Leo tore into him like he was riding a rabid wild bull, and Mac gave him all the noises he’d asked for, without so much as trying to. Keening, screeching noises that conveyed the intense feeling of having that beautiful dick pounding him senseless.
Leo had to let go of his wrists to better leverage himself, and Mac had the extreme urge to hold onto him, like he was holding on for dear life, but he knew better. He didn’t move his arms from over his head, and for that, he got a triumphant and wicked smile before Leo’s face froze and his jaw dropped in a strangled grunt as he came.
Like a fine sculpture, carved by the hand of a god, he was so still, breath damned in his chest, the cords of his neck perfectly defined as he flexed, arms and chest muscles, the same. The only life there was in him were his eyes. They flashed, sparkled, lived.
He didn’t collapse on Mac, like Mac thought he would. He sat straight back, his face up to the ceiling of the camper and he let out a roar. Mac was shivering with it, and he didn’t know if it was fear or awe that created it, but it was magnificent.
Mac hadn’t had an orgasm, but he didn’t need one. Watching Leo’s, experiencing it with him was enough, and he felt as spent as if they’d fucked all night, and he’d come a thousand times.
Holding Leo a few minutes later, he thanked him with words and passionate kisses to his beautiful lips and jaw, his neck, his chest. “Baby, I have to finish you.”
“I’m finished. My body is rattled with what you just did to me.”
It was true, the way his muscles were jumping, the soreness of his ass, the absolute relaxation he felt. Leo smiled, relenting, “I know what I said I wanted, but are you okay?”
“Better than that. I’m not fragile, Leo.”
After swallowing twice, then staring into his eyes, like he was searching for something, Leo whispered, “I never want to hurt you. You’ve been hurt enough.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it so much. I’m not a kid, and I’m not gonna die from havin’ great sex.”
“Not just the sex, baby. I don’t ever want to hurt you.”
Mac got worried, but then he pushed it aside, knowing Leo wouldn’t want that. “Are ya plannin’ on it? Hurtin’ me?”
“No, never, but…shit, life happens, and if I ever do something that hurts you, know that it wasn’t intentional. I want to be with you, Mac. Not just for now, but I know this all happened fast. We both had lives before we met. I’m not even sure what we’re going to be once this place is ready and up for business. I have things I need to do away from here, and it’s not like we’ve even really talked about what comes next.”
“Then, let’s not. Let’s just see what comes. You go, take care o’ things, and when we’re ready for what comes next, we can talk ‘bout it then. For now, just be with me.”
Not that he felt that way, exactly. If it were completely up to him, Leo would move there with him and they’d spend the rest of their lives together. He wasn’t a selfish man, however, and respected Leo too much to expect him to change everything, leave behind the life he was living to move to a ranch with a cowboy scraping by to make ends meet.
Still, he could dream, and when he saw them, the old version of them, they were sitting on the screened porch out front, watching the sun rise and sipping the one cup of coffee their doctor frowned on but allowed begrudgingly.
Those were dreams, though, the same as having his own ranch had been. Technically, he had one, the one they were trying so hard to save, but that didn’t mean his dream had come true. Or had it?
He worked that much harder the next two days, all the while Shan and Leo not only pitched in with the physical work but worked three more hours searching for the next of kin of Dexter Cutler.
On the second evening, they found her, the niece of Dexter’s that had continued the family tree from her mother, who was unable to do it any longer. Shan was the one who spoke to her on the phone, explaining what they knew, which wasn’t much, and what she heard back from them chilled Mac to his core.
Cecil was asleep on the couch, so they gathered in the master bedroom, Mac being held on the edge of the bed by Leo.
“It’s a family rumor for them, so we can’t know how true it is or not. But…given what we’ve learned about Wyatt, it’s probably more true than not.
“When your grandfather Jeb died, in 1861, the war between the states had just started. She’d heard that Jeb was a kind and fair man, that he visited the slave quarters all the time to bring them food that wasn’t their normal rations, medicine if they were ill, and just to speak to the older gentlemen.
