by B. G. Thomas
“Neil?”
I dared a look at Cole.
“You’re doing great.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he assured me. “I mean it. I wouldn’t lie. The only time Mystic ever dumped anyone was because the riders were assholes. You’re not an asshole. She knows. Trust me, okay?”
I glanced at him.
“Do you trust me?”
Did I?
Did I have any reason not to?
“Okay.”
“You do, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Trust me?”
“I—I think I do.”
“I’m glad,” Cole said. “I trust you. And so does Mystic.”
“She does?” I felt like a little boy who had just been praised. It felt nice.
“She’s looking at you, you know.”
“She is?” I looked at her, and she seemed to be looking straight ahead, although I could see the edge of one of her eyes.
“Yep, she can see you.”
I checked again and… was she? Why, she might be, I thought. Her ears turned.
“You can tell what she’s paying attention to by watching her ears, and she’s paying attention to us right now.”
“Gosh,” I said. “Is that true, Mystic?” I asked her, and she let out the classic sound all horses make in the movies. Not the neighing, but the gentler sound. A blowing of air.
“Whickering,” Cole told me.
“Wow!” I couldn’t help saying.
Cole laughed.
I joined him. It felt good. Felt good to laugh, and it felt good to ride this magical animal, and it… I. I felt good.
We rode in silence for a while, and I found myself relaxing more and more. I was no longer worried so much about embarrassing myself in front of this young man. In fact, I found myself wanting to impress him.
“What kind of horse did you say she was?” I asked.
“She’s an American Saddlebred,” he replied.
I nodded. One type was as good as any for me. I was just trying to make conversation and calm down.
“Look around. You don’t have to stare at her. Mystic will take care of you. Don’t miss the countryside. Seeing the world from the back of a horse is special. There’s nothing like it.”
I braved it and… smiled.
The countryside was beautiful. The trees and rolling grass, the smells on the breeze, the big yellow-and-black butterflies, the sound of birdsong. Beautiful. I missed a lot in my concrete-and-brick jungle. Cole saw this every day. This was his life. What would that be like?
But more.
Cole was right.
The difference was from where I was seeing it all. There was nothing like it. Sitting so high on top of this animal was like nothing I’d experienced before. The closest was maybe a motorcycle ride. “It’s almost like floating,” I said.
“Wait until you’re ready to really go. It’s like flying.” Cole was smiling his wide smile again, and I felt my heart skip.
“I don’t think I’m quite ready to fly,” I said.
“We have all week to get into mischief,” he said and gave me a big wink.
I felt my stomach leap. What did he mean? I searched for a way to change the subject. “How old is she?” I asked.
“She turned eleven this year,” Cole answered.
“Eleven, huh? How old are they before you can ride them?”
“We prefer three around here,” he said. “If the rider is small, it can be two.”
I nodded, not sure what to think of the information. I didn’t know a thing about horses. Cole could have told me she was twenty-one or forty-one and that horses had to be seventeen and three-quarters and I might have believed him.
“There’s your family,” Cole said.
Sure enough, Amy, Crystal, Robin, and Todd were just ahead, their horses drinking from a stream. Mystic sped up, and I pulled back. She didn’t want to stop, but she did slow down. I guess the instinct for water was universal.
When we reached them, Cole climbed down off his horse—it occurred to me it was the one animal whose name I didn’t know; I would have to rectify that—and began checking the horses’ hooves. All of them.
While he was busy with the kids, Amy rode up to me. “What do you think now?” she asked, her smile a little strange.
“Of what?” It was a big question.
“Of everything.” She gestured around us. “This countryside?”
I smiled. “It’s very pretty. Peaceful.”
She rubbed Galavant’s neck. “And the horses?”
“I’m getting used to it.”
Amy cocked one eyebrow, and I felt my smile broaden.
“All right,” I relented. “They’re amazing.”
