“Thanks,” said Kell in a breath. “Thank you.”
He poured himself a quick half glass and drank it in two gulps, so Marston could see him drink it, see him enjoy it.
Milk in the valley was better than any milk he’d ever tasted, and yet, this particular glass, creamy and sweet and fresh, the cream coating his mouth in the best way, was the best ever. Delivered with kindness and thoughtfulness that he’d forgotten even existed.
He knew the milk would help fatten him up, keep his pants from sliding off his hips, help him keep up with the other men. So that Marston wouldn’t look at him with such worry—or maybe he liked that part a little. Someone to watch over him a little.
“This is so good,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, but Marston had already turned to carry his plate to the plastic tub, already on the way to the rest of his afternoon. Which was what? What did he do all day when he wasn’t helping to finish with the haying job?
Kell didn’t really know. He’d spent five days in the valley, and had been focused on what was in front of him, and behind him. Working, eating, sleeping, well, collapsing, really, into bed each night.
Now, adjusting for the most part, the scraggled edges of his brain smoothing somewhat, he could look around him, in his new world, and see what else was going on. Which was him at a long table in a green canvas mess tent while the other men were clearing their places, still sitting there as he watched Marston walk away, long strides among the grass and edges of pine needles, shadows dappling his shoulders, the length of his back.
Taking a hard breath, Kell didn’t quite know what to do with the memories of the morning, the warm air swirling around them as the truck raced to the fields, his booted toes inches from Marston’s booted toes. The way, when they were in the fields, that he could feel Marston watching-but-not-watching him, looking out for him but letting him find his own way.
The curve of muscle along Marston’s bare arms when he’d taken his shirt off. The dense thighs that, so capable and strong, moved in and out of view in front of his half-lowered eyes.
He’d taken such a blow when his parents had rejected him for coming out that, even two years on, he hardly dared give in to the impulses of his body, his own desires.
He was a virgin still and, based on Bede’s recommendations, he wouldn’t ever say that out loud, but the stirrings in his belly when he thought of Marston made him feel seventeen again, so young, becoming awake and aware that he liked boys over girls.
That the smells and the sights in the locker room, and his body’s reaction to them, weren’t just a passing fancy, or the natural stirrings based on the heightened energy after a track meet. It was him filled with wanting, the curve of a masculine shoulder turning him on more than a budding bosom or a round female hip.
Give him angles and planes, the round cheek of youth turning into manliness. Give him boyish laughter, a voice going lower, chests broadening. Give him Marston’s mouth—
But of course not.
“You coming, Kell?” asked Gabe. “You need more food? The cooks haven’t quite put everything away yet.”
The generosity of the valley moved him, had from the first, and it did now, with Gabe making sure that Kell wasn’t still hungry.
It was hard to keep up his road-hardened facade of not giving a shit, of dismissing everything anybody might say as sarcasm or lies. Hard to throw off the sixty days of shellac that prison had helped build around him, especially in the face of Gabe’s concern. And maybe, perhaps, he didn’t need to try.
“No, I’m good,” said Kell, standing up, going over to put his plate and cutlery in the busing tub.
Gabe was right behind him, recycling the now-empty glass quart.
“Did you forget?” he was asking now. “We were going to get your cowboy boots and hat today. I’m sorry about the delay, but the haying needed to be finished so we could get all of the first mowing.”
“Oh.” The very handy who-gives-a-shit kind of response, so ready on his tongue, struggled with the need to cover up that yes, he had forgotten. But the thought of it now filled him with a kind of wonder that they’d take the time and trouble to outfit him with something he didn’t really need.
Back home, before he’d left, if he needed new shoes or new running gear, he got them, no questions asked. In the two years since he’d left, he’d been on his own and lonely, paying a quarter in some church’s basement thrift store for a coat thick enough to take him through winter. He’d gotten along or had done without.
“I had kind of forgotten,” he said now, turning, wiping his palms on his blue jeans.
“I’ve got the keys,” said Gabe, swirling the key fob around his thumb. “You ready?”
They got in the truck, just him and Gabe, and Gabe drove them up the switchbacks and across the top of a grass-covered hill, and down to a dirt road that led into the guest ranch he’d only heard tell of.
It was like being in a fairy-tale world of lush pine trees, the wind-ruffled river that wound calmly along its banks, the large log structure that Gabe said was the dining hall and lodging for guests above. There were cabins peeking out from the pine trees, and others overlooking the river. And then Gabe turned the truck around.
“Thought you might enjoy a quick tour,” said Gabe. “We’re headed back to the ranch’s store. Maddy will meet us there.”
The name was one Kell recognized from the paperwork he’d signed, from his Zoom meeting with Leland Tate.
Maddy was in charge of a bunch of stuff, and Leland seemed to respect her a lot. Kell had made a mental note not to mess with her and, when he met her, some of the tension in his body seemed to fade. She was an older woman in blue jeans, looking quite ready to go to work at any task. She had a long gray and white braid down her back and intense blue eyes that studied Kell.
“Another long-legged one,” she said with a bit of humor, her blue eyes dancing. “Come this way, Kell, and we’ll get you fixed up.”
