The Cowboy and the Hacker (Farthingdale Valley #5)

25. Cal

Chapter 25

Cal

S houlders tight, arms wrapped around his own body, Cal ate his dinner in the mess tent with the others. He didn’t look for Zeke, or try to sit next to him, because when Zeke said they couldn’t be together like they’d been in Aungaupi Valley, he’d meant it.

So, instead, Cal sat on the last seat at the long table next to the opening to the mess tent. There, he could tell himself that he was focusing on the rain, making a mental list of things he needed to do, laundry, polishing his cowboy boots, which were now thoroughly broken in and as easy to wear as he could ever have imagined.

He needed a shower and a shave and a good night’s sleep and in the morning, he would go on as if their shared trip to Aungaupi Valley had never happened.

That he’d not watched while Zeke cried over the mustangs’ fate.

That he’d not galloped across that green valley with Zeke’s arms around him.

That he’d not eaten the worst beef stew known to man and then crawled into a damp tent and made love to the most amazing man he’d ever met.

That last would be the hardest to forget. It was branded into his heart.

All of what they’d shared together was part of him now. Something he could turn to in darker moments—and it felt pretty dark right now as he made his way back to his tent. There, he tugged off his boots and curled and uncurled his feet, buried in socks that were pretty grimy.

Looking over at his phone, he grabbed it and, on reflex, thumbed to the voice messages icon and tapped it open. There were no less than five messages from Preston, each one at least thirty seconds long. Two of them clocked out at almost a full minute.

His heartbeat picked up, and acidy panic thrummed through his veins. Lightheaded, he played the most recent message.

“What the fuck, Cal. You better pick up the phone. I know where you are now. Maddy told me about the visiting thing, and of course you lied to me about all of it. I was there on Sunday, like we agreed?—”

Cal shook his head. They hadn’t agreed on anything, though that never mattered to Preston.

“—Like we agreed. I waited for hours. You never showed. I went through the trees and met some asshat named Gabe. He said you were going by horseback to rescue some nags from wild animals or some shit. That you’d be back on Monday. Then when I called him again, he said you’d be back Tuesday. Now it’s Tuesday. You better call me. We need to arrange when I’m going to bring you back home. Be packed and ready cause it’s happening.”

That was the message. Demands and accusations and name calling, all in Preston’s voice, strident and angry and simply awful.

After having been away from Preston and his rage, Cal didn’t know how he’d stood it for so long. He really had been like a frog in a pot of cold water who simply didn’t know he was about to be boiled to death.

He’d had that thought, and others like it before, but after being in the valley? After being with Zeke? After he and Zeke had made love in a valley far away from anywhere, there was no way he was going back to Preston. Now, more than ever, he needed a plan.

He had to rescue himself from this. If he brought any of this up to Zeke—no. He couldn’t bring it up to Zeke. He needed to take care of his own mess so none of it would affect Zeke.

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t calling Preston back. He might reach out to Maddy and ask her not to share any more information with Preston, but he didn’t want to tell her what was going on because none of it had worked. He’d failed utterly.

Except he’d been brave to escape Preston’s clutches the first time. He just needed to keep on being brave about it and get away from him for good.

In the meanwhile, he needed to keep doing his parole in the valley. Not just because it was the right thing to do, but because it would keep him close to Zeke.

That was the important thing. To hang on to every moment with both hands, so he could take it out later and marvel that he’d been only inches away from a life of pure happiness.

He showered, and shaved, then went back and stripped to his briefs, and got into his cot. He held the flashlight, wrapped in a bandana, and laid it next to his pillow so the circle of light shone toward the end opposite the opening.

The pinkish light comforted him to sleep, and in the morning, he would wake up and go about things as if it was an ordinary day and not a continuance of his time in the valley with Zeke. Because it wasn’t. Zeke had a job and Cal had his parole to finish and then he needed to figure out how to make his final escape from Preston.

His escape plan was still undefined when he woke up the next morning and got dressed and headed to the mess tent.

When he got there, he saw Zeke was already in line, freshly shaved, head bowed as he looked at his hands, focused on them as though they were helping him ignore everything going on around him.

Which wasn’t like Zeke. Zeke was always aware of his surroundings, looking around him in a quiet and steady way, taking the world in before he made his own assumptions about it.

Cal’s heart ached to think that Zeke was hurting and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Except Zeke wanted them to keep a professional distance, and so he would.

The rain had stopped, at least for the moment, though the paddock where they planned to give another riding lesson, making up for lost time, was a sloppy mess.

“Shall we go ahead with it?” asked Zeke out loud, his green eyes distant from beneath the brim of his hat.

It sounded like Zeke was talking to himself more than Cal. Then Zeke turned away from Cal, looking at the paddock and the three men who truly wanted lessons: Wayne, Toby, and Gordy.

“Mud doesn’t bother me,” said Wayne, in that way he had, self-important and overly direct.

“Let’s run through it, then,” said Zeke. “Grab those green halters and I’ll show you how to catch horses in the field.”

“I thought Galen was giving the lessons,” said Gordy as they slipped through the wires and trudged out across the muddy pasture.

“He’s helping Gabe today,” said Zeke. “Something about trees falling over and needing to be cleared.”

Cal had the same question, but he didn’t want to bother Zeke. Looking at him from afar was painful enough. It would have been sheer agony to ask the question and then have Zeke dismiss him. Or not look at him when he was answering.

He knew better, though. Zeke was a good guy, through and through, and had never seemed the type of man to be mean and snotty, just because he was three feet away from the guy who’d given him his first blow job.

