A Hard Ride Home (2 page)

At the store, he smelled Jesse before he saw him. The boy had a curious scent, like cedar and smoke. It was soapy, but not the nose-tickling perfumed smell the girls at the Willow had.

"It isn't natural," Emmett said, addressing Jesse through a shelf full of pickles.

Jesse glanced up from studying a bin full of bolts of muslin and smiled when he saw Emmett. His eyes were dark blue, like deep water, and his short hair stuck out in every direction. "Whoring or buggery? Or both?"

"You know what I mean!"

Jesse turned the corner of the narrow aisle and stood there holding a huge bag of flour against his hip. He wore regular clothes again, his trousers and boots a mess of dust. He was skinny but strong. Emmett could see it in the shape of his shoulders. And he remembered that Jesse'd given him a hell of a fight on the way to the jailhouse and probably would have nearly matched him if he hadn't been falling down drunk.

"I don't reckon I do, Sheriff."

"Well, both then, I suppose," Emmett said, flustered. "Particularly together."

"So if I was whorin' to lady folk, that'd be all right by your standards?"

"Keep your voice down," Emmett said in a loud whisper, glancing worriedly around the store. It was empty save for the old man at the counter, who looked to be mostly asleep.

Jesse blinked at him, eyes irritatingly sweet. "I'm just trying to iron it all out. Don't want to spend another night in your jailhouse. Not in the cell, anyway."

"No laws against whoring," Emmett said, somewhat grudgingly. He'd looked it up.

"No laws against sodomy 'round these parts neither," Jesse said very softly.

"You're learned?"

Jesse shifted the bag to his other hip. "Do you want me to be?"

It took Emmett just a hair too long to figure out that Jesse was flirting with him like the infernal boy-whore he was. "Pay for your goods and get back to your, to Evelyn's—"

"You're bossy," Jesse interrupted sharply. "Even for a lawman. It's my day off. I can spend all afternoon in this store sucking on horehound candy if I want. No one says you have to watch."

Emmett was sure there was an innuendo or five there. He scowled and pushed past Jesse with his own bundle of dry goods and dropped them on the counter with a great clatter, waking the ancient shop keeper up. The bearded old man completed the transaction with doddering precision.

Afterward, Jesse followed Emmett out, trailing him like a leggy stray looking for scraps.

"What?" Emmett snapped as they crossed the creaky boardwalk in front of the gunsmith's shop.

"You seen your daddy yet?"

Emmett whirled so quickly Jesse startled, dropping his packages to the boards at their feet. He crouched to gather them back into his arms and looked up at Emmett, sweat streaking in the dust on his face.

"Nobody's seen you head to the big house," Jesse went on, giving a shrug. There was something distantly wary in his eyes.

"What business do you have with my father?"

"Same as anyone, Sheriff. He's the mayor, ain't he?"

It was probably the noon heat. But Emmett got a sick, unsettled-like feeling in his gut, distantly remembering something Evelyn said and largely disliking the shuttered, odd look on Jesse's face.

"That he is," he said tightly, nodding and leaving Jesse to his errands.

*~*~*

"New Sheriff's a meddlesome, boar-headed—"

"Jesse."

"Well I know he's your kin but—well, he got the diluted end of the bloodline, Miss Devaux," Jesse said, stripping out of his dusty clothes and leaving them in the wicker basket beside Evelyn's bed.

"I didn't say you could sleep in here," she said, not looking up from the letter desk where she did her bookkeeping. Her curls had fallen out in the humid air, and her hair swayed like tendrils of fire.

"It's got the best breeze this time of day."

"I'm well aware of that."

Jesse scrubbed off with the bowl of rose-scented water beside her bed, toweling the dust off his hands and his neck and feet.

"You're spoiled," Evelyn murmured, her quill making whispery soft sounds against the page.

"Only on the Lord's day." Jesse sighed, plunging into her sheets like he was swimming out into cool water. "Mm, a day of rest."

"Please. You're a filthy heathen."

"I'm a clean heathen," he said, pulling her satiny sheets around him like a shroud. Evelyn's bed smelled faintly of sex, but mostly like flowers. "And now, I will be a sleeping heathen."

