My Cowboy Freedom

by Z. A. Maxfield

  “I know that.”

  “Sky is the vulnerable one here. Couldn’t you have considered that before you went and tattled on me?”

  She shot to her feet. “Now, you listen. There was no tattling. None.”

  “Then why all of a sudden does my father want to talk to me? They called twice—”

  The phone I’d been gesturing with rang again--my mother, this time.

  I gripped it angrily, as if I hadn’t just been talking about that very thing.

  Elena’s worried gaze remained steady.

  Fixed on me.

  If I asked Elena to be my champion, she’d fight my battles with everything she had. She’d done it before.

  I gave a jerk of my chin toward the door.

  She eyed me for several more seconds before turning to leave. When the door closed behind her, I picked up.

  “Hello, Mother.”

  “Hello, Rockne, darling.” The words dripped with maternal warmth. Who would my mother be tonight? The woman who taught me my first guitar chords or the one who threatened to have me declared mentally incompetent because I wouldn’t live the life she mapped out for me.

  “You’re on speaker, dear,” she informed me. “Is there anyone in the room with you?”

  “Just me.” My reflection in the window was utterly alone.

  “All right, your father’s here, and we’re so sorry about Sterling. It’s just awful. We’ve called for a prayer vigil for the entire Chandler family, especially Andi, bless her heart. How is Elena holding up?”

  “Okay, I guess.” The talk turned to everyone’s shock and how my family had taken the news of Sterling’s collapse. My mother knew more about Sterling’s condition, who his doctors were, and what his prognosis was than I did.

  My father made absent, agreeable noises, as though he kept only one ear tuned to our conversation.

  I actively hated the resignation on the face of my reflection.

  Defeat, before the conversation even starts.

  What is wrong with you?

  “We’ve spoken with Elena.” Mom’s cultured voice was still musical. She could pass for sixteen on the phone. “And we’ve all agreed that it would be best for you to come home for a while, at least until we know more about Sterling’s condition.”

  “No,” I argued. “I’ll be needed even more with the boss laid up. There’s still cutting hay, which is crucial to winter feeding, and maintaining the vegetable gardens. We still need to put up this year’s excess produce and I’m expected to plant for the spring. And then there’s the butchering. Smoking bacon and hams. Whether I’ll be there or not, they still have to eat.”

  “Goodness dear, that does sound challenging. Still, I’m certain there are others with the skill to do those things.”

  “But it’s my job,” I argued. “And I’m good at it. No one can just come along and step in, not while the boss is sick like this. They need me to help keep the Rocking C running smoothly, not abandon them in the boss’s hour of need.”

  “We’ve already discussed the situation, dear. The Chandler family needs this time together to regroup. Andi and her father have their differences, but she has his best interests at heart. She’ll need to go home now, with Ryder, and work things out.”

  “Andi doesn’t give a damn about the ranch.” And things between Andi and Ryder are fine, whether anybody believes it or not. “She’s a singer. She’s in a band now and everything.”

  “The Lord has a purpose for each of us.” My dad’s sermoning voice kicked in like a reliable furnace. “No one promises we will like or understand His reasoning, yet we are expected to heed His call.”

  “No matter what?” I asked. “No matter who it hurts?”

  “Hm . . .” my mother mused. “Could any purpose the Lord has for us hurt someone who was also doing the Lord’s work?”

  “Quite right, my dear.” My father praised her like a doting pet owner. “The Lord’s work harms no one but the unrighteous, who openly oppose Him.”

  Already, my life, my clothes, even my skin felt too tight. Like they were made for someone seven sizes smaller, someone too fond of scratchy fabrics and starch.

  Panic won out for the count of several too-rapid heartbeats, because I couldn’t go back.

  I couldn’t listen to this anymore.

  I couldn’t be silent anymore.

  My heart beat ominously as rage built up inside me.

  Still, I said nothing and my mother went on as if I’d agreed to everything.

