3. DEAN
Chapter three
DEAN
FROM AWKWARD TO PIE FIGHT IN UNDER TEN MINUTES
I hang my favorite hat on the hooks by the door. It was my mother’s hat, and when she passed, my father shoved it on my head and said it was mine. I should have offered to share it with my brothers and sister. But I didn’t want to. I loved that it smelled of her lavender perfume, though I know it’s long gone. Every time I put it on, I get a hit of that scent, and I see her smiling face in my mind’s eye. Next, I slip off my boots and set them beside the mat because Sally-May will kill me if I track mud through the house. Sally-May is Perry’s wife, one of the ranch’s farmhands. They moved onto the property about six months ago after selling up the diner she used to run. Perry has been a farm hand on Beaker Brothers since before I could walk. He knows this property better than anyone else, even better than Nial and me, I’d bet. They used to live in an apartment on top of the diner, so selling the business also meant finding a new place to live. Good thing their nephew created a container home business and was happy to hook them up. That just left them looking for a place to put it. Perry is here at the crack of dawn every morning anyway, so it made sense to offer for them to set up on Beaker Brothers. It didn’t feel right putting them on the edge of the property, so we had it positioned right up behind the main house.
Sally-May was supposed to retire when they sold, take up crafts or knitting or whatever it is older people do when they retire, but I came in the first night after doing my final check on the animals to find her cooking up a storm in the kitchen. She insisted this was what she preferred to do to keep busy and insisted on being useful, so now she prepares the meals for the cabins and us, our dinner and breakfast anyway.
“Is there somewhere I can…?” Preston starts, and I nod.
“Umm, the bathroom is the third door down. I can…um, grab you a shirt, too,” I say, and his stare follows mine to the mud splattered across his chest and coating parts of one sleeve.
“Thanks,” he replies, and I grab my blue flannel from the hall closet and hand it over before heading to my bathroom to wash up for dinner. The water runs brown as I wash the dirt from my hands, but then I catch my reflection out of the corner of my eye.
“Urgh, I look like I crawled out from under a bridge.”
A streak of dirt mixed with sweat runs the length of my forehead at the hat line, and my dark hair is sticking up at all angles. People think cowboys wear hats to keep the sun from cooking them outside all day. Really, it’s to hide hair like this. My gaze moves to my neck. Great, more dirt, and I missed a button when I was getting dressed this morning. This is the man Preston Knight saw just a few minutes ago. My stomach churns. He must think me a full mess.
I strip off the shit and scrub my face clean, but no amount of scrubbing will erase the deep lines etched at the corners of my eyes. I can thank the days of arduous work out in the sun for those, and for the stained calluses on my palms. Grabbing fistfuls of water, I sweep my fingers through my hair, the cool drips run down my back, and bring a semblance of relief. Why did I have to invite him to dinner? I can hardly string more than one coherent sentence together around him at the best of times, yet there I was opening my big mouth. Do you eat? What the fuck was that?
Someone knocks on the bathroom door.
“Just a minute,” I call.
“Sally-May is setting the plates, and you know how she gets if we’re late,” Nial replies, and I shut off the tap.
“You just know she won’t let you eat until I get there.”
He thumps on the door with his fist twice more.
“Exactly. I’m hungry. Hurry up.”
I’m tempted to make him wait, but it’s not just him out there. The whole team gets together for dinner every night after we’ve finished the day’s chores, and again, there’s Preston out there, too. The sooner I get through this dinner, the better.
I hear them laughing before I set foot in the dining room. Preston has this laugh that fills a space and makes it brighter somehow. And it’s like a magnet, drawing me in, pulling me toward its melodic sound.
I scan the table. The yellow and white striped tablecloth is almost invisible under all the serving dishes, bowls, and dinner plates, and while Nial is usually sitting in the seat to my left, tonight he’s moved down a place to sit where Atlas normally does and Preston is in his place. He’s wearing my shirt, and fuck, it looks good on him. It clings to his thick arms, highlighting every bulge of his muscles, he’s got the collar unbuttoned a little, and his dark chest hair peeks out.
