by L. C. Chase
But folks did know him here. And Ray was his boss. It wasn’t just his reputation at stake. Ray had even more to lose if they were caught.
And the recent beating was still too fresh in Travis’s memory.
He’d been on the Double Diamond Ranch for barely a week, but his warning signals had been flashing and ringing from day one. He’d known better than to go against his infallible intuition, so why he’d ignored it that time, he couldn’t say.
The moment he’d been introduced to the hands, the atmosphere had turned frosty. Not one person, aside from his boss and the cook, had spoken to him unless absolutely necessary. He’d been disappointed at having to quit so soon after starting but knew he was jeopardizing his life by being there.
Travis had hefted his duffel bag—that hadn’t even been unpacked—over his shoulder and hightailed it out of there. Things would have been okay if he hadn’t stopped at a local pub for a couple shots of tequila, if he’d kept going until he’d cleared the state line. But he’d needed something to take the edge off while he worked out what to do next, where to go. And that was when it had all gone south. He knew he wasn’t getting out of North Dakota without at least one broken bone when he’d heard “Looky here, fellas. It’s the Brokeback cowboy” behind him.
Travis had looked up into the mirror behind the bar and counted five men from the Double Diamond in its reflection. He was a fighter, more than confident in a one- or two-on-one, possibly even a three-on-one, but five?
Life may have thrown him more curveballs than most, but he was far from suicidal. He knew when he didn’t have a chance and found no shame in walking away.
He’d slid a couple of bills to the bartender and ordered five more shots for his friends. When the bartender had lined the drinks up and called the bewildered men forward, Travis had shot back his last tequila and slipped away quietly while the ranch hands indulged.
He’d made it two miles down the road before he’d finally breathed a long sigh of relief. Unfortunately it had been too soon. If only there had been at least one passing vehicle he could have hitched a ride with.
The Double Diamond hands had caught up to him, banked their truck hard onto the shoulder, and piled out ready to rumble.
Travis unconsciously rubbed a hand over his ribs at the memory.
But that was Double Diamond and this was Ford Creek. He’d been welcomed here without question or reservation. With the exception of Sam Davis, that is.
Travis stole another glance over his shoulder. Ray was leading a sturdy-looking paint back to the corral on his way to swap for another steed. For such a solid man, his stride was effortlessly fluid.
Logically, Travis knew they both had far too much to lose to take the risk, but it didn’t stop his mind from coming up with a way around it. There was no denying they were attracted to one another, and they both had reputations neither wanted damaged or destroyed. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t take advantage of the situation regardless. They were both mature and experienced enough to stay under the radar. Ray had obviously done so thus far without the slightest hint of rumor or speculation. It would be mutually beneficial for the both of them, and it would only be for a few months.
The tension was already growing at a rapid pace between them, and it was only a matter of time before one of them snapped. Even though the urge to move on hadn’t struck yet, Travis knew he wouldn’t be able to stay put longer than a few months anyway—never could.
Mind made up, Travis turned back to his charge, feeling a little more relaxed and able to focus clearly once again.
Turned out the ornery buckskin wasn’t so ornery after all. Not once the animal figured out who was in charge. Travis finally had the gelding following him obediently around the pen when he heard an aggressive bray from the other ring. A heavy, thudding crash against aluminum railings followed. He whipped around just in time to see Diablo rearing, raking his hooves through the air, ears flat back, nostrils flared—and Ray on the ground against the rails.
Impulse and adrenaline catapulted Travis up and over the six-foot fence as though it were nothing more than a highway guardrail. There were less than two hundred yards between the round pens, but it may as well have been two miles. Travis’s boots felt weighted with cement as he ran.
“Ray! Get out of there!”
A furious Diablo charged at Travis—ears flat back, teeth bared—when he grabbed the rails and started to climb over. Ray didn’t even flinch. Just shot a quick glance over his shoulder and raised one hand, signaling Travis to stop. The warning in his expressive eyes was stern and immutable, his voice level and forceful when he said, “Stop.”
