Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
WILDER
W ilder hadn’t expected to like Cash as much as he did. No-nonsense and easygoing, he didn’t seem to mind Wilder’s rougher edges or his feeble attempts at humor. There was no judgment in his tone or demeanor when he helped Wilder find clothing for himself or talked about what he still needed to become a fully functioning member of society. After last night’s strangeness with Lain and this morning’s ogling among the other ranch hands, it was nice to be treated like a normal person again.
It also helped that Cash was the hottest thing he’d seen in years . Tall and packed with muscle, his sandy brown hair was almost as short as Wilder’s, and his eyes looked like sun-shot honey, warm and gold. His skin was browned by the sun, like his body soaked up the rays.
Spending eight years in prison as a closeted gay man wasn’t ideal. He hadn’t even had a chance to come out to Lain as a teenager. He couldn’t risk Dad finding out. Things were hard enough without him learning he had a gay son. And then in prison, he’d done what he had to do to keep a target off his back. Weakness was exploited, and he wasn’t going to go on his knees for anyone . He’d never been allowed to look his fill without fear of discovery or retribution. Hell, maybe he still couldn’t. There was a chance Cash would realize Wilder’s glances were weighted with the heat of attraction and be repulsed by the very idea. He didn’t think so, but his perceptions about people were understandably skewed. Being suspicious of even the men he was on friendly terms with in prison was just a way of life.
So he kept his appreciative looks furtive, the brim of his hat hiding the way his eyes trailed up the line of Cash’s thick, splayed thighs. There was no harm in looking. No matter how nice he was, he doubted Cash would ever show any interest in an ex-con like him.
With a despondent sigh, he tilted his head back—and lifted his hat from his head when the back of the brim hit the headrest. Setting it on the empty seat between them, he carded his fingers through his short hair and turned his attention to the green and gold fields passing by outside. It was picturesque—and lonely. There wasn’t another car in sight. No houses or civilization of any kind outside Roselake proper. It was certainly not the kind of place where a gay man might find a community. He was no virgin, but his hurried encounters in prison barely scratched the itch. He’d never experienced real intimacy, and that didn’t seem likely to change any time soon.
“You look terribly introspective over there,” Cash said, drawing him from his maudlin thoughts. One hand was draped over the steering wheel. He was driving with his wrist more than anything, relaxed and confident. “Anything you want to talk about?”
Wilder huffed, but there was no humor in it. “No, not particularly.”
“Prison stuff?” Cash asked bluntly.
Wilder was surprised he’d asked. Most people so far seemed intent on avoiding the elephant in the room. “Yeah,” he said, fighting a smile. “Prison stuff.”
“I can’t say I know much about it. Never been and don’t know anyone who has—until now, I guess. But I’m a good listener, if you ever want to get anything off your chest.”
“That’s kind of you.” Wilder wasn’t stupid enough to confide in the boss, though. He didn’t know Cash well enough to give him that kind of ammunition. The man gave him a good feeling, and that was all the more reason to keep his guard up. He took a shiv to the back once from a man who gave him a good feeling.
“But hell no?” Cash guessed, his honey brown eyes far too knowing.
“But hell no,” Wilder confirmed.
Cash chuckled. “Fair enough. I won’t push. Just know the offer’s open.”
Wilder inclined his head.
They made the rest of the drive in silence. Along the way, Wilder realized he didn’t recognize any of the popular music playing quietly on the radio. It just drove home the fact that he was out of his element here. In prison, he’d learned the routine, mapped out the dangers. He’d become an expert at navigating any situation, because he had to. Out here, anything could happen. The unpredictability of freedom could drown him.
When they reached the ranch, Cash pulled the truck up right in front of Wilder’s door.
“Go ahead and take those in. I’ll park the truck and meet you over there at the horse barn.”
Hope seized his heart. “We’re going to ride?” Cash had said as much earlier, but Wilder curbed his hopes. Getting on a horse again would be a dream. He hadn’t really expected to be allowed to ride so soon.
“Yep. If that works for you. I’ll put you on one of our steady ones, let you get a feel for the saddle in the paddock before I give you the tour. I figure doing it on horseback will be okay, yeah?” He winked, and Wilder looked away to hide the way his whole body heated in response.
