Touch Me Gently (4 page)

The horse outside reminded Logan of the boy seated nearby. They were two of a kind, those two. A sound brought his head up, and he stood up quickly, startling Kaden, who immediately moved several more feet away. Logan chastised himself for moving so quickly around him before opening the stall door and heading out to meet the vet. “Hey, Doc. How goes it?”

A beautiful red-headed woman stood there, a weary look on her face. Dr. Jessie Riggs was several inches taller than Kaden, with long red hair she currently had braided and twisted up in a loop and amber eyes. Freckles dusted her nose and high cheekbones. “Logan Michaels, this had better be good since you’re getting me out of bed this late at night. I just got done with Hanson’s mare two hours ago. Colic.”

Logan grimaced at that word. Colic could kill a horse if left untreated or if it wasn’t treated soon enough. “I think she’s in trouble, Doc.”

She followed him to the stall, stepping inside and quickly making her way over to the horse. She didn’t even notice Kaden where he sat huddled against the side of the stall just watching her movements. Awe and wonder filled his expression as he watched her work. The proficiency in her motions but the gentleness of her hands made him wish he was the horse. His eyes filled with longing to be touched like that. “You’re right, Logan. The foal is turned. If we don’t get it turned back the right way we’ll lose both of them.”

Kaden winced when he heard the big man swear profusely and loudly but continued to watch as the doctor and Logan started to do something to the horse. They urged her to her side and began to mess with her rear end. That made Kaden sit up straighter, and he watched the doctor actually start to put her hands inside the horse. “Do… doesn’t that hurt her?” he asked frantically, his eyes wide and his heart pounding in distress for the horse.

Logan had all but forgotten the kid, and the doctor hadn’t noticed him from the beginning. She glanced at the boy with an arched brow before returning to her task. “It has to be done. Or else they’ll both die. One moment of pain to repair the damage is better than hours of torturous pain and then death, Kaden.” He explained all of this as patiently as possible, stroking Golden Star’s neck.

Kaden inched closer, cautiously reaching out a hand to lightly touch the horse’s muzzle. It felt soft underneath his fingers, and he started to tenderly stroke the side of her head, still intently watching the doctor and Logan. Wanting to soothe the horse and take away some of her pain, he leaned down and began to softly croon into her ear. A song long forgotten, long buried away with all of his memories, rose to the surface. His mother had sung it to him as a child as she tucked him into bed. The horse seemed to calm and let out a soft snort, her eyes closing. It felt like something compelled him to comfort the horse, to help her get through her pain. Like no one had ever helped him.

Amazement traveled through Logan as he watched and listened to the young man. He couldn’t hear the words, but it had an astonishing effect on the horse, and he felt the horse’s muscles relax slightly. Even Doc Riggs couldn’t hide her awe at the way Kaden affected the horse. She quickly finished turning the foal, making sure that it came out forelegs first.

When the vet was done, Kaden continued to caress the horse and sing into her ear. Golden Star lifted her head several times to look back at what was happening, but he ignored everything except the animal. Finally, Logan gently touched his shoulder to get his attention. Kaden almost leaped out of his skin at the touch and swung his head around, his eyes haunted.

Logan felt disappointed that he still seemed afraid of him, but he supposed it was natural considering he’d only known him two days. “It’s time for her to do her own thing,” he explained slowly, pointing out the fact that the foal had been born and the mother needed to clean it and start to nurse.

Kaden stepped back, dangerously close to Logan’s side without realizing it, and watched as Golden Star struggled to stand and then proceeded to clean the foal. “It’s a baby girl,” the larger man said.

The foal was beautiful. Inky black like the mother but the two forelegs had white socks, and instead of a simple star on her forehead, she had a huge blaze of white down her muzzle. The foal slowly stood to its legs, gangly and unused, falling several times before it managed to stay up. Kaden smiled as the foal nudged toward its mother and began to nurse. He felt a curious wetness on his cheeks and lifted his hand to touch them. He was crying! It shocked him to find that he could still cry, and happy tears at that. “Come on, let’s get some rest,” Logan said gruffly, glad to have shared the moment with the boy.

Doc Riggs said goodnight and left, heading home to her warm bed. Kaden waited at the entrance of the barn for Logan. Logan followed not long after and smiled tiredly. “You did good, kid. Thank you for your help tonight.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Kaden protested, his eyes wide with surprise that the man would think he did anything.

