“Thanks, Len. Sometimes I just think I’ve taken on too much. There’s a lot riding on the decisions I make, and I don’t want to get things wrong.”
“I’m here; Fred, Lumpy, and Pete are here; and we care about this place as much as you do. We’ve all put our blood, sweat, and tears into this place, so we’re here for you. We’ll help, and we’ll tell you if we think something’s wrong.”
Geoff noticed Len watching him for a while. “What is it that’s really gotten to you?” Len asked.
“I just can’t figure out how we’ll get all this land tilled, planted, and ready in time.”
“There’s your problem; we don’t till. In the fall we harvest and leave the remains in the fields. Most of it breaks down over the winter, and in the spring we just plant again. That helps the soil and prevents erosion of the topsoil. Provided it doesn’t rain, we’ll start planting in the next couple of weeks. I’ve already got Lumpy tuning up the equipment and getting everything ready.”
Geoff got up from the desk and walked to Len, putting his arms around his neck and giving the man a hug. “Thanks.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of. I got your back.” Len returned the hug like he always did. “While you were growing up, I was always careful what I called you, didn’t want you to get confused. Cliff was your dad, and you were his son. So I always called you Geoff, and you always called me Len. But I always thought of you as my son.”
“I may have called you Len, but I always thought of you as my dad just as much as him.” It was starting again. Geoff could feel his grief welling up again. “Good God, we’re turning into girls.”
They both laughed and released the hug. That had become their catchphrase whenever they were getting really maudlin. Geoff wiped his eyes and went back to the desk. There were some questions he wanted to ask, but the phone rang, distracting him. “Hello.”
“Geoff, is that you? Ready to come back to the city?” That voice just rang through the line.
“Raine, how are you? It’s good to hear from you again. I called, but you must have been out.” Geoff closed the ledgers and books, putting things away while he talked.
“Yeah, I got your message. I was at Spank. God, was that place hopping. Bet you miss the nightlife.” He could almost see Raine dancing at Spank, having a good time.
“Don’t really have time to miss it. Way too busy with planning, the accounts, learning everything my dad did around here. But I go riding every day, and the guys are really cool, and I’ve met some people I went to high school with.”
“Sounds dreary, but then again, so is the office now that you’re gone.”
“You were talking about leaving the company before I left,” Geoff reminded him.
“I’m looking. Mr. Vain certainly isn’t making this place any more fun, that’s for sure. Everything is about making him look good, and that man is dumb.” Raine made all kinds of sounds to illustrate just how dumb he was, and that started Geoff laughing. It felt good to laugh, really laugh. “So I gotta ask, have you met any hot country boys? Like you see on calendars and stuff.”
Geoff snickered. “No. I haven’t met any boys at all, not really. The only guys are the ones who work for me, and most of them are married. Besides, I’ve been too busy.” He really had. His days started early, and he was exhausted by the time he went to bed.
“You said most of the guys are married. What about the other ones?” Raine would pick up on that.
Geoff heard the television click on in the living room: Len watching some sitcom, the laughter carrying into the office. “Jesus, Raine, you want me to rob the cradle or something?”
“What about the guy you found sleeping in the barn? He didn’t sound too young.”
“Eli?”
“He’s over eighteen, isn’t he? Is he cute?” Geoff was about to answer when something clicked in his brain. Eli was cute… in fact, Eli was…. He pulled his mind away from that thought. There was no way he was thinking about Eli like that.
“Well?” Raine asked persistently.
Geoff just couldn’t go there. “Eli’s Amish, Raine.” He tried to make the very idea sound ridiculous so Raine would drop it.
“You mean Amish Amish, like they-use-horse-and-buggies Amish?” Geoff laughed; he couldn’t help it. The disbelief in Raine’s voice was completely priceless. To someone like Raine, who couldn’t get along without his cell phone, microwave oven, video games, and every other electronic device known to man, the thought of going without any of it must have sounded like a stint in pure hell.
