“So you’ve worked with Evan for a while, then?”
“Oh, I’ve known him since he was a little boy. I used to be his father’s assistant, got the job right out of university. It’s why I can boss him around like I do. But don’t be taken in—I know that he’s in charge, and on anything serious I listen to him. He just needs a firm hand to help keep him organized.”
Dan doesn’t let his mind dwell on the “firm hand” comment.
Linda walks Dan up to the guest house and lets him try out the door code, and then shows him in. He’d been expecting some sort of tiny cabin, but it’s a full-size house, with an open plan living and dining room, a full kitchen and three bedrooms. “It hardly gets any use, really. Evan’s parents used to loan it out as a sort of artist’s retreat, but Evan really isn’t too interested in the arts, and I think he prefers to have a bit more privacy when he’s at home.”
They return to the main house and Dan is introduced to the housekeeper, Tia, who has also been with the family forever. She gets drinks for them and they go out and sit by the pool, waiting for Evan. Dan takes a quick glance at his schedule.
“So, this is it for today? Just getting settled in?”
“That’s all I have scheduled for you. Evan really does need to get caught up on some of those issues, and I know he wanted to show you around the farm himself, with Tatiana and I think Jeff… so unless you’re really restless, you can just relax and enjoy the view.”
“Am I keeping you from anything? I mean, the company’s great, but if you have somewhere you need to be, I’m fine by myself.”
She checks her watch. “Well, if you don’t mind, I should run in and see if Evan needs me to follow up on anything… can I get you something, though? A book, or….”
A deep voice comes from behind them. “It’s okay, Linda. I can keep him company.”
Dan turns and sees Jeff, and his stomach does a little flip. He’d thought he’d gotten over whatever he’d been feeling in Kentucky, but seeing Jeff again makes it clear that he was wrong. Jeff’s beautiful in the late afternoon sun, and Dan can almost feel the warmth in the man’s smile.
Jeff walks across the terrace and sits in a deck chair opposite Dan and Linda, who stands gracefully and heads into the house.
Jeff just looks at him for a moment and then smiles again. “Welcome to California, Dan.”
Chapter 11
DAN LEANS back in his chair and lets the sun hit his closed eyelids. He feels peaceful here, like he’s wrapped in a safe cocoon, just the sun’s warmth, the chill of the drink in his hand, the sound of the water hitting the edge of the pool… and Jeff. He opens his eyes again, because if Jeff’s around, Dan wants to be able to see him.
Dan squints into the sun, and Jeff pulls his own sunglasses off and leans over to hand them to Dan. Jeff’s back is to the sun, it only makes sense for Dan to have the glasses, but it still seems intimate somehow. He takes the sunglasses and puts them on.
Jeff smiles at him. “You just get in?”
“A little while ago. Evan picked me up at the airport, and then he had to do some work, so Linda showed me around.”
Jeff nods. “He’s in there now, working the phone. It’s always a bit hectic when he gets back from being away.”
“He seems to have a lot of responsibility. But, you were right, what you said in Kentucky… he does seem different out here. More relaxed.”
“Yeah, he’s a big homebody.” Jeff’s tone is affectionate, and again Dan is jealous. He decides to try to get the topic of conversation away from Evan.
“So, what about you? You have your own business, right?”
“Well, nothing on the scale of Evan’s, that’s for sure. I just try to teach rich people to ride, and then train their horses well enough that the riders think they’ve achieved something.”
Dan raises an eyebrow. “Wow, cynical! Don’t you have any good students?”
Jeff rubs the back of his neck and smiles apologetically at Dan. “Yeah, sorry, of course I do. It’s just been a long day. A long few days.”
A long few days because Evan had been out of town, Dan realizes. Their relationship still feels a little strange to him. They seem so casual about sex, but are clearly very attached emotionally. He tries to be mature about it. “I really am fine out here on my own… if you wanted to go in and check….”
Jeff shakes his head. “Nah, I poked my head in when I arrived. He knows I’m here. He’ll come out when he can.” He kicks his shoes off and rolls up the cuffs of his pants, then walks over and sits on the edge of the pool, dangling his feet in the water. He lies back, resting his head on the pool deck and looking backward at Dan. “Everything okay in Kentucky?”
