The Cowboy and the Hacker (Farthingdale Valley #5)

13. Zeke

Chapter 13

Zeke

I n the pasture, Zeke went over to the water trough, took off his hat, and dunked his head beneath the silver spray from the hose.

Ignoring the astonished looks from the hard-working parolees of Galen’s team, he drubbed his face with water and let the water go everywhere. And told himself that he was not going to the showers with Cal because he was afraid to go. He was not going to the showers because he didn’t need one.

Sure, he was covered in sweat and horsehair. Sure, he smelled like horse and sun-warmed saddle. But he also felt wide-eyed and new, like some young greenhorn who had no idea what was to happen next.

He’d grown up on a ranch in New Mexico and had sought the wild world and ended up a bronc rider without any education beyond high school.

His family was scattered to the winds, in death and sickness and adventure. The family ranch in New Mexico lay desolate and needed a firm hand, needed someone with the willingness to plant deep roots.

He wasn’t ready to settle on the farm yet. Just as he wasn’t ready to confront the questions about himself and all the tender feelings springing up inside of him.

He wasn’t ready for any of it. So he straightened up, ignoring the startled reactions of the horses, put his hat back on and decided that the best thing he could do was to throw himself into his work.

He’d give riding lessons to parolees, and into training Cal to be his right-hand man during riding lessons, and that was all he was going to do, right up to the moment when summer ended and they all went their separate ways.

So he did.

Over the next few days, whether in sunshine or in rain, he gave Cal riding lessons, and talked him through not only how to ride, but how to translate what he knew for the benefit of others.

This was made miles easier than it had any right to be, simply because Cal was not only bright and quick to learn, but willing. He listened to Zeke, and when prompted, could recite what Zeke had just taught him, word for word. Could put what he knew into action.

When Zeke said they’d take a break and pitch in to rake the paddock and the pastures, cleaning up from the horses, Cal jumped right in. When Zeke volunteered them to groom not just the green-haltered horses, but every single horse in the pasture, that’s what they did, not finishing up until right before dinner.

By the time Friday rolled around, they were both pretty worn out. Never once did Cal complain.

“You still having trouble sleeping, Cal?” asked Zeke as they made their way to the mess tent. He’d done the hard work, and Cal had, too, so now it was safe— safer , at least—to care.

Cal looked at him, and Zeke could almost see the words swirling in his brain. Nope, not me, sir, no, not me . As if admitting this would amount to a weakness that Zeke might take advantage of.

“Come clean, please,” said Zeke as he stood in front of Cal in the buffet line.

“I have to sleep with the flashlight pointed at the ceiling,” said Cal, in a rush of honesty.

The half-whispered words came at Zeke from over his shoulder, as if Cal was thinking that if Zeke couldn’t actually look him in the eye, then Zeke wouldn’t judge him for it. Reminding Zeke all over again that someone had taught Cal to be mighty suspicious, even over the smallest confession.

“After dinner, and before the campfire,” said Zeke, putting an empty plate and a napkin roll of cutlery on his tray, “I’ll show you a neat trick.”

After dinner, at Cal’s tent deep in the darkening woods, Zeke asked Cal to get out his flashlight and a bandana. Then he showed him how to tie the bandana around the lens, to create a filter so that the light was a fine, rose-colored mist.

“Easier to fall asleep if it’s not so bright, I reckon.” He handed the flashlight back to Cal, handle first, and said, “You know you can always ask—if you’re struggling, you can always ask.”

As to what Cal might ask, Zeke wasn’t sure how to define that. Only that, throughout their first week together, though Cal seemed more at ease around him, he still maintained that self-reliant air, as if admitting any weakness or lack of knowledge would bring him under more scrutiny than he cared for.

He made a mental note to ask Gabe whether there was more that could be learned about Cal’s case, then stepped back and watched Cal place the flashlight, bulb up, on the little white shelf between the cots.

They should be heading to the campfire. That’s what they should be doing, but Zeke had a feeling that Cal wanted to ask him something.

Cal took up the flashlight again and fiddled with the bandana, and Zeke sat on the unmade spare cot. Cal sat on his cot.