“Stop? What the hell—”
“Unless you want to lose a limb,” Ray said, his voice unchanging, “I suggest you back away from the fence.”
“Dammit, Ray. You need to get out of that pen.”
“And you need to back off.”
“That horse is going to kill you.” Travis had yet to break his stuck-to-the-fence-like-Velcro imitation, his voice pitched a touch high.
Ray cracked an infuriating half grin, and his eyes twinkled. “No, he isn’t. You’re just pissing him off.”
The stubborn son of a bitch thought this was a game? He didn’t know what Ray had been drinking, but whatever it was it had clearly impaired the man’s judgment.
“Fuck that. I’m coming in.” Travis made to move up another rail, intent on pulling Ray’s dumb ass out of the ring. Diablo charged again with an angry squeal.
“You can stay right where you are, Morgan.” Ray’s rough voice cracked like a whip, the twinkle gone from his eyes. “Better yet, go back to your own horse.”
Diablo tossed his head and stamped the ground in agreement, attention focused on Travis.
“Ray—”
“Go.” The stubborn man shook his head once and turned back to the dangerous stallion.
With a frustrated sigh, Travis jumped off the fence and took one step back to appease Ray and the angered horse, but he was reluctant to leave the rancher alone. Just in case. “I’m staying right here.”
Ray didn’t respond.
Travis crouched down to make himself less threatening to Diablo and willed the pounding in his ears and rapid, short breaths that made his throat drier than the Nevada desert to settle down.
At that first, quick glance, Travis had thought Ray was in serious danger, and panic had immediately set in, coloring what he’d actually seen.
Now that the disconcerting blinders were off, the ones he didn’t want to think too much about, he could see what had really been going on.
Ray had been sitting on the ground—as he still was—cross-legged, hands palm up on his knees as though mediating, with his back against the rails. His posture relaxed, his shoulders rose and fell with an easy, even rhythm. He had simply been waiting Diablo out, letting the horse act out until he settled on his own.
The less threatening Ray was, the less aggressive the horse would be. Travis shook his head. He practiced the same tension and release and approach and retreat methods as Ray, but sitting on the ground, that vulnerable to an angry twelve-hundred-pound animal, was taking it a bit too far.
And he was damn well going to give the man a piece of his mind for it later.
Gradually Diablo’s volatility meter began to ease back to the right. The rearing became a stamping of the earth, snorting, and head tossing, which then settled back further to a few snorts and head tosses. Then the animal stood his ground looking anywhere but at Ray. Tension Travis hadn’t realized his body had been holding finally released when the big horse lowered his head and looked at Ray with a calmer air.
“Hand me a carrot,” Ray said, his voice low and even. The man hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time Diablo had put on his show.
Travis turned to the bucket of carrots a few feet away and reached for one. He placed it in the open, waiting palm. His fingers brushed the skin, brief and gentle, as he retreated. Ray’s shoulders tensed infinitesimally
, then settled back. Travis smiled at the telling reaction. That small touch had affected Ray as strongly as if Travis had grabbed hold and squeezed tight.
Ray broke the carrot in two and placed one half on each palm. Then lowered his hands back to his knees and resumed his Zen-Buddha routine.
Half an hour later Travis was smiling, and his chest swelled with pride as he watched Ray standing in the middle of the pen. Diablo’s neck was draped over his shoulder as he nibbled at Ray’s shirt while Ray scrubbed the big animal’s jaw. The horse had tugged at the shirt enough that it had come loose of his jeans. Nibbling again, Diablo pulled the shirt up enough to expose a flat stomach, pale skin, and a trail of dark hair that disappeared into the jeans waistband.
Travis unconsciously licked his lips.
Ray chuckled softly at Diablo’s antics and murmured inaudible, low-toned, dulcet words of praise in the now tame-as-a-kitten animal’s ear.
A sudden screaming thought slammed into Travis’s brain that had him instantly straining and uncomfortable against the zippered fly of his jeans: Ray would be an amazing lover.