Jeff’s tone is gentle, and Dan appreciates the vagueness of the question. Dan can answer with any level of detail he wants. “The barn’s good. I’ve got to tell Evan that one of his horses is lame, but we think he just pulled a muscle. And everybody’s working well together.” Dan pauses, and then pulls his own shoes and socks off, rolls up his cuffs and walks over to sit beside Jeff with his feet in the pool. He doesn’t lie back, although he sort of wants to.
“Justin’s the same.” Dan keeps his tone neutral, is proud that he can say Justin’s name without losing control.
“And you? You’re okay?” This time the question isn’t so vague, but the tone is still gentle.
“Me? I dunno… I’m fine, I guess.” Dan doesn’t really know how to answer. “I mean… I’m the same too.”
Jeff nods as if that were a real answer. They both rest as they are for a few minutes, and then Jeff grips the side of the pool with both hands and pulls himself back up to a sitting position. One of his hands rests right next to Dan’s on the pool edge, and Dan won’t let himself look down, but he can feel the contact. His whole body knows that his little finger is stretched out alongside Jeff’s. He feels like a school girl, but he won’t move his finger, won’t take it away or move it in closer. He stares out across the rolling foothills toward the ocean, thinks maybe he can see the water, and then realizes that he still has Jeff’s sunglasses, even though they’re both now looking into the sun.
He turns his head a little, enough to see the Jeff is looking at him. He raises his other hand to his face, starts to take the shades off. “Here, you should have these back.”
Jeff shakes his head, and uses his other hand to guide them back to Dan. “Nah, you hang on to them.” He smiles. “They look better on you anyway.”
Dan knows that if Jeff made a move right now, Dan would be right with him. He’d feel terrible about it later, he’s sure, for so many reasons. But his brain is not in control anymore, and his body knows what it wants, what it hasn’t had for far too long. And there’s something about Jeff, with his gentle awareness, his….
“Hey, Jeff!” It’s a female voice, and as Dan and Jeff turn toward it they see two dogs barreling toward them, and Tatiana standing in the doorway to the house. The dogs head straight for Jeff, and he raises both of his hands, releasing Dan from the spell and letting him shift away from the furred onslaught.
“Hey, guys, settle down, settle down,” Jeff chides the dogs and then looks over their heads to Dan. “They’re totally friendly but not too well trained… sort of like their master.” The dogs are done with Jeff and move on to Dan, a little more cautious but still very enthusiastic. Jeff points. “This one’s Copa, this one’s Trapper.” He looks over at Tatiana. “You take them somewhere with you?”
“Callie got a new puppy, and they’re trying to socialize her, so I took the big dogs for an introduction.” She walks over a bit shyly, and Dan knows it must be because of him.
“Tatiana, you remember Dan?” Jeff prompts.
“Yeah, hi, Dan,” she manages.
“Hey, Tatiana, it’s nice to see you again.” Dan knows that he’s a better actor, but he’s not sure that he’s any more comfortable than the girl is. What if she had come out a few minutes later? But then Dan catches himself. Just because he had been
overcome with temporary insanity doesn’t mean that Jeff would have been or that Jeff is interested at all. Lined up pinky fingers are hardly a universal invitation to passion.
“Where’s Lou?” Tat asks Jeff.
“Her stitches are still healing up. I didn’t want to bring her over here to play and have her tear them out again.”
Tatiana nods understandingly. Then she looks shyly at Dan. “How’s Monty?”
Dan can’t believe the girl still has that crush on the horse. He’s not sure she’ll ever be strong enough to ride him really effectively. “He’s good. Still a bit headstrong, but… good.” He decides to try a slightly different approach. “The one I’m really impressed with lately is Sunshine. Horses sometimes, it’s like they hit plateaus in their training, you know? They’ll learn a bunch of stuff, and it’ll be like they’re improving every day, and then they’ll just sort of go into a holding pattern and don’t learn anything at all for a while. And then when they’re ready, bam! They start learning again. And she’s been learning like crazy the last week or so. Seems like every day I ride her she’s gotten noticeably better.” This much is true, and he doesn’t bother to mention that some horses don’t plateau. They backslide, seeming to forget everything they ever knew. That’s one of the most frustrating parts of training, and he doesn’t want to discourage Tatiana right now.
