A Hard Ride Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

sex.
    "It's hardly past noon," Emmett mumbled, uncomfortable with the amount of drinking and fornicating going on around him. It was lovely outside, dry with a fresh breeze. Folks ought to be riding, or ambling, or working.
    "Is it? I forgot to sleep last night," Jesse said with a soft, hoarse laugh. "Roscoe says you want me. Do you want me, Sheriff?"
    "Wanted to chat, you hussy." Roscoe handed Jesse a glass of water.
    Emmett cleared his throat, trying to keep his eyes level with Jesse's and not on the mess of love bites on his throat or the damp stains from God-knows-what at his crotch.
    "I've been getting a feel for the town is all, for the citizens," Emmett said.
    Jesse drank half the glass of water in slow, deep pulls, his throat working. He had fine stubble along his jaw and a blue ribbon tied around his neck and it was too much. It made Emmett feel like the fever was catching, like he was standing right next to the sun.
    "You wanna get a feel for me?" Jesse asked, slamming the glass back down on the bar top.
    Roscoe rolled his eyes and walked away, leaving Emmett supporting Jesse's lunging, boneless, warm frame as he all but wrapped his arms around him.
    Emmett didn't know where to put his hands. "I—I'm—this is—I can't—"
    "Mmnfff, we can talk," Jesse said at his ear while his hand snuck down between their bodies and cupped Emmett's balls over his trousers. "We can talk, talk, talk."
    "Carry him upstairs for me?" Evelyn asked from the balcony above. She'd probably been there the whole time, lurking like a hawk.
    "I'm working," Emmett said, voice strained.
    "Then carry him upstairs quickly, Emmett."
    Delia appeared as if she'd been hiding under a table, and led the way as Emmett manhandled Jesse up several flights of creaky stairs. By the second floor, Jesse finished singing something about sea pirates and all the things they liked to do with their swords.
    Jesse had his own room on the third floor. It was hardly more than an attic closet, but it had a big window with fine glass panes.
    As he dragged Jesse over to the trundle bed that barely looked fit to hold a grown man, Emmett realized this room wasn't for working. It was just a room. Jesse lived here.
    It was full of more junk and more oddities than Emmett had ever seen in one place. The walls were covered in pinned-up photographs and yellowing newspaper ads. Crooked shelves held amber and blue and green bottles, dried flowers, jars of ink, whittled figurines, and spools of ribbon.
    "Sometimes he just don't sleep," the girl murmured, picking at her sleeves fretfully.
    "Oh. I think he'll sleep now," Emmett said, dumping Jesse onto the thin mattress. "Probably for a week."
    "He can't! He can't be late again," Delia said, putting her small hand on Emmett's arm. When their eyes locked, she pulled her hand away as if he'd burned her and scurried away in a rustle of lace.
    Left alone, Emmett crouched beside the low bed and pushed blankets up onto Jesse, not entirely sure how to go about putting someone to bed. He'd dumped plenty of drunks into the jail, but he'd never been around a child or a woman long enough to know the finer points of tucking one in.
    Jesse seemed at ease, wriggling and pressing his face into his pillow and smacking his red lips together.
    "Are you—well, you'll be all right, then?" Emmett asked.
    "Hnngsleeping. S'loud. Shhhhh."
    Emmett reached out and pulled the thin ribbon away from Jesse's neck, fearing it might hurt him if he tossed in his sleep too much. "Goodnight, or, well, sweet dreams."
    Without considering it, he tucked the ribbon into his pocket before he picked his way out of the room and back down to the saloon.
    *~*~*
    The call of nature roused Jesse from a deep, hazy slumber. He took a long piss and sat back down on the bed to watch the sunset from his window. The clouds went pink and gold as the shimmering sun seemed to melt the earth where it touched on the horizon. He had the best view in the whole town.
    The view was about the