Chapter 33
thirty-three
saúl
“Da, please, stop.”
I was almost forty years old. Why did I have to be begging my father for basic decency? It wasn’t even decency. I just needed him to stop giving Cam the fucking third degree. He’d been the one who had pushed for this, hadn’t he?
Now, he’d shown up with the excuse to check on the heater—which had admittedly started malfunctioning this morning, and he was better with maintenance than I was—and he hadn’t let Cam out of his sights.
It was taking everything in me not to grab him and shield him, but I wasn’t that much of a caveman, and the last thing Cam needed was someone to confirm his inside voice’s fears that he couldn’t handle social shit on his own.
Hell, he was better at it than I was.
Last night with the workers confirmed it. They all now stood firmly on Team Cam. Fuck the man they’d known for decades. The new vet had them wrapped around his little finger, even though all he’d done was show up and complain about how much it had taken him to talk me into it.
I couldn’t deny it when all eyes were pinned on me, and they knew it, too.
“It’s fine,” Cam said before an oomph came out of him.
Of course, now that we’d officially moved the three dogs into the house, he was followed by an entourage the entire time he was within reach.
An entourage that was still struggling with depth perception, so he ended up being tripped over and tackled more times than I could count.
Some bruises, I couldn’t guarantee if they’d been flogger or pup-made. “I like your dad.”
He was even more touch-starved than I thought if he genuinely meant that. I let them be, though. I could tell when I wasn’t wanted somewhere, and it was good for Cam to have breathing room and more people to turn to.
The conversation he’d replayed a couple of weeks ago, when his old friend was concerned he didn’t have a support network, kept nagging at me.
What the fuck was I supposed to do, though?
I’d pointed out there was a kink community here—well, not here, but at a decent distance that could be easily driven on his days off—but he’d been so personally offended at the idea, I didn’t bring it up again.
Now that the guys at the hands’ house were letting go of their reticence toward him, it was better, maybe, but it didn’t feel like enough.
This was still my house. My family. My workers.
“Hey, gorgeous girl.”
I couldn’t even pretend to be surprised that I’d ended up at the edge of the horses’ habitat, or that I had Swiftheart huffing and pressing her snout against the side of my head because she must’ve heard me before I grew aware of my surroundings.
“Sorry, I don’t have anything for you right now.”
I didn’t think she quite understood, but I also knew she was seconds away from sniffing for the utility belt I didn’t have on in search of the treats I usually had for her and the rest of the horses.
Despite the lack of food, she stayed by the fence, letting me pet the length of her neck.
Where did Cam find the comfort I found with the horses? He liked his job, and the foxes he’d taken a liking to, and Mercury, but was it enough?
“Every animal in a ten-mile radius can hear you thinking.”
Fucking hell.
As if reading my mind, Swiftheart neighed and kicked the ground beneath her.
Then again, it was probably just the fact that, like most animals in the world, she didn’t love the vet.
Sofía didn’t need to know that I made myself feel better by relishing in the notion that it was her specifically that the mare didn’t like.
“What do you want?”
Most of the time, I played nicer with her. We hadn’t had the type of childhood every sitcom showed, where siblings squabbled nonstop. For the most part, we stuck by one another. That didn’t mean I was going to act like her biggest fan. It was a matter of principle.
“Rumor has it Cam is getting you to hang out with everyone again.” She reached where the two of us were and gained my mare’s forgiveness by offering her one of the fancy treats she didn’t let the rest of us have.
Something about not trusting us to space them out and how expensive they were.
“I won a bet on the two of you, by the way.”
I huffed. “There were bets?”
People had time for that shit?
“Two queer men on a road trip alone?” Sofía snorted. “Men who had already spent months making eyes at each other like absolute fools? Damn right there were bets.”
I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t making eyes at no one.”
“You one hundred percent were,” Sofía piped in like the annoying older sister she could be. “But anyway. Gloating about being right aside, why are you brooding all alone here?”
“Da is with Cam.” I frowned. I realized I sounded like an insecure teenager who didn’t know what he was doing. If the shoe fit… “I wasn’t welcome, and I needed to leave before I throttled him anyway.”
Sofía laughed. “Cam or dad?”
“What do you think?”
The question—or the stink eye that came with it—had her sober up, but only slightly.
It was strange to focus on her when she was talking.
I always listened, of course, but really seeing her was strange; cataloguing all the similarities and differences.
Lighter hair. Same eyes. Fewer wrinkles and spots on her skin, but the same nose with scattered freckles no one really noticed until they stood real close.
“You can’t be a grump forever,” she said all reasonably. “Da wouldn’t be so in your business if you gave him reason to believe you’re not going to end up a total hermit.”
“I’m not a total hermit.”
“Not anymore, you mean.”
The urge to roll my eyes again was strong, only quelled by years of knowing the gimmick rolled off my sister’s back like water.
“What if I put everyone at risk again?”
Sofía placed a hand on my arm. “You didn’t do that the first time around. You know that, right?”
“I didn’t help.”
I ignored everyone’s warnings. There had been warnings about Cam, too.
The hands had taken months to trust him, to even consider bringing him into the fold.
They’d respected him from the start, which was more than I could say for what they did with Roy, but what if the similarities mattered more than the differences?
“You’re not worried about that.” Sofía hummed. “Not really.”
