Texas Fall (4 page)

“You don’t think it’s a
good idea to bring in a manager?” Riley asked. He was going for the first
option as he hoped this wasn’t a jealousy thing.

“No, that’s a really good
idea.”

Riley sighed. “But you
don’t like the idea of Tom?”

“No, Tom’s a good guy.
He’s hung out with Beth before. Shit, Riley.” Jack turned to face Riley and
forced his hands into his jean pockets. “Look, this was a long time ago, but I
was with Tom for a bit.”

“With him. You mean
with
him?” Riley could feel his eyes widening and something akin to an urge to
murder in his chest. Jealousy froze him, and he had to shake it off.

“One day, is all.”

Riley nodded. “One day,
one night?”

Jack looked sheepish and
stared down at his feet, scuffing the toe of his left boot in the dirt. “It was
a long time ago. He was only twenty-one, I damn near cradle robbed him. He was
drunk; I was drunk; it was easy.” He looked up at Riley and waited. “It was
never anything more than that, and it was years ago.”

Riley pushed down the
stomach sinking-sensation of having a name for one of Jack’s exes. Then he
manned up and decided to be absolutely honest with his husband.

“I’m not worried. If that
is what you think,” Riley said immediately. “We all have exes.”

“It meant nothing.”

“Didn’t matter if he was
the love of your life then, we’re together now, and that is what is important.”

Jack sighed. “I just
wanted you to know, so you didn’t find out later and think that he was… I don’t
know… using you or something.”

Riley relaxed his stance
and leaned against the fence. He’d never seen his husband quite so awkward
before, and it was kind of cute with a side helping of sexy. Who Jack had been
with before Riley was neither here nor there. Jack and Riley were forever, and
nothing from the past would destroy that. Riley considered two options: he
could tease Jack and pull this out for a long time, in which case he could see
his big cowboy all kinds of embarrassed, or he could just put Jack out of his
misery now. He chose the latter; after all he loved his husband too much to
fuck around with his head.

“I’m thinking back to the
interview, and he never once mentioned your name or used any kind of connection
to you or Beth to get the job. He was just honest and enthusiastic, and he has
a very good instinct for the oil business. You know what sold me on him?”

“What?”

“I handed him a map, and
he set it out on the floor.”

Jack pulled his hands out
of his pockets and tugged Riley close to him. “Just like you,” he said with a
hitch in his voice. “Come to think of it, he reminds me of you in a lot of
ways, the fire in his belly… He was wasted at Santone.”

“Apparently he knocked Josiah
Junior to the floor after an inappropriate pass.”

Jack appeared suitably
impressed. “Yep, he’s just like you.”

They kissed briefly.
“Thank you for telling me,” Riley said.

“I could give you a list
if you like, of the guys I’ve—”

“Hell no,” Riley
interrupted. “’Cause then you’d want my list, and hell, that list isn’t
pretty.”

Hand in hand they
retreated to the house, Hayley looking up when they came in. “You okay?” she
asked with a small frown. The question was for both of them, but she was
looking at Jack.

Riley deliberately leaned
down and kissed Jack on the cheek, and she relaxed and smiled.

“Everything is fine.” Then
he slid into the chair opposite and turned her book to face him. “History, eh?”
he asked. And all too soon he was embroiled in a discussion about the Cold War
and relaxing back into being a daddy.

Jack watched for a while,
then left when Liam came in with soil samples for analysis. The two of them
left discussing alkali counts, and Riley didn’t think he could be any more in
love with his gruff tough cowboy. But somehow, tonight, seeing the
vulnerability and the honesty in Jack made him feel like the luckiest man
alive.

The days until the court
case dragged for Jack, let alone poor Liam, who grew more and more tense as the
days approached. Marcus not only lived in the apartment with Liam, but he also
made odd trips out to the ranch at the weirdest of times of the day, and Jack
knew he was checking in on Liam.

Jack hadn’t officially
told Liam he was taking a trip down south with him or that Robbie was going as
well. He’d arranged for someone to cover the ranch, and when that final piece
of the puzzle fell into place, Neil promising to come oversee everything, it
was time for Jack to tell Liam exactly what was happening.

He found Liam cleaning out
Solo’s stall, singing something under his breath and in a world of his own.

“Can I have a word, Liam?”
Jack asked. He wished he’d made more noise in his approach, but it was still comical
when Liam jumped so high he nearly ended up hitting his head on the low beams.

“Jesus,” he cursed, then
placed a hand over his mouth when he realized what he’d said in front of Jack.

