21. Galen

Chapter 21

Galen

F rom between the trees he could see glints of crystal blue water, and the stark blue of the sky over the ridge. And there, sitting at one of the picnic tables, was Bede.

There was no mistaking that broad back, those strong arms, the white t-shirt that Bede was wearing when surely a long-sleeved cotton shirt would be better protection from the sun. He was hatless, too, bent over the picnic table.

When Galen came closer, he could see Bede was scowling.

Circling around, he saw that Bede was scowling at a stack of papers clamped on a clipboard. He had a pen in his hand, but it looked like he'd rather bore a hole through the paper than write on it.

It looked as though the counselor's job search assignment was going over just about as well as a ton of lead.

"Something I can help with?" he asked, because that was his job. And also, Bede had done him a favor. Maybe he could return it.

"No," said Bede, scowling hard enough to make him look like he debating getting up and walking right out of the valley. "Seriously, no," he growled.

Galen sat across from him at the picnic table, just the same. His view was not the lake and the trees and the ridge. His view was Bede's angry face, strong lines deepened by what Galen could interpret as frustration, for the application in front of Bede was completely blank.

"Barefoot again, I see," said Galen with a small smile.

"Yeah." Bede shook his head and rolled his shoulders back, as if to relax them. "It's hot as hell, and this helps me stay cool."

It was hot, though it seemed pointless to point out to Bede that he'd be cooler in the shade and that, paradoxically, he'd be cooler in a long-sleeved shirt and wearing his cowboy hat. But then that would have covered up the dark black tattoos that curved and angled along one side of his neck and along his left arm. Would have obscured the definition of muscle where it crossed over bone. The trickle of sweat that made Bede's dark hair curl behind his ears and stick to his forehead.

So much of Bede's strength was often hidden behind attire appropriate for manual labor. So much of Bede now, as he absorbed the energy of the sun, was on display—muscles, tan skin, dark blue eyes—and so incredibly eye-catching that Galen forced himself to look down at the clipboard.

"So, what's the problem here?" asked Galen.

It might be that he was making a mistake in offering his help, that Bede would get pissed and turn him down. That Bede wouldn't even trust him that much.

He found that he very much hoped that Bede would not turn him down. That Bede would let him help. That Bede would trust him.

"Applications are a pain, no matter who you are," Galen said, then he asked, "What are you good at?"

"Being a team lead," said Bede with a small laugh and a wink at Galen, so cute and sweet that Galen had to smile.

"No, seriously. That's how you start the process, by thinking about your skill-set."

Bede looked at him for a long, silent moment, as if weighing his options. Then, with a small nod, he said, "Okay. Here's the problem." He tapped the top sheet of paper with his pen. "I never filled out one of these in my life. And even if I had, most people I worked with don't want their names on any application. You follow? They'd be arrested, and I'd be dead."

"Yeah, I follow," said Galen, and he actually did. Mack the Knife or whoever Bede had worked with would probably prefer that his name be kept out of any and all conversations.

"I'm not stupid," said Bede. "I get the point of the exercise. But even if I fill this out with fake-but-realistic information? My crime is a level two felony. I spent five years behind bars. Should have been eight, but Kell busted me out by nagging the parole board to death. I paid almost three-quarters of a million dollars in fines and not enough, obviously, on legal counsel. Not any of that matters because nobody is going to want to hire me."

"You could get a job at a car wash or something like that," said Galen, but even as he said it, he was not surprised by the fact that Bede banged at the edge of the picnic table like he meant to push it over.

"Yeah, right," said Bede. "That's not enough to keep me in Grapenuts." Then he laughed, and Gabe chuckled under his breath at the image of the very handsome Bede sitting at the breakfast table, hunched over a bowl of the world's worst-tasting cereal. "You get what I mean," Bede said, and then leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "There's no way this is going to work for me. I got nothing to go back to and there's nothing to move forward to."

"I've filled out a few applications in my time," said Galen, speaking slowly to get his thoughts in order. "But mostly, I got hired because of who I knew. Worked at the dairy in Chugwater during high school cause my dad sold goat milk to them. Worked the baseball games cause even though I wasn't eighteen, my dad knew a guy. So probably—and I'm not making promises—you could expect that your team lead would put in a good word for you. And that Leland would, too, on my say-so."

"So I have to stay in your good graces to get anywhere?" Bede shook his head and pushed the clipboard away. "Well, I'm used to that. In my old life, it was all who you knew. Drug deals are done on handshakes, and if you fucked a guy over, you were history. Criminals are honest, believe it or not."

