“Oh, yeah. Let me get my guitar.” As Bull went to fetch his acoustic guitar, Caz turned an expectant look on Gabe.

Brother pressure was peer pressure on steroids. Gabe grinned. Yeah, he’d missed them.

All last winter, his guitar had sounded…lonely…without the familiar accompaniment of the men who’d always been there.

With a token grunt of annoyance, he went to get his guitar.

Returned and settled into his chair, Gabe started tuning. “Been a long time since we played together.”

With no electricity to Mako’s old cabin, the entertainment choices growing up were what they could do themselves. The sergeant had started the boys off on boot camp cadences. But, being a history buff, Mako’d also known songs enjoyed by the earliest British sailors to ones sung by soldiers in World War II.

Hawk, who loved the old west, had demanded country-western music. Gabe liked folk rock. Caz had a fondness for harmony, and Bull liked it all, including jazz.

Music could lighten the longest, darkest night.

Mako’d insisted he taught the boys to sing in sheer self-defense. With four kids in a small cabin, if they weren’t singing, they were fighting. Sometimes they managed both—like singing Queen’s “We Will Rock You” while having a knockdown bloody brawl. Mako’d been laughing so hard that they’d gotten to fight far longer than normal. Right up until Gabe caught Bull with a roundhouse and knocked him into the river.

Gabe smiled. Good times.

After playing a quick intro riff on the harmonica, Caz sang the first verse of one of Mako’s favorites—the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and Bull was right there with him. Gabe strummed along and tried to clear the thickness from his throat. Eventually, he joined in, plugging the gap between Caz’s tenor and Bull’s bass with his baritone.

Hawk hated the sound of his own raspy voice and never joined the singing. Mako’d figured his vocal cords were damaged from screaming and hadn’t pushed. Even now, Hawk had nightmares from before he’d entered foster care. So, he’d learned the fiddle. When Hawk couldn’t sleep, his music would drift over the lake like a mournful fog.

After a couple of songs, Caz asked Bull, “Did you find any more help for your place?”

“Yep, I’m on schedule to open the restaurant section this weekend. I hired another bartender. Julie and Felix will cover the bar. Got a couple of younger college kids for the restaurant. Two cooks from my Anchorage restaurant want to work here to see if they like small town living.”

“That’s not enough people to staff the roadhouse,” Gabe said.

“I know. For right now, I’ll only be open Wednesdays through Saturdays. That gives some flexibility with my personnel until I can find more staff.”