Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 6

brother he's the light brown colored horse, we live on the ranch with our handsome handler. Things were great until he got slapped with an eviction notice, we can help him but then he'd know we're not regular horses.
    What's a shifter to do?
    ~ Gabrielle

    genre: paranormal contemporary
    tags: shifters; horses; ranch hand; friendship; sweet; no sex; shifter/non-shifter relationships; implied eventual HEA
    word count: 9,860
    Back to Table of Contents

    THE NEXT STEP
    by J.A. Rock
    "I have a plan."
    Those words coming from Jax were never good. In fact, they were precisely the words that had landed us at the Ottsenmeiser Ranch in the first place.
    I shook my head and blew through my nostrils. "Save it, little brother."
    "Little brother" was a joke between us. Jax and I weren't related, and he was actually six years older than me. I was twenty-one in human years. In horse years I guessed I was around three. I'd adopted Jax in North Carolina while I was working at a library in Chapel Hill— regular human James Gillensfeld. He came in drunk, looking for The Whole Grains Cookbook .
    I should have called security, the way he was staggering. But I couldn't take my eyes off him to find the phone. Bloodshot eyes aside, he looked good. Tight jeans, purple tee, old sneakers. I noticed the way he stamped his foot impatiently while I looked up the book title. The way he shook his head as though to dislodge a fly. His dark hair fell low on his neck. I recognized him, though I'd never seen him before in my life. There was a chance I was wrong, but that was a chance I was willing to take. I was hungry for someone— anyone— like me.
    I had him sit on a bench while I went and found the book for him. I got him checked out and watched him blunder toward the door. I lasted about thirty seconds before I told my supervisor I wasn't feeling well, left the library, and chased him down. He had stopped to throw up in some bushes outside the courthouse.
    I asked where he lived— information he didn't hesitate to divulge, which sort of made me want to whack the back of his head. At five nine, and a hundred and forty-five pounds, I wasn't exactly the kind of guy you looked at and thought axe murderer , but still.
    I had secrets. One, at least.
    He leaned gratefully against me and I helped him back to his apartment. We were almost there when he started kicking his right leg, grunting and huffing.
    I stopped. "What's wrong?"
    He didn't answer.
    "Come on. Just a little farther." I clucked at him and started forward. He stomped his right leg again. I almost missed it— a little click when his foot hit the ground.
    I had him support himself with his hands on my shoulders, and I ran my hand down his leg and lifted his foot.
    There was a stone lodged in the tread of his shoe. I plucked it out and tossed it so that it clattered across the pavement. I set his foot down and straightened. Very slowly, he leaned forward and rested his forehead on my shoulder. He sighed into my shirt.
    I patted his back. "Come on," I said.
    I got him into his building, up the stairs and onto the bed. I removed his shoes. He was already almost asleep. I went into his kitchen and filled a filmy plastic cup with water. The kitchen wasn't dirty, exactly, just dingy— everything from the walls to the stove a yellow-tinted white. A dishtowel lay wadded on the counter beside a convention of liquor bottles, many of which were expensive, several of which were nearly empty.
    There was a tube of aspirin on top of the fridge. I grabbed that and returned to the bedroom. I placed the glass on his bedside table and shook two aspirin into my palm.
    "Here." I lifted his head with one hand and placed the other in front of his mouth.
    He half opened his eyes, leaned forward, and lipped the pills from my palm. I felt a pull between my legs as his lips brushed my skin. I put the cup of water to his lips and watched him drain the whole thing. I eased his head back onto the pillow and set the cup on the table.
    "Thanks," he murmured.
    "I'm not going to lecture you about being stumbling drunk in the public library at one in the afternoon," I said.
    "Good."
    "But I will call security next time."
    He grinned, his eyes shut. "I wish you'd call me. "
    I shook my head, but wrote my number on the back of a receipt I found on the nightstand. "Text me when you're sober and let me know you're okay. Think you can remember that?"
    He nodded and turned his head into the pillow.
    I resisted the urge to