Chapter 11
Hawk
I bolted. I power-walked out of the barn and straight to the paddock where Humphrey was grazing with his friends. He saw me coming, read my body language, and unlike the other horses who looked alarmed, Humphrey stood still and waited.
I grabbed his mane and launched myself up and onto his back, then nudged him forward as I clung to his sturdy body.
He took off like a controlled rocket. He was too good of a boy to bolt forward even in these circumstances, even when my energy was so off that the other horses didn’t know what to do with me.
But Humphrey knew. It wasn’t the first time I’d done this, after all. Maybe not in a while, but he knew this side of me better than anyone. Because nobody else had seen it.
The paddock was the biggest one we had, so I let him run until I couldn’t see the barns and all I could hear was the wind and his hooves beating the ground. Then I leaned back, and he slowed down to a trot, then to a walk, and finally, panting from the sudden exercise, a stop.
I let myself fall forward to hug his neck and patted him where I could reach. “Good boy….”
I couldn’t imagine going back to work, so I nudged him forward. We might as well check the fence or something.
As he strolled and occasionally chomped on some grass for traveling snacks, I tried to make myself think about what had just happened.
I don’t know what had drawn me to go watch Carter’s lesson. Probably curiosity. I’d heard Mal mention maybe getting him a different horse, and I agreed on that. But it was Mal’s show for now.
Then I’d stood there in the shadows, watching Carter morph from one person into another. It happened to everyone when they started to learn how to ride horses. There was always a moment when everything truly clicked for the first time, and then you chased that thing until it became second nature.
I guess the madness had started yesterday when I’d walked back downstairs and saw him being silly with Aria. He was a completely different man with a toddler he didn’t even know in his arms. It was clear he was uncomfortable, but he’d stepped up instinctively when I’d needed him to.
Not that I’d expected him to drop the baby or anything, but I’d seen how stunned he was a split second before I bolted upstairs driven by worry.
He’d gotten much more than I’d anticipated when I invited him to the house, too.
I guess my temporary insanity was part of seeing him in a new light and the whole thing with Miranda and the baby.
I should’ve thought it could’ve been someone I knew before the revelation, but I hadn’t been thinking that far.
All of that combined with seeing him click with Niko today and… yeah.
It wasn’t as if I didn’t know he was an attractive man. That he was as close to my “type” as anyone could be. It just sucked a bag of donkey dicks—sorry Juanpablo—that my type was… Argh.
I tensed enough that Humphrey almost stumbled.
“Sorry, boy.” I patted him a little.
The problem was that I was drawn to Carter, because I’d started to see the good in him. I’d started to see through my own prejudice.
But if I admitted to him that he’d… I don’t know. Triggered me? Then I’d have to explain myself, eventually.
And nobody knew. Well, there was one person who suspected, but only because he’d been with me when everything got started.
I sighed and rubbed my face. Maybe I could talk to Russ. He’d been quietly helping with the workload Demi normally took on, so I hadn’t seen him much in a while now outside lunchtimes and the occasional breakfast.
We were approaching the back of the paddock, and all I had to do was to think about turning back home to make Humphrey correct the course.
It still seemed like magic sometimes, even though I knew it was my body language he was reading.
The unconscious way you moved your weight where you wanted to go.
That was why riding horses was so much more than just traveling passively. You could ruin a horse by how you rode it.
I grabbed onto Humphrey’s mane and clicked my tongue. He took off in a trot, and then an easy canter.
We slowed down when we saw the other horses, and I finally slid off his back when we got to them a moment later.
Mal popped out of the barn and glared at me.
“What?” I asked, confused, as I gave Humphrey all the treats I had in my pockets.
“You didn’t take a walkie-talkie.”
I grimaced. “It wasn’t exactly a conscious decision.”
“No, I know that. I’m just glad nobody else was there to see it, because someone would’ve ratted you out to Jenn.”
He wasn’t wrong there. We might all be adults, but we were still siblings and we’d stock up on all the ammunition we might ever need to use in a pinch against each other.
I hadn’t even gone out of cell phone range, but that wouldn’t matter. Not to Mom.
“Any idea where Russ might be?” I asked him as I patted Humphrey one more time and made my way out of the paddock.
“He went to see the babies the last I saw him,” Mal said and grabbed a lead rope from a hook on the barn wall.