“He’d grown to see them as family, of sorts, and wanted them to have the land when he died, if they were ever able to own land. They were thrilled when the emancipation happened, and the war ended. Sure, they still weren’t allowed to own property then, but they were assured by Jeb’s lawyer that they’d be able to stay on the land until such time they could have it outright.”
“Why wasn’t there any documents in all those papers about it? Did Wyatt burn them too?”
Shan nodded to Mac, adding, “I’m sure he did, but there are some letters, some his wife didn’t destroy that pretty much corroborates that. The ones you saw and a couple more I’ve found since. He was the one who bought them from some guy he met while he went to school. I guess he went with a lot of southern slave owners and was embarrassed that he didn’t have any.”
“This is conjecture on our part,” Leo explained. “We knew where he went to school, knew the kind of men he was likely around for most of it. All wealthy, all southerners, and that meant they had slaves. For Wyatt to be a wealthy land owner, a large ranch like his father had, and not own them had to be an embarrassment for him. He was probably teased about it, if not alienated completely for not owning at least a few slaves.”
“I git it, peer pressure in the worst way. Jeb had to okay it though.”
“Jeb was getting older. Sure, in years as we know them today, baby, he wasn’t old. Sixty-one when he died, but back then, that was like over eighty today. No real medicine, no conveniences means they worked themselves to death. I’m sure Wyatt pressured him.”
Leo’s words were supposed to comfort him, but he didn’t think anything could.
Shan went on, “The rest of the legend goes that after Jeb died, and the war ended, Wyatt came back and told the slaves to leave. They wouldn’t, said that they were given share cropping rights until they could own property in Texas. It was said that…that Wyatt killed one of them to prove his point. The families ran off, scattering, but Dexter’s grandfather remembered the story his father told him. The Cutlers didn’t keep in touch with any of the other families, but her mother had a trunk of pictures and things that might give us some clues. I’m going to meet with her, and Wayne and you can come with me, if you’d like.”
“Yeah, I’d like ta.”
Leo grabbed his hand and threaded their fingers together. “I’ll come too.”
Wayne teased, “You and Shan want to show the family’s changed, what with both of us falling for people of color?”
Leo grinned and admitted, “It couldn’t hurt.”
Mac sat straight and looked at Leo, pleading, “Don’t think that’s why I’m with ya!”
They all laughed at him and Wayne was the one to say, “If you could see your face every time you look at him, Mac, you wouldn’t worry. Like me, I don’t see Shan’s skin color, I see the woman I am crazy in love for. She says you have the same face I do.”
Mac deflated, ducking his head to hide his grin. “Can’t he’p it.”
“Of course, you can’t. I’m amazing.”
Shan smacked him, chiding, “You’re conceited.”
“W-when do we go meet ‘er?”
“For lunch tomorrow.”
Chapter Fifteen
He changed three times, spinning around in the middle of the camper in front of the long mirror on the bathroom door. Nothing looked right, nothing felt right, and he wished Leo was there instead of finis
hing up the packet of things they were taking along with them to meet Andrea Page.
He grabbed his hat and considered not wearing it, but he’d never gone a day without a hat on his head and he felt wrong without it. He stuffed it on as he ducked out of the doorway, heading into the house.
Once inside, every eye turned to him, Leo whistling between his teeth. Mac fidgeted, whining, “Too dressy?”
His boyfriend looked over his clean, newer flannel shirt and crisp jeans, smirking, “Not dressy, no, but damn, so hot I could eat you alive.”
Wayne gagged and begged, “Not in front of his straight little brother with that stuff, huh?”
Shan smacked her husband and nodded over to Mac. “You look just fine, honey. Now, are you feeling fine? Besides the rest of you, your face is a little green.”
“I am a little green. Feel like pukin’, but I’ll be okay.” He hoped he wasn’t lying.
Leo grabbed his hand and led him into the dining room, pushing him against the wall, holding him there, not blinking as he set his gaze into Mac’s. “Give it to me, baby. Give me your nervousness and fear.”
