Love, Like Water (15 page)

Tuck watched him too—not like he was suspicious, but like he was afraid, like if he took his eyes off Joshua for a moment something bad would happen. Well, he was right, wasn’t he? He’d left Joshua alone for one night and Joshua’d nearly died. Not that that was Tuck’s fault.

He hadn’t seen much of Eli since he’d come home last night. Tucker had picked him up, but it had been after supper and the hands had all turned in by the time they got home. He’d seen him briefly at breakfast, and Eli had given him one of his slow smiles and a “Welcome home, Joshua,” but that had been the extent of it. He’d visited Joshua in the hospital a couple of times, bringing lunch or supper and talking randomly to fill Joshua’s silences, and each time he’d left, he’d put his hand on Joshua’s and said in his soft voice, “Y’all feel better and come home to us soon,” and Joshua had felt the warmth of caring in that small gesture.

The only thing that bothered Joshua about Eli’s visits was when Dr. Castellano came in in the middle of one. They seemed to be friends, but Joshua caught an undertone he wasn’t sure he liked. Was Eli’s smile just a bit warmer when he looked at the doctor? When the doctor passed Eli’s chair, he’d pat his shoulder briefly—what did that signify? Did they have a history? Was Eli gay after all but involved with the doctor? Was Joshua hallucinating? Or simply paranoid? Or jealous that a stranger could touch Eli so casually while he was terrified of doing the same thing?

“… Eli.”

Joshua blinked. What? He’d lost the thread of Tuck’s monologue. That
never
happened. He broke into a sweat, thinking about what could have happened if he’d done that during his assignment. “What?” he gasped.

“Hey, calm down!” Tucker put his hand on Joshua’s shoulder. “It’s okay—Lord knows I’ve let my wits go wandering when someone’s talking before. It’s okay. I was just saying that this afternoon, after dinner”—Joshua couldn’t get used to the way some people out here called it “dinner” instead of “lunch”—“Eli’s gonna take you around the ranch, show you where everything is, maybe get you up on one of the critters and see how much you remember about riding. Nothing real stressful, but we want to get you up to speed with how the ranch runs. I want you to work some with the hands, too, and the horses. Your granddad started teaching you, and I’d like to see if any of that stuck.”

The entire afternoon with Eli? Joshua’s appetite vanished.

I
T
CAME
back gangbusters when they sat down at the big table in the kitchen, though, and Sarafina set an enormous sandwich in front of him, dripping with red and green chile. He’d been startled at first by the penchant for putting chile sauce on everything that was apparently a New Mexican thing; the first morning he’d eaten breakfast at the table, Sarafina had asked him, “Red or green?” and he hadn’t the vaguest idea what she was talking about. The food he’d gotten on the tray in his room when he’d first arrived there hadn’t had any chile on it at all. Sarafina said she had been giving him “sick people food” and now that he was well enough to sit at the table, he was well enough to enjoy the chile. It had taken him a few days, but he liked it fine now, though he’d promised to make her some of the other signature dishes of the Puerto Rican culture he’d grown up in.

He was halfway through the sandwich when Eli came in, doffed his gray felt cowboy hat, and sat across from him. “Just red today, Sara,” Eli said. “I’m in a purist kind of mood.”

Sarafina laughed and served up his sandwich. “Why are you late?”

“Cleaning out the damn cat kennel. God, that shit stinks.”

Joshua laughed, which surprised himself, as well as the rest of the hands at the table. “Sorry—it’s just funny. You work around horsesh… horsecrap”—he gave Sarafina an apologetic glance—“and you think cat poop stinks?”

“Well, it does,” Eli said reasonably. “But the vet says he can probably be let out today. Thought you might like to do the honors, seeing as how you were the one to suggest locking him up.”

“Okay,” Joshua said.

“Then I figure we can saddle up Avery and ride around the ranch some. Let you see what you’re gonna be managing the books for. Avery’s a nice easy ride, so no worries about that.”

“Avery’s a slug,” Jesse said with a grin. “Don’t plan on going faster than a walk, unless his feed bag’s at the other end of the trip.”

“Sounds about my speed. Have you named the cat yet?” Joshua turned to Tucker. “Or did the ASPCA have a name for it?”