“Of course you did. You were my moral support. And you helped Golden Star, which I’m sure she’s grateful for and would tell you if she could,” Logan pointed out, gazing down at the boy in the moonlight. He wanted to reach out and touch the soft skin of his cheek, to brush that annoying lock of hair that always clung to his face back, and to lean down and ravish those upturned, inviting lips. That thought brought him to an abrupt, horrified halt. What the hell was he thinking? Kissing another man?

Kaden gazed up at Logan, unaware of the turmoil behind the man’s eyes. “I just felt the need to help her. To lessen her pain in any way I could,” he explained in discomfort, moving away from the man, feeling intimidated again.

Lust and desire spread even faster through Logan, and he swallowed hard, shifting as his pants became a little tighter. Thank God for his date on Friday! Maybe he could release a little frustration then. That’s all it was, he tried to convince himself. He just hadn’t gotten laid in a while, and the boy did look a little feminine.
That’s it.
With a brisk mental nod, he smiled broadly at Kaden. “Well, you did help. A lot. What song were you singing?”

Memories of his mother caused his features to soften as Kaden thought of those moments with her. “It was a song my mother used to sing to me as a child when she would put me to bed. It’s called ‘All Through the Night’.”

They had reached the front porch by then, and Logan motioned for him to sit on the swing. Kaden hesitated, not sure if he should trust his instincts, screaming at him to run, or his heart, screaming at him to stay. For once, he gave in to his heart and perched uneasily on the edge of the swing, ready to leap up at a moment’s notice. Logan casually settled onto the seat beside him, his palms sweating. He rubbed them against his thighs, drying them on his jeans. “Will you sing it for me?” Logan requested in a low tone.

“Oh… no… I… I couldn’t,” Kaden protested, shaking his head furiously.

“Please?” the larger man urged. “I’d like to hear the song you sang to Golden Star.”

He tried to get out of it but Logan wouldn’t allow him, and finally he gave into the cowboy’s wishes and, in a hushed voice, began to sing the song he’d crooned into Golden Star’s ear as she lay in pain. The words were laden with affection, deep with love. They pulled him away from the pain and the uncertainty. On the last, his voice held such sweet emotion that he flushed.

As his voice faded away, he felt Logan’s eyes on him, and he was grateful for the darkness that surrounded them because his face felt like it was on fire. He knew his cheeks had to be as bright as a tomato. “That was beautiful,” the larger man breathed out, causing Kaden to shift in discomfort.

“Uh… we should really get some sleep since we have to be up in three hours.” He stood and made his way to the front door, pulling the screen door open only to stop when Logan called his name. He kept his back to Logan with his hand on the doorknob.

“I just want you to know that even though you’ve only known me for a couple of days, if you ever need anything, all you need to do is ask,” the cowboy stated, his voice low and melodious.

Kaden felt his heart twinge, and his breathing grew shallow. No one had cared about him in a long time, and to hear those words made him even sadder. “Good night, Logan.” With that, he entered the house and walked to his room to lie down. Sleep never came, and he was up before the alarm went off.

The
next two days passed uneventfully, for which both men were grateful, and Friday morning dawned bright and sunny. Kaden was regretting his decision to go out with Shea that night to dance, and it was brought to the forefront of his mind when she called cheerily, “I’ll see you tonight at seven, Kaden,” before heading out the front door. He sighed and continued to wipe down the kitchen counters before moving to the dining room table.

The men were already gone, and he had the entire day stretching before him until seven. He had yet to clean anything upstairs. Actually, he hadn’t even been to the upstairs yet. So with a guilty sense of curiosity, he hesitantly took the steps one at a time. The banister was white and went in a straight line down to the first floor. It was a perfect banister for sliding down, and he could almost picture Logan and Shea fighting over who got to do it first. His lips curled into a smile as he saw Logan with his sandy blond hair and bright green eyes whooshing down the wooden banister, letting out a war cry as he went. And of course, Shea, arguing over the fact that she could do it, too, following him down the banister. It made him chuckle as he thought of her insistence at being treated as an equal.

Over the course of the past few days, he’d seen how Logan treated Shea as if she were made of glass and would break any moment. It frustrated her to no end, and she’d even sat with Kaden late one night when he couldn’t sleep and talked about how she didn’t want to be away from the ranch, but Logan had forced her to go away to college. He wondered if Logan even knew how much Shea wanted to be with him here at the ranch instead of away and worrying about him. Kaden stopped along the stairs to study the pictures that hung on the walls. There was a picture of a kind-looking man and a woman holding one another in wedding attire. They must be Logan and Shea’s parents. He had not had the nerve to ask where they were. He studied the picture, and saw Logan’s features in their father and Shea’s in their mother, except he would bet with a certainty that her stubbornness came from the father because their chins were the same, strong and sturdy.

