Saddle Up by CJ Bishop
CHAPTER 12
“The Night”
Garland wasn’t certain how long he’d been staring at the low log ceiling before he realized he was awake. Some of his strength had returned but fatigue continued to plague his mind and body. The blankets felt heavy on top of him—unbearably heavy—pressing on his chest until he could hardly breathe. He took deep, labored breaths as the pressure increased, forming a tight band around his chest cavity—and a sharp pain seized his heart.
I’m dying—I’m having a heart attack!
Panic struck and he gasped out loud, clawing the blankets from his chest. He rolled over and grabbed the edge of the bunk as he began to hyperventilate. Hanging half off the cot, tears ran down his face and dripped onto the wood floor as his eyes slowly raised to the fireplace.
It isn’t a heart attack…
His stare locked on the young man huddled in a blanket before the fire, head resting on the hearth, fast asleep.
It’s guilt.
Heff? Garland blinked—was he hallucinating? What was Heff doing here? He should be gone—headed back to Maine. Why was he out here in the storm?How did he get here? He couldn’t comprehend the boy’s presence in the cabin… his hazy mind refused to compute the phenomenon.
This has to be a dream… or delirium… nothing else makes sense.
Lying beside Heff, the hound raised its head, then rose and padded over to the bunk. “What the hell is going on?” Garland mumbled to the dog. “Did… did you bring him here?” Garland frowned, and squeezed his eyes shut, the confusion of the moment adding to the pain racking his skull—a pain he just became aware of. “Why… why would you do that?” Garland managed to sit up, dragging one of the blankets around his shoulders. He stroked the dog’s head. “He’s terrified of storms.” Garland shivered—as much from the thought of Heff out in the blizzard as from the cold clinging to his body. “What would make him brave a blizzard…?”
The hound pawed Garland’s knee, staring up at him through warm brown eyes. The dog whined, pawed him again, then padded back to Heff and laid down.
Garland stared at the sleeping young man, a shudder to his heartbeat.
Me…? Garland shivered again, a cold chill sliding down his spine. He came looking… for me?
No. No! Why the fuck would he do that? He could have died!
Garland was shaking, whether from the cold or fury, he couldn’t tell. I told him to never go out in a storm! I fucking told him!
He tried to stand and dropped down on his butt. He tried again and remained upright, just barely, his legs like rubber. Garland shuffled toward the fireplace and collapsed on the hearth. “Heff…” he rasped stiffly. “… wake up.” Prepared to give the boy the tongue-lashing of his life, Garland’s mood abruptly changed when he noticed how still Heff lay there beneath the blanket. “Heff?” Garland gently shook him. “Hey… wake up.”
The boy didn’t respond.
“Heff…” Fear struck Garland and he slid off the hearth onto the floor beside the young man. “Don’t fucking do this to me, Heff,” he whispered shakily as he touched Heff’s face, pressed his hand to the boy’s forehead. He was warm from the heat of the fire but not feverish. Garland checked his pulse; slightly elevated but strong.
He’s just sleeping. Passed out from exhaustion.
A shuddery breath escaped Garland and he sagged against the hearth, his throat working, eyes swimming. “Don’t fucking scare me like that, boy,” he whispered with a notable tremor to his voice.
Taking a few moments to gather what little strength he had, Garland transferred Heff to the bunk and tucked him in. The boy was dead to the world and probably wouldn’t awake for at least a couple of hours, or longer.
The strain of putting Heff to bed left Garland exhausted as well. Looking at the boy cuddled deep in the blankets, Garland wanted to crawl under there with him. He didn’t think Heff would object—he understood now that his dream of Heff in bed with him… wasn’t a dream at all. The young man had been trying to warm him up.
Exhausted or not, Garland didn’t trust himself to get into bed with Heff. The boy was naked beneath the flannel shirt… and Garland wore only his briefs. As much as he ached to share body heat… and more… with Heff, Garland left the bunk and sat on the hearth. His head continued to throb, and his body felt sluggish, fatigued. He knew he should be in bed… but not with Heff.