A pause made me realize quickly that no, I wasn’t. I just… How the fuck did I explain what I was worried about to the person who might have my back but didn’t always keep her mouth shut?
“Cam’s been… hurt before.” I scrubbed a hand down my face.
I shouldn’t have shaved that morning. Not only did Cam complain he didn’t have soft hair to nuzzle now, but the beard did a fairly decent job of hiding it on the few occasions I blushed.
“He left everything and everyone to come here. What if it isn’t enough? ”
What if I’m not enough?
“Now that’s more like it.” Sofía shook her head before I could tell her what a weird thing to say that was.
“Y’know, this place isn’t just a sanctuary for animals.
It’s saved all of us. It’s saving him. Plus, he has me.
And I already overheard a bunch of the hands talking about throwing hands if anyone tries any funny business with him again. ”
It… I tried to let the words sink deep, to absorb the meaning. The truth in them.
It wasn’t easy, but I forced myself to take a deep breath regardless.
“Now can you go rescue Cam from our father, Miss He-Has-Me?”
Sofía punched me in the arm before she cracked up laughing. Giving me bruises because she had one hell of a hook was obviously hilarious.
“Deal.”
“Good.”
I wouldn’t be satisfied until I had more evidence that Cam wasn’t going to find himself in a situation that would make him break, but I could take it easy. Use some of the patience I was known for.
If I could do it with the horses, I could do it with people, too, right?
Swiftheart butting her snout against my shoulder again felt like an answer to my inner monologue. No idea exactly what the meaning was, but I rewarded her with some more pets, regardless.
Things would be fine.
“If you don’t head back to the house in ten, I’ll send Dwight your way!”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Flipping her off felt like letting her go easy, but I supposed it was about time I headed back. Besides, the screaming across the field was a good reminder that she was not to be trusted, and I had all but abandoned Cam with a man who would jump at the opportunity to fully fold him into the family.
“How do you feel about a night at the big house, gorgeous?” I untangled her mane as I spoke. “I promise I’ll keep the pups away from you.”
They were decent enough at staying out of the way, and the horses weren’t particularly bothered by them when they decided to follow me and managed to get through the fence, but… They were still pups. As untrustworthy as my sister could be when she set her mind on something.
The house was oddly quiet when I arrived and dismounted Swiftheart in the stable.
I’d already left a fresh bale of hay and water in the trough, so I let her be and walked the distance to the house.
Not even the pups seemed to be around. Golden was happy to spend most of the day on one of the couches I’d covered up with quilts and blankets when she wasn’t caring for her pups, but the same couldn’t be said for them.
Brownie and Bootylicious. Heaven forbid I tried to bypass using their names.
“Anyone home?”
The pitter-patter of paws was a welcome relief.
It was Golden appearing through the door to the living room.
The poor thing was still recovering from everything she must’ve gone through—neither of us had been too keen on learning the details, and given she hadn’t been microchipped when she was dropped with us, the vet had been happy to sign her up to our care without much fanfare.
I supposed it helped that he knew the sanctuary, and he and my sister had gone to school together.
The point was, one wouldn’t tell with how valiantly she wagged her tail as she rushed to greet me and rub herself against my legs.
With the number of animals we had in the sanctuary, being scent-marked by each animal that came within walking distance was par for the course.
“Hey, pretty girl.” I scratched behind her ears as she had her fill. “You know where your dad is? Or mine?”
He’d said he’d be driving back for dinner with Ma, but that was all I knew about his plans for the day.
“Daddy!”
Well.
“Guess he left already.” The hollering gave me the answer, and made Golden ten times more excited, her feet tapping impatiently against the hardwood floor. “Yeah, yeah, let’s go upstairs, shall we?”
Technically, both Cam and the local vet had said she could climb up stairs without much supervision—climbing down might still pose more of a risk—but neither of them was going to stop me from gathering her up in my arms and helping her up to the second floor.
It was just concern—nothing to do with how she slobbered me up with her tongue everywhere she could reach.
Cam was the bleeding heart out of the two of us.
Speaking of, as soon as I dropped Golden to the floor, I was tackled by both him and the two pups.
“Hey, baby boy.”
Who would’ve thought I had to work on my strength not to lift up bales of hay or help carry injured animals. No, I had to do it to keep my balance when a fully grown man threw himself at me while wearing a fuzzy onesie covering his diaper.
My heart did funny things as I took in the pure happiness in his features and the absolute devotion there.
He was coming so far, so quickly. I’d really had a point when I compared him to one of our horses.
So easily spooked when they arrived, but the second they realized it was safe, their personality did a 360.
He was proving to be just like that.
“I thought Sofía would be here.”
Cam shook his head, arms wrapped tight around my neck.
“She left with your dad,” he mumbled. “We’ve got to go to theirs on Sunday, he said.”
Of course he did. And of course, those were the last words Cam was interested in uttering.
It was easy to tell by the tone of his voice how grown-up he wanted to be at any given time.
There was the fact that he’d gone all out with his outfit, too, but it was sealed when he pulled back to offer me the binky he had clipped to the onesie.
“Okay, baby boy.” I popped the binky into his mouth and didn’t at all get distracted when he suckled on it and puffed up his cheeks. “Let’s have some snuggle time, huh?”
Snuggle time now involved fighting through hyperactive pups, making a game out of biting my ankles, but it was just what I needed to quell the doubts hammering through my head.