Page 39 of Baker
“Okay, that’s fair. So tell me how Dodge is doing. He fitting in around the ranch? I hear his son is there for a week or so,” Ollie said, switching the conversation neatly.
“And how is Ford making out?” Aiden enquired with a look of pure innocence.
I shook my head as a smile broke out on my face. “God, you two are ridiculous. Dodge and his son are fine. You could swing by to see them, you know,” I said to Ollie before turning my attention to Aiden. “And as for Ford, you just saw him two days ago. Make your damn moves, guys. Those who sit around on their thumbs miss out on the dick.”
“Words of wisdom,” Ollie dryly stated before tossing his flush to the table with panache. “I’ll get that on a T-shirt.”
“I take an extra-large,” Aiden quipped.
They both started laughing. “I don’t know why I hang out with you two.”
“We’re the only queers in town that you aren’t related to,” Ollie pointed out as he raked in his winnings. “You in or are you heading out to get some of that fine shank?”
I left them sitting there singing an old Tennessee Ernie Ford song about a ham bone as I stalked off.
Dumbasses. Loveable dumbasses, but dumbasses just the same.
***
Just to prove a point about me and Hanley, I drove back to town to get my broken arm another X-ray at the hospital. Yes, I was shifting. Yes, it sort of hurt. No, I did not care. I was over being ferried around like Granny. A man had to have some pride.
The drive to the ER was uneventful. We didn’t have a GP at the moment in Bastian Grange. Old Doc Weatherbee used to have a nice practice for many years, then he up and died a few winters back. His office was at his home, and when his wife sold off the house to move to West Virginia with her son, there went the only doctor we had. Someone bought the house and turned the office into a craft shop, which soon went belly up. Rural living made it hard on new businesses.
It was just as hard luring doctors into a poor country town. I got it. Things were faster paced in the big cities. They could make more money, have access to specialists, and a long list of other reasons why our town, and many others across the country, were considered “doctor deserts.” It also explained why we went to the hospital for things that an MD like old Doc Weatherbee used to handle. This overtaxed the emergency room and hiked up insurance rates, but what choice did we have? Says a lot about an area when a large animal vet can make a good living but a medical doctor can’t pay his bills.
If it were possible, I’d run out to the rez to see their doctor, but non-natives weren’t eligible to get care at the reservation Indian Health Service facility. Otherwise, I’d have chugged out there to see one of their providers. Nothing against the ER staff, but it was just a large bill in the making that the ranch would have to cover. If I’d been thinking and not riled up over the teasing about Hanley, I would have asked Aiden to X-ray my arm. A broken bone is a broken bone, be it a human or a cow. He could have seen if it was healing properly.
“Dumbass,” I grumbled to myself, tempted to turn around, but as I was already well into Monroe Falls, I just went and made the left into the Pellman Memorial Hospital ER parking area and shuffled inside. The place was packed. Like SRO and I spun on my heel and left. I’d go see Aiden in a day or two and save myself the time and cash like I should have done. Hopping back into my truck, I sped out of the parking lot and went back home. My list of shit to do was as long as my arm, the one not in a damn cast. We had turned the cattle out to range, the bull with them, to ensure he covered all the females. Later, in the off-season, we’d separate him to let him get some R&R from his breeding duties. So we had that pasture to fence in. A lot of it had been torn up by the twister that had broken my arm. Then there were the line cabins that needed to be refurbished and one rebuilt from the ground up, which hadn’t started yet. The goats were now on watch as kids should start coming any day. Hell, any hour, according to Aiden.
Aiden. He of the wandering eye and fey smile. Poor Ford wouldn’t stand a chance if our resident vet decided to break out all those Irish charms his mother and father passed down to him.
Dodge, I felt, had what it would take to get along with Ollie. They were of a similar age and had lived lives that had been challenging in some regards. Ollie wasn’t one to cat around likeAiden was known to do. Dodge would need a man who was faithful and—
“What the fuck are you evendoinghere?” I asked myself as I sat at a stop sign, my turn signal ticking steadily, staring down the road as if in a daze. What exactly was this horseshit running around inside my skull like a toddler after guzzling his dad’s energy drink? “Are you suddenly living in a Hallmark movie? Jesus wept.” I threw the truck into gear, winced at the jolt to my arm, and then nearly stalled her out as I fumbled to find the clutch. “This is what romance thinking does to your pickled brain. Just stop.”
I belittled myself all the way home. Stupid. What was I even doing letting fluff like who was good for who in my head? Stalking to the shed where we kept the ATVs, I began flinging whatever I could find into a wagon. Fencing supplies tumbled out of five-gallon buckets. Spools of barbed wire were hoisted up, snagged on my flannel shirt, and then, when yanked free, tore a strip out of not only my poker night shirt but the skin under it.
That made me mad. I stared down at the cut on my left forearm, spit into the wound, rubbed the spittle around, and then climbed onto the old blue Honda and sped off. I needed to clear my head. Pressing on the gas hurt, but pain was good. Pain would scour the little floating hearts that my poker buddies had planted in my thoughts. I rode full bore across my land, eyes watering from the chill, the headlight on the ATV bouncing skyward as I hit gulleys and rolling hills. An armadillo appeared out of nowhere by the cabin that had been sent to Oz. I yanked hard on the handlebars not to run over the dumb thing. It ran off into the night, and I sat there, panting softly, my right arm aching like a kick to the gonads, and stared down at the shell of the old cabin. The moon was bright tonight. It painted the weathered bricks of the chimney in a ghostly white milkycolor. The ATV ran roughly beneath me, coughing every now and again. She needed some new spark plugs. Stacks of lumber, shingles, and premade trusses were waiting for us to get to the actual building. Ford was the man in charge of this project and he seemed to be ready to go as soon as he was done with Bella’s shop.
I sat there for a long time just staring down at the building site. The wind blowing cool on the back of my neck, and my head lost in the wispy, silvery clouds. I cradled my arm against my belly. I should have ridden Winnie. No, I should not have done that. What I should have done was go inside the house to find some peace and quiet. Ha. As if that was something a grumpy turd like me could even locate in that house anymore. There were too many people to find solitude.
But is it solitude you seek or something else?
I rode off before my crowded head could fixate on that random query. The glow of a small lantern in a cozy tent tucked back into a dome of redbud was like a fucking beacon. I cut the engine and ducked down, removing my hat as I dropped to one knee in front of the open flaps. Inside the tent lounged Hanley, a paperback book in one hand, his cock in the other.
“I heard you coming,” he said as he gave his thick dick a languid stroke, his sight locked on the John Le Carre paperback.
I flung my hat to the top of his oversized backpack jammed into the corner.
“What if it had been one of my brothers?” I asked and sat down to tug off a boot. Using both hands. The tugging was not one of my best ideas, but when Hanley gave me a questioning look, I waved it off and let the hurt flow.
“I knew it was you. That cloud of tension brewing around your head arrived five minutes before you did.”
“Bullshit,” I grunted before one boot finally came free. I chucked it over my shoulder, battled with the other, and thenproceeded to strip naked as Hanley lay there naked as the day he was born, working his fat cock as he nonchalantly read. “I keep my internal thunderstorms close at hand.”
“I’ve noticed.” He glanced over the top of his paperback when I straddled him, shoving his book-holding hand to the ground as I placed my needy hole right atop his erection. “Did you want something from me, Baker?”
“You know what I want.” I rolled my hips.
