Down Low (Down Home Book 1) Page 2

  His knee throbbed dully. He rubbed at it with one hand, removing his battered straw hat and swiping at his forehead with his sleeve. A miniscule breeze ruffled the damp hair at his temples, sweet with the familiar scent of sage and tarweed.

  It was the hottest June on record, prepping the state for a hellish fire season. Cal was a damn fool to be making the walk of shame back home in the afternoon heat, but he hadn’t wanted to waste money on a motel or delay the inevitable. The siren call of home only got louder the longer he resisted—and he’d resisted like hell.

  When he’d left at seventeen, Cal had envisioned his future going a little differently. Now here he was: worn and broken down at the ripe old age of twenty-eight. It had come upon him so quickly, like taking a bull’s horns to the face. One moment, he was on top of the world; the next, he was waking up in the dirt.

  Whenever the circuit made it to a metro area, he watched the men his age with fascination. They were so young, groomed and energetic and soft. Life had been good to them—or, if not good, then at least not bad. They’d never faced hardships that left callouses on both body and soul, and it showed in their buffed fingernails and unlined faces.

  One night, Cal had gone to bed a young man, and he’d woken up nothing but an aching bag of half-mended bones. A string of bad luck and slow-healing injuries had made him irrelevant to the sport. No one needed him, and the circuit wasn’t home anymore. Home no longer meant horses, bulls, beer, and sawdust. These days, the thought of home stirred memories of cool blackberry thickets and the burble of Powder Creek where he and Faith used to swim when they were kids.

  Lane had tried to convince him that he could still make a comeback, but in his soul Cal had known his career was over even before Ghost Pepper brought him to his knees. His heart wasn’t in the ride any longer. He couldn’t shake the loneliness or the memories dogging his heels. Not all of those memories were good—plenty were downright bleak—but they never failed to freeze time, sucking him away from the present and right back to Sweetwater.

  The call of his hometown was loud. It soared above the roar of the crowd and the thunder of hoofbeats. He heard it even now, carried on the eerie silence of the highway.

  Cal had no plans to stick around, but he couldn’t see the harm in stopping by after so many years. He’d rest, heal, quiet his ghosts and satisfy his curiosity, and then he’d move on… to whatever waited for him around the sharp twist his future had taken.

  A muffler rattled, catching Cal’s attention. He set his hat back on his head and groaned as he heaved himself to his feet. His knee hadn’t appreciated the break like his feet had, and it seized up as soon as he put some weight on it.

  A rusted white pickup slowed and eased to the side of the road before Cal had the chance to stick out his thumb.

  “This ain’t no place to hitchhike, boy,” an old man with a handlebar mustache and a baseball cap hollered out his open passenger window.

  “No, sir,” Cal agreed, limping to the side of the truck and leaning against the frame. “Just resting my feet.”

  The man squinted at him with rheumy eyes. “Where you headed?”

  “Just a little way up the road to Sweetwater.”

  “Huh.” The man looked out his windshield, staring into the distance and kneading the steering wheel with bony fingers. “Well, it’s Saturday, and I ain’t done nothing worth bragging about to the minister tomorrow.”

  “You’re headed there?” Cal asked in surprise; nobody except drifters and prodigal sons ever went to Sweetwater.

  “Nah. I live in Baker, but it ain’t no hardship to drop you off on the way. Hop in back with Nellie.”

  Nellie turned out to be a petite border collie with a hot pink bandana tied around her neck. Cal fed her some jerky from his shirt pocket and fondled her silky ears when she rested her head in his lap.

  The truck bumbled down the highway, battered frame quaking on a set of bald tires. Cal tucked his chin and tipped his hat brim low to protect his face from the slap of the wind. Within minutes, his sweat had cooled and his shirt stuck against his clammy skin.

  He didn’t blame the old man for not trusting him enough to ride up front. Cal was average sized in a sport dominated by short, wiry bundles of dynamite, but he was no bruiser. He just looked disreputable as hell with his travel-stained clothes and unshaven jaw. Strangers still helped each other in this neck of the woods, but the man was right to take precautions.

