“Yeah.”
With a kiss, Bede smothered the single word that contained a sky full of doubt, and pulled Galen into his arms. Held him tight.
“We’ll figure it out,” he whispered into Galen’s ear, a whisper in case the world might hear and disapprove. “And will you let me love you as we go along?”
The response was a tightening of Galen’s arms around his waist, and a heartfelt sigh, some of the tension leaving Galen’s shoulders.
Bede took that as a yes. The rest of it, they would figure out as the summer waned.
Chapter 37
Galen
Galen could not have prepared himself for how it felt being a criminal. Not that he was, of course, but driving from Denver to Cheyenne with the plastic bins in the truck bed made him feel he was being watched with every passing mile.
He was an upstanding citizen doing a secretive deed.
Before he grabbed the keys to the nearest truck, he’d sat in his tent and researched the most likely places to drop off the money and have it be accepted. Some places didn’t like anonymous donations, which his would most surely be. Other places had a more urgent need, perhaps, and would take anonymous donations, even if they were in cash and untraceable.
Then, after more research, he found out that he needed to buy microfiber cloths to wipe down the bins with, and he needed to wear plastic gloves—at all times—so his fingerprints wouldn’t be left behind.
He’d seen enoughForensic FilesandLaw & Orderto know how it worked. Or at least kind of. You couldn’t leave traces of yourself behind. That’s how they found you.
But since as no one was actively watching him and seeing how pleased the various charities would be to get the money, nobody would be.
Stopping at the WalMart, he purchased the cloths and the gloves and also a pad of paper, a pen, and a box of cheap letter-sized envelopes. A cheap cowboy hat. A thin red bandana.
Stopping at the Starbucks, conveniently located inside of the WalMart, he sat at one of the small tables and wrote three letters by hand, welcoming the charities to spend the money any way that they liked. He signed each letter with a single word:Anonymous. Then he made sure to remove the tape sayingMom’s Trip to Bermudafrom each bin.
The charities would not know the money was from the buying and selling of drugs. And since there would be no news announcements about missing money, they could accept it freely in the spirit in which it had been given.
It was in the middle of the day when he finally dropped the money off at the LGBTQ center, the food bank and, lastly, and most carefully, the women’s shelter.
Women’s shelter locations were highly guarded, and the address given out to only a trusted few, outside of the women seeing shelter there. He even went so far as to ring the unremarkable doorbell on an unremarkable and totally forgettable house in a cottonwood tree lined cul-de-sac on the edge of town.
A woman answered and stared at him with hard eyes. He gestured to the bin, gave her a slight wave, and stepped back, got into his truck, and drove away. He’d done that, rather than simply leaving it there because he wanted to make sure the shelter got the money.
For the LGBTQ center and the food bank, he’d been able to stroll into the lobby of each one and, hat tucked low, bandana pulled up, he made sure nobody was paying him any attention atall, and left the bins right there in plain sight. Then he made a casual, slow exit as if he’d ended up in the wrong place and was simply making his way out again.
He supposed, as he drove back to the valley, that he might keep an eye on the news to see if anyone reported remarkably mysterious plastic bins full of money showing up anywhere. Or maybe not. He’d done what he could. The money was no longer beneath the cot in his tent, and Bede’s connection with the money was now an altogether invisible and insignificant thread that nobody, nobody, nobody would be able to follow.
Bede was as safe as Galen could make him.
When he came up to the Ranchette’s Stop ’n Go exit, he paused the truck long enough to throw the gloves, cloths, and stationery away in a greasy-rimmed trash can next to the pump furthest from the red and white building. Then, feeling utterly terrified and pleased at the same time, he trundled back to the valley along Highway 211, slowly, watching the sun start its decent to the west, rolling down the windows of the truck to let the warm air dry the sweat from the back of his neck as he drove.
It wasn’t until he’d arrived in the valley, pulling up in the parking lot and seeing Bede standing there, that he realized what he’d done. Committed a crime so that Bede wouldn’t have to. Because he loved Bede and because Bede’s expression when he’d explained how the money could get him sent back to jail had terrified him.
And suddenly Bede was there, tugging Galen out of the truck, wrapping him in strong arms. Kissing him gently, whispering words of apology that Galen simply didn’t need.
Oh, he needed the kisses, light and sweet and peppered all over his face, but not the apology. Bede didn’t need to handle everything on his own, not anymore. And without the drug money, they could begin anew.
Galen had explained what he’d done and why. And when Bede had asked,And will you let me love you as we go along? Galen had almost melted in his arms.
“Yes,” said Galen, trying to be businesslike and failing, smiling up at Bede as the tension seemed to be lifting from his shoulders. “But first I need a shower. And then a hot meal. And from there, with my head clear, we can figure it out together.”
Galen was able to grab a quick shower, with Bede impatiently waiting and not joining him because, for some reason, Gordy and OwenandToby all decided they needed before-lunch showers, too. And while their relationship might be something that was known, there was no sense blasting it all over the place, at least not yet.
They didn’t have a moment alone. While they ate together, Toby and Owen told the tale of what happened during Galen’s absence.