“Yes, no-electricity-no-cars-no-television Amish.”
“Yeah, okay, he may be electronically challenged, but is he cute?”
Geoff was so not going there. He lowered his voice, not wanting Len to overhear, because he knew how this was going to sound. “He works for me. It doesn’t matter if he’s cute, gorgeous, sexy, or a stud and a half. I can’t be thinking about him or any of the guys who work for me like that. It wouldn’t be right.”
“It wouldn’t be right for you to do anything, but you have eyes. You can look, can’t you?”
“Raine! Can we please talk about something else?”
“What else is there to talk about? You moved away to become a poor farmer, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves in the big city.”
God, Raine could be such a smartass. And Geoff was anything but a poor farmer. He’d reviewed all the accounts and had even gone to the bank to make sure they were right. The farm as it stood did very well, and his dad had set aside ten percent of the profits each year, for God knows how long, in an emergency fund to tide them through lean years. That fund was now enough to run the farm for five years. But there was no way he was telling Raine that. The man would be in the car in five minutes and on the way there to “help” Geoff spend it.
“You could always come for a visit. I’d love to take you riding.” Raine on a horse; now that would be a sight.
“Riding what? I only ride one thing, and you know it.”
“If you’ve never been on a horse, then you don’t know what you’re missing. Fifteen hundred pounds of hot, sweaty, pounding muscle between your legs. What more could you ask?” That set them both cackling to beat the band.
Geoff heard something in the background that sounded like Raine’s bell. “I gotta go,” Raine said.
“Okay, you have fun. I’ll talk to you later.” They disconnected and Geoff put the phone back in its cradle and joined Len in the living room.
“Where’s Eli?” Geoff asked.
“Probably still in the barn. You know he never comes in until it’s almost too dark to see.”
“I gotta give him credit, the man works hard, really hard.”
Len sat up in his chair. “He does, but I think he also doesn’t know what to do with his time. I suspect that his life in the community was quite regimented and full, so when he has extra time, he fills it with more work.” Geoff nodded, wondering what Len was getting at. “You go riding every morning—take him with you,” Len suggested. “He’d probably enjoy it; you’d have some company, and it would give him something to do besides work.”
Geoff swallowed, the conversation with Raine fresh in his mind. But Len was right. It would probably do them both good. “Thanks, Len.”
Instead of watching television, Geoff glanced out one of the windows and saw that the lights were still on in the barn. Leaving the room, he walked outside, the dogs greeting him right away. “Come on, pups, let’s go see what Eli’s doing.” He walked toward the barn, the dogs following, their tails wagging.
In the barn, he found Eli by Princess’s stall, the young man watching the mother and colt. The dogs ran up to him, and he smiled, patting and scratching the mutts.
“What’s up, Eli?”
His attention shifted from the dogs. “Just watching the colt.”
“You know you don’t have to stay out here. You can come in the house.”
Eli shrugged a little. “I know—”
> “What is it?” Shit, of course. “You’re a little homesick, aren’t you?” Why hadn’t he thought of it before? This was probably the first time in his life that Eli had been away from his family. Of course he was homesick.
“What is homesick?” He looked up at Geoff, those blue eyes huge and longing.
“It means that you miss your family.”
“Yes, I’m homesick.” Eli looked down, “Not that you haven’t been good to me.”
“It’s only natural that you’d miss your family.” Geoff sat down on a hay bale. “The first time I left home, it was to go to summer camp at Stony Lake. I was only going to be away from home for a week, but as soon as my dad left, all I wanted to do was go home. I didn’t know any of the other kids, and everything was strange, even the food.”
“What happened?”
“After about two hours, I met Matt. After three hours, I was having so much fun swimming and playing with the other kids that I forgot all about being homesick. And before I knew it, the week was over.”
“Were you happy when your dad came to get you?”
