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“Not just chains. The trailer and hitch, enough power to get up by the FL? To know exactly where to turn off and know how to work the gate that blocks off the path from tourists?” Barrett curled his fingers around the railing, feeling the weathered wood bite into his palms. He’d told Jacques and Meredith of his suspicions, but kept it out of the official reports.
Because there was nothing to report. He couldn’t document a hunch. But he’d seen the brutal angles of those metal strips, the angry bend to the nails sticking out of the moss-covered boards nailed over the FL tower door. It would have been so easy for anyone to break a few windows, spray paint the interior, run off with thousands of dollars of equipment. This wasn’t some random asshole; it was someone with a grudge. But a grudge against who? It hadn’t escaped his notice that it was the bridges on his route sabotaged, the fire tower he was in the most.
So he’d pulled the files of everyone fired from the ranger department in the last five years. Only four, but he’d worked with all of them. Two weren’t likely, as one was an older woman who had worked in administration and refused to do anything more complicated than make coffee. Another was a “cartographer” who had lied about their skill set. And the other two had been forest rangers. But only Vincent had been angry enough to threaten a lawsuit and other blusterous outbursts as he was escorted from the building and to his car.
Barrett and another ranger had walked with Vincent and gotten cussed out as a thank you. Vincent had always been a little quick to anger, a little rough around the edges type with a chip on his shoulder about not getting promoted (a promotion that went to Jacques). If pressed, Barrett would have bet a little money Vincent had been angry enough to damage some ranger property. But he’d been fired three years ago and last Barrett had heard, he’d moved inland to be with family.
“And then we’ve got that same FL that needs a firewatch smack dab in the middle of the season. No one wants to take it cause it’s around the summer holidays and the big boating festivals and fairs.” He gave Ambrose a small smile. “So I volunteered.”
“I can watch the house, no worries.” Ambrose’s response was so immediate Barrett wasn’t sure if he hallucinated the words. “And anything else you need.”
“Ambrose, I can’t ask that of you.”
“You didn’t.” A bony shoulder nudged his. Barrett watched as a careful hand was placed on top of his rough, weathered own. Ambrose wasn’t looking away, gaze sure, strong. It was so steady, so warm, and Barrett could see the little flecks of green in Ambrose’s grey eyes.
It didn’t get much more romantic, he thought as he breathed Ambrose in. The forest smelled of fresh dirt and the fuzzy budding promise of spring and the ozone of last night’s rain. They stood close to each other; touching at the shoulder, the hand, the hip. The wind bit with blunt teeth, teasing but not threatening. And they were talking like they did this every day. As if their lives were already so enmeshed that laying out his worries was normal. Easy.
“Unless you don’t want me to watch the place.” Ambrose’s voice, softer now, shook Barrett from his thousand yard stare directly into those grey eyes.
“No, it ain’t that. Not that all.” He waved a hand artlessly. “You’re busy, you’ve got what…four projects in the hopper? Five? I’m shocked you sleep.”
“I do. But not well.”
Should let me help you with that.I want to help you with that.
The words rose in his mind, unbidden, like they had in his dream last night. Dreaming of a slightly hazy figure that looked like Ambrose and talked like him, dressed like him. One who was lounging on Barrett’s bed and watching while he struggled with a zipper or button. Hazy dream Ambrose said the same thing to dream Barrett, but instead of denying himself the scent of leather and tea, he fell in head first.
He’d woken up with a hard-on and no time to handle it. The closer he stood to Ambrose, the hotter the flame he carried flared. He wanted a friend and got one, but it came with an infatuation. No, not an infatuation. Aneed. “Guessing you’ve tried all the tricks?” he said, voice rough.
“Most of them. Even some odder ones.”
“Such as?”
Ambrose laughed. “You only get to make fun of me today.”
“Wouldn’t do that and you know it.”
When Ambrose looked down at the leaves around their boots, Barrett got to see a hint of self-consciousness peek through as he bit his lip. “Gods, vitamin shots. Medicated sleep masks. Do not try those, they leave a rash. Meditation. These weird bandage looking things you put on the soles of your feet and smell like rotten mint.”
“Eugh. Why?”
“Because I’m a sucker, apparently. Or just desperate for a decent night’s sleep.”
“Ambrose. That isn’t good. Does anything help?”
Barrett was not expecting Ambrose to raise his head and say rather simply, “When naming fish doesn’t? Sex.”
He couldn’t stop his lips from twitching into a smile. Ambrose wasn’t flirting with him, he was being factual. The difference wouldn’t have been easy to spot for someone who hadn’t spent the last several months in the man’s company, but now Barrett understood. When Ambrose was flirting, he was quick at the mouth, combining humor and a straightforwardness that Barrett admired. When he had blood in his brain to do so, because Ambrose’s flirting set his cock to stiffening immediately. But the humor didn’t exist in his words when Ambrose was simply beingAmbrose.
So he tried to be honest and forthright back as he replied, “And your hand isn’t enough. I get it. The old stereotype of guys falling asleep after sex holds true, straight or not.”
Ambrose’s laugh cracked open across the wide space between them and the cliff and the burned out supply station below and Barrett felt it like a palm running down his spine. He couldn’t even fool himself into thinking it was the wind making him shiver. Eventually he said, “You sure about watching the house this summer? It’s only for four weeks but I can get a house sitter.”
Ambrose’s expression was so consternated Barrett worried his eyes would cross. “Barrett. I’ve got you. I live next door, Stella and I are quite fond of each other, and you have a guitar that needs restringing.” The hand was back on his, but squeezing his fingers now. “I’ve got it.”
“Okay, I get it,” Barrett replied with a laugh. “A guitar that needs restringing? Ouch.”
“I say it like it is.”
