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Travis nodded to Lonnie, who took his head from Travis’s shoulder and sighed, “It’s incredibly painful, but it’s also something I think about a lot.
“See, I was just a deputy back then. My friend, Jack, was the sheriff, and my uncle was on the town council. Travis’s father and a few other investors were looking to put up a huge resort between our town and another, Twin Pines.
“Another sheriff took over for Jack when he took a leave of absence when he and his partner, Rebel, got together. When we found out what a psycho he was, Jack wanted the sheriff's seat back, and there was an election. We would have all been replaced and the resort would have been built, even though none of the town people in either town wanted that.”
Dante cringed a little. “I never thought to ask the town.”
“This is far from them, and you want the guests to mainly stay here on this land. What they had in mind was much more intrusive. Anyway, they tried to smear our names, getting compromising pictures of us coming out of a leather club in St. Martin. We thought we were through. Then…the town came out for us. In force, and we won in a landslide.”
Binx interjected, “Our town is so great.”
Travis bragged. “It was something. People showed up in leather, even stuff they’d made up just to come vote.”
They all laughed and Sel pictured it, laughing with them.
“So, we won the election and things went back to normal, or so we thought. The diner in town was a place everyone came to have coffee and gossip every morning. Still is. The morning it all happened was no different. The diner was buzzing with gossip. Everyone was there, most of the town. And my uncle’s future wife told me that the old temporary sheriff was in that morning, before anyone. I looked under the table and saw a duffle bag. It all clicked in my head fast and I knew what it was. I screamed for everyone to get out, and while they were getting out, I ran to the walk-in with the bag. I threw it in, closed the door and bam!, it went off.”
Travis, proud, bragged again. “If he wouldn’t have seen it, a lot of people would have died that day. As it was, only a homeless man behind the diner was killed. That was bad enough.”
Dante nodded in respect to Lonnie. “You’re a badass, Lonnie. I knew it the second I met you, even without the history.”
Lonnie laughed at that. “I didn’t think, I just did it. If I’d have had time to think, I would have run too.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Travis said. “He dove into danger, always. It caused a few problems for us. I wanted him safe. He wanted to catch the bad guys. I had to understand him better, and he had to understand me. It took a while and a lot of fighting.”
Agreeing, Blaine said, “We were the same. I always worried about him, he worried about me, we fought, we then had to see each other completely and not cut out the little holes we liked while ignoring the rest we might not have liked as much.”
Sel had never heard Blaine say anything like that. “Uncle Blaine, you and Uncle Dante? You…always seemed so happy.”
“We have been, Sel. But we have had our fights, our brawls. Dante gave me the world, but part of him wanted to hide me away from it at the same time. He lost a boyfriend before me that made him worry over me every time I wasn’t in the same room.”
“True,” Travis said. “I did the same with Lonnie. I wanted to open this world to him, but then I was worried about what he’d find in it.”
Binx teased, “The moral of the story is, rich guys getting with poor guys is complicated.”
They all laughed at that. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Sel assured. “You know, when I find myself a handsome poor guy.”
Sel slept on the couch, too tired to head to the trailer where he was stationed. The day swam in front of his eyes, keeping him awake for hours.
Maybe the weight of things was hitting him. All the men there Dante was responsible for. He heard the tales of harrowing near-deaths, knowing that if that had happened under Dante’s watch, he’d have had to handle it.
Could he have grabbed a bag of explosives to save people? Could he have hunted down the killers? Leaning over his knees, hearing the gentle snoring of Ming, Blaine’s favorite chow, he was unsure of himself for the first time.
Being a leader of any kind wasn’t easy. He wasn’t so innocent to that truth. Still, when it was life and death, it took a certain kind of leader to protect those people that might not even know his name.
Blaine got up to get a drink and saw Sel awake. After he got a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge, he walked over to sit with Sel. “Starting to become real?”
“I guess.”
Blaine sipped his water, and pet Ming as she lay at his feet. “I know you think this comes easily for Dante and your dad. It doesn’t. I can’t tell you how many nights Dante has been up walking the floor. He doesn’t always sleep well, but since we came here, he sleeps like a baby.”
“He’s still in it, Blaine. He’s still calling a lot of shots, responsible for a lot of people. These people aren’t all gangsters and in families. They are families, they’re innocents.”
“And what happened here wasn’t associated with the family, Sel. Everyone here knew about it, and they have more fight in them than most of the gangsters I’ve ever met. Determined to hold on to this place, because this place is going to be special, Sel. It’s in a place that should never be safe for us, and yet it is. It’s because of the determination of the men building this place.”
“I don’t know if I can keep people safe, Uncle Blaine. I’m scared.”
Blaine wrapped an arm around him like a father would, holding him as he shook with the sudden knowledge he wasn’t like those that came before him. “That’s good.”
