The Man Who Loved Cole Flores (Dig Two Graves 1)

“We’ve got trouble,” Saul said.

Ned’s stomach tightened. He was suddenly wary of being close to Cole and took a step away from him. “What is it? We thought we’d leave the town…”

“Adam Wild survived,” Saul went on, pushing away from the fence and taking slow, deliberate steps toward them.

Cole stumbled forward, pushing his fingers through his hair. “What? We saw him lying there. Thought he was a goner!”

“Alas, he is still with us,” Saul told them, cocking his head as his gaze followed Cole’s unsteady gait. “And neither of you is ready.”

Ned frowned, struggling to comprehend what Saul meant. “Ready?”

“The plan was to return to camp by tomorrow evening. Why not celebrate?” Cole slurred.

Doc gave a low exhale and took hold of Cole’s arm, dwarfing him with superior height. “We have to get him back and move camp as fast as possible. When he’s home again, and once I tend to his wounds—that’s when we’ll celebrate.”

Life and death was on the line, yet all Ned could do was stare into Cole’s dark eyes with longing. “So… I’ll leave with Cole.”

Cole grinned and stepped toward him, but was unable to move with Doc’s hand anchoring him in place.

“Out of the question,” Doc said. “You’re both soaked. Someone needs to make sure you don’t fall out of saddles and break your precious necks. There’s a lot I can do, but reviving a dead man isn’t one of those things.”

Cole shoved at him, but it didn’t look half as efficient as it could have been. “Let go or it’ll be tit for tat the next time I see you in trouble!”

Saul shook his head. “He’s saving your ass. O’Leary, you’ll come with me. We shouldn’t travel in large groups until we’re sure no lawmen managed to track us.”

Ned rubbed his eyes. He had to admit he was barely walking straight, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be able to find his way through unknown terrain in the state he was in.

Cole reached for him with a silly grin, but Doc rolled his eyes and shoved him toward the entryway into the stable. “Quiet now. You’ll see your sweetheart tomorrow.”

It was a running joke about their blossoming friendship, but the quip had changed its meaning tonight. Sweethearts. Was this what they were now? What did that even mean?

Even prodded toward Nugget, Ned still turned and blew Cole a playful kiss for the benefit of their audience while secretly expressing his true longing.

Chapter 12

Ned stared at the tintype with growing horror.

His face had such a lusty smile in the picture that the muzzle of Cole’s six-shooter pressed against his jaw seemed like a promise rather than threat. The arm slung across his shoulders held him with tenderness, but it was the way his hands rested in the small of Cole’s back and on his knee that had shame taking root deep in Ned’s gut. The photographist had seen it all and surely knew their secret before Ned had understood it himself.

The hair on his body bristled as if there was a pack of wolves following his tracks, and despite the bright sun above intensifying each color, invisible fog hung around Ned, getting denser each time he took the photograph from his saddlebag and tortured himself by thinking about the implications of what he’d done.

He and Saul had taken a roundabout route to camp and stopped to nap for enough time that the worst of Ned’s morning-after suffering had passed, but nausea still tightened his throat whenever he remembered how he’d taken advantage of Cole’s drunkenness last night.

He couldn’t recall how much alcohol they’d ingested but the kiss and what had followed burned brightly in a sea of blurry events. They’d played dice with some Norwegians, they’d danced, there had been that incident with the girl having dirty pictures taken— How had they ended up fumbling with each other’s cocks in the shadows?

Ned had asked for kissing advice.

Because he’d secretly wanted to kiss Cole and had had no idea how much until those lips had pressed against his.

He could only hope Cole had been too drunk to remember and they’d both live on without needing to address that blunder. Though Ned didn’t know how he could scrape the memory of those illicit yet joyful moments from his mind, because every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was Cole approaching him for that initial kiss, smiling like a wolf about to bite into the neck of a lamb.

The secret, deviant part of him craved to see Cole naked again and run his hands over every inch of his skin. That first lick on the lips had been the spark to light the dynamite Ned didn’t realize he’d been carrying in his heart. It was impossible to take back an explosion of this enormity. One day he might recover from the wreckage, but for now he’d focus on keeping up his facade. If no one saw beyond it, he wouldn’t have to fight a war he’d never signed up for.