This Good Man. Janice Kay Johnson
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“I guess. I thought it was propane. I mean, there’s a tank outside the lodge.”
“But not the cabins.”
He nodded after a minute.
“And you know your brother was here this morning to take a look. He showed Roger where the fire started. It wasn’t near an electrical outlet or in the kitchen area where there were any appliances.”
Your brother. He hadn’t gotten used to those words. They made him feel...twitchy. As if he couldn’t sit still.
“I know you boys are talking about it.” Paula sounded weary. “I wouldn’t normally encourage any of you to rat on each other, but this is serious. Even scary. Please come to Roger or me—or Reid,” she added, “if you hear anything that makes you uneasy.”
That was one of the reasons he wasn’t settling in here. It was knowing the only reason they’d taken him was Reid. That Reid was like their real son, and Caleb was only a favor they were doing for him.
He nodded, even though he didn’t know if he was really agreeing to anything, and asked, “Can I go?”
“Yes. Thank you, Caleb. If you see Isaac, will you send him in?”
“Um...sure.”
He went outside to look for Diego, who’d been grilled right before Caleb. Fun Sunday—taking turns facing an inquisition. And after they’d all busted their asses helping to put out the fire last night.
He found Diego splitting wood, watched by two of the other guys, Damon and Isaac. They must have been talking, because they all turned and looked at him.
“Paula wants you,” Caleb said to Isaac, a lanky, beak-nosed seventeen-year-old. He was some kind of math genius who’d helped Caleb with his geometry the other day.
Isaac nodded and left. He never had much to say. He’d probably been doing nothing but listening to what the other two were saying.
Diego lifted the ax and swung. Thud. A chunk of wood split and fell from the big round of fir they used as a base.
Damon glanced over his shoulder, as if to make sure Isaac was really out of earshot. “Palmer doesn’t think Isaac was in his cabin when Roger woke everyone up,” he said.
“What?” Diego stared at him, the ax dangling from his hand. “How would Palmer know? He’s, like, two cabins away.”
“That’s what he says. Only Apollo came out.”
“Did anyone ask Apollo?”
Damon sneered. “Like he’d say. They’re tight.”
“Tight enough to lie about something like that?” Caleb asked, almost reluctantly.
“Shit, yeah!”
“I don’t know.” Diego sounded doubtful.
“What?” Damon stepped forward, his stance aggressive. “You’re saying Palmer’s lying?”
“I’m saying maybe Isaac was sound asleep and slower to get up. He’s been here, like, three years. If he wanted to set fires, why wouldn’t he have done it before?”
“Who says he hasn’t? None of the rest of us have been here that long.”
Caleb shook his head. “This is stupid. We don’t know anything. We shouldn’t be making accusations because somebody said somebody else said.”
Damon swung an angry stare at Caleb. “Who are you calling stupid?”
Caleb balanced on his feet in case this asshole decided to make it physical. “Nobody. I’m saying we should stick together, not whisper about each other.”
“You would say that.”
Caleb was getting pissed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re new here. You could have gone out easy. Come back in just as easy.”
“I don’t set fires,” he said flatly, when what he wanted to do was plant his fist in the guy’s mouth.
“Yeah? We don’t know you.”
“You mean, you don’t know shit,” Caleb shot back.
Damon launched himself. A moment later, they were rolling on the ground and Caleb had the satisfaction of feeling his knuckles connecting with Damon’s nose.
* * *
CALEB’S SPLIT LIP had crusted over. The black eye had faded to mauve and puce, but was still visible. Reid assessed the range of colors. The fight must have taken place in the neighborhood of three days ago. Today was Wednesday, so the injury had likely happened Sunday after the fire. When suspicion had begun to gather.
“What?” Caleb snarled. “I suppose you’re here to give me some big lecture about being a good boy and not fighting while your best buds the Hales are being generous enough to give me a home.”
They were in the front room of the lodge, temporarily alone. Determined to hide the tension his brother had awakened with his obvious hostility, Reid leaned back where he sat on the sagging sofa and clasped his hands behind his head. “I didn’t know you’d been in a fight until I saw your face,” he said mildly. “I came to see you.”
“Oh, right. Like they didn’t call you the minute it happened.”
Reid shook his head, his experienced eye dating the progression of the bruises. “Has to have been a few days.”
Caleb stared stubbornly at him.
Reid sighed. “This is not a school. They don’t call me every time you get in trouble.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Your privilege.” He raised his eyebrows. “Do you want to tell me?”
It was disconcerting seeing the sullenness gathered on a face that looked so much like his own. Caleb must be giving the Hales flashbacks. “What if I say no?” his brother challenged him.
“That’s your privilege, too.”
They sat in silence for what had to be a minute. Clattering came from the kitchen, but nobody appeared. It wasn’t Paula; Reid knew she’d driven up to Bend to load up on basics at Costco.
Caleb glanced toward the kitchen, but the two of them were far enough away to go unheard.
“There’s been a lot of shit talked since the fire,” he mumbled. “This one guy said I’m the newest, so it must be me who set it.” He shrugged. “I told him I didn’t, and to shut up.”
Reid’s mouth quirked. “He didn’t like that, I gather.”
“He’ll know better than to go for me next time. I broke his nose.”
God. How was he supposed to handle this? A fatherly lecture wouldn’t go over well, assuming he knew how to give one. All their father would have wanted to know was why Caleb had let a fist get through his defenses.
I’m not his father. I’m his brother.
Yeah, no on-the-job experience there, either. The feeling of helplessness didn’t sit well with Reid.
“So you know how to fight” was the best he could come up with.
Caleb bent his head so Reid couldn’t see his face. “I guess.”
“You miss being on sports teams?”
Caleb shrugged.
This was going nowhere. Reid decided to let it drop and get to what he’d come out here for. Besides visiting his brother, making sure he was okay.
“Dad called.”
“What?” The boy’s head snapped up. “You mean, that stuff about him thinking you were dead was bullshit?”
“He