Cowboys 03 - My Cowboy Homecoming (14 page)

One of the horses nickered and stamped. Aside from that, the only sound I heard was my harsh breathing. Lucho started to undo the buttons of his work shirt, but I stopped him.

“Let me.” I pulled his shirt from his jeans and started from the bottom, unveiling his lean, muscled form inch by inch until I could fan his shirt over his shoulders and take it in. “Wow.”

Lucho’s body wasn’t the result of boredom or vanity. Work-hardened muscles wrapped his torso. The sun-weathered skin of his neck crowned the golden-brown skin of his chest and abs. His shoulders were thickly muscled, his biceps firm. His forearms, a thing of beauty—corded, ripply, ending in clean, callused hands, roughened by wear yet gentle as a mother’s now, with me.

I lowered his zipper and pulled his jeans and shorts down enough to free his cock—a thick, uncut piece of perfection. He was long—not a monster, but the man was definitely hung. I glanced up to find him looking down at me, one eyebrow lifted in question.

“Like what you see?” He knew what he had there.

“Nah. I was hoping for an albino mealworm, maybe. Something smaller and paler?”

“Fuck. You.”

“You’re pretty proud of your penis, there, huh?”

Lucho shifted down and let his knees fall to the sides. His cock bobbed, glistening, over a nice nest of curly dark hair. “Are you kidding me?”

My mouth watered. It was getting difficult to keep up the pretense that I wasn’t impressed. “What?”

He glared at me. “I guess the army is some kind of dick buffet or something—all you can eat—but around these parts, this is considered a pretty damn fine piece of equipment.”

I shut him up by lowering my head and taking the cock in question into my mouth. And yeah . . . it was kind of a monster. But it was velvety and gorgeous—a thick soft sleeve of skin hiding what looked to be a delicious purple head.

The tip was slick and shiny as hard candy. I could tongue that sweet baby all day. And below that he was supple and slippery, tightening as he got more aroused. I took him deeper, stretching around him, letting him fill my mouth, and then my throat. I had to wrap my hand around the base of his cock, and when my lips met my thumb and forefinger, he was as deep as I could take him. And it was . . . oh God . . . so good.

I was going to come from just that. I let my other hand splay out on his chest. He had sparse hair and sweetly pebbled nipples. I explored with that hand as if I was blind, letting my fingertips graze the hills and valleys of his body, letting my thumb slip into hollow of his throat, over his collarbones, down to his navel while I bobbed and sucked and licked his cock. He kneaded my shoulders with both hands, and then let one drift up to caress my hair. Lazy, dizzying circles of pleasure made my head spin as his nails drew patterns on my scalp.

His breathing quickened. It didn’t take long before he tensed in his chair—fighting the urge to thrust. I tightened my grip around him, jacking him over rivers of saliva while I did my best to drive him stupid with my tongue.

“Ah, Christ. Gonna come,
papi
.” Fingers tightened into claws on my shoulder as Lucho’s whole body froze and a thick flood of cum washed down my throat. I swallowed over and over, milking every last drop from him. His hands went limp and he sagged, spent, groaning, against his chair.

I let his cock slip from my mouth and lay my head on his thigh. He continued petting me idly, like a cat or something. Yeah. I’d be his cat. Hell yeah.

I sighed deeply, running my hands down both his legs, massaging his calves while I knelt there, content to feel his muscles beneath my palms.

“You okay?” he asked.

I checked my jaw, opening and closing, moving it from side to side and up and down. I did feel a little like a snake who’d tried to swallow a pit bull. “Yeah.”

“That was kind of awesome.”

“‘Kind of’?” I glanced up. His lazy smile teased. He looked boyish and young and I wondered if—despite his boasts—he was feeling a little out of his depth. I sure the hell was.

“You know.” I sighed. “Normally, I hit it and quit it.”

The happy light in his eyes just died, right there. “Okay. So?”

