Thirty-three-year-old gay farmer Vladimir Wozniak IV lives for his crops and the hard work that makes them profitable every year. Five miles up the road, former rodeo bull rider and rancher Thomas Sullivan is just as committed to his corn-fed beef. Once best friends until VJ kissed Tommy during freshman year in college, they stopped speaking when Tommy rejected VJ. Ten years later, after the country doctor who helped bring them into the world dies and his will names them as co-owners of property, they decide to check out their inheritance together to see which one wants to buy out the other. As they travel down memory lane through the Doc’s correspondence and visit familiar sites on the land, can they work their way back to friendship ... and possibly beyond?

The Thaw

“Not really. Most of them saw me as a notch in their Big Years.”


“Girls aren’t very sexy when you know they just want you to poke them so they can brag to their friends and your fans. I swear I almost upchucked on a gal who walked up, stuck her hand down my jeans, and asked, ‘So when and where, cowboy?’” I looked over to where he was sitting nearly doubled up. “Yeah, you can laugh. But she was serious. Made me damn right sick, she did.”


When he stopped laughing at the silliness of the picture, it hit me how really sad it was.


“‘Course, you’ve never had these problems, what with your being gay and all,” I muttered. “You got it much easier.”


Before he answered, another starling outburst made us look to the sky, which had turned a deep smoky gray. The clouds and the bone-chilling cold had crept up on us, so without actually talking about it, we packed up our thermoses and moved on from the stream.


Chapter 10