“Sounds good.” He pushed the door open and grabbed as many of the bags as he could carry. He couldn’t quite get them all, growling under his breath. “Be right back.”
He fumbled his key into the door and nudged it open with the toe of his new boot. Dumping his bags on the bed, he whirled around to rush back out and grab the rest—and smacked right into Cash, who was halfway through the door with the rest of the bags, which crashed to the floor as they collided. Cash’s big hands felt like brands on his waist, catching him as their legs tangled and they both staggered.
“Fuck!” Wilder cursed, fingers clenching in Cash’s shirt. “Sorry. I had no idea you were?—”
“No, it’s fine, I should’ve said?—”
They both stopped, the brims of their hats touching. Cash was slightly taller than him, Wilder realized. His body was warm beneath the fabric of his shirt, and Wilder’s mouth went dry as bone. It was harder than expected to pull away, and if he didn’t know better, he’d say Cash’s hands lingered on his waist a beat too long. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
Wilder sucked his lips between his teeth. “Um, I’ll get this.” He gestured to the bags on the floor. “Thanks for bringing them in for me.”
Cash nodded, his warm gaze roaming Wilder’s face. “I’ll go park the truck.”
Wilder followed him to the door, watching the sway of his broad back as he strode to the idling truck. He closed the door before Cash could realize he was watching him, blowing out a breath in the silence of the room.
He left the bags piled on the bed. There would be time to unpack everything and put it away later. Right now he didn’t want to make Cash wait for him.
The sun was high in the sky as he made his way across the lawn and the circular driveway toward the big white barn. In the field beside it, a buckskin horse trotted nervously, tossing his head. His black mane billowed in the breeze coming off the hillside, and since Wilder saw no sign of Cash at the barn yet, he wandered over to the fence to watch, resting one foot on the bottom rung.
“What’s the matter, boy?” he called, and the horse slowed, tossing his head and eyeing Wilder distrustfully. There were other horses inside the fence with him, but he didn’t seem interested in them, keeping to himself and pacing fretfully.
“That’s a new one,” Cash said, and Wilder turned to see him approaching. “Still untamed. He’s only been here a couple of days.”
“He’s still highly stressed,” Wilder noted.
“Yeah, he paces a lot. Doesn’t let anyone get close. Lain’s been debating what to do with him. If we can’t get him to mellow, he won’t be fit to ride. And a horse who can’t be ridden doesn’t have much value in the ranching business.”
“He doesn’t like being locked in behind a fence,” Wilder said. “He knows he’s trapped.”
“Mm-hm,” Cash agreed, his gaze on Wilder’s profile. “He just needs time to adjust.”
It felt cliché to say he understood what the horse was going through, but the sympathy pains in his chest didn’t listen. He knew a thing or two about being thrown into a situation he wasn’t ready for, feeling trapped in a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from.
He just didn’t know whether prison was the nightmare or this so-called freedom.
Cash patted his shoulder, sliding away. “Come on. Let’s saddle up a couple of horses and get moving.”
Following Cash into the barn brought back visceral memories from his teenage years. The old horse barn was nothing like this, but some things were universal. The sweet smell of the hay, the musky scent of animal and freshly oiled leather. Two horses waited for them in stalls, a chestnut mare and a brown and white paint.
“This is Hexie,” Cash said, going to the paint and stroking her face. “You’ll be riding that one, Persimmon. Until I get a better feel for how you ride, she’s our easiest to handle. Lain even lets Annalise ride her.”
Wilder blinked dumbly at the name. Mary-Beth was the wife. Annalise must be the daughter. He wondered how long it would be before he laid eyes on her. Did she look like Lain? Like them ?
Cash was watching him in that knowing way of his again. “I take it you haven’t met her yet.”
“No, not exactly.”
“She’s a sweet kid. You’ll see her around. She has some chores around the ranch. Feeding the chickens and such. She likes to feel involved and helpful, and she loves the horses. Lain lets her ride in the evenings sometimes.”
