by Jan Irving
Jesse
Jan Irving
Jesse
Copyright © October 2010 by Jan Irving
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eISBN 978-1-60737-876-1
Editor: Judith David
Cover Artist: Justin James
Printed in the United States of America
Published by
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning
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* * *
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Dedication
For Marcus at Tally Ho carriage rides, who took me on a fun and instructive ride. And to my loyal group of pre-readers who encourage story: Lyn, Kim, Laurie, Carolyn, Cay, Cindy, Gabrielle, Armandyouidiot, Camjakefan.
When the river is deepest it makes the least noise. ~ Proverb
Prologue
Kyle Jacobs let the paper from his takeout fortune cookie flutter to the floor of his bedroom. Next full moon brings an enchanting evening. Yeah, right. He scrubbed shaking fingers over his sweaty face, hands rasping against his night beard. He was nude, standing in the moonlight, looking out his window…aching.
He inhaled deeply, wrapped his arms around himself since no one could see him take that comfort. He didnt want to put a name to the young man he wished were there, the man hed dreamed about for years. It was unsettling. He hadnt seen him in three years. He could be anywhere.
Be safe, Jesse. Tall but too thin, with blue eyes that burned and skin that smelled like fresh denim on the line.
Kyle reached down and touched himself where he was softening, still sensitive.
Hed come again in his dreams. Crap, he was forty-four years old!
Grunting in disgust at himself, he thrust open a window and let in the latesummer air, feeling the sweet coolness against his heated skin, catching the scent of earth and fresh hay.
It would take a while for his heart to settle down.
* * *
Jesse Coulter sipped a beer in the roadhouse off Highway 12. Hed been sleeping in his motel room, but then the dream woke him, so intense he could almost taste Kyle. Hed seduced him in the dream, kissing him until he stopped protesting he was too old for Jess, that he belonged to another man. Kissed him, left impassioned beard-burn marks under his T-shirt, where his skin wasnt tan. Jessed licked and savored his way down the tall, rangy body until he opened Kyles belt, pulled down his jeans, and knelt at the mans feet, sucking his cock deep into his mouth while Kyle gave a hoarse cry and his hands clenched in Jesses hair.
You want me, Jesse had whispered in the dream. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. Hed tried to forget Kyle. Back when hed been younger and Kyle had belonged to his half brother Mac, Jessed been confused and ashamed of his desire; hed had a feeling Kyle picked up on it, but Kyled been sensitive, which was his way, so Jessed never said anything about it.
Jesse had tried to lose this need, this unending want, in other men. Yet even after three years, he could never sleep with anyone, his body absurdly acting like it was claimed. Only, lately the dreams were getting more intense, as if they were calling him home, calling him back to the man he knew would never want to touch him.
His BlackBerry buzzed, and Jesse pulled it out, wondering if it was another contract job, maybe logging or helping out on a fishing boat. Hell, he didnt care. His younger brother, David, needed new clothes. He was shooting up in height just the way Jesse had when he was Davids age, so Jesse would welcome the work, even if he still found himself wishing he could take some time and go to school.
He read the text and snatched up his motorcycle helmet, already striding for the exit.
Chapter One
When Jesse Coulter roared up on his battered Harley, a dust cloud a high plume behind him, Kyle ducked behind the bunkhouse on the Double M Ranch.
Ducked, hell. Here he was, the foreman, and he was hiding! He pulled off the leather gloves hed been wearing while working in the horse barn and wiped his damp, shaking palms on his dusty jeans, tears burning his eyes.
Jesse.
He couldnt stop himself from taking another look at the young man as he removed his motorcycle helmet, his dark brown hair still cut short, but spiky at the front. His lean face was on the long side, with a trace of early beard on his chin, adding the texture of manhood to his olive skin. But it was his eyes that made Kyle feel like hed taken a punch, eyes the pale blue flame of a lighter flaring in the dark.
His lover Macs kid brother. Kyle had missed Jesse intensely, an ache in his gut, maybe because of the secret they shared.
Kyle hadnt seen Jesse since the day of Macs funeral. He squeezed his eyes shut, remembered pulling up in his truck at the ranch that terrible day, Jesse and his younger brother, David, crammed together in the passenger side, tears brimming in Jesses beautiful flame blue eyes. He had looked over at Kyle, and Kyle had seen his bewilderment, as if the kid had taken a bat to the face. Why had Mac died?
“Jesus, kid, I don’t know.” Kyles voice had broken as he undid his seat belt. Itd been an accident. Looking for reasons… He couldnt help doing it too, just like Jesse and David. But it didnt help; it was something his mind would go back and forth over, worrying, while the clock ticked in his empty bedroom.
Jesse had helped the dazed twelve-year-old David out of his seat belt from habit. Theyd all stumbled from the truck, the boys wearing black jeans and T-shirts because thered been no time to purchase suits for Macs funeral. Suddenly David had thrown himself into Kyles arms, gripping him tight, trembling.
“He’s never coming back,” David had whispered.
Kyle had swallowed hard, because there had been just a hint of a question in that young voice. “No, Davy, but he’ll be with us as long as we remember him,” Kyle had said.
