Sarasota Steam

by Sarasota Steam (lit)

  At least he’d had the satisfaction of shooting the man responsible for murdering them.

  He preferred to pretend his life started four years ago, in St. Augustine, when he awoke from a drunken stupor and with the worst hangover of his life to find that not only had he not managed to shoot himself in the head, but that the black-haired man now lying beside him had carried him up to his room to keep him from getting arrested and thrown in jail for public drunkenness.

  Goyo. What an apt name. Short for Gregorio. Watcher. He’d opened his eyes that day to find Goyo’s blue eyes staring at him from where he sat in a chair in the corner.

  Then he’d laid his head back and cried. He didn’t turn his head and look when he felt the mattress sink as the then-stranger sat beside him.

  “What’s so bad you feel you have to get drunk and kill yourself?” he’d quietly asked.

  “Why do you care?”

  “I watched you at the saloon. You aren’t a man prone to drink, under normal circumstances. Not from the way you were acting. What drove you to it?”

  And he found himself spilling his guts to this then nameless man, those blue eyes watching him, never interrupting as he told the story of murder and loss and revenge. No price on his head, the man he’d killed had been wanted with a large bounty. He’d collected it, but there’d been no satisfaction and it wouldn’t make up for what he’d lost to earn it.

  It wouldn’t take away the sounds of their screams in the night and the memory of the blisters on his hands as he tried to open the door to get to them.

  “Why’d you save me?” he hoarsely croaked when he finished his story.

  The man he now knew as Goyo shrugged. “My abuela beat the Catholic faith into me. It’s a sin to commit suicide.” He playfully smiled. “There are a few of the rules I still play by.” His face clouded. “That’s one of them.”

  Jasper liked his smile. He had a strange urge to take the frown from his face, wanted to make him smile again. “What are some of the ones you ignore?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe you get to know me better and I’ll tell you about them.”

  A month later, the men weren’t just sharing a room—they shared a bed. And Jasper had discovered one of Goyo’s secrets. The other, that he wasn’t half-Cuban, as he told everyone, but half-Seminole Indian. His widowed German mother had died during childbirth, leaving Goyo to be raised by his adopted abuela, an elderly Cuban Negress who worked for the local priest and who’d been friends with his mother. Abuela died when he was ten, and he spent the next few years in the orphanage until old enough to leave on his own.

  The local priest had given Goyo the family name Valdes when he baptized him, which was what they named boys in an orphanage back in his native Cuba. Before she died, his abuela had told him the secret of his true parentage so he would know. Considering emotions still ran high in the wake of the long-settled Seminole Indian Wars, it was easier for him to pass himself as half-Cuban.

  Many nights Jasper had awoken to find Goyo watching him in the dark.

  “Why do you watch me?” he’d asked one night.

  “Because I can’t believe you’re still here and haven’t left me yet,” he quietly replied.

  Jasper sighed, closed his eyes, and tried to rest even as the wind howled outside. He’d never leave Goyo. Not as long as the man still wanted him.

  * * * *

  Callie fought back her tears and her fear. This had to be one of those hurricanes she’d heard about. She’d never seen a storm so fierce that lasted so long. A few times the wind knocked her off her feet, and she struggled to hold on to her bags. The tall slash pines dangerously swayed in the breeze around her. One fell behind her not too long after she’d passed it. She prayed she’d make it to the Coval ranch at this rate.

  A near-hysterical burp of laughter escaped her. How ironic that would be to escape her damned step-father just to meet her end like this.

  Then the sound of the wind roared around her, even louder than before, spinning through the rain and the woods sounding like it came from every direction, like a locomotive bearing down upon her. She tried to run forward. One of the pine trees by the track fell, the upper branches bearing down upon her before she could get out of the way.

  She screamed.

  * * * *

  Gregorio’s eyes snapped open as he listened while Jasper dozed beside him. Beyond the wind, above the howl, he could have sworn he heard something else.

  Someone.

