by Jan Irving
He opened the door, and they hesitated on the threshold before they entered the warm, fragrant kitchen.
Chapter Four
“WHAT’S that scent?” Nate immediately asked Aaron.
Aaron smiled, thinking he’d finally shown something new to the worldly cowboy.
“It is cardamom. I put it in the spice cake. I noticed… you like basil, you like herbs and spices.” Aaron nodded to the clump of light green leaves in his windowsill that Nate liked to finger every morning.
“Well.” Nate rubbed his hands on his jeans and then took off his jacket, standing there. After a moment, Aaron took it from him and hung it on a peg by the door. He pointed to the table. “Sit.”
“Right.” Nate sat down, reaching out to run a hand over his utensils. Aaron stared at him.
“What?”
“It is strange, having a man friend over for supper,”
Aaron said as he sat down.
“Man friend.” Nate grinned.
Aaron remembered the flowers, picking them up from the table where he’d left them and taking them to the sink.
He filled an empty jam jar with water and plunked them in before setting them on the table.
“Dinner smells amazing.”
“I used eggplant in the casserole. I am still… I did not cook before coming here, but it was the only job available.”
“What did you do?” Nate settled back to listen, and Aaron found himself relaxing. It felt good to talk to someone again.
“I grew crops, vegetables, repaired equipment, and kept some chickens for eggs. The month before I left, I whitewashed the inside of my barn.”
“That’s kind of like white paint, right?”
“Not a paint, it is an old recipe. In our barn, I would apply it once a year. It was a good anti-bacterial.”
Aaron thought of that house. How he’d closed the shutters, swept the porch, and then taken Samuel’s hand, leading him away from it.
“I can’t imagine what it would be like, leaving everything I was used to behind,” Nate said. He reached out, as if to touch Aaron’s hand. Aaron felt a strange ache under his breast bone at the aborted gesture.
He stood up from his chair. “I will check on the casserole,” he said, opening the oven so a waft of dry scented air washed over him. He pulled out the bubbling creation. It looked good, the eggplant overlaid with fresh potatoes and other vegetables from his garden.
“Oh boy,” Nate muttered. He leaned over to sniff the food when Aaron placed it on the center of the table, pleasing Aaron so he flushed from more than the heat of the stove.
Samuel came in then, saving Aaron from having to call him. Aaron nodded to him, and he brought milk in a jug from the fridge, pouring it fresh for Nate and then Aaron and last of all himself. He was dressed neatly for company, Aaron noted with approval.
When the food was all on the table, Aaron bowed his head and Samuel did the same. He glanced under his eyelashes at Nate and saw him lower his head after a hesitation. Aaron gave thanks for the meal and then thanks for the company. He saw Nate color as he said the last.
They passed the food, and at first Aaron didn’t say much, used to eating in silence with Samuel after all these months.
Nate told a story of how he’d had one of the horses step on his foot the other day, so that after a while Aaron noticed that they’d all finished and he and his son were watching Nate, who was living up to his other name, Happy, with his hand gestures and his teasing.
Samuel had a faint smile on his face.
“So how’s school going, buddy?” Nate asked him.
Samuel dropped his head.
Aaron cut into the cake and served out portions before pouring out hot coffee for the adults. He knew Nate took it “black as sin,” as he always said. Aaron always chided his choice of words but that only made the cowboy grin. It had become a joke between them.
“When I was your age, I got beat up a lot. It was scary and humiliating,” Nate told Samuel. “Back then, you know, we just thought it was something all kids have to go through sometime.”
Samuel stood up and collected plates. Nate looked over at Aaron, giving him a rueful little shrug. Aaron sipped from his coffee. The cardamom tasted strange to his plain tastes.
He wasn’t sure he’d got it right, but Nate had seemed to like the cake. Samuel only ate half of his, dumping the rest into the compost bin.
“Do you have homework?” Aaron asked his son.
Samuel shook his head but then gestured to the door.
“Yes,” Aaron said, watching as his son put on his coat before leaving the cabin quietly.