The girl smiles enthusiastically. “That must be so much fun!”
Dan nods. “It really is. She’s the one I’m most excited about right now.” He leans in a little, as though he’s about to tell Tat a secret. They’re still at least five feet from each other, but he thinks she gets the idea. “And she’s a mare, which is great, because with the geldings… well, it can be hard to see them get old and lose their fitness and know that they’re not good for anything but pasture ornaments anymore. ’Cause you still love them, but you can’t really do anything with them anymore. You know?” Tat nods, and Dan goes in for the kill. “But with a mare, even if she’s too old to compete she’s still usually healthy enough to have at least a couple beautiful foals. And then you get the fun of loving them, and raising them up and training them, and it’s like the horse you love continues, you know? Because you’ve still got her foals to remind you of her.”
Tatiana is practically clapping her hands. “I wanted us to have foals, but Evan said he’d looked into it, and it didn’t make sense to have a breeding operation, that it was more efficient to let someone else take all the risks of breeding the horses and then just go in and pick out the horses that are worth training.”
Dan nods, and hopes he isn’t making a mistake, setting up Tatiana for more disappointment. He glances over at Jeff who is standing behind Tat and watching the whole exchange. He grins, and makes a sort of ‘go on’ motion with his chin. Dan decides that he’s so far in, he might as well keep going.
“Well, a large scale operation probably doesn’t make sense. Or at least you’d need someone else to look after it for you, because I only know the basics about breeding. But I think if you’re going to have a business that you care about, especially a business with animals… I think sometimes you have to just go with your heart.” He shrugs. “Besides, Sunshine’s got great bloodlines—I can show you her pedigree sometime, you should see all the famous horses that show up in it. She’d be a good bet for breeding.”
Tatiana is enthralled and peppers Dan with questions about Sunshine and foals and training and how a friend of hers said that Thoroughbreds are better than Hanoverians, and how many Thoroughbreds are coming with the Kentucky horses, and are they really better, and….
After the first couple questions Jeff sketches a half-wave to Dan and heads into the house. Dan is temporarily distracted. Did he really just let himself be dragged into a conversation with a teenage girl so that Jeff could make an undisturbed booty call? But he reminds himself that Jeff and Evan are none of his business, and tries to get back on track with Tat.
He’s distracted again when Linda comes out to say goodbye for the day. She reminds Dan of his schedule, and makes sure that he’s got everything he needs in the guest house, and then chats a little with Tat about her day. The whole time Dan is thinking that now Jeff and Evan are alone, and they’ve been away from each other for a while, and does Jeff live here? Do they share a bedroom? Or are they in Evan’s bedroom? Or Evan’s office, afternoon light coming in through the venetian blinds, Evan sitting on the big wooden desk with Jeff standing between his legs, pressing in tight, Jeff leaning Evan back over the paperwork, working the buttons on Evan’s shirt open while he sucks and bites at his neck….
Dan feels pressure against his fly and rips himself back to reality. What is he doing, about to let himself get hard ten feet away from a teenage girl? Is he really that desperate? That out of control? He swirls his feet in the pool a little more vigorously, hoping the cool water will help calm him down. Linda calls out her goodbye to him, and he waves in response, and then the door to the house opens and Evan and Jeff come out together, not looking at all as Dan had just been picturing them.
Evan grins at Dan’s position by the pool. “Damn, did Jeff teach you that?” Evan looks over at Jeff’s bare feet and damp lower pant legs. “The guy can’t sit out here for two minutes without having his feet in the water.”
Dan swirls his feet a little more. “I guess he knows how to live. You need to cut the legs off some of those chairs so you could sit like this and still have a backrest.”
Jeff nods. “Now you’re thinking.”
