Founder

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  Torquere Press

  www.torquerepress.com

  Copyright ©2007 by Jodi Payne

  First published in www.torquerepress.com, 2007

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  This one is for Beth.

  For everything.

  —J.

  Jodi would like to thank Beth for sharing her knowledge and love of horses, Sarah and Stephanie for their critique and words of encouragement, Lorna for being honest and yet kind to a Yankee, the ladies of Torquere Press for their continued support, and Melissa just because.

  Prologue

  Aubrey Jacek arrived home to find his front door wide open. He squinted at it and then took a long look at the unfamiliar truck in his driveway. Chet never left the damn door open, he complained it let in the prairie dust and the dry summer air. He and Chet were like the Odd Couple; Chet liked everything just so, and Aubrey had more important things to think about than a little dust on the hardwood floors.

  Strange truck, front door wide open.

  Fuck.

  He rolled his eyes and sighed. It wouldn't be the first time that Aubrey had been robbed, but Christ, he was so tired and it had been such a long, goddamned day. Was it too much to ask just to come home, have a whiskey, fuck his lover, and crash?

  Aubrey peered inside, hoping to hell whoever had broken in wasn't waiting around the corner for him. He was too fucking tired for a fistfight, and he didn't feel like getting shot at today.

  He found the living room empty, though some of the furniture was out of place. The ottoman was flipped on its side and one of the couch cushions lay on the floor along with a table lamp. The rug was bunched up in one corner and the blinds against the far window were hanging at an odd angle.

  It looked like there'd been a struggle.

  Aubrey's swore under his breath and his heart started to pound. Chet had gotten a ride home from the farm a couple of hours ago and if he'd surprised someone breaking in...

  He backed up a couple of steps and opened the narrow hall closet by the kitchen. He'd fully expected his rifle to be missing, but was relieved to find it was still sitting, undisturbed, in its place up on the top shelf. He grabbed it, loaded the rifle quickly, and closed the closet door just in time to hear a groan coming from down the hall.

  Gingerly, he made his way toward the sound, first checking the bathroom, but finding it empty. Flipping the rifle's safety off, he continued down the short hall toward the bedroom.

  "Fuck!"

  The voice wasn't Chet's, and it was loud enough to set Aubrey even more on edge. He quickly pushed open the bedroom door, rifle up and ready.

  "Fuck, yes. Come on!"

  That was definitely Chet's voice. And Chet's bare ass, too. Chet's cock was buried in a smaller man with pale skin and he was thrusting hard and fast. Aubrey knew the look on Chet's face well. The other man was on his hands and knees and he whimpered as his arms gave out. He dropped his shoulders to the bed leaving his ass high in the air. Chet seemed to like that, and dug his fingers into the guy's hips and yanked the guy back onto his cock.

  "Oh, yeah, you love it.” Chet's voice was tight and strained. “Come on, now, give it up."

  The air was filled with the sound of skin slapping skin. Aubrey's anger flared higher and hotter, partly because Chet was his lover and this was their bed and that pale-skinned asshole wasn't part of that equation, and partly because Chet had gotten a good look at Aubrey as soon as he'd come in, grinned at the rifle in Aubrey's hands, but hadn't stopped fucking the guy.

  Growling, Aubrey leveled the rifle at the window nearest the bed, took aim, and pulled the trigger, shattering the glass.

  Chapter One

  He would never drink whiskey again, Aubrey decided as he lifted his head from the toilet bowl.

  In his state, he was frankly surprised he was able to form a coherent thought at all. He'd seen far too much of three a.m. in the last couple of days, most of the time feeling exactly the way he felt right now. Although, come to think of it, he was starting to feel better for having purged the offending spirits from his stomach.

  In fact, he was feeling much better. He stood up and pulled the hand towel from its ring beside the sink, soaked it in cold water, and laid it over the back of his neck. He took a few minutes to wash his face and brush his teeth, too, frowning when he noticed that they—that he—was almost out of toothpaste.

