Finding Home (Finding Series, Book 1) (3 page)

“Two years. Spent most of it in solitary since being a cop in prison doesn’t make you a lot of friends,” Rhys said with a bitter laugh.

Finn shuddered at what Rhys was saying. He reached down and grabbed the mare’s reins and pulled her to a stop, then put his hand over one of Rhys’.

“I’m sorry, Rhys. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Rhys wished to God that he wasn’t sitting on a horse at the moment because he wanted nothing more than to lean over and kiss the beautiful mouth that was offering words of comfort, not judgement. Finn had surprised him when he’d automatically assumed that Rhys had been provoked into assaulting someone else. And now he saw no condemnation in those gentle eyes. Finn absolutely believed everything Rhys had told him and he was surprised at the relief that went through him. It shouldn’t have been important. No one else had believed him, not even his own attorney. Even Frank seemed doubtful about his story so to have this young man who didn’t know him from Adam believe him was humbling.

Emotion welled up inside so Rhys only managed a nod before Finn pulled back and they continued the ride in silence. Finn’s kiss the night before had messed with his head as well as his body. He’d made it to the front door last night, but couldn’t bring himself to walk out. He didn’t want to be on the ranch and Callan definitely didn’t want him there, but that kiss had changed everything. Sure, it had been done out of anger after Rhys’ had poked at Finn’s age by calling him a kid, but the impact of those lips on his had done him in both physically and emotionally. He wanted Finn. Badly. And not just physically – he found himself craving Finn’s smile, hearing that ridiculously enthusiastic laugh. He wanted those soft looks and warm touches that he’d never quite managed to share with any of his other lovers. He wanted Finn to want him the way Finn wanted Callan.

God, how had things gotten this fucked up, this fast? How could one kiss have had him turning back around from that front door and crawling into that empty bed, wishing he were anything but alone? At least before Finn had kissed him, he’d had the hope of being able to pass the time in this hell hole by being fuck buddies with his new roommate. But his gut was telling him that Finn wasn’t the type for a no-strings attached relationship and Rhys definitely wasn’t looking for more than a hook-up. So where did that leave him? The friend zone? With a guy he was undeniably attracted to? Did he really want to spend the next six months watching the guy he was lusting after make moon eyes at Callan? And he couldn’t even think about the moment of lust he’d felt towards the dark-haired man that had towered over him when he had him pressed up against that truck.

Rhys’ attention returned to the present when Finn said, “Look. Down there.”

They’d reached the top of the small hill and below them was a thin strip of water that dozens of black cows were standing around, some picking at the brown grass, others wading into the dirty water. “Is that all of them?”

Finn sighed. “Yeah, that’s all of them,” he said quietly as he urged his horse down the hill towards the herd. Rhys could tell there was plenty he wasn’t saying.

“Something happened,” Rhys said. A statement, not a question.

Finn cast him a glance. “Couple years ago we had nearly 300 head. Not as big as most places around here, but Cal had mixed some good breeding stock and was getting well above market price.”

“And?” Rhys prodded.

“And then Cal decided not to fire the queer like everyone told him to. Suddenly the cost of everything went up but prices fell. Fences got cut in the middle of the night. Nearly half the herd died when the main water supply was poisoned.”

“Jesus.”

“Cops couldn’t find any suspects of course so they said it was probably an industrial accident or something upstream. Funny how only our stock was affected. Cal had to sell off most of the remaining herd to stay in the black. He says we’re back on track…”

“But you don’t believe him.”

“I’m gonna take a quick circle around the herd to make sure everyone looks okay. You mind checking out the fence over there for breaks?” Finn asked, effectively ending the conversation. He didn’t even give Rhys a chance to answer before he was urging his horse off to check the herd. Rhys managed to do his part and inspect the fence, though steering the horse was proving to be a continuous struggle and he finally dismounted and walked the horse as he checked for any damage. The ride back to the barn was quiet and Finn seemed uncharacteristically withdrawn.

“You okay?” Rhys asked as they began brushing down the horses.

Finn just nodded, then asked, “You mind washing West down for me?” as he motioned to his horse.

“No problem,” Rhys said and watched Finn disappear out of the barn.

Rhys grabbed his horse’s lead as well as the big grey horse’s and led both animals to the wash area he’d seen Callan use yesterday. Neither animal gave him a hard time as he ran lukewarm water over them which he was grateful for since he had no clue what the hell he was doing.

It wasn’t until he started on the grey horse that he finally noticed Callan leaning in the doorway of the barn, his intense eyes focused on him. Waiting for him to fuck up, he imagined. Rhys felt a shiver go through him as he felt the gaze burning into him and his jeans instantly felt tight.

