Looking over at his phone, he grabbed it and, on reflex, thumbed to the voice messages icon and tapped it open. There were no less than five messages from Preston, each one at least thirty seconds long. Two of them clocked out at almost a full minute.
His heartbeat picked up, and acidy panic thrummed through his veins. Lightheaded, he played the most recent message.
“What the fuck, Cal. You better pick up the phone. I know where you are now. Maddy told me about the visiting thing, and of course you lied to me about all of it. I was there on Sunday, like we agreed?—”
Cal shook his head. They hadn’t agreed on anything, though that never mattered to Preston.
“—Like we agreed. I waited for hours. You never showed. I went through the trees and met some asshat named Gabe. He said you were going by horseback to rescue some nags from wild animals or some shit. That you’d be back on Monday. Then when I called him again, he said you’d be back Tuesday. Now it’s Tuesday. You better call me. We need to arrange when I’m going to bring you back home. Be packed and ready cause it’s happening.”
That was the message. Demands and accusations and name calling, all in Preston’s voice, strident and angry and simply awful.
After having been away from Preston and his rage, Cal didn’t know how he’d stood it for so long. He really had been like a frogin a pot of cold water who simply didn’t know he was about to be boiled to death.
He’d had that thought, and others like it before, but after being in the valley? After being with Zeke? After he and Zeke had made love in a valley far away from anywhere, there was no way he was going back to Preston. Now, more than ever, he needed a plan.
He had to rescue himself from this. If he brought any of this up to Zeke—no. He couldn’t bring it up to Zeke. He needed to take care of his own mess so none of it would affect Zeke.
It didn’t matter. He wasn’t calling Preston back. He might reach out to Maddy and ask her not to share any more information with Preston, but he didn’t want to tell her what was going on because none of it had worked. He’d failed utterly.
Except he’d been brave to escape Preston’s clutches the first time. He just needed to keep on being brave about it and get away from him for good.
In the meanwhile, he needed to keep doing his parole in the valley. Not just because it was the right thing to do, but because it would keep him close to Zeke.
That was the important thing. To hang on to every moment with both hands, so he could take it out later and marvel that he’d been only inches away from a life of pure happiness.
He showered, and shaved, then went back and stripped to his briefs, and got into his cot. He held the flashlight, wrapped in a bandana, and laid it next to his pillow so the circle of light shone toward the end opposite the opening.
The pinkish light comforted him to sleep, and in the morning, he would wake up and go about things as if it was an ordinary day and not a continuance of his time in the valley with Zeke. Because it wasn’t. Zeke had a job and Cal had his parole to finish and then he needed to figure out how to make his final escape from Preston.
His escape plan was still undefined when he woke up the next morning and got dressed and headed to the mess tent.
When he got there, he saw Zeke was already in line, freshly shaved, head bowed as he looked at his hands, focused on them as though they were helping him ignore everything going on around him.
Which wasn’t like Zeke. Zeke was always aware of his surroundings, looking around him in a quiet and steady way, taking the world in before he made his own assumptions about it.
Cal’s heart ached to think that Zeke was hurting and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Except Zeke wanted them to keep a professional distance, and so he would.
The rain had stopped, at least for the moment, though the paddock where they planned to give another riding lesson, making up for lost time, was a sloppy mess.
“Shall we go ahead with it?” asked Zeke out loud, his green eyes distant from beneath the brim of his hat.
It sounded like Zeke was talking to himself more than Cal. Then Zeke turned away from Cal, looking at the paddock and the three men who truly wanted lessons: Wayne, Toby, and Gordy.
“Mud doesn’t bother me,” said Wayne, in that way he had, self-important and overly direct.
“Let’s run through it, then,” said Zeke. “Grab those green halters and I’ll show you how to catch horses in the field.”
“I thought Galen was giving the lessons,” said Gordy as they slipped through the wires and trudged out across the muddy pasture.
“He’s helping Gabe today,” said Zeke. “Something about trees falling over and needing to be cleared.”
Cal had the same question, but he didn’t want to bother Zeke. Looking at him from afar was painful enough. It would havebeen sheer agony to ask the question and then have Zeke dismiss him. Or not look at him when he was answering.
He knew better, though. Zeke was a good guy, through and through, and had never seemed the type of man to be mean and snotty, just because he was three feet away from the guy who’d given him his first blow job.
Zeke wouldn’t break Cal’s heart, not on purpose.
“Cal,” said Zeke.
