A Cowboy's Home Read Online Free

dull, his face worn, making
him look older than forty-three. The drugs and stress were close to
killing him.
    “Fuck you,” Sam said.
    Then he took the linen envelope and pocketed
it in his trademark leather jacket that he’d worn to the funeral.
Fuck Ben, fuck his ice-hearted parents, and fuck the grandmother
who’d told his sixteen-year-old self that he was a sinner who would
go to hell.
    Fuck all of them.
    “I’m sorry,” Ben said. He even held out a
hand to shake, but he still wouldn’t look at Sam, even though he
attempted a smile.
    Sam ignored Ben’s hand, and left.
    With his grandmother safely in the ground,
Sam drove away from the mausoleum of a house, and the family that
had rejected him.
    And then he was home.
    Because that was what Crooked Tree was to
him. Home.
    Up there, just past the bend, at the end of
the long drive and over the bridge was his restaurant, Branches.
Sam was master there, in charge of his own destiny, making
something for himself. He had friends there, people who actually
cared about him and had never once judged him for who he was.
    A car left the road and turned into the
drive, and he recognized the low hum of a Jeep Wrangler and knew
who it was. Nate.
    Part of Sam wished he hadn’t stopped there,
hadn’t decided to have a meltdown in a position where someone could
see him. The other half of him was damn pleased it was Nate who’d
found him.
    Nate pulled over onto the verge, killed the
engine, and clambered out of the cab. “Hey,” Nate said a little
uncertainly, hovering by the car.
    “Hey, big guy,” Sam said in his usual flirty
tone.
    Nate ambled over; his thumbs in his belt
hooks and his face a picture of unease. Nate wasn’t big on
emotional scenes, which was one of the reasons Sam was relieved it
was Nate getting first talk at “poor, bereaved Sam.”
    “May I sit?” Nate asked and inclined his head
to the wall.
    Sam nodded. “It’s your ranch.” Although he
wasn’t trying for cold, he probably sounded offhand, and regretted
the way he’d spoken when Nate winced. “Sorry. Of course,” he
amended.
    Nate smiled awkwardly and then sat. A while
back—a long while, before Jay landed in their laps—Sam would have
loved a chance to climb Nate like a tree and make love until
morning made them leave the bed. But Nate wasn’t into bratty chefs
with a line in sarcasm, a fact borne out by the way Jay and Nate
had clicked so quickly.
    Sam loved the both of them, so he wasn’t
complaining. He’d tried flirting with Jay, too, even though Jay was
Nate’s, for no other reason than he loved to see Nate all riled
up.
    Nate asked, “How did it go?”
    Well, that was a leading question, wasn’t it?
Nate didn’t know Sam’s real name, or his family background, or
anything of any importance. Because, hell, the name Walter-Bridges
didn’t mean much outside of Tacoma. All Nate knew was that Sam’s
grandmother had died and he’d gone home for the funeral.
    Sam shrugged. “It was a funeral,” he said, as
if that explained everything.
    Nate sighed. “I’m
so sorry, Sam. I didn’t get to see you before you went, but
I’m sorry for your loss.”
    “Thank you,” Sam murmured. A nice simple
answer that didn’t leave any room for questions or comments.
    Unfortunately, Nate was following the
tried-and-trusted formula when it came to talking to the recently
bereaved: Sorry for your loss, time heals all hurts,
blah-blah .
    “Were you close?” Nate asked.
    Because that was what people did, they asked
the same list of questions to frame the bereavement so they could
understand the impact of the loss on the person they were talking
to.
    Emotions boiled inside Sam. Close? They had been, as much as a family mired in society could be, until
just after his sixteenth birthday.
    They’d been all cheek kisses and politeness
on family occasions. But Sam hadn’t thought much of his
grandmother’s place in his life until the embarrassingly clichéd
photos of him with the gardener