  The wind picked up with the sound of a tornado nearby. He prayed it didn’t hit them as he lay there and listened to pine trees crack with explosions of tortured wood as they fell. After what felt like forever, it roared off into the distance, the wail of the wind finally settling back to its previous eerie fury.

  He wondered how many trees they’d have to saw through to clear their fences and road.

  He was about to doze off when he thought he heard the noise again. This time he sat up, drawing a sleepy, “What?” from Jaz.

  “Shh. Listen.”

  Jasper sat up, his head cocked. After a minute, Gregorio was about to admit he must have imagined it when they both heard it. Faint, barely audible except for a brief lull in the wind.

  “Help!”

  One of their cow dogs barked out in the front room. The men looked at each other and bolted out of bed, racing to pull on clothes and boots. They grabbed their oilskin jackets and rushed out into the melee bare-headed, their hats useless against the wind.

  Jasper put his hands to his mouth and called out. “Hello!”

  They listened. Then, faintly, they heard a weak cry. “Help!”

  Gregorio tapped Jasper’s shoulder and pointed down their road. The men broke into a run, finally noticing the wind had started to die down even though the light still looked far too dark and green.

  “Must be the eye,” Jasper said. “That means we’ll still have a couple of hours of wind.”

  “Dammit, I wanted to check the barn.”

  As the wind eased, the men raced down their road, rounding the corner to find a man trapped under a downed pine tree. It looked like he wasn’t seriously injured from the way he thrashed, just unable to free himself. Jasper and Goyo started working their way through the branches and toward the man, who was pinned face-down in the mud.

  “Are you all right?” Gregorio called.

  “Please, help me!”

  He would have sworn it was a woman’s voice, but what he could see of the short hair and clothes indicated a young man. With Jasper’s help, they managed to get him pulled out.

  The stranger was so exhausted he couldn’t even walk. Gregorio picked him up and carried him while Jasper grabbed the two bags he’d had with him.

  He sobbed against Goyo’s shoulder. “Oh, thank you so much! I thought I was dead!”

  Definitely a woman’s voice, but he couldn’t get a look at the guy’s face.

  Already the wind had started up again as the eye passed and the other side of the storm overtook them. They hurried back to the house to beat the worst of the storm before the eye completely passed them by.

  The stranger was soaked through, shivering in his wet clothes. No doubt the clothes in his carpet bags were soaked, too. Goyo carried him into the spare bedroom while Jasper ran for towels and blankets. When Gregorio tried to set the man on his feet, he was so exhausted his knees gave out and he seemed to actually faint. Goyo opted to lay the stranger on the bed and started peeling the layers from him, starting with the soaked long coat and jacket.

  Jasper returned with the towels and blankets. When Gregorio started to unbutton the man’s shirt, he revived and pushed his hands away.

  “No!”

  “You’re soaked. You’ll catch a chill.” He studied the young man’s face. Very young, almost feminine-looking. Not a hint of stubble shadowing his cheeks.

  “I-I can do it. Thank you.”

  Jasper left and returned a moment later with a clean nightshirt. “Here, you can wear this until we ge
t the rest of your stuff dried out. What in blazes were you doing out there in that storm?”

  “Are you Jasper Collins?”

  Gregorio watched Jasper’s expression harden. “Yeah, why?”

  “My name’s Charles…Johnson. The man at the feed store in town said you’re looking for a ranch hand. I was coming out to talk to you about the job when I got caught in the storm.”

  Jasper visibly relaxed. “Oh, sure. That was fast. Listen, get dried off and changed, and we’ll talk.”

  The two men walked out, Jasper shutting the door behind them.

  Gregorio pulled him into their bedroom and shut the door. “There’s something wrong here,” he whispered.

  “Don’t I know it.”

  He relaxed knowing they were on the same page. “Why would a boy that young be looking for a job way out here in the middle of a storm?”

  The corners of Jasper’s eyes crinkled with amusement as he shook his head, then leaned in and kissed him. “You’re so cute when you’re clueless. The person in that room is no more a man than either of those two cow dogs out in our front room.”

