Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(32)

“Tell me the truth: did you, or did you not, bang the redhead in Fort Lauderdale?”

“I plead the Fifth,” said Woodman, reaching for a bottle of water and unscrewing the top.

“The blonde in Marseille?”

“Da Fifth,” said Woodman in the same way the guys on Saturday Night Live used to say “da Bears.”

“That hot piece of ass in Rome?”

“Which one?” asked Woodman with a snort.

“Oh, man, I love Italian *.” Cain sighed, laughing along with his cousin until Woodman groaned in sudden pain. “Hey, when can you take more meds?”

“Whenever I want.”

“Then take one.”

Josiah narrowed his eyes. “I can wait.”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Cain. “Take it when you need to.”

“You know how easy it is to get addicted to that stuff?”

Cain gave him a look. “You’re not goin’ to get addicted. You’re in pain. C’mon, Josiah.”

“Don’t ‘Josiah’ me,” said his cousin. “I’m toughin’ it out. When I can’t stand it anymore, I’ll take one.”

That conversation had happened at ten o’clock in the morning, and Woodman had lasted until six o’clock in the evening without even so much as an Advil. Finally the pain was so excruciating, he couldn’t bear it anymore, and he took half a Vicodin that knocked him out.

As much as Cain didn’t like his cousin wading through the pain when there was a more comfortable alternative, it was these little flashes of spirit that Cain clung to, that convinced him that Josiah would find his way out of the darkness of his injury. Cain looked over at Woodman—at the blond hair that had started growing back in, at the golden beard that he refused to shave, and the thousands of freckles he’d inherited from his mother. Woodman was his flesh and blood, his memory keeper and friend, and Cain loved Woodman as much as his heart could love anyone.

Which is why he pledged to stay away from her and hoped—even as the mere thought bled his heart—that Ginger would be there to guide Josiah back into the light.

***

“Cain! Mein Sohn!”

“Servus, Papa!”

Cain stepped forward into the tack room and allowed his father to wrap him in an impromptu hug. He still wore the jeans and T-shirt he’d been driving in all day, and his father wore the boxer shorts he slept in and nothing else. It didn’t matter.

Cain couldn’t remember the last time his father had embraced him, and he savored the moment, inhaling the smells of leather and horse, cut grass, and Head & Shoulders. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He was home, welcomed back into his father’s arms like the prodigal son returned, and damn if it didn’t make his eyes burn so much, he had to pull away.

“You got my postcards from Germany, Pop?”

“Ja!” said Klaus, releasing Cain reluctantly and patting him twice on the back as though needing to maintain contact or reassure himself that Cain was real. His face was older, more weathered, but his ice-blue eyes were as clear as ever. “I get them! But I ask myself, Why doesn’t he go to ?sterreich? To visit my Lipizzaner?”

“Austria?” scoffed Cain with a wide grin, reaching back to close the tack room door. “It’s landlocked, Pop. I been on a ship for three years.”

“Ja, of course.” Klaus looked around the small living room/kitchen, his eyes resting on the Keurig machine on the small kitchen counter. He clapped his hands together expectantly. “You want coffee? Or hei?e Schokolade, like when you were little?”

Had his father always been like this? In those angry years of high school, had he missed his father’s efforts to nurture and connect with him? One of his shipmates had pinned a father–son photo on a bulletin board over his berth, and beside the photo, he’d written a quote by Mark Twain: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” At 21 himself, the quote suddenly had personal meaning for Cain, who grinned at his graying father. He wasn’t in the mood for coffee or hot cocoa, but he nodded.

“Sure, Pop. Hot chocolate sounds great.”

His father headed for the kitchen, and Cain looked around the sparsely furnished room, most of the items probably hand-me-downs from Miz Magnolia since they appeared to be of good quality. A leather reading chair and love seat by a potbellied stove, a modern kitchen with a flat-screen TV mounted under the cabinets and black granite countertops, and a small table with two chairs for dining. Adjacent to this common room were two bedrooms with a connecting bathroom. Warm and tidy, with wooden walls and barn smells surrounding them, Cain felt—for the first time—how good it was to be home and, in fact, how much he had missed it.

“Woodman is . . . at home?”

“Ja, Papa,” answered Cain, setting down his bags by the love seat. “I dropped him off at Aunt Sophie’s half an hour ago.”

“How is he? Der Fu??”

“Not good. His spirits are low, and he’s got months of rehab ahead.” Cain scrubbed his chin. “But he insisted on walkin' up the front steps of Belle Royale on his crutches, even though I was there to carry him.”