As if making some kind of comment, Mystic chose then to make that horse noise again. I got goose bumps, and I didn’t even know why. It was like magic.
“Her,” I said. “I’m getting used to her.”
“And Cole?”
My stomach dropped, and I looked over at the handsome young man. He was laughing along with our kids. “What about him?”
Why was he making me feel this way?
“Didn’t I say he was a nice young man?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
Amy shook her head.
“What?” I almost barked.
“You two sure seem to be getting along fine.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“Why can’t you admit you like him?”
“Fine,” I snapped. “I like him.” My stomach began to flutter, and I couldn’t help but look over at him again.
“Does it really bother you he’s gay?” Amy asked.
“I don’t understand it.”
She gave me that strange look again, and I didn’t like it. “Do you need to understand?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Do you need to understand why he’s gay? Why anyone is?”
“Pop, it’s the way it is.” It was my daughter’s voice again. “Some people are gay. They can’t help it.”
I sighed.
“You all ready to get going?” Cole asked.
The kids cried out enthusiastically, and soon we were back on the trail, Cole at my side again.
“Mind if I ask you a question, Mr. Baxter?” he said after a bit.
I shrugged. “No.”
“How old are you?”
“How old am I?” Now why did he want to know?
“Trying to do the math—not my strong point, by the way. Crystal’s eighteen, and unless you started awfully early, you had to be at least that when she was born. Which would make you….”
“I’m forty-five,” I said before he could continue.
He whistled. “You sure as shit don’t look it. I’d have put you at thirty-eight at most.”
I felt my cheeks heat up. He kept doing that to me. “Why, um, thanks. You really think so?”
“You’re a good-looking man, Mr. Baxter.”
“So are you,” I said, then fought back a little gasp. I couldn’t believe I’d said that. Now why in the hell did you say that? Now he’s going to think you’re hot for him.
Aren’t you?
I cast the thought away and looked at Amy. She was looking rigidly forward, her face devoid of expression. What the hell was she thinking?
When I glanced back at Cole, he was anything but expressionless. He had a big smile on his face.
I closed my eyes—great. Just great—and opened them again. “Amy?”
She turned, a tiny smile on her face.
Was I the most socially incompetent person on Earth?
“Yes, babe?” Amy called.
Babe. I started at that word. Babe? It was the name she’d always used for Owen. Had she even realized she’d used it? Maybe it was a slip of the tongue, being here in this place, this place that she’d gone to for so many years with her husband.
I forced myself to talk. “You having a good tim
e?”
“I am, Neil. I really am.” But a tear came to her eye.
“Are you sure?” I asked, concerned.
The tear began to roll down her cheek. She nodded, wiped it away, then looked at her wet finger as if she didn’t know how it had gotten that way. “Yes,” she said. “I feel better than I have in a long time.”
Somehow those words did something to me. I knew what she meant. Was it this place? Because despite the feelings all this had brought to the surface, I felt better as well.
And after that, I sort of lost track of time.
It was a lovely day.
Who knew riding a horse in the middle of nowhere could be so peaceful? So powerful?
Soon I found I didn’t care if the day ever ended.
CHAPTER 5: Consolations
“MR. BAXTER?”
We had just gotten back from our ride and were grabbing a refreshing drink to help with the heat of the day and the dust of the road. That dust was everywhere. Even in my throat. The iced tea was heavenly.
“Mr. Baxter?”
I turned to find Darla Clark with what might have been concern on her face. But I was feeling pretty good, and I wasn’t worried in the least.
“Yes, Mrs. Clark?” I said.
“Darla, please,” she said.
“Only if you call me Neil.”
She gave a slight shrug. “I can try. But a twenty-year habit is hard to break.”
“I can’t be the first guest to ask you to call them by their first name?”
She smiled. “See what I mean?”
“What is it, Darla?”
Her smile diminished. “It’s about your accommodations.”
“Oh?” What about them, I wondered. Had they still not solved whatever the problem was?
