Sunset Ridge (9 page)

Gray glanced around at the small crowd of mourners and noticed most of them were also struggling with tears. Gray refused to let himself cry. His dad had always told him crying was a sign of weakness in a man.

After Ram had said his piece, he stepped forward and laid a hand on the light oak coffin. Gray could see Ram’s lips move but couldn’t hear what was being said. Several moments after approaching the casket, Ram turned and strode towards the line of vehicles.

Gray took a moment to lay a hand on the coffin as well. “I’ll take care of him,” he whispered to himself. Before going after Ram, Gray found Georgia among the mourners. “Would you make sure Raleigh gets back to school?”

“Sure.” Georgia squeezed Gray’s hand. “I’ll probably do some shopping while I’m in town so you should have the house to yourselves for a couple of hours.”

“Thanks.” Gray thanked several of the hired hands for coming before going in search of Ram. He found him leaning against his pickup. “Ready to go?”

Ram nodded before opening the passenger door. “Please.”

It wasn’t easy, but Gray managed to get his truck past the parked cars and out of the cemetery. The moment they were back on the open road, he reached for Ram’s hand. There wasn’t much he could say, but he wanted to offer Ram the support he hadn’t been able to give earlier. “Do you want to go over to your uncle Bob’s? I know they’re having some sort of dinner.”

Ram threaded his fingers through Gray’s. “I think I’m done with people today.”

“That include me?”

Ram shook his head but didn’t say anything.

“We’ll have the house to ourselves for a while. Georgia’s going to do some shopping after she drops Raleigh off at school.”

“No offence, but I’m too damn old to be sneaking around in your house while everyone else is gone. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go by Momma’s house.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Right now I don’t want to hide. I don’t want to pretend I’m someone else. I just want to be in the one place I’ve always been free to be myself.”

Gray turned a corner and headed for town. He’d known for a while that Ram was unhappy with his desire to hide their relationship, but never had it been thrown in his face so blatantly. They would need to discuss it, but Gray was smart enough to know it wasn’t the time. Ram’s emotions were too close to the surface, and Gray was already feeling defensive. Later, Gray promised himself.

* * * *

Two weeks later, Ram waited in the truck for Raleigh to get out of school. Although she’d been on her best behaviour around Gray, Ram doubted the little tigress had changed her stripes. Usually he would send one of the hands into town to pick her up, but a detention for talking had Raleigh at school after normal quitting time.

With a customer in town to look over the pregnant Thoroughbreds, Gray was needed at the ranch. Of course that left Ram. He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel in time with the song on the radio.

Despite having buried his mom two weeks earlier, Ram was in a surprisingly good mood. Things with Gray were slowly progressing. Lady had made it past the two hundred day mark without aborting her foals and Gray had successfully closed a deal that would bring a new Barb stallion to the Sunset Ridge. There were two more that Gray was dying to buy, but first he had to close a deal with a wealthy buyer from Kentucky.

Ram grinned to himself. Gray may not be as good at the day-to-day running of the ranch, but the man had a head for business and a passion for Thoroughbreds.

The passenger door opened, bringing Ram out of his thoughts. He put his seat belt on and started the truck.

“Where’s Gray?” Raleigh asked.

“Schmoozing, Andrew Carlson, that good ole boy from Lexington. He asked me to remind you to be on your best behaviour at dinner.”

Raleigh remained unusually quiet until they left town. Ram glanced at the beautiful girl and noticed the sorrowful expression on her face. “You okay?” he asked.

Raleigh shook her head. “Why does he always expect the worst of me?”

“Who?”

“Uncle Gray,” she whispered in a voice years younger than her actual age.

Raleigh turned her body away from him. Despite her new position he saw her wipe tears from her eyes. Ram felt as though the world as he knew it had shifted. He wasn’t used to seeing Raleigh vulnerable. Worse, he didn’t know if he could trust his instincts. It was entirely possible that Raleigh’s display of emotion was a trick.

“I don’t think Gray expects the worst, but you have to admit you’ve got a pretty good track record for causing trouble. This deal he’s working on is really important for the ranch. I think he just wants it to go smoothly.” Coddling someone wasn’t something Ram was comfortable with, but Raleigh’s tears were too much for him to handle. “I know he wants you there though. Although you may think differently at times, Gray loves you more than anything.”

Raleigh shook her head. “If he wanted kids, he’d have had them by now. I was dumped on him.”

Ram searched for something to say. “Your mom really screwed you up, huh?”

Raleigh spun around. “Why would you say something like that to me?”

“Because I think it’s the truth, and I believe you make it harder on Gray than you need to. I understand why you’re angry. Hell, if my mom had abandoned me I’d be mad, too. But I think the thing you fail to see is that Gray hasn’t gone anywhere. Sure he bitches from time to time and he punishes you when it needs to be done, but none of it takes away from the fact that he loves you and he’s the one who’s there when you need him.”

“Do you know she didn’t even bother to call me on my birthday this year?”

Ram pulled a clean bandana out of his back pocket and handed it to Raleigh. As she cleaned her nose, he tried to imagine what life must be like for a seventeen-year-old girl without her mother. “I should’ve introduced you to my momma. She always wanted a little girl, but God took the only one she ever managed to have.”

