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Chapter One
Dust was being kicked up in the arena to the point I could barely breathe, and certainly couldn’t see much, but next to me, the love of my life, Damon Street, didn’t seem to notice. He was grinning, with his lips closed against the clouds of fine dirt, as we sat with our best friends, Noah Oliver, and Eli James, in the stands as I watched my first rodeo.
We must have made a sight, the four gay men in the stands of a rodeo, but no one seemed to notice or care, as all eyes were on the action. All except mine. At that time, I was watching my companions.
Noah was older than Eli by twenty years, but you would never tell they realized their age difference by looking at the lovebirds. They flirted and sat close, like any newlyweds, though they hadn’t taken the plunge. Yet. The Sam Elliot doppelganger, with salt and pepper hair, and a beard instead of the signature mustache, hung on Eli’s every word.
Eli was just a beauty. He looked like a model, brown hair and eyes that were golden-hued, creamy skin that was taut over nice muscles. He’d let his hair grow some and it hung to the collar of his t-shirt. They were both movie-star pretty, which didn’t match Damon and me.
I’m a big guy, called husky all my life, and over six foot tall. The army had been the first that told me I reached 6’2”. Broad and tall, that was me, and maybe Damon wasn’t quite as big, but he was muscled and had a chest of nice fur, like me. We both had dark hair, my eyes green, somewhere between olive and hazel, and his were chestnut brown.
Those three, they’d had to drag me to the county event, as a bunch of grown men riding pissed-off horses and bulls, and others chasing calves with ropes flying over their heads was not my idea of entertainment. Damon, however, loved it, and even Eli was coming around to the show.
It was only me that hung securely in my corner of, no thanks, this isn’t my thing .
“Burke,” Eli said as he leaned over to me, “Give it a chance.”
“I thought you didn’t like this stuff either. We’re city fellas, as I keep being reminded.”
And I was. Strictly, always, a city fella.
My name is Burke Monteleone, and I was raised in Chicago. When I was growing up in that great aforementioned city, I could be found easily, eating deep dish or going to baseball games. When I got in trouble as a kid, it wasn’t for getting bad grades or not getting my chores handled. It was for shoplifting muscleman magazines from the local alimentari, the Italian grocers on the corner. Mr. Tortelli would chase me with his metal baseball bat down the street for three blocks before giving up and heading back to his store.
I hung out with other street kids, smoking pot and chasing tail. The only dirt I ever had my hands in was cleaning the broken flowerpots from the fire escape. I’d knock them off the windowsill while sneaking back in my bedroom window at night, long after curfew. My mom always blamed the stray cats for those…
My only experience out of the city was in the war, in Afghanistan, but that still didn’t prepare me for small-town living… country living.
Noah Oliver had taken in my friend and army brother, Eli, and they’d fallen hard and fast for each other. Now, they lived together on Noah’s small ranch, and after visiting them a few times, Damon pestered me to move closer to them.
I loved the mountains and the scenery. I loved my old friend, so I caved, and we’d just moved into the new place.
We owned thirty-five acres, a few outbuildings, a house, a guest house, and problems. The plumbing leaked, the heater in the barn needed to be replaced, and there were fences to be built, both inner and outer ones.
I sat on the bleachers, thinking on all of that while my companions whooped and hollered at the barrel races, women maneuvering their horses around…you guessed it, barrels. They were why the place had suddenly become a dust storm.
Even Noah complained about that. “Damn fools need to water that dirt down, or I’ll be pickin’ dirt out of my nose for a week.”
That wasn’t a great visual, but such was life where they regularly had things like rodeos.
So, I was a bit of a snob, but I wasn’t having an easy time adjusting to my new life like Damon, who’d been raised on a farm in Nebraska. He’d left young, after coming out and not receiving the warmest reception. That was putting it nicely.
But he craved it, being back where he could play in the dirt, growing things, and having animals to tend. And I’d do anything for the man. I was crazy about him.
I looked at him next to me, watching his face glowing as he watched the woman rounding the barrel on the end, and I knew I’d sit through a hundred more rodeos. His dark eyes shined, his black hair brushed back and covered with a backward cap, and his gorgeous muscles showed through, even with the maroon western shirt he’d purchased for the event.
Yeah, I’d do anything for him, and looking at him right then, I didn’t have to wonder why. He was a damn beautiful man. Maybe not pretty-boy beautiful, like Eli, but my kind of beauty. Tough, hard, and dark…
Then, looking out at the crowd, and at the people milling about the place, I found that even I could enjoy being there. When I wasn’t sulking like a three-year-old that wasn’t getting his way, I discovered something interesting about the place.
Cowboys.
I saw a group of them, heading around the arena, and all my wet dreams had been scripted for months, right at that moment. Tight jeans on tighter asses, leather chaps, some with fringe, bowlegged swaggers, trimmed beards, or clean-shaven faces topped in every color of cowboy hat that fell under the range of brown…
“You’re drooling,” Eli whispered to me.
“I surely am, part ner,” I drawled in my best Southern accent, which sucked.
“Told you that you’d like it.”