Nate raised his brows.
“He is going to check on our goat, Martha, and our hens,” Aaron said. “He likes spending time with the animals we keep in the shed.”
“Then this is a good place you brought him to.”
Aaron nodded, sitting back in satisfaction. Perhaps the meal had not been perfect, but he felt full and grateful not to be alone right now. So often he cleaned up and then after putting Samuel to bed wandered outside, heart heavy.
“You’re old Mennonite, aren’t you?”
Aaron raised his brows before nodding.
“I, uh, did some research on the computer in the bunkhouse,” Nate admitted. “When you said you weren’t Amish, I wanted to know more about you.”
“My grandfather broke away from a larger community and brought my family and some other families with him. He wanted to live a stricter life. He was very….” Aaron spread his hands. “People liked to follow him.”
“Charismatic.”
“We would not say that.”
“Probably not, but it sounds like it.”
“Yes.” Aaron admitted. “I thought I’d live all my days in my community. But Samuel… I felt him moving further and further away. I looked for answers, talked to the fellowship, prayed.” He expelled a deep breath. “But as the days stretched on, I became afraid, Nate. More and more afraid. In my heart… I knew we had to leave.”
“You’re as brave as your son.”
Aaron shook his head. “No. I left for him. I did not leave for myself.”
Nate frowned, but before he could ask the question Aaron saw in his eyes, the door creaked open and Samuel appeared. His eyes were wide and his face was flushed from the cold.
“Time for bed,” Aaron said, relieved that the conversation should break now, like the icicle he’d snapped in his hand the other night.
Samuel shook his head frantically, pointing toward the open door.
Aaron and Nate stood up and walked out onto the porch with Samuel, who gestured toward the trees across from the cabin, which was set in a high crease of the foothills. They stretched for miles, slowly climbing up into the mountains that blocked some of the stars on the far horizon. Outside it was very dark, dark the way it was in the country, so at first Aaron couldn’t make out what his son wanted to show him and Nate.
Samuel took his hand and led him down to the path, and in the cracked earth, with ice forming hard peaks, he made out fresh horse tracks.
“Oh….” Instinctively his hands went on Samuel’s shoulders. “You saw some horses?”
“Not one of ours,” Nate said, kneeling to take a closer look. “That’s what I wanted to tell the boss. That dead foal I found wasn’t one of ours; it was a mustang.”
Samuel was a warm and relaxed sturdy shape under his hands. Aaron could feel his happiness, and it made his spirits pick up. Perhaps things would work out here.
When they returned indoors, Nate was shaking his head. “The wild horses have been gone for a long time from this area. They were rounded up and hunted down about twenty years ago.”
“It has been very dry,” Aaron noted.
Nate nodded. “Yeah. They might have come down here because of all the irrigation.”
Samuel left them then, heading toward his room. Aaron let out a deep sigh. “Seeing them made him happy.”
“Maybe things are turning aro
und for him,” Nate said, echoing Aaron’s earlier thought. They didn’t return to the table but lingered by the front door. Aaron knew that soon Nate would leave. They both had an early morning the next day.
“That is what I hope,” Aaron said.
“I noticed you put your hands on his shoulders. Touch is a powerful way to communicate,” Nate said. “My mother… she’s not only a retired nurse, but she practices energy healing through touch.”
Aaron blinked. “Oh, yes?”
Nate smiled. “Probably sounds very strange.”
“Yes and no. It seems to make sense to me.”
“You know it as truth,” Nate said. “I can see you use it with your son sometimes, reaching him despite how he’s tried to close everyone out.”
“You think that is what he is doing?” But Aaron felt it too. He sighed, rubbing the tight muscles on the back of his neck. “He has locked me out.”
“It has to be very lonely, but you aren’t alone here, Aaron. There are good people on this ranch. You might also take him to see Doc Morgan sometime. He’s an MD, but it might be he has some suggestions for helping Samuel.”
“I have heard he is a good doctor,” Aaron admitted. “I am not sure about the therapy that Mrs. Henderson described. I keep waiting for Samuel to share with me what has rolled a rock over his heart.”