Wilder wasn’t so sure Lain would want him anywhere near his daughter, but he refrained from saying as much. Cash showed him where the tack was stored, and they got to work saddling the horses. It had been at least ten years since Wilder had done this, fitted a saddle on a horse’s back and put a bridle on. Persimmon wasn’t a fan of the bit, and Wilder chuckled as he worked the metal between her teeth.
“I’ll be gentle, girl, I promise,” he said, stroking her big forehead as he slipped the leather over her ears.
She snorted out a breath, bumping her nose against his chest and leaving a dirty smear behind.
“I’ll have you know this is a new shirt, ma’am,” he chided.
Cash chuckled. Wilder hadn’t realized he could hear him, and he ducked his head sheepishly.
When they finished, leading their horses out into the aisle, Cash gestured for him to take Hexie’s reins and said, “Let me double check your saddle real quick.”
That was fine with Wilder. There was a chance he’d forgotten something, after all, but everything appeared to be in order. And then they were off. Wilder slung a leg up and over Persimmon’s back, and she automatically fell into step with Hexie when he nudged her.
“How’s it feel?” Cash asked as they stepped out in the sunlight and the horses’ opened up their pace, trotting side by side.
Wilder chuckled, shifting on the saddle. “Weird but also not. Does that make sense?” It didn’t seem right to equate it to riding a bike, because horses were living animals that could always be unpredictable, and no two were the same. But there was a bone-deep part of him that never forgot how to do this. Being on horseback felt a little like coming home. A return to the status quo.
Back before Dad sold off all the horses, he’d spend hours in the barn and paddock, tending to them and riding them. He didn’t have a favorite, rotating them all out equally. When Lain started sneaking off to see his girl, especially, Wilder found solace with the horses. Dad made sure they never had friends over, and everybody in town kept their noses out of the Blackwoods’ business. Nobody was willing to get involved, even though it was common knowledge that Dad was deteriorating.
He physically shook himself. This place had him in his own head too much. He needed to focus on the present and stop dwelling on the past. Cash glanced over at him but didn’t ask.
Cash pointed out the entrance to the bunkhouse’s laundry room on the back side of the building, beside the foreman’s quarters. On their way around the farmhouse, Wilder noticed clothes hanging out on the line. A pretty blonde woman was hanging them up, wearing denim shorts and a billowing linen shirt that mostly hid the modest swell of her pregnant stomach. A little girl stood next to her, in similar shorts with a pair of scuffed roper boots on her feet. The woman paused at the sight of them. Cash tipped his hat, giving them a wide berth, and Wilder reluctantly offered a two-fingered wave. The woman’s eyes burned into him, and he wondered what she was thinking. How much did he and Lain look alike these days?
The little girl waved cheerfully, and Cash chuckled.
“She’s a firecracker, I swear,” he murmured over the beat of the horses’ hooves on the grass. “Mary-Beth was pregnant with her when Lain hired me.”
Wilder did some quick math in his head. “You’ve been here quite a while, then. How’d he manage to afford a foreman like you when he was just an eighteen-year-old kid with… his own kid on the way?” He didn’t even know how quickly all of that had happened. It sounded like he and Mary-Beth moved pretty fast after Wilder disappeared.
Cash glanced over at him. “Yeah, he couldn’t, really. But I was living on the road at the time and didn’t have much in the way of prospects. I told him I’d stick around for a year if he’d give me a place to stay. It wasn’t easy. He took out some loans to get the place off the ground, used the money at auctions to get some cattle and the bare minimum of equipment. He just barely turned a profit that first year, but it’s been a steady climb ever since. He’s got a pretty good head for money. Knows how to spend it wisely. And he and Mary-Beth,” he shook his head, “they didn’t get married until Annalise was old enough to be the flower girl. I think she was three when they finally tied the knot. Had a little ceremony out here on the ranch and invited some folks from town. I didn’t ask too many questions back then, since I didn’t know them all that well, but I think Annalise was kind of a happy accident. I highly doubt Lain would’ve planned on having a kid at nineteen when he was swimming in debt and stressing over whether he’d be able to keep the ranch.”
That washed away some of the bitter sludge in Wilder’s heart. Maybe Lain hadn’t rushed off to start a new family, after all.
