9. The Last Useful Excuse
The Last Useful Excuse
Harris waited until Navarro disappeared around the barn before pulling the radio from his belt. The number three was written plainly across the tape.
So much for Navarro not noticing anything.
Harris had spent the better part of a week trying to make sure the man saw no difference in him and had evidently managed to accomplish the opposite.
First he had gone so careful around Navarro that the man had asked why he was difficult to read.
Then Harris had taken the wrong radio because he had been too busy looking at something else to read a number he had known for fifteen years.
Now Walt had announced the mistake in front of them both, and Navarro, naturally, had made a joke out of it. That did not mean he had missed the fact that Harris had been acting strangely.
Harris clipped the radio back onto his belt and started loosening Rain’s girth. Putting his hands on Navarro for the better part of an hour had not improved matters.
Every touch had been necessary. Harris had made sure of that. The stirrup actually had been short. Navarro’s hands actually had been too tight. His wrist actually had been angled wrong.
None of that explained why Harris had remained aware of each contact after it ended: the solid weight of Navarro’s ankle in his hand, his fist loosening beneath Harris’s thumb, the pulse inside his wrist when Harris touched him there.
Harris pulled the saddle free and rested it against his hip.
He had spent years handling people around horses without making anything strange out of it.
Guests needed boots repositioned, knees corrected, reins shortened, stirrups changed.
Half the job was putting somebody’s body where it needed to be without making them self-conscious about being touched.
He had never before needed to remind himself not to notice the warmth of somebody’s skin.
And then Navarro had looked down at him with that slight, knowing smile and called his bad habits charming. Harris’s attention had gone directly to his mouth.
One second, maybe less.
Long enough.
The attraction was settled. What Harris hadn’t considered was what his attempts to hide it might look like from Navarro’s side.
Across the yard, Navarro stopped beside Eli, who was winding cable outside the equipment room. He said something Harris couldn’t hear. Eli laughed, and Navarro touched his arm as he passed.
Irritation hit Harris before he had time to prevent it, stopping him with one hand on the corral gate.
Eli was a decade younger than Navarro, worked for him, and had done absolutely nothing except stand in the yard and laugh at something his boss said. There was no reason on earth for Harris to care where Navarro put his hand.
He looked toward the south pasture. Evan was waiting.
Except pretending the problem was work had already carried Harris to one perfectly functional trough, left him staring at a radio shelf without seeing it, and turned a routine riding lesson into something Navarro was now teasing him about.
The problem was Harris. He knew that.
What he had not considered until Navarro said he had been difficult to read was how the timing must look from the other side.
He had been short with Navarro since learning about Miles.
Not openly rude. Harris was reasonably certain of that.
He had simply made every conversation more controlled than it needed to be.
If Navarro drifted into something personal, Harris found work to do.
If he stood too close, Harris created space.
If a conversation started feeling easy, Harris remembered exactly why it shouldn’t.
From Harris’s side, the logic had been obvious. From Navarro’s, it probably looked considerably simpler.
He tells Harris he spent five years with a man, and Harris suddenly stops talking to him.
Harris set the saddle over the fence.
Shit.
Navarro had joked about it. He joked about most things. But Harris remembered the expression beneath the smile when Navarro had told him he was difficult to read. There had been a question there Harris had understood without wanting to answer.
Maybe Navarro thought Harris had a problem with him being gay.
The idea sat badly enough that Harris stopped what he was doing. He did not care for being misunderstood, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
Navarro had probably spent half his life making calculations Harris had never needed to make.
Tell this person. Don’t tell that one. Touch somebody here but not there.
Decide whether a joke was harmless before laughing.
Figure out whether a man who had been friendly five minutes ago was still friendly after learning who Navarro slept with.
Harris knew enough about the world to understand that much, and he had given Navarro a reason to perform the same calculation here, on Harris’s ranch.
Whatever was happening belonged to Harris.
Navarro had not asked him to be attracted to him and certainly hadn’t asked Harris to lose the ability to operate basic communication equipment because he took off a shirt.
