Hay and Heartbreak (7 page)

“Are you mad at me?” Frankie asked.

“Nope, not at all.” More like irked with himself for being an ass.

“’Mornin’,” Duke said. He was propped up in bed, looking rumpled and cranky, his eyes narrowed. “What’s goin’ on? I heard Frankie ask if you’re mad at him.”

Well, at least I’ll get this over with fast.
“Yeah, guess I haven’t been as friendly as I should be. I’ve been trying, though.”

“You came out here as soon as you found out Duke was hurt,” Frankie said, showing a loyalty that touched Dan’s soul. “I’m just being overly sensitive, that’s all.”

Dan set his plate on the dresser, then pulled up the rocking chair that was in the closest corner. “Crap. Forgot my coffee.”

“I’ll get it. Be right back.” Frankie darted out of the room like his ass was on fire.

Duke arched an eyebrow at Dan. “What in high hell is goin’ on?”

Dan sat down. “Just something Frankie said that made me realize I’m still holding onto old grudges.”

“About me not keeping in touch?” Duke asked.

“Among other things,” Dan admitted. “You know, though, here’s the thing. I wasn’t a nice person growing up. I was so jealous of you and your brothers—”

“
Our
brothers,” Duke cut in. “Damn it, Dan, we were all family.”

That was easier for Duke to say than it was for Dan to believe. “Our dad cheated on your mom with mine, and I was the result. You know what kids like me were called?”

“Fuck what you were called,” Duke growled. “And fuck me for not payin’ more attention when we were kids. I was so busy tryin’ to hide from who and what I was, I couldn’t see past myself.”

“And nothing you’d have done would have reached me,” Dan said. He rocked once, then lifted his plate off the dresser and onto his lap. “I was already using coke every now and then when I moved in with y’all. Mom had been dating a dealer before—well, before his ex killed her.”

Duke’s eyes were huge, and for a moment he stared, mouth dropped open. Then he got it together. “That’s what happened? All we were told was she passed away.”

“That’s what happened. I went out with some friends, and came home to cops all over, and finding out Mom was dead,” Dan explained, the memories still painful. “She might not have been the best mother in the world, but she loved me. She would have dumped that guy had she known he was giving me cocaine—but I don’t think she’d have been able to clean up herself.”

Duke sat up, no longer leaning against the headboard. “You came to live with us right after that?”

“Yeah.” Dan picked up the fork and poked at his eggs. “She didn’t even have a funeral. No money, you know. Only person who would have shown up was me, I guess. Mom didn’t have any other family. Anyway, I don’t know how your—our—dad found out. I mean, I knew who he was. He paid child support on me, but I didn’t spend time with him much. Then all the sudden I was living there, seeing how he loved his other boys and how much of a father he was to them when he hadn’t been to me, and it…and it hurt,” he finished softly, his chest aching.

“I’m sorry.” Duke rubbed at his eyes. “Man, we were a messed up family. I’m sorry about a lot of things—you losing your mom, then not getting the help you needed, and there should have been a funeral, or a memorial service, something for you to honor her with. So many mistakes,” he muttered. Then he looked Dan in the eyes. “But no more, okay? We’re all the family each other’s got, and we know… We know the past was filled up with mistakes. Doesn’t mean we have to keep makin’ ’em, or let ’em rule out lives now. We can be family, brothers. Can’t we?”

“Yeah, yeah we can do that.” Dan tried to break out of the emotional bonds holding his heart prisoner. “I
want
to do that. You, me, and Frankie, we’re family.”

Duke’s smile could have outshone the stars from the night before. “The three of us are family.”

Dan didn’t try to resist smiling back. “We are, yeah. Y’all are stuck with me.”

“That’s the best news we’ve had in a while,” Frankie said. “I’d squeal and jump for joy, but I’d spill the coffee.”

“No spillin’ the coffee,” Duke warned. He held a hand out to Dan. “You could get up and give a hurt man a hug.”

Dan felt like he was all knees and elbows and awkward as he hugged his brother. When Frankie joined in, he had to figure out how to make a three-person hug happen. It was worth the effort.

* * * *

There just wasn’t anything like a clear autumn day in the Montana countryside. Hector loved the land and everything about it—as long as he wasn’t in the city.
Any city.
It was fine to go into Bozeman or Billings, somewhere like that for a day or two, but to live there? Hector was pretty sure that’d just kill his soul.

