In no time, Jason had gotten all the hugs one man could ever ask for from his sister and two sweet little nieces who were as starry-eyed about horses as their mother ever had been. He led Rusty home with both girls sitting on the big horse’s back. They did a very good job of behaving themselves. It helped that Aimee was watching them like a hawk.
“They really should have their helmets on,” Aimee said as the car rolled along at a brisk five miles an hour.
“You never wore one when you rode at their age,” Jason reminded her. “Explains a lot, don’t it?”
“Very funny,” she said. “Girls, this is a special occasion. You’re always supposed to wear helmets when riding.”
“We know, Mom,” the girls said without enthusiasm.
“Is that what you say?” Aimee asked.
The girls got the hint quickly. “Yes, ma’am,” they said.
Jason only smiled to himself. Aimee caught him mid-smirk.
“Don’t you smirk at me,” she said. “You gotta teach ‘em manners young, or they’ll never learn.”
“You just sounded so much like Mom it gave me a flashback,” he said.
“We’re doomed,” she said. “You’re gonna be Dad, and I’m gonna be Mom. Soon as you have kids, mark my words.”
“I am not going to be like Dad,” Jason said. “My kids are gonna like me.”
“You know you love Dad,” she said.
“Love and like are two different things,” he said.
Aimee didn’t argue. She knew better.
As soon as they got to the house, the girls just had to meet all the horses right that very second. Jason let them. Horses, like all domestic animals, needed to be socialized around children so they’d behave even when little girls squealed without warning. He put all three of the horses out in the paddock and brought horse cookies to the girls.
Jason hung back with Aimee and watched with pleasure as both girls cooed and oohed over his horses.
“If they’d come this morning,” Jason said, “they could have met a Welsh pony I was training. Hate that they missed her. She went home with her little girl.”
“It’s fine,” Aimee said. “They aren’t picky. If it’s got a mane and four legs, they’re in love.”
Jason only grinned to himself. Unfortunately, Aimee caught him again.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You have a girlfriend.”
He turned and stared at her, wide-eyed.
“Oh my God, you do have a girlfriend.”
“How do you do that?” he asked.
“I know a shit-eating grin when I see it,” she said.
“You said a bad word, Mommy,” Dani said.
“I’m allowed,” Aimee said. “Pet your horses and close your ears. Uncle Jason and I are having grown-up talk.” Aimee faced him. “Tell me everything right now this minute,” Aimee said in a low voice.
“I have a girlfriend,” Jason said and then said nothing more.
“And?”
“And that’s all you need to know.”
“Maybe that’s all I need to know but that’s not all I want to know. What’s her name? How old is she? Where’d you meet her? What’s she like?”
“Simone. My age. At the library. She’s sweet. Good enough?”
“Not even close. Is it serious?”
“Hope so.”
“Got a picture?”
“None you get to see.”
“Jason Thomas Waters, you tell me about your girlfriend and you tell me right now.”
“Uncle Jason has a girlfriend?” Cassie asked. She and Dani looked at each other in excitement bordering on horror. The girls had begged him to get married so they could be flower girls. But they were still young enough to fear new things and new people.
“He does,” Aimee said. “And her name is Simone and she’s very sweet but we’re not allowed to see pictures of her so she must be very, very ugly.”
“I swear to God, I will make you sleep in the barn tonight,” Jason said.
He took his phone out of his pocket and, shielding it with his hand, found a fully clothed photo of Simone. He’d taken a selfie of the two of them with Cupcake after that last ride together. They were both smiling hugely in the photograph. Even Cupcake seemed to be smiling.
Jason showed the photo to Aimee and then the girls.
“She has pink hair,” Dani said in wide-eyed wonder.
“Yes, she does,” Jason said. He started to put his phone back into his pocket when Dani reached for it. He immediately pulled his hand back and held his phone up in the air out of the reach of little innocent girls.
“I want to play with your phone,” she said.
“No way,” Jason said. “Not a chance.”
“You have better games on your phone than Mom,” Dani said, already done with talk of grown-up things like girlfriends.
“My phone is off-limits,” he said. “Go pet the horses.”
With a groan of disappointment the girls returned to the paddock fence.
“You used to let the girls play with your phone,” Aimee said.
“There are things on here they don’t need to see. Or you,” he said, eying her pointedly.
“Trust me, I saw enough last time I was stupid enough to touch your computer.”
“Your own fault for being nosy.”
“Not my fault you were looking at things you shouldn’t be looking at.”
“Grown man, sis.”
“You’re still my baby brother.”
Jason decided to drop the subject but he could tell from the look Aimee gave him the conversation wasn’t over.
