What Matters Most (15 page)

Annabelle removed one hand from Josh’s chest long enough to point at Justin. “So?

He cares about you, loves you and you know it, and what’d you do when Joshie was hurt?”

Justin looked like he’d been punched in the gut, and Josh felt a twinge of sympathy for him. He patted Annabelle’s hand and gingerly began prying free of her hold. “Enough.

There’s been enough hurtful words and accusation slung around the past few days to last us all a lifetime, and I’m as guilty as anyone else.” Josh turned and met Annabelle’s gaze head WHAT MATTERS MOST

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on. “I think Nick left for Montana, and that’s my fault. I was a total ass after we—” Josh dared a glance at Justin, who’s face clouded up in anger. Josh shook his head; his brother needed to learn to control his temper before he had a stroke. “I kind of seduced him even though I know he’s not gay, then pretty much threw him out when he was being…”

Affectionate? Kind? Concerned? Josh couldn’t decide, he’d been so confused and scared when he’d walked in on Nick and Evan. “Nice,” he finished lamely, guilt driving deeper into him. God, he felt broken inside. Josh reached behind him, feeling the hot, smooth glass under his hand. He braced himself against the window and slid down to the floor, his strength leaving him. “I ran him off. He’s gone, and now you and Rory won’t ever get to know him, or…or whatever it was Nick wanted, I ruined it.”

The couch springs squeaked and heavy footsteps slapped the floor. Josh huddled in on himself, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

“Oh Josh, come here,” Justin’s deep voice carried an edge of pain as he sat beside Josh.

He pulled Josh into his arms, half dragging him onto Justin’s lap. “This whole thing’s been a clusterfuck, but you didn’t make Nick leave. He could have stayed here, tried to talk to you or Annabelle or Rory. He’s the one who chose to leave.”

Josh hiccupped and scrubbed his forehead against Justin’s shoulder. No matter what Justin said, Josh knew the truth. He’d been callous and scared of being hurt, and because of that, Nick was gone. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own. Now it was up to him to undo the damage he’d done.

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Nick deleted the message without reading it, just as he’d done with every text

message Josh had sent him in the past month. There wasn’t a plethora of texts, it wasn’t like Josh was driving him insane and filling up the Inbox. Just, one a day, for the past thirty-odd days. Nick had no doubt his phone would ring right at seven on the dot tonight, and once again, he wouldn’t answer. The voicemail would be deleted because, Nick was completely honest with himself about this, if he heard Josh’s sweet voice, heard the need that resonated inside every part of himself in that warm tenor, then Nick might very well forget all the reasons why he
shouldn’t
drive back to Texas. And really, why would he go back now? Yeah, he still had some kind of feelings for Josh, but Nick was almost recovered from Josh’s rejection as well as the shock of finding himself attracted to another man. He might even be able to dismiss it as a fluke since he hadn’t felt even a flicker of interest in another guy.

Or any woman, for that matter. Then again, he hadn’t really been looking at anyone that way, with the intent of fucking them. He’d been too busy nursing his wounds and rebuilding the shell around his heart. Still, it wasn’t healthy for a man his age to have no interest in sex, was it? He didn’t think so, and while he’d never been one of those men who wanted to fuck any and everything that crossed his path, he used to at least jerk off every few days or so. Since his return, he hadn’t even done that. Though thoughts of Josh could make him achingly hard in seconds, he couldn’t bring himself to fantasise about the man. It just hurt too much, so Nick had shoved aside thoughts of coming and wore himself out instead working sixteen hours or more each day. His mother was thrilled, but Nick was, quite simply, exhausted in every way possible.

Nick sighed and looked out from where he stood on the porch, leaning over the rail slightly, his elbows braced on the wide beam. He watched the ranch hands trailing in from the fields and fence lines. Then he took another look, hoping what he was doing wasn’t obvious. Objectively, he looked at each man. He supposed there were one or two who might be considered attractive, handsome, even, but they didn’t do a damn thing for him. His dick didn’t even so much as twitch.

“Mijo, you’re done for the day?”