  Chet had always bought the toothpaste because he was picky about it. Aubrey didn't give a good goddamn what he used as long as it tasted minty and wasn't a strange color, but Chet had to have tartar fucking control or something. Whatever. As far as Aubrey was concerned, Chet could take his baking soda and peroxide and let it whiten and disinfect where the goddamn sun didn't shine.

  Fucker.

  Aubrey dropped the wet hand towel in the sink and shuffled stiffly back to bed. He knew he was pathetic, laughable even, like an old, tired-out country song. His man left him and he was out of booze. Even the dog had left him. Never mind that Chet had been a cheat and a liar. Never mind that the asshole had been fucking other men in their bed for God knew how long. Oh, no, never mind all of that. When Aubrey'd finally thrown Chet out, the man had packed up in about ten minutes, told Aubrey it had been a good time with a patronizing tip of his fucking hat, and walked out the door with the goddamn dog.

  Aubrey was going to miss that dog. He'd miss Chet, too, but he was really going to miss Beauregard.

  Aubrey sat on the bed with a longsuffering sigh. Somewhere on the other side of this hangover his pride was waiting for him, and he knew he'd get it back. He'd get it back just as soon as he felt like facing the world again.

  And after he made sure he hadn't lost his goddamn job.

  Chet Bayard. Chester Alexander Bayard. God, he'd hated it when Aubrey called him ‘Chester'. It was a fairly pretentious name for a lying, cheating son of a two-dollar whore. Or maybe even a one-dollar whore. Or not even a whore because Aubrey knew a couple of them and they were nice people. Maybe just a son of a bitch. That wasn't necessarily a whore, you know? Just a bitch.

  Fuck, Aubrey's head hurt. Fucking buzz. Fucking headache. He lay down on the bed again, but wasn't happy about the way the room started to spin.

  He wouldn't need to be so drunk, Aubrey figured, if he wasn't so goddamn mad. Spitting mad. Fighting mad. Chet hadn't even looked sorry. Chet didn't look like he was going to miss a goddamn thing. He just slipped his feet into his walking boots and strolled right out of the house.

  "See ya ‘round,” Chet had said as the door closed behind him.

  "See nothin',” Aubrey grumbled bitterly. “Trust me, you don't want to get seen by me right now, Chester."

  The house felt too quiet and although it was small, Aubrey'd been knocking around inside it like a penny in a piggy bank. He hated it. But he wasn't lonely or broken-hearted. Nope. He wasn't as pathetic as all that. He was ... well, fuck, he was pissed was all, and he was gonna miss that goddamn dog.

  He closed his eyes and set one foot on the floor, trying to make the room go still. He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, hoping the babble of late night infomercials would drown out his own thoughts.

  That was how he woke up. It was hours later, though how many he wasn't sure. Sunlight assaulted him through the open blinds and he held up a hand to shield his eyes as he sat up. His head was still pounding and his mouth tasted like it was full of cotton balls. H
e tried to stand up, but his foot was asleep and he fell back on the bed with a groan, wiggling his toes to try to wake them up and hissing as the pins and needles ran all the way up his calf.

  Aubrey squinted at the clock and blinked, figuring he was seeing things, then rubbed his eyes and picked it up. Shit, it really was noon. So much for work today, damnit, and that was three days in a row. He'd better get on over there and grovel or Haley was going to fire him for sure.

  Part of him thought, okay, so fuck it. He'd get fired and then maybe he'd have a better reason to move out of this house. He could move clear across Tennessee even, where nobody knew him, start over like he'd done so many times before. Maybe that would be good.

  Except that Haley Riggs and his farm were the closest thing to home that Aubrey had and he knew he'd never find anything better.

  Aubrey closed his eyes, remembering the afternoon he met Haley. He'd been driving county 219 and spotted Haley's vintage Chevy Longbed sitting on the shoulder with its hazards flashing. Knowing it might be a long damn time before help arrived, Aubrey pulled over to see what he could do and ended up giving Haley a tow.

