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The shuffle of hooves through the low streams of the Dakota River were as sluggish as Arthur felt. He scratched at the mighty Shire’s neck with the promise of a good brushing once they returned to camp. But the big brute of a horse wasn’t so agreeable as it tossed its head and yanked at the reins to dip its muzzle into the flowing water that rippled through the leafy reeds along the bank.
“Ah, me too, boy. I ain’t in no hurry to get back.” Not after the stunt he just pulled with Micah in Strawberry. Bad business that was, and for what? Some goddamn guns! They shot up half the town, killed their sheriff and deputies in the street. He shoulda left Micah in that cell to rot. They’d’ve done the world a favor by hanging him.
A heavy sigh drained his shoulders. He knew better than to entertain the idea of forsaking a member of the gang, even one as wretched and rotten as Micah. Dutch would hear no word of it.
Resting his wrist on the saddle horn, the tension that sat heavy upon Arthur’s shoulders bowed him forward as the Shire lifted its head. Its ears flicked to the soft ripples in the water of a doe and its fawn crossing the shallow sandbanks. Water cascaded down from the horse’s muzzle, dripping off its whiskers, as it lazily swallowed. It pawed at the softly flowing current and splashed its underbelly before carrying on across the river.
When the Shire meandered down the leftward trail, Arthur didn’t correct its course. He let the big beast wander the long way around toward Flatneck Station. Neither of them, it seemed, were in much hurry to get back to the hustle of camp. After freeing Sean from them bounty hunters a few days back and now this whole mess breaking Micah out of jail, Arthur was dog-tired and didn’t quite fancy being accosted about some debt in need of collecting.
So when the Shire wandered off the trail as it wound up the edge of the small cliff toward the train depot, Arthur scratched its withers and offered a word of praise. The grassy shelf stretched along the limestone rockface. With the reach of his hand, he brushed aside a needled branch of one of the towering conifer trees that shielded the strip of land from the trail. The cast of their shadows cut sharply through the sunshine that poured down upon the smattering crags of stone. Their crunch beneath the horse’s hooves softened as the Shire ambled farther along the shelf until it opened up to a small clearing of lush clovers, milkweed, and blooming clusters of boneset.
Arthur sucked in a shallow gasp through his nose when he spotted the mound of overflowing shrubbery tucked in a pocket of sunshine where the limestone met the gradual upwards slope of the grassy knoll. Its thicket of stems branched out like a tree, intertwined and dense with rounded leaves. Among all that teeming greenery, clusters of soft purple flowers—the blossoms delicate and small, their intricate petals lost to Arthur until he ventured closer—bloomed upon the branches.
With a soft click of his tongue and the gentle press of his heel, Arthur directed the Shire toward the pretty bush. Or was it a small tree? Arthur didn’t rightly know; he’d never seen such blossoms before.
A soft breeze whispered through the branches. The purple clusters fluttered as its trilling fingers brushed through the petals; and when the gentle wind kissed Arthur’s cheek, a waft of sweet fragrance flared his nostrils with a deep, expanding breath. His eyes closed as that distinct scent—floral and sharp but not overpoweringly so, almost soft and subtle in the cut of its edges—filled his chest. It expanded his lungs until he felt the air pressed right up against his ribs, so full his shoulders clicked with the stretch—their ache and tensions seeming to melt down his spine.
The Shire bobbed its head high. Its steps jolted to a halt as its nostrils flared wide with the scent. Arthur’s eyelids blinked open slowly, and through the hazy ray of sunlight, he chuckled at the curious tilt of the draft’s head. Its ears perked with the outstretch of its neck. With each probing step closer to the big bush, the horse huffed a snort and tossed its head. Its drooping lip wobbled with the low trill of a nicker, and once it was close enough to reach the branches, it nosed through the foliage with exhaled puffs that fluttered the leaves. When their rounded edges quivered back against its muzzle with feather-light tickles, the Shire jerked its had higher with a stamp of its hoof, a full-bodied quiver trembling through its neck and shaking Arthur in the saddle.
With a rumbled chuckle, Arthur patted the Shire’s neck. “What do ya say, boy? Fancy a rest here?” The horse’s ears flicked back at his voice, and when it nosed at the buds on the branch again, Arthur took that as its agreement. In the lean of his weight, he swung his leg over the Shire’s rump to dismount. He stroked the big beast’s neck with another few pats before loosening both the front and flank cinches to pull the tack from the horse’s back. He set the saddle and its blanket in the dappled shade beneath the pretty purple flowers before stepping back to the Shire to ease its headstall off. The horse parted its lips and dropped the bit into Arthur’s palm.
“Don’t you wander off on me now,” Arthur warned with a stern waggle of his finger. But when the Shire huffed out a hot gust of air across his knuckles, the line of Arthur’s lips cracked, and he scratched the horse’s cheek with a soft, lopsided smile.
As he trailed back to his saddle to hook the headstall and reins upon its horn, he figured it wouldn’t matter much if the gelding wandered off on him. He weren’t far from camp. Hell, if he hollered loud enough, the wind might just carry it on over to Horseshoe Overlook.
With a soft grunt, Arthur eased himself to the grass. Its lush tendrils tickled his exposed forearms, his sleeves folded up to the elbows; and with his recline—his fingers grasping the crown of his hat to lift it off his head and set it upon his chest—his bones creaked along his spine, each crack a relief that had him groaning and sinking his shoulders against the saddle.
Dappled light fell upon his face when Arthur blinked up at the tangle of branches and leaves. The clusters of tiny, delicate flowers hung above him, and he inhaled a deep, chest-expanding breath through his nose. With it, the subtly sweet, almost citrus-y sharp scent embraced him. It relaxed his muscles and eased his mind until, with the flutter of his lashes, Arthur drifted off to sleep.
A vague, ticklish sensation had Arthur scrunching his nose. His eyelids quivered as he inhaled a sharp breath; and when his lashes blinked open, he caught a bleary glimpse of strikingly orange wings flutter before his eyes. He lifted a hand to rub the haze from his vision, and with his movement, the butterfly flitted off. His gaze tracked the little critter as it flew in a lazy, weaving pattern to land on one of the milkweed clusters.
He reached for the satchel at his hip and dug out his journal. As he pushed himself upright and scooted back to rest against the saddle, his hat tumbled gracelessly to the grass beside him. It lay askew on its brim, and Arthur only noticed its absence when the clustered flowers and rounded leaves brushed the crown of his head.
