Page 11 of My Cowboy Freedom
We worked our way through the rest of the barn chores, and then stepped out into the sweet stillness of a late-summer day. Sunshine warmed my shoulders even as a hot breeze dried the sweat from my skin.
I needed a new word for how I felt because it was too good for any of my old words. Nobody should ever take sunshine and fresh air for granted.
Just then, the sound of iron meeting iron sang over the landscape—a tuneless bell calling the hands to the ranch house for a meal.
When my dad was alive, I loved waiting for the men of the Rocking C to make their way back for the supper call. Tired and dirty as they were, they loved their jobs. You could see it on their faces.
Especially, my father loved cowboying. He’d been old-school—said yessir and no, sir. He’d taken his family to “cowboy church,” where we read the scriptures right there in the Rocking C’s open pasture on nice-weather Sundays. He’d come home in the evening and wash the stink off first thing. He’d tease my mom and chase her around for kisses.
Those were good days.
It was fitting, somehow, it wasessential, that Elena still used a big iron triangle to announce supper. That remembered life was the one thing I held on to, the only thing that kept me going, even after I got lost in all the bad things that came after.
My life went horribly wrong, but I wasn’t wrong to have hope for the future.
Being at the Rocking C, putting my boots on the same trails, working the same earth my dad worked when he was alive, was both homecoming and coming full circle, because when I looked in the mirror, it was my dad’s face I saw looking back at me.
Six feet tall. Brown hair.Gypsy eyes, as my mother called them.
I was mindful I had to be worthy of his legacy.
I was mindful there were folks who’d never think I was worthy, me being an ex-con, me being a tenderfoot compared to some who’d lived on the ranch their whole lives. Me being gay.
Still, while I waited my turn to wash up at the outside sink, I held my head high. Rock sauntered over, followed by Maisy. She had eyes like shiny brown buttons and a sweet doggy smile.
“Hey, Sky.”
Rock greeted me like we were old friends. He wore that slice-of-happy grin on his face, and it shored up the hope I had. I remembered Maisy was supposed to be working, but the Rocking C had cattle dogs too, and I played with them some before I dragged my shirt over my head, put my hat up on a hook, and leaned over the big outdoor sink to wash up for supper.
I felt the silence fall behind me before I actually recognized what it was—a group of people had stopped talking and were now openly staring at me. I picked up a towel to dry my face and hands before turning to face Rock, Tad, and the rest of the hands.
Rock’s wide white smile blindsided me. “Wow.”
Caution made me ask, “What?”
“Your ink is awesome.”
“Thanks.” Why was everyone staring?
“What’s ‘Gorrión’?” Tad said the word likeGo Ryan.
“It means sparrow,” I admitted. “Nickname.”
“Yours?” Rock tilted his head this way and that, looking at each of my tattoos as if they were pictures in a photo album and he was trying to remember which long-dead auntie he was looking at.
Then he lifted his gaze to meet my eyes and I couldn’t breathe. I felt his stare like a physical touch.
“Sparrow,” he murmured. “Sparrows are tough and smart. Sparrows are survivors.”
Again, he held my gaze too long for a straight guy. It was fully three seconds before he let his focus fall to my lips again and that clinched it, right there. The lazy upward curve of his full pink mouth said it all. In fact, my dick was already deep in conversation with the expression on Rock’s face, making its thoughts known with brutal clarity inside my too-tight jeans.
Julio cleared his throat.
C’mon, man,his expression seemed to say,stop staring at the kid.
I didn’t bother saying,Tell it to the kid.
“Lefty Wheeler would shit a cruise ship if he saw your back,” said Rock.