“Are you daydreaming about Dan?” Ramsey teased, nudging Hector’s arm. “It looked like you were flirting pretty hard with him.”

Hector didn’t deny the flirting part. “I tried being subtle over the past week, but he wasn’t picking up on it. It was time for me to be a little more direct if I don’t want anyone else trying to steal him away from me. Gotta move fast around this bunch of horn dogs.”

“Like you aren’t one yourself?” Ramsey held out a hand. “Nah, I know you were joking. I’m just—”

When he didn’t continue, Hector said, “Spit it out, already, Ram. It ain’t like you to go pussy-footing around anyone.”

“Yeah, I know. Just makes me sound like a shallow asshole, is all,” Ramsey groused.

Hector scratched his chin then pushed the brim of his hat up a little higher. “What’re you talking in circles about?”

“The scars he has,” Ramsey blurted out before groaning. “Aw, see? Totally shallow. I just meant, well, do you know how he got them?”

“I’m curious about them, and I can see that he’s self-conscious about them. Guess anyone would be. Those aren’t the man, though,” he said, trying to explain something he didn’t understand himself. “Dan is— He’s more than those scars. He blushes.”

“What’re you two gossiping about?” Salt called out from several yards away, where he was digging a posthole for the corral the bosses wanted built. Will, Carlos and Troy all looked at Hector with a great deal of interest.

“Yes,” Will said, propping a hand on one hip. “What
are
you two talking about? I bet it has something to do with sex.”

“You think
everything
has something to do with sex,” Troy pointed out.

Carlos leaned on the recently set pole he’d stuck in the ground. “And he’s usually right when it comes to them single guys.”

“Y’all aren’t far off,” Ramsey chimed in.

Hector snorted. “Whatever, man. Y’all are totally off base.”

“So you don’t want to fuck Dan?” Ramsey asked tartly.

For some reason, that bluntness pissed Hector off. He refrained from saying as much, knowing it’d just give everyone more to talk about. “Ram, when have I ever kissed and told?”

“Oh,” Will sang. “Kissing, hm? So not just
bow chicka wow-wow
!”

“What are you? A fifteen year old in a thirty-something’s body?” Hector retorted.

Will stood up straight and flipped Hector off. “Hey! I am
not
thirty, and even if I
was
, I don’t look it. I use the best sunscreen and moisturizer there is. Just feel my face!”

Hector threw his hands up in protest. “No offense, but I don’t want to feel any of you, Will. Just, I don’t even know what I want regarding Dan. I don’t know him. We talked some on the drive to the ranch the night I picked him up, and some every day since. Well, mostly I talked. All I can tell you is, I’m attracted to him. Even that ain’t anyone else’s business but his and mine.”

“You are
no
fun
at all
,” Will griped. “Seriously. Ugh!” But he winked and smiled when he said it.

“We need to meet this brother of Duke’s,” Troy said a few minutes later. “It’s kind of our duty to be hospitable and all. Every time we’ve planned on stopping in and doing that, something’s happened. There was the break in the fence, the sick cattle, the electrical outage… Right now, nothing’s going on.”

Carlos huffed and glared at Troy. “You’re just really set on gettin’ out of diggin’ these post holes, aren’t ya?”

“Oh, me too! Me too!” Will called out. “I can’t have blisters on these hands!”

Troy pointed at Will. “I’m just worried about his hands.”

“Liar,” Will stage whispered, pinching Troy’s butt.

“Ow!” Troy yelped.

Carlos set his posthole digger aside then pulled off his gloves. “Well, I gotta keep y’all happy, don’t I?”

“So today they’re like the two stooges and the stern dungeon master who just isn’t stern enough to say no,” Ramsey mused.

Hector grimaced. “No, I’m not thinking about Carlos and dungeons, or his men in them, either. You need to put that imagination to work and write another book, Ram.”

Ramsey laughed. “I do. Who knew I’d like writing dirty stories?”

“Not me, that’s for damn sure.” But Ramsey had a few books out that he wrote under a pen name, stories that usually included a gay couple as well as other paired up characters. And they were good. Hector wasn’t a big reader. Even so, he enjoyed Ramsey’s stories.