Raleigh’s black sculpted eyebrows drew together. “She died?”

“Yep, one of those crib death things that no one could explain. Her name was Jennifer. She was younger than I was by ten years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, we all were. But the reason I told you about Jennifer is because you need to know that not all mothers are indifferent to their children.”
Fuck.
Had that really just come out of his mouth? “I’m sorry. That wasn’t the right thing to say.”

“Maybe it was. I’ve never had someone to talk to about her. I know Uncle Gray’s mad at her for what she did, but she’s still his sister. Kinda like I love her even though I hate her guts.”

“So instead of turning into her, why don’t you rise above her? Do you believe that you have to be a fuck-up just because she was?”

Raleigh looked thoughtful for several moments. “You’re pretty good at this sort of thing. A lot better than Uncle Gray.”

Ram leaned towards Raleigh and grinned. “He doesn’t know a whole lot about women. I think you scare him sometimes.”

Raleigh let out a soft giggle. “Yeah, you may be right.” She tilted her head to the side. “Why do you suppose he’s never had a girlfriend?”

Caught, Ram shrugged. “Umm, I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him.”

“Are you kidding? Uncle Gray’s like a closed book when it comes to his personal life.”

Or a closed door
, Ram thought to himself. He turned into the driveway and parked in front of the garage. “I think I’ve got just enough time to change before dinner.”

Raleigh opened the door but before she climbed out of the truck she turned to look back at him. “Thanks for the ride, and ya know, the other stuff.”

“You’re welcome.”

* * * *

After Andrew Carlson left, Gray went upstairs to check on Raleigh before his nightly trip to the garage apartment. He knocked on Raleigh’s closed bedroom door. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

When Gray opened the door, Raleigh was already dressed in her customary T-shirt and pyjama pants. “Get all your homework done?”

“Not quite, but I’ll be finished before ten.” Raleigh went back to her book.

Gray watched her for several moments. He’d been impressed with her during dinner. He wasn’t sure why she’d suddenly had a change in her usual behaviour, but it had impressed both him and Andrew Carlson. “Thanks.”

“For what?” she asked without looking up from her book.

“For dinner. I appreciated the dress. Very nice.”

With a dramatic sigh, Raleigh looked up at Gray. “Ram told me how important Mr Carlson’s business was to the ranch. You know I can act like an adult if you treat me like one.”

Gray gave a quick nod. “I’ll remember that.” He started to close the door. “Good night, pumpkin.”

“Good night, Uncle Gray. You know it’s been a while since you’ve called me pumpkin. I’ve missed it.”

Gray paused before closing the door entirely. “I’ve missed it, too.” He smiled at Raleigh before shutting the door. He wondered if Ram was responsible for Raleigh’s new attitude.

He turned out the lights and shut his own bedroom door before leaving the house. He climbed the stairs to Ram’s apartment and knocked. The nice thing about the bunkhouse was that it wasn’t visible from the garage so he didn’t need to worry about the hands seeing him enter Ram’s home.

In one swift moment, the door opened and Ram reached out to pull Gray inside. He shut the door and pressed Gray against it. “I thought you’d never get here,” Ram said just before slamming his mouth against Gray’s.

Gray wrapped his arms around Ram and held on. He had a lot to talk about, but his manager seemed to have other ideas. Accepting Ram’s kiss, Gray realised it was the best part of his day. He hated leaving in the middle of the night to go back to his room before Raleigh woke up. Hours had been spent daydreaming about a life out of the closet lately, but he couldn’t do it until he was positive things would work out with Ram.

Ram ground himself against Gray as the kiss continued. Gray had no doubt the front of his pants were wet with pre-cum by the time their lip-lock ended. “Guess that means you’re happy to see me,” Gray gasped.

Ram rubbed his erection against Gray’s. “It went well with Carlson, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it did. He promised to call me first thing next week.” Gray reached between them and unzipped his dress pants. “He’s agreed to pay a deposit, but we won’t get the rest of the money until January when the ladies drop their foals.”

Gray still couldn’t believe it. Andrew Carlson was almost too good to be true. For years Gray had watched his father try to break into the upper circles of the racehorse community to no avail. Sunset Ridge Stables had always done well, but most of the money had been hard won. The deal with Carlson for all the Thoroughbreds sired by He’s a Champion would be enough to completely pay off the mortgage he’d taken out to buy the prize-winning racehorse, as well as buy the two Barb stallions he still had his eye on. At the time, his dad had called him a fool for risking his inheritance, but Gray had always believed you had to spend money to make it.

“It’s the biggest deal this ranch has ever seen,” Gray said as Ram wrapped a hand around his cock. “It still doesn’t seem real.”

“It’s real,” Ram assured him. “Although Carlson tried to play it cool, I could see how impressed he was with the operation you’ve built up.”

Gray smiled. “Probably didn’t hurt that Andrew’s father let He’s a Champion slip through his fingers.”

Despite Ram’s firm grip on his cock, Gray had other things on his mind. “You mind if we just talk?” Gray asked.