“That’s not what this is. I still want to kiss you. I need to. I want to hold you and—”

“So what’s stopping you?” Still wary, Lucho pursed his lips and looked at something over my shoulder. “Got someplace else to be?”

“Hey . . .” I sat back on my heels. “What’s up?”

“You’ve been rushing me pretty hard since we met. And you pick now to tell me you generally move on or whatever? I gotta figure I’m the only one around here who’s interested in anything but a quick fuck.”

“You figure wrong.” I gripped his hands between mine. “I’ve never had this—never felt this way about anyone. I wish I didn’t have to go home. I wish I could spend the night with you—”

“Aw, man.” Lucho took pity on me and reached out, wrapping me in those strong arms. “You’re a mess.”

I tried to pull back. “Excuse me?”

He grinned down at me. “You need a little cuddle after sex. That’s so fucking cute.”

“Fuck you.” I accepted his teasing because he was rubbing his bristly face against mine, and the sandpaper scrape of it, the simple press of his cheek was so awesome—so urgent and crucial—that I closed my eyes and said nothing.

After that, he seemed to make it his mission to love on me like he knew exactly what I needed. Hands in my hair, moving over my shoulders, down my arms, circling, massaging, connecting. He scooted forward so our chests pressed together while he shoved his hand down the waistband of my jeans to fist my cock.

I hissed my pleasure.

“This good?” he asked, stretching his other hand around to snake down my ass crack.

“Ngh.”
Some kind of body-wide impulse to surrender left me limp. My head fell back and I simply let go and then he was everywhere, mouthing me, rubbing my skin, stripping my cock exactly the way I liked it.

I tasted his skin and clung to his body while he got me off with devastating efficiency, and after I shot, he held me in his arms and rocked me, nuzzling into my neck, speaking words I didn’t know but understood anyway.

“Shh.” He let me fall, weak and sated, over his lap. I wrapped my arms around his waist and simply breathed him in. And still, I felt a nervy ache in my bones that said,
This man is mine
.

What was
that
, anyway?

Chemistry? Emotion? Lust? God, what a limp-ass word for what I felt. I’d probably learned that word from my pearl-clutching mother.

Lucho was sex and heat and happiness. Coming didn’t quench my desire for him. The opposite was true, in fact. It only whetted my appetite for more.

“Wish you could stay.” He shifted in his chair.

“Me too.” I sat up and righted my clothes. He buttoned his shirt and I regretted the loss of every inch of skin he covered.

“Don’t you get tired of driving back and forth from your ma’s place?”

I shook my head. I felt too raw to talk right then.

“You could look after your mother from the J-Bar. I do all kinds of stuff for my mom and my
abuelita
. We’re still real close.” He shrugged. “It’s not that you should move out or nothing. But there’s peace living here. The way time passes with the chores. We’re isolated, insulated, from the world. You seem like the kind of guy who could use a little of that.”

“I’d give anything.” I nodded. “But I think Ma’s acting weird. She lost her shit today. Crying and carrying on in front of strangers, and I can tell you that’s not like her at all.”

“Because your truck broke down?”

“Because she missed a visit with my dad.” I did up my trousers and belt but stayed where I was, on my knees with his arms around me. “I asked if she’s been to the doctor lately. One minute she’s pretending everything’s perfect and the next, she’s crying like her life is over.”

“Maybe it’s a lady thing?”

“How would I’d know? That’s why I’d feel better if she saw the doctor. Maybe she’s depressed.” I shrugged. “Anyhow, now that I’ve seen that, I’m more than a little concerned.”

“That lawyer dude . . . ?”

“Slade,” I supplied.

“You say he was hanging around a lot. Do you suppose they’re having a thing?”

“No,” I said before I even gave it consideration. “Well. I mean, I guess they could be. But if that’s the case, why is she so upset about not seeing my dad? She says he depends on her. Like if she misses her visit something terrible will happen.”

He frowned at that, but his tone wasn’t very serious. “Some ladies get off on having a man in prison. I seen that on television.”

