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River Gorge was so different from where I’d grown up. In the time it took me to walk the two blocks down Main Street to Cap’s, only a couple of cars had driven down the road, but three people I recognized from their visits to the urgent care waved and spoke to me by name as they walked down the sidewalk. Austin was mostly friendly, depending on what part of town you were in. They would say hi, but that didn’t mean they knew who you were. But here in River Gorge, everyone pretty much knew everyone else, which took some getting used to.
I smiled when I reached the coffee shop and once again noticed the rainbow flag sticker in the front window. That was one of the first indicators that I was going to like living here. When I got the job offer from the urgent care, my dads were concerned. As a gay man in West Texas, it was hard to know how you’d be received. They’d insisted we take a drive to check out the town before I accepted the offer.
My Gramma and Grampa said they’d followed the news story years ago when Eli Barrett had run for sheriff and that unless things had changed drastically, the town would be a good fit for me, but my dads wanted to be sure. Cap’s was one of the first places we stopped, and the flag in the window had let us know my grandparents had been right.
I pushed open the door to the coffee shop, stepped inside, and immediately spotted Nash sitting at a table off to my left. He was looking at something on his phone and didn’t see me, so I had a minute to take him in. The man was so freaking gorgeous. I spent a fair amount of time out at my friend Nolan’s ranch where Nash worked, so of course I’d noticed him. How could I not? But he usually worked with the rescue horses, and since Nolan and I tried to keep the drones away from that part of the ranch so we wouldn’t spook them, I didn’t see him up close all that often.
Other than an occasional hello and a polite nod, the most interaction I’d had with him was a couple of days ago when he hurt his shoulder. He looked like he was doing okay today, though, so that was good.
“Hey, Spence,” Timothy called out from behind the counter. Nash looked up from his phone at that, and when he spotted me, he grinned. I nodded a hello and started to go to the counter, but Nash motioned for me to come in his direction.
I waved a hello to Timothy and walked over to where Nash sat. “Hey, Nash, how’s the shoulder?”
“It’s fine, but you’re welcome to examine it if you want. You know, just to be safe.”
I slowly and obviously looked him over, from his head to his toes and back up. “Nah, you look okay to me.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I wasn’t kidding when I said you have good hands. I barely even felt you pop my shoulder back in. So at least let me get your coffee. I owe you that much. Have a seat, and I’ll go get you whatever you want.”
I was tempted to take him up on it, but I checked the time, and if I was going to make it to class on time, I really couldn’t. Besides, even if I had time, it would’ve been a bad idea. The kind of men I was attracted to, men like Nash, because—yeah, he pretty much checked all my boxes—never wanted to keep me around long-term.
“I wish I could, but I have someplace to be.” I patted the knitting bag tucked to my side. “I just stopped in to grab a quick cup of coffee.”
“Well, maybe another time, then.”
“Maybe.” I grinned and shrugged.
I felt his eyes on me as I went up to the counter and placed my order. When I turned to leave, he winked at me and went back to whatever he’d been doing on his phone.
Chapter 4
Nash
I’d just finished up my chores for the day on Wednesday, and if neither Cruz nor Murphy had anything else they wanted from me, I wanted to take my truck to Cody’s shop. It needed to be serviced, and I didn’t want to put it off if I could help it.
Levi said they were in the office, so I headed up to the front barn. There was a large sign on the front of the building that said Double C Ranch and Equine Rescue Center, and then there was one on the front door that said Op Center that made me smile every single time I saw it. Cruz said that had been Nolan’s idea since it would be the operation center of the ranch and the place where both their offices were. I’d never thought of a ranch as having an op center, but I’d also never worked on a ranch that was owned by a tech billionaire who designed video games and built drones and robots, so I guess, in this case, op center was fitting.
I pushed open the door, and sure enough, both Cruz and Murphy were there. They were leaning over, studying some papers on Cruz’s desk.
“Hey, Nash,” Cruz said, looking up at me. “What’s up?”
“Not much. I wanted to see if y’all needed anything else from me today. If not, I want to run my truck up to Cody’s.”
“It giving you problems?” he asked.
“Nah, just needs to be serviced.”
“Gotcha. I don’t have anything else for you. Murphy, how about you?”
“Nope, you’re good to go.”
“Cool. What are you guys up to?” I asked, my curiosity getting the best of me.
“I was just showing Murph the plans I have for the rescue. Want to see?”
“Sure!” I walked over to the desk and looked down at what appeared to be a map of the ranch.
“Originally, my plan was to use these back two pastures for the rescues.” Cruz pointed to the area where the current rescue horses were kept. “But now that things are taking off, I figure if we’re going to do this thing, we might as well do it right.”