How am I going to be able to sit this close to him all through dinner? My seat is at the head of the table, right there beside him. Not because I chose it, but because Sally-May insisted that every house needed a head of the table, and since I was the oldest, it was only right that it be me. I could sit at the other end and make Atlas sit up here, but that would make it even more obvious that something is up. It’s bad enough that I seem to lose the ability to form full sentences around him half the time.
“Finally,” Nial says when he spots me.
“Everything okay?” Sally-May asks, setting the tray of glazed carrots down in front of Nial and batting his hand away when he goes to pick at them.
“Fine, darlin’,” I manage to say, grabbing the back of my chair.
“Atlas not joining us?”
“He’s…” My gaze falls on Preston, and I lose my train of thought. He’s looking up at me, his lips turned up on one side in a half smile.
“That would be my doing,” he starts, and Sally-May folds her arms over her chest.
“How might that be?”
Before Preston can answer, Nial pipes in.
“He brought us a dead horse.”
I grab a roll from the basket in front of me and toss it at his head. “It’s not dead, it just…plays dead.” Wow, that was an actual full sentence.
I make the mistake of looking at Preston again. His green eyes shine under the old pendant lights hanging low over the middle of the table, and before I can turn away, I’m tangled in his stare.
Something hits my face, and I jolt.
“Will you sit already? I want to eat,” Nial says, reaching over to pick up another roll, ready to toss it my way.
I slide into my seat just as Nial lobs the bread roll, but before I get a chance to block it, Preston snatches it mid-air.
“Good catch,” Skye cheers, and Sally-May snaps a pair of tongs Nial’s way before picking up a steak and setting it on the plate in front of Perry. That’s the sign everyone needs to dig in, and the relatively quiet table, at least for this house, becomes a mess of noise.
I go to reach for the beans, but Preston does, too, and his fingers lightly brush against the back of my hand, and a jolt of static flickers at his touch, sending a warm tingle up my arm.
“Sorry, you go,” he says, and I grab the bowl, pick up some beans, and load them onto his plate.
“Is that enough?” I ask, my voice almost a whisper. I’m surprised he can even hear me.
“Yep, that’s good, thanks.” I load up about the same onto my plate and then pass the bowl to my right to Perry before grabbing the glass of water in front of me and downing the contents in one go. I reach for the jug and refill it, drink all of it a second time, my mouth impossibly dry. What is wrong with me? I top it back up and set the jug down, but when I turn back to go for the carrots, I find Preston already holding out the tray of them, and Nial is smirking from beside him with eyebrows raised. He makes kissy faces, and my cheeks immediately go warm. I grab the tray and try to focus on filling my plate and avoid looking directly at Preston or Nial as plates and trays are passed up and down and back and forth until everyone has a mountain of food in front of them and there’s an extra one up the end set aside for Atlas ready for when he makes his way inside.
I wonder how he’s doing with the horse. No way will he be able to drag that thing out of the trailer on his own. It’s at least three years old and has to weigh one thousand pounds. He’s a beauty, though. A soft caramel color all over, I think I spotted grey socks, but there was too much mud to be sure. Maybe we can clean him off in the stables tomorrow. That is if we ever get him in there. I guess if he’s staying, he should have a name, too. Maybe he has one already. Okay, time to man up. Use your words. Just look over and ask Preston what the horse’s name is. It’s easy. What is the horse’s name? It’s five words. You can do five words. My gut swirls. Nope. I can’t do it. I shove a bit of steak into my mouth instead and try to convince my brain to function normally while we all eat.
We clear almost every dish in about ten minutes, so it’s a good thing a plate was stacked for Atlas or he’d be eating a few green beans, a cob of corn, and a few baked potato chunks.
Connor, our resident cowboy, reaches for the corn. Nial does, too, but Connor snatches it up just in time. He’s got quick hands. It’s kind of necessary for his job wrangling baby livestock and mini highlands all day. He arrived on our doorstep during last year’s winter storm, soaking wet, covered in mud and holding a heifer calf he found wandering the road. He nearly ran over it but swerved just in time. Flipped his old truck on its side, though, so he carried the thing to the closest lights he could see. Ours.
“So this horse,” Connor starts as Sally-May and Skye start collecting the serving dishes and dinner plates. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s deaf, was hit on the head by a tree branch, not sure if it caused the deafness or if he’s always been that way.”
“You’d think the previous owners would have said it if he were deaf,” Perry says.