“You need to use release knots.” He turned to see that Callan had closed the distance between them and was loosening one of the nylon lead ropes that he’d tied in a knot around the post. “You really don’t know shit, do you?” Callan muttered.

Rhys forced himself to keep his mouth shut, reminding himself that any crap this guy spewed at him would still be better than two more years in a windowless jail cell.

“Where’s Finn?” Callan asked as he finally worked the first lead free.

“He needed some space.”

Callan scowled. “What did you do to him?”

Rhys shook his head and let out a humorless laugh. “Jesus, you really do treat him like a fucking kid.”

“I look out for him,” Callan snapped.

“Yeah? And how’s that working out for you? For him?” Rhys quipped.

Rhys was surprised when Callan didn’t respond and even more so when he actually saw a flash of pain in the other man’s eyes. “Hey man,” Rhys started, but Callan cut him off.

“You need to use a release knot when you secure a horse so in case something spooks them, you can get them free quickly so they don’t hurt themselves.” Callan looped the lead around the post and demonstrated. Once it was secured, he pulled one end quickly and the whole lead unfurled. “A leg injury on a horse can be a death sentence,” Callan said softly as one of his big hands fondly stroked the grey horse’s face. Finn’s horse. Rhys felt water drip onto his leg and realized he’d been staring at those fingers curling around the animal’s muzzle.

“You try,” Callan said as he handed Rhys the lead and took the hose from him. Their fingers brushed and Rhys felt it everywhere. Callan must have felt something too because he stilled, his gaze holding Rhys’ without mercy. Rhys forced himself to be the one who moved first and his fingers felt awkward and heavy as he tried to mimic the knot. He held his breath as Callan’s hands closed over his and guided him through the moves.

Jesus, what the fuck was happening to him? His stomach was rolling with nerves and he actually found himself leaning in towards Callan before he realized what he was doing. Jerking back, Rhys quickly undid the tie for the horse he’d been riding and reworked it. Somehow he got it tied correctly and was both pleased and disappointed. As much as he’d like having Callan’s hands on him, he needed to end this before he did something stupid. Not only was the guy playing it straight for some reason, the man clearly hated him, not to mention that Finn, someone he was already considering a friend, had been hung up on this man for a while.

“Good,” Callan murmured as he checked the second tie, then stepped back. “I spoke with Frank last night to let him know you made it okay.”

Callan’s words were like ice water being dumped on his emotions. This man thought of him as a loser. Had said as much yesterday when he’d been warning Rhys off Finn. “Yeah?” he said coolly as he took the hose back from Callan and focused all his attention on getting the horses cleaned up.

“He said to call him if you need anything.”

“Right,” Rhys said.

“Tell Finn I’ll be up at the main house if he needs me,” Callan said.

Rhys nodded and finally took his first deep breath once Callan had disappeared back into the barn. God, how the fuck was he ever going to make it six months around these two men?

Callan Bale tamped down on his runaway lust as he left the barn and headed up the driveway towards the main house. His eyes automatically searched the area for Finn since it was unlike him to disappear while they were still working. It was even more unusual for him to abandon his horse to someone else’s care. He’d given the gelding to Finn himself as a graduation present. It had been the same day that Finn’s whole life had changed because he had the courage to be who he was and wouldn’t be relegated to playing a role just to please those around him. As young and innocent as Finn was, he was still a hell of a lot braver than Callan would ever be.

Callan had known long before he met Finn Stewart that he preferred men to women. But unlike Finn, he’d tested the waters only when distance offered him the anonymity he needed. His first sexual experience with a man hadn’t even happened until his sophomore year of college when he and his roommate had gotten more than a little drunk and Callan had gotten his first blowjob. But the morning after had been nearly comical as both he and his roommate played dumb and pretended nothing had happened. Two days later his roommate had transferred to a new dorm so he could supposedly be closer to his classes and Callan had found himself spending the rest of the semester dating one flighty coed after the other.

He’d been the ripe old age of twenty-one when he finally fucked another man for the first time. He’d spent the night of his birthday doing what all college guys were expected to do – bar hop with his buddies and his shiny new ID to prove he was legal. But the next night he’d snuck out on his own and went to a gay club on the outside of town he’d passed more than once on his way home each weekend to help his father at the ranch. The club had offered every kind of guy imaginable, but it had been a tattooed, muscle head named Mav that had dragged him into one of the bathroom stalls and kissed the shit out of him. Any hope that he’d be able to find the same level of sexual gratification with a woman ended the second he buried his cock deep inside the other man’s ass as he bent him over the toilet.

