Like my cock, he thought, smirking.
“Are you laughin’ at me?” Cherry what’s-her-name demanded, her voice screeching a little when she said “me.”
He schooled his expression to bored and shook his head no.
“You are a total fuckin’ asshole,” she said, zipping up her jeans and swiping her T-shirt up from the floor. “You know what else? I hope they send you to Iraq. I hope you don’t make it home.”
He flinched, just barely, and she gave him a mean smile before grabbing her shoes from the floor and hurrying toward the stairs.
When the rickety stairwell door slammed behind her, Cain stood up and stretched leisurely, walking to the window to watch her stomp away from the building, through the opening in the fence they’d used to enter, and back to her car. She burned rubber pulling away, and Cain rubbed his jaw, thinking of the red marks on her breasts and thinking he should probably shower and shave before he headed to McHuid’s to say good-bye to his father . . . and to Ginger.
***
An hour later, Cain pulled his motorcycle up the gravel driveway of McHuid Farm, turning right at the first pass, and headed straight to the barn, as he had thousands of times in his life. Today was his last chance to say good-bye to his father before shipping out to Navy boot camp bright and early tomorrow morning.
Since his parents had divorced, two years ago, Cain had been living with his mother in a small apartment on Main Street, while his father, who decided to sell their family home, had moved into the tack room at McHuid’s. In a move completely sanctioned, if not encouraged, by Ranger McHuid, Klaus’s work and life were seamless now, and Cain doubted his father left the farm more than once a week, and only then when he ran out for groceries or beer.
Pulling his fully restored 2001 Yamaha R6 into the gravel lot beside the barn, Cain cut the engine, pushed down the kickstand, and unhooked his helmet. Throwing his leg over the seat, he sauntered toward the barn.
Of all the things he would miss in Apple Valley, this barn was—in a perplexing contradiction—on the very bottom and at the very top of his list. He’d worked here with his father for almost ten years, a minimum of twenty hours a week, and he was grateful for the income it had provided. His parents hadn’t ever been in a position to offer the sort of allowance that Josiah’s parents could give. Working at McHuid’s had made it possible for Cain to buy the parts to fix his motorcycle, for the gym membership that kept his body taut and toned, for the clothes on his back, and the help he gave his mother, who’d refused a cent of his father’s money during the divorce.
But this barn had also been a prison of sorts. Because Cain had never enjoyed working with horses, his job at McHuid’s had felt like aimless grunt work. A job for a check. Mucking stables. Shoveling manure. Birthing colts. It was hard, unglamorous work, and he wouldn’t miss it. Not a moment of it.
Nor would he miss the way his father and Josiah enjoyed every moment of it with the same passion that Cain hated it. The way his father ruffled Josiah’s hair or patted him on the back after a tough breech delivery. The way his father’s face lit up when Woodman walked into the barn, anxious to tell him about the new mare’s breeding lines or the stallion that Ranger was importing from England. It hurt Cain to see their natural, unforced camaraderie. Now that his parents were divorced, he didn’t hate his father as much as he used to—he could see that both of his parents were happier, healthier people apart than they’d ever been together. And Cain loved Josiah as much as always. But seeing his father and cousin together still made Cain feel like shit, and he wouldn’t miss it.
Then again, this barn was the place where Ginger had jumped into their arms year after year, her twelfth birthday notwithstanding. No matter what was going on in Cain’s life, no matter what he was doing or whom he was fucking, he had caught Ginger McHuid in his arms almost every year of her life, and he’d miss it come October. Yes, he would.
Not that he spent much time around Ginger anymore. She’d started attending public high school as a sophomore this year, and she was around the barn a lot less, he’d noticed. He’d also noticed that she had grown into, hand to God, the prettiest, sexiest girl in Apple Valley. Golden blonde waves tumbled down her back, and those deep brown eyes that had so captured his attention on her twelfth birthday now caught the notice of every other guy under the age of thirty. Her legs went on forever, toned and muscular from riding, and her smile—Lord, her smile!—stopped his heart whenever she flashed it at him, which was every time he saw her.