He smiled that off-kilter smile that made my stomach flip-flop. “Oh right, the salmon date. You bring the bait, and I’ll bring the hooks.”
“I think I’m already hooked,” I murmured.
Will plastered his mouth over mine, kissing me hard and deep.
“Yeah, yeah…me too,” he confessed then yanked my mouth back to his.
“Can I try?”
I looked up from my book to the side to see Will staring at me. It was just dawn, the daybreak a slow, sullen sort of sunrise. The sky was red, the air still, the songbirds filling the morn with their calls. He looked so good sitting beside me, book in his hands, eyes bright with affection that I shared. Asshole that he was. I’d finally shoved him out of my room around two in the morning after a few hours of petting and lovers’ whispers shared in the dark. I’d hated to make him leave my bed but…yeah, but. It ate at me more and more. Hiding us, hiding me, hiding what was growing between us like a nettle. Which, now that I thought about it, described Will Abbott quite well. Alluring flowers to draw you in then annoying stinging leaves. Beauty and irritation. Yep, that was my lover. Huh? My lover. My lover…
“Well, can I?”
Gemini stood about a foot away, his speckled snout in the hay bag that I’d hung next to me. The Appaloosa had been wary at first, perhaps because his hay was so close to me or perhaps because Will was sitting on the top rail with me. But he’d plonked along after a moment of checking out the two humans who couldn’t stop touching or glancing at each other.
“Can you try what?” I asked, forcing the memory of Will’s touch from my mind. There were other things to focus on now that the caress of the night had passed.
“Reading to him.” Will sat humped over his library book with his toes tucked under the second split rail just as mine were. “I found a pretty cool passage about Leonidas and how his time at the agoge made him ‘one of the guys’ due to living and training with others who were considered regular Spartans. Maybe he became popular among the fighting men of Sparta and so when Xerxes started his shit, Leonidas could call on his old school friends to join in the battle.”
“Is there any surer sign of loyalty, friendship, and love than facing down a Persian army of thousands when you stand only three hundred strong?”
“Standing beside someone who continually fucks up?”
I gave the area a quick sweep then leaned over to kiss him quickly. “You don’t continually fuck up. Maybe only ninety percent is fucking up. The other ten percent you’re doing good.”
“You can suck my dick, Yellow Horse.” He elbowed me as he fought off a smile.
“I’d love to.”
His eyes flared. “Tease.”
“Read before we end up in the tack room with your cock down my throat.” I gave him a nudge, trying to ignore the stirring in my groin.
He snorted in amusement. Gemini’s ear twitched, but he continued peacefully munching hay. Will read a few pages, pausing only to ask what one word was as the sun slithered up higher and higher. More of the hands appeared, waving on their way to their assigned chores. A feed order was coming today, and Will and I were to unload and stack the hundred pound bags of sweet horse feed in the tack room. It would be really pleasant to watch him lift and tote feed. His lean, strong muscles would bunch up and—
“Who’s this?” Will asked as the sound of a car approaching broke up the routine noises of a Prairie Smoke morning. I craned my neck around to view a big, blue pickup truck with the Hollow Wind Ranch logo—swirling wind currents with HWR worked into the curls of air—pull up in front of the stables.
“Shit.” I closed my book about Aristotelianism, swung around, and dropped to the ground. This couldn’t be good. Kyle poked his head out of the beef barn. Nate appeared out of nowhere, his dark hat riding low on his brow. The foreman gave me and Will a look as he sauntered nonchalantly to the men exiting the Chevy truck.
Kyle walked over to stand beside Nate. Morgan and Shepherd McCrary and two of their hands slid out of the truck. I’d not seen either of the men before, but that meant little. None of us were welcome on Hollow Wind land, so it wasn’t like their employees and ours got together for weekly checkers games. I was kind of surprised to see a ranch hand that appeared to be Native, since they’re known far and wide for their distaste of anyone who wasn’t White, Christian, straight, and male. Perhaps the lanky guy with the olive skin and ebony hair was Latino. Our tribal constable was a mix of Shoshone and Mexican. There were lots of Hispanic hands, just not usually working for the McCrary family. Whatever his genealogy, I suspected he was a token hire. The one Indigenous or Black or Latino worker the McCrarys could point to and say, “Hey, we have an Indian on our payroll. We’re not racist.”
Shep’s gaze rocketed to me and Will standing by the corral. His expression was closed off, his eyes hard as flint.
“Any chance we can talk to the man and lady of the ranch?” Morgan called. The comment got a chortle from the two hired hands. Shep buried his sight on the ground, his jaw tight as a piano wire.
“If you’re referring to Landon and Montrell, they’re not here. I’m in charge, so anything you want to say to them you can say to me.”
Morgan’s sneer fell away. “Clay wanted us to come over and offer our thanks to the two young men who discovered all our stolen property. Guess all those things about thieving redskins working here were off base.”
The tall, middle-aged cowboy who worked for Clayton fisted a hand then relaxed his fingers. Ah, so he was Native and not impervious to the asshole shit that dribbled out of his employer’s mouth. He did work up a fake smile, his teeth visible for a mere second before his lips flattened out again. Nate walked closer to the middle McCrary brother, their noses and chests mere inches apart. Kyle was right at Nate’s side, his body primed just like a puma ready to pounce.
“I think you’ve been told numerous times that our hands don’t steal,” Nate stated so icily I could feel the chill of his words several feet away. “From anyone.” Morgan smiled the smile one would see on an old snake oil salesman.
“That you did. And here we are to acknowledge that and offer the two boys a little reward.” Morgan pulled an envelope from inside the pocket of the leather vest he was wearing. His vest matched his alligator boots and the belt keeping his neatly pressed jeans up. “The cops took everything for evidence aside from the artifacts and turned them over to that tribal officer, so it’ll be a while before our stuff is actually back. Still, Cam thought it would behoove us to make a goodwill gesture.”
Nate looked back at me and Will. “Perry and Will found the stash of stolen items.” He jerked his head at us. Will seemed really intent on Milton for some reason. I gave him a nudge, then we closed the distance between the small power meeting and ourselves, our books gripped in our hands. A hot wind blew across the ranch, stirring up dust and dirt into a small dervish that skipped around for a moment and died as suddenly as it started.
“Thank you but no thank you,” I said as soon as I was within speaking range.