Marcus was just passing through Texas when he met Kent. In his cowboy hat, low-riding jeans, and black boots, Kent looks like the type of guy Marcus desperately wants to love.<br><br>But two years later, he's discovered Kent is cold and distant, the quintessential American cowboy, and spends more time drunk than sober. Marcus can never predict his mood and blames himself for the flailing relationship.<br><br>Then, one day when Kent rides into town, Marcus finds a young runaway hiding in their barn. Luke is warm, loving, and quick to please ... everything Kent is not. Though the answer seems obvious, Marcus finds himself torn between the boy who demands his love and the man whose love he craves.

Cowboy

shook us up, shook meup, made me see what I’ve been too


blind to admit to myself all this time, made me see what it is I


want and God help me, it’s not Kent. It’s Luke, I want him more


than I’m willing to admit. He makes me feel like I haven’t felt in


years—desirable and young and free, virginal again, everything


about him is heady and exciting and new. How can I not want someone


I’m just mad. What the hell am I thinking? So


we get in a fight once, I’m ready to walk out? What does that say


I don’t know. And right now I don’t care to


know, I’m not going to think about it anymore. I’ve had it with


thinking, my head hurts and the more I sit here stewing, the less


I’m getting done. So I slide off the bale I’m on and look around


the barn, hands on my hips. I’ll clean this up, it’s not that bad—I


could be out in the fields picking ripened vegetables, that would


Chapter 41