“I hope he does that sometime, Aaron,” Nate said.
“Maybe Morgan can suggest where there is some free counseling for kids. He’s really good about helping people.”
He paused and added dryly, “You probably also heard the doc lives with another man.”
Aaron’s cheeks heated. “Yes.”
“They have a little girl. I know this might be hard for you to accept, coming from such a strict place, but they have a good life.”
“Is that what you want for yourself?” Aaron studied Nate, seeing his gray eyes were the color of heavy thunderclouds in the dim light.
Nate raised his chin. “Yes, I want someone to come home to. I want a family.”
“And yet you date many men.” Aaron had been glad that Nate hadn’t had a date this night. He’d wanted him, his dancing spirit, for him and his son.
“I need touch,” Nate said. “It can be lonely being single, and I like to be touched.”
Aaron felt that ache come back he’d experienced earlier when Nate had almost touched him. “…Yes,” he rasped.
Nate studied him and then licked his lips. “I could touch you.”
Aaron tensed.
“I mean, just touch to… to let you feel not so alone, Aaron. Like my mother taught me. Will you let me try?”
“Energy healing?” Aaron repeated what Nate had outlined earlier. “I….” He should say no. “What do I do?”
Nate wasn’t as tall as he was. He was built on more slender lines, not the big, awkward mountain of a man like Aaron often felt. He had freckles on his nose, on his cheeks.
“If you could unbutton your shirt, just halfway down your chest,” Nate said with his voice softer now, hushed as if he was trying to reassure a small bird trapped inside a window.
Aaron hesitated, but as he stared into Nate’s eyes, he felt trust. Nate had helped him and Samuel. Still, his fingers trembled as they pulled aside his suspenders and then went to the top button of his homespun shirt. He unbuttoned it and saw Nate’s gaze fall, watched him looking at Aaron’s bare skin as he revealed it.
He wasn’t like Nate. He was pale as snow in contrast to the times he’d seen Nate without a shirt, sun-browned like warm wood. He swallowed, his heart thudding until at last his shirt was loosened.
“Now can you….” Nate cleared his throat. “Can you spread your shirt?”
The act of disrobing for someone was something he’d only done for his wife. Breathing through his parted lips, he opened the material and revealed his nipples and the little silky curl of white blond hair in the center of his chest. He saw Nate’s eyes focus on that.
“You have the most incredible hair color, like something out of Hansel and Gretel,” Nate said.
Aaron could think of nothing to say to that. His hands fell to his sides. As the plastic clock in the other room counted out the seconds, his fists balled.
Nate closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then another, his face upturned as if in prayer.
Aaron watched him, holding his own breath. When Nate finally reached out and laid two palms against Aaron’s naked chest, Aaron gasped.
Nate’s heavy eyelids flickered open to look at him, his eyes soft. “Easy,” he said in the same tone he used with his horses sometimes. “Easy, Aaron, it’s okay.”
Aaron felt his blood rushing through his veins, fast, powerful, so he felt like a conqueror, not a simple farmer. He looked down and saw Nate’s hands against his skin, the contrast of color, felt the texture of the calluses on the pads of Nate’s fingers. The other man’s face looked serious, concentrating, but all Aaron could feel was… hands on him….
“Aaron!”
Nate. Nate’s voice. Aaron had lifted him, shoved him against the corner of the cabin, between the door and the wall. Nate’s smoky eyes were wide and shocked, his lips parted, his hands tangled in Aaron’s shirt, which gaped open.
Aaron kissed him. He devoured him, eating Nate’s mouth like a feast, and he was starving, starving to be a man again, blazing, and standing between Nate’s legs which curled around his hips. Nate’s hands locked in Aaron’s hair, stroking over his beard as he kissed back, letting Aaron have him.
Chapter Five
HEAT, flesh, the sound of a whimper. He made that sound.
He clawed Aaron’s back. Nate broke away from the desperate kisses Aaron burned over his face, his neck.