While he waited for Cal to work out what he wanted to say. Zeke mentally kicked himself for thinking simply to rush off. And, if he was honest with himself, the quiet, semi-darkness of the green canvas tent was peaceful.

There was something about this young man, whether Cal reminded him of a younger version of himself, or whether he was finding that he enjoyed it when Cal would look at him, his eyes so very blue and wide. Maybe it was both.

“So—?” asked Zeke. He leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, hands gently clasped. “How was your first week?”

“Good.”

A single-word response from Cal, as Zeke was coming to learn, was Cal showing his hesitation. Given enough patience and time, that hesitation would blossom into something more confident.

“I mean—” Cal clasped the flashlight tightly. “This is good. I wasn’t expecting it, though.”

“Expecting what?”

“All of it.” Cal waved his hand in the direction of the open tent flap, through which a collection of early evening moths had made their way. “I expected it to be like working on a chain gang, not like summer camp. Not that I’ve ever been to summer camp.”

“We get that a lot, I think,” said Zeke. “That’s what Gabe tells me. That the description of the program might be a little misleading. Which might be why the size of the teams seems to be shrinking.”

“And then there’s—” With another wave, Cal seemed to include Zeke in the collection of things he’d not been expecting. “You.”

Cal coughed, like he’d not meant to say that. But he had, and Zeke couldn’t even begin to fathom what he meant. Or could he? He’d been blindsided by Galen asking him out, but this had to be different.

“Me?” asked Zeke.

The back of his neck grew warm while he waited for Cal’s answer. He sat up, brushing his palms along his thighs. That wasn’t a question he should have asked. Cal probably meant that, in general, he had been surprised by how nice the team leads were.

Cal stood up and fiddled again with the bandana around the flashlight, and ended up undoing the knots. The bandana fluttered to the floor, and Zeke pushed up and grabbed it. And then winced as his thigh decided, then and there, that he’d moved too fast. Just too damn fast. And cramped up.

Zeke sat down, wincing, straightening his leg and flexing his heel in his boot to increase the blood flow. This didn’t happen often, and he’d been following the doctor’s exercises faithfully, at least until the past week.

“That ought to teach me,” he said out loud, and then he looked up at Cal, who’d come close, hands held out in concern, his big blue eyes enormous. “Here,” said Zeke, pretending he was unaffected by this nearness, and handed the bandana to Cal.

Cal, ignoring the bandana, sat on the cot next to Zeke, creating a close circle of intimacy, shocking and warm. And kind.

“You okay?” asked Cal. “Do you need me to get someone?”

“No,” said Zeke, gasping the word out, still flexing his foot, still waiting for the cramp to end. “I’m fine. Too much riding and standing, not enough stretching. That’s all. It’ll pass.”

The cramp did pass with a sudden sharpness, the pain gone in an instant, like it was already a memory from long ago. As if it’d not even happened.

He let out a whoosh of air and allowed himself to collapse forward, fingers clasping and unclasping his knees. Sweat sprang to life along the back of his neck.

Cal took the bandana, and then Zeke felt the softness of Cal wiping the sweat away.

Betty Lou—and he hated to think of her amidst such tenderness—would have walked away and left Zeke to deal with his leg on his own.

“Just stay still,” said Cal, low. “The pain will get better soon if you just stay still.”

“You sound like you know that from experience,” said Zeke, still down, mumbling into the near-darkness the cave of his body created. He did not sit up and push Cal’s hand away, though he should have.

“Yeah,” said Cal. “I do.”

That did not sound good, and Zeke stemmed the urge to sit up and demand who had treated Cal so roughly that he knew what it felt like to get cramps so hard you just had to ride them out.

“Wait a minute. Here.”

With firm, caring hands, Cal helped him to sit up, and for a moment, Zeke swayed toward him as though his body had impulses beyond Zeke’s control.

With effort, Zeke leaned back, and, ignoring the intensity of those blue eyes, the concern he saw there, he took the bandana and tied it back around the flashlight.

“You’ll be ready for when it gets dark,” Zeke said. “We can get you another flashlight tomorrow to carry around with you and leave this one as it is.”

“What about tonight?” asked Cal, and the question seemed to contain more than a mere four words.

