At last the announcer ran out of breath and Kerry high tailed it to the parking lot. He fell into step beside Armando.
“Getting you to talk to me again is a bigger win than this.” Armando hefted a belt buckle roughly the size of Nevada.
The buckle Kerry won might be a bit bigger than Mando’s, but now might not be the time to go comparing sizes. It’d wait for later. “Yeah. But if you think that tiny thing’s gonna keep your jeans on around me, you’re wrong.”
Mando leered. “I’m gonna ride you wearing that and nothing else.”
Few vehicles remained in the rider parking lot, but Kerry’s stood in its usual spot. Armando’s sat a few feet away.
Armando paused halfway between their two vehicles. “We can send someone for your truck later, or you can follow me.”
“What?”
“You heard me. We’re going home.”
“But what about the rodeo? We have to be in Houston in two weeks.” Houston, close to Armando’s herd’s territory. “What about your family? They’ll never accept me.”
Armando took Kerry into his arms. “You’re the only prize I came here for. They’ll have to learn to deal with it.”
“They won’t.”
“Yes, they will.” Armando grinned. “Don’t you get it? You and I are the star attractions of the circuit. If we leave, both our herds stand to lose a lot of money, not to mention their standing among the other herds. They’ll be calling us in a week agreeing to anything we say.”
“Our place?”
“Yeah. Our place. And before you start squawking, let me tell you about the apple trees.”
“Oh. Apples.” Damn. Right up there with sweet feed on Kerry’s list of favorite snacks.
“You’re too easy.”
Kerry would have been offended if Armando hadn’t softened the tease with a kiss and “One more thing to love about you.” He groped Kerry’s well-used ass. “Now get up in my truck, sweet cheeks, and let’s go home.”
Kerry might like “sweet cheeks” more than he hated it. Armando needed to come up with a lot of years’ worth of cheesy names. “You’re a sweet old bull shitter, ain’t you?”
Armando scowled. “Bull shifter.”
“Oh, then you get to clean the bull shift off my boots.”
In Dreams
In Dreams
Callused hands smooth my sides, the scent of new mown hay blending with my lover’s skin as he lays me down in the fragrant meadow. A ring of stones encircles us, shielding us from the world outside. He smiles down at me. His lips are full, his cheekbones high, a hood hides most of his hair. Wisps of ebony down escape the confines of the fine wool, lightly caressing his face. “I choose you,” he whispers. “Tonight you are mine.”
He takes me, his face hidden in shadow. I cry out in my completion, a name falling unbidden from my tongue: “Alastair!”
Afterwards he holds me, crooning a melody with words I cannot understand.
A rooster’s crow jolts me awake and the image dissipates like smoke on a morning breeze as it’s done so many times before. However, this morning was slightly different, for this morning I hum the tune my nocturnal visitor sang to me and whisper the name “Alastair.” A niggling of a memory dances from my grasp, vanishing in the mists of forgetfulness.
Three nights. For three sleepless nights the phantom has haunted me with his sweet lovemaking and elusive lyrics that mean nothing yet everything to me. They plague me night and day – a mystery to puzzle out. Every time I close my eyes, I see old eyes in a young face, the curve of his cheek, plump lips. This man who lives each night in my dreams strikes a resonance in my heart that none at the tavern ever have. And his voice! He sings like an angel, filling me with longing until the music pours from me, dragging me in its wake and I can almost believe he is real, his fathomless eyes crying out to me. Who is this phantom who robs my sleep, and what does he want of me?
The rooster crows again and I rise, folding my blanket and wiping hay from my braes before climbing down from the barn loft. A bit of cold water from the well brings me fully awake.
Overhead, the last stars fade to nothingness, fleeing the rising sun. A few depressions of a pump handle fill the chickens’ water bucket, and I fill another for the cow. The innkeeper and his wife pay me, not to milk the cow or gather the eggs, but to sing to them,