  By way of thanks, Haley invited him to supper that night. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but Aubrey regretted accepting before they'd even said Grace. Haley's wife, Thelma, was full of more questions than Aubrey really wanted to answer, and Haley didn't seemed at all inclined to stop her from asking. Aubrey tried to be discreet, but Thelma found out two things that night. The first was that despite his minimum wage job at the filling station on route 10, Aubrey had been living out of his truck for a couple of months. The second was that Aubrey didn't have himself a girl, and he wasn't likely to get one.

  Aubrey had expected to be shown the door shortly after that came to light, but Thelma and Haley handed him a cup of coffee after dinner and disappeared into the kitchen. He was about to make a quick escape when Haley reappeared with a job offer.

  That was four years ago, longer than Aubrey had ever been anywhere. Farm bosses didn't generally bother about the hands much as they had an outfit to run, so Aubrey never really understood why Haley and Thelma had kept such an interested eye on him over the years. For no good reason, other than they were good people, they'd been plainly supportive of Aubrey since that day.

  He tried to stand again and found it easier this time, putting one foot in front of the other as he made his way to the bathroom. He dug two aspirin out of the medicine cabinet and swallowed them down with a palm full of water from the tap, thinking that he probably ought to take a shower. Not that he really had the energy to, but he stank, and he needed to go talk to Haley. He knew he'd better put his best foot forward if he wanted to keep his job. And he did, for at least as long as it took him to decide where he was going next.

  He scrubbed diligently in the shower, washed his hair twice, and shaved in the little tile-mounted mirror that Chet had left behind. He brushed his teeth for an age and gargled with Listerine. He took the sheets off the bed, the towels out of the bathroom, and everything he'd worn over the last three days and shoved it all into the washing machine. He opened all the windows to air the place out and scrubbed the toilet.

  Then he swallowed down a huge ham sandwich with a cold glass of milk, trying not to stare at the clock. It was nearly two, and Haley would be back at the house by now. Right. He'd best get a move on.

  Chapter Two

  Aubrey parked up near the barn and stepped out of his truck. It was a blistering hot day, and the stable doors were thrown open wide to help let the heat out. Taking Aubrey's advice, Haley had put in new circulation fans last fall after the worst heat wave they'd seen in years, and the fans did seem to help. Aubrey even felt a little breeze as he cut through the barn on his way up to the house. All the horses were on night turn-out because of the heat so he stopped here and there to pet noses. He found himself checking on water buckets, too, and made a note of the few that needed filling.

  Haley was out on his porch in the shade, his nose buried in a book. He pushed his hat back with his fingers so he could scratch at his hairline and then he tugged it back into place before jotting something down.

  "Hey, Haley,” Aubrey called up from the front walk, trying to smile and pretend he didn't still have a headache. Haley ignored him, and Aubrey rolled his eyes, realizing that Haley wasn't going to make this easy on him. He climbed up two of the porch steps and took off his hat. “Hey, Boss. Sorry about the last couple of days. Sick and all."

  "Drunk, more like,” Haley grunted back at him. Haley was a good, fair, hard-working man. He came from a hard-working family. All he ever expected was the same of the men that worked for him.

  Aubrey cleared his throat, embarrassed. “Maybe some."

  "Maybe more'n some. I heard tell o'you last night."

  "Haley, I—"

  "Now you listen here,” Haley interrupted, not looking up from his book. “You do plenty o'drinkin', but it ain't like you to miss work, I know that. So you go get yer job done and we won't talk ‘bout this no more. This time."

  Aubrey nodded and let out a breath. He hadn't realized he'd been holding it so anxiously. “Thanks, Haley.” He turned to make his way down the steps again but Haley stopped him with his voice.

  "Aubrey,” Haley said, looking up from his ledger finally. He squinted at Aubrey for a long moment. “Yesterday morning, I had a long talk with Mr. Chet Bayard. After hearin’ what he had to say, and explainin’ how the Missus and I feel about you, I suggested that he might be wantin’ to resign. Sure ‘nuf, he did. I gave Denny his spot, so yer gonna have t'get yourself a new hand."

  Aubrey felt a slow grin creep across his lips, and he was sure he saw Haley wink at him before burying his nose in his ledger again.