Drawing his knees up, Arthur opened his journal—its page marked by a stubbed pencil—and rested it upon his thighs. He nabbed the pencil and sketched the butterfly to paper in quick strokes. Each scratched line of the graphite breathed life into its wings until a low buzzing sound drew the flicker of Arthur’s gaze.
A pair of fat, fuzzy bumblebees danced around each other to Arthur’s right. They buzzed in lazy circles that dipped low to where the Shire horse lay on its side. Its ear flicked when the fat little bees drifted too close. The Shire’s flank rose with a breath that it huffed out, long and slow, but it didn’t bother to lift its head once the bees skirted higher to the purple clusters in the branches. They landed among the petals, and Arthur turned to a new page in the journal to scritch quick lines that formed the bees and the bush. All too soon, though, the bees flitted higher up the branches until Arthur lost them in the foliage.
He turned his gaze then to the Shire gelding. With each stroke of the pencil, he fleshed out the thick tangle of the bush’s stems plunging into the earth and the bumpy slopes of its roots beneath the grass. Flattened by the Shire’s mass, Arthur drew the blades pressed up against the horse’s coat. With the pad of his thumb, he smudged the graphite to imitate how the evening sun shined brilliantly upon its raven black fur, streaked across its hip where the bush’s shadow couldn’t reach.
Arthur added the flowing strokes of the horse’s mane—thick and cascading, wild in the streaks—when the Shire lifted its head. It tipped its face back toward Arthur before rolling upright and tucking its leg beneath itself. It huffed a heavy breath before extending its front legs and pushing its weight up. It shook out the grass and dirt from its fur before bobbing its head higher. Its mane snagged in the branches, but it didn’t seem to notice as it turned its front end to step out of the shade.
The twig snapped, and when the Shire ambled toward a patch of clover to graze, it took with it a clustered bloom of petals tangled in its mane.
Arthur found himself smiling after the horse. Soft and adoring in the quirk of his lips, Arthur figured maybe it was time to give the big brute a name. He hadn’t decided whether he’d keep the Shire or not. No other horse in the Valentine stables caught his eye, so it was easier to keep riding this ole brute instead. But the big bastard wasn’t near as ornery as Hosea warned. Oh, the Shire had its opinions and had no qualms making them known. But Arthur found the horse to be a reliable companion. Sturdy and headstrong, brave in the midst of an entire town in an uproar.
He’d put some thought into a name, because right now, as Arthur stared after the horse with a fondness that warmed his chest, he decided to keep the Shire.
Satisfied with the sketch spread across both pages of the journal, Arthur tucked the pencil in its crease, closed it, and tied the leather strips to secure it. He twisted at the waist to tuck it back in his satchel. Then, after a final deep lungful of the purple clusters’ crisp sweetness, Arthur planted a palm to the grass and pushed himself to stand. With the elongated stretch of his arms above his head, his shoulders popped. He eased a bit of the stiffness from his joints as he glanced down to find his hat. He stooped to grab it and settled it back upon his head.
“You ready to head on back?” he called to the Shire. Its tail flicked with an idle swish as it continued munching on the lush clover. “Me neither,” Arthur chuckled. He bent to heft the saddle and its blanket into his arms and straightened with a grunted breath. “Can’t put it off much longer.”
The Shire grazed, unbothered, as Arthur tacked it up. Only when he slipped the bit into its mouth did the Shire paw at the earth and knock its big head against Arthur’s shoulder. He promised the beast he’d swipe an apple from Pearson’s chuckwagon once they got back as he combed its thick raven forelock over the browband. He stroked his hand along the horse’s neck as he stepped to its flank, knuckles curtained by its coarse mane. He huffed an amused breath at the cluster of flowers and twigs tangled in the strands. For now, he left it alone and mounted the horse.
It was a short ride to Horseshoe Overlook. They moseyed on up to Flatneck Station and followed the railroad tracks until a narrow deer trail veered off into the pine trees and shrubbery. Arthur directed the Shire down the path.
Among the snap of twigs and crunch of pebbles beneath the horse’s hooves, Arthur caught the distinct pump of a shotgun. “Who goes there?”
Arthur swung his gaze across the young saplings and thin conifer trunks until he spotted Charles. Rigid in stance and mean in his stare, Charles aimed the gun at the would-be intruder before, with a blink that softened his features, Charles lowered the shotgun. “Arthur,” he greeted with a soft exhale, shoulders relaxing with the ease of his smile. “Good to see you back.”
Arthur grunted his own greeting as he eased the reins back and sat heavier in the seat of the saddle. The Shire lumbered to a slow stop as Charles wandered through the brush to meet them. “Good to be back,” Arthur said, because despite his little detoured nap, it was the truth.
“How’d ya get on?” Charles asked with a curious stare that narrowed in its peer past Arthur as if he might have missed Micah trailing on in behind him. But when he didn’t spot Micah or hear his crass vulgarity spewed into the wind, Charles tipped his chin to Arthur.
For such a big man, Charles sure looked small from the view of the Shire’s back.
“Badly,” Arthur said. He exhaled so heavily his shoulders sagged forward. He bowed with the weight upon them and rested his elbow on the saddle horn. “Shot up the whole town. Shoulda left him there to hang.” With the shake of his head, Arthur caught the frown that cut deep into Charles’ cheeks, and a queasy shame tightened his gut into coils and knots. His stare averted to the Shire’s ears, one angled back to them while the other perked forward toward camp.
“Sorry to hear that.” Charles let the shotgun swing down until its barrel pointed to the ground. He stepped closer to the Shire’s neck and stroked a palm along the thick musculature. “Where is Micah anyway?”
“Back round Strawberry somewhere. The fool, hanging round when he should be high-tailin’ it out of there.” A sharp inhale through his nose settled some of the smoldering embers that threatened to reignite his anger, and with the slow exhale of his words, he shook his head. “’s no matter. Maybe we’ll luck out, and he’ll get himself caught again. Won’t have nobody round to save his ass this time.”
A shallow puff of air marked Charles’ amusement. And when Arthur’s gaze drifted a slow path past the man’s knuckles—still idly petting the Shire—to Charles’ face, he was greeted with the small quirk of a smile and a mischievous spark to those dark brown eyes. “Would save us all a whole heap of trouble,” he agreed.
