“If something happens,” Leo said, his voice trying to call out, but Mac barely heard it, a croak and not much more. “If something happens, Mac, baby. It’s not your fault. You can’t ever think that. I should never have come here on my own.”
Like he was giving up, telling Mac not to bare the weight of it. “I’ll feel guilty for the rest of my fucking life, Leo. So, ya had better come out of this alive, and in one piece. If you love me like ya say ya do, you won’t let me live with that fuckin’ guilt on my head, ya hear?”
Chapter Nineteen
Lights were brought down, more beams to shore the ceiling, a few more men, and masks were passed around to make breathing easier. Mac set the mask over his nose and mouth, helped with whatever he could, but he didn’t feel like he was doing enough.
After he’d made his plea to Leo, begging him to be okay or he’d be guilty forever, he’d heard sobbing from the man he loved. It broke him, made him more determined and all of it mixed inside of him until he felt like a tornado was raging in his chest.
Marcus kept him apprised of everything as they went, which he appreciated. “Mac, we’ll start again as soon as it’s shored. You should head up and get some fresh air.”
He glared hard at the man. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘til he can come with me.”
“Like I said, man, I get it. I get it.” He pulled a water bottle from the basket they were lowering with more bottles and masks, handing it over to him. “There ya go. Drink it.”
After moving his mask under his chin, he drank a gulp or two, guilty as he wondered how thirsty Leo must have been all this time. He screwed the top back on and asked Marcus, “How much longer?”
“Well, as soon as we shore up that-”
“No,” he interrupted. “How much longer do you think he has?”
Marcus lowered his head, but his words were chosen carefully. “Depends. I don’t know his injuries.” When his eyes again met Mac’s, however, he smiled. “You gotta have some faith. People are resilient, especially if they have something to live for. And, if he’s fighting to live half as hard as you’re fighting to get him out of there…well, he’s gonna be fine.”
Three EMTs came down as the work began again, two of them with portable oxygen tanks that the men who weren’t digging used. The air was filled with dust and debris from the work, and those that had been there during the fire were still coughing from the smoke. Mac’s chest felt like it had caught fire, but he kept working through it.
The shaft was shored with as many beams as they could get into place, some above them on the ceiling, the others from the ceiling to the ground where they sat on other thick pieces of wood. It was as safe as they could get it in the short time they had, so the work to uncover Leo started back up and Mac was at the front of the dig, pulling splintered wood and shoveling dirt.
Not that it was what he considered shoveling. The dirt he could take on the top edge of the shovel head was nothing. If he stuck the shovel in more, however, he chanced hurting Leo or taking too much and bringing the pile down on him and the rescuers. Knowing it was long since dark above them, and they’d gone to the slave quarters at just after ten that morning, it told him how long they’d been working. He had no idea how long Leo had been there before them.
If he was bleeding, or had internal injuries, every second counted. Still, they couldn’t hurry. His eyes steadily leaked tears, both from the frustration and the dust, but somewhere in there was the fear. He couldn’t give his fear away to Leo, not then. He’d have to keep it and try to turn it into action.
Another two hours, they worked, and finally, as Mac was sipping more water while the second team of diggers were working, one of them shouted, “I see him!”
The bottle fell from Mac’s hand and he went to where he’d heard the man who’d shouted. He climbed to him, and he finally saw Leo’s face. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving. Mac’s heart broke, but then, Leo smiled, and his eyes fluttered open.
“Leo? You okay?”
“Get me out of here, cowboy. I need a fucking shower.”
A cheer rose through the crowd, but Mac didn’t make a sound, silently sobbing and smiling at his boyfriend. “We’re trying, honey. Just hold on a little longer.”
Leo nodded weakly before closing his eyes again, and Mac knew that time was short before he may never open those beautiful eyes again. He moved and pled with all the rescuers, “Git him outta there, please! He’s not gonna make it.”
Marcus pulled him to a dark corner, trying to reassure him. “He talked to you, man. That’s big after he’s been down here so many hours. Hold onto that.”
