Page 41 of The Fire Line

Too damn close.

Harris had managed harder things than not staring at a man. Time to remember that.

The radio stayed clipped to his belt for the rest of the afternoon, useless and accusatory.

The attraction itself was no longer worth arguing with. Harris had looked, and worse, he wanted to look again.

He had known Navarro was good-looking almost from the beginning. That had been harmless when Harris could treat the fact the same way he treated a good-looking man on television or somebody passing through town: noticed, irrelevant, done.

There was nothing abstract about what had happened in the equipment room.

Wanting was one thing. Doing anything about it was another.

Harris had managed that distinction for years. He could manage it now.

Knowing the gate was unlocked did not require him to open it.

He spent the rest of the afternoon on the west fence, where the work at least had the decency to stay straightforward. Wire needed tensioning. Two staples had worked loose farther down the line. The west gate still dragged in dry weather.

Problems with solutions.

Those Harris could handle.

Three pieces of evidence.

Navarro was useful when it mattered.

Navarro was decent when nobody required him to be.

And Harris wanted him.

The first two were facts about Navarro. The third was Harris’s problem and required no action whatsoever.

He pulled the wire tight and set another staple.

That was the answer. Harris would keep his hands where they belonged, his attention on the work in front of him, and whatever had shifted inside him could stay there until it figured out how to settle back down.

Navarro did not need to know.

Nobody did.

8

Enough to Feel

Jay arrived at the corral two minutes early, an alarming concession to Harris’s worldview. He had considered being late on principle, but curiosity won.

He had also redone his hair at two forty-five and elected not to examine why.

Harris was already inside the small corral behind the west barn, leading the young bay gelding through a slow circle. He had removed his overshirt and rolled the sleeves of his gray henley to his elbows. A lead rope rested loosely in one hand, and the radio from the equipment room was still clipped to his belt.

Jay noticed the radio because apparently he was noticing everything about Harris today.

The horse followed willingly enough, though his ears turned toward every sound from the barn. The moment Harris glanced toward the saddle resting over the fence, the gelding raised his head.

Jay secured the audio recorder to the top rail and checked the framing through his camera. Afternoon light fell cleanly across the corral, catching dust near the horse’s feet and outlining Harris’s forearms whenever he adjusted the rope. Potentially excellent footage. Potentially an ongoing workplace problem.

When Jay looked up from the monitor, Harris was inspecting the equipment as though hoping to discover a violation.