Handing those over would be harder than handing Leo his stress, but he’d given the man his word. He promised he would not carry it himself, that he’d hand it over so Leo could deal with it for him, and he could concentrate on what was really important. After chewing on his lip, he resolved to do what the man asked. “Take the damn things. I don’t wan’ ‘em.”
Leo let a soundless laugh rush out on his breath and he kissed Mac hard, cupping his cheek and moving his whole body into Mac’s. “That’s my baby. Damn proud of you.”
“No need o’ that. Just don’t let me fall apart and start sobbin’ like some idiot, beggin’ for forgiveness.”
“No sobbing, no begging. What happened, it wasn’t you. You can apologize for your ancestor, but you’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Haven’t I? Why didn’t I go look at those papers in the loft? Why didn’t I ask more about the slave quarters? Turnin’ my back on the truth makes me as guilty, Leo.”
He figured Leo would get angry with him, but instead, he whispered, “You never stop amazing me, baby. I love your heart.”
Shan came in to tell them, “It’s time to go, or we’re going to be late.”
Leo wrapped his arms around Mac, hugging him for a good long moment, the time bedamned.
The ride was spent with Shan and Leo filling them in on some of the letters they’d read recently from Wyatt, Jacob, Houston and some others.
“When Houston Blaylock inherited the ranch in 1985, when Samuel passed,” Leo explained, “He was in a pickle like you to an extent, Mac. Not that Samuel left him a lot of debt, but he’d kept him in the dark about the ways he’d been running it. He was angry about it, sending a letter to the lawyer that was handling the will, but the letter was returned, unopened. It was still unopened when we found it.”
Shan chimed from the front, “Not anymore. We opened it.”
Mac took the letter that Shan handed back to him and read over it. “It says here that Houston was being passed over for things, that Daniel was privy to the information he should have been told.” He asked Shan and Leo, “What information?”
“It doesn’t say in there, but we’re still looking, Mac,” Shan assured. “Like it says there, Houston’s father may not have trusted him, but he still had a right to know. Now we just have to find out what he meant.”
“Does it have to do with the slaves?”
“Couldn’t, baby, at least I don’t think. Houston died in ’85. That’s a long time from the civil war.”
They passed the motel where Shan and Cecil were staying nights and Mac stared at it, knowing how much fun Cecil must be having, ordering room service and watching whatever he wanted on TV.
Leo leaned over to admit, “I’m a little nervous myself.”
“Nah, I just gave you mine.”
Leo laughed and kissed him on the neck, letting his warm breath out there. Mac turned his head, looking at him as they both smiled. “Mac, you’re going to be okay.”
If for no other reason than something was actually happening, that he was going to confront his family’s past, he thought the same thing.
They got to the restaurant ten minutes early, getting a large table toward the back of the dining room. It wasn’t overly decorated, brick walls with black and white pictures hanging, one Gerbera daisy in a small vase on each table that was covered in white linen.
Shan had chosen perfectly, nothing fancy, but no greasy spoon diner either. Mac took off his hat as soon as he’d walked through the door, but he held it to his chest, and Leo made a comment about it. “It’s not a shield.”
It felt like one. Anytime he’d been berated in the past by his father, he’d simply lowered his head for the brim of the hat to hide the tears that sprang to his eyes. He didn’t need that any longer, so he took his hat to one of the wall hooks by the front entrance and hung it there.
As he walked back to the table, he thought of what was giving him more strength than the hat could ever do. Lying in a bed with a man he was crazy about, the feeling of fingers skimming over his neck, a hand on his chest, right above his heart. That waking touch as Leo wrapped his arms around Mac, holding on loosely as he tried to pull himself from sleep. Lips on his shoulder, smiles cast in his direction and seeing the love light those beautiful eyes.
Embraces, Leo’s hand on his lower back when they walked into the room, guiding him but not pushing. Having someone that wanted to take everything bad away and replace it with love and kindness.
No, he no longer needed a hat for safety, or a place to hide. With Leo, he could face anything.
