Earth and Sky

now.”

    This time when Grant turned toward him, his eyes were dark and sad. The look made something crack inside Hunter, and he scooted closer to put his arms around Grant’s broad shoulders. He heard the pie box slide to the floor as Grant returned the hug, burying his face in the crook of Hunter’s neck.

    “What do you want to know?” Grant asked quietly when they finally let go of each other.

    The rain was pummeling the roof of the truck, making it hard for Hunter to think. There were so many things he wanted to ask, but his questions had driven a wedge between them before, so he knew he’d have to weigh his words carefully.

    “I’ve already asked you where you go when you take time off, and you didn’t want to answer me then, so I’m not going to ask you again. Just tell me one thing.” Hunter stopped to take a deep breath. “Is there someone else in your life?”

    Grant sighed. “If you’re asking me whether I have another lover, then the answer is no. There’s been nobody in my life since Gable.”

    Although it was only a partial answer and Hunter was dying to know why the hell Grant needed so many weekends away, he knew not to go there. He treasured the nose he had and didn’t want it bitten off again.

    “Did it feel like this in the beginning with Gable too?” As soon as the question crossed Hunter’s lips and he saw Grant inhale to answer it, he held up his hand to stop him. “I can’t believe I just asked you that. I sound like Miranda. She always wanted to know if she was better than so-and-so.”

    Grant smiled shyly. “That’s okay. I told you we weren’t in love. It was just sex. And companionship, I suppose. It gets pretty lonely on a small ranch like Gable’s, and before I came along, he hadn’t had anyone in his life for a while. He was in need of someone else’s hand, I suppose. We didn’t talk like you and I do. Whenever we talked, it was about what needed to be done around the house or with the horses. Outside of his bed, I was just the ranch hand.”

    Hunter nodded that he understood. He still wanted to know more, though.

    “We’d had an argument and I drove off, thinking I was never coming back.”

    “What did you argue about?”

    Grant shrugged. “I don’t even remember. Probably something trivial. We never argued about the important stuff. Probably because we never talked about the important stuff.”

    “So you didn’t even know about the accident?”

    Grant shook his head. “Calley finally got a hold of me after about a week, and she told me. She talked about the gossip around town, that I’d had something to do with the accident and that was why I had fled, so I couldn’t really return unless I wanted to be lynched.”

    Hunter’s eyes grew big. “She said that?”

    “No,” Grant chuckled. “That was the image it conjured up for me. In any case, I tried going to the hospital, but I hate hospitals, and it just stifled me so much walking in there that I turned around and walked out again. It wasn’t until Calley told me Gable was doing okay that I dared to return here.”

    “Yet you went to see him when he was in the hospital this time?”

    Grant nodded. “Guess I still want to make amends.” They sat in silence for a while. “I have pretty bad memories of hospitals, you know,” Grant continued. “My mom spent her last six months in and out of one.”

    “I’m sorry,” Hunter said, squeezing Grant’s thigh for comfort.

    “You see, we have something in common. She died when I was eight, and she was all I had. She’d left my stepfather because he was slapping me around, and we didn’t have a penny to our name or a roof over our heads, but she worked three jobs getting us out of that slump. Then, just as we were doing better, she got sick. It took them a while to figure it out, but she died anyway. They called Child Services for me, and I was in and out of foster homes until I was fifteen, but they were all pretty crappy, so eventually I ran off. Every time I walk inside a hospital I get all clammy and anxious, because all I remember is that my mom died and they dragged me off to live at some stranger’s place.”

    “You’ve been on your own since you were fifteen?”

    “Yeah, pretty much,” Grant acknowledged. “I lived on the streets for a while, but it was rough. I met up with a friend of my mother’s who taught me to build furniture and work with wood. He let me stay in his spare room as well, so I wasn’t