"I don't know why I keep you around."

"Because I keep your bed warm and your pockets full of money."

"You're a sliver of my business. Don't get a big head."

Jesse laughed and curled on his side to watch her work for a while. When she didn't pay him any more attention, he dozed, listening to passing wagons and a distant whip-crack and the hot breeze in the chimes she kept in the window.

Then he thought about Emmett Grady again. The sheriff's red hair ought to look clownish but it didn't. Jesse thought about the stubborn lines of his jaw, his idealistic face and maddening, pretty mouth. The pearl-handled gun at his hip that looked like it had never been fired.

"What are you gonna do about your brother?" he asked, trying to ignore the strange, cold knot in his gut.

Evelyn sighed. "Not right now. One headache at a time, pet."

Jesse made a grumpy sound and rolled over to face the window, intent on sulking and worrying until he fell asleep again. But before he could work himself into a good sulk, Evelyn climbed into the bed, shedding her robes like a snake shedding its flimsy skin.

"Come here," she said fondly, curling her small fingers into Jesse's hair and tucking his face soundly between her legs.

He kissed and licked her until his jaw tightened and his tongue felt numb from lapping and lapping at her slick, tender skin.

Evelyn climaxed with a graceful arch and a shuddered breath and drew him up her body so he could rest his cheek at her shoulder with his wet face pressed against the firm-soft side of her breast.

"Say you like me best," Jesse whispered, wishing that meant a damn thing.

"I like you best, dear," Evelyn said, watching the canopy flutter above them.

The countryside around Silver Creek was finer than anywhere Emmett had ever been. As he rode a wide perimeter under the guise of patrolling for bandits, it felt like shaking off the last crumbs of city life. The expanse of rolling hills and the deep bends of the creek—which was more of a river when spring rolled around—made him wonder how he'd handled being away from home for six years. He'd gone to school, obeying his father's wishes for him to receive an education, but the city had always felt foreign to him. Too loud. Too full of people who said one thing and meant another and never settled their differences with their fists like men. Folks lived simple lives in Silver Creek and in the smaller towns and farms that circled it. Emmett remembered it fondly, though he'd hardly been more than a boy when he'd stepped onto a stagecoach and left home for a boarding school and the promise of university life to follow.

Emmett had been on horseback his whole life. That made it all the worse when he lost the reins in a moment of dozing off and his bee-stung mare went tearing off across the dusty prairie like she was bent on jumping off the edge of the world. As he approached the ravine with all the momentum of a steam train, he squeezed his thighs at the saddle and grabbed the horn and started plotting exactly how he was going to dive out of the saddle without breaking his neck.

A pony and rider appeared like a blur at the edge of his vision, and headed him off in a slow bend until his mare finally ambled to a heaving stop. As the horizon gave an unsteady tilt, Emmett dismounted and sank to the dirt in a loose crouch, panting and already hurting just about everywhere a man could hurt.

"Already in a big hurry to leave?"

Emmett looked up, squinting, and saw that the rider was Jesse, grinning as bright as the sky and breathing hard. He sat easy in the saddle, loose-limbed, and even though Emmett was sick with fatigue and panic, all he could picture was the boy spread out under his hands, just as hot and loose and breathless. He must have been addled with sunstroke.

Jesse tossed him a water bag. "Don't die now, Sheriff. Tiger here can't cart your fat body all the way back to the boneyard."

It took a few long swigs of warm water before Emmett could speak again. His mare trudged around him, looking sheepish.

"I'm not fat, and Tiger's a stupid name for a horse."

"Then tell your daddy that. It's his pony."

"What are you doing with my father's horse?" Emmett stood, wobbling slightly as he dusted off his backside.

"Ridin' it."

*~*~*

The way back was slow going and silent under the hot midday sun. They reached the creek and watered the horses under the shade of a tall cypress. Jesse pulled a red bandana from around his neck and wiped his face with it slowly, scraping off the caked-on dust.

He didn't look like—like what he was—when he had the reins in one hand and his shoulders set straight and strong. His nose and cheeks and neck had gone pink from the sun, and his hair looked darker slicked down with sweat.

"You ought to wear a hat," Emmett said, relieved to have something to find fault with.