He’d gone back the next night and found another guy who’d blown him in the alley behind the club. And that had been how he’d spent most nights during his last year of school. Going to class and flirting with pretty girls during the day, fucking random men on the nights he could no longer deny the craving. And then one night he’d met the wrong man and he’d ended up broken and bleeding in an alley next to a dumpster. The trip to the ER had been a lesson in humiliation and when the cops had made it clear that anyone and everyone would find out the circumstances of what had been done to him, Callan took them up on their offer to ‘forget the whole thing’ and had scurried back to his dorm room with instructions to get tested for the whole gamut of STDs for the next six months. And when his father had asked him the next time he went home why he was limping and where the bruises on his face had come from, the lie that he’d been mugged had fallen easily from his lips.

There’d been no men since that night and anytime he had the urge, all it took was the memory of being brutalized to deflate his dick faster than air seeping out of a flat tire. Until Finn. Callan smiled to himself as he remembered the sight of the gangly, pimply faced boy that had been introduced to him when Callan was twenty-five and working for his father full-time. From that day forward, thirteen year old Finn had stuck to him like glue and never stopped talking for longer than a minute or two.

Callan hadn’t had a brother or sister so it had been strange to adjust to the ever-present kid tagging along and trying to mimic everything he did, but at some point things changed and he actually missed Finn when he was at school. But he noticed a change in Finn after he turned fifteen. The kid’s hero worship had turned into something else, something deeper and Callan had tried to pull back since he knew where Finn’s infatuation would ultimately lead. He was certain that after Finn’s disastrous sixteenth birthday that he would lose the only friend he really had, but Finn had always been the better man, even before he was actually a man, and he’d let Callan ease them back to what they’d been before the almost-kiss.

Keeping the truth about his own sexuality from Finn had been difficult, especially in the times he could tell that Finn needed someone to talk to about what he was going through after the ruinous episode with the mayor’s son and his father’s brutal assault, but Callan had been a coward because being honest about who and what he was would mean he’d lose everything he’d worked for. But as Finn had grown and matured, Callan’s body began to betray him and he found it harder to deny that he craved Finn in a way that wasn’t okay for someone who may as well have been his little brother. Not to mention the twelve year age difference between them.

And since his life wasn’t already fucked up enough, God had apparently thought it amusing to send Rhys Tellar barreling into their lives. Not only was his own attraction to the other man palpable, seeing him with Finn had him burning with hate and lust at the same time. When he’d seen them nearly kiss in that stall yesterday, part of him had wanted to stop it but a darker part had wanted to join them – to order them both to their knees and let them taste each other while their tongues were wrapped around his cock.

“Callan honey, is that you?” he heard his Aunt Dolly’s voice call out as he pushed open the screen door to the main house. Hearing her voice quelled any hard-on that had been forming at the image that had managed to imprint itself in his brain only seconds earlier.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he responded as he made his way to the kitchen.

Dolly was covered in flour so he pressed a kiss to her cheek and snagged one of the fresh cookies she had cooling on a baking rack on the counter. She was a petite woman and he marveled that she and his father had come from the same parents, considering their differences in size and coloring. Dolly didn’t even hit the 5 foot mark in heels while his own father was closer to Callan’s 6’2. Age had taken a harsh toll on his father, but Dolly, though she was three years older than her brother, still acted spry. She’d been in their lives for just the past few years as his father’s health deteriorated, but with her loving and open nature it felt like she’d been there forever. He reached for another cookie, but she snatched the baking rack out of his reach and began putting the cookies in a plastic container.

“These are for Finn,” she said. “And your new man.”

A surge went through Callan at hearing Rhys described as his man even though he knew Dolly hadn’t meant it that way.

“What’s his name again?”

“Rhys.”

“Yes. Invite them both to dinner tomorrow night,” she commented as she reached into the oven to get the next batch of cookies out.

“Probably not a good idea,” Callan said as he pulled a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water from the kitchen sink.

“How come? Finn hasn’t stopped by for dinner in such a long time…”

Callan stiffened as he heard footsteps shuffling into the kitchen. “I don’t want that little queer in my house,” his father said.

“Carter!” Dolly said in shock.

Callan forced himself to take in a deep breath and put the glass carefully down on the counter, afraid that otherwise he’d end up shattering it. “I told you what I would do if you called him that again-” Callan began.

“Callan, don’t,” he heard Dolly say behind him, then felt her hand close around his arm. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” she whispered.

Carter opened the refrigerator and searched through it, seemingly oblivious to the danger he faced from his own son. “Sarah, where’s my beer?”

Dolly’s fingers tensed on Callan’s arm, then she brushed past him. “Carter, it’s me, Dolly. Your sister. Sarah’s gone, remember?”

His father looked at her with a mix of confusion and irritation, then repeated, “Where’s my beer?”

“No beer. It mixes with your medication,” she reminded him gently. “Why don’t you go sit down in the den and watch some TV and I’ll bring you something to eat?”

Carter harrumphed, then shuffled back the way he’d come.

