Chapter Three

The trip into town was filled with laughter. Dallas figured it was being out of that cramped, dirty office. Well, it wasn't cramped anymore, and it would be clean enough once he got in there and started to scrub it.

That was for another day. Right then, they were heading into Billings to buy enough beef for a crowd.

Hunter, come to find out, had his own millions from ranching like Harrison had. Not that he showed it. He wore clothes like them, western shirts and jeans, and a black hat sat on his head at all times, and that hat wasn't pretty or new. Black, lightweight, and worn, it had seen a lot of roundups.

"We need to head to town for the meat, I get that. But, whether it's expensive or not, we're buying the liquor in Redbud. I know from experience; the locals give less fucks about the company you keep if you're spending your money with them. That goes a long way to smoothing out ruffled feelings, being a big old gay club is going to be in their midst."

"Redbud is small, and I'm sure judgy, but they don't say it outright. They're good enough people, but yeah, I'm with Hunter. From what I've seen, if they're making a little money, they'll be happy enough. Otherwise, they keep to themselves. A lot of folks here do, that's why they live out in the middle of nowhere," Dallas told them.

"I like it just fine," Jace said. "And we're going to encourage the guests to stay in-house for the time they're there. We'll have everything they need, hopefully, if all the plans come to pass."

"If your boy, Roland, has anything to say about it, he'll be done by the end of the week. I've done his job, and it took me over a year to come up with the plans for my barn."

A little envious, Dallas wondered what it was like to have another profession, besides being a ranch hand. "Are you…like pissed that you never got to follow that career?"

"Yeah," he admitted quickly. "But Ethan, my husband, he saw the barn that I built from my own blueprints. He isn't letting me forget that part of myself. I've done more projects, for myself and for other people. In fact, when I told him last night that I was going to help Roland with the plans around here, he told me to stay as long as I needed to. He even offered to come and bring Zach."

"That's your baby?"

"Yeah," he said proudly. "Little guy is about to make Ethan crazy. Ethan's a great dad, but he can't, for the life of him, get the kid to eat his veggies."

"Baby food?"

"Yeah, he's only got three teeth so far."

Dallas laughed before Jace gave him advice. "My aunt had to raise her grandson after her daughter got hurt in an accident. I used to help when I was around, and when I watched her trying to get him to eat strained peas, she had to adjust a little. For her, she added a little of that baby cereal, added just a little salt and butter. The kid ate that and cried for ten full minutes until she brought him more."

Hunter shook his head while smiling wistfully, likely thinking of his husband as he spoke. "I'd do that in a heartbeat, but Ethan might not like the suggestion. Butter and salt? For a while there, he was making his own baby food, so he'd know all the ingredients until I caught him up until three o'clock one night. He's got too many jobs already to be adding to them. I'll give him the tip though." He pointed to the supermarket they came to once they hit Billings. "There is it."

Not able to imagine having a child, Dallas wondered how they did it. A child, dependent on him, looking to him for food, clothing, reading them books…

Sure, he'd thought about it, but he didn't figure he'd be cut out for it. Not like Hunter, or even Jace. Though, having three dads instead of two could be a problem. "You ever want a kid, Jace?"

They pulled into the parking lot of the Natural Grocers, the store Hunter insisted they head to when they looked up the stores on their phones. Jace laughed a little, but he admitted, "I'd love to have kids, but my lifestyle doesn't really support that. Not now, anyway."

"You'd be surprised. Sure, this is a resort for kinky gay men, so what? That's a nightclub. The rest of the place is going to be very family oriented. Stores, woods, those couple lakes on the property. Speaking of which, maybe a daycare would be nice for the place, Jace," Hunter suggested. "You'll have women here that have or will have kids, grandkids, and a lot of the men that come may too. I sure wouldn't mind bringing the kid up this way once he gets old enough to run around and go fishin' and stuff with us."

"I'll bring that up with Dante and Blaine. With them about to adopt or however they're getting a kid, they'll likely jump on that."

The store was indeed all-natural, and Dallas walked through the aisles, not recognizing one brand the store carried.

When they got to the meat counter, however, Dallas grinned as he saw Hunter's brand among others on the beef display. "Well, I'll be."

"Yeah, we're branching out some. Used to be only Colorado and New Mexico where you'd find our beef."

Jace pointed to the pork. "There's the stuff my friends Hud and Theo sell. Looks like they're out of stock, though."

Dallas shook his head in awe. "You all really get into this, natural, organic food stuff?"

Hunter told him in a whisper, "I figure it like this. Why would you want a bunch of manmade crap messing up the taste of the beef and messing with your body to boot?"