“You watch too much TV.”

“Hey.” He slapped my arm playfully. “I like documentaries.”

I laughed. “God, can you imagine? My mother in her pantsuit and pearls, writing letters to serial killers and—” I pictured her with her big shades on as we drove silently back to the house. “Her reaction was all out of proportion to the disappointment. It was like . . . a tantrum, almost. I can’t explain it, but it worried me.”

“Maybe she’s just getting older? Old people get funny sometimes.”

“Maybe.” I smoothed down my shirt. “It’s not your problem.”

“We can share it for tonight.” He glanced down at his bum foot. “I got nothing better to do right now.”

“I wish I could give you something better to do. I’ve gotta go so I can be back here at first light.”

He sighed. “All right.”

“I suppose we should check on the horses, because we said we would.” A brief look around told me things were good, but we stopped by Galleta’s stall. She nuzzled me affectionately.

Lucho spoke, “You know when I knew it was hopeless to fight my attraction to you?”

“When you threw up on my boots?” I glanced back at him. “’Cause that’s what did it for me. I knew then and there, this man is—”

“No,
pendejo
. I still didn’t like you when I threw up on you.” Lucho took the sting out of that by gripping my belt loop and giving me a playful shake. “It was when I realized Galleta likes you better than me.”

“She doesn’t like me better.”

“She does too. She’s got a serious crush on you. Every time I come around now, she’s like . . . Oh, it’s you, man. I thought it was going to be my new boyfriend.”

“You’re high.”

“No way. I figured, there must be something to you if my horse likes you so much.”

“Yeah. Right. Maybe I just give her treats every time I see her.”

“That’s the first thing I asked, and Fausto said you don’t. He said you’ve just got a thing with animals.”

“Maybe.” I rubbed Galleta’s velvety nose, letting her bump my face.

“Turns out, she’s got good taste.” Lucho stood and hopped the two steps it took to reach me. Before I could give him a hard time about that, he’d wrapped his arms around me from behind. “You’re a decent guy.”

I laid my head back on his shoulder while he pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses onto my neck. He was my height. Broader across the shoulders. I pictured him fucking me up against a wall and got hard again.

“Turn.” He took my shoulders for balance as he kept bad foot from contact with the floor. When I faced him, his mouth met mine in a kiss of such passion, such possession, my head reeled and my back thudded against the door to Galleta’s stall.

The horse jerked her head and backed away, leaving us to it.

God, yeah. Lucho’s body pressed against me, his cock as hard as mine. With a little more friction I was sure to come in my jeans. If he wanted to go again, I was game. We could wrap our hands around our dicks and get the job done quick. I was just about to tug on his belt buckle when he took my hands between his.

“I have to go lie down,” he whispered, regretfully.

I was still so aroused my hands trembled when I drew them back. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,
papi
.” His brows furrowed. “My foot’s bugging me.”

I helped him sit, then gently lifted his leg to set his foot on the extension. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“It started throbbing when I stood up.”

I dropped a kiss on his forehead. “That’s why you’re supposed to keep it elevated like that.”

“I guess I got that memo. Sorry, army.
Mañana
, okay?” He gave a jaw-cracking yawn. “Home, James.”

I worked a long day Sunday, and Ma was in her room when I came home. She’d been unhappy and distant since our unsuccessful trip to Tucson. There was a plate in the oven, but Ma was already in her room with the door closed, and I guess I felt like giving her some space so I didn’t knock. Or maybe I was just afraid she’d start in on me again.

Monday morning she got up to make breakfast like usual, wishing me a good day and saying goodbye as if nothing had happened.

I was still confused by the time I got to the J-Bar.

I checked in at the bunkhouse, pouring myself a cup of coffee from the pot. Lucho sat at the table, hunched over his mug, narrow-eyed and impatient with his bum foot. Based on the evidence, the man was surly in the mornings. “Top-up?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

I warmed up his coffee and put the pot back. “Where is everyone?”

