That time, though, it had just been a shower, the closeness of their bodies, chests touching, thighs brushing, creating a swirl of intimacy around them. They bonded anew amidst bubbles of soap, the scent of lavender, the brush of a kiss on Bede’s shoulder meant to comfort and connect rather than arouse.
That was one of the things Bede had loved about Winston, among a thousand other things, his ability to create a life that was more than just the thrust and grind, getting off, getting high. The facade of a drug dealer’s life paled in comparison to one simple touch of Winston’s hand. The stroke of fingers on Bede’s cheek. A sleepy smile over early morning coffee.
Bede had disguised his joy in all of this beneath bluster and a sleek three-piece suit. But Winston knew better. He’d always known better and had told Bede as much with a single glance.
The pain of the memory of that day, the day he’d lost Winston, shocked him now, even as the water streamed down in a cloud around him.
In prison, he had not let himself feel any of this. It was as if the valley, its gentleness, was slicing through that bluster, right through the stone walls Bede had erected. Cutting to the bone of him, making him feel it for the very first time. The grief. The loss of love.
He scrubbed at his face, and shook himself all over, pretending that he had soap in his eyes and that was why they were watering.
The irony of it. After five years of concrete walls and razor wire and bad food and the cruelty of guards—none of this had broken him. But give him one hot shower, and he was crumbling into pieces.
He needed to get hold of himself. The lushness of the valley, the slow pace, the good food, the clean sheets that awaited him come nightfall—surely all of this was a fluke and not meant to last?
Chapter 6
Galen
Right after the arrival of his little team, Galen took them on a tour of the valley. He started with the mess tent, then the first aid hut, then the showers, and was sure he’d never met a more disinterested bunch.
According to their files, Toby and Owen had been friends in prison.
Owen was the sharp-eyed one with a sneaky smile that came and went without any reason that Galen could figure out. Toby was a little younger, with dirty-dishwater hair and sharp shoulders and ribs that showed when even the slightest breeze flattened his shirt to his torso.
As Galen led them along the newly widened path to the wooden paddock, painted cedar red, and small storage barn, they stuck close together and dragged their feet, like they were bored school children on a field trip.
When shown the pastures beyond which was a small band of horses grazed in the distance, they didn’t seem to care.
They weren’t even impressed when he took them to the dock that jutted out into Half-Moon Lake, which, in Galen’s mind, was the prettiest bit of water he ever had seen.
The blue water of the lake lapped at the pylons of the dock. Halfway out, the dock became a floating one, as the lake sank to cold depths quite quickly. At the far edges of the lake, pine trees stood, green-topped sentinels, and beyond that loomed the long, gray edge of Guipago Ridge.
Teams in the past, he’d heard, had swimming parties, but it was his secret wish to take himself down there on a moonless night and go for a silent, solitary swim in the dark. By himself. Just like he used to do in the pond back on his dad’s farm.
Not that he’d ask them, but not one of his team would want to go with him. Especially not Obadiah “Bede” Deacon.
Bede stuck out. He acted differently than Toby and Owen. As he followed behind the other two, he watched with silent, dark blue eyes. Like he was taking mental notes, but didn’t want to look like he was interested.
When they got to Half Moon Lake, Bede stood on the shoreline, holding his hands at his sides. He was looking over the mostly calm surface of the lake as if watching for the thing that might kill him if he wasn’t on the alert.
Tension radiated off shoulders that flexed beneath the prison-issued t-shirt, his whole body stiff, eyes searching, casting back and forth.
Which must be what five years behind bars did to a man, not to mention the many years spent dealing in drugs and spending ill-gotten gains. Still, Bede was just about the last person Galen would invite to go swimming with him.
“We are going to get some kayaks soon,” Galen told them. “Or maybe it’s canoes.”
Nobody answered him.
At the end of the tour, Galen took his team members to their respective tents.
Toby and Owen were in tent number twelve, and Bede was by himself in tent number eleven.
All of them seemed a little dubious about being dropped off without supervision beneath the sweetly spreading arms of pine trees, but it was a clean break Galen was willing to make. They needed to learn sometime, and it would help them grow into independence and responsibility.
Galen had only heard of two parolees who’d left the program. One of them was Kurt, who’d tried to kill another parolee by shoving him into a woodchopper. The other, Tom, had a fiancée and a future father-in-law, not to mention, by all versions of the story, the cutest baby in the world.
As for now, Galen was stuck with who he’d been assigned and they with him, and either he would succeed at being a team lead or he would fail. In the meantime, he hoped the members of his team would all shower and change before dinner because they smelled like he remembered Wyoming Correctional smelling, when he’d taken his training.
