face and the laugh lines in it, he couldn’t help but be reminded of another of the stories she’d shared.
“Your great-grandfather loved to laugh, and my goodness, he had a big, booming one that would echo over the hills. Even when times were lean and things were difficult, he’d say something a little bit colorful, just to bring the smile back to my mama’s face. Was rare to see him lose his temper, and never with us kids; he was always patient and looked to teach us, rather than holler about things that went wrong.”
“He wouldn’t stand for injustice, though, and he believed that everyone should be treated fairly and equally, no matter their gender or the color of their skin. He might have been the man of the house, but he valued my mama’s opinion and never made decisions that would affect the family without consulting her. If she wasn’t on board or asked him to look for another way, it didn’t happen. He always trusted her intuition when she told him that something felt off. More often than not she was right too, and he’d wind up thanking her for keeping him from making a bad decision.”
Gray had never gotten to come out to her, let alone introduce her to anyone special in his life, but he knew she’d have loved Jeremy and not minded in the slightest that his chosen life partner was another man. Love and acceptance had been among the many lessons he’d learned from her and his grandfather, who’d prized honesty above any other trait and encouraged Gray to always own up to his mistakes and do his best to make good when he’d done wrong.
He was just glad the older man hadn’t been around to see him get arrested or learn the truth of what he’d gotten locked up for. So fuckin’ stupid to even get mixed up in that goddamn scheme. Nothing was ever as harmless as it seems, even when it was just some nameless, faceless company they’d been looking to get over on. It had still been wrong, still been theft, still been against the law, despite Gray’s efforts to convince himself that they’d be modern-day Robin Hoods or something of the sort,robbing the greedy insurance company to line their own rather threadbare pockets.
Yeah, he’d deserved the time he’d served, though it still pissed him the fuck off that he’d landed in that jackpot thanks to someone he’d considered a friend. A brother.
It wasn’t me.
Gray found it hard to believe that was the truth.
Lookout Point came into view with a suddenness that startled him; he’d been so busy reflecting on the past and how to weave the best parts of it into his future.
The lot was empty, with several spots beneath a towering tree that they parked under to keep the sun off their bikes. They left their helmets on their machines as they headed for the steps leading up to the horseshoe-shaped hilltop lined with concrete seats that offered the perfect vantage point for looking out over the valley they’d just ridden through. Foggy Basin was off to the right, though only the water tower was visible above the tree line.
“Man, I haven’t been up here in years,” Reggie remarked as he sat and crossed his arms on the railing, staring out over the fabulous view. “Remember when we all rode up here for Theresa and Drake’s wedding? I can’t believe it’s been sixteen years and they’re still going strong.”
“That’s one tough old lady,” Chaos said. “I’ve always admired the way she’s been able to turn his custom tattoos into stained glass art pieces; that takes some real talent right there, and it’s all self-taught, the both of them.”
Gray let out a long, low whistle. “Sixteen years feels like a lifetime ago,” he admitted. “I don’t even remember what sixteen feels like.”