  In her mind, I had.

  “We’ve spoken with Elena. She’ll be bringing you back to the ranch in the morning. You’re to pack your things immediately. We’re sending a car for you. I can’t wait to see you, darling. We’ll go shopping for new clothes first thing, and then to that barbecue place you like so much.”

  My head said no. My heart said hell no.

  “I won’t go.”

  Silence enveloped us while I imagined my mother making ferocious eye contact with my dad.

  I didn’t have to see them to know it was happening. They have an exceptional partnership. Like an Olympic curling team, my parents were both flawlessly in sync and incomprehensible. Also deadly serious.

  In my imagination, her eyes expressed frustration. Her look said, Do something.

  My father showed confusion. “What?”

  She widened her eyes until the whites were visible all around. “Say something anyway. Say anything.”

  “Er . . .” Dad’s throat-clearing could be heard over the speaker. “Son. Your mother is right. This is no time to presume on the Chandlers’ friendship. Surely you can see that.”

  “No,” I repeated.

  “You wish to continue presuming on their—”

  “I’m not presuming on anything.” I went to the desk where the hotel management had left two bottles of brand-name water. Cracking one open, I took long sips. Yes, it was petty. If I hadn’t been so angry, I’d have poured myself a glass from the tap.

  “I have a job here. I’m needed. I know that’s a foreign concept, since I’m useless to everyone at home, but—”

  “Watch how you talk to your mother,” my father ordered.

  Unrepentant, I continued. “I have a job. I need to do my job.”

  My mother ignored my words. “Jackson will pick you up at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I’d hate for you to keep him waiting, but as always, you must make up your mind whether to be mature about things or to cause others grief.”

  “I will not go.”

  “Jackson’s under orders to bring you to the house. If you refuse to come, I suppose we could look for assisted living, but—”

  “I live at the Rocking C!” I shouted. “I have a job there. I’m not coming home.”

  “Sweetheart. Be reasonable, for Sterling’s sake.”

  Her patient voice grated.

  She will not win. They will not. Not this time. “No.”

  “Tomorrow. Three p.m. Jackson will expect to find you packed and ready to go. Depending on your cooperation, he will either bring you here to the house where you will enjoy all the privileges you grew up with”—her voice was so sharp it hurt—“or he won’t.”

  Her words resounded, even even after hanging up. The city was a living monster with a beating heart. Traffic raced every which way through its clogged arteries. I watched, waiting for something to happen.

  At the Rocking C, the earth was a gentle giant, sleeping under blankets of fir trees.

  I reached up to draw the filmy curtain back over the window. The curtain pull came off unexpectedly. I frowned at my hands, which seemed . . .

  Huge. Capable. At the moment my hands seemed large as manhole covers. My body, in the reflection I could still see through the gap in the curtains, was also big and fit and . . . capable.

  C
apable?

  At the Rocking C, I was more than capable. I was valuable. My God, I couldn’t let them treat me like a defective appliance they had some nostalgic attachment toward.

  I’m not the Brave Little Toaster, goddamnit.

  I am a precision machine, slight wiring problem be damned.

  I grabbed my key card and ran down the hall to Elena’s room. She opened at my knock. Foz sat in a wing chair, watching highlights of a baseball game on the TV. He smiled and I nodded.

  My attention was all for her. “I need to go home.”

  “I know.” Sadness clouded her gaze. “Your parents told me what they decided. I’m so sorry.”

  “No. I mean, yeah. That’s fucked, but I need to go home. To the Rocking C, first.”

  She shook her head. “Rock, we can hardly—”

  “We need to go right the fuck now, Elena. There’s no time.” I gripped her by her shoulders, needing her to hear me. To listen, like she always did, with her heart and not just her ears. “If we leave now, I can explain things to Sky. If we leave now, I’ll have a chance to talk to him. To tell him—” My voice broke.

  Tell him what?

