Relentless Thrust

The barbed wire cut into my palms before I even got the fence post set, and I felt the blood before I saw it, that hot slick sting that tells you you've been stupid again. I sucked the wound clean, spat into the dust, and told myself for the third time that morning that I was done with this goddamn ranch. The sun was already mean at seven, bleaching the sky white over the Panhandle, and the cattle had drifted down toward the creek where the shade was. I couldn't blame them.

That's when I heard the truck.

Dust plume first, then the growl of a big engine coming up the long gravel drive, and I straightened up with my hands still bleeding and watched it come. Black Ford. Lifted. The kind of truck that costs more than the house it's parked in front of. It rolled to a stop twenty feet from my fence line and the window came down.

"You the one they call Mecum?"

I wiped my hands on my jeans. "Depends who's asking."

He got out. That's the thing I remember most clearly, the way he got out, slow and deliberate like he knew I'd be watching and wanted me to. Tall. Six-three, maybe six-four. Shoulders that filled the doorframe. Dark hair cut short, green eyes that hit me from across the yard like a spotlight. He was wearing a white t-shirt that had no business being that tight and jeans that had no business being that expensive.

"Alex," he said, and stuck out his hand. "Alex Mecum."

I took it. His grip was dry and firm and he held on a beat longer than he needed to. Up close his jaw was a straight razor. His forearms were corded, veins standing out like river maps. I felt my own pulse do something stupid in my throat.

"Ray," I said. "Ray Delacroix. This is my brother's place."

"Your brother know you're patching his fence like a man who's never held a staple gun?"

I laughed before I could stop myself. "He knows I'm the only one who'll do it."

Alex walked the fence line, boots crunching on the caliche, and I watched him look at the pasture, the barn, the water tank, the whole spread, like he was appraising it. Or maybe like he was appraising me. Hard to tell with a man like that. He had the kind of confidence that made you want to earn his attention and also want to knock him on his ass.

"You train," he said. Not a question.

"Used to. Before I came back here."

"Come back from where?"

"Fort Worth. Had a gym. Had a life." I shrugged. "Then my dad got sick and somebody had to run this place."

He turned and looked at me full-on then, and something shifted in his face. Not pity. Something sharper. Interest, maybe. "You miss it?"

"Every day."

"Yeah," he said. "I can tell."

I didn't know what he meant by that and I didn't ask. I went back to the fence post and drove it into the ground with the post driver, five hard strokes, and I felt him watching my back the whole time. Felt it like a hand between my shoulder blades.

He stayed. That was the strange part. He had no reason to stay. Said he was passing through on his way to Amarillo, looking at some land his uncle wanted to sell. But he stayed through the morning and helped me run the wire, and by noon we'd finished the whole north line and both of us were soaked through with sweat.

"Shower," I said. "Then lunch. You're not driving to Amarillo smelling like that."

"Smelling like what?"

"Like a man who's been working."

He grinned. It was a good grin. Wide and a little crooked and it did something to his eyes that made them look younger. "Lead the way."

The house was old, built by my grandfather in '52, and the bathroom was small and the water pressure was bad. I let him go first. Stood in the kitchen and made sandwiches and tried not to think about him naked thirty feet away with my soap. Failed. The pipes groaned and I heard him moving around and I cut the crusts off the bread for no reason at all.

He came out with a towel around his waist and nothing else.

"Forgot my bag in the truck," he said. "Mind if I grab it?"

I didn't answer. I was too busy looking. His chest was thick and cut, dark hair trailing down his stomach, and the towel sat low on his hips in a way that was either careless or calculated. Probably both. He caught me looking and didn't pretend not to notice.

"Like what you see?" he said.

"Don't flatter yourself."

"Too late."

He walked past me to the door and I smelled my own soap on his skin and something underneath it, something warm and male that made my mouth go dry. I set the knife down on the cutting board and listened to his boots on the porch steps.

He came back with the bag and went into the bedroom to change and I stood in the kitchen with my heart going like a rabbit's and my hands shaking just slightly. I hadn't felt this in years. Not since Fort Worth. Not since before.

He came out dressed, thank God, in a fresh t-shirt and jeans, and we ate sandwiches at the kitchen table like two normal men on a normal Tuesday. He asked about the cattle. I told him about the drought. He asked about my dad. I told him about the funeral. He didn't say he was sorry, which I appreciated. He just nodded and chewed and let the silence sit.

"You ever think about going back?" he said finally.

"To Fort Worth?"

"To that life. The gym. Whatever you had."

I looked out the window at the pasture, at the heat shimmering off the fence line we'd just fixed. "Every day," I said again. "But you can't go back. You can only go forward."

"That's a bumper sticker."

"It's the truth."

He leaned back in his chair and stretched, and his shirt pulled tight across his chest, and I watched the fabric move over muscle. "Truth's overrated," he said. "What do you actually want, Ray?"

Nobody had asked me that in a long time. Not my brother, not the men I'd dated in Fort Worth, not even myself, not out loud. I opened my mouth to say something safe, something about the ranch, about family, about duty. But he was looking at me with those green eyes and I couldn't lie to him.

"I want to feel something," I said. "Something that isn't just tired."

He stood up. Came around the table. Stood close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him, that warm male smell again, soap and skin and something underneath. He put one hand on the back of my chair and leaned in.

"Then stop waiting for permission," he said.

And he kissed me.

It wasn't gentle. It wasn't asking. His mouth was hard on mine and his hand came up to my jaw and held me there like he'd been thinking about it all morning, like he'd been planning it since he stepped out of that truck. I made a sound I didn't recognize, something low and hungry, and my hands found his waist and pulled him closer.

He tasted like coffee and salt. His stubble scraped my chin and I didn't care. I'd forgotten what this felt like, the weight of a man against me, the push and pull of it, the way a kiss can go from question to answer in half a second flat.

He pulled back just far enough to look at me. His pupils were blown wide.

"I've been watching you all morning," he said. "Watching your hands. Watching your back. Watching the way you move."

"And?"

"And I don't pass through towns without taking what I want."

I should have told him to leave. I should have said I wasn't that kind of man anymore, that I had responsibilities, that my brother would be home by dark. But his hand was still on my jaw and his thumb was moving slow across my cheekbone and I wanted him more than I'd wanted anything in years.

"The bedroom's down the hall," I said.

He smiled. That crooked smile again, but darker now, hungrier. "Show me."