AND FINALLY, UNDERSTANDING

The original characters of High Mountain Rangers belong to Robert Conrad and A. Shane Company with Sibling Rivalries. I only borrow them here and no profit is being made.

Thanks to the writers, producers, actors and crew for bringing them to life for all of us.

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A/N-this is a re-post of the story, as it seems I posted Chapter 2 twice..so, should be correct now.

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CHAPTER ONE

"Come on, Matt. You have to come with us!" Cody Hawkes was pleading with his brother, who was leading his horse out of the small barn behind his father's cabin.

"Cody, you know that Aaron Bass hates me. Why would I want to spend the weekend at his place?"

"He doesn't hate you. He just…doesn't know you," Cody finished lamely. Matt laughed as he walked back into the barn for his gear, Cody hustling behind him. "Maybe if you joined us for the weekend, he could get to know you better and learn to like you," Cody encouraged.

Matt shook his head as he lifted the saddle blanket from a railing and moved back out to his horse, settling it across the horse's back. As he smoothed it down, he looked at his brother, who had moved to the other side of the big gelding.

"Cody, Aaron Bass' dislike for me goes back a long time, to when Mom and Dad were still together. I really don't think a weekend of fishing is going to change the way he feels."

"Please, Matt," Cody begged. "I don't get to see you all that often as it is. You and I could spend the time fishing, while Dad and Aaron tell their lies to each other."

Matt smiled. Both men were prone to exaggerate the stories they told of their time in the mountains, trying to outdo each other. But Matt wondered if there might be another reason why Cody wanted him along.

"Tell me, Toad, is it really that you want to spend time with me, or that you don't want to have Aaron's granddaughter dogging your every move?" he asked, heading back to the barn again.

Cody snorted. "I allow her to tag along," he said aloofly. "She's just a kid and used to living in the city. I can't let her get lost, after all. And it's Ace, by the way."

Matt laughed again as he lifted his saddle and carried it over to his horse, settling it over the blanket and cinching it up. When he finished, he draped his arms across it and shook his head. "I know I'm going to regret this…"

"Yes!" Cody yelled, raising both arms into the air. "Thanks, Matt!" he said as he spun on his heels and raced toward the cabin. "Dad, Matt's coming with us!"

The smile fell from Matt's face as he realized what he'd just agreed to. Matt quietly walked back into the barn to retrieve the remainder of his tack, then decided to go ahead and saddle up Cody's and his father's horses as well. As he led them from the corral, Cody and Jesse joined him and together they finished getting the horses ready.

"So, Matthew, your brother says you're going to be joining us this weekend," Jesse said with a smile.

"Yeah. Not sure how I let him talk me into that one. You think Aaron will be okay with that, Dad?" he asked apprehensively.

"I think Aaron will enjoy the extra company," his father replied, mentally crossing his fingers that his oldest friend would hold his tongue while Matt was there. He'd always known that Aaron resented the fact that Matt had made the decision to go with Jackie went she left the mountain. Truth be told, Jesse had resented it a bit himself at first. But he also thought he knew why Matt had made that decision, the boy having told him once that his mother had needed him and that Jesse hadn't.

He so wanted to tell Matt that he was wrong about that, that his father had needed him just as much as his mother did. But he had decided that Matt, at fourteen, had been old enough to make that choice, although he couldn't deny that it had hurt, all the same. Still, in the end, Matt had returned to the mountains, at least of a sort. He still lived in Tahoe, but he now made his living in the mountains, as the leader of the High Mountain Rangers, a Search and Rescue/Law Enforcement group that Jesse himself had founded and led for years before his retirement.

He was getting to know his eldest son now, as an adult, and he liked the man he'd become. He also had come to respect Matt's decision, even if it still stung a bit to know that his boy wanted to live with his mom and not his dad. The thing was, now that Jesse had retired, he saw his son more often than he did when he was still leading the Rangers and spending most of his days in and around town.

His musings were interrupted by Cody. "Dad, are you coming or not?" He looked up to see both boys sitting on their horses, patiently waiting for their father to get mounted.

"Yeah, Dad, this was your idea after all," Matt added, not used to his father being lost in thought and secretly amused by it.

Muttering under his breath about sassy children, Jesse mounted up and spurred his horse into a gallop, calling over his shoulder. "Well, what are you slow pokes waiting for? The fish won't catch themselves!"

He smiled at the whoops from his two boys as they quickly caught up with him.

The three rode slowly up to the cabin. As they approached, they saw Aaron Bass at the end of his boat dock, giving fishing tips to his young granddaughter. Aaron was a grizzled, gray-haired man, of average height and had a weathered face that bespoke of his years in the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

By contrast, young Jennifer was a fresh faced pre-teen, her waist-length wavy red hair rippled in the breeze. She turned at the sound of the snorting horses, a huge grin lighting up her face as she raised a hand to wave at their visitors. Jesse waved back as the three dismounted and tied their horses to the post nearby.