He tried. That voice, so weak, he wasn’t used to it. “Like you said, if he’s trying to live half as much, right?”
“Right.”
The EMTs had him at last once he was pulled from what was left of the rubble. Mac held back from rushing over to him, knowing that in the tight space, the EMTs would need all the room they could get.
That didn’t last, as Leo woke again, reaching for him from the backboard he’d been strapped to. His hand lifted from the board, finger wriggling at him. “Come ‘ere,” he croaked in a whisper.
Mac went to him, being warned by one of the EMTs, “His left arm is broken, and he’s got a lot of injuries. He careful with him while we get ready to get him to the surface.”
“Yeah, o’ course.”
Mac’s eyes swam with tears as he gazed down at Leo. “Yer gonna be fine, ya hear?”
“I hear.”
There was no one else there for one second as their eyes locked. No one else in the world. No more words were spoken, but they weren’t needed. They each knew what the other wanted to say.
He was taken up in ropes and pullies, brought to the surface and carted away in an ambulance before Mac and the others could even begin to ascend. Once Mac was on the ground, he took in a lungful of clean air and was pounced on by his brother, his hug so tight, Mac’s intake of air was cut short.
“Shit, man, I thought for sure you’d dig so hard it would come down on you.”
“Couldn’t let that happen.”
Shan was openly crying, and Linnie was there with her. “Ma’am, you need to go rest, now,” Mac said as they escorted him to a car so he could follow Leo to the hospital.
“Hesh up. You get there and tell that boy we’re all pullin’ for him.”
At the hospital, Wayne and Shan hovered in his room or the waiting area while Leo was given multitudes of tests, X-rays, had his arm casted and even had a small exploratory surgery to assure the broken rib hadn’t punctured anything.
After he came out of recovery, Mac was allowed to go into his room, and once inside, he saw how pale and drawn Leo’s face was. He sat in the chair by the bed, taking his hand.
“Well, if it ain’t a cowboy, sittin’ by my bed,” Leo whispered, his voice still raw.
Mac’s was hoarse too, from all the screaming he’d done. “Where else would I be?”
Leo’s opened, found his and he answered, “Oh, punching cows, I guess. I always wanted to ask. Why do you guys punch cows? Seems kinda mean.”
As they laughed, Leo winced, and Mac knew it was from his sore ribs. “Jus’ be quiet and rest. You got a lot to do once yer better. I figure it shouldn’t take ya more ‘n a couple months to git all yer shit together and come home.”
With his eyes blinking slowly, Leo’s lips curved into a smile that lit Mac’s heart. “You’re gonna wait for me?”
“Aw, honey, I’d wait for you no matter how long it would take.”
“I love you, Mac. Thank you for finding me. Thank you.”
Mac kissed over Leo’s knuckles, promising, “Whatever you need, I got it, Leo. I’m here. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Leo made him go home and get some rest, and when he woke from the fitful sleep he’d gotten, he brought the pillow on Leo’s side of the bed to his face and breathed in Leo’s scent. He didn’t know how he’d do it, be without him for as long as it
took for Leo to wrap up his life in the city to move to the ranch, but he’d find the strength. Leo had showed him that he had it. Now it was time for him to see it for himself.
The next morning, Linnie and Andrea came with Marcus and a few others. He was nervous about speaking to them, but less than he would have been before they’d helped him find his boyfriend in a mineshaft.
He poured the coffee as they gathered around the kitchen table. Shan and Wayne were there, but mostly to keep the B&B guests from interrupting the meeting.
“How’s Leo?” Linnie asked, patted her hand over Mac’s.
“He’s alive, thanks to all of you. Marcus, I can’t even say…”
He held up a hand and begged, “Please, don’t say it. We all did it, together. That’s how it’s supposed to be. One man or woman helping another.”
Mac’s eyes met Wayne’s and the discussion they’d had the night before ticked through his mind. He relayed that to the visitors. “My brother ‘n me, we had our issues with this place from the time we was kids. Daddy…Daddy, he wasn’t a good man in a lot o’ ways. What am I sayin’? He wasn’t good in most all ways. I’m sorry fer what my family did to y’all. To yer family.”
