“Grab those brushes and that hoof pick while I undo his tack.”
When Jamie came up, brushes and pick in hand, Leland patted Dusty’s side. Good feelings washed over him, being with Jamie, working together like they were. But they crashed right into his sense of the forbidden, of the off-limits, of how what he was doing was wrong. The wrong of it was loud in his head, but the sweetness of it was equally loud until he felt just about deaf as he turned to Jamie.
“When I groom a horse, I can check him over, make sure he’s sound,” Leland said. “Which is part of the reasons I ride a different horse each day.”
“I was wondering,” said Jamie. He placed the tools on the thin wooden shelf along the pole where Dusty was tied. Then he watched Leland as he unsaddled Dusty and laid the saddle on the sawhorse to be wiped down before being put away.
“I could clean that,” he said, eyeing the saddle.
“We’ll get to that,” Leland said. He picked up the brush and handed Jamie the chamois cloth. “Help me with this first.”
It wasn’t that Leland didn’t think Jamie was responsible enough to clean a saddle on his own, because he was. His eagerness to do anything assigned to him showed he was smart, caught on quick. It was that he wanted Jamie with him, near him. Not just to have Jamie hone his grooming skills, but to have Jamie working at his side.
Together they wiped Dusty down and then brushed him all over, both of them going at it on either side of the horse, and laughed together when Dusty sighed as he sank into the grooming that he’d finally figured out was going to go on for a while. They combed his stubby mane and tail and oiled his hooves, and ran the chamois cloth over his coat one more time to add some shine. By the time they put him in the box stall with his nightly feed, there was a new expression in his eyes, and a look of contentment about him.
When Leland turned to take care of the saddle, Jamie turned at the same time, and he was inside of Leland’s arms, which he tightened to make sure Jamie wouldn’t fall. But then he didn’t let go. And Jamie didn’t move away.
They were so close, both smelling like horse hair, sweating a little, and when Jamie rose on his toes to kiss Leland, he let him. Kissed him back as feelings of sweetness raced through him, of wanting more, all while he held him close, and kissed that mouth and dreamed of how it might be.
Then someone was at the barn door, and Leland gently, oh, so gently, pushed Jamie away.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said to Jamie. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m sorry.”
“I liked it,” Jamie said, and his eyes were so wide and so green Leland could have fallen into them. “I liked it.”
“Go get some dinner,” Leland said, a little more roughly than he wanted to. “I’ve got some work to finish in my office.”
“Okay,” he said, though Leland could tell he was confused again.
This was going so badly, and it was all his fault.
23
Jamie
Jamie went to dinner, but he didn’t see Leland the whole time, and went to bed with dreams of Leland’s touch swirling around in his head. Sunday was a struggle because Leland was busy taking care of paperwork and other tasks he had to do by himself. That was fine, Jamie could understand that, but when guests started arriving and Leland got even more busy, Jamie felt like he was on the outside looking in, kind of the way he did when he’d first come up to the ranch to ask for a job.
Sure, Clay and Brody asked for his help carrying luggage for guests, and sure, Stella sent him racing to get extra towels for Cabin #1. Everyone thanked him profusely afterwards, but there wasn’t one nod or smile, let alone a glance, from Leland. Jamie told himself he wasn’t hanging around the parking lot where Leland was sure to be, or shifting his place in line at the Sunday night buffet for a chance to stand near Leland, but that’s what he did. All to no result. Leland stolidly maintained his distance.
Maybe Leland had meant it when he’d said what he’d said about them kissing and how it was wrong. Maybe it was. Leland was his boss, after all, and older. But if anyone could kiss Jamie like that and make him feel like that from one small kiss—
Jamie shivered all over at the thought of it.
Monday was more of the same. Jamie worked as hard as he could, both at chores Clay assigned him, and at trying to be where he thought Leland would be. Only either Leland wasn’t ever there, or he was too busy to notice Jamie. Who knew he shouldn’t be panting after Leland this way, like he was begging for crumbs at a banquet. But what did he know? He’d never dated anyone before, never experienced his heart pounding in his chest at the mere glimpse of the brim of Leland’s hat as he marched into the barn.
Finally, on Tuesday, he was told he could join the guests in the corral for his first riding lesson. The afternoon turned out warm enough for him to roll up his shirtsleeves, and he strutted to the corral in the almost-new cowboy boots Clay had found for him in the lost-and-left-behind bin. Tipping his straw cowboy hat to the guests, he went over to the last unclaimed horse, which was, to his delight, Dusty.
Brody was in charge of the lesson and didn’t seem to give Jamie any special notice, which was fine with him. He wanted to blend in while he learned about the parts of a horse, and the parts of a saddle, how to mount, how to dismount, how to guide the horse. All the basics.
“These lessons are just supposed to orient you to riding so you can enjoy your stay with us at Farthingdale Ranch,” said Brody to the guests as he walked along the row of horses and guests, nodded as he examined the way each one was holding their horse’s reins. “Now, mount up, like we learned yesterday, and we’ll teach you more about how to trot and canter. Let’s take a couple of turns around the ring.”
Jamie pretended Leland was watching. He pretended Leland was standing outside the corral, leaning against the top fence rail, in that way he did, propped on his elbows, casual as anything, but really, quite focused on what he was looking at. Which, in this instance, would be Jamie as he made Dusty walk and then trot and then canter. The gelding’s trot was bumpy, but the canter was smooth and the world spun past him in a breezy, almost uncontrolled way, like he was going to fly off the horse at any moment.
“Pull up a little bit, Jamie,” said Brody. “And you, Dorothy, don’t crowd the horse in front of you, okay? This isn’t a race. Very good, everyone, very good.”
They rode and walked and trotted, kicking up a bit of dust as they went. All the while, Brody talked about horses and horsemanship and how to be decent to the animals and to each other when they went out on trail rides.
Jamie didn’t figure he’d be allowed to go with guests on something like that, as it would take him away from work for too long. But he listened just the same, wanting to absorb everything Brody knew so he could show what he’d learned to Leland later. So he’d be proud of him, and maybe they’d kiss. Maybe there’d be something more.
