Leland Tate hadn’t seemed like a guy who had any gentleness in his heart, but Gabe certainly seemed devoted to him, as did Quint, so maybe his kindness was just hidden from Blaze. Just like Gabe was hiding his gaze now, as if mortified over what he and Blaze had been up to. Not because he was a shy virgin, but because he was a responsible man who might have issues with taking advantage of a parolee in his care.
Except he hadn’t taken advantage, not one bit. Blaze had thrown himself at Gabe and Gabe had caught him, responded in kind, kiss for kiss, with that stomach-tingling hair tug, and the soft-voiced statement,I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.
A man without feelings wouldn’t have said anything like that. A man without feelings would have shoved Blaze to his knees and made Blaze take him in his mouth, made him swallow. Gabe had done none of those things. Instead, his touch had been tender, his eyes soft, and he’d lit that lantern when Blaze had asked him to.
Who did that? Somebody who cared, right?
Except he didn’t know what he was doing any more than Gabe did, evidently. There were no indicators anywhere around to tell Blaze what to do next. Except follow his gut, as he usually did.
Gabe stood up, taking his plate and cutlery to the end of the buffet line, and then he strode past the table where Wayne and Blaze still sat, quickly walking out of the mess tent.
Wayne looked at Blaze, his eyebrows going up. Wayne wasn’t a fool, but whether he was on to what had happened between Blaze and the boss man was another question altogether.
“He seem pissed to you?” asked Wayne. “Maybe he’s going to turn into a chain gang kind of boss.”
“No,” Blaze said with a scoff.
He stood up, grabbing his plate, almost stumbling as he walked to the buffet line to leave his dishes. His legs were shaky, the insides of his thighs alight with fiery tenderness, rubbed raw by even the slightest movement of the cloth of his jeans moving over skin.
Maybe he’d take a long shower. Maybe he’d ask Gabe to open the first aid hut so he could get some Tylenol, maybe some kind of muscle ointment. Maybe—
“You all right?”
Wayne appeared at his shoulder.
“What?”
“You’re just standing there, staring. And you smell like horse, and that’s making my eyes water. Go rinse off, will you?”
Blaze ignored Wayne, not responding as he marched off, or tried to. The more he moved, the better he felt, but his legs were as weak as overcooked spaghetti, and he just hoped he’d be ready for work in the morning because he didn’t want to let Gabe down. More than that, he wanted to find Gabe and make sure that what had happened between them wasn’t a fluke.
Gabe didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d use another guy and then toss him aside. But, again, maybe his conscience was eating at him and he didn’t know what to do any more than Blaze did.
If Blaze were in prison and at loose ends, he might head to the break room, or, if there was a movie on, he’d go watch that. Somebody might have a poker game, and he could join in, playing for pennies or the cigarettes he kept winning but never smoked.
Behind Blaze, Wayne was on the landline phone talking to someone he knew in Sleepy Eye. Ahead of Blaze were the woods in the growing twilight, paths tromped in the grass leading off in the direction of the lake, or the pasture, or the facilities.
The paths were starting to look untidy and ragged, though Blaze imagined that, at some point, the plan was to neaten them up while still letting them look rustic. To make you feel like if you took one of those paths, you’d be headed on the adventure of your life. Which still didn’t tell him which way Gabe had gone.
He tried to imagine it, as if he were Gabe. Steady. Handsome. Quiet. A lot on his mind, the responsibility of two parolees, the care of a herd of horses, the day-to-day operation of clearing wood and brush. Now it was after dinner. The sky was clear, the air soft. Where would Gabe go?
Blaze turned and followed the trodden path to the lake, which, as he advanced through the trees, blossomed before him, a flat, blue glassy plate reflecting the evening sky in streaks of pink and white. And there, just near where the picnic benches were, still unpainted and smelling like new pine, was Gabe.
He sat on the picnic table farthest from Blaze, his feet on the bench, elbows on his knees. Without his cowboy hat, without that sense of purpose that seemed to drive him every day, his shoulders slumped, he seemed a little lost, at least to Blaze.
Would he want Blaze interrupting his stillness? Blaze decided to risk it, his heart speeding up as he walked to the picnic table and sat down next to Gabe, his feet on the bench, elbows on his knees, as casually as if he’d been invited to echo Gabe, to be his shadow.
Gabe’s gaze flicked over to him, then returned to the lake, smooth and still, its splendor stretching out for a good long way, turning into the woods, the last tail part of it hidden from view like a secret waiting to be discovered. Which, Blaze supposed, was the whole point of the place. To create pleasant, non-threatening discoveries around every corner, every bend of the trail, every inch of shoreline.
“Gabe.”
A small sound of acknowledgment that Blaze had spoken was all he got from Gabe.
Blaze whooshed out a breath. In the Butterworth family, the conversation, mostly shouted, or at the very least carried on in raised voices, would already have been half over.
For this quiet man, the way forward was more subdued and Blaze knew he had to be careful if he wanted—if he wanted what? Well, maybe to find answers, to pin this down, which was the least-like-him action he could possibly take.
Besides, it was up to Gabe, right? It had to be because Gabe was the man in charge, and Blaze was just a dumb ex-con who barely had any rights. Which was easier to believe than anything else at that moment.