"Not to mention, Dallas, that it sells for a higher price. Theo was adamant, I'm told, that was the way to go for them, when they got the hog farm. And he was right. They're making a great stream of income. They keep their place small, sure, so they'd make more if they raised more hogs, but that would cost more, and it would up the chances of disease and such. This way, they're small numbers, healthy and they're fed good grains and vegetables to make the meat taste better and not load the consumer down with stuff their bodies don't need."

"Makes sense. So, you'd both suggest keeping the number of cattle down at our ranch too, then?"

"Start out that way, at least. Five hundred head means five hundred chances that there will be something that hits them and gets them sick enough to need antibiotics. Ten thousand head means ten thousand chances."

"Got it. Okay, I'm starting to see your point," he told them as he looked at the prices per pound of the organic meats.

When the clerk arrived, thinking he'd be packaging up a couple pounds of meat, he was shocked when Hunter ordered a full side of beef. "We…uh…don't sell like that."

"How do ya sell?"

The young man's eyes got wide as he stared up at Hunter. "Well, sir, I can give ya what we got. There's probably enough beef and pork to equal that back there."

"Don't wanna make you short for your other customers."

"No! We're getting shipments of both in the morning."

"Wrap it up, then! Can we park in back and just have it loaded straight in my truck?"

"Yessir, you sure can. It's gonna be a while, though."

"We got more shoppin' to do. Thank you, son."

Jace and Dallas were rather amazed at Hunter's shopping. He didn't head to the barbeque sauce like they would have. Instead, he went for the spices. In the cart went spices that Dallas had never heard of, then he picked up two gallons of olive oil, organic butter, fifty pounds of potatoes he asked to be loaded with the beef and pork and twenty bulbs of garlic. "Anything else you can think of?"

"The fellas like corn," Dallas suggested, devoid of any other ideas.

"Yeah, Dallas is right, but besides booze, we should get some soda or something."

"We'll stop at the other store for that. They only have soda here that no one will recognize."

The shopping trip was more fun than he could have guessed. Watching the other two men made Dallas realize he was suddenly one of them. They were strong, decisive, and had an innate power behind every word and deed. Dallas knew that came in part by the fact they were in charge of things.

No, that wasn't the only reason, but it helped. From the second he'd gotten the promotion, he'd been terrified, but still, he knew he could do it. Learning the paperwork and management was going to be a hell of a hurdle, but he usually learned pretty quickly.

The confidence in himself that had grown in such a short time shocked him a little, but he enjoyed it. He'd come a long way since he was a skinny little kid that could barely defend himself in a fight.

After the purchases were paid for and the truck loaded, they made the stop for soda then headed back toward Redbud to buy the liquor. Dallas felt good, felt like he belonged with the two men. Two men that he'd been mildly intimidated by when he'd first met them.

Hunter was amazing, and so much more than his looks. He was smart, explaining some of his tasks to keep the cattle healthy enough to sell as organic, and what to do to those inevitable few that would need to get meds to get over ailments that didn't outright kill them.

"It'll happen, and if you sell them at all, you can sell them at regular market. I keep mine. They're not on constant meds, so they can be bred, give milk, whatever."

"You sell milk too?" Jace asked him.

"No. I give milk. There are more regulations on dairy than I want to deal with. It's right to do it, of course, but it would cost me more than I could sell most months. Ethan had a great idea to let city kids come and spend days on the ranch, learn to milk cows and clean stalls, and show them there are better ways of living than gangster shit."

"Don't say that too loud," Dallas warned. "We have gangsters at the ranch."

"Mobsters, gangsters, you ain't gonna find a fan of any of them with me," Hunter growled. "Dante…helped me out before and I've helped him. We have a tense understanding of each other. I trust him, but barely. I think he's doing right, though, in what he's doing with this place. Even if he's got some secret nefarious reasons, it'll still bring joy to a lot of people. That alone works for me."

When they got back to the ranch, they pulled up in front of the bunkhouse and the hands and others that were around came to help unload, including one of the aforementioned mobsters.

Dallas had met Marius Monarco, who'd said to call him Dimples, once. Dallas had stared at him blankly when asked to use his nickname. He saw no sign of dimples, but he didn't ask, and Dimples didn't explain.

"Hey, fellas," he called as he moved over to the bed of the truck. He was wearing a muscle shirt, tight jeans, and sneakers. For all that he didn't much understand the man, he wasn't above noticing how hot the guy was.

Nice arms. The kind that didn't need to be flexed to show the perfect outlines of each set of muscles. Pretty olive skin, dark hair, and a trimmed, thick beard, yeah, he was hot, but Dallas didn't know if he was on the market, or even gay.

Then, he quickly found out he was indeed gay. Dimples walked right over to him, and his dark amber eyes moved cheerily over Dallas's form. "Hey there, tall, blond and shit-kickin'."

Jace stopped once he heard that and called over to Dimples, "That's funny shit."

