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Richard leaned against the fender of the big, brand new pickup and folded his arms. It was a gorgeous blue-sky day in late February, and even though it was still cold spring was most definitely on its way. The equipment deal was done, and now he could relax for a few moments in the company of his guest.
The guest who was currently looking him up and down like he was a nicely marbled ribeye.
OK, so maybe relax was the wrong word, because Richard was pretty damned uncomfortable under Marshall Niven's steady blue-eyed gaze. The glint in his eyes only brightened when Richard cleared his throat and smiled.
"So...we can expect the new equipment by the end of next week?" Richard asked. He knew the answer, but he was trying to deflect Marshall's attention, which was hovering somewhere around Richard's belt buckle.
Richard shuffled his weight from one foot to the other. Marshall had never hidden his interest, because why would he? The guy was rich and arrogant and not ashamed of his playboy lifestyle at all. Not Richard's type. In fact, the opposite of Richard's type.
Of course, it had been a long time since Richard even had a type.
"Yep. It'll be on its way within a day or two. You might even get it earlier than that." Marshall grinned at him and took a step closer, his breath puffing a little in the chilly air. "We aim to please, you know."
It wasn't that Marshall was ugly or creepy. In fact, a few years ago Richard would have jumped at the chance to meet a guy like him. Not these days, though. Marshall was a well-known player, and Richard's life was so far beyond casual hook-ups that the idea was laughable. The tightness in his belly wasn't the good kind - it was more stress than pleasure.
"Well, if that's all, I guess I'll be getting back to work, then. The grind never ends, does it?" Richard winced at his own choice of words.
"Well, we can hope not."
OK, now Marshall was getting a little creepy.
"Do you ever get away from that pretty little lady of yours, Rich?" Marshall asked. He leaned against the fender, facing Richard. "Time to yourself?"
Richard stood and paced away, putting some air between them. "No, she'll keep me busy until she goes off to college, I suspect. Maybe longer than that."
How did he politely tell Marshall - one of their biggest partners at the Broken Blue - that he wasn't interested? Hell, he didn't know how to be interested. The last seven years had wiped out anything that resembled a dating life for Richard Gallagher, and he wouldn't know how to do the dating thing if it waltzed up to him and smacked his ass.
Luckily, Marshall didn't appear to be waiting for an answer. He patted the hood of the big truck, beeped the locks, and climbed into the driver's seat. He rolled down the window. "Well, you let me know if that ever changes, all right?"
"You bet. Take care, now." Relieved, Richard turned and sauntered back toward the main ranch house and his office in the back. Only when he was inside, out of Marshall's sight, did he let his shoulders drop. His heartbeat started coming down, too, and he breathed out a small sigh as he came through the kitchen.
"That was painful to watch."
Richard looked up and saw Cruz, Levi King's husband, standing at the window over the sink and eating a sandwich. Levi King owned the Broken Blue ranch and made it a success, but Cruz and Levi were partners in every sense of the word and both of them worked hard to keep it going. "What was?" Richard asked him.
"That little scene out there." Cruz smiled and waved his sandwich at the window. "He was asking you out, wasn't he?"
"No." Richard said. He liked Cruz, considered him a friend, but he didn't want to talk about this right now.
"Then he was about to - don't tell me he wasn't."
Richard just shrugged.
"My question is this - why did you not jump on that?" Cruz shot him a half-cocked grin. He was teasing, but his words were honest, too. "I mean, Marshall is...well, he's something else. He's hot, he's rich, he's smart, he's....I don't know. But it'd be good for you to go out once in a while. What are you averaging now? Fourteen hours or so a day here?"
"Something like that." Richard actually didn't know for sure, but he knew that Cruz would know, because Cruz was doing a lot of the paperwork for the ranch, including personnel stuff like writing the paychecks. "But Sasha needs me, and I don't like leaving her with a sitter."
Cruz clutched his chest with a free hand and rolled his eyes. "You consider Levi and me to just be...." He gasped, "...sitters?"
Richard froze for half a second, then grinned and rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean."
"No, Richard. I'm just so wounded right now."
"Shut up." Richard walked around him, got a glass from the cabinet, then bumped his shoulder when he went to the fridge to fill it up with tea.
"Okey-doke. But seriously, Richard, we can watch Sasha anytime you want to go, you know...do whatever. We love having her here."
Richard did know. Levi and Cruz liked watching Sasha even when Richard was right here with her. And they spoiled her relentlessly, no matter how much Richard protested. "Last time, you let her wreck the four-wheeler in the river, Cruz. She was riding alone again."
Cruz frowned. "But she was fine, and she was having so much fun. You should have heard her laughing."
"I heard her scream..."
"Before that. Don't be so truculent. And we made her wear her helmet, like we promised. She didn't even get a scratch."
Richard looked at him. "Truculent?"
"It's my word of the day." Cruz pointed to his calendar. "It means..."
"I know what it means."
"I'm going to tell you anyway, Mr. Truculent." Cruz frowned again. "I might have to shorten that. Mr. Truc...? That doesn't sound right either."
Richard was silent.
Cruz was silent.
"Well?" Richard asked finally.
"Well, what?"
"You were going to tell me what truculent means."
"Oh. It means -."