With a hum that echoed in his throat, Arthur scratched at the Shire’s withers. He really should head on into camp. Brush down his horse, detangle the branch from its mane. He owed the big beast an apple after all, but the Shire seemed content to stand for Charles. It twisted its head back and nosed at Charles’ shoulder until the man opened his stance to the horse. With a palm stroking its cheek, Charles softly laughed when the Shire dipped its head and nipped at his coat’s pocket. Biting the flap, it jerked Charles forward until Charles shooed its big head away long enough to dig out a peppermint and offer it in his palm.
Arthur watched the little exchange with a raised eyebrow. Then, as the Shire noisily munched on the candy, he leaned forward upon the rest of his forearm and smirked down at Charles, lopsided and coy. “You been sneakin’ him candies when I ain’t lookin’?”
Charles stroked the Shire’s neck. The fondness in his stare glinted with mirth as he said, “Only paying ya back for all them sugar cubes you slip Taima.” Those dark brown eyes of his flicked to Arthur, and beneath their stare—beautiful, gleaming in the evening light dappled through the trees—Arthur balked, his throat gone dry and his neck flushed with heat.
“Why I… I never.” His words tangled on his tongue, and the adamant denial—despite both of them knowing the opposite to be true—had Charles tipping his head forward, the free-flowing locks of his hair slipping past his ear and framing his cheek, with a quiet chuckle. His shoulders shook with rippled tremors, and when he lifted his gaze back to Arthur, it was with cheeks rounded with his smile, his mouth creased with soft lines that framed the jagged edge of the scar marking his jaw.
Charles stroked his knuckles upon the Shire’s neck as he breathed in the crisp forest air. It filled his chest as the last quakes of laughter calmed in his belly. But with a slow blink of his lashes, he caught a whiff of something sweetly floral. He leaned forward and inhaled a careful sniff of the horse’s coat. Beneath the warm scent of sunshine and grass, between the notes of its natural musk, a delicate fragrance clung to its fur. Charles couldn’t quite place it, and with another thoughtful inhale, he turned his face to follow the refreshing notes of citrus-y sweetness and stepped closer to the horse’s withers.
The veil of his eyes focused his whole chest on that scent. Refreshingly sweet, yet sharp in his lungs. Charles held it in his throat, could almost taste the hint of floral honey on his tongue. As his knuckles trailed further down the Shire’s neck, he blinked open his eyes on an exhale. The roughness of his hand—callused by labor and hurt, hardened by the sins he bore—brushed the denim of Arthur’s trousers at the knee, the barest of feather-light touches. His gaze drifted higher past the prominent tendons of Arthur’s wrist to the wrinkled bewilderment widening his eyes. Not quite struck dumb like a startled doe, but something close, Charles figured as he watched the slow swallow of Arthur’s throat. Those blue eyes of his—framed by the roughness of his stare but so very vivid, swimming like glittering scales of fish beneath a lake’s surface—flitted to Charles, and Arthur didn’t shy away.
“You smell nice,” Charles said. Then, with another lungful of the sweet air that surrounded Arthur, he pondered the notes of the scent with a thoughtful quirk of an eyebrow. His thoughts couldn’t settle upon an answer, though, when his attention piqued back to Arthur as the man—face flushing, bashful and pretty in the dusting of pink upon his cheeks—ducked his chin to get a whiff of himself.
“Nah, it— It ain’t me.” Arthur shifted to reach further up the Shire’s crest where its mane lay upon the other side of its neck. He jolted slightly when his knee knocked Charles’ knuckles; his gaze darted to Charles as if he was a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Charles didn’t flinch. He remained steadfast in his curiosity as Arthur plucked a little cluster of violet flowers from the branch tangled in the Shire’s mane. He cupped it delicately in his palm, near reverent in the care he showed the fragile petals, as he held it out for Charles.
Mirroring Arthur’s careful touch, Charles pinched its stem and lifted it closer to examine. He turned it over in the dappled light and marveled at the shifting purple shades before bringing it to his nose. With a thoughtful inhale, he noted the same citrus-y scent, sharper at its source but nonetheless sweet.
“Dunno what it is,” Arthur said. The shift of his weight squeaked the leather of the saddle, and he rubbed at his nape when Charles’ gaze drifted back to him. The man’s nostrils flared slightly with another inhale, but his stare never left Arthur. “Was gonna…” Arthur swallowed, felt the lump lodged in his throat drop to the pit of his stomach. “Gonna ask Hosea if he knows what it is.”
A deep hum rumbled in Charles’ throat. He considered the scent for a moment longer—it lacked the musky charm of the initial whiff he caught off Arthur—before dipping his chin to inspect the flowers. Delicate petals, soft violet in color, near star-like in their formation, clustered together in tight bunches. “Looks a bit like a soapbush, but we’re too far east for that.” When he looked back up at Arthur and caught the bashful flicker of his gaze, Charles reached up with the twig of flowers and motioned for Arthur to lean closer. “If anyone knows, it’ll be Hosea,” he agreed as Arthur bent forward over the Shire’s withers.
Charles leaned forward onto the tips of his boots and reached to tuck the bunch of flowers in the rope banded on Arthur’s hat. When he rocked back to his heels, he tipped his head up with a softly arching smile—warm yet quietly cheeky in its lopsided turn. “It suits you,” he said.
“I—” Arthur fumbled for words as his gaze darted higher to the brim of his hat before seeming to remember he couldn’t see the flowers. He ducked his head, but Charles still caught the rosy flush that crept through the whiskered beard down his throat. Ears colored a bright red—near sunburnt despite the pleasantly cool temperatures of the Heartlands—Arthur muttered, “If you say so.”
With the quick raise of his hand, Arthur tipped his hat to Charles. “I oughta get on in to camp,” he offered up in a poor attempt to flee, and with but a muted chuckle, Charles stepped back to let him nudge the Shire onward.
With a snorted breath, the gelding ambled along the trail. It flicked its tail; the swish of its hair smacked Arthur’s calf, and he jolted at the touch. He sucked in a sharp gasp as his spine went ramrod straight. His pulse thundered like a stampede of cattle, echoing in his skull with dull thumps he felt at his temple. With the subtle turn of his head, he peeked over his shoulder, but Charles already wandered back into the trees with his shotgun resting in the crook of his elbow.
Arthur’s shoulders deflated with his exhale. Head hanging, he bowed forward and steadied his runaway heart before it could derail off the tracks.
He didn’t quite understand it. Charles, that was. Or, the way he reacted to the other man. It was almost like… nah, he weren’t sweet on Charles Smith. He hadn’t thought of anyone in such a way since, well, Eliza. And he much rather not think of her and their boy. Mary, then. But she, too, didn’t quite compare to the ease in which he fell in with Charles.