“I’ll escort you back,” said Zeke, thinking that all of this was foolishness on his part. Cal could easily untie the bandana and then tie it back again. He didn’t need to escort Cal anywhere. Least of all along paths that were surely becoming quite familiar to him.

“Thanks.”

Cal was back to one-word responses again, though the expression on Cal’s face seemed to hint there was more he wanted to say. There certainly was more that Zeke wanted to hear, though should they stay in this tent, intimate with its shaded pink light, and just the two of them, Cal standing too close, and Zeke not moving away?

No. They shouldn’t.

“Let’s head to the campfire,” said Zeke.

He stood up and waited for Cal to take a step back. Only he didn’t, so Zeke gently placed his hands on Cal’s shoulders and dipped his chin to get him to move.

Cal did, for which Zeke was grateful. One second more of that powerful closeness, and his mind was already scattered.

His thigh ached when he put weight on it, as well, and he felt that maybe he should duck out of the campfire and send Cal along on his own. But that was the coward’s way out. He’d not come all the way into the valley because he was a coward. These things needed to be dealt with head on, and not avoided.

Only not at that moment, because what was most important was for Zeke to get out of that tent and lead the way to the campfire. Which was what he did.

With Cal on his heels, the two of them marched through the forest along the short path that opened up to the fire pit and the flames dancing against the dark sky, high enough for Zeke to imagine that someone had doused the flames with lighter fluid.

All the men were standing, and Zeke saw Jonah pulling a young man away from the flames.

“Damn it, Beck,” Jonah said, but Beck just laughed and tossed his dark hair out of his eyes as Jonah grabbed something out of Beck’s hand and put it in his own pocket.

“Who’s that?” asked Cal, almost tripping on Zeke’s heels as Zeke came to a slow stop. His body brushed against Zeke’s in a casual way, so Zeke took another step forward in an attempt to put some sensible distance between them.

“I think that’s Jonah’s friend,” said Zeke, turning to talk to Cal over his shoulder. “He’s allowed to stay over the weekend.”

Zeke remembered Gabe telling him about Beck, but it was only now that the information made sense.

The time he’d first heard about Beck, he thought it strange that a non-parolee was allowed in the valley. Now, after seeing the effects of Beck running wild, he questioned it again. Still, if Gabe had approved Beck’s presence, then it was not Zeke’s place to question.

As he watched Jonah and Royce hustle to pour a bit of dirt on the edges of the fire to bring down the flames, he looked over at Cal. Who was looking at him in return, ribbons of firelight reflecting in his dark eyes.

Zeke could only imagine that the reaction in his gut, a shivery, excited twisting, was because he’d made it through his first week. And that he was proud of Cal for having learned enough that they could start riding lessons come Monday. And not because he could see Bede and Galen in the row furthest back from the fire pit, and that they were sitting mighty close. Shoulders rubbing, billing and cooing like a pair of turtle doves, fallen newly in love.

His was not to judge. Surely Gabe was aware of the pair and had no objections, so who was Zeke to step up and start pointing fingers?

“Let’s make s’mores,” Zeke said, shoving the swirl of confusion deeper inside. He wiped his damp palms on his thighs and cleared his throat to make sure Cal heard him. “If you get the sticks, I’ll get the supplies.”

By the time he and Cal were seated side by side on a blanket-covered hay bale, the fire had simmered down to a more reasonable level. Jonah, across the fire from Zeke, was giving Beck a stern talking to, if Jonah’s expression was anything to go by.

Meanwhile, as Zeke roasted his marshmallow in the dancing yellow flames, he studiously ignored Cal’s closeness. Ignored that he could smell the day’s efforts in Cal’s sweat, the trace of dust, and the linger of horsehair.

Their shoulders rubbed against each other from time to time, but Cal never objected, and Zeke didn’t move away.

He didn’t know what to make of that. He truly didn’t, but he liked the sense of camaraderie between them. And that he liked the nearness of Cal for reasons he could not explain. But there was nobody to explain himself too, so he tucked those feelings away and focused on what he did have: the warm, glowing fire, the company of hardworking men, the stars above. And Cal at his side.