“Well,” Darla said, “the Radcliffs have always used the same cabin. It’s one of the family units. Two bedrooms. Mr. and Mrs. Radcliff took one room, the girls the second, and Todd slept on the foldout couch. I’m embarrassed, but we weren’t thinking. The cabins have been assigned for months. Most of our reservations are. In our defense, we weren’t expecting you until about a couple of weeks ago. When we thought it was going to be just her and the kids, we were either going to credit Mrs. Radcliff or give her money back. Are you seeing the problem?”
Problem? What problem? I could only blink at her.
“There’s no space for you,” she said. “Not enough beds.”
Then I saw it. I couldn’t sleep with Amy. “What about the foldout?”
“Not enough room for you and Todd, I’m afraid. It’s pretty small.”
“You don’t have a place to put me?” I asked. No place to sleep? Then, strangely, it didn’t concern me. I was in such a good space that nothing seemed to bother me. There was always the car.
“Well, actually,” Darla said, scratching behind her ear, “we do have a solution. One I hope isn’t inconvenient.”
“Tell me,” I said, curious.
“Well, we have a small cabin set apart from the rest, a little more private. It’s about a ten-minute walk down the stream. It’s very nice. Quite a step up in many ways.”
“Okay,” I said with a shrug, and meant it. I was feeling too good. What, me worry? as Alfred E. Neuman used to say.
“You haven’t seen it,” Darla said. “Don’t you think you should see it first?”
“Okay,” I repeated. Why not?
Darla nodded. “Cole will show it to you.”
Cole had a big grin on his face. “Let’s go, Mr. Baxter,” he said, and motioning for me, he started down the porch steps. My eyes fell to the rear of his pants. Those jeans encased possibly the roundest, highest, tightest-looking butt I’d seen in a millennium. What was the saying? An ass that sticks out far enough you could set a cup of tea down on it without spilling it?
Geez, could they be much tighter?
And what are you doing looking at his butt?
I followed Cole down the steps and, despite myself, found it hard not to stare at his ass…. It, like the rest of him, looked very muscular. It flexed as he moved, and I wondered what it looked like without his jeans. Would it still be that round? Would it be smooth? Hairy? Somewhere in between?
Damn. One afternoon with a homosexual and I’m letting a lifetime of discipline slip? One afternoon and I’m imagining a man’s bare ass?
I knew it was a mistake to have Cole as our wrangler. No. I would not allow myself to fall back onto that path. This was too good a day. I would not let perverted thoughts ruin such a perfect day.
We went around the building, and Cole indicated a golf cart with my luggage already in the back. I wondered if I was being given a choice.
Cole and I climbed aboard, and he grinned again. “Trust me, Big Daddy. You’re going to love it.”
Then we were zipping down the main road, past all the buildings. After a short jog, Cole turned down a path that looked like it might be too narrow. Cole was pretty confident, though; he barely slowed as we went down a fairly steep hill.
This is a bit out of the way, isn’t it? We broke into a clearing dominated by a small, rustic-looking log cabin. It looked like something I might have constructed out of Lincoln Logs when I was a boy. It even had a green roof, although that was because grass and some other small plants were growing on it. The cabin seemed to have one end sticking right out of the side of the hill.
“Gosh,” I said. It looked primitive, although it was pretty.
“Wait until you see the inside,” Cole said with glee.
He jumped down, grabbed my bags, and led me onto a small porch, complete with two rocking chairs. Cole turned to me with a huge grin. “We’ve turned this into the newlywed cabin.”
“People go on their honeymoons at a dude ranch?” I asked.
“They’ve gotten married here,” he said happily and let us into the cabin.
“Whoa!” I exclaimed.