Holding on to David, rubbing his back, Kyle had felt lost. He had been fortyone, and hed felt lost. Hed stared at Jesse, and Jesse had looked back at him. A single tear had tracked down his cheek before dripping off the edge of his jaw. “Jesse,” he had whispered, aching to give comfort. But Jess was stubborn, always so damn stubborn, like Mac had been. And hed been sullen, avoiding Kyle sometimes. Kyle could guess why.
Kyle took a deep breath and tried the other way to communicate with Jesse, to offer him what solace he could.
“Jesse, I don’t know why Mac’s gone. It doesn’t make sense.”
Jesses jaw ticked, and for a long moment Kyle thought he wouldnt make use of the strange telepathic bond that linked them. Hell if Kyle understood it, but from the moment Mac had brough
t his younger half brothers to stay on the ranch, Kyle had been able to pick up on Jesses thoughts sometimes. At first hed feared he was going crazy. But over time hed just grown accustomed to it. Like seeing or hearing, it was just another sense he could make use of.
“I have to take care of David. How do I do that?”
Jesses voice sounded like everything that made him Jesse. Like his love of tinkering with engines at school, like a fork of lightning before it connects with a tree. It was hard for Kyle to describe, even to himself. But when they linked, he was surrounded by the essence of Jesse. Hed never asked if it was the same experience for Jesse. In fact, hed tried hard not to use their weird bond, because he was dating Mac. Still, it was Jesse with whom he shared this secret pathway.
“You and David will always have a home here with me. We’ll find a way to stay a family, I promise you, and we’ll figure out how to take care of David together.”
But even as Kyle made the vow, as if to make Kyle a liar, another truck pulled into the driveway. It was battered, burning oil. A man with deep wrinkles around his mouth and eyes got out of the cab, his gaze zeroing in on Kyle, David, and Jesse. Kyle had never met the senior Coulter, Morrison, a man who drove trucks crosscountry for a living, but he knew instinctively who he was, when Jesses fists balled.
“Boy, get in the truck,” the man ordered, pointing at David.
“Pa…?” David whispered. “Pa, M-Macs dead.”
The mans face didnt change expression. He looked at Kyle. “If he hadnt been living here with you, hed be alive.”
Kyles eyes stung. It was true. Mac had died when he tried to free a cow trapped by an early-spring mudslide. As foreman, Kyled sent him out to do the job. But he hadnt known how bad it was—and damn it, why hadnt Mac called him? He always took on too much.
Had taken on too much.
And now he was gone.
“Don’t listen to him!” Jesses voice cut into Kyles leaden guilt like a fiery sword.
David looked up at Kyle as if confused by his fathers cold words. Kyle saw the boys eyes, red and puffy. David hadnt slept until Jesse had pulled him into his arms the night before on the living-room couch of the small cabin they all shared. Then the poor kid had conked out from exhaustion.
“Dont you look to him,” Morrison growled. “I told you what to do, David, so you do it!”
“Morrison,” Jesse croaked. He put his skinny seventeen-year-old body between Morrison and his younger brother. “He doesnt understand. We just…we just buried Mac.”
“But you do, dont you?” Morrison growled. “Youll be just like him, wont you? Sick…”
Kyle gently squeezed Davids shoulder. “Just…do what your pa says, Davy. Ill talk to him.”
“I got nothing to say to you,” Morrison spat. Anger shot from eyes the same gray as Macs. It hurt, seeing hate in eyes the exact shape and color of his dead partners.
Once David was safely out of earshot in the truck, Kyle tried reasoning with Morrison. “Mac took them from you, and you didnt care. This is their home now.” Kyle played his only card. “I have money saved. Take it. Leave the boys.”
Mac would have hated Morrison being here. Hed rescued his brothers and loved them fiercely. Together, he and Kyle had enrolled them in school, taken them to nearby Pigeon Lake Beach on sultry summer days to swim, to sail, to ride horseback on the lakeside trail.
“You killed my boy,” Morrison said. “I dont want anything from you.”
“Dont you say that!” Jesse cried.
Morrison slapped him.
Kyle went for him, unable to abide anyone laying a hand on Jesse. But Jesse caught him, held on to him, his face suddenly older, harder, the way itd been when Mac first brought the boys to the ranch to live. “I need to talk to him, Kyle.”
Kyles jaw tightened. “Hell no!” he told Jesse.
“Kyle,” Jesse whispered, another tear brimming and then falling, like it was Jesses childhood bleeding away a piece at a time. “I got to. For David.”
Kyle fell back, raking a hand through his hair. It killed him to watch Jesse take a walk with his father. They went behind the barn, and Kyle forced himself to stay where he was. David watched him from Morrisons truck, sobbing behind the windshield.
When Jesse finally returned with Morrison, his expression was closed off, and Kyle couldnt read him. He also had swelling on one cheekbone as if his father had hit him again. Seeing it, Kyle trembled, barely holding himself back.
“We have to go now, Kyle,” Jesse said. “Ill take care of Davy, dont you worry.” His eyes when he looked at Kyle were bright with love. Grief. Good-bye. “Dont you worry.”