  They wound through the foothills of the Blue Mountains, dried grass and open range gradually dissolving into pine forests and irrigated hay fields. Cows grazed in rolling pasture, black specks scattered like a spilled bag of raisins across acres of farmland. The afternoon light skewed toward gloom as clouds full of condensation gathered overhead. Thunder rumbled, but maybe that was just the snarl of the pickup’s engine.

  Cal buried his fingers in Nellie’s thick ruff and closed his eyes, sinking into the blackness behind his eyelids. The more he concentrated on that darkness, the bigger it felt. A universe of emptiness was inside him. It spread out into forever, and he lost himself in it. Every trouble he had felt small in comparison.

  On foot, the trip would have taken him another three hours, but the truck shortened it to a quick twenty minute jaunt down the road. Good thing, because the rain had begun to patter off his hat brim as they pulled up to the curb in front of the Elk Lodge on Main Street.

  Offering Nellie a farewell pat, Cal gathered up his things and hopped over the side of the truck bed. His knee folded like paper, and he cursed and grabbed the frame to keep from kissing the sidewalk.

  “You okay, son?” the driver called through his open window.

  “Fine!” Cal shouted through gritted teeth. Sweat broke out on his upper lip as he gingerly tested his weight. Thin, sharp little zaps of pain stabbed through his bad leg, but the joint held. This was the first time his boots had touched the dirt in his hometown more than a decade, and while he might be crawling back in the figurative sense, he sure as hell wasn’t about to do it literally.

  “Thanks, old timer,” he said, ducking through the open window and thrusting out a hand.

  “Sweetwater ain’t a last stop for many folks,” the old man replied, giving him a quick shake. “I hope it’s where you meant to end up.”

  “No one means to end up here,” Cal said with a bitter laugh. “It’s an accident of birth.”

  The man looked confused, but Cal waved him off and shouldered his saddle. As the truck pulled away from the curb with a belch of exhaust, he took a deep breath and turned to face the town he’d spent his entire life trying to put behind him.

  3

  Small Town USA

  “If you play that song again, I’ll kill you.”

  Eli’s hand slapped down on top of Cal’s, sending his quarter spinning across the table as he pressed his palm flat against the table. Cal made a joking lunge toward the juke box, but the older boy squeezed his hand and threw a thigh between Cal’s legs, trapping him in the booth.

  The surrounding tables were empty, so nobody was there to witness the slow, wicked grin that spread across Eli’s face. His index finger traced a gentle line up the inside of Cal’s wrist, and Cal sank his teeth into his lower lip to trap the whimper trying to escape.

  “Someone is gonna see,” he hissed. Goosebumps spread across his arm, radiating out from Eli’s touch, and Eli’s knee brushed against the bulge of his fly.

  “Not if you don’t draw attention to it,” Eli said with a smirk. For a boy with even more to lose than Cal did, he loved playing with fire.

  Then the bell above the door jingled, and they dropped each other as if they’d been burned.

  At first glance, the place hadn’t changed much. The street still needed repaving, the bronze statue of a bucking bronco still stood in the center of Elkhorn Park, and the Shop-Mart still had a cracked letter and missing bulb on its sign. It had been ten years, and they still hadn’t replaced the damn thing.

  There were differences, thou
gh, and as Cal got his bearings, he began to pick them out from his memories. The sidewalks were smooth and well maintained, decorated with ornate streetlamps and giant petunia baskets. The shops were freshly painted, but he didn’t recognize most of them. Touristy businesses with big picture windows and quirky names had replaced the utilitarian stores of his childhood. He squinted across the street at a marijuana dispensary with a giant green cross and the face of Kermit the Frog painted on its window.

  “Huh,” he mumbled. That must have caused a fuss.

  It had begun to rain in earnest, the clouds squeezing out fat droplets that rolled off his hat brim and stung his face when he looked up at the sky. A chill had settled in his bones despite the warm summer air, and his stomach was so empty it felt as if it had twisted around his spine, so he headed to the one place guaranteed to never change: a bright pink diner named The Hungry Pig.