The next few photographs along the way were pictures of Logan and Shea in various stages of their lives. One showed Logan in high school with a huge smile, holding a football. There was another that was a prom picture of the big, kind cowboy. In it, he was holding a shorter girl with bright red curls against his side, with a wide grin splitting his features. He looked so handsome in a tuxedo, tall and dashing. But Kaden noted the girl in the picture and sighed with resignation. It wasn’t like the man would ever be interested in someone like him, someone with mental problems, and unable to do anything physically. So he continued up the stairs, reaching the second-floor landing. There were only four bedrooms upstairs along with a bathroom. The first bedroom must have been a guestroom, as it stood untouched, so he continued on to the next room.

The room was undeniably Shea’s. There were Harvard pennants on the walls, a large canopy bed in the middle of the room against the wall, a white bedroom set, a vanity table littered with makeup and perfume, and a window seat that was perfect to look out over the ranch while reading a book. The walls were a light purple color with a border of yellow daisies along the top of the wall. It made him pause briefly and grin. Even though she tried so hard to be thought of as another cowboy, she really was a feminine woman at heart. It didn’t appear that the room needed to be cleaned and Kaden backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Swallowing with difficulty, his eyes locked on the white door at the end of the hall as he walked slowly toward it. He hesitated for a fraction of a second as he rested his hand on the golden doorknob before twisting it and carefully pushed the door open. The room inside reeked of masculinity. There was no other word for it. A huge king-size oak wood bed rested against the middle of one wall, an oak dresser dominated the other, and there was another rocking chair in the room. Sheesh, this family really had a thing for rocking chairs. The walls were a light coffee color and complimented the smoky gray carpet, leaving the impression that Logan had decorated the room himself. But the thing that struck him the hardest was that the bed remained unmade, there were clothes littering the floor, and a glance into the bathroom made him cringe. Geez, the man was a pig! With a resolute sigh, he started slowly and began to pick up the clothing, finding the hamper in the closet, which appeared to be overflowing as well. So, picking up the hamper, he headed downstairs to the laundry room that was off the kitchen.

It felt odd to be touching the man’s things, and his face flamed bright red when he came across Logan’s underwear in the hamper. But he resolutely continued separating the clothing. The first load was all jeans. The rest he set aside in piles to continue with later before taking the hamper back upstairs to get the rest of the man’s dirty clothes. Kaden kept an eye on the clock because he would need to start lunch soon in order to have it all prepared by the time the men got there. Today they were in the corrals again, branding the new calves they’d brought in from the fields. After ensuring all the clothes were in the laundry room downstairs, he approached the bed. His heartbeat increased as he straightened out the pillows, causing the scent of Logan’s shampoo to rise from the soft clouds of fabric. The scent caused a reaction in his lower half, instantly making him hard with arousal. Shock and shame overcame him, and he sank down to his knees, waiting for the sensations to pass. Arousal was something to be ashamed and afraid of. It left you open for pain and embarrassment. Tears stung his eyes, and he clenched his fists against jeans-clad thighs.

It took a few moments but the feeling faded, and he slowly dragged himself up from the floor. Nibbling nervously at his bottom lip, he finished mechanically making the bed, making sure the quilt was straight before going into Logan’s bathroom. There was no other word to describe the bathroom except huge. The tiles on the floor were white as were the tiles that went halfway up the walls. The areas that remained untiled were a light yellow. A shower stall was in one corner and needed a cleaning badly. The plexiglass surface was practically opaque with soap scum. A large hot-tub-style bathtub dominated the other corner, and he began to imagine Logan naked and wet in that tub, his broad chest gleaming in the light from above the oversized mirror. His hands shook as he started to clean up the bathroom counter, wiping down the stainless steel faucets and sink, throwing away the used razors that had been carelessly tossed aside.

Kaden opened the medicine chest to start putting away the shaving cream and cologne that sat on the counter, but he froze when his eyes settled on the box of condoms sitting on the bottom shelf of the cabinet. This time his body responded with a vengeance, and he started to hyperventilate, his breathing shallow and quick. Backing away with his eyes still trained on that box, he brought one hand to his other wrist and dug his nails in, trying to stop the anxiety flooding him. He started scratching, digging the nails deeply to try and stem the pain in his heart with the physical pain in his wrist. Reaching out, he slammed the cabinet shut and turned away, leaning his forehead against the shower stall door. Relax, his mind screamed at him. Finally the pain in his wrist grabbed his attention, and he weakly slumped against the shower door. Little drops of blood had fallen to the floor. His fingers were covered in the red liquid, and it was embedded beneath his nails. There would be no way to hide this. He would have to wear the black leather wrist band he had for the next week until it healed. Damn it. Why was he so stupid?

