Page 7 of Bedroom Rodeo

Piers forked straw into the horse stall. Though the spring air still held a slight chill this morning, he’d worked up a sweat. A bead of perspiration rolled down the back of his neck, but he didn’t bother to wipe it away and focused on spreading straw.

Suddenly, a few bits of straw hit the top of his hat and tumbled down the front of his shirt. He looked up to see Ash peering over the wall between stalls.

With a gleam in his eyes, he tossed another handful on Piers.

“Asshole.” He shook off the blades of straw, but several clung to the sweat coating his forearms.

“Lighten up, man. You look like somebody just kicked your puppy.”

He set the pitchfork tines down into the thin layer of bedding and leaned on the handle. “Just thinking about Sylvee.”

Ash sobered. “So am I.” He withdrew and a moment later stood at the opening of Piers’s stall.

Piers held his gaze. “She really said she’s coming here. She applied to the ranch. I didn’t imagine that.”

Ash scrubbed a gloved fingertip between his brows, probably thinking the same thing Piers did. That Sylvee—their Sylvee—being in the environment where they lived and worked felt as wrong to him as it did to Piers.

“You didn’t imagine it.”

“I wasn’t thinking that she’d apply when we sent her that address. We should have texted her back. Told her to stay in town.”

“She can make up her own mind. She’s a grown woman.” Ash issued a low whistle. “Damn, she is all woman.”

Piers’s nostrils flared at the memory of her curves forming in his mind. “I always wanted her, but it’s probably good that she friend-zoned me.”

Ash shrugged his bulky shoulders, straining the fibers of the chambray shirt he wore. “She’s not like that. If you’d slept together and things didn’t work out, she’d still be friends with you.”

“There’s something she’s not saying.”

“You’re right.”

“What do you think happened to their relationship?” Piers studied Ash’s face. He looked just as concerned as Piers felt.

Ash shrugged. “People change.”

“I don’t think Sylvee did.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think he was cheating on her.” His jaw flexed on the words, and he curled his fist tighter around the handle of the pitchfork—the only satisfaction he could get when punching out Charlie’s perfect white teeth wasn’t an option.

Ash wagged his head back and forth. “You don’t know her as well as you think. Sylvee would tell us that.”

“You’re seriously saying I don’t know her?”

Ash met his stare. A heartbeat stretched between them. “I know you do. We both do.”

“Damn right.”

“But do you think she’ll know…” He broke off.

Piers picked up the thread. “That you and I hook up sometimes? Not unless she sees it. It’s been happening since high school and nobody guessed then.”

Ash’s lips firmed. “I’m not ashamed of it.”

Piers dropped his gaze to his boots and then jerked it back up to Ash’s. “Neither am I.”

Ash took a step closer. Piers caught the scent of his lover. The sandalwood notes of the bodywash he used and the salt of hard work.

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