We used to leave them on the fence until some of the horses decided it was a fun game messing with them and accidentally learned to untie knots later.
“Okay. Can you take—”
“Megara? Yeah. That’s what I was about to do.” He patted my shoulder in passing, and in his usual style, didn’t push for answers even though he’d seen me have some sort of an emotional whatever and dash off on my horse.
“Thanks. She needs basic groundwork today. Keep an eye on her front left leg, see if she still favors it.”
“Will do.” He saluted me and walked off to gather the filly that was one of our rescue cases. She already had a new home waiting for her, which was great.
I took an ATV and rode to the broodmare barn. It was quiet there as usual, and for once I was glad that Crew was somewhere other than in his office.
I walked through the barn and out the back, finding Russ leaning on the fence as he watched a couple of foals try to play with each other while their mothers grazed nearby.
I leaned my forearms on the fence, mirroring his pose like I’d been doing since I was little.
I didn’t know where to start, but he waited me out—another familiar thing between us.
“What do you think about Richard Buchanan?” I asked without taking my eyes off the foals.
Russ hummed. From the corner of my eye, I could see him flip his toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other with practiced ease.
He’d gotten old, my best friend. He was doing okay, but I knew that he was only going to slow down more and at some point we’d need to have some hard conversations with him as a family.
Nobody joked about him doing too much and croaking somewhere on a pasture while fixing fence, because it was a possibility. Not yet, but eventually.
“I think he’s a rat bastard,” Russ finally murmured. “Something sleazy about that one. Always has been.”
I snorted softly. “Yeah. You could definitely say that.”
“What’d he do?”
The quiet, even question didn’t surprise me. I knew Russ had picked up on my mood when I’d come back from delivering Richard his horse three years ago.
I gave Russ a summary, never looking at him, but seeing his jaw clench in my periphery.
“What happened with Cahill?” he asked when I was done with the story.
I snorted again. “He asked if he could kiss me.”
Russ turned his head for the first time. “Was it welcome?”
Shrugging, I replied, “Yeah.” I glanced at him, then looked away again. “Until he called me pretty.”
He huffed. “I take it you didn’t stay to explain?”
“No. I reacted like… like he suddenly turned into Richard and bolted.”
“What’s the word they use these days? When you’re reminded of something bad?”
For a moment I wasn’t sure what he was asking, then it came to me. “Triggering. He triggered me.”
Russ pointed at me with his index finger. “That. So, while he doesn't know why, he’s smart enough to know he did that. He’ll want to know why.” At my grimace, Russ put his hand on my shoulder. “How would you feel if you triggered someone and they bolted?”
I groaned.
“Now, he’s a bit old for you, but from what I gather, he’s a good man.” He sighed, then murmured very quietly, “Not that I don’t know something about that.”
I wasn’t sure how much my parents knew of his past, but I knew that once upon a time he’d been in love with another man, who he’d loved and lost. I didn’t know the details, I just knew that he’d never fallen in love again, and since this had been before my parents ever bought the ranch, it had been a long damn time.
Russ was one of those old cowboys who was quietly queer. He didn’t advertise it whatsoever; he was the epitome of weathered, capable masculinity. He just happened to be gay, too.
When I’d come out to him, scared as hell of rejection at thirteen, he’d told me my parents had already informed him that I might do that. They’d known about Russ—in general, not specifics—and so maybe they’d thought he’d be a good confidante, given how close we already were at that point.
It was one regret my parents had. Statistically, it seemed improbable that most of their kids were some flavor of queer, while both of them were straight. They’d done their best and we’d turned out pretty damn well. But they’d also always known that they couldn’t quite understand all of us.
“I was already… unfair to him. From the start,” I said after a while of silence.
“You saw Buchanan when you looked at him, didn’t you?”
“I did. I still do, on some level.” I was man enough—and oh how I fucking hated that phrase—to admit as much.
“You can’t put one man’s sins on another, Hawk. That ain’t fair to him, or to you.”
“I know…,” I whined and bonked his bicep with my head.
Chuckling, he lifted a hand to ruffle my hair, except he was really moving my ball cap around a bit instead.
I snorted and took it off, then ran my fingers through my hair before putting the cap back on just so.
“You think there’s somethin’ there? If you get this settled?”