“Fausto’s in the barn. Stu and Petey went to saddle up and Jim and Eddie are probably just coming in from looking after the cows.”

“Anything you need while I’m here? Something to eat? Sponge bath?”

His gaze slid my way. “Tongue bath, you say?”

“No, but that could be arranged.” Outside, the sound of laughter and Threep’s happy bark sounded close by. “But maybe some other time.”

“Yeah.”

Despite its heat, I drank my coffee down in a few gulps. “After I finish up with Fausto in the barn, I’ll come back by and say hey.”

“You do that.”

I gave a glance at the window to make sure no one was around before dropping a light kiss on his lips. “You make sure you stay put in that chair.”

“I will.” With less heat, he added, “But I’ll ask Malloy if we can spend some time with Pio today.”

“I’d like that.” I took a last look and headed out toward the barn. I got there just in time to see Jimmy and Eddie ride in.

“Got some babies.” Jimmy said happily. “Fuzzy little wonders.”

“Everything go all right?” Petey asked. He and Stu were tacking up, getting ready to ride out and take their place watching over the current group, they bred first-time heifers a couple weeks early so the hands could keep a close eye on them. Those new mommas were the most likely to need help—the most likely to ignore a calf out of ignorance.

“The ladies did it all by themselves. Everything looks okay,” Eddie dismounted and walked his horse a ways toward the barn. I saw he was armed with a shotgun. He pulled it from the holster. “You know how to use one of these? We got some coyotes and an occasional bobcat, and I ain’t gonna lose a calf. You won’t have any trouble during the day but better safe than sorry.”

“Old-school. Yeah.” I took the break-action shotgun and automatically checked the load. “I know how to use it.”

“I’ll take that, if you please.” Stu held out his hand. “Not that I don’t trust you. I just like to be in charge.”

“That’s fine.” I handed the weapon over.

“Tripp, take Galleta and go along with Petey and Stu.” Eddie ordered. “Pay attention and do whatever they tell you.”

“Will do.” I walked with them toward the barn where I got Galleta ready to go. Looked like she was as eager for exercise as I was. When Fausto came back from the compost bins, I stopped him. “Fausto, can you tell your brother I went with Stu and Petey?”

He bristled. “How come?”

We were back to square one, I guessed. “I told him I’d take him to see Pio later. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“All right.” Fausto agreed, grudgingly. “
I
could take him to see Pio.”

“Sure.” I mounted up, getting my bearings as Galleta danced beneath me, eager to stretch out. My saddle gave a creak. “I’ll bet he’d like that. Tell him Galleta says ‘hi.’”

I left Fausto in the barn and caught up with Stu and Petey.

It was barely dawn, clear and crisp. A crack of light on the eastern horizon slowly grew into a fiery sunrise. We got to the area where the cows they’d separated out—the young mothers we needed to keep an eye on—wandered around in clumps, and among them that morning there were two newborn calves, still a little nappy-looking, wobbling around on trembling legs.

My breath caught as I watched one nudge into its momma’s udder. “Goddamn, they’re cute.”

Petey glanced over at me. “Let’s see if you still think that after you help us tag ’em.”

“What do I have to do?” Galleta must have sensed my excitement because she stamped eagerly beneath me.

“You two dismount.” Stu got his rope ready. “I’ll rope one of the calves by its hind leg. When I’ve got him, Tripp, you take him down and hold him while Petey tags his ear.”

“All right.” I dismounted and tied Galleta off on the fence, but not before I caught the evil grin they exchanged. “What’s the catch?”

“Well, now.” Petey adjusted his hat. “Some of the mommas don’t like it when we jump on their babies is all. They kinda get a little edgy. Only some, though.”

“So while I’m holding the calf it’s possible his twelve hundred pound momma’s going to want to kill me?”

“That’s about the size of it.” Petey nodded.

“I’m game.” I shrugged my jacket off. “Sounds like good clean fun.”