The housekeeper comes out with a tray loaded with a variety of appetizers, and Jeff helps her set it up on the table. She comes back with a bottle of wine and four glasses, as well as a can of Diet Coke. Dan watches in amusement as Evan opens the bottle of wine while Jeff pours the Coke into a wine glass he hands to Tatiana. Then Tat drags him along to the far end of the terrace, wanting to show him where she thinks a squirrel has its nest. With one wine glass still empty, Evan looks at Dan. “We’ve got beer, if you’d prefer?”
Dan shakes his head. “No, wine’s fine, thanks.” Then he starts feeling a little intrusive. “But, maybe not a whole glass. I mean, you guys probably have some sort of family stuff to catch up on or something… and I’ve got things to do to get ready for tomorrow.”
“What, read the resumes again? Come on, it’s California… relax!” Evan fills the glass to the same level as the others and walks over to hand it to Dan. “Besides, you’re here for dinner, right? There’s no point in going away and then coming back again.”
“Uh, I don’t know. Am I here for dinner? I mean, I sort of expected a hotel, thought I’d be eating there.” Evan looks a little startled by Dan’s words. “I don’t mean I wanted a hotel, I just… I mean, I’m your employee, right? Do you really want me eating all my meals with you?”
Evan is standing right next to Dan and looks at him for a little longer than is comfortable before softly saying, “Yeah, Dan, I do.” He moves away a little and takes a sip of his wine. “Nice sunglasses, by the way.”
Dan had forgotten he was wearing them. “Oh, yeah. Jeff loaned them to me. It was rainy at home, so I wasn’t wearing any, and I don’t think I remembered to pack any.”
Evan nods. “They’re from a trip we took to Costa Rica. Going down to the tropics, and we both forgot to bring sunglasses. And the shop only had one style that wasn’t totally ugly, so we each bought the same pair, felt like one of those ‘dress alike’ couples for the whole rest of the trip.” Evan takes another sip of wine. “I sat on mine on the plane ride back, totally crushed them.”
Dan wonders if there’s supposed to be some deeper meaning to the saga of the sunglasses, but can’t really see it. Other than reminding Dan that this is an established relationship, that Evan and Jeff have history. Maybe that’s all Evan is trying to say. “Well, I’ll try not to sit on them.”
Evan grins sunnily. “Whatever, they’re just cheap plastic. It’d be good if his got broken, actually—then he could stop using them as evidence o
f his responsibility compared to my scatterbrainedness.”
Dan is starting to be a little confused by this conversation in general, and is relieved when Jeff and Tatiana return from their nature excursion.
They sit by the pool and drink and eat snacks and chat, and any discomfort that Dan felt during his conversation with Evan is long gone. The housekeeper supplies a platter of steaks, and Evan mans the barbecue. Tat helps bring out table linens and place settings and then several side dishes.
The meal is delicious, the scenery is incredible, and everyone is pleasant and charming. Dan feels like he’s stumbled into someone else’s life. The world of eventing certainly has its share of wealthy participants, but there’s usually a fairly clear divide between the patrons and the patronized, the owners and the workers. Dan really doesn’t feel that here, and isn’t sure what to make of it. He isn’t sure he likes it, even… it’s harder to keep things clear in his head this way, and he really thinks he needs to keep a clear head. He looks at Jeff, who’s lazily smiling as Evan teases Tatiana, and wonders if he’s a bit too late.
Chapter 12
DAN WAKES up the next morning and doesn’t know where he is. California is three hours behind Louisville, so part of the problem is jet lag. When his body tells him it’s time to get up, it’s still pitch black outside his window. He dozes for a while, but each time he wakes it’s with the same unpleasant sense of disorientation and displacement, and finally he gives up and gets out of bed. He finds his book and reads a chapter and then showers and gets dressed.
There’s a coffeemaker in the kitchen, and he finds a bag of ground coffee in the freezer. He makes the coffee and finds a mug, then takes his book out onto the porch. It’s still a bit chilly out, but the sun is coming up, and the porch faces east, toward the mountains. He doesn’t really read, just sits there and enjoys his coffee, and wonders if this could be his life. If he actually lived here, of course, he’d be over at the barn by now, helping to feed the horses and turn them out, figuring out the training for the day. If this was his life, maybe he’d have someone in his bed upstairs, someone who would have dragged at him when he got up, tried to coax him back to bed.
Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits Page 37