  “I have to go,” I said. “I have no choice. The least I can do is tell him to his face. All I want is a little time to say good-bye.”

  I held my breath, watching every emotion play over Elena’s face. Love, regret, sorrow, resignation.

  It was Foz who broke the silence. “Let him go, ’Lena. I can take him back with me tonight. Be back before you know it.”

  In a move that told me more about them than he probably intended, he tugged her braid, playfully.

  She shivered.

  Foz’s whispered words were pitched low, meant only for her. “Sounds like a reasonable request for a man in love.”

  Was I in love? Hell if I knew.

  Love seemed like a pretty foreign concept right then.

  I was willing to settle for a single night as the center of Sky’s attention. I wanted every second of the time we had left.

  I couldn’t think past my immediate problem.

  “Can I go, Elena?”

  “Yes.” She turned away.

  How was I going to spend a lifetime with Sky before three in the afternoon?

  Chapter 29

  Sky

  A hand covered my mouth, jarring me awake. Immediate, brutal instinct took over. I lurched up, ready to kill whoever was holding me down. My thumb was perfectly placed to make my attacker hella sorry but then the scent of Rock’s skin teased its way into my awareness.

  He had no idea how close he’d come to a broken hyoid bone.

  I relaxed. “You smell delicious.”

  “Thanks.” He leaned closer to me, letting the edge of his unshaved cheek rasp against mine.

  “So you know, it’s probably not a great idea to sneak up on me when I’m asleep.”

  “Sorry. I just got back. I was so happy when I saw you lying there, I didn’t think.”

  The hot, sweet weight of his body on mine was making thoughts impossible for me too. My throat contracted as I opened my mouth to speak, but he pressed his lips to mine before lifting his finger to shush me.

  I nodded that I understood. The walls in the bunkhouse were paper thin.

  He got up and I followed. It didn’t matter where we were going. It wouldn’t matter, ever, because wherever Rock wanted to go, I’d follow.

  We stepped out into the evening, footfalls soft on the packed earth between the bunkhouse and the equipment shed.

  “The boss?”

  “Still wait-and-see. Elena let me come back with Foz.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Me too.” I took his hand.

  After that, we didn’t talk. Sound carries and neither of us wanted to wake up the ranch’s residents, human or beast. Maisy crept out of the shadows to slink along beside us, and apparently she’d gotten the memo we were sneaking, because she wasn’t the usual curious, lively creature I’d come to know.

  Maisy was probably tired. Her master showed exhaustion in the way his shoulders hunched, the hard set of his mouth, the dark circles under his eyes. I’d worried about him when he was away. But he was home now where I could look after him. Get him to eat something, maybe. Make sure he rested when he was supposed to.

  Thinking about taking care of Rock gave me a strange feeling. Jitters slowed my steps. It took a minute to realize that I was feeling something close to joy. Not a bad thing at all, just outside my experience.

  Rock put me off-kilter like that, all the damn time.

  Once we were in the shed, I realized he had something specific in mind.

  He’d gone out there first to set things up—little plastic lanterns glowed around a bunch of bed rolls, open and stacked on the floor to create a nest. He’d even gone to the trouble of gathering snacks and bottled water and Cokes.

  “This is nice,” I glanced around, suddenly cold, suddenly nervous, since what he’d planned was pretty obviously romantic in nature and I wasn’t real sure I had a whole lot of romance in me. “You went to a lot of trouble here.”

  “Wanted it to be special.” Clumsily, he pulled me toward him. Our noses, elbows, and knees met in a comic collision. “Aaaand, wow. That’s was so clumsy.”

  We laughed about it.

  “What do you want?” I dragged my shirt off over my head. He stopped my hands before I could undo the ties on my sleep pants.

  “Nuh-uh. That’s for me to do.” Without taking his gaze from mine, he pushed me into the soft pile of blankets, easing down with me, crawling between my legs so I could feel the whole hard heat of him against me.