With a resigned and pained sigh, he stepped over to the sink and carefully washed the wounds, watching the pink water swirling down the drain. Then he closed his eyes, opened the medicine chest, and reached to the top shelf, where he’d noticed the package of gauze. It would be the only way to cover it and stop the bleeding. He shut the small door before opening his eyes again and taking out the package of gauze. Kaden carefully wrapped his still-bleeding wrist, watching the red stain the snow-white fabric. It reminded him of that day, the blood splattered across the floor, and the lifeless eyes staring up at him. Growling low in his throat, Kaden roughly rammed those memories deep into his brain, demanding that he forget everything. He didn’t want to remember anymore. It only caused more pain. It seemed that was all his life consisted of. Ever since he’d been a child, the only thing he had experienced was pain, in one form or another.

Once the bandage was in place, he cleaned up the evidence of his wounds and took everything down to throw away in the garbage in the kitchen where Logan or Shea wouldn’t see. Then he quickly grabbed the leather wrist band from his room and snapped it into place, making sure none of the gauze showed outside of the covering. He had to start preparing lunch or he’d never finish in time, and he began to fix three heaping pans of homemade chicken pot pie. He spread pie crusts along the bottom and sides of the pans, making sure it all was covered. Then he began to cut up the chicken he’d cooked the night before and left in the fridge, spreading it along the bottom of the pie crust before adding cans of pre-cut potato pieces, corn, peas, and carrots. Then he added in several huge jars of chicken gravy, mixing it directly in the pan before covering it with the remaining pie crusts. To add a spice of flavor to the pie crusts, he sprinkled fresh grated parmesan cheese along the tops before putting them in the already preheated oven.

The pot pies would only take an hour and a half to cook which left him enough time to make up large pitchers of iced tea and lemonade for their drinks. Everything was ready and waiting for the men when they arrived, and he could hear them entering the dining room, exclaiming over the food and drinks. It had become a routine with them. Every time they entered the room they made a big deal about complimenting the food and expressing their enjoyment. Logan had talked about the men wanting to meet him, and he’d immediately become paralyzed with fear. Being in a room full of big, strong, brash men was the depths of hell for him, and there was no way he would be able to stand it without experiencing a panic attack. He would make excuses, disappearing before he could be talked into it.

Before heading into his bedroom, he grabbed a glass of iced tea and a small plate of the chicken pot pie he’d set aside for himself. He’d been eating regularly the last two days, and the dizziness he usually felt had faded away. It had been a while since he’d felt any. So he continued to eat. Surprisingly, even after that morning’s panic attack, he still felt hungry. He set the plate on his nightstand and pulled out the lyric book, sighing with disappointment when he saw how close he was to running out of room in the book. He wondered if Logan would mind if Charlie picked one up for him when he went into town to get supplies. He’d made up a list yesterday of all the groceries he needed and had meant to give it to Charlie that day so that the older man could go into town, but he’d forgotten. Maybe he could offer money for the book, and then it wouldn’t be that bad. Besides, being on the ranch all the time, he didn’t have anywhere to spend the money so he would have the entire salary saved by the time he went back to New York City.

He’d been on the ranch now for almost a full five days, and even though he’d had panic attacks and made mistakes, they hadn’t tried to hurt him or yelled at him. They’d only encouraged him, and it confused him. Why would someone be okay with him making a mistake? Mistakes weren’t all right. They were bad. They could cause worse mistakes to happen. Or they could cause bigger problems for the people around him. He’d gotten his confusion out in his lyrics. The songs he’d written the last few days were so different from the ones he’d written in the past, and he’d read them again and again, seeing the difference. Looking around the large room, he wondered if he’d be ready to go back to New York City at the end of the three months. After being here only a short time, it would seem so barren and foreign when he returned. He didn’t know if he wanted to go back, but he’d have no choice. Where else could he go? He had no one else but himself.

A knock sounded at his door, and Kaden set his notebook aside and hefted himself from the bed. He was surprised to find Charlie standing there. “Hey, Charlie.” He smiled happily.