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CHAPTER32
Antonio had been here long enough to like it. After a couple of weeks in a room, sedated while the drugs worked their way out of his system, he’d been put on a strict diet of therapy, clean food, and hard work.
He enjoyed it.
He wasn’t making many friends, which was fine. He still didn’t feel very chatty, not one-on-one while working the horses or in the group therapy. He didn’t know who knew why he was here, but he knew his classified job wasn’t up for therapy fodder for a group session.
So he kept quiet, to himself, and that was fine.
He’d seen Ghost since he’d been here, and that had been pretty cathartic. Ghost knew more than he should, and Antonio had told him the rest.
Almost.
He hadn’t talked much about Katie because it was still too hard. Too hard to think about what might have been, if he wasn’t who he’d been.
His back muscles burned as he scooped more hay and shit into a wheelbarrow. He liked mucking the stalls. It was immediate gratification and a job he volunteered for often. Scooping up the dirty hay and straw, then putting down clean straw for the animals was a necessary job that made a huge difference in their hygiene, health, and the overall appearance of the barn. It was soothing to him to do in the morning after letting the animals out.
It helped him clear his mind for the day.
“Visitor, Tony.” He cringed at the moniker that was quickly spreading, as he spun around, wiping his arm across his forehead.
A younger guy stood at the door to the barn. His name was Kevin, and he had given Antonio the hated nickname. It was sticking, no matter how many times he corrected people.
“Who is it?”
A shrug. “Dunno. Some chick.”
With an eyeroll, Antonio grabbed his t-shirt from his back pocket and stretched it over his head as he followed the kid inside the big house.
Standing by the kitchen table was the last woman he’d thought he’d ever see.
He drank her in.
Katie looked like she had when he’d first seen a picture of her online. She was put together, clean, and looked healthy. Relief filled him at that, but her very presence in this place had him nervous. How did she find him?
Well, that was easy. There was only one person who knew he was here, and that one person happened to know her as well.
Ghost.
“You look great,” he managed to say. It wasn’t anything close to what he wanted to say, but he was in the dark about why she was here, and taking her on the kitchen table was out of the question. So he stuck with safe.
Even if seeing her in this haven of his was causing him a slow, torturous, erotic death.
He’d never seen her in jeans.
“Thanks,” she said a bit warily. “So do you.”
He looked down at himself. Clothing here was sparse, and he’d shown up with the clothing on his back, so to speak, which had been hospital scrubs. Donations and hand-me-downs were what he wore.
The jeans were too short, and there weren’t any t-shirts in his size, so the one he wore was from a package of larges, which the ranch seemed to have a ton of.
It was too short and too tight across his shoulders, but whatever. He shrugged, looking at her again.
“Is there somewhere more private we can talk?” she asked him hesitantly, and he nodded, still not sure why she was here.
He longed to reach out to her, hold her, hug her, kiss her, lick her—
Okay, he tamped that down hard. There was no way she was here for all that.