I left Galleta on the sidelines to watch while Stu and his horse nudged the calf away from its mother. Stu’s rope sailed out and snagged one of the calves’ hind legs. He got it on the first try, which I assumed meant he had real skill. He drew tight and I jumped on, discovering pretty quickly that an unhappy calf fights like the devil when it doesn’t know what you’re up to. It also bawls for its momma. Petey had about three seconds to choose a good spot on the bull calf’s ear to tag before its momma’s curiosity became outrage and we had to scatter like dry leaves or get flattened into paste. It was comical and messy as hell, but we got the job done.

“That went well,” Stu said while he wrote something down in a little notebook. “Get ready for the next one.”

He got his rope ready, whirling it in the air.

“Can’t I just go get the calf and bring it over?” I asked.

I knew it was a dumb question but without making too big a fuss about it, I was able to walk right up to the second calf we needed to tag. She let me rub my gloved hands all over her ears and face. After I gave her a little massage, she let me pick her up and carry her to Petey. Her momma trailed along after me, unfazed. Stu’s rope fell to the ground like a limp dick.

I smiled at her. “She’s so sweet. She’s like a dog or something.”

Stu and Petey exchanged another one of their looks. Petey cleaned the little tag puncher and the baby girl in my arms barely made a fuss when he tagged her. Stu noted something in his notebook again as I put her back down.

“They’re not all that easy, you know,” Stu said irritably.

“They might be.” Petey mounted back up. “You just like to show off your roping so much, we never get a chance to find out.”

“I’m sure each situation will be different.” I got my jacket, gathered Galleta’s reins and climbed back in the saddle. “It is pretty cool to watch you rope a calf. Think you can teach me?”

“You got thirty years or so?”

“I hope so.”

Stu grunted and nudged his mount forward, “Come on, we’ll show you the calving shed.”

“All right,” I followed along, happy to be outside, happy to be part of something that brought life into the world for once.

When I’d been deployed, the homely sound of a goat’s bell or the scrape of a hoof on bare rock meant strangers and danger and possibly death. There at the J-Bar I could close my eyes and let myself listen without anxiety crawling under the surface of my skin all the time.

I had some old habits—scanning the hills, startling at sounds, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there when something moved up on me too quick. But my heart sat easier, even after these few days.

I was getting used to freedom from fear.

If I could only stop my mind from replaying the past in all its gory glory, I might even be able to let myself feel safe.

“You okay?” Petey had dropped back to ride at Galleta’s side.

“I’m fine. I was just listening. It’s peaceful here.”

After a deeper, more thoughtful silence than I’d believed Petey had in him, he said, “My older brother was in ’Nam.”

I looked his way. “What outfit?”

“Marines. He was in the Ninth, first battalion.”

“Infantry?”

Petey nodded.

“Tough times.” I didn’t know much about the Ninth or that war, but the marines I’d known were good men.

He glanced out over the scrubby land. “They called them ‘the walking dead,’ because their casualty rate was so high.”

“Your brother make it back?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good.”

“Not really.” Petey’s mouth quirked like he tasted something bitter. “He ate his gun three years after he got home.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” I hated the way he was looking at me. I almost told him I was fine, but then I decided that saying the words out loud made me sound less fine than if I kept my mouth shut. No need to defend against an accusation that hasn’t been made.

That’s what makes you look “not fine.”

“Sometimes you have a look he used to get. You tune out. Know what I mean? Like you’re somewhere else.”

“I know what you mean.” I glanced down and made myself relax my hands.

“I want to know where you go.” He leaned toward me. “Can you tell me?”

“Does it matter?” Even if I could tell him what he wanted to know, it wouldn’t make him feel better. “Everyone goes someplace different.”

“But you do go somewhere, don’t you? There’s something, somewhere you’re thinking about, and it’s so real, you can see it here. Like what they call a flashback?”

