Max let him have his way, enjoying the contrast of the icy-cold truck against his back and Jed’s warm body beneath his roaming hands. Jed made him forget himself, forget they were outside in the freezing, wet, muddy yard, forget everything, except….
An unwelcome thought flashed into his mind, breaking through the haze of Jed’s scratchy chin and hard, unyielding muscle. “The boat shed.”
Jed released him and raised an eyebrow. “You want to go in there?”
Max laughed. “Not at this time of year. I don’t know if I locked it.”
Jed stared at him for a moment, then stepped back. “Go inside. I’ll check.”
Max watched him go, unmoving. “Hey, Jed?”
Jed turned and walked backward. “Yeah?”
“Can you see if I left the cordless phone in there? I think I’ve left it somewhere really stupid this time.”
Max left Jed’s infectious laughter behind and let himself into the cabin. It was dark and cold, but he left the lights off and made his way to the kitchen, tipped food into Flo’s bowl, then put the kettle on the stove for the morning. He expected Jed to reappear any minute. When he didn’t, Max got impatient and stamped back into his boots to go looking for him.
He picked his way across the yard, taking a detour to check he’d shut the chickens away. He had, obviously, or else Jed had come along and done it for him.
Jed.
That’s what he was doing. Where the hell was he?
The light of the boat shed was still on. Max crossed the yard with Flo at his side and pushed open the door. “Hey, did you find….”
His voice fell away. Jed stood by the old shelving unit at the back of the shed, an open box in front of him, an old photograph clutched in each hand, and his face deadened with a cold hard fury that shook Max’s bones.
“What thefuckis this?”
Chapter Twenty
JEDSTAREDat the grainy black-and-white images. They were old, so fucking old, but he remembered the events they depicted like they’d happened yesterday. Without warning, he was nineteen years old again, staring war in the face for the very first time.
The screams, the smoke, the blood. Fuck. He remembered the blood. Could feel it. Could smell it. Fuck. He remembered the blood.
“Jed?”
The boat shed slammed back into focus. He spun around. Max stood in the open doorway, his eyes wide and his face a picture of innocent confusion.
Innocence.
Did such a thing really exist? Jed’s heart said yes, but the haunting pictures in his hands told him otherwise. Anger surged in his veins, cold, bitter anger that consumed everything in its path like a wildfire in a drought-hit forest. “What thefuckis this?”
Max flinched. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Jed tossed the photos onto a nearby workbench. “Why have you got these?”
“I don’t even know what they are.” Max ventured closer and frowned. “Nope. Never seen them before.”
Jed laughed. It was a harsh, humorless sound. A few minutes ago, the only thing on his mind had been the feel of Max’s lithe, beautiful body writhing beneath him. Now he was so mad he couldn’t think straight. “You can’t be that drunk. They’re in your workshop.”
“Yeah,” Max countered. “And half the stuff in here isn’t mine. And why the hell are you talking to me like that? I’ve never seen these before, I swear.”
Jed stared hard at Max, watching him take in the images—the sand, the helicopters, the guns. Part of him was surprised such photographs even existed—war had been different back then… combat without a news camera shoved in your face—but the rest of him was fast becoming coolly detached.
He analyzed Max, searching every facet of his face for telltale signs of dishonesty. For a long moment, there was none, and his anger began to dissipate. There had to be an explanation, a logical bend in the road that had led them here… led them to be bizarrely caught between Jed’s past and his present.
Then something else flashed unbidden into his mind, something he’d ignored for far too long. “What’s your name?”