Garland leaned against the wall of the fireplace and closed his eyes. The pressure in his chest returned as the vivid memory of that last night with Mandy and Frank crept back to him. The tears came and spilled out in silence as he held his hurt inside, where it belonged… eating a hole in his heart… the pain excruciating.
He didn’t fight it—he deserved to suffer. For the rest of his fucking life.
………………………………
Heff knew he was reliving a memory through a dream… yet it felt real, as if it was happening for the very first time. He trembled in terror, huddled deep in his blankets as the storm assaulted the house… the power out and the only light coming from the flashes of lightning scratching at the earth like gnarled fingers of a witch.
The summer storm had come out of nowhere, striking in the middle of the night, literally shaking Heff awake. He expected Mandy to come into his room any second to check on him, but all was silent within the ranch house. Mandy wasn’t afraid of storms. She could sleep right through them… like now.
Thunder cracked, shaking the ground. Heff’s pulse spiked, and he pulled the blankets over his head, his breath growing erratic. The bedroom window rattled in its frame as the wind beat at the glass. Another crack of thunder and the house trembled as if bombs were dropping all around.
Heff choked back sobs as his breath came quicker, more erratic. With the next round of thunder, lightning stabbed the earth and Heff cried out. He scrambled from the bed and fled the room, staggering down the hall, his legs shaking badly. Heff thought he was headed for Mandy and Frank’s bedroom… when he suddenly found himself standing outside Garland’s door, hand clutching the knob in a death grip.
Thunder split the heavens and Heff rushed into the room without knocking. His abrupt entrance woke Garland who propped up on one elbow and rubbed his eyes. He frowned. “Heff…?” His voice retained a slight slur from earlier in the evening; he’d drank a lot at Heff’s birthday party. “What…” he started, then flinched when thunder shook the house again. “It’s… storming?”
Heff hugged his half-naked body, trembling. Tears filled his eyes. “Can… can I sleep in here?” His chin quivered. “Please?” He sniffed, his breath shuddering. “I-I’ll sleep on the floor… I-I don’t care…”
It seemed to take a moment for Garland to clear his head. “Uh… uh, yeah… of course.” When Heff reached for a folded blanket at the end of Garland’s bed, the man stopped him. “No. You’re not sleeping on the floor. Come on.” He flipped back the covers. “Climb in.”
Heff hesitated, his heart pounding faster… and not from the storm. “Huh…?”
Garland rubbed his eyes again and yawned. “It’s fine.” A tired smile quirked his mouth. “I trust you.”
Heff smiled nervously—he’d had many dreams and fantasies about being in Garland’s bed… but never believed he’d ever actually be there.
“Bed’s getting cold.” Garland rustled the blankets. “In or out?”
Heff breathed deeply, hesitated again—until a violent gust of wind struck the house. He raced forward and practically jumped into bed. The covers wrapped him, and the heat of Garland’s body immediately warmed him. Suddenly self-conscious, Heff lay rigid, half holding his breath.
Garland chuckled softly. “Do you always sleep like a board?”
“N-No…” Heff swallowed, his heart about to beat out of his chest.
“Well… get comfortable, then. Mi cama es tu cama.”
“Huh?”
“Me bed is your bed.”
“Oh.” Heff didn’t know how to get comfortable in bed with another man. Especially a man he’d fantasized about every day. “Do… do you say that to a lot of people?”
“What?”
“Mi cama… uh…” Heff couldn’t remember the rest.
Garland laughed. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” Heff mumbled. “Just… wondering.”
A low chuckle rumbled the man’s chest. “No, you’re the first. I learned some Spanish when I was working out in Colorado. A lot of Mexican’s worked on the ranch with me. The first thing I learned was how to curse in Spanish.”
Heff smiled, beginning to relax. “Really?”