Andrea Page was not alone when she entered the eatery ten minutes later. She was pushing a wheelchair, one that held an old woman with dark glasses and a tight bun of grey hair on her head.
Andrea was beautiful, big eyes, ready smile, dressed in a simple black suit. They introduced themselves and she told the group, “I’m Andrea, and this is my mother, Linnie.” She leaned in and told her mother, “Mama, there are four people here, three men and a woman.”
“Guessed that much from the stink of cologne,” the old woman said, then cackled at her own joke. “How do?”
Shan was the first to say, “Very well, Missus…Page?”
“No, I ain’t a Page, I’m a Monroe. Page is my daughter’s name, taken from her husband like mine was to me.”
Mac liked her immediately, but that only made him sorrier for having to have the conversation they were about to have. “Mrs. Monroe, I’m McCully Blaylock.”
“I sure hope they call you Cully or Mac. McCully is a mouthful.”
“Mac, ma’am.”
Once they were seated around the table, Andrea told the group, “We were surprised to get your message. What exactly do you know about what happened back then?”
“Not much,” Shan said, sighing, “At least not yet. There are tons of papers and things we’re still going through. What we came to realize, though, is that the Blaylocks back then, Wyatt in particular, kept the property that was supposed to go to your family and others. It may be a long time waiting, but we’d like to honor Jeb’s will, and return what should be yours to you.”
“What if we don’t want it?” Linnie asked, gripping her wrinkled hands on to the wheelchair’s armrests. “What the hell would we do with it?”
That was a surprise to them, Wayne’s words saying what all of them felt. “Ma’am, it’s yours, or part of it is. That’s up to you.”
Andrea tried to scold her mother, “Mama, hear them out.”
“I’m listening, Drea, but I ain’t hearing much. Righting a wrong is one thing, but squashing some guilt is another.”
Wayne and Mac looked at each other, then down at the table, but it was Shan who jumped into the fray. “Listen, Mrs. Monroe, these boys come from a line that had good and bad folks, I’m guessing like any other family. What our people went through can’t ever be changed,
and it sure can’t be made better now. That being said, these men are trying to give back something that was stolen. There’s no shame in that.”
“Our people? You black?”
Shan sat up a little straighter and affirmed, “Yes, ma’am.”
Leo chimed, “I am too, ma’am, at least half of me is. Mac, here, is my partner. The prejudices of the past generations are gone with these two men, and they don’t want to smooth anything over from what was done by their ancestors. That’s impossible. They simply want to reach out and try to make something right.”
“You two white boys got a tongue between you, or are you perfectly okay with letting your black folk speak for ya?”
Wayne started to speak, but Mac cast him a look that said that he was the oldest, and he had to do it himself. “No, ma’am, they don’t need ta speak for me. I’m ashamed o’ my folk and what they did. That can’t be changed and won’t be. What I am tryin’ ta do is small, it ain’t o’ no consequence ta you or me in the great scheme o’ things, but somethin’ was taken. Somethin’ that coulda been a good thing or not. I want to return it, with an apology.”
They all waited for the old woman to reply to that, Mac’s hands in fists under the table, the tension collecting there.
Andrea pushed, “Mama, it was good of them to call at all.”
“Don’t tell me what’s good ‘n bad, Drea. I know it was good of ‘em. Thing is, my brother, he spent his life obsessed with this.” She pulled her glasses off and dabbed her eye with a knuckle before replacing them and continuing. “He didn’t marry, have babies, nothin’. The rest of us, we thought he was nuts. We’d heard the rumors, sure, but things passed down are more often than not nothing but myths. To know this was true…I jus’ wish he was alive to know, and to see it come to an end.”
His hands relaxed as the rest of him did. Leo ran a hand over his thigh, and sighed, then Wayne said to Linnie, “Ma’am, if we could go back…”
“A lot of things wouldn’t have changed. Maybe some woulda, but we’ll never know that. And why should we? The sweet lord doesn’t give us do-overs. What we got here, well, it’s folks tryin’, and that’s about all we can do.”
Remember the Alamo (Legacy Book 1) Page 15