As his horse stepped out of the trees, Arthur pushed those thoughts aside with a small jolt of his shoulders. The greeting of his name had him turning to the scout’s campfire and lifting a hand to wave at Javier. The man returned the gesture, but his hand froze in midair. Javier stared at Arthur with a smirk that grew tenfold when he tapped a finger to his own bowler hat.
“Love what ya did there, Arthur!” Javier called with a snicker. “Ya match your horse.”
Arthur didn’t slow the Shire as it meandered through a few of their wagon horses, but he barked a bit smugly over his shoulder, “Was told it suited me!”
With Javier’s laughter an echo behind them, the Shire walked right up to the hitching post and swung its rump near perfectly perpendicular to it. The big brute wasted no time in tossing its head and turning back to nip at Arthur’s boot. With a snorted chuckle, Arthur patted its withers and dismounted with a lighthearted, “Alright, boy, I hear ya loud and clear.”
The gelding settling as soon as Arthur loosened its cinch. It exhaled a mighty breath as it dropped its head and stood quietly for Arthur to pull the saddle and its blanket from the Shire’s back. He balanced the tack on the rail of the posts and dug a brush from his satchel. In wide, fluid strokes, he brushed down the horse’s coat, rounded behind it with a hand upon its rump, and gave the other side the same care.
He replaced the stiff-bristled brush with a fine-toothed comb. With deft fingers, he worked at the knots which snared the branch and flowers in the Shire’s thick mane. “Sorry, boy,” he muttered when the comb caught on a snarl. He offered the beast a sugar cube in apology, and slowly but surely, he freed the branch.
“There we go.” Arthur patted the Shire’s shoulder as he held the stem out to show the horse. It turned its head and sniffed at the flowers; its nostrils flared with a shake of its head. Arthur then eased the bridle past its ears and down its face, and the Shire dropped the bit before turning tail to wander back to the other horses.
Arthur watched the gang’s horses graze for a moment longer before he turned to cast a cursory glance about camp. When he didn’t spot Hosea, he walked over to the table where Tilly and Mary-Beth were deep into a game of dominoes, a bit surprised Hosea wasn’t seated with them. “Evenin’ ladies,” Arthur greeted as he leaned a palm upon the table.
“Hi, Arthur,” both women said in unison. They blinked at each other before giggling behind their tiles. Tilly played a domino, and with the trill of laughter on her breath, she turned to Arthur. “Care to join us?”
“Maybe later. I’m lookin’ for Hosea. You gals see him round here?”
“He and Dutch were arguing,” Tilly said. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward Pearson’s chuckwagon. “I saw him go off that way.”
Arthur lifted his chin to glance at Dutch’s tent. The flaps remained tied back, but he couldn’t quite see if the man was inside. Figured he must be, what with The Count grazing off by the main trail out of camp. “Thanks,” Arthur said as he straightened and stepped away from the table.
He made it all of two steps before Mary-Beth called him back. “Oh, Arthur,” she gasped with delight, her cheeks rosy and her green eyes sparkling. Her palms fell flat to the table, and she stood to lean across its space. Her lashes fluttered as she caught another sniff of the air. “Is that you that smells so lovely?”
“So I’ve been told.” Arthur turned on his heel and lifted the branch and its flowers to show Mary-Beth. “Took a nap by these little flowers, and they musta rubbed off on me.”
“Oh, they’re so pretty!” Mary-Beth gushed as she skirted the edge of the table to get a closer look. She cupped one of its pale violet clusters and bowed her head low to inhale a lungful of the refreshing scent. Subtle sweetness had her eyes veiling with bliss, and when they fluttered opened, that big, doe gaze of hers sparkled up at Arthur. Yet, despite the proximity, Arthur noted a distinct lack of reaction compared to when Charles stood beside his horse and gazed at the clustered flowers with a soft wonderment.
“They’re lovely!” Mary-Beth said. “I’ve never seen them before though.”
Arthur blinked down at her as his thoughts of Charles hung above him like rolling clouds decorating a pale spring sky. “Me neither.” He lifted the branch to regard the delicate flowers. “Was hoping Hosea would know what it is.”
“Oh, if he does, would you let me know? I’d love to make some perfume with it."
“Me too,” Tilly piped up. She leaned on her elbow toward Arthur, and after a quick scan of those mingling around them, she said, “Miss Grimshaw’s rose water’s starting to smell like an old lady.”
A snorted breath breezed through Arthur’s nostrils. “Sure.” With a wave of the stem, he left the gals to their game and wandered through camp in search of Hosea.
He spotted him past Strauss’ table on the outskirt of camp. Resting against a big rock, Hosea sat with his legs outstretched and his head bowed to stare at his hands in his lap. When Arthur approached, Hosea craned his neck, and the flat line of his lips lifted with deep creases.
“Arthur,” Hosea breathed his name like a sigh of relief. He shifted over on the rock and patted the space beside him. “How’d you get on?”
As Arthur sat next to him, he exhaled a heavy, rumbling breath. It reminded Hosea of a grumbling grizzly bear. “Micah’s not dead,” Arthur groused.
“Unfortunate.”
They shared quiet chuckles between them, and with the last breath of amusement, Hosea caught a subtle scent. It expanded his lungs, seemed to lift his very chest. His shoulders rose as his eyes veiled in a slow blink. And suddenly, he wasn’t in Horseshoe Overlook. The trilling chirps of birds in the trees was replaced by the clop of hooves upon brick streets. The clanking creaks of wagons rolling past and the drone of chatter as hundreds of people went about their business in the city. His fingers twitched, and he could almost feel the warmth of Bessie’s hand in his palm as they strolled down the city streets.
Hosea tipped his head down when he opened his eyes. The shadow of his hat cut across his nose and cheek as he stared longingly at the wrinkled lines of his palm, clenching his fingers as if he could physically hold onto the memory. He pressed that balled hand to his core and slipped it beneath the woolen weight of his jacket. When he tipped his head to Arthur, his brown eyes shown like the sun upon an oak tree. His mouth creased with lines of wonder and awe as he caught sight of the pretty purple cluster clutched in Arthur’s grasp. The branch rested upon his thigh, and when Hosea’s gaze drifted higher, his cheeks softened with the warmth of endearment when he spotted the flowers tucked in the rope banded on his gambler hat.