“Shit!” Nate’s legs slid, his groin brushing against Aaron so he felt him hard, swollen, and huge.
Nate sagged into the corner and held up a hand to ward Aaron away, since the other man looked like he was ready to toss Nate over his shoulder— holy fuck!
Puffing for breath, he put his hands on his hips. A hard-on won’t kill me. A hard-on won’t kill me. Oh shit!
When he glanced up he saw Aaron looking just as shell-shocked as he felt, as if they’d set off a bomb when they’d touched. The big man leaned against the kitchen table where they’d eaten with Samuel just a short time ago. He trembled, with his pupils blown.
“Aaron,” Nate said softly, recognizing the other man was in a state.
Aaron rubbed a hand over his bare chest, as if retracing the experience, as if reliving Nate touching him there... Nate watched that hand as it traveled down and cupped a sizeable erection. Aaron stared at him, stroking himself. It was both the most dominant display Nate had ever seen, and the most innocent.
“Oh hell, will you stop doing that? You make me want to get on my knees for you.”
Aaron’s eyes flared. “Nate.”
Nate put up his hands. “What just happened? Did you just… oh my God, I just about came.”
“Came?” Aaron was still out of it.
Nate laughed ruefully, running a hand over his jaw.
“Came as in shot, climaxed, got off. Oh fuck….” Talking about it was not helping. “You’re straight.”
Aaron opened his mouth, closed it.
Nate felt rejected by Aaron’s hesitance. This was just some kind of weird accident brought on by Aaron’s isolation and loneliness. “You’re straight unless you make it clear you’re not,” he said, folding his arms.
“You touched me and I felt your electricity.”
“And I felt yours!” Nate agreed with feeling. He turned to the door. “I’m leaving now.”
Aaron moved to block his way. His hair was wild from Nate’s hands. His lips were reddened from their wild kisses.
“Nate….”
Nate let out a deep sigh and couldn’t stop himself from connecting again with Aaron. He nuzzled him, their foreheads touching, Aaron’s fingers threading through his own. Touch. Holy crap, it gave all new meaning to the word, a
s if all this time Nate had only experienced it with half of his senses. “In the morning you might hate me, yourself. I don’t want that, Aaron,” he whispered.
“No, never hate,” Aaron said, his dark eyes as serious as a promise.
Nate swallowed the big lump in his throat before he pulled himself away from Aaron, opening the door and letting the cool air in and with it, hopefully, sanity.
Aaron followed him out onto the porch. When Nate’s boots crunched on the gravel leading back toward the bunkhouse, Aaron called out, “You are my friend.”
BEING noble was a bitch.
Nate couldn’t sleep, throwing the covers off in disgust.
His bare body was covered in perspiration, all worked up. He kept imagining what might have happened if he hadn’t stopped Aaron. The other man didn’t seem to have a red light. He’d been all green for go.
Nate groaned at that thought. His cock flexed as if it felt the grip of Aaron’s fingers wrapped around it. It was the second erection that night, since Nate had taken care of the first one in the shower right after he’d returned to the bunkhouse.
He turned on his side, feeling a phantom large body behind him, spooning him. A callused hand running over his belly, stroking him until it found where he was needy.
Damn, he was never going to get any sleep at this rate and he had a lot of work to do the next day. He stroked himself again, still wildly sensitive from coming so recently.
He knew he had to back off, and he had to be cool about things. Aaron had been clearly out of his mind, so he couldn’t hold the other man to it. He was so innocent, and so passionate….
“Shit!” Just the memory of those lips taking his, of Aaron lifting him, claiming him—
Nate came hard, his whole body shaking. After, he wrapped his arms around himself, listening to his pounding heart.
As much as he told himself not to hope, not to believe; Aaron’s kiss, it changed everything.
THE next morning Aaron found himself having difficulty showing patience with Samuel.
“You can do a better job of rinsing those dishes in the sink, Samuel! The wild horse tracks will still be there later if you want to look for them,” Aaron chided. “And don’t drop any eggs bringing them to the roadside stand this morning.”