“Yeah.” Sometimes I heard sounds—the crack of gunfire, rounds hitting the dirt right next to me, or the dull thud of a distant mortar shell—as if it was real, as if it was happening right then, right that moment, even though I was a half a world away from the fighting. Sometimes I smelled pine trees or a spicy
pulao
, and I knew they were only in my imagination. Were those flashbacks? Or hallucinations? I’d never said the words out loud out of fear of what they could cost me.

I must have been silent for too long. When I glanced back up at him, he was raking his hand through his hair. “Look. I guess what I’m really asking is, are you okay?” He put the emphasis on the final word, okay. As if I had some way to know what that meant, so I could say “yes, I am
or
no I am not” in danger of capping myself, and that would be the end of it.

As if it was that cut-and-dried.

“I’m not going to eat my gun, if that’s what you mean.”

“No. Jeez. That’s not what I meant.” He shot me a sour look, then relented. “But it’s a start.”

“I don’t know if I’m okay.” I said helplessly. “I don’t know what okay is.”

He nodded. “Are you likely to ask for help if you’re not?”

That was a good question. “Did your brother?”

“No. He did not,” he muttered with disgust.

“I probably wouldn’t either, if I knew I wasn’t okay, because it would scare me too bad. But I’m fine.”

It was the strangest thing; I could have had that conversation with my mother, whose determination to make me believe everything was fine had the opposite effect on me.

I wished I wasn’t afraid I was as deluded as she was right then.

“C’mere.” Stu dismounted by the shed. “Petey and me can show you around in here.”

The shed wasn’t that big, but it was tidy inside. Utilitarian. There was a cabinet against the wall for supplies. A couple of areas with straw bedding. A generator for light.

“You ever seen one of these?” Stu held up some sort of metal contraption that looked like a giant crossbow.

“No.”

“This here’s a calf-puller. If a cow has trouble, or one of the young’uns need some extra care, we got most of what we need here.”

I eyed the thing. “Looks medieval.”

He set it back against the wall. “In the best case scenario, the cows do all the work. But we don’t like losing calves. S’why we take shifts, check on them every couple of hours to make sure they’re okay. If one of the girls is having a hard time, or we get a weak calf, we got what we need here to help them out.”

There were a number of gloves, both regular exam gloves and ominously long ones, gloves that would cover a man’s entire arm. OB lube in a gallon-sized pump bottle. Iodine. Blue disinfectant. There were buckets with chains in them and big bottles and giant rubber nipples.

“Anyway, we hope we never need to step in, but the shed’s here if we do.”

“Sure. It’s—” I picked up a bag of green doodads that read Castrating Bands before I realized what they were. Any man holding a bag with “castration” on the label would feel a little weak in the knees, right? Nausea fluttered in my throat.

“Yeah.” Stu took the bands from my hand. “This goes with a tool called the Elastrator that we’ll show you when you’re not green no more. That’s where steers come from.”

“Okay.” I knew part of being a cowboy was snipping bull calves. That didn’t mean I’d always wanted to be the guy to do it. Guess I’d have to sack up if I wanted to work at the J-Bar—mentally anyway—because no way I was getting my nuts near one of those Elastrator things.

“So. Not to overload you, but there’s going to be a lot of babies and mommas, and that means a lot of work and some of it’s kind of gross.”

“I’m in.”

“Good man.” Petey slapped me on the back. “Come with me, and I’ll tell you about the things we need to be keeping an eye out for, starting with Scours.”

I followed them back out, and we all mounted up again. One of the newborns picked its way over the rock-strewn ground on unsteady little legs, her tag flapping like a gypsy’s earring. When I rode by, eyes like big shiny coffee beans followed my progress.

“Oh, she likes you,” Stu teased.

“Animals normally like me.”

Petey pulled his hat lower. “People, too, from what I can see. You’re even starting to win over Fausto.”

“That’s almost a shame,” I said. “It’s pretty amusing when he’s all pissed off.”

“Don’t worry about that. Soon as he realizes you’re screwing his brother, things are gonna go south again right quick.”