Page 5 of Wrangled

The year before that, I couldn’t even get within sight of the place. I hadn’t crossed the cabin’s threshold since 2017. Thank God Dad had passed two years before that. He wouldn’t have stood for such behavior.

We came to a halt at the edge of the creek, and I closed my eyes, letting the soothing sound of water trickling over rocks flow over and through me. Except it didn’t stay soothing for long. All too soon the memories crept into my mind.

The sight of Kevin, lying face down in the creek.

Lightning standing there, head bowed, as if he’d known his master was dead.

Kevin’s body moving gently, buffeted by the water but unable to break free of the rushes surrounding him.

Too many goddamn memories. Closing my eyes didnotshut them out.

My fault. It was my fault.

Not the first time I’d said those words to myself, and I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be the last.

I opened my eyes, and stared across at the log cabin, the stones leading from the front steps, set into a path that meandered to the water’s edge where boulders had been placed across the creek.

How many times had I crossed there? I’d lost count since that first time in 2005.

Our place.

Our hiding place.

Sometimes I was convinced that if I walked through that front door, I’d find him there, waiting for me with that lopsided grin, buck naked, standing next to the sling, a bottle of lube at his feet, along with a tub of something suited to the task of putting more than his cock inside me—

Said cock pointing to the ceiling, hard as fuck.

Don’t go there.

The two Adirondack chairs still sat on the front porch, a more domesticated sight than what lay beyond the front door. The weather hadn’t been kind to them, however: they were in pretty bad shape.

So was I, but on the inside.

No one was allowed inside the cabin.No one.And while the ranch hands could be stubborn and awkward as fuck sometimes, they knew better than to cross me.

At least, I hoped that was the case. Because if they snuck a peek at the cabin’s interior, they’d see their boss in a whole new light, and I didn’t think I could handle that.

I gazed across the creek at the dilapidated porch.I could sit there for a while.I had nowhere else to be, right? I grabbed the pommel, ready to dismount…

And then the assault came from out of nowhere.

The memories were more forceful than ever.

‘First one to reach the chairs gets his dick sucked.’ Kevin’s raucous laughter. The sound of his belt buckle hitting the deck. His hands on my head, holding me there while he opened my throat with his cock.

The fact that he wasn’t there anymore?My fault.

My heart quaked.I can’t do this.

“Boss?”

I twisted in my saddle to see Zeeb trotting toward me on Thunder. I didn’t ask how he’d known where I’d be. The guy wasn’t an idiot. Everyone on the goddamn ranch probably knew. And if I believed anything different, I was fooling myself.

I didn’t hire idiots. Neither did Teague.

I straightened in my saddle. “What’s up?” I acted as if I was just out for my usual morning ride, that it was mere coincidence I’d happened upon the cabin.

Yeah, I was fooling no one.