  Chapter Four

  Exhausted and shaking but grateful to be alive, Callie changed clothes. The only thing still relatively dry was the cloth belt around her waist holding the jewelry and money. She kept that on and it didn’t show. The nightshirt dwarfed her, hung down to her ankles. Everything in her bags was soaked. She laid as much out as she could over the end of the bed and on the chair. When she started to pull out her only dress she realized that wouldn’t work and shoved it back into the bag. She couldn’t let the men see that. She shoved the carpet bags under the bed and decided to wait to figure that problem out.

  She hadn’t got a good look at the house on the way in. One of the men had lit an oil lamp on the dresser. The room was neat, if sparse, with bare cypress walls, a wrought iron bed, and a plain pine wardrobe in the corner. On the wall next to the door, a small dresser with a washbasin and pitcher and small mirror. On the freshly-swept wood floor lay a braided rag rug. The ceilings looked taller than she was used to, probably to help cool the room. She noticed a gap between the walls and ceiling of about a foot or so, meaning she’d have to be careful what kind of noise she made.

  When she emerged, a blanket wrapped around her, she found the men sitting at the dining table in the front room. If it wasn’t for the fact she was trying to pretend to be a man, she would have broken down and cried with gratitude for their rescue.

  Collins studied her and pointed to another chair pulled up to the table. “We’d offer you a hot meal or coffee, but with this storm, we can’t risk lighting the stove until the wind dies down.”

  She glanced around. “I don’t see a kitchen, Mr. Collins.”

  He hooked his thumb down the hallway she’d just come from. “Jasper. And it’s outside, in back. Added it on.” He clasped his hands in front of him on the table. “This is my business partner, Gregorio Valdes,” he said, indicating the other man.

  Callie nodded to him. “Pleased to meet you.”

  He nodded. “Call me Goyo.”

  “Is that why it’s called the Coval Ranch? For Collins and Valdes?” she asked.

  “Yep. Can you ride?” Jasper asked.

  She nodded. This was her first job interview. She hoped the less she said, the faster it would go.

  “You have experience working a ranch or with cattle?”

  “I ran my parents’ farm for the past five years. We had ten head of dairy cows, twenty of beef, pigs, chickens, and one hundred acres of crops.”

  “Why aren’t you there now?”

  She didn’t have to lie. “My mother died two weeks ago, and my step-father and I got into a fight. He got drunk, attacked me, so I took some of my momma’s jewelry and left.”

  She noticed Goyo’s expression softened. “Where are you from?” he asked.

  Okay, now she’d lie. “Savannah.”

  “You born there?”

  She nodded.

  She didn’t miss how the men exchanged a look. Jasper leaned in. “You don’t start off trying to get a new job by lying to your employer.”

  She blanched. How could they have known? “Okay, I’m not from Savannah. How’d you know?”

  Goyo laughed. “You’re too twangy. I’d bet you’re from Kentucky or Tennessee.”

  She looked down at her hands. “Outside of Nashville.”

  “And you ended up in the middle of nowhere, Florida, in a hurricane, because he’s chasing you down,” Jasper surmised.

  She nodded.

  He leaned back. “Well, now we have the truth. Most of it. Leastways, enough of it for now. You can start right away.”

  She finally looked at the men, surprised by their ready acceptance. “Thank you.”

  “Is your real name Charles Johnson?”

  “My last name really is Johnson.”

  Jasper held up a hand. “Okay. That’s fine. You’re not wanted by the law?” She shook her head. He extended the upheld hand to her to shake. She did, hoping her grip felt strong enough. “Welcome to the Coval Ranch, Charles.”

  * * * *

  Jasper studied her while they talked. Very cute, even with her black hair cut short like a boy’s, and round hazel eyes that didn’t painfully remind him of anyone else. If she wanted to pretend she was a man, he’d let her. For now, at least. He suspected there was a lot more to her story than she told them, but to tell them more would give away her biggest secret.