Hosea lifted his hand and reached to brush a finger along the delicate petals on Arthur’s hat. “Why, where’d you find a lilac bush all the way out here?” Hosea asked.
Meekly, Arthur bowed his head to give Hosea easier access to the flowers—lilacs—decorating the brim of his hat. “Stumbled upon it not far from Flatneck Station,” Arthur said. He lifted his head when Hosea drew his hand back, but the old man continued to stare at the flowers with a meaning Arthur couldn’t quite place. His eyes drifted to the stem in his lap, and he lifted it to turn it over in the sunlight. Pale violet, framed in soft pinks at the edges with a dot of gold at each center. Thickly clustered with a few buds yet to bloom at the very tip. He held the little branch out for Hosea, and a bit hesitantly—with the utmost care, as if touching a porcelain vase—Hosea gingerly accepted the clusters. “Lilacs,” Arthur mused. “I never seen them before.”
“Can’t imagine you have.” Hosea’s soft breath caressed the words with the love and adoration that swelled from his memories. “They aren’t native to the Americas.”
“How do you know them then?”
Hosea inhaled a slow breath through his nose. His chest expanded as he gazed at the lilac clusters. Then, he lifted his face to the sky—wisps of clouds streaked across a beautiful pale blue—and exhaled a wistful sigh. “You remember back when it was just you, me, and Dutch? When I split off for some time to be with Bessie?”
After a pondering hum, Arthur answered, “A bit. Was a long time ago.”
“It was,” Hosea agreed. A sadness quieted his voice, but when he tipped his gaze to Arthur, he smiled. “We spent some time in Chicago. They had some beautiful gardens. Bessie loved strolling through the rich mansion streets and plucking every flower than hung past their wrought iron gates.” Hosea’s shoulders shook with the quaver of soft, croaking laughter. “Many a scorned gardeners chased her off, but there was this one old woman, lonely but kind she was, who invited us into her garden for tea every time we passed. Can’t remember her name for the life of me.”
Hosea lifted the lilac clusters to his nose and inhaled a shallow breath. The delicate floral sweetness washed over him, and with a slow blink of his eyes, he stared longingly at the flowers. “But I remember Bessie falling in love with that woman’s lilacs.” He could see her standing beside the branches with a peaceful look of reverence rosy on her skin, oblivious to his adoring gaze watching her pluck clusters for the old woman. He held the wicker basket so Bessie could stretch up onto her tiptoes to reach the higher blooms, and once they harvested enough, the old woman would call them over to her patio set, and they’d meticulously pluck the little flowers. “They make a lovely tea,” Hosea said.
Hosea turned to Arthur then. He placed a palm upon Arthur’s knee, and he looked at the younger man with a quiet hopefulness. “Say, would you mind picking me some more?”
With a short jerk of his chin, Arthur easily agreed. “Sure.”
The rough calluses of Arthur’s hands caught on the delicate little lilac flowers. His fingers pinched clumsily, plucking a tiny bloom from the cluster and dropping it to the growing pile upon the handkerchief laid out between him and Hosea on the table.
“Watch the greens, Arthur.” Hosea reached across the corner of the table to nab one of the flowers among the hundreds in the low mound. With a precision that Arthur’s thick fingers lacked—or, it felt like they lacked when working with such small, delicate flowers compared to how meticulous and sure Hosea’s bony fingers seemed—Hosea held the flower between the pinch of forefinger and thumb and grasped the tiny spur at its end with the nails of his other hand. A careful tug pulled the sliver of stem out to leave only the violet petals. “Makes them bitter.”
“Oh.” Arthur lowered the cluster he had been working on and frowned down at his little mound of flowers. “Think I’ve missed a lot of those.”
A sighed breath—belied by the upward twitch of Hosea’s lips—accompanied the shake of his head. “Best get to picking them out then,” he lightly chided. “You ain’t leaving till it’s all done.”
“All of ‘em?” Arthur’s voice pitched higher as he glanced at the clustered bunches piled between them. He hadn’t considered just how tedious a task plucking the flowers would be when he brought back so many for Hosea.
“All of them,” Hosea said with a firm nod.
Despite Arthur’s long-suffering sigh and the rounded hunch of defeat to his shoulders, he wasn’t all that upset to be roped into the task. Hard to be when he hadn’t seen Hosea so lively since Blackwater. The pallor of his face wasn’t quite glowing, but neither was it the ashen gray of the snowy mountains. There was still a rasp to his breaths, but they didn’t rattle through his chest like clinking bottles in a crate.
It was rather peaceful. With the warmth of the sun upon his back and the chitter of squirrels in the trees, the soft crunch of grass beneath the meandering hooves of the grazing horses and the thunk of a knife hitting the butcher block where Pearson prepared the evening’s stew, Arthur found himself settling his elbows on the tabletop and sitting heavier in the folding chair. A soft tune rumbled in his chest and vibrated in his throat as he plucked another twig clean of the lilacs.
The peace lasted until he heard the shuffling ruffle of skirts accompany heavy steps drawing near. He felt the whoosh of air cool upon his neck as Mary-Beth breezed behind him and slid into the space on his left between him and Hosea while Tilly flanked his right. “You picked so much!” Mary-Beth exclaimed with a rosy delight. She reached for a lilac cluster but retracted her hand with a gasp when Hosea smacked it away.
“These ain’t for you.”
“There’s so many, though,” Tilly protested. “You ain’t gonna share? We only want a little.”
“A little,” Hosea tutted with the shake of his head. “You girls’ll have this used up quicker than Bill and his pomade.”
Mary-Beth’s lip jutted in a fierce pout. She leaned a palm on the table and whipped her pleading eyes to Arthur. “But you promised us, Arthur.”
Arthur sucked in a deep inhale through his nose and pointedly stared at his hands as he continued plucking away at the lilacs. But with both ladies staring holes into his face like emaciated pups begging for a scrap of jerky to soothe the aches of their bellies, he relented with a heavy, rumbled sigh. “That I did.”
“Oh, please, Arthur. We’ll help too.”
Arthur’s brow creased with the furrow of his nose. His frown pulled at his cheeks at the idea of anyone invading that little spot of tranquility he found tucked away by the trees and backed by the exposed limestone of the bluff. “No. No, I’ll take care of it.”
“Come on, Arthur.” His eyes flicked to Tilly on his right. “If ya tell us where it is, we’ll go get it ourself.”
“No,” he said again, firm and obstinate as he pinched a flower between his fingers.