"Richard! Richard?" Levi came busting through the front door and stopped when he saw them across the large, open-space room.
"Yeah?"
Levi's broad shoulders relaxed when he spotted Richard. "Cal needs your help with Patchy. She's being a pain in the ass again. He says you're the only one who can handle her."
Richard smiled. "Cal's just too impatient. I'm coming." To Cruz, who was glaring at both of them, he said, "I'll be back to hear that in a little while." Then he followed Levi out the door and headed for the corral, where he could hear Cal cussing at one of the ranch's Friesian mares.
When he got closer, he saw that Patchy was bolting every time Cal got too close to her. She wasn't normally like this, not even when she was tired. "Hey, Cal," he yelled. Cal turned, and Richard saw the problem. "Get your ass over here."
Patchy was one of the horses that, until recently, was solely in Richard's care. Each of Levi's hands was assigned three or four, and that hand was responsible for getting them sale-ready. That included daily exercise, getting them used to people and other equipment, training the anxiety out of them and anything else that might turn away a buyer or damage the horse's well-being. But then Levi reassigned Richard to help him with the office work, and Cal inherited Patchy.
Although nobody would know it, since Richard ended up working with her more than Cal did - on top of his regular duties. Richard didn't normally mind, he sort of missed being out with the horses instead of making deals with the likes of Marshall Nivens, but he was also grateful for the raise and the trust Levi put in him.
He climbed over the four-board fence instead of going around to the gate, then hopped down and met Cal halfway across the corral. Cal was tall and a little soft along the shoulders, in spite of the work he did here. He looked like he spent his evenings on the couch, with a hot pizza and a bottle of beer for company.
Reaching down, Richard snagged the halter out of Cal's meaty hand. Cal's jaw dropped. "What'd you do that for?" he asked.
"You're scaring the hell out of her with this thing." Richard snapped. He shook it and let it drop to the ground like a dead snake. "You know she hates it, and you know which one is hers."
"Hers is still wet from being scrubbed this morning," Cal snapped back. "And she needs to get used to wearing different kinds of tack. Her new owners aren't going to have a super-special halter just for her."
They probably would, to be honest. These horses cost more than some houses, and they often got spoiled in their new homes. Sometimes they were treated better than family. "I was in the process of training her when I let you have her," Richard reminded him. "I showed you how to do it."
Cal shrugged. His face was getting red, making the gray bits of his beard stand out. "Well, that's stupid. She can wear this."
"Let's see you walk around in shoes all day that are a half size too small. Would that be good?"
Cal didn't answer, but his lips thinned to a tight line.
"She's a good horse, Cal," Richard said, lowering his tone. "Healthy and strong. She just needs a little special care, that's all. She gets anxious, and then you can't do a thing with her."
"Tell me about it," Cal grumped.
Cal had been around the Broken Blue for as long as Richard, but he gravitated toward the heavy labor - building fence, repairing barns, working with the equipment - more than he enjoyed the finesse it required to handle the big horses. Normally, Levi would have found someone new for this job and left Cal to his strengths, but the ranch was short-handed, as always. "You can't force your will on these animals," Richard said. "You just can't. They're like kids, it'll backfire every time."
"That's when you bust their -."
Richard stepped up then, into Cal’s face. He controlled his voice, kept it low, but emphasized every word. "You ever lay a hand on one of these horses and you'll be in jail so fast your socks'll knot. Is that clear?"
Cal opened his mouth to answer, but then he turned and stalked away, across the corral, slamming the gate behind him. Richard watched him go, then picked up the offending halter and dropped it outside the fence, where Patchy wouldn't notice. Then he dug a couple of sugar cubes out of his pocket and went to soothe her and put her away for the night.
Her solid black body was trembling, and her nostrils flared until she heard his voice, cooing to her. Slowly, she walked over and took the sugar he held out to her. Sugar wasn't the best for horses, but he couldn't help it. She loved her super cubes, as Sasha called them when she was small.
"Because you're a super girl, aren't you Patch?" he murmured, leading her out of the corral and toward the barns. He loved that his presence made her feel safer, the same way Daddy made Sasha feel safer. He might not have some whirlwind romance, like Levi and Cruz, but he was doing all right, most of the time.
Along the way, he decided he'd made the right decision by choosing to blow off Marshall. His life was all right just the way it was.
He was coming out of the barn, getting ready to head for Sasha and home, when a strange truck pulled into the driveway and stopped in front of the ranch house. It was nearly dark, and headlights flashed off. He saw legs drop down from the driver's seat and then Levi strode out of the house and went to greet the newcomer. Richard hesitated on the way to his own truck, not sure if Levi needed him for anything else, then shrugged and left, waving as he pulled past them. Whatever it was, it could probably wait until tomorrow.
As he drove by, he caught a glimpse of longish blonde hair, faded jeans, wide shoulders and a muscular butt. Something fluttered below his gut, but he ignored it. It was just the effects of Marshall, putting things in his head that didn't belong there.
In other words: Nice, but no thanks. Sometimes Richard got lonely, but he didn't have the time or energy to handle another complication on his life, especially one as unnecessary as a man.
Sasha was waiting for him, and she was the life of his party. Everything else could wait.