Linnie’s hand squeezed his and she said, “Listen, McCully Blaylock, that wasn’t your fault, but it’s gotta be made right. What’re you gonna do about it?”
“Wayne and me, we talked it over and we want you to have half the ranch land. That’s two hundred fifty acres. And all the gold that may be left in the mine. We don’t want none of it. Like before, though, it’s in debt. Until I can git it outta debt, I can’t give an inch o’ it.”
Andrea spoke next, “We talked it over too. We don’t want half. We want the gold rights, and nothing that will impede on your ranch. What you’re doing there, it’s a good thing. Finding us, that was a huge start to making what went wrong there better. We don’t know all who have stake in the eighty acres, but we’ll have the money to look for them now. With enough gold to pay off the debt to the ranch, we can take the eighty acres, turn it over to a corporation that we control, we will be the stock holders. When we find more descendants, if we do, we give them their own stock.”
Marcus continued from Andrea as Mac sat with his jaw hanging. “We don’t want a huge mining operation there. We’ll take what we all need, then open it to the public some, once we get it safer, let the public pay a fee to go in, look around and find a nugget here and there. We’d like to build a small museum there, telling the story of the African Americans that helped settle Texas too. With your dude ranch, we’ll swap advertising and give discounts to your guests, and in turn, you give discounts to ours. We were told that may make a lot more for a lot longer than a mining operation anyway.”
“Tol’? Who tol’ ya that? I mean, it’s a great idea! I never woulda thought o’ all that.”
Linnie cackled and told him, “Fool! Your man told us. He said, once he comes back, he can help us set up the corporation and all of it. He’s a keeper, that one.”
“Yes, ma’am, he sure is.”
Chapter Twenty
Three Months Later
It was the fourth time Cameron and Micky had been to the ranch in as many months, and Cameron never failed to hit on him. He came sashaying over in his bath towel, naked otherwise, as Mac leaned on the arch between the dining and living rooms.
“I need some more towels, Mr. Blaylock,” he purred, eyes moving from Mac’s crotch to his face in a slow, seductive way.
“You know where the towels are, Cameron. Now git some dang clothes on. This ain’t no ‘clothing optional’ place, here. We’re hopin’ ta git some families runnin’ round. Ain’t gittin’ that with you struttin’ yer stuff.”
Cameron, the skinny twink with black hair and eyes, was cute as he could be, but he wasn’t Leo. After sticking his bottom lip out with an exaggerated pout, he turned around, flipped up his towel to give Mac a quick peek at the sweet little ass he had and said, “Daddy’s mad. Wanna spank me, Daddy?”
Not waiting for an answer, Cameron walked away, shaking his hips from side to side.
“Daddy? I ain’t old ‘nough to be no daddy,” he mumbled.
“Oh, I don’t know,” a familiar voice from behind him said. Mac turned to see Leo standing there, smiling at him. “You would make a really hot daddy.”
Mac flew to him and grabbed him into his arms, smashing his mouth to Leo’s, kissing him deep and hard, holding him like he never wanted to let go, and he didn’t.
Leo pushed back to catch a breath. “Baby! Let me get a look at you.”
“Nah, fuck that. I need my man.” Mac bent to sweep Leo’s legs out from under him and picked him up to carry him from the house.
“Mac, put me down!”
“No fuckin’ way. I’ve wanted you for weeks.”
Leo was laughing and hanging on around Mac’s neck, being carried to the old shed that was now Mac’s small apartment.
He’d renovated it to be a bath and bedroom while he worked on a home for he and Leo to live in.
Leo had only seen it at the beginning of the transformation, and Mac was anxious for him to see it then, finished. It was much like the other rooms in the place, and there was a reason for that.
Getting inside, seeing Leo gazing around the room in awe, Mac waited impatiently for him to comment. “You’re…you’re getting it ready to rent out! Aren’t you?”
“Yep. And, gonna build ten more. We’re booked for the next two years.”
Leo cupped his cheek, his eyes wide. “Two years? Mac, that’s fucking great!”
