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Chapter One
Tyler
The nightmare was the same again. The dust, the blood, the screaming. Then his own cries as he looked beyond his knee and saw nothing but torn and charred flesh. Tyler awoke with a start, dazed, sweating, disorientated. He thrashed on the bed before he took in the small bedroom, the sun streaming through the open curtains. He fell back with a gasp. The nightmares even invaded his afternoon naps now, while the flashbacks were at times near damn continuous. A sudden thud on the door sounded like a gun firing and startled him. He didn’t get visitors; who could it possibly be? He shuffled to the edge of the bed and put his feet down, relieved he’d kept his leg on to sleep. Down the short hallway, he saw a shape behind the frosted glass of the door. He only wore shorts, but he didn’t stop to pull on a T-shirt. He swung it open.
A man stood there, shorter than Tyler, maybe five feet ten and lean, wearing faded jeans and a white open-necked shirt. He was maybe twenty years older than Tyler, his dark hair streaked with silver, and handsome, with dark eyes.
Very handsome. For a moment, Tyler couldn’t speak. With a sinking feeling, he thought he knew who this was.
“Mr. Lockhart?”
“Yeah,” Tyler said, waiting.
“I’m Holden Maddison. Your new landlord.”
Tyler’s heart sank. Yeah, it was who he thought it was.
The guy’s gaze flickered down Tyler’s body, glancing at his prosthesis and moving back up again with unease written on his face. Tyler was used to the reaction. A twinge of pain right then just completed his misery.
“You’ve been expecting me, right?”
Tyler said nothing. He had nothing to say.
The man looked irritated. He sighed. “I sent you notice to leave over two months ago, Mr. Lockhart, and now I’m moving in, and I find you’re still here.”
Tyler swallowed. “Look, I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’m not causing trouble. I’m not in your house, I keep myself to myself. Why do you need me gone?”
Holden Maddison looked wrong-footed for a moment. “I need quiet to work.”
Tyler frowned. “And your house is there,” he gestured across the yard, “and mine is here. I don’t play loud music; I don’t have parties. Why exactly are you throwing me out?”
Holden stared at him for a moment. “You have till the end of the week.” He turned and walked away, across the driveway, away from the annex and into the main house, where he closed the door.
Tyler slammed the door. Prick. He had a feeling he knew the guy’s name and face, and had done when the letter of eviction had arrived. Was he famous? Had Tyler seen him on the TV? He couldn’t place him. Maybe he was, and that was why he was such an asshole. What did it matter who lived in the little apartment on his land? Tyler was paying rent for fuck’s sake. He never went anywhere or saw anyone, how exactly could he disturb Holden? He went back into the bedroom and sat down. His leg was hurting, an ongoing thing because his stump was shrinking and resting too hard into the prosthesis. He should have taken it off to sleep. He grabbed a jacket from the chair in the corner knowing he should rest his leg and apply more socks to the ever increasing layers that he was always fucking about with, sometimes five times a day, but instead, he slammed the door behind him and set off down the rutted track. Walking would help him clear his head, help him think what he was going to do when he became homeless.
The day was too hot, he realized belatedly. Too hot when the end of your has-been leg was jammed too deep into the prosthesis and sweating made it worse. Too fucking hot for limping along the fucking road in Clear Water fucking Creek like he had somewhere to go. He had nowhere to go and no one to see.
By the time he made it to what passed for the town square, with the doctor’s clinic, the bakery, the diner and Bluey’s bar, he was in agony. Why the fuck hadn’t he added extra socks? What the hell was the matter with him? Was he some sort of masochist?
He’d only been in the diner once. He could hardly afford to eat, never mind dine out, but if he didn’t sit down soon, he’d fall down. He was sweating profusely and his leg was all sorts of misery that threatened to undo him. Even worse than the usual phantom limb pain. He didn’t know how much money he had in his pocket, but they couldn’t refuse to serve him a glass of iced water while he rested, could they?
He climbed the steps to the diner torturously and pushed open the door. The blast of cold air that hit him almost made him groan in pleasure. He limped inside. It was a small, homey place, with only a couple of patrons enjoying a drink. Behind the counter stood a lean dark-haired man of average height in his thirties, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans and polishing steamy glasses fresh from a dishwasher. Tyler had intended to go straight to the counter and order the water. Instead he fell into the nearest booth, almost collapsing onto the padded couch.
He heard running footsteps as he sat with his eyes squeezed shut, breathing hard. “Are you okay, sir?”
Tyler cracked open his eyes. The guy had come out from behind the counter. He stood there with the cloth twisted in his hands, concern written all over his pretty face. For a moment, he looked like water in an oasis, the nicest thing Tyler had seen all day. Well, that was apart from the silver fox at his door not so long ago, but he didn’t need to think about that asshole.
“I’m okay,” he managed to say. He saw the guy glance down. “It’s hurting.”
“Take it off,” the man said. “I’ll get you a cushion and a cold cloth.” With that he hurried away, leaving Tyler looking after him in admiration. With relief, he unlocked the prosthesis. It wasn’t every day he got invited to take his leg off in public. Most people would have been afraid to look. He guessed this guy wasn’t most people. He took off the two layers of stump socks. He was wearing more socks and thicker plies as the stump shrunk and the socket was getting looser and looser. He needed a new one; that much was obvious. Easing the liner off his stump was a welcome balm. The air felt great; he needed to air the flesh and cool it down. He looked around and saw the other two patrons were engrossed, one on their phone, the other staring at a book.
Tyler turned sideways on the couch so he could rest what remained of his leg and concentrated on taking a few slow, deep breaths. While it helped to remove the leg, it didn’t help the phantom pain and sensation he still had in his non-existent foot.
He heard the guy come back. Setting a bowl on the table, he held out a cushion to Tyler. He glanced at his stump but Tyler didn’t see any revulsion in his eyes. When he took the cushion, he saw something on the inner side of the man’s right arm—a pink ridged scar that wound its way right up under the sleeve of his T-shirt. He was intrigued. Maybe it was the reason he was so sympathetic to Tyler’s plight.
He wedged the cushion under his stump, noticing the red raw skin along its edge with despondency.
“Cool it down now,” the guy said.