“The Petersons didn’t get much of a handover from the previous owners, which tends to happen when a farm forecloses. The bank is just quick to sell everything off. Because he can’t hear you coming, he’s a bit startled when he gets sight of you and kind of…falls over.”
“He plays possum?” Connor asks with a chuckle.
“I guess that’s a pretty good way to put it,” Preston replies.
Skye comes back from the kitchen with smaller plates, and before the door swings closed, we all get a stronger whiff of apples and cinnamon. My mouth waters impatiently as Skye hands the plates down. Thankfully, I don’t have to wait long. Sally-May is close behind with the largest apple pie you’ll find in any farmhouse in fifty miles. Everyone in Bellerelle knows that Sally-May had a blacksmith make the trays special when she had the diner and took them with her when she sold up. She sets the pie in the middle of the table, the edge so close to Nial he may as well just eat straight from the tray. Not that he would mind. It’s been cooling in the kitchen since just after lunch, teasing any who enters the house or walks close enough that the wind picks up the scent and carries it to them. Nial lifts his hand, and Sally-May stops him with a single look.
I can’t help but smile as the memory of earlier today, when she chased him out of the house with a rolling pin fills my mind. He tried to take a slice of the still-hot pie while we were grabbing lunch. He never learns.
“Does the horse have a name?” I finally ask, the words pushing past the nervous lump in my throat that hasn’t left since Preston pulled onto the ranch.
“Not in the paperwork I have,” Preston replies as Sally-May serves pie onto each of our plates.
Skye takes his seat and raises his hand like he’s in a classroom. “Can I name him?”
Everyone looks at me.
“You might have to fight Atlas for the privilege. He’s kind of picky when it comes to his horse’s names,” I reply.
“So he can stay?” Preston asks, and I nod but avoid making eye contact.
“If Atlas manages to get him out of the trailer, he can stay.” Wow, that was another thirteen words. Maybe I’m actually getting past this thing with Preston.
But then he places his palm over my forearm and heat floods under his touch, the warmth spreading up my arm and settling in my chest.
“Thank you. I honestly had no clue who else might take him in if you said no.”
I can’t rip my eyes away from where he’s touching me to answer. Thankfully, I have a super supportive younger brother to help me out. Except I don’t. I have a jerk who revels in tormenting me instead.
“Dean will always take anything you want to give him,” he says, and Skye spurts the water he was drinking, sending droplets across the table. Preston removes his hand to wipe over his other arm and the room instantly feels five degrees cooler.
“Fuck off,” I blurt, and Sally-May taps the pie knife on the table and glares my way.
“Sorry, darlin’,” I say, and Nial sticks out his tongue like a freaking child. I have no idea exactly what is driving my actions, but I do something that would normally be straight out of the Nial Beaker playbook of responses. I spoon a bit of pie from in front of me and fling it at Nial, hitting him square in the face with a splat.
The table goes silent, everyone looking between Nial, me and Sally-May, mouths agape, watching, waiting. I spoon another helping from my plate and pop it into my mouth, the deliciousness coating my tongue.
“This is amazing, darlin’. Don’t you think so, Nial?” I ask, and then he lobs a spoon of pie at me, but Conner tries to stop him, grabbing his arm at the last moment, and it flings back instead, landing on Preston’s shirt, or rather my blue flannel that looks way better on him than it ever did on me.
Nial immediately goes to apologize, but Skye is already loaded up and flings pie across the table at Connor. Sally-May slides her finger over the gooey filling on her plate, all our eyes on her. Connor is even holding his fat fork out midair, like someone has pressed pause on all of us and only Sally-May is free from the spell. If she were Gramps, we’d all be outside by now, hiding in one of the barn lofts until he went to bed. But as it stands. No one moves. We’re all watching to see what she does next. I hold my breath.
She turns to Perry, a smirk on her lips, and then she slides her finger down Perry’s cheek. Perry’s mouth opens wide, but he doesn’t wait for long. He dips his finger into the pie and then taps her nose with the sticky mess. That’s it. It’s game on. Everyone starts flinging and flicking small bits of pie across the table. I get in another good shot at Nial, then before he can retaliate, I grab my plate and dip under the table.
“You started this, now you’re hiding?” Preston asks, crawling under with me.