He should not have to wonder whether anything about the ranch had become less safe because Harris couldn’t keep his own head straight.
Rain nudged his shoulder, and Harris rubbed a hand down her neck.
The young gelding stood quietly beyond the fence, saddle removed now, one hind leg cocked beneath him. Harris had spent the afternoon teaching him that the rules stayed consistent. Ask clearly. Give him time to find the answer. Release the pressure when he got there.
If the answer changed every time he found it, eventually he would stop trying.
Simple with horses.
With Navarro, Harris had been changing the rule every time the man got close enough to understand it.
Talk to him, but not that much. Come here, but not that close. Ask a question, but not that question.
Harris could see why somebody might quit looking for the answer, and that wasn’t Navarro’s fault.
It also wasn’t something Harris could fix by explaining the actual problem. He was not about to walk up to the man and announce that the sudden awkwardness had nothing to do with Navarro being gay and everything to do with Harris wanting to put his mouth somewhere it had no business going.
There were probably intermediate options.
Harris picked up the saddle and started toward the barn. Evan was waiting at the south fence, and Harris was already late enough to hear about it.
* * *
By nine that night, Harris’s plan to start behaving normally around Navarro had brought him back to Tessa’s bar.
“Well, shit. Twice in one week.”
Tessa slowed behind the bar with two empty glasses in her hands. Harris took his usual stool at the far end and set his keys on the counter.
“Nice to see you too.”
“I thought we’d met our quarterly quota.” She reached automatically for his beer. “Should I be worried?”
“Probably.”
“That bad?”
“Just want a drink.”
“Sure.”
She slid the open bottle toward him, and Harris drank half of it in one pull.
He had wanted a drink and Tessa less than a week ago. Harris generally came into town when work allowed and inclination happened to line up with it; twice in one week suggested a problem.
Fine. He had one, and Tessa represented a solution that had worked before Navarro ever drove through the ranch gate.
They had dated briefly after his divorce, then settled into something easier. Sometimes she was seeing someone. Sometimes Harris did not come in for months. When timing and interest matched, they ended the night together without promises, resentment, or any pretense that it was becoming more.
It had always suited him.
Tessa leaned one elbow against the counter. Her dark hair now ended above her shoulders instead of halfway down her back.
“You cut it.”
“Yesterday.”
“Suits you.”
“Thanks.” She watched him for a moment. “I didn’t do it for you, before that becomes a problem.”
“Wasn’t gonna make it one.”
“Good.”
That was one of the reasons Harris liked her. Tessa could leave an opening without standing over it to see what crawled out.
A customer raised an empty glass, and she pushed away. “Try not to disappear before I get back.”
Harris watched her move down the bar. She looked good. The shorter hair exposed the back of her neck, and when she bent to hear an order over the music, his attention went where it always had. She had always been easy to want.
That mattered.
He ordered a second beer and drank it more slowly. He had not come here to prove he was attracted to women. Twelve years with Claire had settled that, as had every night with Tessa, including the one less than a week ago.
What Harris needed was proportion. Navarro had been taking up too much room in his head, and a familiar woman, a familiar body, and a night without consequence ought to remind him that attraction was attraction.
Nothing mystical. Nothing requiring days of bad decisions and malfunctioning radio equipment.
Navarro was a complication created by proximity.
Remove the pressure, reset the system, return to ordinary operation.
By the end of Tessa’s shift, Harris had stopped examining the plan so closely.
They crossed the highway to the motel because neither felt like driving farther. Tessa booked the room while Harris finished a cigarette outside.
The door had barely closed before she kissed him.
Harris kissed her back. That part was easy.
She pushed his jacket from his shoulders.
He caught her around the waist and pulled her against him, one hand fitting over her ass while she opened another button on his shirt.
Her mouth was warm and familiar. He knew the pressure she liked, how her breath changed when his hand moved beneath her shirt, and she knew his body too.
No explanation required. No unfamiliar ground.
His body answered immediately when her hand slid between them.
Good.
Harris closed his eyes, and Navarro stood in the equipment room with his shirt caught above his head.