What was he supposed to say to that? Usually, any mention of his own mom sent him skittering back into his corner, running away from the idea that he could ever talk about his own past because nobody would want to hear.
Except Kell had and his simple, heartfelt response had been like a touch of starlight had landed in Marston’s soul, doing its best to light up whatever parts of him it could.
“No mom in the picture, really.” He shrugged and just said the words before he could stop them. “Just you guys.”
“That’s a lot of people for one tattoo,” said Jonah, laughing, but not, it seemed, making fun of the lack of a mom in Marston’s life, but the idea of such a ridiculous tattoo. Good-natured and welcoming. Which, for all of Jonah’s edgy darkness, his tendency to change back into a black t-shirt and look rather scowly a lot of the time, was surprising. “But you could ask Jasper, you know. He’s got a great tattooist on tap.”
Jasper, the ranch’s blacksmith, had no tattoos, but his partner, Ellis, did, right across the side of his neck. Something with water and stone, a pretty tattoo, he’d always thought.
“Maybe someday,” was all he said, enjoying the small moment between them. “I do like your heron.”
With a smile, Jonah turned back to the task of stacking hay bales, which became trickier the more bales there were, the stacks taller, the situation more wobbly.
Marston tried to keep his eye on Kell who, on the ground, was lagging behind the others, doing his job of bringing bales to the flatbed, one for everyone else’s two. ’Till finally, white faced, Kell stumbled and fell.
Nobody else saw except for Marston, who, on the edge of the flatbed, winced. He was about to jump down, but Kell hauled himself to his feet, swiped at the scratch on his face, and kept on going.
There was a core of steel beneath the sweetness, then, and Marston made himself look away, focusing on stacking the last of the hay bales till the flatbed was full and the field was empty, with only row upon row of sun-drenched stubble left behind.
“That’s it, guys,” said Gabe, looking pleased. “We just need to unload this at the valley, and then we can break for lunch.”
Piling into the truck and the truck bed, they all took their previous places, with Marston across from Kell.
As Gabe started the drive back to the valley, Kell, his arms once more around his knees, smiled at Marston like a small boy with a gap-toothed smile, having the best day of his life. Yes, there was a scratch on his face, and yes, there was hay in his hair, but it struck Marston, that smile, the feeling of joy and intensity going right into his heart, a piercing wound, fierce and powerful.
He smiled back. Maybe he shouldn’t have, but that smile arced between them, the song of the day, the melody of the valley pulling them onward as the truck raced beneath the blazing, just about noontime sun, flecks of hay in the air, the dust of earth in their boots, sweat on their necks, the wind in their hair.
It was a good day. Perhaps one of the best he’d had in ages.
Chapter11
Kell
After they secured the bales of hay beneath a tied-down tarp, lunch was piles of chicken Alfredo, garlic breadsticks, and Caesar salad, all of which Kell felt too tired to eat. But as he sat down at a place on the long table, slumped over his plate, he made himself eat.
The scratch on his face stung, but Gabe had pulled him aside and put a smear of first aid cream on it after cleaning it with a swab of disinfectant.Leave that be and it’ll heal just fine, Gabe had said.
It was like being fussed over by his mom, who, in his mind, was still crying as his dad beat him. Her face drawn and pale as she let dad yell at him. Not saying a word as his dad had made him pack for the pray-away-the-gay camp. Maybe she really was still crying, and the idea of it made his heart ache.
Before that dreadful time, he’d been happy at home, his parents’ golden boy child, living a good life that even then he knew was truly good and kind of rare.
He missed being with his track and field team, missed jostling elbows with his friends in the lunchroom. Missed the shiny floors of his high school, missed all of it. But two years later, that all would have been behind him, anyway.
He would have been in college now, maybe on a sports scholarship, showing his new coaches how fast he could run. Those muscles and that endurance had faded as he’d lived off margarine-and-sugar sandwiches, two-day-old hot dogs dug out of a dumpster, a bag of Funyuns lifted from the shelf at the nearest Circle K.
Even in prison, he’d been so shaken to be there he’d been unable to eat, and the food had been crappy besides. Now, five days into his stay in the valley, his body, or some watchful part of him, was becoming aware that the food was not only good, it was constantly good.
And, like someone startled into surprise, his body was taking its own sweet time to realize that, to depend on it. Not to mention his whole body shook now with exhaustion, his stomach tight.
He could get used to it if the work continued to be hard; like an athlete in training, he would build up to it. And to do that, he needed to eat.
Someone placed a quart of milk in front of him, a glass quart so cold that beads of condensation formed along the rim of the glass. So newly opened, so fresh, there was a pale yellow layer of cream along the top.
Kell looked up. Marston shrugged as he pulled his arm back, as if to dismiss the effort he’d just made.
“There you go,” said Marston. “You seem to enjoy it.”
The shrug that followed, broad shouldered, defined by the muscles along Marston’s arms, the cords along his forearms where his shirtsleeves were rolled up, seemed to suggest that, in a dutiful way, he was holding him back from what he seemed to want to say. Like he didn’t want Kell to know he cared. Like he couldn’t let himself.