Zeke wouldn’t break Cal’s heart, not on purpose.

“Cal,” said Zeke.

Cal lifted his head.

“Can you run and open the gate to the paddock?” he asked. “Just in case these guys lose control of their horses.”

Cal looked beyond Zeke to where the three men were holding the leads of three very bouncy horses who must have felt the muddy field was an excuse to trot in place and pull at their leads as though they were at the starting gate of a major race.

Ducking into a run, Cal made it to the paddock gate, opening it just as the three horses, now loose, leads trailing, heads high, ears pricked, were about to bang into it. They slithered past him, wet muscle and flying tail, with Wayne, Toby, and Gordy hurrying behind them, doing their best not to slip in the mud.

“It’s like this sometimes,” said Zeke as he followed after them, taking the gate latch from Cal’s hands and closing the gate. “You won’t always have sunny days and dry fields.”

Zeke’s gaze flicked to Cal’s and then away as he focused on helping the men dry their horses off a bit before saddling up. Cal knew he’d have endured all the rain-soaked rides the world could ever come up with to be with Zeke.

But Zeke had set the tone. Cal would follow out of courtesy. He didn’t like making a fuss anyhow.

Maybe he and Zeke could work out a friendship. But the thought of that made his heart hurt, so he focused on the lesson, focused on helping Gordy out of the mud after he’d slipped off his horse. Focused on the work, because maybe that would help. It didn’t really, but that was all he could do.

It seemed an eternity until lunchtime, when they could at last stop the lesson, unsaddle the horses and put tack away, distribute horse cookies, and trudge toward the mess tent.

Zeke stopped off at his tent, presumably to change into dry, mud-free clothes, but Cal went straight to the mess tent to pile whatever food was on offer on his plate.

As before, he ate alone. He kept looking toward the opening of the mess tent, telling himself he wasn’t looking for Zeke. When Zeke finally did arrive at the tail end of lunch, Cal looked the other way and felt awful about it.

He reached for the memory of their time together in Aungaupi Valley, of the sun on the mountain peaks, and the clouds tracing shadows beneath them as they went. Him and Zeke. The slow, careful way Zeke would look at him, those green eyes glinting in the shadow of his hat brim. The kindness Zeke spread all around him, to the horses, to Cal, to the brown bear who was just browsing in the bushes on the other side of the river.

If Cal had met Zeke before he’d met Preston, his life would be very different now. But then, if he’d not gone to prison, he’d not have entered the Fresh Start Program and he would not have met Zeke. That was the important thing.

He was long done with his lunch, and Zeke hadn’t even looked in his direction. Cal stood up and chastised himself as he bussed his place and, with half an ear for the sound of Zeke’s steady pace behind him, boots on the wooden stairs, he thought all of this over.

He’d not met Zeke before he’d met Preston. Life was like that. But he’d met Zeke now . He knew him now.

He deserved happiness just like anyone else, they both did, and running from Preston was only one solution. Sure, it’d been his first thought, but if he wanted to be with Zeke, then he should be with Zeke. Somehow.

There was no point being a coward about it. He’d been so passive in his relationship with Preston, it was both comical and sad. If his time with Zeke in that valley far away from anywhere had taught him anything, it was that there were good men in the world, and Zeke was at the top of the list.

Cal needed to make the first move, just like he’d done in the valley. Only there was no clear path. Just a muddy one. At the other end of that, though, was something good. There was someone like Zeke.

Realizing that he was going to stand up not only for what he wanted, but to Zeke himself rattled him.

Cal left the mess tent and took the first path to Half Moon Lake. Beneath the cloudy sky, rippled by the wind, the water looked as murky as Cal’s thoughts felt.

He paced back and forth in the cool wind that came down the ridge and across the lake. Then he stopped and ran his hands through his hair. He wasn’t going to run away from Preston, he was going to run toward Zeke. And the first step in that scary prospect was to find Zeke and talk to him.

He couldn’t imagine going through another morning like they’d just spent, not talking to each other, barely looking at each other.

If Zeke turned him down, then so be it. All Cal could do was try with his whole heart to tell Zeke how he felt.

Zeke could then decide how he felt, and they would go from there. But really. Another morning like that and Cal would be ready to throw himself into the path of the next brown bear he saw.

He made his way through the tall wet grasses, mud-stained and tired, all the way back to the mess tent, which was still cleaning up from lunch. There was no sign of Zeke, but Galen was there, chatting with the scary-looking Bede.

“Hey Galen,” said Cal. “Is Zeke still inside?”

“Yes,” said Galen. “But there’s someone up at the parking lot looking for you.”

Toby came racing down the wooden steps, work boots clonking. “There’s some guy in the parking lot. Not one of ours,” he said. “I was just there, checking on the truck, like you asked. Here’s the key fob.”

Toby stopped long enough to press the key fob into Galen’s hand, then raced off, calling for Owen.

“Thanks,” said Cal to nobody in particular.

It wasn’t Zeke waiting for him in the parking lot, it was Preston. It had to be. He was making good on his threat to yank Cal back home, whether Cal wanted to go or not.

He needed to deal with this. He needed to get Preston to leave him the hell alone so Cal could get on with his own life. It didn’t matter that the idea of going toe-to-toe with Preston made him feel hollow and scared, it had to happen or none of Cal’s daydreams or heartfelt prayers to the universe were going to make one damn bit of difference.

Cal took a breath and headed toward the parking lot.