“Good, because I’d rather you be comfortable than not,” Annabelle replied. Max took that to mean she would have stayed in the bunkhouse even if he had spoken out against it.
But I didn’t, and who knows, maybe it would be nice to have someone else around. Although what we’ll talk about other than work is beyond me. Come to think of it, it might not be any different than before. Max wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, because sometimes, if he was honest with himself, he almost ached to have someone to be close to.
Annabelle living there wouldn’t change that at all. She was a nice young lady and all, but there wasn’t any spark, and Max wasn’t hoping for one anyway. There would probably be some polite conversation, and Annabelle would almost surely want to eat dinner with Rory and Chance most nights, so Max would be alone. As he glanced back at Rory and Chance huddled together on the porch, their arms tangled around each other and both of them looking so… happy, Max tried to tell himself that being alone was what he’d always wanted, or at least what was best for him.
The problem was he couldn’t seem to believe it quite so firmly anymore. He
acknowledged the truth of that thought—and damned if he didn’t blame it for what happened a few days later.
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Chapter Two
Max was in the North field doing one of his least favourite tasks—repairing the fence.
They’d had a storm blow through the night before that had been more wind than rain—a lot more wind. He was guessing that might have something to do with the tree he’d found on the smashed fence. The result was that Max had got to play with the chainsaw first before tackling the repair job.
Using the chainsaw was almost worth having to fix the fence. There was just something fun about it, and the concentration it took to keep from cutting off his limbs kept his mind from wandering in directions he’d rather it not go. Lately his mind seemed determined to think of Bo at odd times—Max snorted. Right. Odd being most of the time. He’d given up freaking out about it and put it down to having a real—he hoped—friend for the first time in a very long time. Sure, Rory, Chance and Annabelle were kind of friends, but Chance was his boss, and Rory was too, and Annabelle was related to Rory. It wasn’t quite the same thing, and even though he hadn’t seen Bo since they’d ate dinner together at Cowboy’s, they had talked on the phone a couple of times, and it had been…nice.
“And I’m just wasting time,” Max muttered. He got the chainsaw started and forced his attention on keeping his parts attached like he preferred them. All too soon he had the tree cut into pieces he could load into the truck bed by himself. He might not be the tallest, buffest looking guy around, but he had a surprising strength. It didn’t take long for him to load up the soon-to-be firewood. Now he only had the fence left to deal with, and he tried to get himself motivated.
“Quicker I get started, the sooner I’m done with this.” That didn’t really help one damn bit. Max knew he’d never make it as a motivational speaker, and besides, someone had taken his personal motto and made it into a shoe slogan— Just Do It!
He wasn’t doing ‘it’ or anything else as he stood there holding the ground down. Max sighed and wondered what was wrong with him—he never hesitated to work, not even when it was something he despised doing. There were things he disliked more than stringing barbed wire, but he couldn’t think of a single one right then.
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Max reached for the roll of wire he’d brought with him. His walkie talkie snapped with static, then Annabelle’s voice came through loud—really loud—and clear.
“Hey, Max, you busy?”
Max could hear the smirk in her voice. He slid his two-way off its clip and thumbed the button. “Nah, Miz Annabelle, you just caught me right before my nap.” Max never would have thought he’d tease Rory’s sister like that, but after an initial bit of awkwardness on his part, they’d got along great since Annabelle had moved into the bunkhouse. Max had never had a little sister of his own—he was the next youngest in a brood of eight brothers—but he’d always wished he did.
“Well, Rory was going to come out and help you, but he and Chance went tearing out of here after they got a phone call, so that leaves me to help you with the fence. I’m on my way.”
Max started to ask what was going on, but Annabelle would be here soon enough, and he had work to do in the meanwhile. He wasn’t the type of man who’d sit around and wait for help to arrive.
Max had just started to reset the first post when Annabelle pulled up to the gate. She’d driven rather than ride her horse up, a sign of her hurry to get there. Max swiped at the sweat trying to run into his eyes as he greeted her.
“You got here pretty fast,” Max said as Annabelle opened the gate. She had thick leather gloves tucked into her waistband and a brown paper sack in one hand and a couple of thermoses tucked under the other arm.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to be slacking, you know, and I brought some sandwiches and tea.” Annabelle waved the bag. “You’ve been out here for hours, you have to be starving.”
He was, and damn near boiling in his clothes in the Texas. The humidity after even a little rain could make a cool day miserable to work in. His long-sleeved denim shirt and undershirt were both damp in spots. The promise of cold sweet tea had him jerking his gloves off and tucking them away. “Appreciate it, Annabelle.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied, handing him a thermos. Annabelle flicked him a
worried look. “So Chance got a phone call, like I said, and he and Rory left almost as soon as the phone hit the cradle. They both looked pretty upset.”
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Max uncapped the thermos and took several refreshing swallows of the cool, sweet liquid. Nothing tasted so good as chilled sweet tea when he was thirsty. He thumbed the excess off his lips and tipped his chin at Annabelle.
“They didn’t say who called or where they were going?” That wasn’t like either man—
normally if something came up, they called Max on the two-way and told him about it. The fact that they hadn’t could only mean that whatever had happened was bad enough to have rattled them something fierce.
