Page 39 of Touch of Innocence
EIGHTEEN
It had happened. Probably, if not the very worst thing that could, it had to be pretty close. Sam had found out about most of it, and there was no way that Gunner was going to be able to worm out of telling him the rest.
“Hey! Why are you guys looking so serious?” Ruby’s voice called as she came in through the kitchen door. Gunner gulped, looking nervously at Sam, wondering how much of a scene he was going to make. Was this a reprieve?
Neither of them answered, but Ruby didn’t seem to notice. She walked in, licking at a bright popsicle, probably orange flavored but no orange in the history of the world would be that brilliant, almost toxic, a color.
“I saw a fancy car pulling out. Who was it?” Ruby continued, flopping down on the couch, draping herself over it with the ease of the very young. She almost looked like she didn’t have bones at all, and Gunner, for a moment, actually couldn’t speak through the lump in his throat.
He cared about this kid. He cared about the whole family. And he’d potentially brought danger here. What if Ruby had been here when the agents had been there speaking to them? Gunner had been lucky so far.
Or had he? Mike had ratted him out to the cops. Not that Gunner could blame them, the FBI sort of had ways of making it seem like it was best for you to cooperate. But it did mean that Mike, at the very least, knew that the FBI was looking for him.
It was all crashing down, and maybe that’s why Gunner found his eyes stinging as he looked at Ruby, so innocent as she sat on the couch. His hand still tingled from holding Sam’s in his own, but Sam had taken that hand away. How long before he took everything else, too?
“Come on,” Sam muttered under his breath, directing the order right to Gunner so that Ruby probably didn’t hear anything at all. Sam grabbed Gunner’s wrist, but it didn’t feel friendly or loving. There was a threat there, ominous and looming over them both, and Gunner would suddenly rather be anywhere in the world than with Sam and his cold, dull eyes.
“See ya, kiddo,” Gunner said to Ruby, who looked at them both with big blue eyes that suddenly made Gunner question how much she might know. A look of worry crossed her face, and Gunner felt, at that moment, that she was wondering just as much as he was if he was telling the truth with those three words.
Those enormous blue eyes followed them out, and Gunner refused to let himself look back. Despite his fears, he had to let himself think that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be the last time that he saw the inside of the farmhouse, or her, or Isaac, or Ben, or any of the other people that lived there.
As soon as they were outside, Sam dropped Gunner’s arm, and there was a look on the other man’s face that hadn’t been there for a while now. A look that Gunner had hoped never to see directed his way again—like Gunner was dirt beneath the rubber soles of Sam’s shoes. Like Gunner was nothing but a hot mess.
It had bugged him back then—when they had first met—but now it was devastating. Or would be, if Gunner let it be. This man had looked at him with love, with real caring, and it seemed like that might just be gone forever.
“Tell me everything this time,” Sam’s voice was low and urgent, and fury shimmered in his eyes and hung in the air over his head, almost as visible as a thunderhead. It was a demand, and Gunner didn’t make the mistake of thinking otherwise.
With a sigh, Gunner let his weight settle down onto the patio stairs, right near the bottom, feeling the worn, splintered wood against his ass and upper legs. He looked up at Sam, who didn’t choose to sit, and shook his head a little before he started to speak.
“I don’t talk about it much,” Gunner admitted, only that wasn’t entirely accurate. A better way to put it was that he didn’t talk about itever.“But a couple of years ago, I did some time.” He paused and then looked up at Sam, barely able to see his face since it was lit by the bright sky behind him. “In jail.”
There was no surprise in Sam’s face, but there was disappointment. Crushing, pushing down on Gunner, threatening to shove him right down through the old wood of the steps, Sam looked at him, and even with the aura of sunlight around him, Gunner could see that his lips were set in a firm, uncompromising line.
“For what?” Sam asked, and Gunner supposed—what with everything—that the man had earned himself an answer, an honest answer to this. After all, Sam already knew the worst. Was it even possible that Gunner could piss him off more than he already had?
“Armed robbery,” Gunner said, the bluntness of the words making Sam wince a little. At least, Gunner thought he saw that, though it was sort of hard to tell. “I was nineteen. It was my first offense. The judge gave me three years.”
Gunner could still remember his trial. They had asked him to sell out the rest of the gang, but he’d refused. The judge could have been a real dick about it, but she’d been sympathetic. Three years for armed robbery was a pretty light sentence, and he knew it.
That light sentence, though, had been what had ended up screwing Gunner over, in the end. His ex had been sure that Gunner must have sold him out, or at least, that’s what their friends had told him. When Gunner had gotten out, he’d seen the writing on the wall, and that’s why he had been running ever since.
How to try to explain all of this to Sam? Sam, who was looking down at him, who had clearly never had even a thought of doing what Gunner had done. Sam, who had gotten himself into trouble by dropping out of college, not by hitting up a liquor store.
“You didn’t tell me,” Sam spoke slowly, his voice measured, and someone who wasn’t paying attention could probably be forgiven for making the mistake of thinking that he was calm. Gunner knew better. Sam was actually shaking, trembling with rage. “You came into my town, into my house, into my bed. You put me at risk. You put my family at risk.”
Sam’s voice got softer and quieter the more he spoke, but Gunner knew that it wasn’t because he was calming down. Quite the opposite. Sam was barely holding it together, and if he were a different sort of man, he would be screaming enough that the whole little town would be able to hear him.
What was there for Gunner to say? It was the truth, and they both knew it. Gunner had had those thoughts himself, but it had never occurred to him, it really hadn’t, how bad it would get. It had never occurred to him that he could play by the rules, keep his nose clean, and still have the cops come for him.
Did it matter that he hadn’t known? Looking up at Sam, Gunner had to think that it probably didn’t, not to Sam, anyway. And what about Isaac, so sweet and trusting, and Ben, who acted world-weary but who would protect his family as viciously as a mother bear protecting her cubs?
It was a mess and a mess that he had caused without meaning to. His actions from years ago, meant only to keep his lover at the time happy with him, had screwed him over to the point where he wasn’t sure that he could ever win forgiveness. He had paid for what he’d done, but not enough. Maybe never enough.
“And you told the cops that we were together,” Sam continued, his arms crossing over his chest, a condemning angel glaring down at Gunner, telling him that there was no, and could not be, forgiveness for him. “You didn’t even check with me. You know I feel weird about people knowing, but you told them anyway.”
The armed robbery, yes, Gunner would have to admit that that was his bad. But that seemed a little bit unfair for him, Sam telling him off for doing nothing more than what any American was supposed to do.
“They asked what I was doing. Should I have lied to the feds, Sammy? Is that what you really think I should have done? Would that have made you any happier than you are now?”
