Page 2 of For the Love of the Bull Rider

The hot cowboy laughed. “Mr. Collins is my daddy. I’m Matt. I hope to hear from ya when you got the time.” He turned to the boy and smiled. “Let’s go, Ryan. Tell—I forgot your name.” Matt’s cheeks turned pink, which only made him more handsome.

Tim stuck out his hand as his late mother had taught him to do since he was a little boy and offered his name. “Timothy Moran.” As he shook the man’s hand, Matt smiled, and Tim melted. Matt Collins was too gorgeous for Tim’s own good.

“Timmy!”

Tim was in a hot barn with a bandana over his mouth and nose because the smell of horse shit made him nauseous. It always had, and he feared it always would.

Every chore on the farm wasn’t a cakewalk—especially cleaning the horse stalls. Timhatedcleaning the stalls, though he did it for his Uncle Josh because, truth be told, he’d do anything for the man.

Over the years, Josh had developed a way of talking Tim into doing things he’d never imagined he’d do. This particularthinginvolved shit—actual horse manure—and cleaning the horse barn just because Josh said it needed to be done.

Tim stuck his head out to see Uncle Josh and Hank, the foreman at Katydid Farm, standing at the end of the barn by the sliding doors. “Yeah?” Tim walked out with a pitchfork full of manure, dumping it into the manure spreader in the hallway.

Cleaning those stalls seemed to show the cowboys on the Katydid that Tim was willing to work alongside them for the betterment of the farm, so they didn’t give him any troubleabout being Josh’s nephew, or so Tim believed. He’d determined before he could get down to business regarding automating the archaic operation, he needed to understand how everything fit together. It meant Tim needed to learn all the jobs, regardless of the unpleasantness. Uncle Josh seemed proud of Tim for taking the bull by the horns, or so he’d heard Josh tell Aunt Katie one night when he was coming downstairs for dinner.

In all honesty, Tim thought himself lucky because it was early summer, and Uncle Josh had about ten head of his own horses out on pasture. It was a breeding/boarding/training/selling operation, and there were only eight in the barn at night. They were board horses, or horses Josh was training, so the hands took extra, special care of them because they supplemented the income at the Katydid, as well as the money made from the sales of the American Quarter Horses Josh bred and trained.

“You ‘bout done?” Uncle Josh asked.

Josh had a white-blond crew cut and lots of freckles from too much sun on his pale skin, along with a crooked nose from too many face-plants from the back of a rank horse. That being said, there was no denying Josh’s caring disposition made the man someone that everyone wanted to know. He was the kindest person Tim had met in his lifetime. That was something no one would dispute.

Uncle Josh… Well, he and Aunt Kathleen were exceptional people. They didn’t give a shit about the fact Tim liked boys, and Aunt Katie had tried to find him guys to date the few times he’d visited during college, even though he begged her to let it go.

Eventually, she gave up, and Tim was genuinely grateful. Being at their place in Holloway became his haven. They took him in after hell broke loose with his folks, and they let him know every day he was loved and a part of their family.

“Just about finished. What’s next?” Tim was ready for anything Uncle Josh had to throw at him, especially since theman had saved him from his father who wanted to beat Tim to death because of his sexuality.

His dad, Harold Moran, had beaten the crap out of Tim before his mom, Sherry, returned home from work. After she saw the damage done to her son that night, she called her brother, Josh Simmons, who drove from Holloway to Pittsburgh to help them. Josh also made sure Sherry got the hell away from her abusive bastard of a husband for all the good it had done.

“Matt Collins called your Aunt Katie. He’s havin’ trouble with his computer, and he asked if you’d be able to come over and take a look. Claims you two ran into each other at the feed store.”

Tim had mentioned meeting the man the afternoon when he’d returned to the farm. He’d tried to be nonchalant about it, ignoring the fact that he’d been jacking off to the memory of meeting Matt Collins for weeks. He was so damn good-looking that Tim couldn’t help himself.

Before swallowing his tongue, Tim coughed to buy a little time. “Sure. It’s probably nothing.” He finished filling the spreader without looking up for fear of giving away the excitement at Matt Collins’ call for Tim’s help. It wasn’t Tim’s job to empty it, so he didn’t waste time in the barn once it was done.

“Where does he live?” Tim followed Uncle Josh toward the house. He sure as hell needed a shower because he smelled as ripe as the barn, but Tim wanted to hurry so he could see the handsome cowboy again.

Hewastrying his damnedest to play it cool because he didn’t want Uncle Josh to know he was infatuated with the hot bull rider, but it wasn’t easy. Acting like a giddy fanboy was going to give him away pretty damn quick.

Josh gave Tim the directions and sent him to the house to get cleaned up so he could head over to the Collins’ place. After Tim dressed in Shane’s jeans and a shirt with snaps up the front and on the pockets, he pulled on the pair of boots bought with hisfirst paycheck at the Katydid. The boots weren’t fancy, but they were becoming more comfortable with every wear.

Tim combed his blond, wavy hair, making a note to get it cut soon, and splashed on a little of the aftershave his aunt had bought for him one birthday. As he looked in the mirror, he was grateful he had his mother’s hazel eyes and looked nothing like his worthless father.

If he had to look into a mirror and see the man’s face every day, Tim wasn’t sure how he’d have survived after the evil bastard had killed his mother. The nightmare was never too far from his mind, but he no longer cried out in the middle of the night. It was definitely a sign of progress.

Tim walked downstairs into the kitchen to get a drink of water, surprised to see Aunt Katie at the counter, wrapping a pie. He judged it was apple, based on the amazing smells in the room. She looked up and smiled brightly at him as she usually did when Tim walked into a room where she was busy.

“Take this with you, please? Little Ryan likes apple pie, and I made two of them today. Sit for a minute, will ya, hun?”

Tim couldn’t turn down Aunt Katie for anything either. She’d been so unbelievable to him when he didn’t have family left. In his mind, the universe brought Katie Simmons into his life to keep him from wasting it because Tim was headed down the road to just give up.

He’d sincerely thought he had no reason to really exist, so Tim considered ending his life. After Kathleen Simmons got ahold of him and took him into her home, any thoughts he’d had of an early out fled.

Katie had encouraged him to go to college to make something of himself. Tim speculated she’d likely have tanned his dead hide if he followed through on his death wish, so he backed off those thoughts and buckled down in school to make her and his uncle proud.

“Sure. What can I do for you?” Tim asked her.

Kathleen Simmons was a beautiful woman, not looking her age at all. She had dark auburn hair, attributed to her O’Hare heritage. Katie had bright, green eyes and was a little round, but Uncle Josh loved her like the stars loved the moon. It showed on his face when she walked into his line of sight.

---