Unfortunately, he was dead right about that. After putting the girls to bed that night in the guest room, Aimee came down to the kitchen, grabbed a beer out of his fridge and sat across from him at the table where he’d been browsing horse sales on his laptop.
Aimee stared at him. And stared at him.
And stared at him.
“Say it,” Jason said, closing his laptop.
“Say what?”
“Whatever it is you’ve been storing up all day waiting for a chance to say to me. Get it out so I can get back to work.”
“These belong to you?” She pulled Simone’s pink thong out of her jeans pocket.
“Jesus,” he said, snatching the panties out of her hand.
“Found those in the guest room under the bed when I put the girls’ suitcases in there. Lucky I found them before the girls did.”
“Forgot,” he said. “Sorry.”
“Hope you changed the sheets.”
“Yes, I changed the sheets. Well, Simone did before she left.”
“I guess she likes everything pink.”
“What’s wrong with pink?”
“Just trying to imagine you taking a pink-haired girl with a nose ring home to Mom and Dad.”
“Mom’s got her ears pierced. So do you. And if they care about what color a girl’s hair is, they got too much free time.”
“Where’d you meet her again?”
“I told you. In the library.”
“So she’s from here?”
“No, she lives in New York,” he said. “For now.”
“For now? You two that serious already? How long have you been dating this girl?”
“A couple weeks.”
“Two weeks?” Aimee looked horrified. Jason was not impressed. “That’s it?”
“She spent four straight days and nights here. And we talk every day on the phone for hours. She’s the one.”
“The one? After two weeks? Have you lost your damn mind?”
“You said you knew on your first date you were going to marry Brian, and I thought you’d lost your damn mind. Was I wrong?”
“That’s different.”
“How you figure?” Jason asked.
“Brian doesn’t have pink hair for starters.”
“He should,” Jason said. “It would look real good on him.”
>
Aimee took a slow breath. She sounded like a leaking tire.
Jason waved his hand at her. “Go on. Lay it on me. I know you don’t approve. Might as well get it all out.”
“I’m just not sure about this girl,” Aimee said. “I just am not at all sure about her.”
“Guess what? You don’t have to be, because you’re not the one dating her.”
“Look, I’m not picking on her because she’s got pink hair and a nose ring. I couldn’t care less about that. I would give you the third degree about any girl you date. Especially if I don’t know a thing about her.”
“You know everything you need to know and everything you need to know is…she’s my girlfriend. The end.”
“You’re not taking me seriously,” she said.
“No, I’m not.”
“You used to take me seriously. Is this girl trying to get you to forget you have a family?”
“This girl is named Simone, and she hasn’t said a word about my family except to say the girls are cute, and Mom and Dad must be very proud of us. Real crazy stuff like that.”
“She tell all her friends she’s dating you?”
“She told one friend about us.”
“So she’s already bragging?” Aimee asked. She seemed determined to twist every innocent thing about Simone into something ugly and mean. Jason was not going to let her get to him. He was not.
“Hope so,” Jason said. “A man likes being bragged about by his girlfriend.”
“Jason.”
“Her friends are not followers of the PBR circuit, Aimee,” Jason said, trying not to talk down to her though the temptation was mighty. “They live in New York City. The only bull they ever seen is that big fake one on Wall Street. So if you think she’s some kind of groupie, think again. I showed her a clip of my run-in with Demented, and she burst into tears. Safe to say my rodeo career is not the attraction here.”
“Then what is, can I ask? Your money?”
“She lives in New York City. She probably makes more money than I do to pay those kind of rents.”
“What’s she do for a living?”
“Photographer. And some odd jobs.” Jason thought that was a fair thing to say. Being a professional submissive was about as odd a job as riding bulls for a living. “And a little modeling.”
“Oh, she’s a model. Now everything is clear.”
He glared at her. “Your brother likes a pretty girl. Are you really shocked by that? Come on, Aimee. Use your brain. I’ve modeled, remember?”
“What kind of modeling does she do? Catalogs and stuff?”
“If you must know, she’s a corset model.”
“She’s an underwear model?”
“Sort of. If you consider corsets underwear.”
“Sweet Lord, you are trying to kill Mom and Dad, aren’t you? This girl is a double heart attack waiting to happen.”
“They won’t have heart attacks if they don’t look at the pictures,” Jason said. “And if they go looking for them, it’s their own fault if they find them.”
“Is she into…whatever?” Aimee gestured at his laptop.
“That is none of your business.”
“So that’s a ‘yes’?”
“It’s a ‘that’s none of your business.’”
“Well, it’s about the only thing you two have in common, isn’t it?” Aimee asked.
“That’s also none of your business.”
“If you marry this girl it’s going to be my business,” she said.
“And why is that?”
“You think I’m going to let my girls stay in the same house where that goes on?”
“I don’t know if you know what ‘that’ is,” Jason said.
