Feeling as useless as tits on a snake, Bede hurried after Galen, who grabbed a horse from the paddock, saddled it, and flung himself astride like he was in an old-fashioned western movie and his Pa had just told him that the barn was on fire.
Bede couldn’t quite feel the urgency until he was on the path along the lake, beyond where the docks and canoes were, and caught a glimpse of the shining backs of a band of horses galloping along the green and slanted hillside beyond the river. If they made it up the canyon, they’d be gone for good.
“Get back to the paddock,” shouted Royce, as he pulled up his horse alongside Bede.
“What?” Bede knew he wasn’t skilled enough to join the escaped horse roundup, but surely he’d be more useful here than back at the paddock.
“There’s a gap in the trees that leads to the road,” said Royce. His mouth was tight, as if he meant to hide his impatience. “If the horses get through there when we bring them back around, they might get hit by a passing vehicle.”
The road Royce referred to wasn’t a high traffic road, but Bede supposed Royce meant to cover all the bases. The just-in-case scenarios that Bede himself had considered when dealing in cocaine.
“You got it,” said Bede just as Royce whistled his horse into a gallop and was off like a chestnut streak through the trees.
Bede hustled back to the paddock, opened the gate wide, and took his post, along with Gordy, watching and waiting.
It didn’t take overly long before he heard the galloping hooves coming in his direction, the horses racing in an impossibly thin and fast line around the lake, their tails like black and chestnut ribbons behind them, led by Gabe, and followed up by the other team leads.
It was kind of amazing to watch good riders, true cowboys, in action as they shouted and whistled and raised a lot of dust guiding the horses around the curve of the paddock and into it. No horse even came near him or Gordy, though a cloud of dust settled over them, and the heat shimmered in the air.
Once in the paddock, all the horses whinnied and shifted, looking for an exit, perhaps, or chasing the memory of running free. Or maybe they simply wanted a treat for being so easily guided back into captivity.
It made Bede sad to think of it. One moment they’d been running free, as they’d been born to, the next moment they were contained, reined in. The way they’d been trained to be.
They were like him. He’d been free once, and then contained, and now that Galen was pissed at him, it wasn’t a sure thing that he wouldn’t be back in prison by the time the sun went down.
Time would tell. In the meanwhile, Bede raced to secure the paddock with the horses inside of it, but was met by Galen, who dismounted in a hurry, grim and dusty, and sexy as hell.
Galen flapped Bede’s hands away as he reached out for him, but he barely looked him in the eye as he did it.
“Can we talk about this?” asked Bede, low, as he gathered up the reins of Galen’s horse, now riderless.
“No, we cannot,” said Galen, equally low. “I need to figure out what to do.”
“I’ll just take it back,” said Bede. “All of it.”
He knew, deep in his heart, that the seemingly easy solution wasn’t quite that simple. He could be spotted taking the money back, and anyway, Galen knew about it, which, evidently, made it something that had to be dealt with rather than sweeping it under the rug.
Trust him to fall for a do-gooder. A schedule follower. A hard-working man with the face of an angel, and hair to match, along with the principles of a knight worthy of King Arthur.
Oh, yes, he had fallen all right, and the hard glance of Galen’s gaze as he took the horse’s reins from Bede’s hands so he could tie up and unsaddle and groom the horse made his heart ache. A deep ache that lanced at him. Totally unpredictable and unbelievably sharp.
It was like losing Winston all over again. Only this man, long legged and sweet, wouldn’t be sad to leave Bede behind in his wake. He might even be glad to see Bede get his comeuppance and end up once more behind bars. Where he belonged.
He’d been an idiot to imagine that drug money could so easily be placed where it might do the most good. In Galen’s hands. In his bank account. Used to pay off ridiculous bills to organizations that simply did not need the pittance they would scrape from Galen’s hide.
He’d been an idiot, but he’d do it again if he had to. Doanythingto fix this, though it didn’t seem likely that Galen would give him another chance.
Galen had broadcast his doubts from the beginning, about the parole program, about parolees getting handouts and an easy chance at a new start. About Bede himself. And Bede had just proven him right, on all counts.
Bede helped where he could to get the recaptured horses settled with treats and fresh water, but he really only seemed in the way of more experienced hands. So with several tugs, he led Toby and Owen, who were also mostly in the way, to the mess tent for breakfast.
There, he put together a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast and sat down with that and a cup of black coffee. All of which he stared hard at for several minutes, his attention drawn to the open tent flaps of the mess tent. Waiting for Galen.
And when Galen showed up, dusty and grim, Bede waited for a sign that Galen would sit next to him in a semblance of normalcy. So that they might pretend to get along, if nothing else. So that Bede could find the crack in Galen’s armor and slip in to plead his case.
But Galen sat with the other team leads for breakfast, and participated in what looked like a very somber conversation, not so much about who was responsible for the escaped horses, but more how to prevent it happening in the future. It was as if the two of them had never met.
Bede made himself eat his breakfast and participate in, or at least listen to, whatever prattle that Toby and Owen found amusing. He nearly sprained his eyeballs from rolling them so hard while at the same time watching Galen. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest when Galen suddenly got up, bussed his place, and marched over to where Bede, Toby, and Owen were sitting, and towered over them as they looked up.
