Lucas
The second I saw the horror and regret twist his features, something inside me snapped.
My chest burned, my dick still half-hard and aching in my jeans, my lips swollen from kissing him.
I turned on my heel and bolted for the front room, my boots pounding on the wood, my pants slipping dangerously low on my hips with every step.
The denim was rough against my skin, and I nearly tripped, my hand slamming the wall to steady myself.
The sound of Jesse calling my name followed me, sharp and desperate, but I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t. The anger burned off fast. What was left was the ache in my hip, loud now that nothing else was drowning it out.
I took the stairs as best I could, my breath coming in short, furious bursts. My cock throbbed with every jarring step, a cruel reminder of how fucking stupid I’d been. I shoved the door open so hard it crashed into the wall, the crack of wood on wood echoing through the house like a gunshot.
Then, I spun around and shoved it shut behind me, the force rattling the frame.
The lock clicked into place with a finality that made my teeth clench.
My hands were shaking. I pressed my back to the door, my chest heaving, my dick still trapped painfully in my jeans, and fuck, my hip!
My pants were damp at the crotch, sticky with cum, and I wanted to rip it all off, to scrub my skin raw until I couldn’t smell him on me anymore.
But I didn’t move. I just stood there, listening to the silence, waiting for the sound of his footsteps on the stairs.
They never came.
A laugh clawed its way up my throat, bitter and hollow. Of course, he wasn’t coming after me. Why the hell would he? He’d gotten what he wanted—release, control, whatever the fuck this had been to him—and now he was probably downstairs pretending none of this had ever happened.
My fingers curled into fists. The coppery tang of blood filled my mouth—I hadn’t even realized I’d bitten down on the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. Fuck. Fuck.
I pushed off the door and stumbled toward the bed, my pants still hanging obscenely low.
My shirt was wrinkled, the fabric clinging to the sweat on my back, and I tore it over my head, throwing it across the room.
My boots followed, kicked off with enough force to send them skidding into the wall.
The bed frame groaned as I collapsed onto the mattress, my face buried in the pillow.
I smelled like him.
Not strongly—just a faint trace of that ranch-simple soap he used, the same scent that had filled the hallways when I’d had my mouth on his, his hands on my cock—but it was enough.
Enough to make my stomach twist, enough to make my dick twitch traitorously against my thigh.
I flipped the pillow over, pressing my face into the cool side, my breath coming in short, sharp bursts.
I shouldn’t have done it. I knew I shouldn’t have done it. But the way he’d looked at me—as if he was urging me to push or needed me to—had been overwhelming. The way my body had responded, the way my lips had parted under his, the way he’d begged—
A knock at the door made me jolt upright.
“Lucas.” Jesse’s voice was muffled but clear, laced with something I didn’t recognize. Not anger or disgust. Something worse—uncertainty. “Open the door.”
I didn’t answer. My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat.
“Please.”
The please somehow worked. It made my hands clench into fists again, my nails biting into my palms. I swung my legs off the bed and stormed to the door, yanking it open before I could stop myself.
Jesse stood there, his shirt buttoned up again, his hair slightly disheveled, his jaw set.
His eyes flicked down to my bare chest, then lower, and he swallowed.
“What?” I snapped.
He hesitated. For the first time since I’d known him, Jesse Knox hesitated. His gaze darted back up to mine, and whatever he saw there made his expression falter.
“I didn’t—” He stopped. Swallowed then tried again. “I didn’t mean to react like that.”
A laugh burst out of me, sharp and humorless. “No? Then, how did you mean to react, Cowboy? Because from where I’m standing, it looked an awful lot like whatever we did, that you were part of, you regretted every second of it.”
His jaw tightened. “That’s not—”
“Save it.” I moved to slam the door shut, but his hand shot out, catching the edge. I stared at his fingers, at the way his knuckles were white from gripping so hard, and something inside me twisted.
“Let go,” I growled.
“No.” His voice was low, rough. “Not until you listen to me.”
“You won’t listen to me, so I’m sure as hell not listening to you.”
“Too bad.” He stepped forward, crowding me back into the room, and I let him—because I was a fucking idiot. The door clicked shut behind him, and then, we were close again, the air between us thick with the scent of sex and something darker. Something heavier.
Jesse exhaled, his breath warm on my face. “I don’t regret it,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I panicked. We were shouting, and you weren’t listening, then you said about what your dad did, and my heart… and I freaking panicked.”
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to. But the memory of his face—twisted in horror, his hands shoving me away—was still too fresh. I should never have said what I did about not being loved. That was my secret to keep.
“Whatever,” I said.
His hand came up, his fingers brushing my cheekbone, light as a feather. I flinched, but I didn’t pull away.
“I swore I wouldn’t do this,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. His thumb traced my cheekbones. “I swore I wouldn’t want this.”
My breath hitched. “Want what?”
His eyes locked onto mine, dark and endless. “You.”
“Stay away from me,” I said, then hurried down the stairs, boots on, layering up, and heading outside.
I knew where the graves were on the land—they were clearly shown on the map, but they were a good quarter mile from the house, and walking there would be madness, or impossible.
I’d researched all the ways that they could be kept in situ, maybe make the space an oasis of calm or something, but I’d never planned on visiting.
