"Just five more days," I whispered Sunday night, lying in bed, leaning up against Will. My boyfriend. "The kids leave after breakfast on Friday."

"Yeah," he answered, in his low rumble, against my neck, as he sucked on it, gliding his fingers up and down my bare arm. Letting out a sigh, he wrapped his arms around me in a big bear hug. "They gotta get here first, though." He squeezed me tight. "We got this." And I relaxed and enjoyed his comforting warmth, trying to not think any more about the self-imposed sexual moratorium, and then drifted to sleep.

The next morning, a group of kids arrived at Headlands; they were entirely different than any previous group. This time we had twenty-five twelve and thirteen year olds, from a Boys and Girls Club in East Los Angeles. Given the demographics of the area, I was expecting that they would all be Hispanic, like me, and they were.

When the bus arrived, the children and leaders spilled out and I repeated the drill that I had done with the other groups, waving and enthusiastically greeting them. I noticed, immediately, that this group seemed quieter than the group from Oakland, the kids keeping amongst themselves, not chattering as much, and giving each other space, rather than mingling together.

After I met their leaders and chaperones, I took them to the bunkhouses and showed them where they would stay. The kids were more careful about where they were sleeping than the other groups, more reluctant to stake a claim.

One nervous-looking, dark haired girl came up to me in the hall after she had set her duffle bag, sleeping bag, and pillow on a bottom bunk in the room. "I don't want to leave my things here. The door to the room doesn't lock."

"It will be safe, don't worry," I said.

She just looked at me. "Don't you have someplace, you know, safe, I can put them?"

"They'll be safe here," I repeated, and she looked at me skeptically and took off back down to the room. But she made me think. What would it be like if I didn't feel safe? If I didn't trust? This was a group of kids who did not seem like they knew each other very well, which meant that they probably did not trust each other either. We would have to work on that.

After they had all claimed bunks in the bunkhouse, deposited their luggage, and taken a tour of the chow hall, meeting Cookie, I met with them at the picnic tables. I wanted to break the ice. Not only did I need to learn their names, but I also wanted them to loosen up. They were just kids, right? There had to be a way of getting through to them this week.

"Okay, guys," I said. "We are going to play a name game so that I can know who you are and what you like to do." And I explained the game: we would go around in a circle and take turns saying our name and our favorite hobby. It was a game that took more time as we went on because each successive person had to first say the name and hobby of all of the people before him or her, before they introduced themselves. The repetition was a good way to get to know everyone quickly.

I started. "I'm Marie and I like to eat vegan food."

The girl next to me, pretty, with shoulder-length dark hair and glasses, said, "I'm Josephine and I like to listen to music, and this is Marie and she likes to eat vegan food." Then we continued with the next child, and so on.

Once we had gotten most of the way around the circle, the kids were starting to giggle at everyone's hobbies: "I like to eat gummy bears," "I like to play video games," "I like to watch YouTube," "I like to sleep in." Will walked by toward the end and I invited him to join us. Because he was late to the game, he didn't have the advantage of hearing everyone repeating all the names twenty times. He tried to remember the children's names and failed miserably. "This is, uh, Danny—"

"David!" piped up a tiny boy in a Dodger t-shirt.

"Yeah, David, and he likes to play baseball—"

"No, play football."

I could see Will trying not to swear.

But he played along, asking David why he was wearing a baseball shirt if he liked football.

"Because it is baseball season."

God, I loved my cowboy.

When we were done, I strode over to Will and whispered in his ear, "I think that participation in a name game earns you an extra treat on Friday."

"Holdin' you to that one," he responded, looking me in the eye, making me shiver even though it was warm out, and then sauntering to his truck.

The group walked over to the horses, and the kids milled around the outside of the corral as Hector and Janine gave a basic presentation on how to ride. Watching the kids, I could tell that they were all nervous about being around the animals. When Janine asked, none of them raised a hand that they had ever ridden a horse. And if you thought about it, horses could be scary: they are are big, they make noises, they flick their tails, and they step backwards or to the side when you don't think they are going to. With this group, I had my work cut out for me. But by the end of the day, every kid had been up, in the saddle, on the horse, and ridden around the corral. I considered that a major victory.

We broke for free time, then had dinner, and then regrouped afterward for a campfire. Amazingly, the fire lit, a few kids sang along with me, and no one had a cell phone out. We made s'mores, which brought them together, physically around the fire, as well emotionally through sharing an experience of yummy goodness. This was a much better start than Oakland.

"Four days, darlin'," whispered Will in my ear that night as he spooned behind me. His warm breath against my neck set off a chain reaction of sensations in my body that wound up making me me warm and tense between my legs. "Nice work with the campfire tonight."

"Thanks," I whispered back. I flopped over and ran my fingers over his nipples and his pecs. But then he kissed me and that got a little out of control, tongues chasing tongues, and we both had to pull back, breathing heavy.

We looked at each other.

