24. Hudson
Chapter 24
Hudson
W hen Ty finally said what was going on in his head, Hudson’s body reacted as though it had taken a blow. He didn’t have all the answers, but he and Ty were friends, more than friends. They’d both been through the same shit. And now they were here together in the valley.
Ty had assured him over and over again that good things could happen if they let them. That the valley was a good place. Had that been a lie?
No. Hudson held Ty close. Ty wasn’t like that, but as soon as he mentioned Michelle’s name, Hudson understood. Or he thought he did.
Ty imagined that Michelle would take all of Hudson’s attention and time. That he’d only be focused on his young nephews.
Hudson was more than overwhelmed with the idea of this, as he had no idea what a regular family was like, and Michelle and the boys were the closest thing to normal that he’d experienced in a long time.
They were a draw to him, like a warm fire on a cold day. Like a dry place in the rain where he could catch his breath. But did Ty honestly think that Hudson would not include Ty in that? That Hudson would actively seek to push Ty away from that?
No, no, and no. But Ty was shivering so hard as Hudson held him that he knew no words could ever ease whatever was going on in Ty’s head.
It had been Hudson’s fault before. He’d pushed Ty away early on because he couldn’t trust anyone. But now? It was different now, only Ty had been wounded by Hudson’s fear of the future and thought that Hudson’s future—whatever shape that would take—would not include him.
“Can you trust me in this?” asked Hudson. He reached to gently wipe the rain off Ty’s forehead, to push his rain-darkened hair back. “I don’t know the answers, but I do know this. I’m not leaving you—” He stopped to catch his breath. “I’m not dumping you for a ready-made family that happened to drop in my lap.”
He wanted to add that it had been Ty’s idea to reach out to Michelle, but that would sound too much like he was blaming him, and he didn’t want to do that.
He’d agreed with Ty at the time, having no idea how it would all turn out. He still didn’t, but the thought of Ty walking naked in the rain until he disappeared into the mist was something he couldn’t stomach.
They would figure it out. Between the two of them, they would figure it out.
“You’re freezing,” Hudson said. “I’m freezing.” He whispered a kiss on Ty’s damp cheek. “I want to cover you in warm blankets and hide you from the world. I can’t do that. The next best thing is getting you dried off and a hot meal into you. But please, please believe me. If you left—if you think I’d leave you—my heart would break.”
He’d not meant to say that out loud, but the words tumbled from him as though he’d been planning to say them for ages and ages. They felt right but sounded stark in the rain-dappled silence amidst the cool breeze whistling through the river willows.
Ty leaned into him as though he meant to soak into Hudson’s skin, right to his very soul.
The rain started coming down harder. They were both going to catch pneumonia if they didn’t dry off and get warm.
“Let’s get inside,” said Hudson. “Let’s get you warm.”
“You too,” said Ty, though his voice was faint.
He didn’t protest as Hudson took his hand and led them along the rain-drenched narrow path through the woods back to their tent. How they met nobody along the way was very much a mystery and a miracle.
It might have been hilarious if they had, because how could they explain being buck naked in the rain, wearing only flip-flops? It would have unsettled Ty, so it was better that they hadn’t.
Once inside the tent, Hudson grabbed a towel and dried Ty off, head to toe, taking his time. Buffing him softly all over. More briskly on his thighs to get the blood going. Tenderly on his narrow feet.
Ty never moved a muscle. It was as if he believed, perhaps, that this was the last time ever that Hudson would do this for him, and he wanted to savor it.
Hudson had been thinking of himself when he imagined a life in Scottsbluff, using it as his base while driving trucks all across Nebraska. Only of himself.
Ty had been in the background of these plans he’d made for his future self. Now Hudson was confronted with the reality of it. He could not and would not leave Ty behind. Especially not with the way Ty was looking at him with those fey eyes of his, a bit of rain sliding down his temple that Hudson had missed.
“Now you,” said Ty, his voice sounding like an unused thing.
“You better not catch cold,” said Hudson, scolding as though this was anybody’s fault, when it wasn’t. Well, it was his, and he was going to do his best to rectify things between him and Ty.
“Let me do you,” said Ty.
“Get dressed first,” said Hudson, for there was a damp wind whisking around the tent. “I mean it.”
He made sure Ty was dressed before he surrendered the towel and stood patiently still as Ty dried him off. His teeth were on the verge of chattering, but he tightened his jaw so Ty wouldn’t know and feel bad about it.
“Now dinner,” he said when they were both warmly dressed, from work boots and warm socks on their feet to jean jackets to keep off the bit of rain they would encounter on their way to the mess tent. “There’s the bell. We’re going to eat something hot. And then we’re coming back. I want to hear everything you’ve got to say. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Ty, though he didn’t sound convinced.
They trotted quickly through the dripping woods, the evening’s coolness growing as the last of the day’s sunlight speared through the gray clouds.
Hudson had driven through Wyoming in late summer before, so he knew that the weather could be changeable, and that tomorrow, it might be hot and clear, with no rain in sight. So he was glad that Ty got his walk in the rain before that happened.
They reached the mess tent in front of everybody else and were first in line. Hudson made sure that Ty took a tray, a plate, and cutlery, since he seemed to be functioning on autopilot.