  “Okay.” A helpless needy sound escaped me when he flexed and his hips drove into mine. “Oh God.”

  Soft music started playing. Man thought of everything.

  “You don’t have to work this hard.” The words came out huskier than I planned. “I’m a sure fucking thing, honey. You can have my mouth, my ass. You can—”

  “This here is my seduction, Prudence.” His smile was boyish and warm. “You just hush.”

  “Oh shit.” I tucked my face into my arm. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Laugh, my ass. I gonna make you beg. And scream my name.” He kissed the side of my neck with a loud, smacking sound. It tickled. “Except you have to keep quiet because I don’t want everyone at the Rocking C running out here thinking some animal is in pain.”

  “Ow.” A hard pinch on my nipple startled me.

  “Gotcha.” He leaned in to nibble the skin he’d pinched, and then he licked me to soothe the burn. He met my gaze while scattering a series of fluttering, breathy kisses over my abs.

  And lower still.

  “Ah.” Christ. There go the ties, the pants, my shorts. Swept off in a second’s impatience.

  Hard place? Meet Rock.

  His lips closed around me, hot and wet. I curled my fingers into his soft brown hair, scrabbling to hold on to him while his mouth launched me into space.

  His touch was knowing. Expert. I hadn’t expected that—hadn’t expected that he’d be skilled and serious and fucking fearless.

  “Oh shit.” I squirmed while he sucked me. Licked me. Worshipped me. When he drew my legs up over his shoulders that sweet suction, the rhythmic drag of his lips and the threat of teeth was too much sensation for me. I had to pull in great lungfuls of air.

  All touch, all thought, all effort focused on the center of my body. His lips clung to my cock. Hands roamed my torso and over my hips, down my legs, pulling me tighter, closer to Rock, closer to release.

  “Gonna.”

  He pulled off. Ah, Christ.

  “If I let you come, can you go again?”

  No stopping. Not now!

  “I’m twenty-six.” My voice cracked on the words. “I’ve been in prison fo
r eight years. If you don’t let me come I will probably violate the hell out of my parole.”

  “Whatcha going to do about it?” he teased.

  I punched my dick up through his fist and nearly took his eye out. “If you won’t finish me, at least let me suck you. I’m not so good at lying here like a—”

  “Rock?” Those pretty blue eyes sparkled. “You look damn good to me, babe. You look so fucking hot.”

  His mouth closed over me again. Slick, careful fingers opened me with hardly any pain at all. He didn’t stop, didn’t let up, until I was rocking between his hot mouth and those long, musician’s fingers, huffing short sharp breaths to get enough air.

  Swipes of his tongue over my piss-slit laid me bare, like he was trying to tease something loose from my foreskin. Lashes of sensation melted over my body, warm and cold. Shivery and painful.

  His tongue was too good and too much and just enough. I felt myself slide into orgasm when he pressed the tip of his tongue . . . oh, right there.

  “There. Oh God. Yes. There.” Dizzying spirals of colors swirled behind my closed eyelids. My hips shot up, and I flooded his mouth, shooting pulse after giddy pulse.

  He swallowed, spurring me on until pleasurable sensation dragged on too long. I hissed, letting my legs fall open.

  “Hey, you.” He crawled up my body.

  We shared a kiss that tasted like my spunk while he rubbed his cock against my thigh. He was still needy, still hungry for me.

  “C’mere.” As his fingers played lightly over my balls, his eyes drifted shut. Fluttered open. From somewhere he produced a condom.

  “Can I?” He waited for permission to take me.

  Someday I’ll tell him he doesn’t need to ask for what he wants. Someday I’ll tell him I’d be just as happy if he took it without asking. Without even maybe giving me any warning at all.

  He could be that guy. The one I give everything up to.

  He’s sweet. Fit. He likes me and he’s kind.

  I’d never had anyone like Rock before. I’d never had connection or intimacy. Smiles and secrets.

  Rock wanted a boyfriend and I didn’t know how to be one.