The inside was nothing like the exterior. As if in imitation of the main hall, the walls were all done in pine paneling with pretty prints, and a small version of the main hall’s stone fireplace dominated the back of the room. There was a large four-poster bed on one wall, with matching bedside tables. A love seat and recliner sat by the hearth, along with a coffee table. There was even a small sink, refrigerator, and a microwave. The painting over the fireplace was of a great sleeping bear.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or not about the rifle over that. So Western. The room was like a set from a Clint Eastwood movie. At least the gun seemed to have a lock. People might honeymoon at Black Bear Guest Ranch, but I was sure ugly fights happened too, like anywhere else.
“Like?” Cole asked.
I nodded, knowing he meant the cabin and not the rifle.
“I knew you would.” He tossed my bags on the hope chest at the foot of the bed. “Check this out,” he said and led me through a door into a striking slate bathroom with a large shower. It was easily big enough for two people.
Two men, even, I thought—and then banished the image.
“Nice, huh?” Cole asked.
“Very,” I answered.
“No bathtub, but look at this!”
“This” turned out to be a backyard of sorts with a small bubbling hot tub.
“Voilà!” he exclaimed. He pointed above the hot tub. “It’s protected by the roof overhang. And it’s totally private.” He swept his arm outward.
Indeed, the small grassy area was fenced in and ingeniously built over a creek that flowed through the backyard. “Even if someone hiked down the creek, they couldn’t see you back here. The fence is too high.”
He stepped close to me. “You can get naked,” he said quietly. He pronounced the word “nekkid.” Then: “I hate hot-tubbing with something on, don’t you?”
I could only gulp.
Cole stepped even closer. “You’ve got this whole place to yourself. If you want to be by yourself, that is. If not, I could come keep you company.”
I stood back.
Shit!
Cole was hitting on me!
And why not? The way you’ve practically been drooling over him.
No, I haven’t!
I had to nip this in the bud now. If I had given him the wrong impression, it was time to set things right. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Cole, I am not homosexual.”
A look crossed his face that would have been comical if I hadn’t felt insulted. “Y-you’re not?”
“No, Cole. I’m not,” I said with all the strength I could muster.
“But….”
“But what?”
He shook his head and looked away. “God… I… I’m sorry.”
“You thought I was homosexual.” It was a statement, not a question.
Cole backed up. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Baxter.”
Mr. Baxter? So I’m no longer Big Daddy? “What made you think I was gay?”
You know why he thought it!
“Because I was nice to you? Paid you a compliment? Do I look gay? Do I act gay?” I asked.
Did I? Had Cole been able to see something in me? How?
Cole’s eyes changed then. Went hard. It was like a door slammed shut, and the light in those eyes of his winked out. He shook his head. “Do I look gay?” he replied. “Do I act it?”
“You do when you come on to me two or three hours after we meet,” I said, letting my disgust show in my voice. Suddenly, his confusion was pissing me off. So I’d told him he was good-looking. So what? It didn’t mean I wanted to fuck him.
Are you sure?
Once again I pushed that voice away, getting even angrier. “You’re all like that, aren’t you?”
Something happened to his face. It grew even harder. The play and the merriment were gone. I didn’t like this new face of his. “Like what, Mr. Baxter?” he said, his voice like ice.
I gulped. Was he getting indignant? How dare he? “It’s sex with you all. That’s all you want. All you do!”
“We all?” His voice was even colder, if possible.
“Gays,” I said, feeling a rise of self-righteousness. “With those clubs and bathhouses and… and AIDS.”
Cole opened his mouth and then it snapped shut.
Time stopped.
“I do not have AIDS, Mr. Baxter. I haven’t been with a man in two years. And I’ve been tested. Regularly. Trust me.”
Yeah, right, I thought. Trust you? Why should I trust you? “You expect me to believe that?” And yet, inexplicably, another part of my mind was shouting something else. Asking me what the hell I was doing. That I had trusted him. He’d asked me that very question a half-dozen times today. Asked if I trusted him. And I had. Everything had been so wonderful. I’d been having the best day I’d had in a very long time.