Kell froze, looking up at Marston, a bit startled. The firelight made his eyes glitter like emeralds, and the sharp, still-young lines of his face were starkly drawn, dappled with gold, orange, and blue.
“I told them I was gay,” he said, suddenly, honesty leaping from his eyes, his expression drawn. “And then they didn’t love me anymore.”
It was a moment, sharp in the firelight, shadowed by the darkness all around. A moment where utter, heartfelt honesty could be known, deep-drawn, straight as an arrow.
Something in Marston’s heart leapt, a painful, lurching leap, as though he’d been hurled out of a pitch black place where only sadness and loneliness dwelled, and into a bright, open nothingness where anything was possible. But where, of course, there could not be any connection between himself and a newcomer to the valley, this young man who probably wanted nothing more than to do his time, finish the work, and then move on. Maybe even to return home to reconcile with his family. To continue with the life he’d left behind him years ago.
He didn’t have any platitudes for Kell, nothing like,Oh, of course they love you, they’re your family,because, as he well knew, it simply wasn’t true.
Real love could come from anywhere, but it seemed so scarce in his own life that he had not ever found it. And had not found it now. Could not let himself find it now in this place where his second chance at staying at the best job he’d ever had depended on him not fucking it up.
Even if he wasn’t in charge of Kell, having anything with Kell, anything beyond a professional connection, would definitely fuck it up. Way up. All the way to the stars.
“That sounds rough,” Kell said again, focusing his attention on the dying coals. “Looks like these are done. What d’you say we stir them down hard and put them out with dirt?”
That was the best way, as he’d been taught. Water would only churn mud, making it hard to clean out the fire pit, but cold dirt containing ashes would make it an easy task.
Easy was the key. Easy and safe and straightforward. That’s the way he needed to be with Kell, so that’s what he would do.
Chapter10
Marston
The night was cool as Marston went back to his tent, after walking Kell through the darkness to tent #1, where Wayne was already snoring away.
Once on his own, in his own tent, Kell sat on his cot and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands in his hair. Sweat sheened on the back of his neck, and an ache pounded in his chest that he didn’t know what to do with.
Loneliness was part of his life, always had been, and he’d expected nothing more than for it to continue. He’d never made friends easily, had never kept the ones he’d made.
Any lovers he’d had were fleeting impressions on his skin, a touch in the night, a greedy mouth that took more than it gave, a roadside motel room left in disarray, the bill paid in cash.
Only since he’d started his job, hismagicaljob, at the guest ranch, had there ever been an indication that his life could be much, much different? Now he had professional co-workers, decent pay, the tools to do his job and, perhaps most important, but seemingly always buried beneath everything else, people who seemed to enjoy his company, with a hello in greeting, and a friendly nod in recognition.
In order to keep those friendships, he needed to not fuck everything up. Making a connection with Kell would definitely fuck everything up. Besides, he didn’t even know how to start. Didn’t know what to do with the ache in his heart that pleaded with him,Please, please, please, just try. Just this once. Just try.
But he couldn’t. Even if he suspected that Gabe and Blaze were fucking, and could see Royce and Jonah giving each other heart eyes every single moment of every single day, he knew that if he were to try something like that, it would end up in flames like a dumpster fire gone out of control.
He would end up losing his job. More importantly, he didn’t want to turn Kell’s life into the kind of mess he’d made of his own.
So it was hands off. Literal hands off. He had his own job anyway, and maybe more parolees would come and he’d be able to grow a team, to show Leland that he could not only keep it together on his own, he could lead other men. Hold his head high. Build job skills to make a better life for himself. There was no way he was going to drag Kell into the struggle that would be.
The night was long, scattered with sweat-skinned dreams, woken at uneven intervals by his aching heart, sheets that were tangled, a sudden cool gust that flapped at the green canvas and sent pine needles skittering down like runaway children.
In the morning when he sat up with the sleepy gold sunshine sparkling over the low slope of hill to the east, he rubbed at his eyes. One night’s secrets shared in the ancient glow of a simple campfire could not make such a difference and he would not let it. He was here now. With a job to do.
The day would move on and he would ease into it. Which he did. A quick cool shower, then drying off and getting dressed, and heading to the mess tent like it was, quite simply, any other day.
When he got there, Gabe let him know there was a message from Maddy, the guest ranch’s admin, that the dark cedar paint he’d ordered for the signs was currently stalled in a warehouse in Cheyenne, and that it would be easier, not to mention quicker, for Marston to pick it up than to have it re-routed.
“The keys are in the truck, and the tank is full,” said Gabe, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder. “But, I have a favor.”
“Shoot,” said Marston, very casually looking at Royce and his team as they piled into the mess tent, all in a clump, and told himself he was not looking for Kell. Plus, he was glad to be asked, glad to do Gabe a favor any day of the week.
“We want to finish up getting that hay trucked in, and if you help us out this morning, we can do that and then move on to other projects.”
“Sure,” he said, realizing a second later that would mean working with Kell.
Even though it would be only for the morning, the distraction would be too much. Or maybe it would be a test as to whether or not, after last night’s fire-lit honesty, he could hold back and keep everything to himself. The memory. The desire that jumped out from the center of his chest when Kell showed up, trailing behind Wayne, getting into line for the breakfast buffet.