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Nick hunched his shoulders against the disapproval he thought he heard in his

mother’s voice. Did she want him to work to death? Or was her fear of returning to her former circumstances, living a hair above the poverty level, manifesting itself? Nick had supported his mother since he’d been sixteen and able to work. The money Calhoun had sent monthly had barely been enough to cover food and rent, and his mother’s part time job subbing for the local school district hadn’t been a reliable source of income. If he’d been able to go to college, get a degree in something, he could have taken better care of her, but that simply had never been an option. He’d worked on whatever ranch would have him, and had considered himself lucky to have got his high school diploma.

The squeak of the screen door opening told him his mother was coming out and his few minutes of private reflection were over. With one last look at Richard, a young, nicely muscled ranch hand whose sunny disposition Nick envied, Nick slowly turned and put his back to the porch rail. His mother, all five foot three of her, stood watching him with eyes as dark as his own. Her long hair was pulled up in a bun, the black strands now matched in number by the silver ones. Faint lines were etched onto her brow, around her eyes and lips.

The skirt and blouse she wore were a soft peach colour that offset her golden brown skin, giving her cheeks a soft glow. All in all, his mother was an attractive woman. What she’d ever seen in Ian Calhoun was completely beyond Nick.

“Mijo?” Antonia frowned, the lines around her mouth deepening as her thin eyebrows drew together. “What’s wrong? Are you sick? You don’t usually stop working this early.”

Nick bit back the snort that would likely get him slapped, or worse, lectured. He rolled his head from side to side, grunting when a series of cracks eased some of the tension in his neck. “No, Mama, I’m not sick. I’m
tired
. I’ve been up since three-thirty this morning, and it’s”—Nick glanced at his watch before looking at his mother again—“a few minutes after five. I think it’s okay for me to knock off a couple hours early.”

Antonia crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head to the side as she

studied him before nodding. “You do look tired, mijo, but my papa always said, hard work makes a man strong. It does not hurt him, only keeps him from having time to be a fool.”

Yeah, and Papa died before he hit fifty, and for what?
Nick didn’t want to be like his grandfather, working himself into an early grave just so he could prove he was a real man.

He didn’t know what he
did
want, but it wasn’t that. And maybe, he needed to be a fool for a WHAT MATTERS MOST

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while tonight. There were questions Nick had asked himself that he’d been unable to answer, but he might know how to answer them now, or soon, at least.

Nick stood up and waved an arm towards the land behind him. “Everything that

needs doing is done. This place couldn’t have ever looked better.” Barns had been painted as had the house, the corrals were all spiffy, the pastures were covered in thick green grass, and every bit of the fence line had been checked and the needed repairs made. Nick dropped his hand back to his side then walked around his mother and pulled open the front door. “I don’t know why it’s not enough for you, but it is for me, and I’m going to take a few hours for myself tonight.” The screen door slapped shut on his mother’s protests, doing nothing to muffle her attempts to guilt him into staying home. He’d been here long enough—too damn long, probably.

Nick loped up the stairs, a sudden burst of energy coursing through him. Billings was about an hour away; it was the largest city in Montana. There
had
to be a gay bar he could check out there, right? He’d Google it after he showered, then he’d go and find out if any man besides Josh would appeal to him.

“Thirty-two days! Thirty-fucking-two days!” Josh flung his hands up as he paced and glared at Evan. “Nick won’t take my calls or return them, he doesn’t reply to my texts—I don’t even think he reads them or listens to the voicemail messages!”

Evan leant back on the couch, watching him as if Josh had suddenly become

something dangerous. “Why do you think that? Maybe he has listened to and read the messages. You don’t know.”

Josh stopped pacing long enough to roll his eyes at Evan. “Well of course I don’t know for sure, but since the ‘I miss you’s’ and ‘I’m really
really
sorry’s’ didn’t get any responses, I started sending and leaving the stupidest messages I could think of.” Josh shrugged, his cheeks heating under Evan’s questioning look. “It’s dumb stuff, like ‘the aliens are invading here in Texas and I’m fresh outta aluminium foil to protect my brain from the evil aliens’

powers of mind control’.” God, he was such a geek. “Anyway, he probably thinks I’m crazy if he
did
pay attention to his texts and voicemails the past few days.” Or he truly might not want anything to do with Josh.

