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and he’s got a couple guys who work with horses, Charlie and
Clay, you know them.”
    Robbie had been tense, but
he relaxed on hearing the names. “I had Clay in mind for the school if we could
get him, and Charlie, I’ve worked with him on the joint feed program. Good
men.”
    “So you’re okay to go.”
    “When do we leave?”
    “Thursday? Gives us a
couple days grace. And we were invited to stay at the Bar Five with the
Castilles, but I turned them down. I know Hank isn’t there and Darren is
running the show, but I’m not sure Liam would be ready for that yet.”
    “He’s stronger than we
think,” Robbie defended.
    “He’s…” Jack couldn’t
think of the words. “Brittle,” he finished. “Like he’s close to snapping.”
    “Wouldn’t you? Going up
against Hank, the man who abused you as a kid, or Yuri the one who attacked you
as an adult?”
    “Yeah, and that’s the hard
side of it all. He’s spending so much time being okay that actually underneath
it all, he’s far from it.”
    “We’ll keep an eye on
him.”
    Jack nodded and scratched Mistry
behind the ear, earning himself another nudge. She loved affection, this one.
    Yes, they’d look after
Liam. They would make sure Liam was taken care of and that they came away from
Laredo with some kind of justice for the young cowboy.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Liam watched Jack leave
the barn and turned back to what he’d been doing, but the rhythm of it was
wrong and the remainder of the stall took far longer than it should. He tried
not to think about what would be happening in Laredo, but he couldn’t help it.
The prosecution had interviewed him, taken everything he knew, and fashioned a
good case alongside other witnesses, other kids. One boy younger than him, the
other two older.
    Grief tightened his chest
and guilt chased it. What if he’d stayed and told someone what was happening
and they’d actually believed him? Would it have stopped anyone else from being
hurt like him? The youngest defendant was only sixteen now, a street kid with
nowhere else to go except straight into Hank’s world.
    He leaned over with his
hands on his knees and tried to still the panic in his breathing. What the hell
was he going to do if he saw the kids, looked them in the face, and knew what
had happened?
    Arms snaked around him
from behind and helped him to straighten up. He didn’t even startle, he knew
who it was. Intuition? Scent? Some kind of weird connection told him instinctively
that Marcus was holding him. He didn’t want Marcus seeing him so tense, but he
didn’t have enough time to put up his usual barriers.
    He leaned back into
Marcus’s hold for the shortest time, then remembered he was covered in dirt and
Marcus was probably in a suit. He pulled away and turned to face his lover, but
he didn’t look at the suit or the shiny shoes or the pristine tie. No, he looked
directly into brown eyes, and he was lost.
    Marcus looked so serious. “You
okay?” he asked.
    That was the second time Liam
had been asked that today, and he didn’t have an answer for it this time any
more than he had the first. He could try the way he was normally, stoic and
focused, but Marcus was looking at him with such tenderness and understanding
that it nearly broke Liam.
    “No,” he answered, and for
the first time in a long while, he was being completely honest.
    “Okay.” Marcus gripped his
hand and tugged him from the barn and up the metal stairs to their place. As
soon as he got inside, he peeled off Liam’s clothes and pushed him into the
shower before stripping his own suit and pulling on jeans and a T.
    Liam watched him through
the glass, saw him puttering around their small kitchen, smelled the chocolate
as soon as the water stopped. He knew exactly what Marcus was doing, and
abruptly most things in his world righted themselves. Marcus opened the shower
door and wrapped Liam in one of their huge gray towels before guiding him to
their bed. Together they settled