Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 02 - Out of the Darkness (35 page)

“Shit, man, I’m sorry. I… fuck, we need to talk about all that too. I….” Dan doesn’t want to say it out loud, doesn’t want to make it that real, but he can tell that Evan needs to hear something. “I am
really
into this. Into both of you. I mean, I know I was slow to get on board, and I’ve been trying to be careful, because it scares the shit out of me, but….” Dan needs to take a breath, and then another, and then he’s about to start talking again, although he’s not sure what he’s going to say, but Evan is there, standing in front of him, and he reaches down and grabs both of Dan’s hands and then braces their foreheads together.

“Thank you, Dan,” Evan says quietly. “I’m really into it too.”

Dan twists his head a little, trying to see Evan’s eyes without breaking the contact of their foreheads. “Yeah?” His voice comes out a bit tremulous.

“Fuck, yeah,” Evan confirms, and then the sounds in the aisle are coming closer, and Dan can hear Robyn’s voice.

 

“Dan? You around?”

Dan groans, but there’s no point in pretending that he’d just wandered out of the barn, leaving a horse in crossties. Robyn knows him too well. Evan smiles warmly as Dan moves toward the door of the stall and sticks his head out. “Yeah, hey, I’m right here.”

“Oh, hey.” She takes a few more steps until she’s in front of Dan, and then she peers over his shoulder into the stall and sees Evan. “Oh.” She’s only surprised for a second, and then she waggles her eyebrows and gives them both a wicked grin. “Well, then… sorry if I interrupted.” Judging by her smile, she’s not sorry at all. She leans forward and whispers conspiratorially, “But Tat’s in the tack room. And Devin was about to start cleaning stalls.” She backs up a little. “I mean, it’s not my place to judge… maybe you’re into that sort of thing, the whole exhibitionist thing, that’s cool.”

Dan shakes his head. “You know the best part of this, Robyn?” She shakes her head and smiles widely. “No, but I’d love to hear.” “The best part is that I went to Santa Cruz with you guys, and you

promised that if I did that, you wouldn’t gossip about me for a month.” Now it’s his turn to grin. “A whole month, and it doesn’t matter what you see, you can’t tell anyone. Unless you want to break your promise….” He looks over at Evan, who seems relaxed and amused about the whole thing, and decides to take a chance. Things have been going pretty well so far that morning.

“So that means, Robyn, that even if you see something like….” And Dan reaches out and grabs Evan’s tie, pulling his face forward and giving him a long, hard kiss. Evan goes along with it enthusiastically, and Dan
doesn’t
have an exhibitionist kink, so it’s more funny than hot, but it still feels good, feels like they’re having fun and being open and normal and silly. Evan licks his lips when he finally pulls away, and Dan grins at him before turning back to Robyn. “Even if you see something like that, you can’t tell a single soul.” He nods philosophically. “I hope you had fun in Santa Cruz that day, Robyn.”

Dan edges past her and out of the stall, and Evan follows behind him. They head down the barn aisle toward the parking lot, leaving Robyn behind them. When they’re halfway to the door, Robyn calls from behind them. “I’m gonna find a loophole, Dan! I don’t know how, but somehow….”

Dan just nods his head and laughs. Evan grins at him, and then says, “Okay, time off tomorrow, so we should get to work.” It sounds like he’s reminding himself as much as he’s reminding Dan.

“Yup, okay. And we should talk to Jeff. He said he was supposed to be at the gallery late tonight. If we’re just doing Part One, do you think we could do it over the phone, or should we try to see him?”

“I think we need to present a united front, so in person would probably be best.”

 

“And maybe if we talk enough about it, that’ll qualify us for a reward right away, without even waiting until tomorrow.”

Evan nods. “I gotta say it, man, I like the way you think. Okay, I’ll call him from the office, see if we can meet up when he’s done at the gallery? I guess his place might be best, ’cause it’s closest to the city.”

Dan nods. “Okay. Give me a call and let me know what you set up.”

Evan nods and takes a step toward the door, then turns around and comes back, giving Dan his full-power smile. “Shit, this turned out
so
much better than I thought it might!” He bends for another kiss then, more affection than lust, but deep all the same, and then smiles as he moves away. He walks backward toward the door, and it feels like he doesn’t want to take his eyes off Dan, and that feels good. It feels really good. When he gets out the door, he smiles again, sketches a little wave with his hand, and then turns away, quickly like he needs to do it fast or he won’t do it at all.