They slowed the horses down to a comfortable walk, riding along a fence line. Cash pointed out at the empty field beside them. “This’ll be where we put the pregnant heifers. If all goes well, you’ll be riding out with us the day we move the cattle closer to the house for the winter. We like to bring them in closer to home when the weather starts to cool off.”
They chatted about the harvest the other hands were off handling in one of the lower fields behind the house. They planted their own feed to supplement the herd during winter months when they couldn’t graze as much, although they still occasionally had to buy from a feed store. Cash was hopeful that their harvest this year would be enough and save the ranch the extra money, though. Wilder had never seen a combine on the property. There must’ve been, at some point, because before their mother passed, Blackwood Ranch was a booming business. But all of that was long gone by the time he was old enough to remember. Lain had also bought quite a bit of land around the ranch, and it was just over ten thousand acres total now. It was a fraction of that when Wilder last lived here.
Cash took him to a high point on the rolling hills. With a copse of evergreens behind them, there were fields in three directions. The farmhouse and main barn was visible in the distance on their left. It was beautiful, green and gold and blue stretching onward forever. The world seemed far bigger now than it ever had before his prison stint. With a sigh, he relaxed in the saddle, staring out at it all.
“You can’t see the whole ranch from here,” Cash said, which was mind-boggling , “but this is probably the closest we can get. What do you think?”
He nodded, the words catching in his throat. It was beautiful. Lain had coaxed the land to its fullest potential, and for the first time, he wondered if it wasn’t just Dad who’d been holding this place back. Maybe they both had to leave for Lain to work his magic. Wilder couldn’t guess what would’ve happened if he’d been around for all of this. Maybe he would’ve just gotten in the way. Lain obviously didn’t need him. All his life, he’d thought they were a pair. Maybe all along he was just the extra. A superfluous, unnecessary hanger-on that Lain couldn’t shake.
After a moment of silence, Cash guided Hexie closer, and their stirrups brushed. “Wilder,” he said softly.
Wilder straightened. He wouldn’t show weakness. Clearing his throat, he guided Persimmon away and said, “We headed back to the barn after this?”
Looking like he wanted to say more, Cash replied, “Yeah.”
He clicked his tongue at Persimmon, who fell into a trot. “I’m gonna open her up, if that’s okay, let her run.”
“That’s fine. Only time that horse likes to run is when she’s headed back to the barn, anyway. Have at it. I’ll be right behind you.”
Wilder didn’t know how to respond to that. He nudged Persimmon into a run and didn’t look back, delighting in the pounding of hooves and the cool rush of the wind.
Meals in the bunkhouse were far more stressful than meals should be. Wilder was used to communal eating spaces—hell, communal bathroom and recreational times, too—but they always came with their own pitfalls. He didn’t like sitting at the dining table while Clyde cooked, because the others all milled around, and having people at his back made him nervous. Instead, he found a seat in an armchair in the living area, tucked into a nice little corner where he could put his feet up on the coffee table and keep an eye on the room.
The only two things that kept his ass in the seat were the promise of food and Cash, who sat in the armchair across from him with an e-reader. He looked for all the world like he was ignoring everyone in the room, occasionally flipping the page on his e-reader while the rest of them chatted and played cards at the table. Having him there helped ease Wilder’s nerves. Against his more paranoid impulses, he was beginning to trust Cash.
When Wilder grew tired of the furtive looks, he slouched down in the surprisingly comfortable chair and tipped his hat down over his eyes with his arms folded over his chest and his ankles crossed on the coffee table.
He didn’t think it had been a particularly hard day. Riding always took quite a bit of energy, and he was up at dawn, and he’d spent most of the day after that in the barn grooming the horses and getting a feel for the place. But maybe he was more tired than he thought, because somehow he managed to doze off.
He heard his old roommate, Randall, humming that fucking off-key tune of his. Any time he couldn’t sleep, he’d hum that goddamn song, even if it meant waking up Wilder. Feeble from the heroin and twenty years older than Wilder, he was at least good with his mouth when it wasn’t humming. Wilder lashed out, kicking the metal footboard loud enough that it twanged, and Randall finally went quiet.