Wild Trail (Clean Slate Ranch #1)(73)

“I might know where Miles keeps a jar of apple pie moonshine. It’ll put extra hair on your chest.”

More of that rusty sound, and then, “Okay, sure.”

Wes retrieved the Mason jar of alcohol and two shot glasses. Mack was leaning heavily against the couch cushions, hands flat on his thighs, and the sight of Mack’s right hand made Wes fumble the glasses. The knuckles were swollen and one was cut. “What happened to your hand?”

“I punched Colt in the mouth.”

On a list of possible answers to his question, that was down there under I got into a brawl with a pro-wrestler and I had to punch a mountain lion before it ate a tourist. “Why did you hit Colt?”

Mack’s face pinched, and he seemed stuck between wanting to cry and wanting to rage. “Remember when I said Geoff was killed by friendly fire?”

“Sure, that’s an impossible thing to forget, especially when...” A horrible idea formed in Wes’s mind, too awful to acknowledge. “No fucking way.”

“Shot came from Colt’s gun. He’s known this whole goddamn time.” Mack curled both hands into fists, even though that had to hurt his wounded knuckles.

“I’m so sorry.” Wes’s heart twisted for Mack’s obvious pain. He’d sought out Wes for comfort, and Wes had no idea what to say or do.

No, he could do something. “Stay here a sec.”

He went into the kitchen for a bag of frozen corn, which he put over Mack’s swollen knuckles. Then he poured them each a shot of moonshine. Carefully arranged one of the glasses in Mack’s left hand.

“What are you doing?” Mack said in a soft, raspy voice.

“Taking care of you. Isn’t that what boyfriends do?”

Mack swallowed hard, nodded, then downed the shot. Wes drank his, enjoying the burn in his throat and the sweet flavors of apple and cinnamon. Mack coughed. “Wow, that’s...interesting.”

“A few more of these and you’ll forget your troubles.”

“Not likely.”

Okay, Mack wasn’t ready for jokes yet. He poured two new shots, anyway. “Okay, so if Colt has known he fired the shot all these years, why did he suddenly confess?”

“It’s a long story with a messy middle, but when I confronted him over keeping a secret from me, he confessed. I swear, Wes, I thought I’d had some sort of psychotic break. Didn’t want to believe someone I’d thought of as a brother could keep something like that from me.”

He’d used past tense about Colt. This was bad.

Wes handed Mack the second shot. “So you punched him.”

“I wanted to bash his face into the barn floor, but Reyes was there and held me back.”

Thank God for Reyes.

“Did Colt tell you why he never admitted the truth?” Wes asked.

Mack grunted, then tossed back the shot. “Said he was scared of ruining our friendship. He didn’t want to heap that on my shoulders while I was grieving.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I’m too busy being pissed off at him to give a shit if he was sincere or not. He killed my boyfriend.”

Wes had an odd visceral reaction to Mack calling anyone else his boyfriend, and then told himself to behave. This was boyfriend past-tense. Ex-boyfriend of the deceased variety, and not a threat. Not someone Mack was going to dump him for, for being too needy. “And you need time to accept this new truth, to process everything he said.”

“Not just what he said.”

“Oh God, what else?” Wes pitched back his second shot.

“After Reyes made sure I didn’t kill Colt on the spot, he followed me back to our cabin and decided it was time to tell me that the day before he died, Geoff confessed to him that he’d cheated on me. Again.”

Again?

It took Wes a moment to find his rational voice and asked, “Geoff cheated on you?”

Mack nodded, his eyes on that jar of liquor. “First time was after we’d been together about three years. He said I’d been distant, obsessed with work, and he blamed my close friendships with Colt and Reyes. He said he was jealous, so he slept with one of his co-stars on some commercial he’d booked.”

“And you bought that?” Wes’s tone had been sharp, but goddamn, that sounded a hell of a lot like victim blaming to him.

“I loved him.” Mack’s fractured tone made Wes forget the liquor. He pulled Mack into another hug, uncertain what to do or say. The way Mack sagged into his embrace suggested he’d done the right thing.

“I know you did,” Wes whispered. “I’m so sorry all of this is happening.”

“Reyes had the same reason for not telling me about the second time. I was grieving, and then he had his own injuries to deal with after a fire, and then time passed and it didn’t seem worth it.”

“You believe him?”

“Yes. I’ve known Reyes most of my life. If he’d thought there was any real value in me knowing about the second time Geoff cheated on me, he’d have told me. Guess after Colt got caught, Reyes figured he should confess. I think he was trying to make me less mad at Colt, but it didn’t work. Big difference between not telling someone his boyfriend cheated and not telling someone you killed the boyfriend.”

All of that extra info certainly painted a clearer picture about why Mack had initially seemed to distrust actors. Geoff hadn’t done him any favors in that department, but Wes would never cheat.