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were the mystery jars of stuff his mother had canned a couple of decades ago that he should probably get rid of. But he couldn’t any more than he could bring himself to go into his parents’ bedroom to start clearing out their things.
    He found a box of something hiding behind the pasta that looked edible. Scalloped potatoes. Eli read the ingredients list and shrugged. Butter and milk—water would have to do. He grabbed a couple of steaks from the deep freezer and left everything on the sink counter in the kitchen for later.
    Creed was still nowhere to be found. He couldn’t have left. Eli saw the horses move outside the window and went to investigate. Creed was standing in the middle of the pasture, sandwich in one hand, the other on the very pregnant belly of one of Eli’s mares. She snuffled his head as he moved around in front of her, rubbing her muzzle and between her ears. Eli could tell he was talking to her; her ears were twitching. Creed’s horse, what had he called him in the trailer, Kipper? Stupid name for a horse. Kipper, not to be ignored, put his head over Creed’s shoulder from behind and Creed wrapped his arm over his neck, patting him with his now empty free hand.
    Eli laughed. He’d never seen anyone attract horses like that. Stepping out onto the porch, he pulled a chair up to the rail and sat down to eat. While he watched he could hear Creed’s soft voice on the hot breeze accompanied by the horses’ nickering replies. “Want to run, Kip, yeah, been cooped up too long? Me too, boy.” Creed grabbed a handful of mane and launched himself off the ground onto the horse’s back. The idiot was barefoot in a pen with horses. He laid his long, lean body over the horse, his arms around Kipper’s neck for a moment before he sat up straight. One hand loosely holding a tuft of mane, he dug his heel into Kipper’s flank and they took off at a trot in the pasture. Bareback, no bridle, just man and horse. Eli could see Creed’s thigh muscles bunch and relax under the thin jeans every time he rode by, guiding the horse with his legs. Eli shivered in the heat. Sweat formed between his shoulders. Jesus.
    After a few minutes of trotting, Creed slowed the horse to a walk around the pasture, cooling him down. Eli expected him to dismount after another round of patting. “Good boy. Steady,” Creed called out. “Steady, Kip.” He eased one leg up onto the horse’s back, followed by the other until he was in a crouch. His commands became louder, non-words, just sounds that Eli didn’t understand but the horse did. Then Creed stood up tall, letting the horse walk him around the enclosed area one more time. Almost as if he were surfing on horseback. “Good boy. Steady,” he said one last time before he did a backflip off the horse’s back, landing squarely on the ground.
    “Shit,” Eli said, loud enough for Creed to hear him. And again Creed hung his head, his chin touching his chest. Almost as if he was embarrassed to be caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. Creed placed one hand on the fence and vaulted over in one clean jump. He retrieved a can of soda off the post and ambled across the driveway to the house.
    Eli propped his flip-flop encased feet on the middle rail and waited for his guest to join him on the porch. He had to avert his eyes. He’d never actually watched the man walk before. Sinuous. Was that the right word? Almost as if he was a dancer or something. Long, lean, and graceful. It wasn’t right to look like that and move like that. Why the hell hadn’t he noticed before?
    “The gray mare is having twins,” Creed informed him from the other side of the porch railing.
    “Did she tell you that?” Eli fell back into his old ways with the man. Guarded. Intimidating. Whatever the hell it was about Creed that made him act like an asshole, yeah, that’s where he went. Every damned time Creed came around.
    “In a way. There are two heads.” Creed flicked his chin with his