  The Pig was a Sweetwater institution. Cal hadn’t had the money to eat there much as a kid, but every memory he had of the old diner was a good one. Eli used to treat him to a burger and milkshake after Friday night football games. Neither of them gave a damn about sports, but it had been the closest thing to a date that a couple boys keeping it on the down low could manage in a small town. They’d drag their meal out until closing time, using the diner’s eyewitnesses as proof of their innocent intentions.

  Eli was the one who had insisted on keeping their relationship a secret. Cal had met some tough bastards over the years, but Eli was the fiercest boy he had ever known. Nothing frightened him.

  Nothing except telling his father that he was gay.

  As terrified as he was of being discovered, it hadn’t stopped Eli from toying with Cal every chance he got. He used to tease him by slipping one leg between his thighs underneath the table and pressing his knee against Cal’s groin. That simple touch would sear Cal through two layers of denim, drying his mouth and making his palms sweat. The first time it happened, he’d sat there frozen, afraid to even breathe, lest Eli realize what he’d done and move away.

  What a dopey kid he’d been.

  Eli had known exactly what he was doing. He’d always known what he wanted. It was Cal who’d mistaken what they had for something else.

  Mable Stockton owned The Hungry Pig, and she’d taken good care of it over the years. The red vinyl booths were polished, every surface gleamed, and the air smelled like lemon cleaner rather than old fry grease. Decorative pigs were scattered everywhere: stuffed animals, scenic farm paintings, and bright pink statues wearing chef hats and Hawaiian shirts.

  “Well, fuck me sideways! It’s Calvin Craig!”

  A young woman in a floral apron had frozen while wiping down a table and now stood, bleach rag dangling from her fingers, staring at him with wide eyes. She had long brown hair, freckles, and a statuesque physique that he felt he should remember. Damned if he knew who she was.

  “Yes, ma’am?” It came out a question, like he wasn’t sure of his own name.

  The woman threw back her head and laughed. “It’s downhill all the way when a man two years my senior calls me ma’am.”

  Cal scratched his chin. A hazy image floated through his brain of a gangly freshman with braces and a killer pitching arm.

  “Mir…anda?” he asked. “Right? Miranda Ellis?”

  “He remembers my name! Be still my beating heart.” She clasped one hand over the straining buttons of her blouse and fell back against the table in a pretend swoon. Then she grinned, wide and delighted. The braces had done their job, he supposed. “Nobody figured we’d see the prodigal son’s face here ever again.”

  Cal’s cheeks got hot. “Just passing through,” he mumbled.

  “Well, take a seat anywhere! I’ll grab a menu.”

  It was early yet, so the diner was mostly empty, but the folks scattered around the booths looked mighty curious. Cal might have recognized them if he weren’t avoiding making eye contact. He had no interest in being dinner theater. He settled at the old-fashioned counter so his back was to the room, pretending he couldn’t feel the stares boring into the back of his head.

  He stowed his bag beneath his feet and gently placed his saddle and hat on the swivel stool beside him.

  “You know what you’d like?” Miranda asked, setting a cup of coffee in front of him.

  Cal thought it over, mouth already watering. Hell yes, he did.

  “Mable still make those cinnamon rolls as big as my head?” he asked.

  “She sure does.” Miranda grinned. “We even have shipments going to Baker and La Grande. We have an entire cinnamon roll department these days.”

  “One of those.” He considered his wallet and his empty stomach, then added, “Some chicken fried steak, too.”

  “Where do you store all that?” She reached across the counter and pinched his bicep.

  The interested gleam in her eyes was easy to spot. Cal had become an expert at identifying and dodging buckle bunnies across all fifty states. Nobody was out at the big money level, and that included Cal, no matter the progress made by the International Gay Rodeo Association over the years. Ironically, Cal had left town because Eli refused to come out for him, but he’d rushed right into a closet of his own making once he’d qualified for the pro circuit.

  Cal was gay enough for his own parade float—if cowboys did parades—but he rarely minded a little harmless flirtation. Tonight wasn’t the night for it, however. He was aching, exhausted, and more than a little weirded out to be back in his hometown.

