The Stolen Suitor (13 page)

Trix put her hands on her hips and glared at Eric.

He rode Dustin right up to the fence and stopped. “Mornin’, Trix. Hello, Sunshine.” He gave Janie a dazzling smile, and Janie’s face lit up.

She held up her arms. “Can I ride too?”

What?

“Janie, I need to speak with Eric for a moment,” Trix said firmly. She gave Eric the stink eye to let him know she wasn’t happy.

But he didn’t get off the horse or seem particularly alarmed. “Mrs. Johnson called the stable this mornin’ and said she was still feeling poorly and asked if I could get Dustin out today. I knew you’d taken Janie to town, so I thought I’d just see to it. I already got the stalls mucked out.”

Oh
. Mrs. Johnson had asked Eric to exercise Dustin. Really?

It wasn’t lost on Trix that her boarders had noticed Eric. He was almost always in the stable these days, and she’d caught more than one of her female customers enjoying the view. Hilary Morgan, who was only eighteen, cackle-laughed like a hen announcing the arrival of a new egg whenever Eric was around. God knows he’d charmed Janie. Trix had a hard time keeping her out of Eric’s hair.

And there he sat on Dustin looking, for God’s sake, like a real cowboy. Instead of some skeevy rock-band T-shirt, he was wearing a plaid button-down that was most definitely a Cartwright’s, and cowboy boots too. All that was missing was the hat and he could pose for a Marlboro ad.

And Jesus H. Christ, but that look was good on him. Even in her exhaustion, a heavy, hot warmth pooled in her belly and between her legs.

Eric watched her, a soft, knowing smile on his face.

Trix shut her eyes for a moment and sighed. “Okay. Thank you, Eric, for handling that for Mrs. Johnson.”

“No problem. I was gonna fill in some of those fox and groundhog holes out in the pasture after this. Unless there’s somethin’ more urgent I can do for you?”

Definitely innuendo there. She opened her eyes and gave him a tired sigh. “No. Those holes need fillin’.” Her cheeks heated at the ridiculous double entendre. She turned to Janie. “Come on, Bug. You need a nap.”

“But I want to ride with Eric!” Janie shouted, loudly and rudely.

Oh, God. Trix didn’t want a scene. Not in front of Eric, showing him just how out of control Janie was.

“I can take her,” Eric said quietly. “You look exhausted. Why don’t you go rest a spell?”

“I can’t just—”

“I’ll ride her around the corral with me on Dustin. I can put her down on the cot in the stable if she gets sleepy, or she can help me with chores. She’s a good helper. Aren’t you, Sunshine?”

“Please, Mama?” Janie wheedled.

Trix made a sound of exasperation. “Janie is perfectly capable of ridin’ her own pony. Don’t you want to ride Annabelle? You and I can take a ride after your nap.”

“No, I want to ride with Eric!” Janie said, very, very clearly. She held up her arms toward him as if she was two years old.

Trix gave up. She was too tired to argue. Plus, Dustin was an altogether placid beast, and Eric looked at ease handling him. “Fine. If Eric wants to ride you around the ring, so be it.”

Eric rode Dustin in a small circle so he could get the side of the horse right up close to the fence. He plucked Janie up and sat her in front of him in the saddle. She settled back against him, one small hand on his arm and the other up to her mouth, sucking her thumb, like she was settling in for a bedtime story. Eric nodded at Trix and began to walk Dustin around.

Trix shook her head, gob-smacked at Janie’s behavior. She was usually such an independent little girl, mature and big for her age. She loved riding her own pony, and she’d been puffed up for days this past spring when she’d learned how to saddle Annabelle all by herself. She kept a little pink stool outside Annabelle’s stall so she could reach high enough to brush Annabelle’s back or put on the saddle and cinch it. Why, she hadn’t ridden double like that since….

John.
When she was a baby and toddler, Janie used to ride like that with John.

Trix swallowed down painful tears. It seemed neither she nor Janie was all right, and she didn’t know what to do about that.

She turned for the ranch house, where she could give in to her grief and exhaustion alone.

JEREMY
floated through his shift at Nora’s on Monday morning, Eduardo’s day off, and again on Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, Chris came into Nora’s for lunch with his dad, who was still on crutches. Jeremy was too busy to go out and say hello, but he caught Chris’s eye a few times via the pass-through, and it was like being struck by the Holy Ghost, or so Jeremy imagined. A zap entered from the top of his head and tingled all the way to his toes.

He put chocolate kisses on Chris’s plate again, hidden under the top of the sandwich bun.

