Lucky break clean slate.., p.32
Lucky Break (Clean Slate Ranch), page 32
“Not yet,” Robin replied. “It hasn’t even been five months. We’ll know when it’s right. How about you? Seeing anyone special?”
“Nah. Being single suits me.”
“Sure it does. Suited me just fine, too, until I met Shawn. There’s someone out there for you, too, Derrick.”
“We’ll see.” Derrick moved on to speak to other people.
Megan Landsdowne took his place, and she handed him an envelope. “For you. We sold the other horse carving right before close.”
“Really?” Robin tucked the envelope, which felt like it contained a check and not cash, into his jeans pocket. At Shawn’s insistence, Robin had started carving horse or Old West-themed items to display in the ghost town’s general store. After the first two times Megan called Robin about someone interested in buying the items, he let her sell them. It wasn’t making him a gold mine, but the extra cash helped pad his bank account.
Money he hoped to use on a down payment one day soon—when he got up the nerve to finally ask Shawn about them getting their own place together. A real house in town, not just a cabin on Arthur’s property.
“Thanks so much, Megan,” Robin said. “I’ve got a wall piece I’m almost finished with. Should be able to get it to the store by Tuesday.”
“Works for me. You should think about doing commissions.”
Robin chuckled. “Maybe I’ll do that this coming winter when I’ll be out of work for two months. It’ll keep me busy.”
Megan laughed and moved on, and Robin’s gaze landed on Levi, who was chatting amiably with Wes and Sophie’s parents. Having Levi around these last two months had been fantastic, and it had led to a minor career switch for Robin. After a long chat with Mack and Judson, Robin had quit as an official horseman for the ranch and gone to work for Mack up here at Bentley.
Robin and Levi had found their trick-riding groove quickly, as if no time had passed, and they now performed twice a day for ghost town guests. They also offered horse rides around the corral, did a few of the simpler acts such as ring tossing while riding, and gave lectures on how they’d learned what they knew to interested guests.
Levi was an incredibly patient teacher, and he seemed to find an inner peace working in a less chaotic format than the traveling show had been. Mack had generously offered to let Levi park his tiny home on a piece of the land Arthur had given to him, out of view of both the ghost town road and Mack’s own cabin. Levi’s three cats were left free to wander via a cat door and they always returned home each night. And while Levi kept to himself and rarely accepted invitations to dinner or a movie night, he seemed happy.
Robin was beyond happy. He was content, settled, and loved his new role at the ghost town. Not only because he saw new faces every single day, but because he was closer to Shawn. They rode up to the site every day on the horses Robin and Levi used in their demos, taking the now-familiar path through the wilderness.
At first, Robin had been nervous to ride with Shawn, but Shawn was a natural with horses. He was a fast learner, at ease in the saddle, and he’d even expressed interest in maybe learning some of the easier tricks Robin knew. Robin wasn’t so sure if his blood pressure could handle that, but he’d deal with it if Shawn insisted.
Or he’d let Levi teach him. He absolutely trusted Levi to teach Shawn.
Speaking of whom...
He cast about until he found Shawn, who was now in a tight huddle with Wes, Mack, Conrad, and Sophie. Wes’s eyes were bugging out and Conrad looked equal parts excited and terrified, and what—? Sophie.
Robin made his way over to the group, and sure enough, Sophie—whose much shorter body had been blocked from view until now—was breathing hard, both hands clasped over her round belly. Shawn met Robin’s eyes and he mouthed “contraction” at Robin.
Holy shit.
“Derrick’s getting a car,” Shawn whispered. “We’re trying not to make a scene.”
Robin looked at Wes, who seemed ready to burst from excitement. “I can tell.”
“Don’t want to make this about me,” Sophie wheezed. “Ooh, where’s my mom?”
“I’ll get her.”
Robin found the Bentleys conversing with Colts parents, and he whispered what was happening into Leta Bentley’s ear. She gasped, and it probably took every ounce of her self-control not to race over to her baby girl, who was now having a baby of her own. Derrick was back with a car, and a car on Main Street finally got the crowd’s attention. Conrad climbed into the backseat with Sophie and Leta. Mack drove with Wes shotgun. Derrick promised he and the other in-laws were right behind them.
Not that there was a huge rush, because didn’t babies take a long time to actually come out? Robin’s own mom had been in labor for hours giving birth to his younger siblings. A mom and siblings Robin still hadn’t reached out to. He wasn’t sure if he ever would. No big reunion like with Colt and the extended Woods clan. Robin’s family was here and he could live with that.
“Oh my gosh,” Shawn said. “I can’t believe Sophie went into labor in the same place she got married.”
Robin slipped an arm around Shawn’s waist and pulled him closer. “And if she gives birth before midnight, today’s going to be a busy day for years to come. Two wedding anniversaries and a birthday.”
“It’s crazy.”
Miles and Reyes came over, both of them grinning like fools. “Did Sophie really go into labor?” Miles asked. Off Shawn’s nod, he added, “Wow, I bet Wes is a hot mess right now. He’s been worrying about this for weeks.”
