“What are you waiting on?” Riley asked.
Ahm backed away. “I forgot to take the medication Dr. Sheehan left for me. My leg is beginning to throb in pain.” Again, pride be damned. He was not about to hold the goat’s head while Riley… Ahm walked from the barn.
What was wrong with these people?
“Hey, Ahm,” Gavin called out. He was sitting atop a horse.
“Yes?” he asked as he continued to head toward the house. Getting back in bed seemed the only way to escape the madness around here.
“I have to mend some fences. Mind helping?”
Mending fences didn’t involve holding an animal’s head. Ahm would gladly fix a fence. “I can assist you with that.”
“Good,” Gavin said as he got down from his horse. “I’ll saddle up Buster and you can ride him. He’s a real gentle horse.”
Gavin wanted Ahm to ride a horse? He’d never ridden a horse a day in his five hundred years. They smelled funny.
Ahm watched as Gavin walked the animal from the barn.
“I’m not sure I should ride with stitches in my thigh.” There was no way he was getting on that large animal.
“Oh hell,” Gavin said. “I forgot about that.”
Ahm had dodged that bullet.
“We can ride in the truck instead.”
Ahm would have to remember to stay in bed tomorrow morning.
Chapter Nine
Bryce pulled into the ranch late in the afternoon. He had hired the men needed to help out on the ranch. There should be no problems getting the work done—if everyone showed up. Most of the men he didn’t know, but the owner of the feedstore seemed to be a wealth of information. The man had known everyone who was in dire need of a job—which was odd. Clay had taken over the feedstore not too long ago from the last owner, yet he knew who needed a job.
It was a sad thing that a man who hadn’t been here long knew more about the people of Brac Village than Bryce did. He didn’t really know the townspeople. Maybe with them working here, that would change. Maverick prided himself on taking care of this community and the Lakelands could do no less.
“Get everything taken care of?” Pa asked as Bryce exited his truck.
“Hired ten men. They’ll be here first thing in the morning.” Bryce knew he had to fill his pa in on everything, but he was anxious to go check on Ahm. As much as Bryce had wanted the man to suffer for his betrayal in keeping who they were to each other a secret, now that his mate was injured, he wanted to make sure the elf was comfortable.
“He’s not in the house, Bryce.”
Bryce stopped walking and slowly turned toward his pa. “Then where is he?”
Oh, he so didn’t like that slow grin forming on his pa’s face. “He’s out mending fences with Gavin.”
“He’s what?” Bryce felt his heart clench. “But he’s injured. You sent him to work with a messed-up leg?” He dropped the truck keys on the ground he was so startled at what his pa did. He didn’t think the man cruel, but to send an injured man… “Why did you do that?”
A scowl replaced the amused expression. “Is that what you think of me? Boy, I’ll slap the taste out of your mouth. For your information, Ahm came downstairs, telling everyone he was fine. He wanted to be put to work.” His pa placed his hands on his hips. “I tried to give him something easy to do, but I don’t think Ahm wanted to hold Hell Raiser’s head while we—”
Bryce held up a hand. “You were going to make him go near Hell Raiser?”
“He would have been safe,” his pa reassured Bryce. “But I think he’s a little on the squeamish side. I sent him to help Riley with Rags, but again, your mate is squeamish.”
Squeamish was not a word Bryce would have associated with Ahm. The man was strong, beautiful, and had too much damn pride. But he couldn’t imagine Ahm backing away from any challenge. “I’m going to check on him. The men will be here in the morning.”
“You already said that, son.”
Bryce grabbed his keys from the ground and climbed back into his truck. Ahm working the ranch was something he just had to see. He wondered if his mate had tied back all the silky white hair, or if it was lying in a mess across his sweat-slicked body.
He was getting hard just thinking about it.
Driving the access road to the back pastures, Bryce tried his best to get rid of his hard-on, but when he parked his truck and saw Ahm hard at work, his compacted muscles straining as he helped Gavin secure the barbed wire, all hope of having a soft cock went out the window.
Ahm was wearing a determined expression, sweat soaking the back of his shirt, his hair matted and clinging to his pale flesh. Bryce nearly jacked off in the truck at the sight.