“Yeah. Isn’t that what everyone does? The first thing they want to know is all the cuss words in a new language.”
“I guess.” Heff laughed quietly. He shifted onto his side, his back to Garland. “And thanks… for letting me stay in your room.”
“Glad to have you.” Garland sighed. “You’re great company.”
“I am?”
“Duh.” Garland smiled. “I figured all the time I spend with you would’ve been a clue.”
Heff shivered pleasantly… then not so pleasantly when thunder rolled across the sky. “Do… do you think I’m a sissy for being scared of storms?”
Garland exhaled softly. “No, I don’t,” he murmured. “It makes sense why you’re afraid of them. And…” He cleared his throat. “… I’m sorry for teasing you about it before… I didn’t realize at the time why you were so scared.”
“It’s okay,” Heff whispered. “I know you weren’t trying to be mean. And you already apologized for it.”
“I know. I just… I wanted to apologize again.” Garland shifted beneath the covers, his bare leg brushing against Heff. The brief contact sent a flurry of tingles skittering through He’s body. He began to feel warm in all the wrong places and tried to will his body to ignore the sexy cowboy lying next to him. It didn’t work.
Heff closed his eyes. He didn’t really want to fall asleep, because he didn’t want this once-in-a-lifetime moment to be over too soon. But he was afraid not to fall asleep… because of how turned on he was.
When neither of them spoke, the storm sounded louder… more frightening. For a few minutes there, just the sound of Garland’s voice pushed the storm into the background. Now, silence filled the bedroom and the wind and thunder and lightning frayed Heff’s nerves, heightening his anxiety. It got worse when he thought Garland had fallen back to sleep.
With each crack of thunder and howling gale of wind, Heff subconsciously inched closer to Garland… scooting over little by little… until his back and rear pressed flush against the man’s side. The feel of him right there eased some of Heff’s anxiety—until Garland quietly cleared his throat and shifted a bit.
He wasn’t asleep.
“S-Sorry,” Heff stammered in a shaky whisper and scooted away. “I… I didn’t mean to crowd you.”
Garland was quiet a moment, then murmured with a slight rasp, “I wasn’t complaining.”
Heff wasn’t sure how to interpret that, but he felt much too self-conscious to move closer to him again… though he really wanted to. It wasn’t as if anything would happen—Garland wasn’t even gay. Heff liked to pretend he was, and that all his teasing and the time he spent with Heff meant he liked him as more than a friend. But it was just a fantasy. Besides, Garland was twenty-three. Even if he liked men, he would go for someone older than Heff.
Now, it seemed Garland was the one sleeping like a board, lying very still, barely moving a muscle. He was on his back, arms tucked beneath his head. If not for his slightly uneven breathing, Heff might have thought he had fallen back to sleep this time. He hadn’t.
Something in the sound of his quiet breathing… the way his breath softly shuddered up his throat… caused Heff’s own breath to stutter and catch, sending warm waves ebbing through his body. He didn’t understand why just the sound of Garland’s breathing affected him like this… turning him on… getting him so hard…
• ••
“Huh…” Heff came awake with a soft gasp, his body on fire. He trembled and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, momentarily disoriented. Then he remembered where he was; the cabin. His loins ached like mad, and he was shocked… and little dismayed… by his throbbing erection.
The “dream” clung to the forefront of his mind and remembering what happened next did nothing to cool his arousal. He hadn’t been this incredibly turned on since…
Since that night with Garland.
Five years passed, and it remained the single most passionate, erotic experience of his life. He’d tried dating other men, but when things turned sexual… Heff backed away. Try as he might, erasing Garland Zayne from his mind… his heart… had proven horribly unsuccessful. As crazy as it was, Garland remained the only man he could imagine warming his bed. Before the tragic loss of his sister and brother-in-law, Heff had determined to move on, find someone sweet and passionate to date—and stay with them… even when thoughts of Garland crept forth and tried to pull him back.
But now…
Heff shifted—and froze. He wasn’t on the floor, he was… in the bunk.