“Nooooo, not exactly.” Annabelle looked at him, just a darting glance as her cheeks pinked. “I kind of looked at the caller ID because…because they just don’t act like that, right?”
Max nodded, trying to be patient. He had a nervous itch creeping over his spine—that never signalled anything good.
“It was from a St. Joseph’s hospital, with a 210 area code. That’s San Antonio, isn’t it?”
Sweat dripped into his eyes as he scrunched his eyebrows. Damn, that burns! “Yeah it is, but who—” Max’s stomach plummeted. There was only one person both men knew well
enough to worry about. The same man who had caused Max more than a little internal turmoil. Annabelle’s next words had that turmoil increasing exponentially, and his knees turning to jelly.
Annabelle’s voice was soft as she said, “All I heard Chance tell Rory was that Bo was in pretty bad shape.” She looked at him curiously. “Who’s Bo?”
Max’s heart kicked hard in his chest as Annabelle’s question chilled him more than the tea ever could have. He felt cold clean through to his bones, and had to tense every muscle in his body to stop the shudder that tried to tear through him. “He’s a friend,” Max murmured, his voice oddly calm compared to the chaotic emotions trying to burst past the rigid control he always bound them with. He wasn’t prone to hysterics and wasn’t going to start being so now. “A good friend.”
“How good?”
Something in Annabelle’s voice set off a tingle of alarm in Max as he looked at her. Her eyes were narrowed and he thought if ever anyone could peer into someone else’s thoughts, it’d have been Annabelle with that intense bl
ue gaze. One of her blonde eyebrows arched and it dawned on Max what she was really asking.
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“Not that kind of friend.” How he kept from snapping it out was beyond him. Between being embarrassed at her even asking and his worry for Bo, Max was only tenuously keeping his temper in check. “He’s someone Chance used to know…like that,” he explained. “I met him a while back when he showed up here thinking to, you know, visit with Chance.”
Annabelle snorted and rolled her eyes. “And Rory didn’t kill him?” Then she frowned and glared at him as if Max had done something offensive. “Then why did they go rushing out of the house like he was, well, not like he was some horn dog who came sniffing around for a fuck.”
The tip of Max’s ears burned as anger made his temples throb. He had to remind
himself that Annabelle didn’t know Bo, and even so, she wasn’t entirely wrong about what he’d tried to do. But still! “You haven’t met him. He ain’t like that now, least not with Chance and Rory—or me,” he added before she could ask.
“Huh.” Annabelle didn’t look particularly mollified though she wasn’t glaring, exactly.
“So he’s just everybody’s friend.” The way she said it sounded kind of snarky, but Max wasn’t going to call her on it.
“Yeah.” Max turned and strode to the truck he’d just loaded then opened the driver’s door. He’d left his cell phone charging since the battery was messed up and it tended to go dead minutes after unplugging it. He leaned in to make sure he didn’t stretch the cord too far. The missed call icon caught his attention, but he ignored it in favour of dialling Rory’s number. The first call rang a few times then went to voice mail so Max hung up and tried again. Rory answered on the second ring and started talking before Max could so much as grunt.
“Max, I’ve been trying to call you. Did you get the message? Bo’s hurt. He’s at St.
Joseph’s in San Antonio, and we don’t know what happened except he wasn’t the one who called us, some nurse did and she said Bo managed to give them Chance’s name. Took them a while but the nurse finally found a number and he’s been beat up. We don’t know how or why or who did it, but as soon as we do…” Rory finally trailed off.
It was stupid to feel hurt that Bo had given Chance’s name instead of his, but Max couldn’t stop it or the twinge of jealousy hearing that caused. Then he processed the rest of what Rory had said and a cold ball of fury coiled in his stomach.
Someone had hurt Bo, deliberately from the sound of it. Max tried not to let any possible scenarios for what happened develop in his mind. He didn’t want to think about Bo MILES TO GO
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maybe having done something that got him beaten, like coming on to another man’s guy. He didn’t want to assign the blame to Bo at all, and he wouldn’t, because even if Bo had put the moves on someone he shouldn’t have, that didn’t mean he deserved to wind up in the hospital over it. Guilt slammed into Max as he recalled one of the conversations the other night in the diner—Bo asking him to visit. It had been, in Max’s opinion, a spur of the minute invitation. Bo had mentioned going to a club first. If Max had gone to San Antonio, would Bo not have been lying injured in a damned hospital now?
“Let me know as soon as you find anything out,” Max muttered as he closed his eyes.
The guilt was almost as strong as his anger at whoever had hurt Bo, although maybe he should just put both emotions squarely on himself. It wouldn’t have hurt him to take a couple of days off. The others would have been able to handle it if the mares had foaled, which they hadn’t. That had only been an excuse anyway. Max just hadn’t wanted to deal with a situation that would have been uncomfortable for him.
“What’d you find out?”
Max set the phone down and shrugged. “Just that Bo got beat up somehow. Rory said they’d call with more information when they got it.”