Dallas wasn't laughing, but he appreciated the humor in it. In fact, he countered, "Hello, tall, dark and slick as owl shit."

For a long moment, the man just stared at Dallas as Jace and Hunter cracked up while grabbing boxes of meat and beer from the bed of the truck. Dimples looked over at them, then back at him before he cracked a smile on his dark lips. "Not sure what that means, but I'll find out."

"No need for that. He's just calling you handsome," Jace said, then winked at Dallas.

Dimples's smile widened, and Dallas could see his back teeth. That didn't take from the remark in the least. He looked like a pure devil, but Dallas happened to like a man with a little devil in him.

"I like you," he said before hefting a box with a case of beer. "I'm intrigued."

"Nothing intriguing about me, Slick. I'm just a good old boy," Dallas countered.

"How good are you?"

Dallas felt himself heating just being near the man. There was a definite air of danger about him, and even his humor was drenched with it. Like, at any moment, Marius Monarco could wrestle ten men without breaking a sweat.

Watching him help with the unloading of the truck, seeing his ass in that pair of loose jeans that didn't do a thing to detract from those fine, ripe globes…Dallas was instantly on fire for him.

Still, the man was a mobster. Danger was hot, sure, but the kind of danger Marius could bring, well, it wasn't danger Dallas needed in his life.

They unloaded the truck and once that was done, Hunter called Dante and told him he owed him over two grand for the barbeque. He hung up laughing, so Dante either told him to fuck off or he agreed but added some "fuck-off" to it.

While Hunter readied the meat, pans of it all over the kitchen and dining room, Dallas called the hands in early from their daily work, and once they came back to the bunkhouse, they cleaned up and started to help pull out the barrel grills and tables.

Dante arrived an hour after he was called, Blaine right by his side. "A party a night. I like this."

"It won't be but seems to be a thing that we might need now and then," Blaine said before anyone else could respond. "We're all working so hard to get this place ready to build, we need some downtime for morale."

Hunter shook Blaine's hand after wiping his on a hand towel. "Blaine, good to see you again. How's this asshole treating you?"

"Like a king, of course, or he'd be walking without his balls."

Dante growled playfully. "I never win with you guys."

While they bantered, Dallas caught Dimples staring at him again. He strolled over to him and asked why. Dimples simply said, "I like looking at you. Got a problem with that?"

"Gonna, what do you fellas call it? Oh, right, you gonna rub me out if I do?"

After a bark of a laugh, he said, "One, we don't say that anymore. In fact, that went out of style with my grandfather, I think. Two, I like my men with a little fire in ‘em."

Dallas liked him, and he knew he shouldn't. Still, he was sexy with that cocky grin, the way one side of his mouth curled up while the other curled down. Sexy as all fuck. "One, I'm not your man, and two, play with fire, you get burned."

There was a grace about him, like the way he moved was graceful, so unlike most of the men he'd always known. They were rather primitive, down to earth. With Dante, Bruno, Marius, they all walked with an air of royalty. Interesting that Marius was from a crime family known as the Kings.

The swagger, the cockiness, all of it was a turn-on, but Ruben was who he wanted. In fact, he felt like he was cheating, flirting with Marius.

With a cheeky wink, Dimples left him to head to Dante and Dallas found he was a little breathless.

Later, at the barbeque, when he saw Dimples talking to Ruben, he felt a pain in his gut that made him stop and take stock of himself. Ruben's eyes cutting away from Dimples while they laughed, and Ruben pushing him gently and playfully. Dimples even pinched Ruben's cheek. The more he watched, the more furious he became.

They were obviously flirting, but so what? It's not like either was a real possibility for him. Maybe a fuck or two with the criminal, and Ruben…well, he was the guy's boss.

Still, he found that both held him in some kind of spell, and he wasn't one to be jealous or daydream about dick. He'd never been one to fall for a guy unless they were together a while, and even then, it was hard for him.

He rubbed the back of his neck as he forced himself to turn away, and as he did, Jace came to stand beside him. "Which one?"

"What?"

"Which one of them do you have your eye on?"

Taking offense, though it was true, he tried to brush off Jace with a quick, "Neither!"

"Yeah, rub your neck a little more and try that again."

Dallas's hand dropped to his side as he got embarrassed and annoyed. "What the hell do you know?"

As he nodded to the truck that was pulling into park near all the others, the one with both his partners in the cab, he said, "Oh, not a thing. Not one thing."

When he turned back to the two men, he found them both looking at him. Surprised, he stared back in confusion. One thing was clear and broke through that confusion. Their postures and the looks in their eyes told Dallas that they were talking about him. There was no mistaking that. Ruben licked his lips, Marius grinned wantonly, and Dallas felt in that second that he was prey to two very dangerous predators.