Nowhere Ranch (9 page)
Panicked, I yelped and started to tug at my wrists again, not realizing what I was doing until his hands were on me, stilling me, until he was whispering in my ear and gentling me. On the one hand his holding me made it worse, but it also grounded me and brought enough of me back that I could calm down. When he reached for the ties to the rope, though, I shook my head.
“I'm all right,” I said. Except I wasn't sure. I kind of wanted this done now, wanted to get out and get dressed and go. The problem was that part of me wanted to
go
. Wanted to give notice and be gone. Get out, get out, get out—
I had started tugging again without realizing it, and this time he ignored my insistence that I was fine and simply untied me. I felt relieved and miserable at once, like I was a big fuckup. I kept my eyes off his as he helped me out of the tub like some sort of cripple, but I realized as I tried to stand that I was one. I was shaking all over, and I felt dizzy. I don't even think it was all from the hot water. My reaction kind of scared me. Was I sick?
Travis wrapped a towel around me and sat me on one of the chairs. He didn't sit beside me but across from me, wrapped in his own towel. “You want to tell me where the panic attack is coming from?”
I honestly didn't know. I shrugged, then immediately hated myself for it, because it was like I was some kid. I swore and pulled the towel up, holding the sides together over my head. He let me sit there for a few minutes like that in silence, but not too long.
“Was it the rope?”
Under the towel I shook my head. Nope. I knew it wasn't that. Well, I guess I knew what it was, but it made no fucking sense. I was upset because I thought of him with his first name. Like I was going to say that out loud.
“The water?” I shook my head again. The silence was heavy for a moment, and then he said, carefully, “Was it something from prison?”
I yanked the towel down fast and stared at him, dumbfounded. And pissed.
And scared.
He held up his hands. “Hey—I do background checks on the hands. Don't go looking at me like I rooted in your underwear drawer. As the guy who writes the checks, I have a right to know.”
He did have a right, but it made me feel lousy all the same. I didn't pull the towel back up, but I became intensely interested in the indoor-outdoor carpet underneath my bare feet. I didn't like Travis knowing about my record. Not when it was just like
that
. Not when I had no idea what he thought I'd done or hadn't. Worse, I realized that all the times he'd seen me working hard or asked me questions he knew he was asking a guy with a record. I hadn't been hardworking Monroe Davis, the guy who was good with sheep. I had been the ex-con.
Hot shame ate at the already significant hollow part of my belly. My eyes darted to the door into the house, then to my clothes. I caught him watching me and quickly shut my eyes.
I heard him sigh, a helpless sound. “Roe—I told Tory he could hire you, didn't I? I'm not bringing it up because I care about what you did or even didn't do. I was trying to figure out why you got so upset.”
My hands tightened on the towel. “There ain't no reason. It sure as hell ain't prison. Prison was fine. It was long and boring"—and lonely—"but that's all. And I ain't lying, either. I ain't hiding anything. I have no fucking idea why I acted like that.”
Okay, that was a lie. And goddamn it, but he caught it. “Roe,” he said, his tone threatening.
I swallowed hard and shook my head. “Just don't, okay? Just leave it. It ain't something sexy like you're thinking, some sob story about how somebody hurt me when I was tied up. It's just my dumb head.” Anger came up out of nowhere, but I clamped it in my jaw. “This is why I don't stay anywhere long, and why I don't do...people.”
His hand on my knee surprised me, and I jerked, but he stroked me quietlike, and I gentled without meaning to. I looked up, which was a mistake because I got caught in his eyes, all soft and dark and kind and strong.
“Don't leave, Roe.”
I looked away again. “I got to get back to my place. I got...stuff. To do.” Like soak my head in the toilet and flush it until I drowned or got my sense back.
He pulled his hand away, even though I knew he didn't want to. I rose and staggered over to my clothes, climbing into them as best I could. I was still pretty damp, so they stuck to me, and if you have ever tried to put on jeans when you're wet, you know the hell I was having trying to hurry. It was dumb, because I knew he wasn't going to do anything to me now, that he wasn't going to stop me, but it had never really been him that was the problem. It was my head, just like I said. I needed to get someplace where it could explode in peace.