“Name the cat? What for?”

“Don’t you name cats around here?”

Tucker shook his head. “We’ve got about half a dozen barn cats, but none of them have names.”

“This one’s not a barn cat.”

“True, but the barn cats have been visitin’,” Eli said. “They’re pretty curious about why he’s in a cage. The vet checked him out and said he’s been fixed, so we don’t have to worry about any long-haired kittens showing up in a couple months, but I dunno if he’s gonna want to stay out there with the horse.”

“Then the horse will have to get used to it,” Joshua said. “And if he wants to be a house cat….”

There were blank stares around the table. “What? Haven’t you people heard of house cats before?”

“Yes, but I don’t think I have ever actually known anyone who has one,” Sarafina mused. “There was a woman on the pueblo when I was growing up that had several cats that came inside to be fed, but they lived outside. Cats have fleas.”

“So do dogs, and people let them indoors.”

“If you want to have the cat indoors, son, you have the cat indoors. But let’s see what it wants, first. Might be it likes the barn.”

“The vet did suggest we shave his fur—it’s all matted and I reckon it’s pretty hot for him,” Eli said.

“Are we seriously discussing shaving a
cat
?” one of the ranch hands, Ryan, said. “Ain’t they vermin?”

“They ain’t vermin,” Joshua growled menacingly.

Ryan threw up both hands. “Sorry, bud! I just never knew anyone actually liked ’em.”

“I do like ’em,” Joshua said, then realized he’d been unconsciously mimicking their dialect. He swallowed and said, “We always had a cat when I was growing up—my mom liked them. My sister used to dress them in doll clothes. That was pretty damn stupid. But they’re nice creatures.” He thought about the last cat his family had had before he’d left for college, a tortoiseshell calico named Tennille after some singer in the 70s his mother had liked. The cat had lived to about eighteen but died while he was away at college. He’d loved that cat.

“Cat’s yours, son. Whatever you want.”

“As long as you clean its litter box yourself,” Eli added.

The hands laughed. Joshua smiled at Eli, who looked startled a moment, then grinned back.

Chapter 13

A
VERY
might have been a slug, but Josh looked nervous as he slung himself into the saddle. “It’s been a few years,” he said apologetically as he shifted, trying to settle himself. “I think I was eleven the last time I rode.”

“You’ll get back to it,” Eli assured him, and mounted his own horse, Button. She was livelier than Avery, but steady, not likely to startle Josh, and patient enough with a slower pace. Once he was sure that Josh was set—he was surprised to see him holding his reins properly, in his left hand, and guessed Josh still did remember some things—he led the way out of the stable.

In the open, he drew Button back so that Josh could come up beside him, and studied his seat. “You ain’t forgot much,” he said. “Seat’s good, you hold your reins right, and your heels are down. Good conformation. Boots comfortable?”

“Yeah. A little big, but Sarafina gave me some thick socks. Hot, though. Same with the gloves. Hot.”

“You’ll get used to it. Hat looks good.”

Josh reached up and touched the brim of Tucker’s old straw hat. “I guess. Can I ask a question?”

“Son, if you don’t ask questions, it’s gonna be a mighty short afternoon.”

“Okay. Why don’t you wear a straw hat? Most of the guys wear them or ball caps, not a felt Stetson. Isn’t it hot?”

“First of all, it’s a Resistol, not a Stetson, though I guess nowadays they’re made by the same company. Second of all, I do wear a straw workingman’s hat during the
hot
weather.” He laughed at Joshua’s nonplused look. “Nah, I just got used to wearing it. I’ve got others, but when I reach for a hat, this one’s usually the one that jumps into my hand. No mystery.”

“Oh, okay.”

“That settled?” At Joshua’s quick, shy smile, Eli felt warm all over. To hide it, he said, “All righty, then. I’m gonna take you around the main part of the ranch. We’ve got some remote corrals, but I won’t take you out there today….”