“But—”
Hosea cut off their protests. “If you ladies ain’t helping, then git.” With a little clustered bloom in hand, he shooed them away with a few quick waves of his wrist.
“Can we have some if we help?” Mary-Beth, ever the hopeful, asked.
“No.”
With a huff, both ladies turned heel and marched off. Arthur regarded Hosea with a grateful nod, and then they returned to the peace of their task. But a short while later, he heard a little scuffle near the main trail into camp, and when his gaze flicked to the opening in the trees, he spotted Mary-Beth, Tilly, and Charles huddled together near the hitching posts. Caught on his way back from guard duty, Charles looked a bit stunned to be pulled aside by the girls, but he settled as they whispered to him, chattering away with flickering glances about camp. Mary-Beth startled with a jolt of her shoulders when she briefly met Arthur’s stare, and she guiltily snapped her attention back to Tilly and Charles.
Arthur’s brow narrowed with a deep furrow. They were up to something, and Arthur wasn’t sure he liked the looks of it.
But then Charles, with a curious charm softening his features, tipped his gaze to him, and Arthur squished a flower beneath the jolt of his fingertips. Like a static shock, Arthur sucked in a silent gasp through his nostrils, and he ducked his head to the lilac clusters on the table. His heart shuddered in his chest; it hammered like a thumping rabbit’s foot against his ribs. His shoulders rose with a breath that did little to steady his pulse, but it bolstered his glance at the trio.
Tilly and Mary-Beth conspired with Charles, but Arthur couldn’t see past the half smile that lifted the corner of Charles’ lips. It arched his scarred eyebrow with a considering delight. There was mischief in the dark slide of his stare, and Arthur felt his breath still when Charles looked his way.
They met each other’s stare in a moment that suspended time. It held Arthur in place, forced him to swallow and hear each distinct thump of his pulse where it echoed in the cage of his ribs.
“Idle hands, Arthur.”
Hosea’s voice, softly chiding but tinged with the rasp of his chuckle, snapped Arthur’s attention back to the table. The startled jerk of his hands dropped the twig he held. Arthur quickly snatched it back up, and with shaky jerks of his fingers, he returned to the task of harvesting the lilac flowers with renewed vigor.
Leather smooth beneath the gentle caress of his thumb, Arthur held his hat in hand. Drooping and wilted, the browning petals fell away at the slightest of touch when Arthur pulled the lilac cluster—barely a twig at this point—from the rope tied round the crown. He regarded the bare stem with a little lurch of his heart. It hiccuped in his chest, and he sucked in a sharp breath as he stared up at the lush lilacs before him looking for just the right cluster to replace it.
It felt wrong to toss the twig aside. Part of him wanted to tuck it in his satchel, to hold onto it until it shriveled and cracked to but dust at the bottom. That thought led to another, one he found more fitting as he hung his hat on one of the lilac branches. He reached into his satchel for his journal and leafed through his ramblings and sketches until he paged to the drawing of the Shire gelding napping beneath the lilac clusters with the bumble bees. He nestled what remained of the twig and its wilting petals between the pages, and with a warmth slowly encroaching his chest, he closed his journal and tucked it away.
Arthur glanced back at the Shire gelding where it grazed with its backside to him. With a squish of its tail, it shooed a pesky fly away. He clucked softly to the beast, and the Shire lazily lifted its head. It didn’t turn its face to Arthur, but its ears flicked back in his direction.
With a softly enamored shake of his head, Arthur looked back to the clustered lilacs. The name didn’t fit the beast. Not in the slightest. Big and burly. Sturdy in each mighty clop of a hoof. Nothing delicate about the Shire, yet Arthur grew fond of the light amusement that tickled his ribs when he thought to name the horse after the pretty purple flowers.
Arthur reached up for a tight bunch of lilacs. He snapped it off with some extra stem length before taking up his hat again. He weaved the stem between the rope band and the brim and then bowed his head to settle the hat on his crown.
With his main task complete, he started harvesting more clusters for Mary-Beth and Tilly. He made the gals wait long enough, he supposed. So he laid out the folded linen from his satchel and dropped lilac bunches to it.
A soft tune hummed in his throat as he worked. The notes rasped in his chest, broken only when he heard the shuffle of hooves passing by. Except, they didn’t pass below out of sight. They drew near with each nick of a stone until he heard the rustle of the conifer branches scratch the leather of a saddle. Arthur’s hand dropped to his gunbelt. His knuckles rested upon the butt of his revolver as he turned to see what stranger wandered in.
But when he saw the familiar spotted snowcap mare pick its way through the rocky patch to reach the clovers and wildflowers, he breathed a sigh of relief. He raised his hand to Charles and stepped to greet the man. Taima nickered at him as the mare stopped before him and butted its nose against his palm. He stroked its velvety soft muzzle as his gaze lifted to Charles in the saddle.
“All good back at camp?” Arthur asked.
Charles blinked down at him before exhaling a low chuckle. “All’s good.” He leaned forward in the saddle and, with rounded shoulders, rested the cross of his forearms upon the saddle horn. “Dutch didn’t send me.”
There was a touch of amusement to the quirk of Charles’ lips. Its gentle curve mirrored in the arch of his scarred eyebrow. A thinly veiled mischief glinted in the deep brown of his eyes as he peered down at Arthur.
The stroke of Arthur’s hand paused on Taima’s face. He knew that look, knew how it left him hot and flushed at the collar. But putting that aside with a thick swallow, he was reminded of a couple days ago. Of Charles and Tilly and Mary-Beth and how the three of them connived together near the hitching posts at camp.
The sharp squint of his eyes furrowed his brow. “I don’t suppose the girls are far behind,” he said lowly, the rasp of his voice meaner than intended with the pit that sunk in his gut. But with one muted chuckle from Charles, it lurched in Arthur’s belly like a stone skipping across the shining surface of a lake.
Charles shook his head. “Miss Grimshaw’s got them mending socks.”
“So,” slowly, Arthur turned his face back to Taima and stroked the mare’s cheek just beneath its eye, its long lashes feathering his knuckle with a blink, “you gonna go on back ‘n tell ‘em you found my lilacs?”
A deep breath hummed roughly in Charles’ chest as he sat up in the saddle. The leather squeaked with the shift of his weight, and Arthur’s gaze drifted back to him as Charles swung his leg over Taima’s rump to dismount. Arthur tracked his unhurried movements over Taima’s neck; his shoulders eased a bit when Charles, too, doted on the mare with a stroke of his hand. He gazed at the Appaloosa with kind eyes as he stopped opposite Arthur.