“He didn’t mean that, honey,” Dolly said as she began pulling things out of the fridge. He wanted to tell her that his father’s bigotry had been around long before the dementia, but she tended to cling to the fond memories of the baby brother she’d grown up with. Not that Callan could blame her since she needed something to hang on to since she was stuck with the temperamental man day in and day out while Callan tried to keep the ranch afloat. “How about tomorrow night I make some extra lasagna and you and your boys can have it down at your house?” she said brightly.

Another pang at hearing Finn and Rhys referred to as his hit him hard. He needed to get a grip. “Sure,” he said, though he knew there was no way he could sit down for a meal with the both of them.

“You want me to make you a sandwich?” Dolly asked as she began putting ingredients together for the brother that would have forgotten about the sandwich and her by the time she brought it to him in the den.

“No, thanks. I gotta get back to work,” he said.

“Here. Tell those boys I’ll be down to see them real soon,” she said with a smile as she handed him the container full of cookies. “And you stay out of those – you can come back and get yours later.”

He forced a smiled to his face and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She didn’t deserve this life and he wished he could change things – find a way to come up with enough money to get his father the care he needed and finally set Dolly free. Muttering a quick thanks, he hurried out of the house and began the short walk back down to the small foreman’s house he was using. After Callan had kicked Finn’s father off the property, he and Finn had shared the small house until gradually the few ranch hands that he’d managed to keep had started to leave one by one. Once it was just him and Finn, it had made more sense to move Finn to the other house. He’d tried to tell himself it had nothing to do with the alarming level of desire he’d begun to feel for Finn. But like the rest of his life, it was a big, fat, fucking lie.

***

Finn stiffened when he heard the footsteps behind him, already knowing who the heavy tread belonged to.

“Thought I’d find you here,” he heard Cal say.

An open, plastic container was shoved under Finn’s nose and the smell of butterscotch assaulted him. He couldn’t help but smile as he took the container and grabbed one of the still warm cookies. Dolly had to be sent from above, he thought to himself as he automatically handed the cookie to Cal and then grabbed one for himself.

“You okay?” Cal asked him.

It was one of Cal’s favorite questions and Finn used to love hearing it because it was a reminder that no matter what, Cal was always looking out for him. Knowing that had always made Finn feel strong – even with all the battles he faced, Cal had his back. But now the words were just more dead weight on his shoulders. He used to feel like Cal’s equal and that even though they would never have more than friendship between them, at least Finn could contribute, could help Cal realize his dream of running a successful ranch. Working together had become so easy and natural that he didn’t really even think of Cal as his boss any more. They’d become partners, family even.

“Fine,” Finn said automatically. “I miss it,” he said, motioning to empty swath of dirt in front of them.

Cal sighed. “Me too. But filling it in was the only option. Even if we had built a fence around it to keep the herd out, the wildlife would have suffered. The DNR guy said there was no way to get the poison out of the water.”

They were both silent for a long time, the early evening air warm and quiet around them. “You have to let me go, Cal,” Finn said quietly.

He didn’t have to look at Cal to see the stiff set in his jaw or the tension in his frame. Cal had been trying to protect him since Finn’s father cast him out of his life – before then actually.

“No, I need you here,” Cal said stubbornly.

Finn dropped his head onto his knees. “What’s to stop them from coming after the horses next? Or Dolly? Or You?”

“I can take care of us. All of us.”

Finn wished he could put his head on Cal’s shoulder. Even if just for a moment so he could absorb some of that unfailing faith that everything would work out okay. But something had changed since he kissed Rhys last night, and he hadn’t realized it until now. If he stayed with Cal, he’d never have a chance to try and build a life with someone else. Someone like Rhys. He knew Rhys wasn’t sticking around either so pursuing something with the other man wasn’t an option, but he’d enjoyed getting to know Rhys this afternoon. He’d liked that little flutter in his belly when Rhys had shamelessly flirted with him yesterday in the truck and he hadn’t felt that full on rush of lust he’d had when Rhys had held him in place in the stall in a long time…not since he’d accepted the fact that Cal would never see him that way. Staying here was not only dragging Cal and the ranch down, it was slowly eating away at the hope Finn had for any kind of a future with another person.

“I’ll get Rhys up to speed before I go,” he heard himself saying as pain clenched his insides.

“No.” That was it. One word. No argument, no discussion. It was too much. Finn shot to his feet, ignoring the cookies that spilled all over the ground.

“Did you ever think I might need something more than this, Cal? That I might need a life outside of Dare? To be some place where I don’t have to be looking over my shoulder all the time? Where I don’t need to listen to people call me names under their breath?” Cal refused to look at him and that had Finn kicking at the dirt in anger. “I can’t even go in to your father’s fucking house, Cal!”