“If you need anything, you know where I am, Jess,” Kyle said, his fingernails cutting into his palms because his hands were clenched so tight. Don’t go. Don’t leave me. But he didnt send that plea to Jesse. He swallowed, said, “Your brother would be proud of you. I am.”
For a moment Jesses face worked, but then Morrison got in the truck, so Jesse went to the passenger side, where David waited. “Well be back,” Jesse promised. “Somehow…”
* * *
Now, as he watched Jesse pull a knapsack off the back of his bike, he remembered that afternoon and the barren years since.
“Kyle?” Jesses voice inside his head. It was that same blue color, the clean feeling he associated with Jesse. Kyle savored it. “I’m here.” This was even more unsettling than the dreams, seeing him again. Kyle stepped away from the shadow of the bunkhouse. He waited, heart pounding, as Jesse strode toward him. The leather bag fell, and Jesse hugged him, crushed him safe in his arms.
“I wrote you. I sent you and Davy money…” Kyle rasped. Oh, Jess. So much taller. A man now. “Never saw it,” Jesse said, though a shadow moved like a thunderhead over his sunny expression. He pulled back, and Kyle was again confronted with how mature Jess looked. He was twenty years old—still too thin, but lean and strong, like a mountain lion. His blue eyes burned from a tanned, hard face.
“Crap,” Kyle muttered. “Wheres David?” “Morrison didnt come back from his last long-haul job while I was working on a fishing boat out of Alaska, so Davids with me now.”
Kyle blinked. “Fishing? You?”
“Pays good,” Jesse said, shrugging. “But yeah, not my thing.”
“No, you were quite the budding cowboy last time you were on this ranch.” Kyles throat tightened. Hed wanted to take care of Jesse and David. Goddamn.
“Dont take on like that,” Jesse scolded, sounding so much like the boy Kyle used to know. “Davids over at the motel in town. He wanted to go swimming with some old friends this afternoon. You might remember he was part seal when we lived here.”
“Hes here? Youre both here?” Kyle shoved some hair off his forehead, struggling for his cool. He wondered if Jess had noticed the wide streak of gray there now. It had shot through his hair almost overnight in the wake of losing Mac—and Jesse and David.
“Yeah. To stay this time. If you, uh…if you still want us, that is.” Jesse swallowed. “David needs a home. Can you help us out?”
“Do you need to ask?” Kyle growled. He picked up Jesses bag, taking in a smudge under his eye. A fading shiner? What had Jesses life been like after hed been forced to leave with his father?
They walked back toward the Harley, and Kyle couldnt help saying, “Mac wouldnt have approved. He was in a bad accident on one of these when he was a young man.”
Jesse shrugged. “I like the freedom.”
Kyle couldnt stop himself. “But you take care on the road, you dont go too fast?”
Jesse smiled at him, and Kyle felt a twist of lightning in his gut. What was that? Nervous, he ran his free hand down his jeans again.
Get a grip, old man.
And Jesse said, “You aren’t old, Kyle. You’re still as beautiful as you always were.”
Kyle flushed. Beautiful? He was forty-four.
Jesse chuckled, as if he enjoyed Kyles blush. “I need a job. Can you help me out?”
“I could use someone riding the fences, mending them. Its a two-man job, so I could assign you to work with Miles, one of our most experienced hands. We had a rough winter, so a lot of fence came down with the heavy, wet snows,” Kyle said. But then he went on, “You should be in school. Mac wanted—”
“I was thinking…” Jesse ran a hand over his bike, looking shy for the first time. “Maybe. Turns out Mac left me and Davy some money. Can you believe it? I never thought hed saved a thing in his life.”
“The university isnt so far from here,” Kyle noted.
“Closer on my bike,” Jesse agreed.
Kyle wanted to offer him his truck to drive instead. Sheesh. Overprotective much? It seemed like the habit of wanting to take care of Jesse hadnt eroded over time. But Jesse was a man, so Kyle had better get used to it.
“Im not in the cabin anymore,” Kyle said as he led Jesse toward the ranch buildings. “Im staying up at the big house since the owner took a condo in Florida. He spends most of the year there now.”
Jesse looked at Kyle, and a smile touched his lips, his dark hair ruffled by the wind.
“So well stay with you?” Jesse pressed.
Kyle couldnt understand why his heart was suddenly pounding. He swallowed around a dry throat. “Yep,” he said.
Chapter Two
The next morning, Kyle stumbled into the big house, wiping tired eyes. Hed been so hoping to spend time with Jess and David the night before, but a couple of mares had foaled, and since it was Friday, hed had to help the vet. Phil, his barn boss, had up and quit a month ago without notice after having worked there since Mac died. It had been a real loss. The man had been responsible for the overall health and vitality of the horses. Hed also handled all the grooming for the carriage herd and maintained the paddocks and barn. A real loss. Now Kyle had to do Phils job and somehow find time to oversee the rest of the ranch: specialty sheep in the foothills for the yarn trade; cattle and horses on the flatter stretch of land that ran along Pigeon Lake; crops to help feed the animals over the long winter: corn in late summer, hay, wheat, and soybeans.