Page 1 of Saddle Studs (Rainbow Ranch #3)

SAM

“Yeah, so, I guess I own a horse now.”

My therapist’s face cracked the tiniest amount as he swallowed down the surprised “huh” that tried to force its way out of his mouth.

I internally gave myself a pat on the back. I couldn’t surprise him often, so I’d take whatever small win I could get.

Especially these days.

“A horse? Like, an actual horse, or is this some kind of new slang I’m not aware of?”

I nodded, stretched out my legs and rubbed my stiff thighs, trying to get blood flow back in my lower extremities before my dick fell off. “An actual horse. Well, a mini-horse. So . . . half of a horse, I guess? I don’t know. I’m not a horse specialist.”

I could tell Zack was working overtime to try to understand this sudden diversion in the session.

We’d spent nearly the entire hour discussing ways I could reframe my thoughts and combat the ever-present cloud of depression that clung to me like cigarette smoke inside a classic yellow cab.

I only decided in the last five minutes to drop the bomb of my surprise (and relatively useless) inheritance.

“My good family friend, Frankie—he was like an uncle to me. Was around when my parents weren’t.

Anyway, he apparently owned some kind of stake in Rainbow Ranch, but it had to be a joke or just a symbolic thing.

They gave him a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot patch of land near the pasture along with Dennis, the ranch’s mini-horse.

” I pulled out the wrinkled piece of paper I’d found in my mailbox earlier that morning.

“And he, subsequently, left his pile of riches to me.” I leaned forward and handed Zack the letter, trying to keep as much of the sarcastic bite out of my tone as I could.

Zack scanned the letter while I looked out the window toward the always beautiful, incredibly toxic Hudson River.

The Empire State Building rose like a concrete-and-glass giant amid its smaller and possibly rat-infested neighbors.

A few other buildings reached nearly its height, but none possessed the same kind of regality as the Empire State.

“I’m going to miss it.”

“Hmm?”

“The city.”

“So, you’ve decided then?”

I nodded, looking back out the window. A stipulation had been written into the contract. If I wanted to either sell, own, or transfer any of my inheritance, then I’d have to live and work on the ranch for a total of ninety days.

The inheritance may have been silly, but the timing of it was surreal. After the shit show of the last few months, I felt like this was Frankie’s way of saying he still had my back even when he was gone. “I’ve got nothing left here.”

Zack placed the letter on his lap and steepled his fingers in a way that had to have been taught in therapy school. Probably first semester material. “Let’s not use absolutes like nothing . We can always find something. ”

“Fine, I’ve got near -nothing left here.”

“That’s… right, let’s run with that.”

I took the paper back from Zack and folded it along the lines, stuffing it into my shorts pocket.

“My career is pretty much in a death spiral, my girlfriend left me for the man I thought was my best friend, my favorite barber shop got shut down for money laundering—and did I mention the whole girlfriend thing? That actually happened twice.”

Zack couldn’t keep the surprise from coloring his expression this time. His brows knitted and his eyes widened before he caught himself. His face went neutral, back snapping straight, shoulders stiff as a board.

Nice, I thought, rewarding myself with another mental pat. Twice in one session

“With the same?—”

“Different girls, same friend. Yeah.”

Zack blinked a couple of times and—very much to his credit, and likely the reason behind his glowing reviews on therapygarden.com—withheld any judgement, or shock, or “holy fuck, that’s bad” from showing on his face.

He leaned back in his tall leather wingback chair and smiled at me.

“Separating yourself physically from all of this could help you heal. But I know you have some avoidance tendencies, and I don’t want those kicking in either.

Have you had time to digest all of this? How leaving New Jersey and going to…”

“Oklahoma.”

“ Oklahoma, ” he said as if he were trying to pronounce an alien pronoun. “Are you okay with that?”

Now there was the million-dollar question.

Was I okay with going back to the small town I’d grown up in, constantly feeling like an outsider, like my heart and soul and destiny were all being pulled in a different direction, tugging me farther and farther away from Johnson Springs?