  Well, keeping secrets was something he understood. Lord knew he and Goyo had a whopper of their own. Maybe this would work out well for all three of them.

  “Let me make one thing perfectly clear to you, Charles,” he told her. “Goyo and I are private. We don’t want people poking into our business or spreading rumors about us. We don’t gossip about others, and don’t want them gossiping about us. If I hear one word you’ve been talking about us to anyone in town, you’ll be down that road before you can spit. Do I make myself clear?”

  The girl nodded. Not girl, that wasn’t right. He guessed at least eighteen, maybe nineteen, from the lines around her eyes. One thing for certain, he did believe that she told the truth about working a farm. Her hand, while not hard like a man’s, was strong with some calluses. She didn’t strike him as a woman who’d be weak and wobbly under normal circumstances, but she was flat done-in by the storm.

  “We’ll afford you the same privacy,” he assured her. “How old are you? Sixteen?”

  She nodded.

  He fought the urge to smile. She was a terrible liar and probably not used to doing it. She’d just told them she’d run a farm for five years, meaning she’d started when she was eleven.

  He pointed to a sideboard. “There should be a length of clothesline and a bag of pegs in there, if you want to hang up your clothes in your room to dry. It’ll be well past dark by the time this storm dies down. We’ll be up before dawn in the morning to ride out and check the livestock. There’s a privy outside, near the back door, but it might not even be standing right now. There should be a pot under the bed if you need to use it.”

  “Thank you.” He didn’t miss how exhausted she looked.

  Goyo went and fetched the water pitcher from her room and filled it for her. He pointed down the hall toward the back room. “Used to be the kitchen,” he said. “We use it as a wash room now, kept a pump and sink there. Makes baths easier when it’s chilly.”

  She bid them goodnight after finding the clothesline and pegs. Then she walked down the hall and closed the bedroom door behind her.

  Goyo sat at the table and leaned back in his chair, stretching his long torso. “Well,” he softly said, “I’m convinced. You’re right. She’s definitely not a man.”

  “What made up your mind?”

  He smiled. “No man in his right mind would accept a job without negotiating the wage first.”

  Jasper laughed, remembering to keep his voice low. “That’s what convinced you?”

  He n
odded. “Yeah. What convinced you?”

  He smiled and leaned in closer, making sure to keep his voice quiet. “When you tried to take her shirt off, the rain had plastered it to her body. You could see right through it. I don’t know about you, and you’re the only man I’ve been up close and personal with, but I’ve never seen a man with breasts and nipples that look like that.”

  Goyo slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his howls of laughter.

  * * * *

  Callie had already arisen, dressed, and gotten ready the next morning when she heard the men moving around. Her trousers still felt a little damp in the seams, but she guessed as the day heated up that wouldn’t be a problem. Her shirt and undershirt had dried nicely, as had her socks.

  Her stomach rumbled when she smelled coffee and bacon. She followed the scent to the kitchen where Goyo cooked by the light of an oil lamp.

  “You hungry?”

  She nodded. “Can I help?”

  “Naw, it’ll be ready in a minute.”

  It finally hit her she must have upended one of them the night before from their bed. “Oh, where will I normally sleep?”

  He turned and arched an eyebrow at her, his expression guarded. “Excuse me?” She loved his blue eyes. It was only through sheer strength of will she pulled her gaze from his.

  “I don’t mind sleeping in the barn. I’m sorry I took someone’s bed last night. I wasn’t even thinking. I felt exhausted.”

  The back screen door slammed shut, and she turned to look at Jasper. Both men were handsome in different ways. She suspected Goyo might be a Spaniard or Cuban, with his swarthy looks, but Jasper’s slim, shorter frame still looked strong, well-muscled arms she imagined could...

  Hoping she hadn’t blushed, she swallowed and tried to focus on the smell of food.

  “Privy’s upright again. Luckily all it did was blow over, not away.” He pumped water and washed his hands. “Sleep okay, Charles? Or do you prefer Charlie?”