Maybe Nora saw those non-menu-item kisses, or maybe he was just acting funny. She came into the kitchen close to closing time. “Hey, darlin’. Can you make up a batch of coleslaw before you leave tonight? We’re nearly out.”

“Sure thing.” Jeremy flipped the two burgers he had on the grill and pushed around some onion slices.

Nora leaned her hip against the counter and studied Jeremy’s face.

“What? I got something on my nose?” He wiped his nose with the inside of his forearm.

“Yeah, your arm, sweet cheeks. I was just thinkin’ that you’re sort of glowin’ these days. You got a girl?”

“Me?” Jeremy said, all innocent.

“Why not? You’re a cutie pie.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Are so. And young too. Why, you’re fresh as a new coat of paint on a baby goat.”

“I am not,” Jeremy protested. “Most days I feel like Methuselah.”

Nora snorted. “Oh, honey. Now see there? That’s why folks in this town don’t understand you. You should say, ‘I ain’t no new coat of paint!’ with a little drawl. Instead of ‘Forsooth: I am not. And now I’ll make a reference that’ll go over thine head.’” Nora put on a snooty voice.

Jeremy laughed. “But talking like that
ain’t
gonna help me when I’m trying to impress someone who
ain’t
from Clyde’s Corner.”

“Oh, those people. Who cares about them!” Nora waved a dismissive hand.

Jeremy shook his head. If he wanted to be a writer, he had to have something to say and say it well. Nora might tease him for “talking up,” but he knew he still had a long way to go to sound wise. About anything.

“No, I hear ya, son,” Nora relented her teasing. “I went to college. I can drop the twang when I need to. But, honest to God, it’s more fun to talk with it. And when you’re a large gal like me, you gotta at least be fun and down-to-earth.”

Jeremy snorted and looked her up and down. Nora had to be around thirty, and she was carrying a good extra fifty pounds. But she kept her dark hair cut in a bob and wore lipstick and everything. She was good-looking enough. For a girl.

“I’m sure you’re just the right size for a lot of men,” Jeremy said.

Nora fanned herself. “Lord, you do go on! ’Course, ‘for a lot of men’ leaves you off the hook. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“I didn’t think I was your type.”

“You ain’t. Too green behind the ears. I like a real man, you know?”

“Sure.”

“At least I think I do. I’ll let you know how it works out if I ever find one.” Nora cackled at her own joke and went back out the swinging door to the front.

EVEN
as distracted as he was, Jeremy couldn’t help but notice that everyone at
Chez Crassen
was acting weird that week.

Ma had gotten her hair dyed and cut, and she had makeup on half the time.
Makeup
. She didn’t even look like the same person.

When Jeremy was little, his mother had been so pretty. He’d told her that a lot as a child, as he recalled.
You’re the prettiest mama in the world
, he’d say. And she’d laugh.

But after his father went to prison, she let herself go. Maybe it was true that eventually the outside conformed to the inside, like Dorian Gray in reverse. She’d been bitter and angry since then, and he didn’t blame her. They’d been handed a shit deal in life. She’d been only eighteen when she’d had Eric. Hard to believe she’d been two years younger than Jeremy was now. So really, she wasn’t
that
old.

Was it possible Ma had met a man? As far as Jeremy knew, she hadn’t dated a single, solitary time since Jeremy’s dad died in prison. Also, she wasn’t bugging him all the time about his part of the “plan” either, which was highly suspicious. No, she only smiled at him like she knew all the secret, sexy thoughts in his head, as if she knew Chris had kissed him.

Which she couldn’t possibly know. No way.

Then there was Eric. Jeremy had never seen his brother so focused and determined about anything. Eric used to sleep late, then laze about the house in the mornings ’til Jeremy went to work. Now he was gone no matter how early Jeremy got up. And when Jeremy got home after his shift at the diner, instead of finding Eric sitting around in the yard with his friends, drinking beer, or gone off on some joyride, he was either already in bed asleep, or he’d just gotten home, looking exhausted and grungy with dirt and horse manure and reeking of sweat.

Sweat.
Eric Crassen. It was a little frightening, to be honest. Jeremy felt like he’d slipped into some alternative universe without knowing it.

Thursday morning, Jeremy woke up at dawn from a tempting dream in which Chris had been kissing him again, first on his mouth, then lower and lower, ’til dream-Chris was doing something real-Jeremy had fantasized about approximately one billion times. In the dream, the vague sense of his cock in Chris’s mouth was maddeningly arousing but not
quite
enough friction. He woke up panting and aching, and it took only a half-dozen slow strokes with his hand, pulling up his foreskin and squeezing it closed over his glans, before he came, his cries muffled by his pillow.