"Except for the committing a crime part." Galen couldn't help but laugh out loud at Bede's pretend shocked expression, enjoying the sparks of pleasure at the way Bede's mind worked. And he loved that Bede laughed in response, a low chuckle as he shook his head, as if he was pretending to think that Galen was out of line.

"I know honor among thieves is a thing," Galen said. "But you still ended up here. Maybe it's time for something else?"

"Maybe." Bede's eyes were serious and level as he looked at Gabe. "I just don't know what that would be."

"Well," said Galen, considering this. "You could get a job with a landscaper. There are several in the area, and again, you'd get two recommendations, Leland's and mine. Or think about this. This next week, I'll be teaching you how to ride, how to look after a horse. You could get a job at a ranch. Maybe not a guest ranch," said Galen, flicking his eyes to the top of the trees which covered the northern hillside of the valley, beyond which lay Farthingdale Guest Ranch. "But a working ranch, and there's lots of them in this area. Maybe even the BLM, the Bureau of Land Management. They always need guys to do stuff up in the hills."

"Whoa, whoa," said Bede, putting his hands up as a barrier. "I am a city boy and that is taking it too far." He might have sounded irritated, but he was grinning and Galen grinned in return at the thought of Bede in his three-piece suit and tassel trimmed loafers trying to make his way in the wilderness on the lookout for lost cattle.

"Yeah, well," Galen paused. The connection between them was good, and he didn't want to mess it up. "At least it's got you thinking. That's all this is." He waved his hand over the clipboard and all the blank pages, their edges flapping gently in a sudden, slight breeze. "A place to start. You can fill in that application with fake information to satisfy the assignment, but the real point is to start thinking about your options. What your skills are. The end of the summer is still a ways away, and between now and then, you can change your mind every five minutes. How does that sound?"

"Yeah, yeah," said Bede. "The counselor said something like that, but I guess I tuned him out."

Galen had a profound sense of satisfaction when Bede took a deep breath, his shoulders relaxing, the lines in his strong neck sleek with sweat. Galen imagined that Bede was curling and uncurling his bare toes in the dust as he thought about what Galen had just said. What it meant. And what he was going to do with it.

Was it enough to believe that Bede might opt in, take his place as a regular working Joe? Pick up his paycheck, and find a safe place at the end of the day to sip at a cool beer and dig his toes in the dirt.

And what if Bede had been a regular guy? What if Galen had met Bede at some other time, outside the confines of the valley program? What if he'd bumped into Bede at a ball game or a bar or the grocery store and he'd not known that Bede was a drug dealer?

He didn't even have to think about it. He would have fallen hard .

"Well, I better get to it," said Galen, rather than anything else he wanted to say or ask or think.

The warm summer day was having an effect on the barriers in his mind. That wanting to know about Bede in order to help him, was not the same as wanting to know about Bede in order to get to know him in very un-team-leadership ways.

It'd been a long time since he'd felt a connection like this, and Zeke didn't count. Zeke had been a distraction, a handsome-eyed, steel-jawed distraction who had summarily and politely sent Galen packing. And anyway, Zeke had been straight and Bede was—not.

Anyway, he shouldn't be thinking like this. He had a responsibility to all the men on his team, Bede included. Which precluded mooning after Bede's silky tan skin, the curl of his bright smile. The sweet way a bit of hair was now stuck to Bede's forehead, a tumbled plaster of hair that Galen's fingers itched to push back. To make Bede more comfortable. To get Bede to smile at him.

Nope. He needed to move away, and fast.

"I'll see how Toby and Owen are getting along with their applications," said Galen, standing, pressing his palms to the surface of the picnic table, untangling his legs from the attached bench seat.

"They're probably goofing off in the mess tent," said Bede.

"Yeah," said Galen. "Well, I'll see you at the equipment shed in about half an hour. Yes?"

"Sure thing, boss," said Bede. The look he gave Galen seemed to contain a whole lot of What if questions. Then Bede tilted his head back, eyebrows rising. "And I can just make all this stuff up?"

"Yes, you can," said Galen. "It's just an exercise to get you thinking. Not a real application."

With a nod, Bede's attention turned to the clipboard, and now Galen's eyes focused on the back of Bede's neck. The rough edge of his hairline, as though Bede had cut it himself, doing a blind trim, because there was no one to ask for help. No one he dared ask.

Galen swallowed the sudden tightness in his throat, undone by the rush of empathy. Not something he would have felt at the beginning of the week, but something he was sure feeling now. What he did with that feeling was totally under his control. Wasn't it?