in the north field, a lush, green pasture surrounding them. A weathered chicken coop sat off to the side, and he had to laugh as he passed Buster the rooster strutting like a king, scratching and pecking on the dusty ground.
“Go on there with your bad self, Buster.”
The donkeys, Frick and Frack, trotted up from the field to stick their heads over the fence to meet him, and he gave them each a carrot he’d swiped from the kitchen before leaving. With a final pat to their velvety noses, Shea entered the paddock attached to the barn and came upon Craig and Johnny rubbing down their horses.
“Finished your breakfast? Do you need to catch some beauty sleep first?”
Craig playfully elbowed him as Shea passed by to greet his horse, Rambo. As Shea approached, the big chestnut gelding nodded and pawed the ground, letting out a loud whinny.
“Easy, fella. I’ll take you out later this afternoon.” He rubbed Rambo’s neck and laughed as the horse tossed and shook his head. He stomped a hoof and announced his displeasure with another loud whinny. Shea could swear the animal was scolding him. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m bad.”
“Even Rambo knows you fucked up.” Craig chewed a piece of peppermint gum.
“Can you give it a rest? You don’t gotta rub it in more.”
Johnny tipped back his hat and frowned. “Yeah, I think we do.”
And that, coming from the snub-nosed, good-natured man with a sunshine smile, who rarely had a bad word to say about anyone, made Shea wince.
“You ain’t been happy here for a while. This’s got nothin’ to do with Toby; he’s the symptom of a bigger problem.”
Damn, someone was watching too much Dr. Phil or something.
Johnny was on a roll. “Every time you come home from Dallas, you’re a little more itchy to leave Remembrance and Forget Me Not. Last month you brought one of your model friends to visit, and you felt like you hadta hide it. Ain’t none of us virgins. We knew you two were hookin’ up, so there was no need to sneak off to the cabin.”
“You saw us?” Shea ducked his head in embarrassment.
Louis was one of the new guys on the scene. They’d met on a shoot his last time in Dallas, and the attraction was immediate and white-hot. The photographer was ecstatic with their work—he wanted intimacy, and damn, he got it. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other, and when they finally got to his hotel room, they’d fucked themselves silly. Based on that, Shea invited Louis to Forget Me Not once the job was done.
“Well, Craig and I were lookin’ for night crawlers, and we heard some yellin’ and moaning.” He snorted, and Craig burst out laughing. “Damn, man, you’re loud as hell. I thought someone was gettin’ murdered in there.”
“Jesus.” His cheeks were on fire as the two idiots yukked it up. “I hope you enjoyed yourselves at my expense.”
“Oh, we sure did, ’specially once we got back to our house.” Johnny snickered. “You got Craig so worked up, I couldn’t sit right in the saddle the whole next day.”
“All right, I heard enough.” Shea pushed past them, but Craig took hold of his shoulder.
“Hey, c’mon, Shea. You know we’re only jokin’ with you, don’tcha? We’re family. The last thing we’d want to do is hurt your feelings.”
They were his two best friends in the whole world, and yet even with them standing there next to him, Shea felt alone.
“Nah. I know. I thought maybe it could be the beginning of somethin’ good together, but when he started making fun of Forget Me Not, I sent him on his way.”
Shea might not want to live in a tiny, one-traffic-light town, but that didn’t mean some big-city asshole had the right to come in and put it down, along with all the people who lived there.
“Yeah? Thought he was too good for us?”
“Basically.”
“I’m sorry. That sucks. Lemme ask you somethin’.”
Shea braced himself against the weathered gate post and scratched under Rambo’s jaw, which earned him a nicker of pleasure. His horses had heard more secrets than anyone in his life. “Go on.”
“Is there any way you an’ Toby might ever get together? Like for good? Are you sure there ain’t no real feelin’s there on your side? We already know he’s hooked on you.”
Flashes of the night before came to Shea’s mind. Praise the Lord he didn’t do anything more than kiss the man.