Dalton: You’re trying to avoid having one
Lucas: That’s not fair
Dalton: It’s accurate
Lucas: I need to sell. The funding—beds, staff, winter intake—it’s important
The dots bounced a lot, and I waited for whatever short essay my friend was going to send.
Dalton: I know it’s important. I’m not saying walk away from the charity. I’m saying stop acting like there’s only one way to help it. I think you’re smart enough to figure it out if you stop pretending the answer has to be all or nothing. And with Jesse start with the truth. The rest you work out after
Lucas: You make it soundeasy
Dalton: It’s not easy. It’s just clearer than whatever spiral you’re in
Lucas: I hate that you’re right
Dalton: You love that I’m right
I sent him a middle finger emoji
He sent one back, along with an eggplant, raindrops, a big red heart, and a cow.
Dalton: Tell the cowboy you’ve got feelings. Then call me and tell me how hot and dramatic it was
Lucas: I’m not doing that
Dalton: You absolutely are
Lucas: Goodbye, Dalton
Dalton: Love you too
Make sense of what I wanted to do next, then tell Jesse I was falling for him. Dalton made it all sound so easy.
Yeah right.
Chapter 24
Jesse
We were well over halfway through Lucas’s six months, a couple of weeks since the night Lucas had found out about the phone call, and time was slipping through my fingers. Each night I ended up in bed with him, another day gone. Whatever this was would end in the summer but knowing it and believing it were two different things. Every day he was here made it harder to picture the ranch without him, harder to imagine Snow Creek going on as it always had once he was gone. I was never going to agree to sell, but if I refused, Lucas would be left owning something he never wanted, tied to land he hadn’t chosen, and I’d be the reason he was stuck. The longer it went on, the clearer it became how it would end—with resentment, quiet at first, then sharp, aimed straight at me. I was usually a man who could find his way through anything with enough work and enough planning. Give me fences to mend, numbers to run, a future I could map out, and I’d make it work. But every plan led back to the same place—Lucas getting hurt—and I couldn’t see a future where I kept the ranch and didn’t lose him.
He wanted to sell for reasons that were important to him.
I wasn’t selling because this was my land, and yeah, it was important to me.
Complicated feelings hit me every time I saw Lucas, and none of them sat easily. When he said he was falling for me and I couldn’t say it back, that wasn’t manipulation. I wasn’t withholding affection; I didn’t know what to call how I felt. Love felt like a word meant for other people, people who’d grown up with it, or at least recognized it when it showed up. I’d never been in love, and I’d never been loved in return.
Walter had cared about me; I was sure of that. You didn’t leave a man a share of Snow Creek without feeling something deeper than obligation. But love? I didn’t know. I’d respected him more than I’d ever respected my dad, trusted him in ways I’d never trusted anyone else, and maybe that was the closest I’d come. The rest of my life was built the same way—steady, contained, practical. Jake was my best friend, but we didn’t head into town for beers or sit around talking about our lives. We talked about work, cattle, weather, and what needed fixing next. That was as far as any of us went.
They all had my back. I had theirs. But they didn’tknowall of me.
Hell, no one here even knew I was gay. I’d never told them. I’d never hinted. I’d kept that part of myself packed away and out of sight, same as I always had. If I hooked up, it was on trips to Denver, anonymous and contained, something that didn’t follow me home. Back on the ranch, Ipassed for straight without trying, and I let that stand. It was easier. Safer. But standing there now, wanting Lucas in a way that cut deeper than sex ever had, I had to wonder what that said about me. If I hadn’t trusted anyone enough to tell them who I was, then what did that make me—cautious or cowardly? And if I didn’t even know how to be honest about myself, how the hell was I supposed to know what I was feeling for him, or what to do about it?
I was washing dishes—contemplating how my world could have been turned upside down to this extent, and how I had all these complicated feelings—when the ranch phone rang, and the answering machine kicked in. I stiffened in shock at the voice echoing through the kitchen.
“Jesse! Hey. It’s Hoyt. I don’t know if this is recording it right.” There were beeps, and Lucas knew something was wrong. “Who?” he mouthed as he set a mug on the counter for me. Dark roast. I smiled at him, and he pressed a kiss to my cheek.