Ray sat in a chair on the front porch, absently chewing on a cinnamon stick as he waited for the men to come in for dinner. More specifically, waiting for Travis.
He had a bone to pick with the man.
Wind chimes trilled melodically in the dying evening breeze. The temperature had dropped as the sun began its descent, but warmth crept into his chest and fanned out as he recalled the afternoon. How panicked Travis had looked when he’d come charging to the pen when Diablo was playing his games. Charging to Ray’s rescue. He couldn’t ignore the feelings of pride and desire that the action had sent spiraling through his nervous system, but he could push them aside, force them into the background.
Travis came around the side of the barn with that unmistakable swagger of his, Jesse Davis in tow. Though he couldn’t make out the words, the harmony of their voices carried across the yard—Travis’s deep baritone and Jesse’s eager tenor. Jesse kept looking up at Travis as he spoke, hanging on his every word. Travis laughed at something Jesse said, and the sound reverberated in Ray’s chest, a sound he wanted to hear again, to cause. A ping of some strange emotion he refused to identify bubbled below the surface. Ray narrowed his eyes slightly as he watched the two men approach.
“Evenin’, Ray,” Jesse said in his youthful exuberance as they climbed the short steps.
He nodded. “Jesse.”
Then he shifted his gaze to Travis and was once again trapped in those impossibly captivating eyes. Amusement and mischief danced in their shadows, withholding the secret Ray had wanted to learn the moment Travis had hopped into the cab of his truck.
“A minute, Travis.”
Shit. Why did his voice always seem to come out rougher or sharper than intended around this man?
Jesse paused with his hand on the door and looked back at Travis questioningly. Ray wasn’t sure what to make of that. He was the boss of this ranch. Not Travis. But Travis was whom the boy had looked to with his should-I-stay-or-should-I-go expression. When had that happened? And why did it piss him off?
“Go on in,” Travis said.
Jesse shot a quick sidelong glance at Ray, then nodded and disappeared inside.
Chirping crickets and the quick zzzzzttt of insects electrocuting themselves on the ultraviolet bug zapper hanging near the door played in practiced concert with the swaying wind chimes.
That rare flush of jealousy rose again, and this time its buddy anger came along for the ride.
Ray glared. Travis waited.
“I appreciate your wanting to help this afternoon, but you needn’t bother,” Ray began once they were alone on the porch, and he could temper his warring emotions. “I’ve got things under control with Diablo. We have a history and a…special way of working together.”
“Special or not, it won’t stop me from reacting how I do when I see anyone in any sort of trouble.”
“I wasn’t in trouble.”
“Didn’t look that way from my vantage point,” Travis challenged.
“What you saw”—Ray lowered his voice, but couldn’t prevent the snap the words were delivered with—“was Diablo playing.”
Why did the man have to argue and rile him up so easily? What really rankled his hide was that he, again, seemed to find himself aroused by it. Which only aided in pissing him off more.
“Twelve hundred pounds of angry horseflesh bearing down on you is not what I’d call play.” Travis lowered his voice to match Ray’s but, unlike Ray, his edge remained controlled.
Ray stood up to face Travis. The man was a couple of inches taller, but Ray made a point of stretching to his full five feet ten and met Travis at almost eye level. “Believe it or not, that horse is actually well trained.”
Travis didn’t back down from Ray’s attempt at intimidation. Didn’t even flinch.
“I don’t,” he answered annoyingly unaffected. “So again, I will continue to help those who appear to need help.”
Ray ground his back molars together until his jaw hurt. He counted to five, fighting the overwhelming urge to take Travis’s mouth in a hard, punishing kiss—or punch him. Either would be equally satisfying right about then.
“I don’t need a sitter, Morgan,” he snapped.
Travis matched his tone. “Not my intention.”
“What is your intention, then?”
The air between them crackled. Both men were once again rendered immobile under locked gazes. The muscle in Travis’s strong jaw clenched, and bronze fire exploded in his eyes and scorched a path straight down Ray’s spine. Silence wrapped around them, and the world closed in. Ray felt cocooned inside a kinetic bubble that had the fine hairs on his arms standing on end. Even the low buzzing nocturnal orchestra failed to penetrate its imperceptible walls.
