Chapter Two Dust on His Mouth #3
The trail boss had removed his hat. Moonlight silvered the dust in his hair. One knee was raised, a forearm resting across it. He looked less like a man waiting than a judgment already reached.
"Couldn't sleep?" Drew asked.
"Could. Didn't."
"My bed is an unusual place to practice restraint."
Hank's eyes traveled over him. Drew's shirt had been buttoned in haste; one side hung lower than the other. His throat still carried the flush of Hank's mouth.
"Where'd you go?" Hank asked.
"For air."
"Plenty here."
"Privacy, then."
"Had that earlier."
The recollection tightened Drew's body. Hank saw the response beneath his trousers. His own interest became visible where denim pulled across his lap, yet he did not reach out.
"Sit," Hank said.
"You are occupying my bed."
"Room beside me."
Drew sat. Their shoulders did not touch. The deliberate inch between them felt more charged than contact.
"You tore your shirt," Hank said.
Drew looked down. A seam had opened near his shoulder during the runaway steer. "I will mend it."
"You sew?"
"I possess hidden depths."
"That's what worries me."
Hank turned and found the tear with two fingers. The fabric parted beneath his touch, exposing a scrape along Drew's shoulder blade. He lifted the shirt aside.
"Creek bank?"
"Steer."
"Would've noticed."
"You were distracted."
Hank's hand warmed the skin around the scrape. Drew had expected interrogation, perhaps regret. Care was more dangerous.
"Stay," Hank said.
He crossed to the supply wagon and returned with water and salve. Drew removed his shirt without being asked. Night air cooled sweat on his chest. Hank knelt behind him.
The cloth touched his shoulder. Drew flinched.
"Hurts?"
"Cold."
"Liar."
"Not about that."
Hank cleaned the scrape with patient strokes. His knuckles brushed Drew's back. The same hands that had controlled a thousand-pound steer and held Drew hard against the arroyo wall now moved with exquisite restraint.
"You always tend injuries after fighting?" Drew asked.
"Only ones I helped cause."
"The steer caused this."
"I dragged you into the creek."
"I followed."
"Pulled me closer."
"You remember accurately."
Hank spread salve over the scrape. His thumb lingered at the edge. Drew's breathing deepened. Desire pressed visibly against his trousers, and when he glanced back, Hank's body answered with the same blunt honesty.
"Dangerous habit," Hank said.
"What is?"
"Looking at me like that where men can wake."
"You sat on my bed."
"Was asking questions."
"Your method lacks discipline."
Hank set aside the salve and caught Drew's jaw. Their second kiss of the night was quieter than the first and, for that reason, more intimate. It held no struggle for dominance, only recognition. Drew turned toward him until their knees met.
Hank drew away first. "Not here."
"Agreed."
Neither shifted back.
Hank took the bandanna from his pocket—the same one used in the arroyo—and cleaned a streak of dust from Drew's neck. "You smell like horse."
"You noticed before employing your mouth."
"Smell worse now."
"And yet you remain."
Hank's gaze sharpened. "Till I know where you went."
Drew could feel Warren's report folded inside his boot, paper against skin. "I needed to think."
"About leaving?"
The question revealed more than suspicion. Hank had expected departure after desire cooled, perhaps because someone else had taught him that intimacy was followed by theft or absence.
"No," Drew said. That answer was entirely true. "About staying."
Hank's thumb stopped at his pulse. "Difference?"
"Leaving is easy. Staying requires reasons."
"Find any?"
Drew met his eyes. "One."
The heat that entered Hank's face was subtle but undeniable. He tied the bandanna loosely around Drew's throat as if marking the answer without claiming it.
"Sleep," Hank said. "First bell comes early."
"Where will you sleep?"
"My bed."
"A pity."
Hank stood. Drew caught his wrist.
"The bandanna," he said.
"Keep it."
"Then you owe me a prize at the next stop."
"For what?"
"Remaining."
Hank looked down at his hand, then at his bare chest. "Might be its own prize."
He walked away before Drew could answer.
Sleep did not come. Drew lay with the bandanna beneath his fingers and watched Hank cross the camp, stopping to check the night riders before settling near the lead horse. The man never moved without accounting for everyone in his charge.
At dawn, the herd began rising in waves. Bells sounded from the remuda. Men cursed softly over cold coffee and stiff muscles. Drew buttoned his torn shirt and found Hank's bandanna still at his throat.
Will Carter noticed it. "Boss lose something?"
"He loses arguments frequently."
"That so?"
"You may ask him."
Will showed healthy self-preservation and did not.
Hank rode past during saddle check. His gaze touched the bandanna, then Drew's face. Nothing in his expression betrayed them, but the look lingered long enough to heat Drew beneath the morning chill.
The second day's drive began. Drew took a place on the east flank. Hank positioned himself at point, dark against the sunrise. Distance stretched between them, full of cattle, dust, and knowledge.
At the first rise, Drew looked back. Far south, the courier's trail had already vanished beneath the herd. Warren would receive the report and find it useful. He would not know what had been omitted, or why.
Drew touched the bandanna once, then faced north.
For the first time in his life, Andrew Whitaker had withheld something from Warren not because it lacked value, but because it had become precious.