"Night—" I said hastily, at the same time that he said, "Night." He tucked me into him to go to sleep, both of us ignoring the feelings that were building: I had a wet throbbing between my legs and my breasts were heavy, and I could feel him poking me in the back, poor guy. I sighed and went to sleep.

The next day after breakfast, I took the kids to the corrals and they rode the horses, already better at it, even though only one day had passed. When they finished riding with the horses, I planned on having them do arts and crafts, so I left to set up at the picnic tables.

Because the wranglers had taken over watching the kids for the time being, I could have a break, so I ran into the ranch house. I wandered down the hall and opened the bathroom door to use it and collided into a naked, wet, William Charles Thrash III, owner of Headlands Ranch, standing, dripping shower water on a bath mat.

Figures.

He took one look at me, and his immediate pissed off look morphed into a full-on, out of control, male laugh, making him hold his toned tummy.

"Are you ever gonna learn to fucking knock?" he finally managed, wrapping a towel around his pelvis and then pulling me close to him. "Shit."

I had lost control laughing, too, and hugged him back, probably drying him off in the process. "I don't think so. Especially not if these are the goodies I'm gonna get. Just lock the door if you don't want me barging in."

"Wish I could lock the door right now," he muttered.

I had received a good eyeful of Mr. Will and I could tell that he was starting to get ideas. Or he had them already. It was not getting any easier to stay away from him. So I kissed him quickly, wriggled out of his grasp, and hightailed it out of there, finding the other bathroom.

On Wednesday morning, I sat next to Will in the chow hall for breakfast, Josephine sitting across from me and David sitting next to her. They were chattering about their favorite horses. As usual, Will pressed his leg against mine the entire meal, although he did glance disgustedly at my muesli and rice milk, shaking his head.

Then I heard Josephine tell David, "I'm so glad this place has air conditioning. At home we don't have it. The landlord told my mom that he would install it in our place if she gave him a blow job."

"What?" I asked, shocked.

She looked at me. "The landlord converted the laundry room in the building to an apartment, and there's no bathroom in it. We have to use a bucket. It floods when it rains."

I could feel Will tense next to me. "Tell me more, sweetie," I said.

"My mom is disabled and can't work. So we get food stamps and Section 8. My older brother works at the grocery store bagging groceries, but it's not enough to move into a good place. So we're in this bad apartment. It's nothing like the bunks here."

Ugh. I had to hold my tongue and not over-react, but this was so wrong. I hated that a twelve year old knew what a blow job was. As much progress that had occurred, we couldn't kid ourselves; there was still more to go. I said to Will, "I wish we could do something about this."

"We are," he said. "They're here."

"Maybe Amelia knows a lawyer who can help them. What the landlord is doing is illegal."

After breakfast I called Amelia, and coordinated a legal aid attorney to assist Josephine's family. I didn't like it that she had to go back to a situation like that, but at least she would get some help soon. I still wanted to put everyone on my ark.

The kids rode horses in the morning and then ate lunch. Afterward, I held a group games session. "All right everyone, gather around," I called to the kids. "We're going to do something called a trust fall."

Grouping the children and leaders into two units, I instructed them: "We are going to take turns experiencing what it feels like to fall and have someone catch you. You are going to close your eyes, cross your arms over your chest, and fall backwards, trusting that everyone will keep you from falling. Have any of you ever done that before?"

I received some blank stares and a few heads shaking.

"It will be a new experience, then, but I think it's important to try it. And it's important to know that everyone here will support everyone else. Josephine, if David asked you if you would let him fall, would you?"

"No," she answered in a low voice. "I would catch him if I could."

"Good," I said. "You will have help. You don't have to do it alone. Now, this is scary. It is normal for it to feel scary. It will feel like you are free-falling. You have to trust. But I want everyone to tell me, individually, that you will catch whoever is going to fall."

"David, would you catch whoever is going to fall?"

"Yes."

And I went around, asking each of them if they would participate, with each one answering "yes." I breathed a sigh of relief and then we did the activity. In the two groups, one person stood in the middle, surrounded by the others. Then the one in the middle closed his or her eyes, crossed his or her arms over their chest, and fell backwards.

The feeling of having to trust, having to close your eyes, and just fall — I figured that these kids had never experienced that before. I participated too, going into one group, and falling backwards, feeling a dozen pairs of hands hold me up.

Hands held every individual up.

When the hands returned a person gently to a standing position, almost every one had a look of delight on his or her face.

Awesome sauce. They were starting to bond.

By Thursday afternoon, the kids were grooming horses, feeding chickens, mucking out stalls, and running free. They laughed, told stories, teased each other, made tie dyes, and helped. It was a good week.

But I couldn't wait for it to be over.

On Friday morning, everyone packed up, and they left after breakfast, smiling and waving goodbye.

Then the staff who had days off took off. All I could think about was my cowboy.

And then I went to find Will over by the barns, my heart rate elevated, my panties wet, from thinking all morning about what he was going to do. He wasn't in the barn when I called, so I went over to the tack room, but he wasn't in there either. As I went to leave, I saw him standing in the doorway, a look on his face that I could only describe as desire.

Our two weeks were up.