Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

A mes took a moment after the man drove off, standing on the porch of the big house. He had to take a breath before he headed back in to see what Nathan needed from him.

Because this was about Nathan.

He unclenched his hands and his jaw, because Lord it had taken everything he had not to smack that smarmy bastard in the face.

“You know this is not what he’s meant to do. He’ll come back. He’s a star, and he’s meant to be in the New York market, you little pissant.”

That was what that fucker had said to him.

He took another deep breath. Then he headed inside.

Kase met him in the foyer. “You need anything, Ames?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry if that ruckus disturbed your house.”

Kase’s lips curved wryly. “Not the first ruckus in this house. Now, go on and find Nathan. I think he was in clean-up time, so why don’t y’all take the rest of the day off?”

“Sounds good.” In fact, it sounded like the best idea ever. He’d once found a deer caught in a snow fence, that poor young buck caught in a million different places, all tangled up.

Ames had put his physical safety on the line to untangle that deer one antler at a time. This situation felt like he was walking into that all over again.

He headed back to the drawing room to find his man.

He found Nathan with Dani under one arm, Dani feeding him cookies and patting him. “It’s okay, Mr. Cooking Man. It will be okay.”

“Everything’s fine, Dani. Thank you for the cookies; they’re very good.”

“I made them with Mimi. Did you know? I did. I make them with Mimi all the time.”

“You are a lucky girl to have a Mimi.” Nathan hugged her. “Thank you very much. I have to go now and finish cleaning up the kitchen, all right?”

“Okay, Mr. Cooking Man. Hi, Cowboy Ames.”

“Hey, Dani.”

“Do you want a cookie?”

No, he didn’t want a cookie, but he of course nodded and said yes. She handed him what was either oatmeal chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin.

Either way, he didn’t care. He said thank you and stuffed it into his mouth.

Then he grabbed Nathan by the arm, and they headed out together toward the kitchen.

“Was Sophie helping you clean up?”

Nathan nodded. “I told her to go. Lock up. She was going out with some friends. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember what she said she was doing. Skating? Was it skating? Do they even do skating here?”

Ames nodded. “Ice skating. She was going to Santa Fe to go ice skating with a bunch of kids. I think she has a girlfriend that she’s interested in. I caught her putting on some makeup the other day and kind of gussying up. Which is good, since she broke it off with that girl from church camp.”

“Good to know.”

Nathan unlocked the kitchen and glanced around. “She did a great job cleaning up. She’s working awfully hard. I wish she’d go and do things. I was tickled that she said she was going to Santa Fe. I think that’s good…”

He nodded. “It is. It’s great. How are you?”

Nathan shrugged for him. “Have no idea. Like I literally have zero idea how I am.”

“That’s fair. You don’t have to have a clue.” Ames wanted to know though. He wanted Nathan to tell him that it was all going to be okay, that there was no way Nathan was going to leave them and go to New York City and be famous.

He didn’t think he was going to get that conversation, but he wanted it.

“Thanks. That was so unexpected. I never want to see him again.”

“Are you telling me you’re not gonna leave me behind to have a wild happy, thieving bastard life with him?”

Nathan looked around and stared at him and then obviously saw his smile, because he relaxed. “Don’t make me beat you, man. He makes me want to barf. I mean that literally. Like gag, like my stomach is upset, and I have acid now. Like I don’t even know if I can have a glass of wine because I’m so acidy.”

“That’s pretty bad.”

“Right? This is the nastiest thing that has ever happened to me, except for the other things that he’s done to me which are equally nasty.” Nathan’s eyes flashed, and his fists clenched. “You know, I mean, at least this way nobody else really is involved in his nastiness. I don’t have to go to a bunch of investors and apologize because they think that I screwed them over. Can you imagine? Do you even understand?”

Ames shook his head. “No, no. I don’t, I’m sorry.”

“Well, the idea is, you know, we…we have these investors. They hand us money, we do the work, we pay them back as we can. Like literally as we can. We take care of the business, so if somebody just bought in, we pay them off until their investment has been repaid. At the end, the restaurant would be ours, and everything would be hunky-dory.”

Nathan began to shake. “Except that’s not what happened. That son of a bitch took the money. So he wasn’t paying people back, and I didn’t know. I thought that this… I mean, there were checks going out. They were going out into his pocket. That’s not legal, by the way, and at the end, I had to sell everything to pay those investors back. I lost my whole world and ended up here.”

The fury in that statement hurt his heart.

“And it’s not even the being here that’s the big step down. I was running a restaurant by myself. It was my place, and now I’m working for somebody else again. I’m just another chef again. And it’s his fault.”

Ames reached out, hoping Nathan would take his hand. But he made it Nathan’s choice. He wouldn’t push.

Nathan grabbed his hand as if it were a lifeline.

“I’m sorry, honey. I am. It sucks, and I wish I knew what to say.” Especially when he wanted to ask how this could possibly work, then. How could it, when Nathan wanted to be in his own place again as soon as possible?

How far would he go? Could Ames go with him, or would that be a mistake? Fuck, he had no idea.

“I do too. I don’t even have anything. Do I have to have something to say right yet? Can I just be like shell-shocked and wigged-out?” Nathan glanced at him, so obviously worried.

“Yes. Yeah, you totally can. I… Do you want to go riding?”

“There’s snow out there.” Nathan pointed out. “It seems odd. Do people go riding in the snow?”

“Yeah, sometimes they want to clear their heads, and the horses need exercise, and it’s not too cold.”

Nathan shook his head. “I really don’t want to go riding. It’s cold.” He paused for a second. “You want to go to the barns with me instead? I could brush a horse.”

Nathan’s suggestion shocked the hell out of Ames.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, we could go home and brush the dogs too. They probably stink. You know they’ve been romping round in the backyard like…puppies because, you know, puppies.”

“I’ve got the afternoon off. So do you. Let’s go home and towel off puppies.” Because as cool as it was that Nathan had suggested going to the horse barn, if he went, he knew he’d have to get work done. Someone would need him for something.

This way they were off, and if Nathan wanted to play with animals, he could.

“Hell, if you really want to go brush a horse, we can go brush up the guys in our barns.” His barns were filled with older rescues, ones who just needed a home and someone to love on them.

He found Nathan out there sometimes, talking to some of the old horses about nothing at all, kind of visiting with them.

For a guy who’d never even had a pet up until a few months ago, Nathan was quite the animal lover, if not a cowboy.

Ames didn’t think that Nathan would ever be a cowboy.

“That sounds good to me. We can go down to the barn and brush out the horses, then clean up the dogs, because you know that they’ll be outside watching for us.” Nathan offered him a warm smile. “Then maybe… I was hoping maybe you’d buy me a pizza. We could sit together and eat pepperoni and olives. I promise not to bitch about the ex and how evil he is. Instead, I’m gonna be incredibly grateful that my studly new lover escorted him out.”

Nathan turned and hugged him, holding on tight. “It was kind of hot, by the way. Thank you. I didn’t even ask if it was all right to put you in that situation. I just—I told Sophie to call you because I knew that you’d come.”

Ames squeezed Nathan good and tight. “I wanted to clean his damn clock, but I was in the bosses’ house.” Ames chuckled. “Come on, honey. We’ll order pizza and play cowboy, and then maybe we can have hot tub time.”

That Nathan was willing to do no matter how cold it was. They’d bought a towel heater together.

Bubbling with Nathan would let him gather his scattered chickens and figure out what to do next. They had some hard discussions coming up, but now wasn’t the time.

Now it was time for him to support his lover, to let Nathan know it was damn okay to feel how he felt.

However that was.