“Why?” Robin asked. “It’s not like Wes has to do any of the hard stuff, like pushing.”
“She’s his baby sister. He’s always fussed over her. Hell, he’s the one who came up with us vacationing on a dude ranch as her bridal party, just because he knew it would make her happy. Back then, Wes was not about horses or dirt.”
Reyes snickered. “He still isn’t, but he did make Mack the happiest man alive.” He squeezed Miles’s hip. “Well, second happiest.”
Miles beamed at his husband.
With the gathered guests now buzzing about Sophie, Robin pulled Shawn into the shade of the sheriff’s office porch. “So, I’ve been thinking,” Robin said.
“Uh-oh.” Shawn grinned at him and rested both hands on Robin’s hips. “About weddings or babies?”
Robin laughed. “Neither. I know we’ve been living together in the cabin, and it’s great, but I also sometimes feel guilty about taking up a cabin when neither of us technically work at the ranch anymore.”
“Same. It’s why I’ve been paying Judson a bit of rent. I don’t like charity, and I can afford it now.” A flash of sadness was there and gone quickly. Shawn still regularly tried to urge his granddad to move to Garrett, but the stubborn old man refused. And with Francis no longer paying extra for Irma’s care, Shawn kept more of each paycheck for himself.
“I know.” Robin took a breath. “Shawn, I want to look for a place to live, either in Garrett, or maybe over in Daggett, since it’s not too far. I want us to buy a house together.”
Shawn blinked hard several times. His lips parted. “You do?”
“I do. We can still commute every day together, except in a car instead of horses. We’ll have our own kitchen to cook meals in. You can keep teaching me how to bake. It doesn’t have to be big or fancy, as long as it’s ours and—”
Shawn cut him off with a kiss. The hands on his hips circled to cinch around his waist and haul Robin closer. Shawn plundered his mouth with his tongue, and Robin didn’t have to ask to know this was a resounding “yes” to his unasked question.
Yes, Shawn would move in with him. Yes, Shawn would buy a house with him. Yes to the beautiful future Robin had painted for them with his words. Robin had never owned a home before, and neither had Shawn, and this was an adventure he very much wanted them to take together.
The first of many, many more to come.
* * *
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Watch for Hard Ride, the next book in the Clean Slate Ranch series, coming from A.M. Arthur and Carina Press in February 2020.
About the Author
A.M. Arthur was born and raised in the same kind of small town that she likes to write about, a stone’s throw from both beach resorts and generational farmland. She’s been creating stories in her head since she was a child and scribbling them down nearly as long, in a losing battle to make the fictional voices stop. She credits an early fascination with male friendships (bromance hadn’t been coined yet back then) with her later discovery of and subsequent love affair with m/m romance stories. A.M. Arthur’s work is available from Carina Press, Dreamspinner Press, SMP Swerve, and Briggs-King Books.
When not exorcising the voices in her head, she toils away in a retail job that tests her patience and gives her lots of story fodder. She can also be found in her kitchen, pretending she’s an amateur chef and trying to not poison herself or others with her cuisine experiments.
Contact her at am_arthur@yahoo.com with your cooking tips (or book comments). For updates, info and the occasional freebie, sign up for her free newsletter: vr2.verticalresponse.com/s/signupformynewsletter16492674416904.
Now Available from Carina Press and A.M. Arthur
Jonas needs Tate. He just doesn’t know it yet. Or at least, he doesn’t want to admit it.
Read on for an excerpt from Come What May, available at all participating e-retailers.
Chapter One
The last time Jonas Ashcroft had taken money from someone and made change had been during a drunken game of Monopoly at the Delta Theta house sophomore year. Everyone was wasted enough that they didn’t care Jonas was probably giving the wrong bills back half the time, and eventually they’d abandoned the game in favor of beer pong and more tequila shots.
Staring down the ancient cash register behind the main counter at All Saints Thrift Store was like facing off against an old enemy. Jonas and math did not get along. Never had.
The teenage girl with spiky hair who’d handed him a ten-dollar bill to pay for three T-shirts glared at him over the top of her cell phone, waiting for him to make change. The register told him that three shirts at two-fifty each was seven dollars and fifty cents. It didn’t tell him what to give her back.
He knew this. He wasn’t a total idiot, no matter what his father seemed to think. Two quarters made it eight. Two dollars made ten. Right?
The girl took the change he offered without remark, then fled the store with her bag, the overhead bell announcing her departure.
Jonas slammed the register drawer shut with clammy hands. First transaction down. He could survive a few more, until Aunt Doris got back and took over running the till. She’d shown him how to use it yesterday, and while it seemed pretty simple, he flat out sucked at math. Thank God his father hadn’t insisted Jonas go for a business degree, because he’d have flunked out the first semester.
Not that it mattered. Junior year was less than a month old and instead of living it up with his frat buddies and getting the Communication Arts degree he desperately needed so he could get a real job and be independent, he was stuck working at his aunt and uncle’s thrift store on a run-down side of Wilmington, Delaware. A shitty fate, and exactly what he deserved.