The rest of the day passed by with a little more teasing from Ramsey and Barney. Hector didn’t worry about Dan meeting the bosses. Carlos, Troy and Will were some of the best men Hector knew. They wouldn’t be jerks to Dan, and Dan was— Hector considered it for a moment.
Dan is tender, spooked, maybe, like a horse that’s been abused or neglected.

That realization was followed by a burst of anger that Hector had to talk himself down from. He didn’t know anything about Dan’s past, and shouldn’t be making up a history for the man.

Plus, it wasn’t like they were going to have a long-term relationship. They might only be friends, nothing more, if Dan wasn’t interested in taking things further.

So Hector tucked away his suspicions, since they were unfounded. Still, they kept popping up throughout the day, and by the time he was done working, Hector had decided he’d just ask Dan why he was skittish. That’d keep Hector from making any mistakes, once he knew if there was something in Dan’s past that had caused him harm.

Chapter Six

After spending another day with Duke, Dan felt a little less like he was on shaky ground. Ever since he’d been released from prison, he’d been at a loss for what to do with himself. There’d been things that had happened to him, things that probably happened, to some degree, to every seventeen-year-old boy tossed into a prison with older, stronger, hardened criminals. Dan knew he’d been shaped by them, just as he’d been scarred because of some of them. What he didn’t want was to let those events control his life.

While he hadn’t been raped in prison, he’d done what he’d had to in order to survive. Mosh’s protection had kept him safe, and the price for that protection had been to serve Mosh in whatever manner Mosh had demanded. Mosh had never been a gentle, or generous, sexual partner. At least he wasn’t the man who’d cut Dan.

Dan fingered his scars. He hated looking at himself in the mirror, but it was getting easier to do. What could Hector possibly see in him? Granted, Hector wasn’t conventionally handsome. His nose was a little too big and he just didn’t have those perfect model features. What he
did
have was a masculine appearance and appeal that Dan found attractive, and a fun sense of humor.

And that smile.
Dan really liked that a lot.

Dan glanced in the mirror. There was no avoiding the scars or the way the one running from his cheek to his chin caused the corner of his mouth to pull down a tad. He tried a smile, and was surprised to see that it wasn’t a fright-inducing. He studied himself but found nothing extraordinary in his reflection. Even if he didn’t have the horrible scars, he’d still just be plain at best.

Dan zipped right back to the question of why Hector was interested in him. The best Dan could figure, Hector might believe him to be desperate and easy because of it.

It wasn’t exactly a lie.

Dan turned away from the mirror. He wasn’t doing himself any good, fretting like that. After a good day spent with Duke, and finally meeting the three bosses—Dan was almost positive the three men were lovers, which was mind-boggling and indisputably hot—his spirits should have been lifted. Instead he was nervous, tense, and considering backing out of the date—or whatever it was—with Hector.

Before he could make up his mind on what to do, there was a knock outside his bedroom. His heart pounded and his pulse escalated as he opened the door to find Hector smiling at him.

“Hey.” Hector’s hair was damp and a few droplets of water still clung to his neck. His light blue T-shirt fit his torso to perfection, showing off his thick chest and broad shoulders. Up close, Dan could see Hector’s eyes better, or perhaps he hadn’t bothered to really look before.

“They’re not just brown,” he muttered, embarrassing himself right off the bat. “Shit.” He wanted to turn into vapor and disappear.

Hector chuckled and tucked a finger under Dan’s chin. “You know, one of the things I like about you is that you blush. It’s— Damn, I’m gonna sound sappy, but it’s cute.”

Dan figured ‘cute’ was a death knell regarding attraction for most men. The way Hector moved his hand and caressed Dan’s cheek, while at the same time edging forward and entering Dan’s room, said otherwise.

Dan backed up slowly, afraid to lose Hector’s touch. It was such a simple thing, really, those fingers on his skin, but it was what had been missing in Dan’s life, the personal sharing between two people.

Hector rumbled like a big cat, then he slid his hand around to cup Dan’s nape. “I’m gonna kiss you,” he warned, those dark brown and green-flecked eyes narrowing. “You can say no.”

Dan clutched at Hector’s shirt and made certain Hector wasn’t going to back away. Then he tipped his chin up, letting his lips part a little.

“Oh, you’re fucking perfect.” Hector whispered the words so close they could have come from Dan’s mouth instead.

Dan’s eyelids fell shut as he trembled, waiting for that first brush of possession, the overpowering of his will.