Afterward, he didn’t fall back asleep like he wanted to. There was a strange
thwap, thwap
sound coming from the backyard that kept him awake, and his mind started churning over gambits and possible scenarios for seeing Chris that day. So he got up to make some coffee.

Out the little window above the kitchen sink, he saw Eric in the overgrown backyard, practicing roping.

Jeremy rolled his eyes, despite being secretly impressed, because he was a little brother after all. He went out the back door dressed in the red long john bottoms he liked to sleep in and nothing else. Their trailer home was striped a dingy white and light blue. Their backyard consisted of a concrete slab of a patio with an old awning over it and a small plot of grass. But they were at the edge of the trailer park, so they backed onto an adjacent, overgrown lot, which was nice. At least they couldn’t see neighbors from their backyard. Jeremy sat in an old metal patio chair and watched as Eric swung the lasso over his head and then sent it flying toward a statue of a gnome he’d set on a few cinder blocks. He missed, but it was a near thing.

“What planet are you from, and is my brother dead or do you have his soul in a bottle somewhere?” Jeremy’s first words of the day croaked a little, but were still imbued with the appropriate sarcasm.

“What?” Eric spared Jeremy a fleeting glance as he gathered the rope back up into a coil.

“Riding horses. Learning to rope. Next thing you know, I’ll come home from work and you’ll be dressed as a rodeo clown, rolling around out front in a barrel.” Jeremy could picture it too. The thought made him smile. Hell, he’d pay good money to see that.

“Shut up.” Eric threw the lasso again. It almost went over the gnome, but at the last moment, fell to the side.

“Oooh! So close,” Jeremy commented from the peanut gallery.

Eric ignored him and gathered the rope again.

“Seriously, what’s up with all this cowboy shit? You always made fun of it before. Are you really that set on Trix Stubben?”

Eric paused in his practice and scratched his neck with his free hand. “I figure, even if things don’t work out with Trix, I can probably get a job somewhere on a ranch. Ben said they’re always looking for help at certain times of the year.”

Well, wasn’t that a smack upside the head?

“You honestly like cowboying. This isn’t just about Ma’s plan.” Jeremy said it flatly, like a statement, but in a tone that dripped with disbelief.

“Yeah, I like it. And I’m good at it. So shut your face,” Eric said with a grain of annoyance. “Just like you really like Chris Ramsey. Don’t pretend you don’t. I seen the way you two look at each other during ridin’ lessons.” Eric paused in his practice long enough to make goo-goo eyes, then stick a finger down his throat and gag.

Jeremy’s heart started pounding with alarm. He’d never actually said the words “I’m gay” to anyone, not even Eric. And he wasn’t sure how Eric was going to react. Suddenly he was chilled in the morning air. Goose bumps ran up his wiry arms. “So?” Jeremy managed.

“So what?” Eric shrugged, as if he wasn’t much interested.

He spun the rope above his head and tossed it. He wasn’t nearly as good as Ben, who could make the rope dance in a perfect loop with barely a flick of his wrist, but he didn’t entirely suck either. The lasso landed around the damned gnome, and Eric tugged with a whoop to tighten it. Which of course pulled the gnome off the cinderblocks and onto the grass. But it was lassoed, well and truly.

“Woot!” Eric cheered. He jumped into the air and bounced over to Jeremy, his hand raised for a high five.

Jeremy stood and smacked it. “Impressive, bro.”

Eric grinned, and then, because he was overwhelmed with a complex stew of emotions filled with more unidentifiable elements than Mabe’s “beef surprise,” Jeremy reached out and hugged Eric.

“Dude!” Eric hugged Jeremy back. “It wasn’t that great.”

Jeremy barked out a shaky laugh. “No, just… thanks for being okay with… you know.”

Eric put his hands on Jeremy’s forearms and pushed him back. He had a frown on his brow but was smiling. “Hey, numb nuts, I don’t care if you’re gay. I’m just glad you’re interactin’ with real people instead of scribblin’ in that book of yours all the time.” He shrugged. “Leaves more women for me. Especially if you can get Chris to change his mind.” Eric’s face darkened. “Trix needs me. She works so hard. And with Janie….” He looked Jeremy in the eye, as serious as Jeremy had ever seen him. “And the ranch is so…. Have you ever felt like you really belonged somewhere?”