“I can’t have your recklessness interfere with my chances at Congress,” his father had said last week. “You need to learn some responsibility for once in your life.” Angry words lobbed at him from behind his father’s walnut desk, moments before Jonas was stuffed in a car and stranded here for the next nine months.
Jonas poked at the cash register. He had another hour until Aunt Doris returned. She and Uncle Raymond had driven out to some person’s house to pick up a load of shit for the shop.
Or something. She might have mentioned books.
He had no idea how people made an actual living running a thrift store, much less one that donated some of its money to charity, but they’d been at it all Jonas’s life. Probably why Jonas’s own parents had little to do with them.
Appearances and all that crap.
The store itself was clean and organized and smelled like some kind of floral incense. The merchandise was sectioned into departments. A pretty typical thrift store.
Like you know what a typical thrift store looks like. Yesterday was your first time in one, asshole.
His mother hadn’t come from money, but his father had, and Jonas had never worked a day in his life until today.
They’d opened twenty minutes ago and so far he’d had one customer. Good thing he had his iPhone.
He pulled his earbuds out of his pocket and was about to turn up some music when a shadow fell over the front door. It opened with the ding of a metal bell, and his second ever customer stepped inside.
“Good morning—” The guy faltered, eyes going wide behind a pair of round, black-framed glasses. “Um, hi, person I don’t know.”
Jonas grunted a greeting, then decided Aunt Doris would give him that sad puppy look if she found out he was being rude to her customers. “Hi.”
About Jonas’s age and a few inches shorter, the maybe-customer let the door fall shut and slid his hands into the pockets of very loose, very worn jeans that hung low on narrow hips. “Doris isn’t in this morning?”
Does it look like she’s here? “No, she’s out picking something up.”
“Oh, okay. Did she happen to mention a basket of sheets for Tate?”
Jonas had no idea what any of that meant. “No.”
“Okay, let’s try this again. Hi, I’m Tate Dawson.” He held out a hand.
“Jonas Ashcroft.” Jonas took the guy’s hand briefly. “I’m Doris’s nephew.”
“Oh hey, cool. I’ve never seen you around before.”
“That’s because I’ve never been here before.”
Tate opened and closed his mouth a few times, probably unsure how to proceed. Yeah, Jonas was kind of being a dick. He wanted the guy to do whatever he needed to do and leave so Jonas could turn on his music and hope this day ended as quickly as possible.
“Yeah, okay,” Tate said. “Listen, I help run the homeless shelter across the street, and Doris was supposed to bring in a basket of sheets for me today.”
Jonas stared.
Tate’s hands went from his pockets to his hips. A line creased his forehead, and his cheeks pinked up. “Could you check the back room, maybe? Or should I look myself?”
“I’ll check. Jesus.”
“Tate, not Jesus, and thank you.”
Jonas resisted rolling his eyes. He took his time strolling to the back of the shop, and then ducked through a beaded curtain doorway. The back room was neatly organized with dated shelves for new stock, empty hangers for clothes, cleaning supplies and a recycle bin for things they simply couldn’t sell. He found a plastic laundry basket of folded sheets on one of the shelves with a piece of paper taped to it that said “Tate” in Aunt Doris’s careful handwriting.
“Found it,” he announced upon his return to the main room.
“Hope you didn’t hurt yourself.” Tate’s words were soft, but they carried in the quiet store.
Jonas liked the snark. Made needling the guy more fun, and it gave him something more entertaining to do than stare at racks of used women’s clothing. He carried the sheets to the counter and set the basket down. “Do you need some kind of receipt for these?”
“Nah, Doris was just doing me a favor.”
“Why do you work at a homeless shelter?”
I need to get my brain-to-mouth filter checked.
Tate tilted his head, apparently not offended in the least. “Why not work at a homeless shelter? There are a lot of people these days with nowhere to go, especially teenagers.”
Jonas glanced out the front window at the brick building across the street. “You get a lot of teens there?”
“I would hope so.” Tate arched one eyebrow impressively high. “We’re a homeless shelter for LGBT teenagers.” Jonas’s confusion must have been all over his face, because Tate sighed. “Gay teens. Gay, lesbian, trans, whatever end of the spectrum they identify on.”
“I know what LGBT stands for. I didn’t know there were enough of them that they needed their own homeless shelter.”
“Where the hell did you crawl out of, a rock in Siberia? Gay teens make up almost forty percent of the homeless youth population in this country. Their asshole parents kick them out and a lot of them have nowhere to go except the streets. We may not be a big operation but we help as much as we can.”
Jonas made a time out gesture. “Okay, sorry, Christ. I just...” I don’t think about those issues because they don’t directly affect my life.
So, did working in an LGBT shelter mean Tate was gay?
Tate crossed his arms and settled his weight on one foot, his gaze roving over Jonas like he was studying him for a quiz later. “Let me guess. Rich boy. Privileged life. Great future ahead of you until you... What? Crashed your BMW into a tree while driving drunk? Knocked up a sorority girl and you’re being punished?”
Jonas stared, both impressed by and annoyed with Tate for reading him so easily. “You have no right to my life story.”
“Ha, I got close. You don’t want to be here, do you? Not even a little bit.”