Dan is left in the cool of the barn, and he takes a minute to replay Evan’s visit. Dan doesn’t know how things can go from so bad to so good so damn quickly, but he’s glad that they’ve left it on an up note, at least for now. He’s pretty sure there are still going to be issues, and he doesn’t really think that there is a magic wand solution for any of them, but at least he and Evan seem to understand each other a little better, and they both know that there’s something there worth fighting for. He goes back to work with a smile on his face, and when he sees Robyn’s frustrated glare, it turns into a laugh. There have been hard times in his life, but they’ve taught him to appreciate the times that aren’t hard, the good times, and this seems like it’s one of those. He’s going to do his best to enjoy it.

Chapter 21
D
AN
’
S
riding Monty when his phone rings, and the arrogant bastard of

a horse is being too stubborn for Dan to take the call; he needs to stay focused on riding until Monty accepts that Dan is in charge. So Dan ignores the phone and keeps working, but the phone call is still there in the back of his mind, a pleasant distraction, an exciting possibility. He wonders if it was Jeff, his rumbling voice full of affection and calm, or Evan, enthusiastic and passionate. He reminds himself that other people have his cell number, and it could be any of them calling, but the potential still distracts him, and he just about hugs Monty when he finally relaxes his neck and lets his back swing and float under Dan.

The pleasure of riding a collected, relaxed horse is almost enough to keep Dan from thinking about the call, but he still finds himself jumping off Monty’s back as soon as he can possibly justify it to himself. He’s pulling his phone out as he leads Monty in to the barn, and he knows he’s got it bad, because he doesn’t even care whether it’s Jeff or Evan calling, he just wants to talk to one of them. He tries not to let that scare him.

The call was from Jeff, and Dan makes himself untack Monty and throw a cooler on him before listening to the message. The hotwalker has finally been hooked up, but Dan still doesn’t quite trust it, so he puts a lead rope on Monty instead and takes him outside for a little tour. Monty finds an interesting clump of grass, and Dan gives him a moment to grab a few mouthfuls, and
finally
Dan hits the button to hear his message.

Jeff’s voice is warm over the line, and Dan knows he’s acting like a teenager with a crush, but he’s going to save the message. Jeff isn’t saying much, just that Evan had called him and wanted to get together that night and that they should meet at Jeff’s place. The words are unimportant, though, because Dan’s sure that he can hear more than the words. Or at least, he’s pretty sure that he can. He’s sure that he wants to.

Dan makes himself walk Monty a little before calling Jeff back. He’s not going to be the sort of person who neglects his job just because he’s got a crush. Especially when his job involves the wellbeing of innocent animals. When Monty plants his feet and pulls back, refusing to leave the patch of grass he’s adopted, and then flattens his ears at Dan when Dan insists, he has to rethink the “innocent” part of that; he replaces it with “valuable.” Dan is working with a valuable animal, and the stubborn bastard shouldn’t get a chill just because Dan wants to call his boyfriend. One of his boyfriends. Whatever.

Monty seems to have resigned himself to walking rather than grazing, so Dan takes the opportunity to return Jeff’s call. He’s disappointed when the call goes through to voice mail, and feels a bit deflated after he leaves his message. After all that anticipation, he still hasn’t talked to the man. He refuses to let himself re-listen to the voice mail, even though he wants to. Instead, he pulls a battered card out of his pocket and dials the gallery. When a man answers, Dan asks for the person in charge of sales; he’s not sure if it’s a good idea, but he’s decided to do it anyway.

And that’s that, all of his Jeff and Evan business taken care of for the day. He has nothing to do but work. Usually, he can get lost in the horses, concentrating so much on their thoughts and their patterns that he disregards his own, but on this day his rhythm is off; his mind keeps distracting him, and that’s not good. It could even be dangerous, as he’s reminded when one of the young Hanoverians messes up the approach to a jump and Dan isn’t focused enough to catch it in time. It’s a stadium jump, built to collapse, and when the mare plows into it there’s no serious damage done, although both she and Dan are a little spooked by the close call.