J
OSHUA
followed Eli—well, rode sort of alongside him, not behind him, listening to him talk about the ranch layout, what the different outbuildings were, what the uses of the different corrals and paddocks were, where the water sources came from and why they had some fields planted with crops named “teff” and “timothy” with elaborate irrigation systems, and why they had a herd of cattle in a farther-out field. Eli was wearing his usual plaid cotton shirt, but with the sleeves rolled up, displaying wiry, muscular arms flecked with sun-blond hair. Most of the hands—like with the ball caps and straw hats—wore T-shirts or tank tops while working, but the trainers wore shirts like Eli did. He wondered how Eli’s arms could be tan when he wore shirts all the time.

He’d never thought of forearms as erotic, but he hadn’t reckoned on the look of the strong muscles, the glint of gold hair against the brown of Eli’s tan, the flex of tendons, the strength and steadiness. He wondered what it would feel like, to have those arms holding him, how they’d feel under his own hands, maybe as Eli was braced above him, rocking into him, the blond head thrown back, his chest gleaming with sweat….

Joshua didn’t say anything, but Eli caught him looking.

“Wondering why I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt, too, right?” Eli interrupted his own monologue on windmills, and chuckled. He said, “Well, if you’re working with horses that are more or less wild, you want to be careful about getting bit. Some of the mustangs we take off the plains are biters. If you’re wearing a close-fitting shirt, or are bare-armed, there’s nothing between you and those teeth. And while they don’t actually eat meat,” he gave Joshua a grin, reminding him of the joke, “those teeth
hurt
if they catch you. Better to let ’em catch your sleeve. Plus, it gets ’em used to having fabric flapping around them. Yeah, it startles ’em at first, but they get used to it. I got into the habit of wearing them and I’m used to it.” The grin faded. “Plus, well, it’s safer for you to be covered up some in this sun. Desert sun is hard on you, not just in the heatstroke way. We get too many cases of skin cancer out here. That’s the main thing they deal with in the hospital in Miller—heatstroke and skin cancer.” He indicated Joshua’s own long-sleeved T-shirt. “Yeah, it’s hot, but it’s safer. Hats help with that, and a cowboy hat, straw or felt, protects better’n a ball cap. Ball cap don’t cover your ears or your neck. Cowboys don’t dress the way they do for fashion’s sake, Josh. Every bit of a cowboy’s tack, like a horse’s tack, has its good reasons.”

No
, Joshua thought,
this man is not stupid.
He nodded.

“Of course,” there was that slow, easy grin again, “rodeo cowboys and fancy-ass show horses kinda overdo the tack, if you ask me.”

“Like those big belt buckles some of the guys wear?”

“Noticed those, didja?” Eli shot him a glance Joshua couldn’t quite read. “Yeah, a couple of our guys did some time on the rodeo circuit. Had to break them of a few bad habits.”

“I thought you didn’t ‘break’ animals.”

Eli snorted. “Some of the human kind don’t respond to nothing else. But they weren’t too hard to whip into shape. They’re just more stubborn than other kinds of critters.”

“Do you plan on breaking me?” Joshua didn’t know where the question came from, but once it was out he held his breath, not sure what he wanted to hear.

“Son,” Eli said quietly, “broken is the last thing you need to be.”

T
HEY
hadn’t said anything more on the subject. Eli had turned the conversation back to the ranch and its operations, but Eli’s words and the look in his eyes when he’d said them hung around in the back of Joshua’s mind over the course of the next few days. Even as Joshua focused on learning everything he possibly could about his new home, the sound of Eli’s voice kept repeating in his head. The words had been kind, but Joshua knew what kindness sounded like, and this wasn’t it. It was more like… tenderness. He didn’t remember ever experiencing that before, certainly not from another man. He didn’t know what to think about it, so he tried not to think, not to let every thought revolve around Eli, and the tenderness he’d seen in his voice and in his eyes.

It wasn’t easy. The quiet, unobtrusive foreman was so thoroughly integrated into every part of the ranch that five minutes didn’t go by before Tucker started another sentence with “Eli figures” or “Eli says” or “Eli’s the one to ask, but….” Tucker didn’t even notice it. Joshua didn’t know if that was pretty normal for a foreman’s role, but he’d already seen Eli’s competence and his love for the ranch. Sometimes Joshua thought Tucker’d be better off leaving the Triple C to Eli—it would be in better hands.