Chapter 7
Tommy passed the ride back to the ranch in a daze. His friends laughed around him, teasing him about the girl—Slim wanted details Tommy refused to provide. “Was she good?” Slim asked, reining in his horse as Jose and Jim Joe snickered together behind Tommy. The echoes of hooves picking through flat land reverberated off the buttes and low mesas around them, and when the wind rose, the dry scratch of tumbleweed skittered across the night. Slim rode closer to Tommy, nudging him with an elbow. “A girl like that knows how to please a man, I’m sure. You were up there forever! What all did she do?”
Tommy stayed silent. One hand held the reins of his own steed; the other lay curled in his lap as he remembered the feel of a soft, wrinkled sac in his palm. His mind was back at the Wildh