He’s not sure what’s going on. He was never like this with Justin, but maybe that’s because Justin was right there, working beside him, so Dan didn’t have to waste his time wondering what he was doing; he could just look over and see. Whatever the reason, Dan doesn’t trust himself to do anything complicated with the horses until he gets himself under control, so he takes a little time to set up training for the other riders and then takes Winston up to ride up and down the hill. It’s mindless and boring, but it’s a great workout for the horse, and it gives Dan a little time to regroup.

He gets back to the barn and puts himself to work moving hay bales from the shed to the feed room. It’s hot, dusty work, and it’s not his job to do it, but it feels like penance somehow, like he’s punishing his body for the weakness of his mind. And it works, finally letting him get himself focused and calm, and he’s so involved in the rhythm of the job that he doesn’t notice the car pull up, doesn’t notice anything until he lifts a bale and pivots to put it on the cart and finds Jeff standing in front of him.

There goes Dan’s concentration. “Shit, Jeff….” That isn’t exactly what he meant to say, but he’s not good with surprises. He tries again. “Hi, I mean. I thought you were in the city until tonight.”

Jeff nods. “I took a break. I have to go back in for dinner.” He’s looking at Dan a little oddly, and Dan runs his mind back over the message he’d left. Had he said something strange?

“Oh. Okay… uh….” Dan thinks about the more enthusiastic greeting he’d had for Evan earlier, but he’d only been a little dirty then; now, he’s positively filthy, with the sweat dripping off his body or sticking to him and attracting the dust from the hay, coating his whole body in a fine, gritty paste. There’s no way he’s touching Jeff. Not that Jeff seems interested in being touched. “So, uh… what’s up?”

Jeff looks unsure, and Dan can’t remember having seen him this way before. He thinks it would be adorable, except that he’s getting an anxious knot in the pit of his stomach, wondering what’s going on, what’s gone wrong. Jeff’s fingers are playing with one of the bracelets on his wrist. “Dan, did you, uh… did you buy one of my paintings?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah. Is that… I didn’t think you’d mind.” Dan hadn’t really expected this to get back to Jeff before he’d mentioned it himself, but then he hadn’t really planned to mention it, so he’s not quite sure what he thought was going to happen. “You said… didn’t you say anyone could buy them?”

Jeff’s expression changes to exasperation. “Yeah, but you said you… well, you said you had no walls, which was a little odd”—Jeff takes a step closer—“I could have
given
it to you, Dan.”

Dan shakes his head. “No, man, it’s not for me. I mean, I liked it… a lot. But… the gallery guy said he’d take care of shipping it—did he mention that?” Dan doesn’t think Jeff will mind, but he’s not really sure. When Jeff just stares at him, Dan continues. “I, uh… I bought it for Justin’s parents. I thought… I don’t know…. It really reminded me of him, and you said it was kinda related to that, and, I don’t know…. Chris said they’re having a tough time.” Dan should have talked this out with Jeff beforehand, he decides. Not just because it’s Jeff’s painting, but because it would have been nice to have another opinion on the appropriateness of the gesture. “I mean, maybe it’ll just make things worse,but I sent it to Chris, not straight to them, so if he thinks it’s a bad idea, or if you don’t want it to go there, I can still get it back.” Jeff’s expression has changed, but Dan really can’t read the new one, and Jeff still isn’t talking. Dan tries once more to explain himself. “It just… for me… it was… I don’t know, it helped, you know? Like, yeah, he should have lived longer, but he was
really
alive while he was here, and….” And now Dan’s getting a little choked up. Jesus, crying at work? Very professional.

Dan distracts himself, shuffling past Jeff and heaving the bale into place, then turning back and grabbing another. Jeff makes a move like he’s going to get out of the way, but then he just stands there and lets Dan work around him. Another few bales and the cart is full, and Dan’s got himself back mostly under control. “Do you want me to get it back?” he asks softly.

Jeff is shaking his head before Dan’s even finished asking the question. “Jesus, no. That’s… if I was going to make up the ideal home for one of my paintings, that’d be it.” Dan shoots him a quick look to see if he’s joking, and Jeff grabs Dan’s wrist and moves in close. “It’s perfect, Dan. Thank you.” He grins wryly. “And thanks for paying full price for it, I guess.”

Dan still feels a little shy about the whole thing. He’s never bought art before or even thought about doing it. “I… I don’t know, I still have to talk to Chris about it. I haven’t talked to anyone else back there since I moved, so I’m not sure….”