“You sound like you know that from experience,” said Zeke, still down, mumbling into the near-darkness the cave of his body created. He did not sit up and push Cal’s hand away, though he should have.
“Yeah,” said Cal. “I do.”
That did not sound good, and Zeke stemmed the urge to sit up and demand who had treated Cal so roughly that he knew what it felt like to get cramps so hard you just had to ride them out.
“Wait a minute. Here.”
With firm, caring hands, Cal helped him to sit up, and for a moment, Zeke swayed toward him as though his body had impulses beyond Zeke’s control.
With effort, Zeke leaned back, and, ignoring the intensity of those blue eyes, the concern he saw there, he took the bandana and tied it back around the flashlight.
“You’ll be ready for when it gets dark,” Zeke said. “We can get you another flashlight tomorrow to carry around with you and leave this one as it is.”
“What about tonight?” asked Cal, and the question seemed to contain more than a mere four words.
“I’ll escort you back,” said Zeke, thinking that all of this was foolishness on his part. Cal could easily untie the bandana andthen tie it back again. He didn’t need to escort Cal anywhere. Least of all along paths that were surely becoming quite familiar to him.
“Thanks.”
Cal was back to one-word responses again, though the expression on Cal’s face seemed to hint there was more he wanted to say. There certainly was more that Zeke wanted to hear, though should they stay in this tent, intimate with its shaded pink light, and just the two of them, Cal standing too close, and Zeke not moving away?
No. They shouldn’t.
“Let’s head to the campfire,” said Zeke.
He stood up and waited for Cal to take a step back. Only he didn’t, so Zeke gently placed his hands on Cal’s shoulders and dipped his chin to get him to move.
Cal did, for which Zeke was grateful. One second more of that powerful closeness, and his mind was already scattered.
His thigh ached when he put weight on it, as well, and he felt that maybe he should duck out of the campfire and send Cal along on his own. But that was the coward’s way out. He’d not come all the way into the valley because he was a coward. These things needed to be dealt with head on, and not avoided.
Only not at that moment, because what was most important was for Zeke to get out of that tent and lead the way to the campfire. Which was what he did.
With Cal on his heels, the two of them marched through the forest along the short path that opened up to the fire pit and the flames dancing against the dark sky, high enough for Zeke to imagine that someone had doused the flames with lighter fluid.
All the men were standing, and Zeke saw Jonah pulling a young man away from the flames.
“Damn it, Beck,” Jonah said, but Beck just laughed and tossed his dark hair out of his eyes as Jonah grabbed something out of Beck’s hand and put it in his own pocket.
“Who’s that?” asked Cal, almost tripping on Zeke’s heels as Zeke came to a slow stop. His body brushed against Zeke’s in a casual way, so Zeke took another step forward in an attempt to put some sensible distance between them.
“I think that’s Jonah’s friend,” said Zeke, turning to talk to Cal over his shoulder. “He’s allowed to stay over the weekend.”
Zeke remembered Gabe telling him about Beck, but it was only now that the information made sense.
The time he’d first heard about Beck, he thought it strange that a non-parolee was allowed in the valley. Now, after seeing the effects of Beck running wild, he questioned it again. Still, if Gabe had approved Beck’s presence, then it was not Zeke’s place to question.
As he watched Jonah and Royce hustle to pour a bit of dirt on the edges of the fire to bring down the flames, he looked over at Cal. Who was looking at him in return, ribbons of firelight reflecting in his dark eyes.
Zeke could only imagine that the reaction in his gut, a shivery, excited twisting, was because he’d made it through his first week. And that he was proud of Cal for having learned enough that they could start riding lessons come Monday. And not because he could see Bede and Galen in the row furthest back from the fire pit, and that they were sitting mighty close. Shoulders rubbing, billing and cooing like a pair of turtle doves, fallen newly in love.
His was not to judge. Surely Gabe was aware of the pair and had no objections, so who was Zeke to step up and start pointing fingers?
“Let’s make s’mores,” Zeke said, shoving the swirl of confusion deeper inside. He wiped his damp palms on his thighsand cleared his throat to make sure Cal heard him. “If you get the sticks, I’ll get the supplies.”
By the time he and Cal were seated side by side on a blanket-covered hay bale, the fire had simmered down to a more reasonable level. Jonah, across the fire from Zeke, was giving Beck a stern talking to, if Jonah’s expression was anything to go by.
Meanwhile, as Zeke roasted his marshmallow in the dancing yellow flames, he studiously ignored Cal’s closeness. Ignored that he could smell the day’s efforts in Cal’s sweat, the trace of dust, and the linger of horsehair.
