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“Dude, you called me kid.”
“You are a kid. I am not an old man.” Even if he did feel like one some days, especially after three days camping out with the herd. His back didn’t like the hard ground as much as it used to.
“I can see the gray hair and wrinkles.”
“Yeah, well, I can see your attitude and arrogance, and it’s gonna get you into trouble with the wrong person one day if you don’t settle down a little bit. If we wanna clear the air here, I did bring you back to give you a safe place for the night in exchange for conversation, not sex. Am I attracted to you? Hell yes.” He kind of wanted to know if Wilson’s ass got as red as his face when smacked but he wasn’t about to admit that.
Cue the kid racing for the foothills.
Instead, he said, “Am I gonna do anything about that tonight? No.”
Wilson, the little devil, pouted. “Bummer. The reason I came over to your table tonight was because you were the only guy in the bar not eyeing me like he wanted to tie me to the back of his motorcycle and steal off into the night with me. You were just...watching.”
“I watch everyone. Like to know who’s around, who’s safe and who’s not.” A skill he’d picked up in prison and hadn’t been able to shed, even fifteen years later. “Don’t usually bring strangers back here for a one-night stand, and Dog seems to like you, though she likes everyone, so I guess you’re okay.”
“Wait, your dog’s name is really Dog? Why?”
“She hasn’t told me her name yet.”
Wilson frowned. “Are you some kind of new-age hippie person who eats alfalfa sprouts and meditates and does downward dog into the sunrise?”
“Hardly.” Jackson reached down to stroke the top of Dog’s head. “She came to me and chose me, not the other way around. Doesn’t seem right to name her.”
“M’kay.” Wilson uncrossed his legs and let them fall open, showing off his crotch. “So you really don’t want me for anything other than conversation?”
“Want you? Yes.” He knocked Wilson’s nearest leg the other way, effectively closing off temptation. “Gonna do something about it? No. Don’t care how many times in the past you’ve had to trick your way into a bed, it ain’t happening tonight. You get a bed, just don’t rip me off. Not that there’s anything in room three for you to steal except stale sheets.”
“I’m not staying with you?”
“Nope.” Jackson stood and produced the right key from the dresser drawer and tossed it at Wilson. Wilson fumbled and it hit the floor with a clank. “Since it sounds like you don’t wanna tell me anything about yourself tonight, why don’t you go to bed. The water works just fine, so take a shower if you want. I have to get up early for work anyway.”
“Oh.” Wilson scooped up the key, then stood. He seemed disappointed for someone who’d come here with the expectation of being fucked, but that was probably because he hadn’t gotten the payday he’d expected. The kid knew how to pick a mark out of a bar, and Jackson wouldn’t be surprised if he heard the sedan’s engine start in the next thirty minutes or less.
“Good luck, Wilson,” Jackson said as he held open his room door. “Just leave your key in the empty planter outside when you go.”
“Sure, thanks.”
At the door, Wilson paused and looked slightly down at Jackson. His eyes swam with something a lot like regret, and Jackson didn’t have time to ponder what exactly he regretted. Wilson brushed his lips lightly over Jackson’s, just enough to spark a small flame deep in his gut. A flame that burned there long after Wilson left, shutting the door of room three behind him.
Jackson shut his own door and leaned against it, skin prickling with arousal and the awareness that a very hot young man was on the other side of their shared wall. But he wouldn’t do it. As much as Wilson intrigued him and made his body ache for more than a five-minute chat, Jackson wouldn’t be that person. He wouldn’t take advantage of a young guy who appeared to be on a mission to find himself, and who was possibly running from something.
He wouldn’t do to another kid what he’d allowed to be done to himself.
So he took a cold shower, and then tried very hard to sleep.
Chapter Two
“You have gotta be fucking with me,” Jackson said.
The first words out of his boss’s mouth that morning had him both stunned stupid and also not hugely surprised, but still. This was the second damned time in a year this had happened.
“Not fucking with you,” Brand Woods replied. He stood just inside the break room in the main barn, having followed Jackson in there while Jackson put his lunch in the fridge. Brand was a straight shooter, always had been, and he never delivered bad news lightly.
“Alan broke his damned hand again? The same hand?”
“Yep.”
Jackson snorted and eyeballed the coffee maker in the corner, positive his days were about to get a lot longer. He didn’t guzzle the stuff like he used to but it kept him awake when he had to work extra shifts to make up for a lack of ranch hands. And he hadn’t slept for shit last night anyway, too aware of Wilson only ten feet away. The independent ranching business wasn’t what it used to be, and Woods Ranch had been struggling to find and keep good hands for the past couple of years.