I holed up in my apartment the rest of the weekend. I lay in my bed all afternoon on Saturday, hugging my pillow against my chest and staring at the TV without seeing it, and on Sunday I braided about six leathers.
When I get restless, I braid necklaces and bracelets and sometimes just long rope. I learned how at Bible school when I was a kid, and I got really good at it fast. Everybody had me make their bracelets for them. It was all I did that week. It was great. Now I make them when I need something to do with my hands. When I get too many, I dump them in the Goodwill bin. I just like to make them because they clear my mind. It took a lot of them that day to get the job done, but eventually they did the trick as they always did.
Not all the way, though. The pit in my stomach wasn't quite closed, because I had realized that I wanted to stay. I didn't want to go. Well, I did, but not as much as I wanted to stay. That worried me. It made me want to look over my shoulder and lock my door at night and bury my head under the pillow. I can't tell you why, but that was how I felt. But at the same time, it was like there was this tiny little voice whispering in the back of my head, some angel telling me I should stay, that everything was going to be okay.
I didn't think I was the sort that got angels talking to him. I tried to tell myself it was a tricky devil instead, but that felt wrong as soon as I thought it. There was a peace inside that voice that I didn't think a devil could fake.
So I stayed.
Chapter Five
I stayed, but as you might imagine, Travis and I went back into a dry spell on the sex front again, and I didn't get any more quality time with a functional kitchen. I wanted to figure out how to fuck him with it just staying fucking, but I was afraid he was angling toward a relationship, and I wasn't interested in that.
It'd always been my plan that sex would be on the side, this thing I went and did when I really needed to. Some people need partners, and some don't. I mean, I didn't need anybody at all, and I liked it that way. I stopped having friends over and stopped going out with them to movies or to games when I realized I wanted them to hold me down and fuck my brains out, and really, my life got simpler after that. After prison, I never settled down again and never got attached. No strings. Nothing to get mad about. Nothing to feel hurt over. No screwups that hung over my head.
My birthday is September 19, and that year on that day I made myself a celebration by heading to the local grocery store and buying a pot roast. I had picked up a Crock-Pot a while back, and it was my aim to make a good old-fashioned beef roast with onions, potatoes, and carrots. When I was at home, we had them every Sunday. That was what Sunday was to me, beef or pork roast, and my family around the table jabbering after church and fighting over who'd hogged the carrots.
As it happened that year my birthday fell on a Sunday. Obviously there would be nobody to fight over the carrots, but that was fine. The roast would taste really good. It would taste better in a real oven, because no matter what I do I can't seem to get it to cook down like I want in a Crock-Pot. It takes too long. What you want is a slow oven, about three hundred degrees for a good three, four hours. No, roast beef should fucking not be rare. And not a word about how it is dry-cooked all the way down. It isn't if you do it right. A cup of water will do the trick. Not only does it keep the meat moist, but it also makes for better gravy. Though if you want the best gravy, you add a cup of wine instead. That's kind of fussy, though.
On your birthday you get to fuss a little, so I had wine in my shopping basket. Also mushrooms. And some bread. And dessert. I mean, this was serious pigging out here. Fuss like nothing else. I couldn't wait to get home and set it all up. But just as I was rounding the corner of the bakery section and heading toward the checkout, I ran into some trouble, and her name was Haley.
She beamed at me and made all kinds of noise about not seeing me in forever, and for a terrifying second I thought she was going to hug me right there next to a stack of canned beans. She didn't, but she did talk my damn ear off for five minutes. Asked me how I liked the rodeo. (Fine.) Was I still getting on all right at Nowhere? (Yes.) Sheep all doing okay? She'd heard I was really good with them. (Yes. Thank you.) Because it would have been rude to not ask her about herself, I asked if she was still seeing Cal.
“Oh,
him
.” Her expression turned mutinous. “We were back together all right, up until last week when I found out he was seeing me
and
Lacey Sheppard at the same time. I'm done with him now.” She grinned wickedly. “How about
your
love life?”