“It is,” Mac said, throwing Leo on the bed. Leo laughed more, but Mac saw his eyes light, his breathing quickened.
There was only one thing he could do, and he ripped open his shirt, letting the cheap plastic buttons fly. Leo growled, “There’s my man.”
“Yer comin’ back, it’s for good, yeah?”
Leo got on his hands and knees on the bed, crawling to him to watch more closely as Mac undressed for him. “I’m never leaving you again. I can see you stood on your own. I can see my man bloomed into one he can be proud of.”
“And you.”
Crawling up his chest, Leo got his lips close to Mac’s as Mac stood with his fly open. “I’ve been proud of you for a long time, baby. You are a Blaylock, but you’re nothing like your father, or Wyatt or the others. You’re like the man who came here to start a new life and fought for what he believed in. You’re like Jeb, only better. You saved me, baby, and you love me. That’s all I need.”
Andrea and Leo, working together, had found a few more descendants. One had an old diary of her own. In it came the story of what had happened there.
Wyatt came home from the war, pissed his father’s will would give the former slaves a lifetime right to sharecrop the eighty acres, and possibly give it to them if they were ever allowed to own property in the state of Texas.
He got his hands and went to the houses, and as the hands were clearing out the others, dragging out the men women and even the children, Wyatt found one man digging a root cellar.
The man came out, holding up a handful of gold, shouting for his family, who were already out in the pasture, running from the hands. Wyatt saw the gold and understood that the former slave had found it while digging. He killed the man to silence him, dragging his body out for the others to see, his warning that it would happen to them if they ever came back. Only he didn’t count on the man’s son, who was hiding behind the house and saw the whole thing. Scared, the boy ran with his mother and sisters, but remembered.
It was Dexter’s great-great grandfather. Dexter had given the diary to his and Linnie’s brother. His daughter, Theresa, had it in a trunk along with other things of Dexter’s, mostly forgotten. Knowing Wyatt was a murderer hadn’t fazed him, as he’d already thought the man scum. The story, however, made Mac sickened and he vowed to wipe Wyatt’s name from anything he could find to wipe it from, as well as any of his ancestors that had hidden it as well. Whic
h was most of them.
Wayne and Mac, however, would remember and they’d tell Wayne’s children one day, as a proverb of what kind of person not to be.
Leo kissed him, softly at first, and Mac couldn’t help the lump in his throat, the tears coming to his eyes. After all the time wasted, all the truths coming to light, his life was finally beginning, and he wasn’t alone.
When they were both undressed, on the bed, Leo entered him, and he closed his eyes for a moment, letting his chest warm as his ass burned. Their connection had been obvious from the start, but this…this beginning of their new life was so much more.
Leo’s hips moved steadily, Mac’s moving with him, but their lips barely left one another’s as they kissed, breathed together, loved. Leo inside of him, Leo staring down on him, the upturn of his lips as he couldn’t contain his smile, that was how Mac felt.
The one departure for Leo was when Mac’s chest dampened with sweat and he descended to lick it, sucking his lips over each patch of Mac’s flesh. Mac groaned with it, a chorus with his own noises.
Leo came inside of him for the first time that day, and Mac felt the seed leaking from him as they lay together, holding on like they were afraid to lose the other again. “This feels weird.”
“I bet. I’ve never done it, but hopefully, I will soon. You’re gonna come in me, Mac, as soon as we rest up from this round.”
“That’s an order I’ll be happy to oblige,” he laughed.
“How’s Linnie and Andrea? Have you spoken to them?”
“They’re happy. Linnie has no trouble affordin’ her medicine, and Andrea’s kids are in private school. Wayne and Shan come out almost every weekend. I think they might slow down now that yer home. They was worried, I’m thinkin’.”
“I’m sure, but the kids are having fun. Shan called me a couple days ago.”
“It sure is nice, having the kids around. They keep the place interestin’.”
Leo kissed his neck while suggesting, “Maybe we can make you a daddy after all.”
Remember the Alamo (Legacy Book 1) Page 19