“What do you want, Ray?” Travis’s tone had changed, the pitch dropped, the edge roughened. Right then Ray knew exactly what he wanted—inside Travis. One stride and he’d cover that long, lean body with his own.
Heat spread out from his abdomen and sent electric shocks in every direction. Blood rushed to his cock, filling it quickly, demanding. His gaze dropped to Travis’s lips; the upper not quite as full as the lower flushed deep pink. Then those lips parted, and the slow whisper that spilled over them was almost a growl. “What do you want?”
Ray felt a groan bubbling up his throat and forcibly swallowed it back. He dug his fingers hard into his thighs in a poor attempt at countering his reaction to the frustratingly sexy cowboy, but it didn’t help. He opened his mouth to tell Travis exactly what he wanted, what he was going to—
The front door banged against the wall like gunshot, and Ray damn near shed his skin. His head snapped around so fast, he knew he’d be feeling the whiplash before the night was over.
Dot stood in the doorway with an amused glint in her eyes. “You boys quit staring each other down like a couple of roosters in a henhouse and get your butts in here. Dinner’s getting cold.”
The burning heat that had run rampant over his body a moment ago suddenly turned cold under Dot’s bucket-of-ice-water presence. His lower body chilled, literally, but his face was now an inferno.
Travis casually removed his hat, holding it against his chest as he ran a hand through his unruly blond hair. Ray’s eyes followed the movement with a frown.
“Sorry, Dot,” Travis said, a sheepish grin on his face and a playful tone in his voice, as if they hadn’t just been a heartbeat away from tackling each other to the ground. “Just discussing a difference in training methods.”
“Must be a pretty serious difference,” she said.
Ray didn’t fail to notice the humor that laced through her words. Her bright eyes were sharp and speculative. Ray knew she saw more than she let on. She always saw more than she let on. A shiver raced up his spine. Not good. Not good at all.
Travis leaned down and gave her a quick, chaste kiss on the cheek.
“You said so
mething about dinner?” Travis asked politely.
Dot regarded the two of them a moment, then without another word turned for the door. Travis placed his hand on the small of her back and followed her inside without so much as a glance back.
Ray stayed outside a moment to pull himself together, still staring at the spot where Travis had stood. He dragged his hands down his face.
“I am so fucking screwed.”
Chapter Six
All through dinner Ray’s gaze kept straying to the sexy cowboy at the far end of the table. Much as he tried, he couldn’t seem to veer his thoughts off the track that kept replaying how close that body had been to his. He could still feel the heat that had wrapped around his own body, still smell the masculine, earthy scent that had his every nerve vibrating. All he wanted was more.
And every time Travis caught his gaze, that mischievous glint taunted him.
It was the most uncomfortable, yet arousing dinner he could ever remember sitting through. The risk of taking what he wanted, and being caught for it, was at once terrifying and enticing.
Dammit, he had to get a grip on this growing obsession. Why couldn’t he push the man from his mind like he’d pushed every other desire away all his life? What was it about Travis Morgan that drew him like a magnet? It was like he had no control, was almost completely at the man’s mercy. And being under someone else’s control didn’t bode well in Ray’s estimation.
He trained his eyes to the dinner plate in front of him, pursed his lips, and speared the potatoes with excessive force, counting the minutes until dinner was over and the men cleared out.
Travis prolonged the torture by hanging back and trying to do what he did after every meal: help Dot with the cleanup. And Dot responded the same as always by shooing him off. The man was nothing if not persistent.
“Stop messin’ with an old woman,” Dot admonished.
“You, Miss Dottie McCray, are far from old,” Travis drawled with laughter in his rich, resonant voice, sincerity in his eyes, flashing that award-winning smile that made Ray’s pulse quicken. Then Travis scooped her up in his arms and waltzed her around the room. “Let’s go dancing, Dottie.”