Softened by his quiet adoration of the mare, Charles’ cheeks were round and lifted when he looked to Arthur. A blink of his eyes changed nothing in the crinkled creases at their corners, didn’t dim the brightness of their shine. “No,” he said. Simple and sure. Firm in it as he left Taima with a final long stroke down the face to wander over to the lilac bush.
So expanding in its width and lush in its growth, Arthur’s harvesting did little to diminish the magnitude of the pretty purple clusters that caught the sunlight so brilliantly. Standing before its branches—admiring it in the upturn of his face and the hook of his hands in the gunbelt cinched around his tunic—Charles relished in the lovely scent that enveloped him, a sweet caress that carded through his hair with the touch of the breeze. He breathed it in with a slow flutter of his lashes and then lifted a hand to cup the delicate flowers that drooped heavy from a branch. Silky in its tickle, he held the weight in his palm as his fingers closed around its stem. A sharp pinch broke it from the branch, and Charles dropped the cluster to the small pile Arthur already harvested.
“They can’t be too mad when we bring them these.”
Arthur swallowed. “We?” Raspy in the whisper, but he liked the way it felt on his tongue. Heavy, like the weight of Taima’s head in his hand, but just as velvety soft. He let it settle in his chest. The warmth blossomed between his ribs as he stared at the tendons of Charles’ wrist—the strength that coursed through his forearms yet the gentleness in which he delved into the leaves and petals to pluck the plump clusters from the branches without damage to either.
When Charles dropped another lilac cluster to the linen, he looked back at Arthur with a curious, expectant tilt of his head. Waiting and inviting in his unwavering stare. It pulled Arthur forward. He left Taima with an affectionate pat to its cheek to step up beside Charles. Shoulder to shoulder, they harvested lilacs for the ladies; and Arthur found he enjoyed Charles’ quiet company. The peace of this little tucked-away meadow sang so beautifully, and Charles added a warmth to it that Arthur felt just beneath his skin.
Arthur reached for a lilac cluster, and his knuckles brushed against Charles’ hand. He exhaled a silent gasp, but neither of them shied from the touch. The roughness of their hands felt tender, the warmth a blazing heat that sparked like dry tinder at Arthur’s neck. His eyes flicked from the petals to Charles’ face. Charles’ stare, both open yet intense, forced a bob of Arthur’s throat with his swallow. He saw himself mirrored there, both his own reflection in the depths of those brown eyes and a desire he wasn’t quite sure he was ready to face. Near daunting, Arthur lingered until he drew back his hand with a quiet clear of his throat.
Neither stepped away to put distance between them. They remained rooted by each other’s side. Charles snapped the stem of the lilacs and dropped it to the pile at their feet.
A heaviness weighed down Arthur’s shoulders. It settled upon his chest until he felt near choked by it. The grit of his teeth ached in their grind, and even the exhale of an exhausted sigh couldn’t ease the tight constriction that coiled his ribs like the binding of rope. Scraped raw, his knuckles throbbed with the burn of his pulse; each twitch of a finger ripped the ache anew.
He grasped the reins tighter. The cracked skin stretched across his knuckles with a fresh bead of blood.
It was the Devil’s work. He knew it, did it anyway. Beat the poor man within an inch of his life. And for what? A damned debt he never woulda been able to pay back to begin with.
Arthur’s shoulders heaved with his sigh, but it did little to quell the dark, twisted thing lodged in his chest. Wedged so deep, it festered with an ugliness that consumed him. It sapped the strength from his bones and stripped his flesh down to their brittleness. Left him exposed with but his teeth and claws.
He reined Lilac down a small game trail. It wound with the sharp slope of the exposed hillside, and the Shire picked its way down toward the river. They followed the river upstream. When the path diverged North toward the forested bluff of the overlook, Arthur corrected Lilac’s steps with a press of his boot to the gelding’s ribs and a careful pull of the reins.
The Shire tossed its head and huffed a snort but listened to Arthur’s direction. They took the long way around past the remnants of Limpany until the path arched up toward Flatneck Station. As they neared the strip of conifer trees, Lilac turned off the trail without preamble. Through the patchy rocks and sparse grass, it weaved the beaten path from their many previous visits.
As soon as the world narrowed to the limestone shelf and its grassy knoll, Arthur’s shoulders drew back with a deep inhale through his nostrils. A slow blink of his eyes heightened his senses, and he caught the last remnant of the subtle sweetness of the air. It eased the tension held tight in his muscles, unraveling with the slump of his weight in the saddle.
When the crunch of pebbles and stone quieted to the soft rustle of hooves through wildflowers and milkweed, Lilac tossed its head and nickered a greeting. Arthur blinked open his eyes. His gaze followed the perk of the Shire’s ears until he spotted Taima grazing on the clover in the elongated shade of the trees. The spotted mare lifted its head, and its nostrils quivered with its low whinny.
As Lilac turned to join Taima, Arthur looked around for Charles. He spotted him sprawled out in the grass beneath the lilac branches. With an aborted wave of his hand, Arthur was about to call out Charles’ name when he realized the man was asleep in the dappled shade.
Charles had the right idea. When Lilac stopped next to Taima to touch noses, Arthur swung down from the saddle. He eased the cinch and pulled the tack from the big beast’s frame, stepped around the horse’s hind end, and set the saddle on the ground beside Charles’ tack. Then he wandered closer to Charles and the lilac bush, but he stopped after only a few steps.
Even with the flowers browning and wilting beneath the evening sun—their blooming period but a short window according to Hosea—a few on the lower branches remained bright and vibrant. They clung to their beauty in their soft violets and delicate pinks, but with the barest caress of the breeze, the petals dropped from the clusters and swayed a lazy path to the ground. Arthur’s eyes caught the slow dance of a petal, trailed every loop of its descent, until it settled like a snowflake in Charles’ hair.
Loose strands fell upon his cheeks, and the thick drapes that framed Charles’ face were dotted with a dozen or so petals. The flowers speckled his tunic, and paired with the dappled sunlight and the dotted blue pattern of the fabric, Charles looked so vivid, so right among the beauty of nature. His skin, so rich in the glow of the evening sun—the tones of an orange sky like a heatwave swept upon the earth—Arthur’s fingers twitched with the desire to touch, to feel the warmth of a pulse upon his palm.
