“That’s because I asked to remain anonymous.”
“Right. Because you’re still way too fucking cool for all this bullshit.”
His response wasn’t unexpected but it still stung. The old me would’ve gone off on him, belittling him, berating him until he slunk away with his tail between his legs, allowing me to feel superior. I didn’t have it in me to be that guy anymore.
“Yeah. That’s it. You’ve got me pegged.” I pushed away from the van. “Nice seein’ you, Cres. Take care.” I skirted the front end of the van and kept walking along the raised ledge of the small ravine until the noise faded and I could breathe.
Heedless of the dusty surface, I found a flat spot and let my feet dangle over the edge. Wasn’t a huge drop, but it’d be a bitch to climb out of if I slipped. Good thing I hadn’t been drinking. Scooping up a handful of rocks, I thought about the last time I’d seen Cres—at Sutton and London’s wedding. So much of that time was a blur of booze. I’d managed to scrounge up a date because back then it’d been paramount to keep up appearances.
Nothing to see over here, folks. Just a horny single cowboy adding a new notch on his championship belt by bedding yet another hot woman.
I’d had a huge ego back then too. It’d been heady stuff, knowing guys wanted to be me; on fire in the arena and burning up the sheets with a different buckle bunny every night.
But it’d all been a lie. A house of cards about to tumble and crush me like a bug.
I might’ve been able to survive rumors of fucking anything with a pulse if I’d had a winning season. In previous years, officials, sponsors, and even rodeo fans chalked up the rumors of my insatiable sexual appetite as blowing off steam after my many wins. The whispers of my sexcapades with same-sex partners were written off as drunken experimentation after too many Jäger shots. Even the wildest rumors worked to my advantage and added to my status that I could have any woman I wanted on her knees with just a look.
Problem was it wasn’t a woman I wanted on her knees.
When I began to lose on the circuit, the females I’d counted on to flock around me as camouflage began to flit away. I should’ve become more cautious at that point, not more reckless. Somehow I believed my oversized championship belt buckle had become a shield. That I was invincible. Impervious. That with three All-Around world titles I could be forgiven anything.
Wrong.
When you’re on the highest rung of the ladder, hitting the bottom leaves you far more broken than you ever imagined.
It’d been a long, slow recovery and no climb back to the top. And for me, there’d been no privacy while I dealt with the various traumas—physical and mental. There’d been no one to lean on, no one to talk to.
That had been the reality of my life the past three years. Humbled and lonely.
I tossed a pebble at a flat rock and watched it bounce down into the ravine.
Boot steps shuffled behind me.
Had I really thought he’d let me go without poking his nose into my business?
You were hoping he wouldn’t.
Cres crouched next to me. “What happened to you?”
“Depends on who you ask,” I said.
“I’m askin’ you, Breck.”
I turned my head and met his gaze. Brown eyes the color of cinnamon stared back at me. I let my focus drift over Cres’s face. Damn man still had the power to render me incoherent. All those rugged angles that made up his face epitomized magnificent. Seeing his curiosity and not pity allowed me to say, “Pull up a rock.”
He shifted from a crouch into a sitting position. “You couldn’t have stormed off to a table by the bar instead of the edge of a cliff?”
“I didn’t storm off,” I retorted. “And it’s hardly a cliff.”
“I remember you always had a flair for drama.”
“I’ve had enough drama to last a lifetime.” I shot him a sideways glance. “And if you use the word queen, I’m pushing you over the edge.”
“Whoa.” Cres put up his hands in mock surrender. “Never crossed my mind. So am I the only person at the open house that doesn’t have a freakin’ clue as to what’s goin’ on with you?”
“Probably. In the words of the reporter who wrote the article, ‘this story rocked the very foundation of the rodeo community.’”
“That bad, huh? What’d you do? Shoot a jealous lover in self-defense or something?”
I snorted. “Sad to say I’d be forgiven for that. Really sad to think that homicide is preferable to bein’ a homosexual in the pro rodeo world.”
That admission startled him. “That’s what’s goin’ on with you? Jesus. I had no idea.” He paused and studied me.
“No one did.”
Cres reached for a small rock and chucked it at the other side, sending up a puff of dirt. “What made you decide to come out?”
“I didn’t. The decision was taken out of my hands.”
“Really? How?”
“Cockiness on my part. I’d been seeing this guy Carlyle off and on. He wasn’t part of the rodeo scene so I thought I was safe. He knew I was in the closet and he seemed fine with it…until he wasn’t. He hated the bunnies, even when nothin’ was happening between them and me. He went from waitin’ for me in the motel room to waitin’ for me outside the stock pens. And if I tried to dodge him, well, he cranked the gay on high and threw a major sissy-hissy fit. To make matters worse, I had the shittiest run of my career. I wasn’t even in the top twenty in my circuit. So I broke it off with him, telling him I needed to concentrate on getting back on top—which wasn’t exactly a lie. I thought he understood what was at stake for me. I thought he’d keep his mouth shut and move on.”
“What’d he do?”