Jack held up his hands in
a gesture of apology. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Liam
immediately replied. He was always doing that, apologizing for things that he
had no control over, like jumping because he was surprised, or like yesterday
when he’d been singing and Robbie asked him to sing quieter ’cause he was
scaring the horses. Robbie had been joking, but even Jack couldn’t fail to
notice that Liam had gotten a hell of a lot quieter since then.

“Can we talk?” Jack asked
again and watched as Liam placed the shovel carefully to one side and brushed
himself down. He was a little pale, and added to his jumpiness, he looked like
the axe was going to fall.

“Yes, sir.”

Jack sighed inwardly. He’d
given up asking Liam to call him Jack, and they’d settled into this weird kind
of respect thing Liam had going on. “I just wanted to let you know Robbie and I
will be going down to Laredo with you next week.”

Liam opened his mouth to
speak, then shut it. He brushed his hands on his jeans again and looked
everywhere but at Jack.

“Why?” he finally blurted
out. “I promise not to mention you in a bad light or—”

Jack snapped. He knew he
shouldn’t, but the anger he felt at the people who had hurt Liam was enough to
push him over the edge. “Like I’d think that. We’re going because if they try
one little thing to drag you down and discredit you, then you’re going to need
me and Robbie in your corner. Okay?”

Liam looked glassy-eyed,
and Jack took a step back as he realized he’d lost it and not in a very helpful
way.

“You’d do that? For me?”

Jack despaired of ever
getting Liam to see that he was part of the D’s extended family, that Jack
cared for his welfare and that he would always be there for him. Liam was a
good kid, sensible, very capable, and Robbie loved him like a kid brother or,
as Eli teased him, like a son.

“Liam, Riley wanted to
come down as well, but someone has to be here for the kids.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Jack.”

“Thank you, Jack.”

“We’ll take Riley’s Land
Rover.”

Liam’s eyes widened, and
he gave a tentative smile. “Really, his new SUV? The silver one? He’s letting
us use it?”

Jack grinned at the
appearance of the small smile. “Let’s just say I have sway with the owner. Now,
focus on the positives and get it into your head how much I respect you for
standing up with this, how much Robbie respects you. You’re doing the right
thing. Okay?”

With that, Jack left the
barn and went straight to find Robbie, who was working with one of the new
horses in the far field. When Robbie spotted him, he pulled the mare to a stop
and slid off her back, leading her over to the fence and wrapping the reins
around the solid wood. She huffed at him, and he scratched her nose and behind
her ears.

“How’s she doing?” Jack
asked as owner and horse lover. Mistry had been a rescue horse, found dumped up
near the beginning of the ranch road. Robbie had been the one to find her and
bring her in, and named her Mistry. She’d not had a bad life, seemed well cared
for, but neither Robbie nor Jack had managed to track down the owner as yet. So
Robbie was working with her, and she was a strong and capable horse.

“Well, I thought maybe
she’d suit a kid of Hayley’s age in the school.”

Jack stroked Mistry and
was offered a push and a chuff as a reward. She was certainly a friendly thing,
and if there was one thing Jack trusted, it was Robbie’s instincts. Which led
nicely to the one thing he and Robbie had been discussing on and off for weeks,
the creation of a special equine therapy school for kids like Max to interact
with the horses and the ranch. They’d made plans, even looked at the parts of
the ranch where they could build and expand and create a place suitable for
kids, their caregivers, and the horses they rode.

“I was reading up on
zoning yesterday. We need to get a lot of work done before we can get licensed for
working with kids with the different needs.”

“We never thought it would
be easy,” Robbie said. He was using the patented Robbie patient tone, and Jack
was all about coming down with Robbie and agreeing to the whole thing. He knew
what was stopping him.

“I just want Liam sorted
out,” he admitted. It wasn’t hard to admit that he was worried about Liam and
what would happen in Laredo. Liam had been to counseling, he was doing well, he
had Marcus, but at the end of the day, he was so damn young.

“Me too,” Robbie agreed.
“We’ll think on the school after we’re back.”

“I told him just now we
were going with him.”

“You found a foreman to
watch out.”

“Close enough. Neil is
coming to stay, and he’s got a couple guys who work with horses, Charlie and
Clay, you know them.”

Robbie had been tense, but
he relaxed on hearing the names. “I had Clay in mind for the school if we could
get him, and Charlie, I’ve worked with him on the joint feed program. Good
men.”

“So you’re okay to go.”

“When do we leave?”