One of the foals decided that we were interesting and began to inch over to the fence, abandoning his friend who had gone to his own private milk bar for a drink.
I carefully put my hand through the fence and rested my forearm on a rung to keep it steady while the baby approached.
“There’s chemistry,” I admitted. “He’s a decent man. I don’t know him on a deeper level, but….” I shrugged. “Time would tell.”
“He’s already Jenn’s favorite. Mike’s too. Just based on what he did for Miranda and that baby. As sad as it is, not everyone would’ve stopped to check.”
“No, I know.” I worried my bottom lip as I kept still for the tiny colt who was trying to lip my fingers. “It’s not that. He’s almost their age, but it never really occurred to me they’d be against anyone any of us got with if they’re a good, decent person.”
“I reckon you’re right about that. They’re good people.”
One of the mares shook herself, likely getting rid of a horse fly, and the colt let out a startled squeak and ran off to his mama.
“I think I need to go find him.”
Russ hummed. “I heard he bought the Rodriquez place in Briarwood.”
I squinted as I tried to think. “That one past the vet clinic and the garage?”
“Yup.”
“Okay. I know how to get there.” I pulled away from the fence and squeezed his arm as I went.
Then another mare shook herself, and Russ snorted. “No. You go. I’ll spray ‘em.”
I rolled my eyes but left him to get his fly spray.
I wasn’t sure why I was going to Carter’s or how it would all end. But I owed him an explanation. Not the full story, we weren’t there yet and might never be. I just knew that if I didn’t give him something, there wouldn’t be a chance to recover from this.
Because I’d wanted to kiss him in that moment.
I had a feeling we’d be fire together. I just…
it was complicated. I wasn’t enough of an asshole to let a man think he’d done something wrong.
I also needed to give him the tools to avoid the same issue in the future, because I couldn’t see him wanting to hurt me or anyone else like that.
I didn’t look at the map on my phone or anything. Instead, I drove to where I roughly remembered the property being, and found myself rolling along a driveway to an interesting looking house.
It made complete sense that Carter had wanted it. It was understated with personality, and I had started to accept that Carter wasn’t as flashy of a man as most people with money tended to be in my experience.
There was a garage in the front, but I didn’t know if Carter would be at home. He could be anywhere and here I was, sitting in my truck like a dummy.
Then the garage door opened, and Carter stepped out.
I couldn’t read his expression, so I turned the engine off and inhaled long and deep. I took off my cap and ran my fingers through my hair again to tame it a little. Then I got out of the truck.
“Hi,” I said awkwardly as I closed the door behind me.
Carter tilted his head, a movement that was a question more than anything.
“I think I need to… to explain?” It came out as more of a question than I’d meant, but oh well.
“You don’t have to,” he said evenly. “It’s clear something made you—”
“It was the word you used.” I glanced away and frowned. “What you called me.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay.” He gestured behind himself. “Come in. I’ll make coffee.”
I followed him up the steps to the second story.
The whole house was built on top of what looked like at least a four car garage.
Inside, the open floor plan had a living room on one side, a kitchen and dining area on the other.
I glanced around, noting the lack of furniture, and stood awkwardly as he set about fixing coffee in a French press.
It only took a few minutes before he was pouring the rich brew into two mugs.
“Cream or sugar?” he asked, voice deep but somewhat indifferent.
“No thanks.”
Carter nodded, doctored his coffee, then gestured with the mug toward the opposite side of the house. When we sat down on the couch in his somewhat barren living room, I sipped my coffee and tried to figure out how to start.
“Someone obviously made you not like that word,” Carter prompted after a couple of minutes.
“I met this man when I was nineteen. Older, wealthy guy. Huge power imbalance.” I made a face when I continued, “He liked to use all these words to describe me that were kind of… feminine? It wasn’t feminization really, but it was close. He liked that I was much smaller and….” I gestured vaguely.
Carter made a thoughtful sound. “And things went south somehow, and now that kind of language is triggering to you.”
“Yeah. I…. It’s been a few years, and I haven’t…. There hasn’t been anyone to make me figure out that those weren’t words I liked anymore.”
There’d been some hookups, but none that had gone there. It’d always been quick encounters with very few words, let alone names, exchanged.
“So,” I said before Carter had time to speak. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”