“What is it?” asked Ty, looking at the large crock pot full of something that steamed gently and looked like mush.
Hudson looked at the label, which read cheesy mashed potato soup, which was perfect for a cool evening. Hudson made sure Ty took plenty of everything, and sat with him at the end of one of the long tables and watched him eat. Made him eat until some color came back to his pale face.
Hudson knew well and good that in any other universe, Ty would have bounced right back after hearing the news of what Hudson planned to do for his sister-in-law. He would have said Good and How can I help?
But after the trauma of the chain gang, he wasn’t always so resilient. Hudson resolved to remember that in the future and to not be so cavalier with Ty’s feelings. When he was upbeat, all was good, but when he was not, he went to a dark place where Hudson might not be able to follow him.
“Do you want dessert?” he asked as he saw Ty slowing down.
“No,” said Ty with a shake of his head.
“It’s rhubarb crumble with ice cream,” said Hudson. “Why don’t we take some with us? We’ll go back to the tent now and not stick around.”
When Ty nodded silently, Hudson cleared their places, feeling very domestic as he did so, and asked the cooks for two to-go boxes, loaded with the dessert.
He carried those boxes as he and Ty went back to their tent, and when finally he’d zipped the tent closed, and turned on the light, and laid out the dessert, he could take a good look at Ty, who was certainly less pale from having eaten, but he wasn’t meeting Hudson’s gaze.
“So now we’re alone,” Hudson said.
He placed an open to-go carton on Ty’s lap and placed a spoon in the ice cream. Then realized he didn’t know whether Ty had a sweet tooth, or if he preferred not to sleep on a full belly. There were so many things they didn’t know about each other, even though they’d been skin to skin and shared their bodies’ secrets with each other.
That was all well and good for one-night stands, or simple comfort in the dark of night. It wasn’t enough to be going on with. He wasn’t a mind reader, so all he could do was his best, with Ty’s best interests in mind.
“You don’t have to eat that,” said Hudson. “I’m sorry. I guess I thought it might be easier to talk and eat, rather than just talk. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time, Ty, I?—”
“It’s okay,” said Ty, looking rather sweet as he finally let his gaze alight on Hudson and let the words tumble out of him like a waterfall.
“I like rhubarb in pretty much anything,” Ty said. “Didn’t get much of it at home, and not very often on the range. I remember having it in a diner, one time. Out in Crawford. You know? One of those places. Run down on the outside. Not much better on the inside. Dinky. Ceiling fans and fly strips. End of summer. You would think nothing good could come out of a place like that. But it had the best biscuits and gravy. Best sweet rolls and coffee. Best strawberry rhubarb pie I ever tasted. We ate there three times while the cattle rested before we put ‘em in trailers to be hauled east.”
Hudson opened his mouth, uncertain as to where this ramble of words was going. Or why Ty was talking without really saying anything. He shoveled some rhubarb crumble into his mouth and nodded like he understood.
“Crawford Diner, it was called,” said Ty. He poked at his crumble and stirred his melting ice cream and didn’t eat any of it. “And no, before you suggest we go there?—”
“Who, me?” asked Hudson.
“I can see it in your face,” said Ty. “It’s not there anymore.” He sighed and looked at the dessert in his lap, then placed it to one side. “So many good things in my life don’t exist anymore. It’s like when I had them, I didn’t know how much I would miss them. My folks. My brothers. My old job. I don’t think I can be a cowboy anymore, either. Not for anyone good. All that’s gone because I tried to do the right thing. Then Michelle comes along, and you light up like a lamp, and tell her you’ll take care of her.” He looked up at Hudson, his eyes blazing. “What a simple blue-collar life you’ll have. Driving a rig. Handing over your paycheck to her. Eating as you drive. Heating up stuff in a microwave. And you know what? I’m jealous as hell.”
“You don’t have to be,” said Hudson without any real idea how he was supposed to convince Ty of that. Or exactly what the shape of their lives would be once they left the valley. “And maybe you can find a job riding the range. A good one. That guy that turned you down for the D-Bar-D isn’t the only smart rancher out there. I’ll bet there are others. And if you can’t?—”
He stopped because his breath was catching in his throat and his voice was about to break. He didn’t know the answers to everything, and one conversation wasn’t going to reassure Ty that everything would work out just fine. But this was a start. He knew that.
“We’ll figure something out, okay?” Hudson put his dessert on the floor and stood up, going over to cup Ty’s head in his hands.
Ty, in his turn, leaned forward, resting his forehead on Hudson’s hip, his fingers hooking into the waist of Hudson’s jeans. A man clinging to whatever he could just so he wouldn’t go under.
It must look mighty deep and dark for Ty to be holding onto him so tightly. They’d each helped the other more than once, and the journey so far hadn’t been exactly smooth.
“Let me get rid of these before the mice invade us,” he said, and when Ty nodded, he took both to-go cartons and raced through the sprinkling rain to the mess tent, there to discard both cartons in the huge trash bins.
By the time he was back at the tent, it was raining full force again and he was soaked. But Ty met him at the opening to the tent with a towel in hand, a silent watchfulness.
“Get out of those wet things,” he said. “And let me warm you up.”