  “Small fries like me burn up the calories faster, I guess,” he said with a shrug.

  He already looked like a wandering hobo, rumpled and unshaven; he didn’t need to confirm it by admitting he hadn’t had a meal since yesterday.

  It wasn’t that he was completely broke. He had money in the bank, just not enough that he could be free with it. Crashing at the World Finals in Vegas had triggered an awful dry spell of injuries and losses, and the last of his sponsors had dried up over a year ago, leaving him with barely enough funds to shuttle himself between states.

  If a man was lucky, crazy, and tough enough, he could become rich in the pro circuit. The world champion earned a million-dollar bonus every year, and prize money across the country often ranged into six figures. But the bottom tier of riders averaged less than twenty thousand a year, and expenses were astronomical. Medical bills and insurance ate a sizable chunk out of every paycheck, and traveling for a living while keeping his own horse and equipment burned through the rest. It was a miracle Cal had managed to cover this last round of hospital bills. He’d been forced to sell everything he couldn’t carry. He’d even left his quarter horse in Lane’s care, though it had broken his heart to do it.

  “I saw you ride once, you know,” Miranda said coyly, tugging Cal back to the present.

  “Yeah?” He couldn’t even pretend to drum up some enthusiasm, but she didn’t let that stop her.

  “At the World Finals a few years ago! A little group of us took a hopper down to Vegas to watch you ride. You were on your way to getting a full hundred points when the bull tripped. God, we all thought you were dead.”

  Cal didn’t remember much of that ride, but he’d watched the slow-motion replay a hundred times.

  “Think you can put that order in?” he suggested gently.

  “Oh! Yeah, sure. Just flag me down when you need a refill.”

  Cal hung his head and squeezed his eyes shut tight. He was so damn tired. He had too many aches to remember where they’d all come from. Sometimes it felt like he wasn’t a real person anymore, just a patchwork scarecrow made up of a thousand rodeos. At least the darkness behind his eyelids was soothing.

  When it arrived, the buttery, yeasty perfection of Mable’s cinnamon roll did a decent job of spiking his blood sugar back to a functional level. A second cup of coffee boosted him past the road kill stage, and he began to feel charitable enough that it didn’t bother him when Miranda lingered to chat.

  She leaned her elbows on the
counter, smiling girlishly and nattering on about people he barely remembered. He grunted occasionally when a response seemed polite, but otherwise her words flowed over him like water. He didn’t care what the star quarterback was doing now that he had a construction company and three kids.

  He’d come home for Faith. No one else.

  “Hey, do you know where my sister’s living these days?” he interrupted.

  Miranda’s eyebrows shot high. “You don’t?”

  The tips of Cal’s ears heated. “We, uh, lost touch a few years back.”

  That was putting a thick coat of sugar on it. Faith had spoken to him for the last time shortly after Uncle Kirk had finally kicked it. She’d wanted Cal to come home for the funeral, and he’d told her that he would rather douse himself in kerosene and strike a match than set foot in his uncle’s trailer ever again. He’d offered to wire some cash for the burial, but that hadn’t been enough for his sister.

  That night, with Faith’s screams ringing in his ears, he’d ridden a chaotic, tilt-a-whirl eight seconds on the back of a bull named Cascade. He’d woken up the next morning beside a dark-haired cowboy with eyes as black as coffee, and he’d spent the rest of the afternoon puking his guts up.

  Miranda frowned and began studiously wiping down a stack of menus with a damp cloth. It was the first time her mouth had stopped moving since he’d entered the diner.

  “She stays out on Sweet Hollow Road, as far as I know,” Miranda muttered without meeting his eyes. “I don’t know which house. She and I don’t travel in the same circles.”

  Cal waited until she looked at him, and then he smiled. It was a smile he’d banked on to get him out of scrapes for too many years, a smile Lane insisted was wasted on a man with zero interest in buckle bunnies. Miranda grinned helplessly back.

  “Thanks for pointing me in the right direction,” he said as he pulled his wallet from his jeans pocket and dropped some bills on the counter. “That’s only a few miles out of town. I’ll just head out and have a look around.”