Play It Safe

Then he announced, “I’ll deal with this, son.”

“Time for that’s passed, Jeb. Got seven dead horses and no barn,” Gray returned.

“You’re smart, you’ll let me take care ‘a this,” Jeb said quietly.

“He’s been gunnin’ for me since junior high and tonight he put my woman in danger. Not feelin’ like bein’ smart right about now,” Gray replied.

Jeb’s eyes came to me, his hand went to the bill of his baseball cap for a second before it dropped and he muttered, “Ma’am.”

I lifted my chin to him but no more and he looked back at Gray.

“Ask you one more time, Grayson, let me deal with this.”

“You do what you gotta do. Len’ll do what he’s gotta do. And I’ll do what I gotta do,” Gray stated.

Jeb Sharp held my man’s eyes.

Then he whispered, “Fair enough.” Then his eyes went to the barn and he kept whispering when he said, “Cryin’ shame.”

He was not wrong about that.

I pressed closer to Gray and Gray’s hand squeezed mine tighter.

Sharp looked through me and back to Gray.

“You need help cleanin’ up and buildin’, you call on me. I’ll send some boys,” he offered.

When Gray made no reply, I had a mind to suggest he didn’t hold his breath but I kept my tongue.

“Right,” Sharp muttered, knowing exactly what Gray’s non-response meant then he looked to me. “Mizz Larue, wish we’d met under more auspicious circumstances.”

“Me too,” I whispered.

He nodded. Then he looked at Gray. Then he sighed deeply. Finally he turned and walked away.

That was when I sighed.

Jeb Sharp got in his truck, turned it around and drove down the lane.

I felt some of the tension leave Gray’s body and he turned us to face the destruction.

Wood barn, it went up like tinder, came down in no time flat.

“I’m gonna go make coffee for the firemen, honey,” I whispered.

“Good idea, baby,” Gray murmured, his eyes never leaving the barn.

I squeezed his hand. He squeezed mine back but he did it not looking away from his loss.

I let him go, took two steps away then turned and took two back.

Pressing again to his side, I lifted up until I was as close as I could get to his ear and whispered, “Say you love me, Gray.”

I rolled back to the soles of my feet and watched as he closed his eyes then he opened them and turned to me.

His hand came up, he cupped my jaw and his eyes moved over my face.

Then he said, “I love you, Ivey.”

I grinned a small, sad grin.

He gave me the same.

Then he bent and touched his mouth to mine, dropped his hand and I turned and went into the house to make coffee for firefighters.

* * * * *

Three hours later…

Dawn was hitting the sky, weak light beginning to glow through the window.

Gray and I had had showers but no sleep. We were in bed, Gray on his back, me pressed to his side, my head on his pectoral, hand flat and lightly trailing his chest and gut, his arm around me, hand in my panties cupping my ass.

We’d been there awhile, lying close, not speaking but also not sleeping.

Finally, I broke the silence by whispering, “You okay?”

“No.”

I pulled in a breath. Then I slid my hand up his chest, lifted and turned my head and rested my chin on my hand under me.

He had four pillows bunched haphazardly behind his head and shoulders (this was his way, my man liked pillows) and his eyes dipped to me.

“Please don’t kill Buddy,” I said quietly. “Just got you back after seven years. I don’t want to spend the next seven visiting you in the penitentiary.”

His face softened but he didn’t smile.

Still, he replied teasingly, “You’re in the mountain plains of Colorado, dollface. No jury from these parts would convict me for killin’ a man who killed seven horses.”

His joke fell flat, I knew he saw it on my face just as I saw it on his but I suspected his was worse. He was a cowboy, horses were kind of important to cowboys.

I lifted up, pushed up closer, sliding more onto his chest, my hand moving to curl around the side of his neck all as I whispered, “Baby, I don’t know what to do to help you.”

That was when he grinned. It wasn’t a big one and it didn’t warm his beautiful eyes the usual way but it still warmed his eyes.

His hand left my panties so his arm could close tight around the middle of my back and he told me, “You’re doin’ it, Ivey.”

I nodded and smiled.

Then I said gently, “I’m sorry, Gray.”

“Me too.”

“We’ll be okay.”

It was his turn to nod. “One thing I got is insurance. So, yeah, eventually, we’ll be okay.”

It was good to know he had insurance but that wasn’t what I was talking about.

“That isn’t what I meant, honey.”

“I know that, darlin’, and my response still stands. We’ll be okay in all ways. Just that right about now, when we need to crash so we can get at least a little sleep so we can face whatever the day’s gonna bring, you need to know that it’s all gonna be okay.”

He was right.

I tipped my face so I could kiss his chest. Then I repositioned and looked at him again.

“Do you get sleepless nights often?”

“Nope, work hard all day, sleep hard all night.”

“So, you waking up is unusual?”

“Can’t say it’s never happened, can say it’s so rare don’t remember when it happened last.”

“So what woke you?”

That got me a different kind of grin but he still wasn’t committed to it.

“Thought it was my subconscious reminding me you’d gone to sleep without your panties on.”

I grinned back then pressed gently, “But that wasn’t it?”

“If you’re askin’ if I heard somethin’, then no. I heard somethin’, I’d look. I wouldn’t start somethin’ with you. If you’re askin’ if I got a sense of somethin’, a vibe, who knows? What I do know is, awake or asleep, I’d hear that blast. I sleep hard but I don’t sleep so deep I’d sleep through that and I know since I didn’t the last time.”

“Mm…” I muttered, my eyes sliding away.

“Ivey,” he called and my eyes slid back. “We got a mess outside and a fight that was already pretty f**kin’ ugly that just got a whole lot uglier. We need to sleep so we can be prepared to face the day.”