“Actually, I asked if I could stay another week.” The surprised look on Eli’s face was priceless. “You see, I’d grown up a little during that week, realized I could get along on my own and have fun doing it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that maybe you need to add a little fun to your day. Do something you enjoy… for example, riding horses.” Eli’s face lit up, and Geoff continued, “I go riding almost every morning. It’s one of the things I do for fun, and I was wondering if you’d like to join me?”
“Go riding with you?”
“Sure. The horses need exercise, and we need some fun. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I just thought you might enjoy it,” Geoff said.
“I would, thank you.” The dogs had settled on the floor, crowding around their legs.
“Is there anything else you like to do?” Geoff asked.
“My uncle used to let me help him bake bread, but I don’t know how to do that with the oven you have. We use a wood-fired oven.”
“It’s not that hard. You could make the dough, and I could help you bake it. Dad used to bake bread all the time, so we have the supplies. We could do that tomorrow night if you like.”
“That’s very nice of you.” Eli gave him another of those incredibly bright smiles, and Geoff found himself watching his face—those big, bright eyes, luscious lips, dark hair that threatened to curl. Geoff blinked and stood up a little too fast, startling the dogs. Fuck… fuck… fuck…. He was going to kill Raine the next time he saw him.
“Let’s go back to the house. It’s getting late, and we need to be up early for our ride.” Geoff turned and left the barn. As he was crossing the yard, Eli caught up to him, and they entered the house together.
Len was asleep in his chair, and Geoff turned off the television. Len woke almost immediately. “Why don’t you go on up to bed?” Geoff said. Len nodded and got out of his chair, and after saying good-night, went up the stairs.
They’d finished moving Len to another bedroom a few days earlier, and they’d finished moving Geoff’s things into the master bedroom that afternoon. Geoff heard Len go into his room and shut the door. Eli said good-night and headed upstairs as well, Geoff watching him as he went before chastising himself and turning out the lights. After making sure everything was secure, he went upstairs and walked into his new bedroom. His furniture was in the room, the closet was full of his things, but the bed was the one that had occupied the room for as long as he could remember, as long as anyone could remember.
Standing in the doorway, the house quiet, Geoff stared at the bed, wondering. Dad and Len had spent their last night together in that bed, knowing that Dad couldn’t go on any more, and that this was likely to be their last night together. What did they say to one another? Thank you for twenty years of love—for loving me enough to let me go? Did they just hold one another and say nothing at all? Geoff would never know, didn’t really want to know. I hope someday I find a love like they had. With a soft sigh, he went into the room and quietly shut the door.
He’d had reservations about sleeping in that bed, but Len had reassured him. “That bed is lucky. That bed is lucky. Your grand-parents and great-grandparents used it, and your father and I loved in it for twenty years. There’s a lot of love that’s soaked its way into the wood.”
Geoff got undressed, started the shower, and stepped under the hot water. That felt so good, soothing away the day’s work, relaxing his muscles, allowing his mind to shut down and wander. His hands roamed and wandered too. It’d been a while, but his body responded to his own hand. Sighing to himself, he tweaked his nipples and slid his hands lower, one cupping his balls, the other stroking, moving slowly along his length. Damn, that felt good. It had been weeks since he’d been with anyone, and his body was tingling, balls full and ready. “Yes….”
He let his mind conjure up pictures of the men he’d always found attractive: big, wide, muscular men with huge pecs and round, bulging arms. The water beat down on him as he slowly, sensuously, worked himself, fingers sliding from base to tip, others lightly pinching his nipples before reaching behind him to tickle his opening. “God….”
He picked up the pace, but nothing really happened. Something wasn’t quite right. He just… wasn’t… quite… there. Then the vision in his mind changed to a long, lithe body, smooth skin, big blue eyes, black hair. “Fuck….”
His orgasm barreled through him like a runaway train, and he shook as his release shot from him, coating the bathroom tiles.