“Don't have one.” I wished I had bought ice cream to go with my bakery brownies, so I could say I needed to get it home to the freezer.
But eventually she let us wander to the checkout, because she was heading there too. I let her go ahead of me, and she barely stopped talking to pay the cashier. I had hoped she'd leave once she'd paid for her two-liter of soda and bag of cookies, but no, she just stood there, smiling and waiting while my stuff was rung up. She talked a lot too, but she stopped so the cashier could ask me for my ID. I pulled out my wallet and passed it over, waiting while he took extra time, because they always did with an out-of-state license.
The cashier scanned the license and did a double take. As he passed it back to me, he smiled and said, “Happy birthday, Mr. Davis.”
And I knew, then and there, that I was fucked.
“Oh my
God
!” Haley cried. “Your
birthday
? Why didn't you say?” She looked down at my supplies and got that wicked look again. “Birthday dinner for two, is it?”
If I had thought for a second that I could have said yes and gotten rid of her instead of getting the third degree, I would have. I shook my head. “Just enjoying a quiet night at home,” I said, trying to emphasize “quiet” and “enjoying.”
No dice.
“What? Are you kidding me? You can't be alone on your birthday!”
“Been alone on my birthday for about five years now. Suits me fine.”
But Haley just grabbed my bag along with hers and herded me out the door toward the parking lot. “So. I have to go to a hair appointment, but then I will be over to the ranch, and I will pick you up and take you to dinner, and then we will paint the town red! It's karaoke night at Sid's Place and live country music at The Bronco, so you decide which one you'd rather, and we'll do it! Or both!”
“I don't want—” I started to say, but she cut me off with an aggressive kiss on my cheek.
“No arguments. Around five, okay? Yay!” She did an odd little dance in front of the cart corral before hurrying away. I was still standing there dumbfounded when she scurried back and handed me my bag she'd inadvertently run off with. “Bye,” she said, kissed me again, and took off.
I was really upset about this, and instead of putting the roast together when I got back, I paced the small length of my apartment trying to decide what to do. I didn't want to go. But how could I tell her that? Even if I got her to actually listen, she'd be upset. I mean...shit.
In the end I decided to put the roast off until the next day and let her take me out to dinner, but that would be it. I'd pretend I was sick or something. I thought about doing that for the whole evening, but she'd probably try to cook me soup. I took a shower, got dressed, and sat down to braid some leathers. I got so lost in them that I forgot the time, and the next thing I knew there was a knock on the door.
“Wow, you've really spruced the place up!” She waltzed in and did a turn around, taking it all in, but she stopped when she saw the leather I had taped to the back of a chair. She picked it up, holding it like it was a bird that might fly away if she moved too much. “Oh my God, this is beautiful. What is it?”
I wished I had put it away before I answered the door. “Just braided leather. I do them sometimes. It's no big deal.”
“Are you kidding? This is incredible. I mean, you have six rows in this, and a pattern, but it sort of crisscrosses.” She turned it over a few times, captivated. “Is it a necklace or a bracelet?”
I hadn't decided yet. “It's nothing.”
She lifted an eyebrow at me. “Well, if it's nothing, then I want it when you're done.”
At first I thought she was making fun of me, but she kept looking at me expectantly, and I realized she really wanted it. “Okay,” I said, because I was confused and that seemed the best way to get out of the conversation.
“Great.” She let go of the leather and offered me her arm. “Shall we go?”
Of course, we had to run into Travis in the fucking stables.
He was just saddling Chaucer up for his evening ride. He looked damn surprised to see me with Haley. In fact, he looked odd, almost like he was mad. But just for a second, because when Haley started talking to him, he smiled at her. And then I realized what Haley was likely to tell him and tried to cut her off, but it was too late.
“Your birthday, is it?” He lifted his eyebrows at me. “I had no idea.”
“I know!” Haley said. “I only found out because I was in front of him in the checkout when he tried to buy wine. Travis, he was going to spend his birthday all alone! So I'm taking him out. Dinner and a bar crawl.”
“Sounds good,” he said, sounding almost wistful.