The hand on his shoulder startled him, and he turned around partially to dislodge it and partially because he was confused about why Annabelle had touched him. The
sympathetic look on her face made him feel even worse than he already did, though, so he started to walk past her only to stop when she caught his wrist. Max looked at her hand on him first then up into her eyes. He hoped she wasn’t this touchy-feely all the time. She sure hadn’t been up to now.
“I’m sorry about your friend getting hurt,” Annabelle said in a voice so soft he had to strain to hear it. “I hope he’s okay, and I’m sorry if I was judgmental about him coming on to Chance. It obviously didn’t make Rory hate Bo, and even though my brother can be naïve at times, I don’t think he’d go rushing off like this for someone who wasn’t a decent person.”
Max grunted at that then pulled away and headed back to the downed fence. If
Annabelle hadn’t insisted they eat first, he wouldn’t have bothered, but he let her have her way and managed to eat his sandwich even though he didn’t really taste it. Annabelle was blessedly quiet as they ate, not trying to strike up a conversation. Max was grateful. His thoughts were filled with ‘what-ifs’ and ‘should have dones’.
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Those were bad enough, but even worse was owning up to why he’d refused Bo’s
invitation. The fact was, Max was scared to say yes. Bo made him feel things he just didn’t know how to deal with, and even now he wouldn’t examine those things too closely. Max had been alone for more years than not. He hadn’t felt any particular desire to be with another person, not in any way. He knew that made him well past odd and it wasn’t something he cared to shout out from a rooftop or anything. There were reasons for it, he imagined, but he’d never delved too deep in his psyche to search them out. It had just been easier to accept it and keep to himself outside of working relationships.
And yet, here at the Galloway Ranch, he’d kind of made friends, of sorts. Work friends, at least. It’d been impossible to keep Chance and Rory neatly labelled as just bosses, and there was Annabelle. Max hadn’t been around a lot of women; he’d pretty much stayed on whatever ranch he’d worked on except when he couldn’t get out of it. Even then, it hadn’t been like there’d been women throwing themselves at his feet.
Max snorted softly. Like he’d have noticed if any had. On the rare occasions when he was out somewhere where there were female folk, he ignored them. Max kept his mind on what needed to be done, and he hardly saw anything or anyone not related to that task.
Probably God himself could walk right past Max and he wouldn’t notice.
Well, I’m going to hell for that thought if nothing else. Guess even Daddy’s belt couldn’t whip the sacrilegious thoughts out of me. And I sure don’t want to go thinking about all that shit right now.
Most of his memories regarding his parents and home life were as painful as thinking about Bo hurt, scared and alone.
Max closed his eyes as he chewed the last bite of his sandwich and pictured Bo, his eyes twinkling, something hot and mysterious in their hazel depths, his broad smile and those deep dimples. The Texas sun must have poured on more heat despite it being winter, because Max felt it roll over him like a wave. The muscles in his stomach quivered and the insides of his thighs shook as fantasy Bo laughed, the light tinkling sound shooting from Max’s memories into his bones, making him ache in a way he couldn’t fathom.
“You about ready to get back to work now?”
Max nodded as he opened his eyes, almost resenting Annabelle for chasing off that phantom Bo. Annabelle stood and dusted her hands on her jeans and tipped her head towards his truck. “I didn’t hear it ring, but do you want me to go check anyway?”
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“I’ll do it,” Max said as he stood. His knees popped and his lower back cramped a bit.
He grimaced as he shot Annabelle a bashful look. “I
t’s hell getting older.”
“Beats the alternative, which is not getting older,” Annabelle pointed out. “And all the plastic surgery and crap like that in the world doesn’t stop someone from getting older. It just makes them look really fucking creepy for the most part. So the way I see it, getting older beats being dead, you know?”
He couldn’t really argue with that. Max checked the phone and didn’t see any missed calls or texts. It occurred to him he might not hear it if it went off while he was working on the fence. “You got your cell phone on you?” he asked as he peered over his shoulder at Annabelle. She nodded. “It okay with you if I text Rory and Chance and tell them to call your number if they hear anything?”
“Of course, like you even have to ask.” Annabelle plucked her phone out of her shirt pocket. “I’ll text them.”
With the matter settled, Max tried to get some of his focus back on work. He wouldn’t be doing anyone any favours if he got careless with the barbed wire. Despite his best attempts, though, Bo remained in his thoughts, his laughing visage almost constantly on Max’s mind.
It took every bit of Max’s willpower to finish the fence and the rest of his work without stopping to call either of his bosses. The need to know what was going on with Bo was pressing down on him. Max told himself it was because Bo was a friend of his—it had nothing to do with the dreams he’d had about the lithe blond man that left him shaken and confused when he woke up.
Those dreams, along with the fantasies Max’s brain seemed determined to create,
always sent his body into a state of arousal and his mind spinning with confusion. He’d never been particularly attracted to anyone, which might seem strange for someone his age, but Max just accepted it as a fact. Having been raised in a violent fundamentalist household, sex was something that was discouraged—except his folks apparently hadn’t got the memo since there’d been eight kids.
Love in Xxchange: Miles to Go Page 3