“Called Country Times Today magazine, that piece of crap rag devoted to gossip in the country music scene that also regularly reports on CRA and EBS standings. Carlyle spilled his guts and my secrets, all in the guise of helping us find our way back to each other because he believed ‘our love shouldn’t have to be hidden away.’” Yeah. No sarcasm there.
“Lemme guess. This guy was a pretty-boy model type? From one of the coasts?” Cres said with a sneer in his tone.
I couldn’t even bristle at that presumption because he’d hit it right on. “Everyone has a type. A pretty boy happens to be mine.” I started to remind Cres that’s why he and I had hooked up—his pretty face with those high cheekbones, chiseled jawline, aristocratic nose, and full lips did it for me in a bad way. The passing years had just fine-tuned his features and he’d grown from a pretty boy into a beautiful man.
“So the country tattler printed the story and then…?”
My neck and face burned hot, as it always did whenever I thought about the day my life as I’d known it had ended. “It wasn’t just a small paragraph buried in the back of the rodeo stats page. I’d scored the front cover and an eight-page spread with other ‘secret male lovers’ coming forward. Christ. They even had pictures. One picture in particular of me and Carlyle in bed. I was asleep with my head on his chest, so I had no fucking idea he’d even taken it.
“I’d finally started winning again and that’s why I thought there were a bunch of reporters waitin’ for me after I’d won the tie-down and bulldoggin’ events in Prescott. The appearance of the article completely blindsided me. As did all the questions about my perversions as a liar and a sodomite who’d hopped on the express train to hell.”
He whistled.
“Yeah. And it gets better. Although I never figured out which one of my competitors had a hand in getting the article published, all the rest of them took advantage of running me down when the AP got ahold of the story. The national news services interviewed anyone who would talk smack about me—which was everyone. Guys I’d never met claimed they’d always known something was ‘off’ with me. Each quote was another blow, knocking me so deep into the dirt…” I feared I’d never dig myself out. I paused and swallowed hard. “Not a single person on the circuit stood up for me,
Cres. Not one. I’d been friends with some of them for a decade. I’d helped them out professionally. Several of the guys…I’d been at their ranches workin’ as a hand during calving and branding. I knew their wives and their kids and they all turned their backs on me.”
“Man. That is harsh. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Most people thought I got what I had coming to me. There was talk for a few months of the CRA stripping me of my world titles. It never happened, but my name was tarnished beyond repair at that point anyway. My sponsors dropped me. The rodeo organizations, even at the county level, banned me from competing. People laugh about bein’ blackballed, but it is a very real and a very ugly thing.” I couldn’t admit to him that even the “rainbow” circuit for gay cowboys wouldn’t have me because I refused to publicly state my sexual orientation.
“What’d you do?”
“Went home to South Dakota. Or I tried to go home. My brother was waitin’ for me at the end of the road, blocking me from stepping foot on the family farm. He didn’t say a word to me when he handed me the paper that cut all ties and connections to the Christianson family.”
“You’re fucking kiddin’ me.”
I shook my head. “Mom and Dad, my brothers and my sister—they disowned me. They wrote letters denouncing me and had them notarized and everything. The last bit of paperwork denied me any future claim whatsoever on any part of the Christianson farm or the land despite the fact I’d sunk three quarters of a million dollars into keeping it afloat over the years. Since they were family, I never asked for a legal contract, so I was fucked.”
“Didn’t the magazine at least give you a chance to tell your side of the story? Or interview you?”
“Nope. They told the story as they saw fit. The following month they’d moved on to something else. By then, I had no choice but to move on because the article had destroyed my life as I knew it. I lost everything.”
“What happened to the Carlyle guy who sold the story to the magazine?” he demanded.
“He left me a voice mail full of self-righteousness, pointing out I’d brought everything on myself by denying my true nature.”
“That wasn’t for him to decide.”
“True. But he wasn’t wrong. Maybe everything would’ve blown up in my face eventually. It just happened sooner rather than later.” I knocked my shoulder into his. “Enough about me. What’s goin’ on with you?”
Cres stiffened up. “Not much. Ranching with Wyn.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep.” His face fell into shadow when he lowered his head and focused on brushing the dust off his jeans.
“I pour my guts out about the shitshow that my life has become and ‘not much, ranching with Wyn’ is all I get from you? Fuck that, Cres. Do they know—?”
“That I’m gay? Yeah. I came out after Sutton and London got together.”
Something about that timeframe sparked a memory. “A few months after we hooked up in Denver?”
“Yep.” Cres fastened his gaze to mine. “It’s because of you that I had the balls to start that ‘I’m gay’ conversation with them.”
“Why?” Hopefully I hadn’t given him some stupid drunken speech about honesty when I hadn’t been honest with myself about who I was until I’d been forced into it.
“Because I didn’t want to live my life like you.”
My jaw tightened.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said apologetically. “I know why you chose that. In a sport like rodeo where the motto is ‘God and country first,’ bein’ openly gay just ain’t done. Not surprised you didn’t have any support when you were outed; more than a few guys on the circuit were probably sweating bullets that they’d be found out too.”
“I was so goddamned angry about the breach of privacy that I’m ashamed to admit I considered takin’ some of them that I’d been with over the years down with me.”
“But you didn’t, did you?” he asked alarmingly.