"Wasn't planning on being out long. Saw you plowing for the ravine." Jesse gave a shrug and watched the water rushing over the sandy creek bed.

Emmett removed his hat and wiped his sweat-soaked hair off his forehead. "You ever swim here? There's a dip down around the bend."

"It's got snakes."

"They stay well enough out of your way. Can't you swim?"

Jesse glanced at him and said, "Yeah, I can swim," before nudging his pony's flanks and splashing out across the shallow creek.

"You're cross. Is it because I didn't thank you?"

Jesse didn't turn back.

"Well, thank you," Emmett said.

Jesse spurred on, picking up his pace, and it took Emmett nearly a minute to catch up to him on the path into town.

"I said, thank you."

"Weren't nothing," Jesse mumbled, voice sinking into that quiet, drawled tone that Emmett could tell was put-on, because he'd heard the boy speak clearly enough, well-learned even.

It made him angry, and being angry over this idiot boy made him even angrier. So he didn't say a word when Jesse took a turn at the crossroads, heading for his father's stables.

On his father's goddamned pony.

*~*~*

Miss Catherine, the housemaid, opened the door when Jesse arrived at the big house on the hill above Silver Creek.

"You're late," she said, glaring like she was trying to ice Jesse over with her eyes.

"When am I not late?" He slipped through the door past her and stood in Warren Grady's parlor, taking a deep breath of the musty, dank air. No matter how long they left the windows open, the big house always reminded him of a crypt.

"The mayor's gotten impatient, and you look like you rolled in pig shit." Catherine heaved a sigh and dragged him by the sleeve toward the kitchens.

"His clap-brained son rode out trying to kill himself."

"I don't see what that has to do with you."

"Me neither," Jesse said, letting Catherine drag his damp, dirty shirt off. He should have stuck to putting the pony through his paces, and should have let the sheriff hurtle over the damn ravine to his death.

It would have made everything easier.

"Don't be obtuse with me," Catherine said.

"Ow!" Jesse hissed as her nails scraped at the skin on his ribs. "Careful."

She boxed his ear and yanked his trousers off and scrubbed him down until his skin looked mostly clean. When she got to his thighs, he snatched the sponge from her hands.

"How impatient is he?" he asked, scrubbing at his ass and crotch. By the shadows, it looked to be midafternoon. He was two or three hours late.

A tight, heavy feeling settled just below his breastbone. He reached into the grease-pot on the butcher block and fingered a good heap of slick stuff to cram up his hole in a hurry.

"Impatient enough," Catherine said, wrapping him in a patched-up dressing gown when he was done. There was no mistaking the pity in her tone when it went all soft, and he wanted none of it.

*~*~*

Mayor Grady liked to fuck in the library. Jesse wasn't one to judge. The girls at the Willow said it was cause his wife died in their marriage bed, but Jesse thought it was cause he used to fuck his wife in their marriage bed—and either way, that was no place to bugger a whore.

He liked the library. The walls were textured with the spines of old books and animals stuffed and petrified in fearsome poses. Sometimes, when Warren finished up, he drank whiskey and fell asleep in his big leather armchair and left Jesse to thumb through the storybooks and old leather-bound plays.

This time, Warren didn't look like he was fit to fall asleep any time soon. He was red-faced and hard-handed and slammed the door behind Jesse with a quick kick.

"I got—"

Warren slapped him.

It wasn't like that was anything new. Warren was not a gentle lover. He bit and hit and didn't know his way around a body very well for someone who loved cramming his fat prick up tight spaces.

But this blow sent Jesse sprawling to the floor.

Jesse reached up to cradle his throbbing jaw, and Warren grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him back up and turned him over his glossy desk. Jesse could smell fresh wood polish when Warren ripped the dressing gown off and held him down with a vice-hard press against his back.

Warren fucked him right away, stuffing himself in and going on and on and on. He must have been drinking while he waited cause he only went this long when he was a little whiskey-soft. There was plenty of grease to keep things smooth, so Jesse just held still and closed his eyes and breathed raggedly, knowing this wasn't gonna be one of the times Warren wanted him to wriggle and whine.

*~*~*