Page 23 of The Wild Charge

Waiting for what? He didn’t know, only that the idea of walking back to his bike, getting on it, and riding away alone held no appeal.

Emmie kept up a steady chatter with Tenny while they untacked and rubbed down the horses. While they put them away. She stepped into the feed room and came back out with two fat carrots, one of which she handed to Tenny, who broke it into pieces and offered it to the black horse he’d ridden.

He scratched at its ears, afterward, until the horse bobbed his head into the touch, and Tenny grinned, small and quiet, not for show, but only because he found pleasure in the animal’s easy affection.

The ache that swelled behind Reese’s breastbone in response was beginning to be familiar, even though he hadn’t been able to define it yet.

“Em!” Becca called from the office.

Emmie laid a hand on Tenny’s arm, said something Reese couldn’t hear, and then ducked into the office, leaving them alone, for the moment, in the aisle together.

Tenny turned his head, and his eyes looked very blue in the shadows that were beginning to pool inside the barn, as evening crept on. His smile had faded, but his mouth was still soft, as was his voice when he tipped his head toward the horse and said, “Come here.”

Reese hesitated a moment before joining him, uncertain. Tenny was still stroking the horse’s face, and when Reese was close enough, the horse turned to sniff at him, curious.

“It’s alright,” Tenny said, and Reese realized he was speaking to him, and not the horse. “Hansel’s got decent manners.”

Reese glanced at his face again, and saw that the smile had returned, so impossibly soft.

Reese offered his hand for the horse’s –Hansel’sinspection, and received several warm, forceful breaths across his knuckles before bristly lips tickled at it. He turned his hand over, and Hansel licked his palm.

“The treats are gone,” Tenny told the horse with obvious affection. “Quit being greedy.” He glanced back toward Reese. “Hungry?”

“A little.”

“Want to grab something to eat on the way back?”

“Sure.” He couldn’t believe how…sweet…Tenny seemed at the moment. How relaxed and easy and open-faced.

Just as the thought had occurred, Tenny sighed, gave the horse one last pat, and stepped back as a frown formed. “I guess we should talk about the op.”

“Yeah,” Reese said, stomach hollowing. He didn’t know what to say or do to recall those moments of softness, and make them last.

“I’ve got to change, first,” Tenny said, glancing down at himself with a snort.

“No. You look fine,” Reese blurted, before he could think better of it.

Tenny’s head lifted slowly, and a single, curious brow along with it. “I don’t look like someone who belongs on the back of a bloody bike.”

“Good,” Reese blurted again. “I mean…you look good.”

He was reminded, with an inward wince, of the time he’d told Tenny he liked his face, and the uncomfortable moments that had followed that occasion.

This time, though, Tenny’s eyes widened, his pupils expanded, and he wet his lower lip in a very distracting way. “Good?” he asked, his voice gone low, and full of intent; it sent prickles of awareness up the back of Reese’s neck. “You think so?”

Reese had to swallow before he could answer. “Yes.”

Tenny’s gaze tracked down his throat, his chest, lower, and then returned; the tip of his tongue made another appearance, leaving his lower lip shiny. “Well. That’s interesting.”

“What–”

“Come on.” A command this time, instead of a quiet invitation. He plucked, briefly, at the front of Reese’s cut, and then set off toward the doors.

Blood beginning to pound hot beneath his skin, Reese followed.

He’d seen the narrow wooden stairwell just inside the doors before, and that was where Tenny headed, up, then left at a landing, and up again through a wooden door, into a wide, open, sloped-ceilinged space sparsely furnished; judging by the stripped mattress, unlived-in. Tenny’s regular boots sat on the floor beside the bed, next to a backpack, the only sign that anyone had been through recently.

Reese did his usual survey of any new place, looking for dangers, for potential hiding spots; walked over toward the mattress so he could look out through the slanted skylight above it, noting the pleasant view of the pastures, the hill, and the house perched atop it.

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