Alone in the bunk.
Heff sat forward. It was dark outside, and inside, the fire was the only light. The blizzard seemed to have gained strength since Heff had fallen asleep, howling and shrieking like a living creature. Heff shivered and glanced at the fireplace. The hearth was empty. “Garland?” Fear tainted his voice. Where could he be—
“Here.” Though stronger, his voice retained an unsteadiness that didn’t sound just right, yet.
Heff twisted around. The man stood at the window in the shadows, looking out at the storm. He gripped the counter, even leaned on it a bit, his breath somewhat labored—and no covering but his briefs.
“What’re you doing?” Heff started to climb out from beneath the covers when the stiffness in his crotch halted him. “You need to be covered up; you still need rest.”
Garland turned around, still holding onto the counter. “What the hell are you doing out here?” Had he been fully recovered; the man’s question would’ve propelled out with demanding force. But the strength behind his words was fading fast, and the question sifted out, barely making it beyond his lips before dissipating. “You shouldn’t… be out… here.”
Grabbing a blanket, Heff crawled off the bunk. “You can yell at me later if you want. But right now, you need to get back into bed and rest.”
“I… told… you not to…” Garland took a step and collapsed.
“Garland!” Heff hurried over and grabbed his arm, his fear spiking at the renewed chill in Garland’s skin. “Are you trying to catch pneumonia?” Heff got him on his feet—barely. The man leaned heavily on Heff, throwing him off balance. He staggered and caught his footing, his own fatigue and exhaustion weakening him as well. The blanket fell to the floor halfway back to the bunk. Heff ignored his semi-erection—which had gone down some but maintained just enough firmness to slightly tent the front of the flannel shirt—and hauled Garland back to the bunk. “Now, get back in bed,” Heff puffed, attempting to lay the man down without dropping him. “And stay there—” Heff lost his strength and his balance at the same time, tumbling onto the bunk with Garland, landing on top of him with a soft grunt.
Their faces practically touching, Garland stared at him, eyes heavy and hardly focused.
“Sorry,” Heff mumbled and went to get up when Garland grabbed his waist. Though the man was too weak to walk on his own… his grip on Heff’s body was surprisingly strong.
“Don’t… go…”
Heat spilled into Heff’s cheeks as his full arousal returned, and the only barrier between their bare flesh… Garland’s cotton underwear.
Heff swallowed, his breath unsteady. “Garland…”
The man squeezed his waist then slowly tugged the hem of the shirt up, the soft, thick fabric bunching at Heff’s lower back, exposing his backside.
He stared into Garland’s droopy eyes as the cowboy slid his palms over Heff’s bare cheeks. Heff ducked his head, eyes closing, erection growing. He shuddered when Garland tightened his hold, drawing Heff more firmly against him… against his own swelling crotch.
“Do you… remember that night…?” Garland mumbled, and Heff had to wonder if he was even aware of what he was saying… what he was doing. Regardless, he didn’t need to clarify which night he was referencing.
Heff tentatively raised his head, his throat working. “Of course,” he whispered thickly.
“Tell me…”
Heff frowned. “Tell you what?”
“Tell me about it…”
Heff could hardly breathe, much less think, as Garland’s member hardened beneath him, pushing against the young man’s stiff shaft. “I-I don’t know what you mean,” he rasped. “You were there… I-I know you… remember…”
“I don’t want my memories…” Garland was fading, but somehow clinging to consciousness… and to Heff. “They hurt… too much.” His eyes dampened. “Let me feel it… the way you did… I don’t deserve it… I know… but please… I need to know…”
“Know what?” Heff whispered, his chin trembling.
Garland held his watery gaze and came back to consciousness a bit. He swallowed hard. “Nothing,” he mumbled thickly and moved Heff off him and crawled weakly beneath the covers. He turned away from the young man and faced the wall, a shiver running through him.
From the cold?
Maybe. Maybe not.