Was I okay with going back there? It was the place I had wanted so desperately to leave, only because being there made me confront parts of myself I refused to even acknowledge.

Because he made me confront those parts of myself…

Would he still be there?

There was no way. Benny always had such a light inside him.

That guy was set to save the world. He was smart, charismatic, kind, funny, good-looking—Benny had it all.

There was no way he was frozen in time, traveling down the same dirt roads and eating at the same greasy diner spot we’d frequent as kids. No way…

“I don’t really know if I’m okay with it.” And then I smiled in that unhinged way that I’m sure no therapist liked to see. “But I guess we’ll find out.”

My entire apartment was packed up in boxes.

Tomorrow, I’d bring them all to storage and dump them behind a heavy metal door, locking it up and leaving my current life to collect dust while I went back to my old one.

Such a weird fucking feeling. I’d left Johnson Springs right out of high school.

That time was nothing but terrible memories.

Life got better once I was in college at Boston University, where I worked toward my degree in public relations.

I went from living in a small town of a couple thousand to sending out press releases to a hundred thousand.

I enjoyed the fast-paced and cutthroat life that the city brought, the flock of faceless people walking past, each on their own individual little missions.

NPCs completed side quests I’d never find out about, all of them feeling like heroes of their own stories.

But that same enjoyment soured over the last few months.

The city started to feel more and more like an empty facade.

Nothing about anyone felt real. Most of the people I met drifted into my life like dust bunnies whipped up by a breeze and carried away, never to be seen or heard from again.

Work was even worse, with stressful long hours and entitled clients, I was tiptoeing toward burnout before I made it to my thirtieth birthday.

There were only four months left of my twenties, and I was barreling straight toward an early onset mid-life crisis.

Great, just fucking great.

I walked around a stack of boxes labeled “living room” and went for a beer from the fridge.

“Alexa, set the AC to seventy-two.”

Every single light in my apartment turned up to maximum brightness.

“That’s… that’s not what I asked. Alexa, ” I said, with the added emphasis of an annoyed parent scolding a (digital) child. “Set the AC to seventy-two.”

The speaker dinged and the air conditioning turned off.

Good—that would warm things up. It was always chilly in my place, and it didn’t exactly help that I liked to be naked. At least it kept my electricity bill down.

Shit.

I was going to have to start wearing clothes now that I’d be sharing a space with other human beings.

I considered getting a hotel for at least half of my ninety-day stay requirement, but there wasn’t anything close to Rainbow Ranch that seemed worth it.

I’d already spoken with Pris, who managed the property, and was told there’d be a room for me.

I had the urge to ask her if it was the guest room near the back of the house or the one toward the front, but decided to find out when I arrived.

I also nearly asked her if Benny was still around. A curious, almost throwaway question that would have helped me decide whether I should have backed out of this crazy situation.

Benny…

He was the youngest of the Adams family, and had often acted like it.

He basked in the feeling of being babied and enjoyed people taking care of him.

A little spoiled, very-much loved—and could sometimes be a big-ass fucking brat.

He loved horses and had a way around them that felt almost supernatural, like he could speak a secret language only he and the horse could understand.

He was also my first kiss.

A kiss that completely wrecked me. Annihilated our relationship. Threw my life into chaos.

Basically: it fucked everything up.

It was just two guys experimenting. We were horny, fooling around, comfortable around each other.

But I wasn’t ready. I’d already been trying to sort out my emotions, which—spoiler alert—were all hormones.

Never happened again. Nothing to see here.

I’m totally straight—and the second our lips touched, I knew I’d made a huge mistake.

I unfortunately reacted in a way that shocked us both.

I pushed him off me so hard he fell backward and scratched up his hands on the concrete, nearly hurting his wrists with the impact.

His eyes—full of visceral pain and raw betrayal—still haunted me.

If Benny was at the ranch? Fuck. I’d have to back out. I’d forfeit the land and the horse. Whatever. I was reconnecting with my past to disconnect from the present.

But that didn’t mean I wanted to reconnect with Benny.