  Chapter Three

  Aubrey spent the rest of the afternoon switching out water buckets and mucking out stalls. The work felt good, wholesome, a better distraction than whiskey and television; that was for sure. Nothing like a little sweat and sore muscles to put things right.

  Denny deserved a promotion, but Aubrey missed him around the barn; partly for the company, and partly because there was far too much work for one pair of hands. It was obvious that Denny had done the best he could to keep up while Aubrey was off on his binge, but the barn wasn't up to Aubrey's standards. Not by a long shot. He was beat, though, and he finally turned the horses out around sundown and headed home for supper.

  Mistake number one was deciding not to eat the TV dinner that was sitting in the freezer and heading downtown instead to order a big steak at Jack's. His second mistake was letting Stan Grims talk him into a drink. Aubrey had the one he'd agreed to, Stan bought him another, and then someone mentioned Chet and any good the day's hard work had done for Aubrey started to unravel. By his fourth drink he was feeling sorry for himself again.

  "Chet was with that Adam guy long before Aubrey, I think."

  Adam. He'd met Adam once. Well, once while he had his clothes on and then again with his ass in the air for Chet. And what were they doing talking about who Chet was and wasn't fucking? Someone was asking for it, Aubrey decided, looking for the face that went with those words. Aubrey figured it had to be Stan. “You shut up about that asshole,” he drawled, slurring a great deal more than he thought he was going to.

  Stan looked at him and laughed. “He was a good lookin’ kid, wasn't he Aubrey?"

  "Fuck you!” Aubrey shouted back at him.

  "Aw, come on, Aubrey,” he heard Stan say. “I don't mean no—"

  Might have been that Stan had planned on backing off. Might have been that Stan would have apologized, even, but it was too late. Aubrey was red-hot angry. He felt it well up in him again and he couldn't stop himself. His fist made solid contact with Stan's jaw and the man went flying backward off his bar stool.

  Someone helped Stan up. Even as angry and as drunk as he was, Aubrey was starting to think that he should just apologize, but he watched as Stan rolled up his sleeves and figured he'd best take his lumps like a man. In for
a penny, in for a big, fat, black eye.

  Stan Grims snorted, looking almost as pissed off at Aubrey as Aubrey was at Chet. Somewhere off to his left he heard voices telling Stan to back down, and Aubrey began to think maybe he'd get that chance to apologize after all. He blinked for a second—he'd swear it was just a second—and ended up surprised by Stan's signature left hook. He blinked again and stumbled backward a few steps, running his tongue over his teeth. He tasted blood, but it didn't seem like he'd lost any of them.

  Aubrey got his legs under him again and answered with a jab full of knuckles to Stan's face, following that with a hard blow to Stan's stomach. The shorter man doubled over Aubrey's fist with a grunt, but that didn't end it. No, that was when things really got ugly. Aubrey lost track of how many times their fists flew and how many times he actually connected with Stan. The last thing Aubrey remembered was a nasty sucker punch to his gut that propelled him backward through the front doors and out into the sidewalk where he landed in a crumpled heap. Apparently it hadn't been Stan that socked him because Stan stumbled out and landed square on top of him seconds later.

  Aubrey gave Stan a shove and the man fell next to him on the sidewalk. They both lay there a while, panting and cussing. When Aubrey finally managed to sit up, the street spun a little and he groaned. His head was killing him again.

  "Bastard,” Stan swore at Aubrey as he sat up, too.

  "Oughtta mind yer own business, friend,” Aubrey said in answer.

  "Maybe."

  Aubrey nodded seriously. “More'n maybe."

  "You need a goddamn sense of humor.” Stan tried to stand, but reeled and landed on his ass again. He gave up and brushed off his jeans.

  "Maybe."

  "More'n maybe."

  They both went silent. Aubrey glanced at Stan, looking at his split lip and his swollen cheek and suddenly began to laugh. The sound started somewhere in his gut and made its way into his chest. Next thing he knew there were tears in his eyes. Stan made a dismissive sound and punched him in the shoulder, but pretty soon he was laughing, too.