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Evan stood up and stepped right in Josh’s path. He frowned at the bigger man and stopped his pacing, cocking a hip and planting his hand on it.

“What?”

“It’s getting a little annoying,” Evan said. “I’m glad your ankle is just about healed up, but watching you stomp back and forth over a six foot area is going to give me a tic or a twitch or something, not to mention the wear and tear on your already worn out carpet.”

Josh glanced down at the ugly brown carpet. If he walked a trail through it, it could only be an improvement.

“Maybe you should just let him go,” Evan said quietly. “Obviously my idea of…of

courting Nick just isn’t working. He hasn’t answered the letters Rory and Annabelle have sent him, either, so maybe he doesn’t want…”

“No,” Josh mumbled, his eyes stinging as his vision blurred. He stumbled around

Evan and dropped onto the couch. Evan was wrong, Josh thought, he had to be! Nick couldn’t have faked the desire burning in those dark eyes, wouldn’t have dared to touch Josh like he had if he didn’t feel the same attraction arcing between them. But why hadn’t he answered the letters from Rory and Annabelle? Those two were the whole reason Nick had come to Texas in the first place. It didn’t make any sense, unless… Unless Nick had cared a lot more than Josh realised. Then Josh’s rejection might have really hurt the man, enough so that Nick was afraid to give him another chance.

Or maybe Nick
wasn’t
gay. His attraction to Josh could have been a fluke, something easily killed off by distance.

“No.” Josh wouldn’t believe that. Even when Nick
had
been using him, the man had still touched him, hadn’t hesitated until that one moment at the Xxchange. And he’d stalked Josh, sort of, hadn’t he? When he could have followed Annabelle or Rory? Why had he hounded Josh, if not because he simply
wanted
to?

And why couldn’t Josh do the same? He had some savings now, he could ask for leave at work, or quit if necessary, and fly to Montana. Yes, he might end up losing his job and Nick both, in which case Josh would have to swallow his pride and give up all hope of remaining sane and move back in with his brother. Josh weighed the cost and decided with little hesitation that Nick was, hopefully, worth risking everything. One thing he was certain of, he couldn’t go on like he had been, and giving up was not an option.

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“What are you thinking about?” Evan asked as he sat beside Josh. “I know that look, you’re scheming.”

Josh pushed Evan’s shoulder—the man didn’t budge an inch—then stopped poking at

him. He studied Evan from head to toe then checked himself out as best he could. Evan was a cowboy to the bone, and Josh was…not, in his hot pink penguin scrubs. He didn’t even own a pair of boots, other than the steel toed biker boots he wore with his leather pants and mesh top. And his jeans were definitely not Wranglers. “Stand up,” he ordered Evan.

Evan arched a brow but stood up obediently. “Okay, now, spin around, slowly. I need to see how this look gets put together.”

Evan looked at him incredulously. “What? What do you mean, this look? Josh you’ve seen me dressed like this almost all of your life! Your brother, too!”

“Yeah, but I never
looked
looked at you two, you know?” Josh tried to explain, gesturing for Evan to turn around. It all depended on how Wranglers made a guy’s butt look.

“Oh, niiicee!” Evan had a nice firm ass, not as rounded as Josh’s, but still very pert, and the jeans cupped and moulded sweetly to Evan’s ass. Josh’s butt should look phenomenal in those!

“Are you done ogling me?” Evan snarked, facing Josh again. “Cuz I gotta say, while I’m flattered, I now feel like I need a couple of thorough showers.”

“Yeah yeah, just checking to see how those jeans make your butt look.”

Evan snickered and slapped his own ass cheek. “Well, absolutely
divine,
of course!”

Josh couldn’t even come up with a token protest to that. Evan’s derriere was close to being divine. “Okay, so I was wondering how a pair of Wranglers make a guy’s butt look.”

Evan laughed.

“Josh, it’s the butt inside the jeans that make the jeans look good!”

That being the case, then Josh should make Wranglers look excellent. “Good. So take me shopping and dress me up like a real cowboy, the kind no one would take for a wannabe.” Josh stood back up and turned towards Evan, offering him a hand up.