Geoff leaned against the warm wall, breathing heavily as he recovered from the monster orgasm. Once he could think again, he washed himself thoroughly and cleaned up the tile before turning off the water and drying himself. Then he padded into his bedroom and climbed between the sheets. “Damn you, Raine. I’m going to fucking kill you.” But the genie was out of the bottle, and he’d just have to deal with it.
Chapter 6
GEOFF LOVED mornings on the farm: the sun peeking through the windows, the smell of hay and horses, and the quiet before everyone else was up. Throwing back the covers, he looked around and for a second tried to remember where he was, or more importantly, why he was in Len’s and his dad’s bedroom. That’s right—it was his room now.
Getting out of bed, he hurried to the bathroom to take care of business and get cleaned up before dressing and walking quietly down the stairs. Len wasn’t up yet, and Geoff didn’t want to wake him. After grabbing a quick snack, he left the house and strode to the barn. Opening the door, he was very surprised to see Eli already inside, getting the horses brushed and ready for their ride.
“Wow, you didn’t have to do that.” Geoff got the rugs, handed Eli the one for his horse, and then got the saddles.
“It’s okay. I like working with the horses, and he really likes being brushed.” Eli tilted his head to indicate Kirk.
Geoff put the saddle on Kirk’s back. “That he does; he just loves attention.” Geoff fitted Kirk with his bit and bridle and then led him out of his stall and into the yard. “I thought we’d ride down to the creek.”
“I’ll follow you then.” Eli mounted and walked his horse into the pasture with Geoff following a few seconds later,
Kirk was jumpy, raring to go. “Meet you on the far side!” Geoff spurred Kirk on, and the horse took off, running like the wind across the field. Kirk flew under him, and he could feel his spirit meld with the horse, the two of them working together. As he approached the far end of the field, he reined Kirk in and turned to wait for Eli, who came galloping up a minute later, and Geoff got to watch as he and Twilight glided across the field. Wow, the man looked good in a saddle… hot, even.
Before he could chastise himself for the thought, Eli approached, reining in Twilight. Grinning to beat the band, he puffed, “That felt so good.”
“Didn’t it? And the best part is that we get to do it ag
ain on the way back.” Geoff found himself grinning. Eli’s excitement was contagious. “We’ll walk them to the creek and then head east for a while.” Geoff led the way along the trail, both of them quiet, getting a little lost in their thoughts under a canopy of green and a carpet of spring wildflowers. At the creek, they stopped for a few minutes, listening to the water, and then turned where the trail followed the creek. “In the summer when I was a kid, I used to play in the creek all the time.”
“Wasn’t it cold?”
“You bet it was, but I was a kid. I’d play in the water for hours until my teeth rattled.” Geoff smiled at the memory. “I used to ride back here with my dad and Len when it was hot, and we’d have a picnic in the clearing up ahead. I’d play in the water, and they’d talk.” Those were some of his fondest childhood memories. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to go riding just one more time with him.”
“When did he die?”
“About a month ago. He’d had cancer for a while. He was only forty-nine.” Geoff choked down the emotions that threatened to bubble to the surface. He looked at Eli and could almost see the questions spinning through the young man’s head.
“I’m sorry about your dad. What happened to your mother?”
“She died when I was still a baby. I don’t have any memory of her, just the few pictures that are hanging on the wall in the living room.”
They reached the clearing, and Geoff dismounted. Kirk started to wander around, munching on the fresh grass. “We can sit here if you want.” Eli dismounted and looked around, holding the reins. “They won’t go anywhere; they like it here.” Eli looked skeptical but flipped the reins over the saddle, and Twilight started to munch on the grass just like Kirk, happy as anything.
Geoff sat on a fallen log, watching and listening to the water as Eli sat next to him. “I don’t want to pry, but can I ask you a question?” Eli asked. Geoff nodded slowly.
Dreamspinner Press Year Three Greatest Hits Page 29