Arthur swallowed, thick in the bob of his throat. He wouldn’t touch, not when Charles wasn’t aware enough to reject him with a punch to the face. But he needed to carve this image into his mind. He never wanted to forget how the sunlight dappled his peaceful face, how petals adorned his hair, how pretty purple looked on Charles.
With careful steps, Arthur reached for his satchel. As he approached Charles, he looked away long enough to grasp the spine of his journal. But before he could pull it out of the satchel, he startled at the rustle of the grass. The thought that he had been caught red-handed didn’t have the time to sink its hook deep into his chest before the brutal collision of a shoulder to his gut had him wheezing for air.
The journal went flying out of his hand as Arthur was tackled to the ground. His body slammed into the earth with a thud that reverberated through his bones. Even as he gasped for breath—any air knocked from his lungs, leaving his chest seizing for a taste—Arthur instinctively grappled for his attacker when he felt the heavy weight straddle his hips. One hand sunk into the meat of a thigh while he fisted the other into his shirt, fingers catching on the beads of a necklace.
Arthur’s chest expanded with a sharp gasp; and when he blinked his eyes open to the glint of a blade held above his sternum, he saw past it to Charles’ face. To the drape of his hair hanging down and the lilac petal caught in the strands. To the fierce snarl of his lips and hardened set of his eyes. The flare of his nostrils as he huffed in a breath.
Both their chests heaved. Arthur’s pulse pounded in his ears; he felt his heartbeat in his throat. He dared to swallow as he stared past the sharpened-edge of the knife.
God, Charles was beautiful. Dappled light glowed through the draped strands of his hair. The last remaining lilac clusters with their thick foliage silhouetted his broad shoulders. The strength of his thighs caged Arthur beneath his weight, and he felt the thudding beat of Charles’ heart pressed against his knuckles.
Arthur eased his grip on Charles’ tunic. The beads of the necklace were smooth upon Arthur’s fingers as they slipped from his grip.
Charles’ stare widened. His lips softened with his frown as he slowly withdrew the knife. “I.. Sor…” he struggled for words—those deep brown eyes of his flicking about Arthur’s face: his eyes, his lips, down the column of his throat to the neckerchief tied there—as he shifted his weight back to stand.
But Arthur stopped him with a squeeze of his thigh. His fingers sank into Charles’ trousers as if he could anchor him in his lap. Charles glanced down at the contact. Bruised and bloodied knuckles paled with Arthur’s grip. Near harsh compared to how gently Arthur curled his fingers into the tunic at Charles’ breast.
“Sorry,” Charles exhaled the word in a quiet breath. If not for how he settled his weight back in Arthur’s lap—slowly shifting to sheath the knife at his hip—Arthur might’ve thought himself rejected. “Didn’t know it was you.”
Arthur’s mouth felt far too dry. His lips parted with a swipe of his tongue, and he swallowed down the lump in his throat to speak past it. “Now that you do?”
Charles tilted his head. A few strands of his hair fell past his chin, and a single lilac petal floated down between them. It drifted to the sound of Charles’ low hum; Arthur felt its vibrations against his knuckles. The petal landed on Arthur’s cheek. Caught up in his beard, Arthur scrunched his nose at the tickle.
With a huff of laughter, Charles picked the lilac off Arthur’s face. The brush of his fingers—warm in the feathered caress—had Arthur leaning into the touch with a blissful blink. Charles bent lower to place the petal in the part of Arthur’s hair. He glanced briefly behind Arthur to where his gambler hat tumbled in his fall. Its lilac cluster paled a bit in comparison to those on the branches, but it crinkled Charles’ gaze as he looked back to Arthur. “Still suits you,” Charles admired.
Arthur’s cheeks flushed pink to his nose. He blinked a bit bashfully as if he would argue, but that stubborn jut of his lip curved into a soft arch. “You ain’t seen yourself.” Quietly adoring, Arthur lifted his hand. He hesitated only briefly, but when Charles didn’t pull away, he reached to tuck the loose lock of hair behind Charles’ ear. “You look mighty pretty in purple.”
His fingers slipped through the silky threads of Charles’ hair as his thumb stroked over the pale scar among the stubble of his jaw. “Charles,” he said, the rasp of his voice rough with a tenderness that matched that of his knuckles, scraped and torn and vulnerable, “can I…?”
Almost too afraid to speak his desire aloud, Arthur’s eyes flicked to Charles’ lips. He caught the curve of their corner and the slight lift of Charles’ cheeks. “Took you long enough to ask,” Charles spoke as he leaned down to meet Arthur.
Their lips brushed sweetly, chaste in the gentleness. Slow and hesitant in that first press. But with a tilt of Arthur’s head, he deepened the kiss with a roll of his lips. Unhurried in each mapping brush. His heart fluttered in his chest like the butterfly between milkweed blossoms or the bumble bees among the lilac branches.
Charles’ hand slid up his throat to cup his jaw; and when he tipped Arthur’s chin higher to suck his bottom lip between his own, Arthur rumbled a low, growling whine. His fingers grasped at Charles’ thigh, and he surged upward, opening his mouth to pant for breath.
Charles eased back with a final firm press of his lips to Arthur’s mouth. He tasted tobacco on his tongue, felt Arthur’s huffed exhales against his lips.
Arthur bowed his head. Cheeks flushed, he let his eyes slide shut. “I ain’t a good man.”
“Neither am I,” Charles said.
Arthur’s chin jerked up in defiance. Resolute in his stare but tender in the caress of his hand through Charles’ hair, Arthur cupped his face. “You’re the best man I know.”
With a gentle smile, Charles held his gaze as he leaned into Arthur’s touch. “I could say the same.”
“I’m a violent man,” Arthur said weakly. His eyes drifted to his own knuckles, bruised and flaked with blackened blood beside the beauty of Charles’ hair and the glow of his dark skin.
Charles lifted a hand to cup the back of Arthur’s. He turned his face into Arthur’s palm and pressed a kiss to the rough calluses. “As am I.” He bowed forward until their foreheads touched. “Do you want this, Arthur?”
“I do,” Arthur sighed wistfully.
“Then shut up and kiss me.”
Oh, Arthur’s heart swooned in his chest. It swelled and leapt from his ribs, and Arthur followed it over the edge as he surged forward to kiss Charles. His hands on his skin, grasping his thigh, his bicep, his back. Anywhere he could reach as he breathed Charles in until he grew faint from it. Until they tumbled to the grass—limbs entangled and breaths mingled—beneath the lilacs.