I shook my head. “How would takin’ their choice away make me any different than what Carlyle did to me?”
Cres seemed relieved. And surprised.
Because I acted like a decent person? At one time I’d been proud of my asshole reputation. No wonder I’d isolated myself.
“Anyway, back to you. Did anything else besides seein’ me livin’ a lie prompt you to come out?”
“I’d gotten tired of the fix ups. Tired of women coming onto me and creating excuses about why I wasn’t interested. Tired of the questions about when I planned to settle down. I wanted to be done pretending.”
“You showed more maturity than I did. At an earlier age than I did.”
“Yeah. Well, we’re all different.” He readjusted his hat.
Even a basic compliment still made him squirm and that just got to me. And charmed the hell out of me.
“Was there any fallout from the women you’d been linked to?”
“I’d only had two girlfriends during my years on the circuit who could be considered long term. They both knew I preferred dick and had their own agenda as to why they let me use them as cover. Celia Lawson—Celia Gilchrist now—wanted to build a reputation for bein’ wild. And Lally Bunker…” I smirked. “She happily joined in threesomes—as long as it involved girl-on-girl time for her. So I got the rep for demanding girl-on-girl action from the bunnies chasin’ after me, which worked as cover for both of us.”
Cres studied me. “That week we spent together, you told me you were bisexual.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and gave a sheepish chuckle. “I was an idiot, okay? I thought if I said it enough times then maybe I’d start to believe it. It would’ve been an easier road, refuting the ‘you’re gay’ accusations by telling people I liked sexual variety and hated sexual labels.”
“You still could’ve taken that tack after the article released,” he pointed out.
“But like you said, I wanted to be done pretending. So your family was okay with you when you told them about batting for the other team?”
“They were surprised, but it didn’t change anything. I still had a job on the ranch. A home near them. And yeah, I do know how lucky I am to have that family support when I hear that others don’t. So speaking of family…” Cres stood. “I’d probably better get back to the party. My brothers will wonder why I disappeared again.” He offered his hand to help me up.
“Thanks.”
Cres pulled a little too hard and I nearly knocked him over when I popped to my feet. I kept ahold of his hand and circled my arm around his lower back to steady him.
At that moment a breeze from the ravine eddied around us, gifting me with a whiff of his skin and the lime scent of his shaving cream. During our time together in Denver, I spent hours kissing and nuzzling that strong jawline and the smooth contour of his throat. Now, with my hand on his strong back and his scent beckoning me, I wanted to haul that hard body against mine and surround myself with him.
Maybe only your dick is hard right now. Maybe this lust is one-sided.
But Cres tilted his head back, almost as if he was offering me a taste of his mouth or his throat and murmured, “You’re not as heavy as I remember.”
The heat in his eyes when straight to my balls. “No need to maintain all that bulk if I’m not usin’ it to take down a steer.”
“How is it that less looks good on you?” he said huskily.
My eyes searched his. I liked what I saw when I looked at him—eagerness, which hit the perfect mark between shy and sexy. “You flirting with me, Cres?”
He blushed and tried to retreat. “That isn’t why I followed you.”
I softened my stance and my tone. I didn’t want to scare him away. “Why did you follow me?”
“To apologize for making assumptions about you. I understand probably more than anyone that people do change.”
There was another thing I remembered about him that I’d found so damn appealing besides that muscular body honed by honest labor
—a genuine sweetness. “I appreciate you sayin’ that.”
“Besides, it’s been so long for me, I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten how to flirt.”
“Trust me, you’re doin’ fine.” I cocked my head. “But you have changed.”
“I ditched the passive persona.”
Cres was so freaking intense with the way he studied me and my reaction to his declaration. “You weren’t passive with me.”
“But I wasn’t assertive either.”
“Is that how you are now? Assertive?”
He waited a beat to make sure he had my full attention when he said, “Very.”
Fuck. Me. That one word. That determined look proved time hadn’t cooled the red-hot attraction between us.
The head in my pants urged me to step forward, but the head on my shoulders resisted, reminding me that I’d learned the hard way not to make the first move.
“You couldn’t have gotten ugly and bitter after your forced coming out? Let yourself go to hell?” he said lightly.
I laughed. “I’m sorry you’re disappointed.”
“I’m not.” Cres gave me a very thorough once-over. “So not. You still pack one helluva sexual punch, Breck.”
When our gazes clashed again, I said “fuck it” to myself about not making the first move. I inched closer. “Did you come to this open house alone?”
“I rode with Wyn.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He jammed his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and admitted, “I’m here solo.”
“You’re not involved with anyone?”
“Nope.”
The relief I felt must’ve shown because Cres smirked. “Are you?”
“As you can imagine I’ve developed some serious trust issues, so no.”
“Then I’m glad I came,” he said huskily. “Even if it was too late to take any of the tours.”
I tipped my head toward the arena. “I could show you around the complex if you want.”
“Sure. If you don’t mind stopping at the food tent first. I skipped out on supper.”
“I oughta check in anyway and see if there’s anything I’m supposed to be doin’.”
Strung Up: A Blacktop Cowboys® Novella Page 3