Matt took a slow, deep breath as he watched the frown that flitted across Aaron's face when he saw the older Hawkes son. "This is not a good idea," he said softly.

"Suck it up, Matt," Cody said with a chuckle. "It's only two days."

"Two days of hell," he replied, soft enough for Cody to hear him, but allowing his father to remain oblivious as he was already walking off to meet Aaron, who was coming back up toward the newly built cabin at the side of the lake.

Cody laughed again and slapped Matt with a backhand to the stomach, as he jogged to catch up with his father. They were all laughing….well, Aaron was grunting in what passed for a laugh for the old man…when Matt joined them. He smiled at Jen, then looked over toward her grandfather.

"Hello, Mr. Bass," he said cordially, not bothering to put his hand out, knowing that Aaron Bass would never give him the courtesy of shaking it.

Aaron grunted. "Hawkes," he replied in the greeting that Matt usually got from the grouchy mountain dweller. Matt looked at his father, his eyebrows raised in an 'I told you so' gesture, but Jesse just returned a silent, yet stern, admonishment. Matt backed down, but wasn't looking forward to spending the next two days in the older man's company.

The Hawkes trio followed Aaron and Jennifer up the steps to the cabin, the young girl animatedly telling them about some of the things she and her grandfather had been doing since the last time Jesse and Cody had been there.

Aaron and Jesse settled into the large living room of the cabin, which each of the Hawkes had helped him to build. When Aaron's first cabin had been destroyed in an earthquake, Jesse had convinced him to build at a safer location, using his granddaughter's safety to pressure him into moving to an area that wasn't smack dab on the top of a fault line. Bass had been able to find another beautiful lakeside location, similar to where his last place had set, and he'd built a cabin, with three extra guestrooms on the second floor.

At his old place, Aaron had often had what he grumblingly referred to as 'flat landers' staying at his place for a few days of fishing and hiking. He provided the lodging and meals, otherwise his paying guests were on their own. He hadn't decided yet whether he would get back into that, although it did bring in an extra bit of cash during the short mountain summers. But he'd allowed Jesse to talk him into adding the extra rooms anyway, figuring it wouldn't hurt.

Plus, it gave them room for Jesse and Cody to visit whenever they wanted, without feeling like they were crowding out Aaron and Jennifer. The rooms were small and utilitarian, with sturdy bunk-beds handmade by Jesse and Aaron, but they were clean and would serve their purpose.

While the two older men caught up, Jennifer and the boys went into the kitchen. Matt and Cody helped her to cut up vegetables and potatoes that would go with the steaks that Aaron had planned for dinner.

"Why do you still treat Matt like the wicked step child?" Jesse asked, as he sat down in one of the chairs in front of the stone fireplace.

"I just didn't expect him to join you, Jesse," Aaron replied gruffly.

"You knew he planned to come up this week."

"Doesn't he ever work?" Aaron groused.

Jesse sighed. It was like talking to a brick wall. Aaron was so set in his ways that he knew that nothing was likely to change his mind, but it still didn't sit well with Jesse. He knew that his oldest son was a good man, and from all he'd seen and heard, one hell of a Ranger. He was proud to have his son commanding the men and women who were the current batch of High Mountain Rangers. And although Matt did some things differently than Jesse, or even his predecessor, Merlin Pierce, Matt's ways worked for him and his Rangers. So Jesse wasn't about to try to interfere.

He just wished Aaron would see it, too.

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Matt could see his father and Aaron in the living room from where he sat at the kitchen table. He watched the two men talk as he peeled and sliced up the potatoes. He wondered if his father ever spoke to his older friend about his attitude toward Matt.

Aaron Bass had been his father's friend long before Matt was born. He remembered his family visiting often with Aaron when he was younger. Matt knew that Aaron had lived in the mountains for years. Jesse had told him that Aaron was still building his first cabin when his wife had taken sick and later died in their bedroom in the old cabin. Their only daughter was a decade older than Matt and left the mountain to attend college about the time that Cody had been born.

Matt remembered his father mentioning that she'd married and moved to San Francisco, and she had visited infrequently. She and her husband had later been killed in a car accident, leaving their child, Jen, in the custody of her grandfather. Jen was now living with Aaron at the new cabin he'd built after his first had been destroyed in the earthquake.

Aaron had never like Jackie Hawkes, thinking she wasn't the right kind of woman to live in the mountains. And Matt had to acknowledge that Aaron had been right about that. His and Cody's mother was not the mountain-woman sort. Oh, she tried. But she and Jesse fought often about moving back to town, at least during the winter. But Jesse had always flat-out refused and eventually she'd realized that she just couldn't handle living on the mountain any longer.