I saw one of the hands walk into the barn and followed him.
“Gunner, right?”
The big man turned on a dime. “Yes, sir.”
“I saw you on the ATV. I need you to take me to the graveyard.” He stared at me. I might be his boss, I guess, but maybe I didn’t need to make this an order. “Please?”
“Sure thing,” he said, and a few minutes later, I was clinging to Gunner as we tore across snow and ice, the ATV skidding and correcting beneath us as if it had a mind of its own.
The cold bit hard, wind tearing at my eyes, the world reduced to white ground and dark tree trunks flashing past. I wrapped my arms tighter around his coat and trusted him not to dump us into a drift or a frozen rut, my heart thudding harder with every jolt of pain.
I’d pay for this later, and I needed to fill another prescription soon, otherwise I’d get locked into a cycle of pain.
He slowed as we reached the edge of the graveyard, easing the machine down until we came to a stop beneath a huge, old tree.
In summer, it must have offered deep, generous shade, a place you’d choose to rest. Now its branches had broken in the wind, shielding part of the ground so the snow lay thinner here, some of the headstones standing clear while others were still half-buried.
I stepped off the ATV and into the graveyard, boots crunching softly, unsure where to look. Headstones rose in uneven rows, names half-buried, time and snow doing what they always did. Gunner came up beside me, quiet as if he understood this wasn’t his place.
“Your grandpa’s there,” he said in a respectful, almost gentle tone, pointing. “With your grandma. I didn’t know her, but… she was loved by your grandfather.”
He’d taken his Stetson off, holding it against his thigh, blond hair flattened then springing back into place. Even with the hat hair, he looked solemn. “There’s a lot of Barretts here,” he added, as if it were an observation and an apology all at once.
Then, he dipped his head. “I’ll let you visit and be here when you’re ready to leave.” He walked back to the ATV and sat astride it, facing away from me to give me privacy.
But privacy to do what? Mourn a man who’d never wanted to know the real me? I couldn’t mourn him any more than I could mourn my father. That grief-shaped space in me was already occupied by bitterness for both men.
I moved closer to the nearest stone. BARRETT was carved across the top, clean and deep. It was strange, unsettling, seeing my own name like that—finished, final.
Isobel
Walter
Husband and wife at rest together, in the land they loved.
I worked out the ages; Walter had been seventy-three, Isobel forty-eight. The gap between those numbers felt brutal. Had Walter never remarried? Had he lived all that time with only memory for company?
I stood there longer than I meant to, breath fogging, hands shoved into my pockets. My leg throbbed steadily now, the pain radiating from my lower back, which was trying to compensate for my hip injury, as if it were counting time for me. I let it. Some things deserved to hurt.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” I whispered at the stone.
“Why did you leave it to me? I mean, I want it. I want to sell and make things better for everyone who it could help, people like me who had no one.” I swallowed and tried for more.
“You had to know I’d sell. You told me to stay away.
This place means nothing!” Tears choked me. “Jesse says I’m wrong about you.”
Was I wrong?
The memory came back without warning.
I’d been sitting on the floor with my back against a wall in the non-fiction section of the library, the borrowed phone in my hand, battery low, fingers numb from the cold and from holding myself together too tightly.
My back hurt from the beating I’d gotten from some other street kids who thought it would be cool to abuse me and, then, throw me down some stairs.
The pain was bad, but the humiliation was worse.
I’d found a dollar in the gutter and used it to buy enough computer time to get the number for Snow Creek Ranch—and I remember staring at it for a long time before begging the librarian to use the phone.
I was desperate, and she’d taken pity on me, given me the handset, and smiled.
The phone had only rung twice before it was picked up.
“Snow Creek,” a man answered.
“This is… I’m…”
“Spit it out!”
“It’s me, Lucas,” I said, and my voice cracked immediately. I hadn’t planned for that. I tried again.
Silence. Long enough that I thought the call had dropped.
I filled it without meaning to. I told him I was broke.
That my savings had lasted five days. That I had nowhere to go.
That I was sleeping rough and just needed time, work, anything.
It all came out tangled and fast—the fight with my dad, coming out, choosing to be honest instead of safe.
I heard my father’s voice in my head as I spoke: no one will want you like this.
When the voice on the other end finally came, it was flat.
“Fuck, it’s an infection,” it said; then, there was a laugh, derisive. “We don’t want any more queers here,” he said. “You come anywhere near me or this ranch, and I’ll put you down myself.” He added a whole load of other slurs, and then, the line went dead.
An icy gust of wind circled me, pulling me back from wallowing in memories, needling through my coat, and I stepped back from the grave, my boots sinking into deeper snow.
That was it. I was done here. I had nothing left to say, no last words that mattered, no messages waiting to rise from the frozen ground.
If there was any grief in me at all, it wasn’t for him—it was for myself, for the boy who had made that call believing blood might mean safety.
Jesse was wrong.
I turned away and walked back toward Gunner.
“Thank you,” I said, the words thin but sincere.
He nodded once and waited while I climbed on behind him.
When the ATV moved, it was slower this time, steadier, as if the quiet cowboy decided I was fragile now, or maybe just human, and worth handling with a little care.
I didn’t need care. I needed to complete my six months, sell this place, and do all kinds of good with the money that came to me.
That was all.