“I realized I’d prefer to eat mine,” I say, scooting sideways to make room for him, but he still sits close enough for his knee to brush against mine. He chuckles and lifts his hand to my face.
I jerk back, but he just smiles and keeps reaching for me.
“You have some on your face,” he says, then he swipes the pad of his thumb across my cheek. I can’t move. I’m lost in him, in his forest green eyes, in his earthy scent, in his touch. He has me locked in a bubble of his making and I can’t escape. I don’t want to. Then he sucks his thumb into his big perfect lips, and my cock responds, pulsing and pulling me free enough from the haze of him to look away.
“Ahh, thanks,” I say, wiping over my cheek with the back of my hand.
He leans in to whisper in my ear.
“I really am thankful for you taking in the horse. I just couldn’t think of anyone else who might even consider it.”
His breath tickles my neck, and when I turn to respond, he’s still right there, so close that I can see the tiny flecks of yellow in his forest green eyes. The memory of us as teenagers flashes in my mind, Preston sitting beside me on a log, close like this, but while back then, there was a sadness in his eyes, this time, there is something else behind them. Something more like hope, and dare I even think it, desire. A bang from above pulls me back into reality, and we duck, which is silly because it’s not like anything is going to fall on us under here.
“It’s no problem, really,” I tell him before peeking out the side to check on the others. Perry flings a spoonful of pie at someone and then is hit square in the mouth and holds up his hands in defeat.
“I’m done, I’m done,” he says, and the noises from above us settle. I edge forward, ready to climb out from under the table, but then I realize if I climb out first, he’ll see the reaction he had on me, and there’s no coming back from that embarrassment. So I call out instead.
“Are you all finished up there?”
“Are you hiding under the table?” Nial asks, and then the tablecloth lifts and all five of them look at us.
“Come on out of there. Nobody should be eating on the floor,” Sally-May says. And thankfully, Preston climbs out, and they all lower the cloth before I retake my seat and try to get my body under control. The room is a mess, the table is covered in bits of pie, as is everyone in the room. Except Sally-May, who has a little on her dress and in her hair but is mostly clean.
Atlas appears in the doorway.
“I don’t think I want to know what happened in here,” he says, walking around the table and pushing pie from his seat before dropping into the chair at the other end. “Loki is away in the stables.”
“You named him?” Skye whines, picking pie pieces out of his hair.
“You got him out of the trailer?” Nial asks.
“Yes and yes,” Atlas replies, lifting the foil from his covered plate and leaning forward to breathe it in.
“How?” I ask.
“Trade secrets,” he replies.
“Why Loki?” Skye asks, and Atlas smiles.
“What else do you name a horse that fakes his own death?”
“Romeo?” Skye offers.
Atlas shakes his head.
“Romeo did it once, then died for real.”
“Loki dies for real,” Skye responds, and Atlas drops his fork.
“You better be lying,” he says, and I can tell by the thin smiles around the table that there are more than a few of us holding back our amusement. Atlas only just started in on the Marvel Universe films and clearly hasn’t gotten that far yet. Not exactly a lot of time to watch television out here, at the end of the day, we’re bout ready to drop the second we’re clean and fed.
“Umm, sure. I’m just kidding. Loki doesn’t really die,” Skye backtracks, shoveling a chunk of pie into his mouth from the plate in front of him. Surprisingly, there is still a decent amount on the plates and in the tray.
“He doesn’t die, does he?” Atlas asks, his eyes pinging from one person to another around the table. Sally-May stands and starts collecting the other plates.
“Now, no more talk of Loki dying, poor thing tossed at his brother’s feet like a rag doll, had both me and Perry in tears.”
Perry is shaking his head at Atlas.
“Now, finish up your pie and get on cleaning. I’ll be in the kitchen,” she says, and we watch Atlas watch her go, his mouth wide open in disbelief.
Nial breaks first, and then Connor, and once those two get going, there’s no hope for the rest of us. Laughter is contagious, after all. As I hold my stomach busting at the seams in hysterics along with the rest of them, I can’t help but notice Preston keeps glancing my way. I don’t mind, because when he laughs, his green eyes crinkle at the outer corners, and his nose scrunches in the most adorable way.
Inviting him to dinner wasn’t such a bad idea after all.