It wasn't until Cody was nearly seven years old that she decided she wanted to be around people again. When Jesse hadn't agreed to move back to town, his mom had made the decision to leave on her own. Neither Jesse nor Jackie had ever gone through the formality of a divorce and had celebrated their anniversary every year.

Matt knew Aaron thought that his decision to go to Tahoe with Jackie had been a betrayal of his father, even abandonment. But Matt carried the memory of a final argument that he'd overheard between his parents, concerning whether the boys would stay on the mountain or move to Tahoe with their mother.

flashback

Matt woke as a chill seeped into the room he shared with his younger brother. He wiggled deeper into his covers, but after a few minutes he knew it was useless. Pushing back the blanket, he slipped his feet to the floor, flinching when his toes touched the cold wood.

He reached down and picked up the socks he'd discarded earlier, slipping them on his feet. Wrapping his blanket around his shoulder, he moved over to the door. Yawning, he walked slowly down the stairs, his way dimly lit by the still hot coals in the fireplace. Moving closer to the heat, he stirred the coals and added another piece of wood.

As he began to sit down on the floor in front of the fire, he heard voices from his parents' bedroom. Looking up at the clock on the mantel, he saw that it was just after midnight. He frowned. It was unusual for his parents to stay up so late, since both of them were notorious early risers.

He stood up when he heard his mother's voice getting louder. Pulling the blanket tighter, he stepped over to the slightly ajar door.

"...not going to take Cody!" his father was saying, in a quiet but angry voice.

"I want the boys to go to school, spend some time with children their own ages."

"In other words, you want Matt to go to high school in town and then on to college. You don't want him to be a Ranger, like his old man!"

"It's dangerous! Of course I don't want him to do that! He's going to be someone...not spend his time traipsing around this mountain risking his life! Look what that life did to you, Jesse! You almost died when that Cousins man stabbed you!"

"But I didn't! I'm still alive and kicking! And when that case comes to trial I plan to be there to make sure he gets the chair!"

"And what if the next TJ Cousins stabs Matt instead of you! I want him to know there are other options besides the Rangers!"

"I'll tell you what, sweetheart, you ask him. He's old enough to make up his own mind whether he wants to live with you, in the land of traffic and crowds. If he decides he wants to go down with you, I won't stop him. But you are not taking Cody. My boy is staying here with me."

"They're both your boys! I thought we put that to rest years ago! I still don't understand why you let Aaron Bass put that thought into your head!"

"Jackie..."

"No! Just because Aaron doesn't like me, he thought I would cheat on you! Matt is just like you! How could you ever doubt that he was your child? "

"I know that Matt is my son. I've always known that."

"Then why did you ever question it?"

Matt blinked. He couldn't be hearing what he was hearing. His father questioned whether Matt was his son? Why? And what did Mr. Bass have to do with it?

Matt slowly wandered back up to his room, ignoring anything else coming from his parents' bedroom. He crawled back into bed, dragging his blanket over across his body. He wasn't feeling the cold anymore. He wasn't feeling anything except confusion.

Several hours later, he was still wide awake, his mind on a continuous loop, replaying the conversation he'd overheard. He heard the door creak open, then his mother walked into the room. Matt closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Matt, honey wake up." Matt mumbled and buried his head deeper under his blanket. "C'mon sweetheart, I need you to wake up."

"Mom?" he asked. He sat up, rubbing his eyes like he'd just woke up.

"I need you and your brother to come downstairs, Matt. Your dad and I have to talk to you."

"I'm really tired, Mom," he said, not sure he wanted to hear what either of them had to say after the conversation he'd overheard the night before.

"I'm sorry, honey, but it's really important." Jackie got up and walked over to wake up Cody. Matt watched her get Cody up, then leave the room. He watched his seven-year-old brother drag himself out of bed and shuffle over to Matt's bed.

"Matty?" he said, rubbing his eyes and yawning as he stumbled his way toward his brother.

"Hey, Toad," Matt said, climbing out of bed and helping his brother get dressed. Changing into jeans and a T-shirt himself, he then led his brother downstairs. Jackie was sitting in a large rocking chair, while their father paced in front of the fireplace. Matt could see a suitcase sitting near the front door.

"Mom?" he asked.

"Come here Matt." The blond moved to his mother's side, while Jesse reached down to pick up the still half-asleep Cody. Jackie slid an arm around Matt's waist and pulled him close.

"Matt. Cody. There's something your father and I need to tell you." She hesitated, looking at Jesse as if waiting for him to speak. When he didn't, she frowned before turning her attention back to her eldest. "I've decided to move into town."

"You're leavin'?" Cody asked.

"Yes, honey."

"Why?" Matt asked.

Jackie took a deep breath before continuing, after throwing an angry look toward Jesse for his continued silence. "I just…Matt, it's hard for me up here. I need to be around people…"

"We're people," Cody insisted, softly, tears growing in his eyes. He turned to his father, the fear evident. "Are you leavin' too, Daddy?"