“Thursday? Gives us a
couple days grace. And we were invited to stay at the Bar Five with the
Castilles, but I turned them down. I know Hank isn’t there and Darren is
running the show, but I’m not sure Liam would be ready for that yet.”

“He’s stronger than we
think,” Robbie defended.

“He’s…” Jack couldn’t
think of the words. “Brittle,” he finished. “Like he’s close to snapping.”

“Wouldn’t you? Going up
against Hank, the man who abused you as a kid, or Yuri the one who attacked you
as an adult?”

“Yeah, and that’s the hard
side of it all. He’s spending so much time being okay that actually underneath
it all, he’s far from it.”

“We’ll keep an eye on
him.”

Jack nodded and scratched Mistry
behind the ear, earning himself another nudge. She loved affection, this one.

Yes, they’d look after
Liam. They would make sure Liam was taken care of and that they came away from
Laredo with some kind of justice for the young cowboy.

* * * * *

Liam watched Jack leave
the barn and turned back to what he’d been doing, but the rhythm of it was
wrong and the remainder of the stall took far longer than it should. He tried
not to think about what would be happening in Laredo, but he couldn’t help it.
The prosecution had interviewed him, taken everything he knew, and fashioned a
good case alongside other witnesses, other kids. One boy younger than him, the
other two older.

Grief tightened his chest
and guilt chased it. What if he’d stayed and told someone what was happening
and they’d actually believed him? Would it have stopped anyone else from being
hurt like him? The youngest defendant was only sixteen now, a street kid with
nowhere else to go except straight into Hank’s world.

He leaned over with his
hands on his knees and tried to still the panic in his breathing. What the hell
was he going to do if he saw the kids, looked them in the face, and knew what
had happened?

Arms snaked around him
from behind and helped him to straighten up. He didn’t even startle, he knew
who it was. Intuition? Scent? Some kind of weird connection told him instinctively
that Marcus was holding him. He didn’t want Marcus seeing him so tense, but he
didn’t have enough time to put up his usual barriers.

He leaned back into
Marcus’s hold for the shortest time, then remembered he was covered in dirt and
Marcus was probably in a suit. He pulled away and turned to face his lover, but
he didn’t look at the suit or the shiny shoes or the pristine tie. No, he looked
directly into brown eyes, and he was lost.

Marcus looked so serious. “You
okay?” he asked.

That was the second time Liam
had been asked that today, and he didn’t have an answer for it this time any
more than he had the first. He could try the way he was normally, stoic and
focused, but Marcus was looking at him with such tenderness and understanding
that it nearly broke Liam.

“No,” he answered, and for
the first time in a long while, he was being completely honest.

“Okay.” Marcus gripped his
hand and tugged him from the barn and up the metal stairs to their place. As
soon as he got inside, he peeled off Liam’s clothes and pushed him into the
shower before stripping his own suit and pulling on jeans and a T.

Liam watched him through
the glass, saw him puttering around their small kitchen, smelled the chocolate
as soon as the water stopped. He knew exactly what Marcus was doing, and
abruptly most things in his world righted themselves. Marcus opened the shower
door and wrapped Liam in one of their huge gray towels before guiding him to
their bed. Together they settled against the headboard, and even though Marcus was
smaller, he still managed to support Liam.

Liam rested his head on
Marcus’s chest and listened to his heartbeat, and Marcus didn’t ask any questions.
He just hugged and waited while Liam settled his breathing. He thought he’d gotten
past all the shit in his head, but coming up to the court case, he was losing
the fine control he’d built.

“Jack came and talked to
me today,” Liam finally said. Marcus hummed that small noise that meant he’d
heard Liam’s words. “Said he and Robbie are coming with us down to Laredo.”
Only the slight tightening of Marcus’s hold gave away his reaction.

“That’s a good thing,” Marcus
said. “Isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Will be good to have both
of them backing you up.”

“But do you think it’s
because they know it’s going to be so bad that they need to be there? Robbie
already gave his statement about what he found when he got to the barn, and you’ve
given your statement. Jack was ill, he only saw…” Liam stopped and closed his
eyes tightly. All Marcus did was rub circles on his bare skin, and after the
longest time, Liam could feel himself relaxing.

Marcus began to talk. “Had
the Reysons in today. Their surrogate is due in the next couple days.”

Liam appreciated the
change in direction. “Are they excited?”

“Big-time, although I
think Mrs. Reyson has redone the nursery four—no, five—times.”

They talked about Marcus’s
day, about Marcia, the weather, the news, and they stayed away from the
elephant in the room.

And for that Liam was
happy.