Zane would no more fall in love with Ty than he would sprout wings and fly.
ZANE watched the brothers tromp off down a trail. He could hear them talking for a few moments, but then they were too far away.
“They seem close,” Zane observed, shifting on the log to lean his elbows on his knees as he studied the greenery under his boots.
“They were tied together like a knot when they were little,” Earl confirmed. “Caused all kinds of hell. But then, Grady brothers always have. Been that way since my daddy and his brothers was little.”
Zane smiled. Trouble ran in the family, obviously. “Always wondered what it’d be like to have a brother,” he confided in Earl.
“Well, you practically got one now,” Earl pointed out as he gestured with his half-eaten sandwich.
Glancing at the older man, Zane tipped his head as he turned the half of his sandwich on its side to take another bite. “Yeah, I guess.” He wouldn’t exactly call his relationship with Ty a brotherly one. But then, they were in West Virginia…. His lips quirked before he took a bite, aware of Earl’s scrutiny and trying not to laugh.
“Dick tells me you took care of my boy,” Earl said a full minute later.
Zane slowly lifted his gaze to meet his eyes but didn’t comment. He didn’t want to talk about New York with anyone—and definitely not with Ty’s father. Earl nodded, that look about him like he felt he might have an idea of what they’d dealt with. “Bad enough you don’t want to talk about it, huh?” Zane swallowed hard and reached for his canteen, looking blankly out into the forest. “You military, Garrett?”
The abrupt change in the line of questioning threw Zane for a second. He figured at that moment that he ought to have expected it. All the Gradys did that jump-the-tracks train of thought thing; he suspected it was a way to throw their quarry off guard. It worked, he thought with a sniff. “No, sir.”
“That’s too bad,” Earl commented sincerely.
Zane frowned and turned his chin back. “Why?”
“Military gives you a state of mind to deal with those kind of things,” Earl told him sympathetically. “Man ain’t made to deal without help.”
Zane had to admit the man had a point. Truth was, he wasn’t handling parts of his job-related past well, even with outside help. But the comment rankled, regardless. “Just because I’m not military doesn’t mean I can’t handle the job.”
“Didn’t say you couldn’t, son,” Earl told him evenly.
Zane nodded slowly, finishing the last couple bites of his sandwich and watching as Earl stood and walked a few steps away. Zane tipped his head to one side. He hadn’t quite figured out how to take Earl Grady yet.
“Damn fool boy needs someone on his six,” Earl murmured as he looked out into the woods where Ty and Deuce had disappeared.
“Ty’s very good at his job,” Zane defended quietly.
Earl nodded and turned back to him. “Yes, he is. You know anything about tracking?” he asked.
Zane raised an amused eyebrow, acknowledging another jump in the tracks. “Not on a mountain,” he answered.
“Where then?”
“In a city. The Texas flats where I grew up. Or on a computer.”
Earl wrinkled his nose. “Computers,” he repeated with a shake of his head. “Can’t wrap my mind around them.”
“They’re the new frontier,” Zane told him wryly. “Not many places like this left,” he said, pointing his finger up and circling.
“Mountains, they got their dangers, just like anywhere else. I been a lot of places. So has Ty. But these mountains are in my blood, and they’re in Ty’s blood too.” Earl went quiet, looking around them speculatively. “They’ve served Tyler well,” he finally decided. “If you can survive here, you can survive just about anywhere,” he claimed.
“I guess I’ll find out then,” Zane finally answered. “But you won’t be carrying my ass out,” he said with a slight smile, echoing a comment Earl had made about one of Ty’s Recon friends.
Earl snorted. “We’ll see shortly,” he said with a smirk.
A little bothered, Zane slid his empty sandwich wrapper in his bag and stood up, pacing away to the edge of the clearing. He didn’t like the constant air of doubt Earl exuded, as if he wasn’t quite sure Zane—or any of them, for that matter—was capable of doing what needed to be done. It was similar to the attitude Ty’d had toward him when they’d first met.
He stood in place for a while, arms crossed, looking down the hillside at the thick undergrowth that rambled over rocks and broken trees about ten feet below them, doing his best to zone out and listen to the woods around him. After several minutes, he took a slow, deep breath, sighed, and went to move, but he paused as a small mouse darted out of the brush and dodged around his feet before disappearing again. Zane nearly chuckled until more movement caught his eyes, and he looked down.
“Earl?”
“Yeah?”
“Come here, please.”
Earl walked up behind him, and Zane pointed down.
There was a snake sliding out of the brush, its nearly camouflaged brown body stretching out as it slithered near one of Zane’s boots, intent on the mouse it had been stalking. It kept moving, and Zane’s eyes widened as the snake got longer and thicker.
”Never seen a snake before?” Earl asked as he frowned and squinted at it. “Cold for her to be out.”
Zane turned a disbelieving glare on him. “Is this particular one dangerous or can I kick it away?”
“That’s a rattler, boy,” Earl said with a careless wave of his hand. “You just wait ’til she decides to move and hope she don’t startle,” he advised, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to just stand there while a poisonous snake slid around your ankle. “She knows you’re there already; she can see heat.”
Just at that moment, the snake coiled itself and raised its head, its tail moving and emitting the rattling sound Zane was all too familiar with from growing up on a horse ranch in Texas.
“Now she’s pissed,” Earl observed calmly, taking a cautious step backward. “Them boots of yours leather?”
“Leather and canvas,” Zane answered, swallowing. But that wasn’t going to help if she bit above them. She was within easy striking distance of his knees.
“That there’s a timber rattler. Pretty rare. Not usually mean, but you must have interrupted her dinner,” Earl said, keeping his voice down. “Real poisonous. But don’t worry,” he was sure to add. “Usually when a snake strikes defensively it’s a dry bite.” Zane glanced at him quickly. “Means they don’t load up no venom before they bite,” Earl explained, as if he was teaching a class rather than talking to a man about to be bitten by a snake.