Page 69 of Cowboy Needed

“Well, it’s a pretty long story. I’m at a bar fixing to have lunch, so I can tell you all about it. But first, I gotta ask you a question.”

“Shoot, son.” He could hear his dad chuckling, and he knew it was because they were so much alike. Rick was about venting. The more important stuff came first.

“How do you feel about coming up here for Christmas?”

Chapter Nineteen

Ichabod centered a lump of clay on the wheel and started spinning it, nice and slow, wedging his elbow on his thigh to force the huge mass of wet earth to settle and do what he wanted.

Centrifugal force was a bitch, but it always let him know what was going on. He couldn’t necessarily see if things were off-center, but he never failed to feel it.

He sighed, forcing himself to focus on this, nothing else.

No kids.

No lover.

No asshole motherfucker who tried to take his kids.

Nothing but this right now.

He wet his hands again and started working the clay, pushing down with his fingers and drawing up, pushing down and drawing up, aligning the clay so it understood what he was asking it to become.

If only he was sure what he was wanting it to be.

Hell, that wasn’t true.

He did know what he needed it to do, though. He wasasking the art to make things better—to give his body something to create so that his soul could relax.

Because he was furious.

His house was in disarrayagain. He had gotten everything to where he felt as if this was normal and right and good. And now that Rick motherfucker had rattled it.

Because what?

He wanted the ranch? Well, Rick couldn’t have the ranch.

And goddammit, if Ichabod had wanted to sell, he’d have sold the fucking ranch. He could. He could sell it and put the money away for the kids and then what? Go back to Denver? He didn’t think so.

He coned the clay up and down, and then slowly started building a vessel.

The work soothed him because he couldn’t think about all the shit. He had to think about the clay and how it felt and how it was responding and pushing and pulling. No one thought about how physical what he did for a living was. And that was okay. He sort of liked it.

Hell, he sort of loved it.

By the time he’d calmed down some, he was covered in clay and water from his elbows to his knees, and he was panting a little, his heart pounding.

That was one big phallic vase.

He chuckled, feeling way more… grounded. Ha.

“That might be the hottest thing I’ve ever seen, baby.”

Ellis’s voice made him jump, and he was glad he wasn’t touching the clay.

He glanced up and found himself breathing hard, sucking air, and his eyes dragged over Ellis’s body. His lover wore a pair of old, damn near see-through sweatpants, an old T-shirt, and his house shoes.

It was the hottest thinghe’dever seen.