Jesse tightened his hold on his youngest. "No, son, *I'm* not going anywhere." His accusing eyes rested on his wife, who lowered her eyes to the floor.

Cody turned back to his mother. "Were we bad? Is that why you're leaving? I promise I'll be good."

Jackie sighed. "No, baby. You weren't bad." She stood up, moving over to her son and ran a hand down his downy soft hair. "It's just that, with your Dad away so much at the Ranger Station, I get lonely for an adult to talk to, especially in the winter when we can't get into town. It has nothing to do with you or your brother."

"What about us?" Matt asked from where he still stood next to the rocker. "Do we have to go too?"

Jackie turned, a hopeful smile on her face. "I'd like that, Matt. But your father and I think that it would be okay for you to make that decision yourself. Your father...we decided that Cody will stay here with your father. But you're old enough to decide for yourself." She quickly moved back to Matt's side, pulling him close.

"Just think, Matt. You'll be able to go to school, spend time with kids your own age, maybe play on the football team in the winter," she rambled, trying to convince him.

"Are you leaving because Dad got hurt?"

"No, honey, not really. Part of it is because it took so long to get to him in the hospital, because they were so far away, but mostly it's because of me. I…I don't like being so isolated up here. I've never liked it, I think you know that." Matt nodded. He did know that, he just didn't think his mother would leave them.

"But won't you be alone in Tahoe?" he asked.

"I won't have my family with me, that's true. But…Matt, honey, please understand. This is something I have to do for myself. I know it sounds selfish…" She stepped back and moved to look out the window. Winter would be there soon and the mornings were getting cold. She wanted to be off the mountain before the first heavy snow.

Matt was so confused. He loved his mother, and didn't want her to leave. But after what he'd overheard the night before, he wasn't sure that he wanted to stay up here with his father and Cody, without his mom. But he didn't want to leave Cody. Or his dad, although he was still upset about the realization that his father had once questioned whether Matt was even his. What was he supposed to do?

He looked over at his father and Cody, so wrapped up in each other, as Jesse tried to comfort his little brother, who was still crying. Then he glanced at his mother, standing all alone, staring out the window. Looking back at Jesse and Cody, he made the hardest decision he'd ever made in all his fourteen years.

He walked over to his mother and put his hand into hers. "I'll go with you, Mom."

End flashback

"Matt. Matt! Hey, big brother, you spacing out on me over there?" Matt, jarred out of his memories by a green bean bouncing off his forehead, glanced over at his brother. "Hey, Matt, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking."

"That hurt?" Cody asked, with a grin.

Matt tossed a potato skin at his little brother. "Watch it, Toad. Or I'll make sure to lace your potato with hot sauce."

"Oooh, I'm shaking here, Bro!" Cody said, holding out a hand and deliberately making it shake.

Matt just rolled his eyes at his brother's antics and went back to peeling potatoes, but not before first glancing again at his father and Aaron Bass, still deep in conversation.

Matt had always known that Cody was his father's favorite son. Oh, he knew his father loved him, but he also knew that Cody and Jesse were very close, Cody never knowing anything different. He also knew that his father was hurt when Matt had decided to move to Tahoe with his mother. And he knew Cody had been devastated when Matt left with his mother, which likely made Jesse angry as well, and not just at Jackie.

He wondered if another part of the reason Aaron hated him was because he really believed that Matt wasn't Jesse's son. And that made him wonder if Jesse still had any small doubts. He didn't seem to, but how could Matt really be sure. He shook his head, trying to get those thoughts out of his head. Did it really matter anymore? Jesse had made it plain his entire life that he was proud of Matt. Even though he'd been hurt by Matt's decision to leave, he always made sure that Matt knew he respected that decision and was proud of Matt for making it.

Jesse was never afraid to tell Matt that he loved him. Unlike many men his father's age, Jesse had never shied away from showing his feelings. He still hugged his boys, often to their embarrassment. He'd also made every effort to see the important events in his life-his football games, high school debates, his first prom, his graduation-even if it meant trekking into town through deep snow.

And his father never squandered any opportunity to spend time with Matt. He couldn't say the same about his mother spending time with Cody. He remembered more than once his mother not wanting to travel up the mountain to spend time together as a family, even during the summer months when the weather wasn't an issue. Instead, Matt had ridden up on his horse to be with his father and Cody, or Jesse had brought Cody down.

Matt smiled. No, even if his father had ever had any doubts that Matt might be his, he certainly didn't think so now, of that Matt was sure. He glanced up once again only to find his father watching him. As their eyes met, his father winked. Matt had the feeling that his old man had some small idea of the thoughts traveling through his brain. And he was making damned sure that Matt knew how he felt.

Matt just nodded at him and went back to peeling his potatoes.

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