“I know enough to know I want no part of it, and you shouldn’t either. I thought Dad taught you better than that.”
“He taught me to be scared to death of my own father, is what he taught me.”
“Do I have to remind you about all the kids who look up to you? Including your own nieces? You’re a hero to lots of kids who’d be heartbroken to find out you weren’t what they thought you were.”
“I’m retired,” Jason said. “They can look up to Justin McBride and Adrian Gonzales now. And I’m done talking about this with you.”
“Fine, be like that,” Aimee said, standing up. “You have all the fun with this girl you want. But that’s your thing. I don’t want that stuff happening anywhere near my girls.” She paused and then shook her head. In a much softer voice she said, “I love you more than life itself, baby brother. When you were in the hospital, and they thought you might lose a kidney, I said, ‘Give him one of mine.’ You didn’t need it, but I would have given you a kidney, a lung, a liver, every drop of blood in my veins to save you…You know this is coming from a place of love, right?”
“Right. I know.” He did know. He really did.
“It’s just…you used to date such sweet girls.”
“Simone is a sweet girl.”
Aimee looked at him with nothing but love in her eyes. “I just don’t want to see you getting hurt when she decides she’d rather keep living her wild life in New York than settle down with you in the middle of nowhere.” She patted his shoulder and walked away.
Jason stared at nothing for a good long time.
Seventeen
Being in love was the best. It really was. Simone wondered why she didn’t fall in love more often. Her skin was clear. She had a spring in her step. A cab had nearly run over her just that morning, and she’d only laughed and sashayed away. Nothing could hurt her. She was in love. She was bulletproof. Above the skyscrapers the sky was cerulean blue. The birds were singing arias in Central Park. New York was a city of magic and light, and she couldn’t wait to leave it as soon as humanly possible.
And though she considered herself a feminist in every way, shape and form, she found it unbearably fun to write “Simone Levine Waters” on every single scrap of paper that happened to pass in front of her. But she always threw them away before anyone saw.
Although it did have a nice ring to it…
And things kept getting better. The booking she had for next week—a three-day stint in the Hamptons to photograph a bridal shower, high tea, wedding reception, and the wedding, had been canceled. The bride had dumped the groom and run off with his best friend. It was a massive clusterfuck; everyone was freaking out, deposits were been forfeited and tearful phone calls were being made, and Simone couldn’t stop smiling. She wasn’t heartless, but this meant she could go back and see Jason again in two days. Two days! Two days too long but still better than the two weeks she’d been thinking it might be.
Plus, better to find out before the wedding that the bride had the hots for the best man than after, right? It all worked out in the end.
Simone bought two days of groceries and took them back to her apartment. She’d always liked her place, small and cramped as it was. She’d decorated it with shabby chic white wicker furniture with lacy white curtains and a pink dust ruffle on her full-size white bed. The living room was frilly, too, painted white with a framed poster of a rainbow over her fake fireplace mantel that hadn’t worked since before World War I. As cozy as she’d made it, there was no denying it was a single gal’s apartment. There was barely room enough for her in the minuscule galley kitchen, much less two.
As cute as it was, Simone didn’t want to spend the rest of her life living alone in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, even if it did have an exposed brick wall and the original crown molding. She was ready for a change, ready for a serious relationship that was going somewhere. A home. A partner in life. Maybe kids someday. She hadn’t even realized how much she wanted it until Jason had offered her a glimpse of a future with him in Kentucky.
Simone hadn’t just bought groceries while she was out and about. She’d stopped in at a bookstore and picked up a travel guide to Kentucky. Seemed like a nice enough place to live, bit conservative but she’d loved shocking the straigh
ts, so why not? Kentucky had two big cities—Louisville and Lexington—and good airports. Two hours on a plane would get her to Orlando. Two hours on a plane would get her back to NYC. Perfect. Plus, she did like the horses. It appeared there was an entire industry down there dedicated to equine photography. She could do that. If she owned a horse she’d want a picture of it hanging on her wall. Who wouldn’t?
“You’ve lost your mind, Simone,” she said to herself as she put away her groceries. She’d told herself she could call Jason with the good news but only after she’d put the pint of Ben & Jerry’s Urban Bourbon in the freezer. Jason was important, but he wouldn’t melt.
But she hadn’t lost her mind, she knew. What she’d lost was her heart. The second Jason had given her permission to fall madly in love with him, she had. And the best part was…she wasn’t scared. Not a bit. Because Jason was such a good man—steady, strong and stable—that she knew it was safe to love him. Maybe things wouldn’t work out. Maybe they wouldn’t end up married with kids and living happily ever after on his farm. But she knew in her heart that if things didn’t work out, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying, lack of love or lack of basic human decency.
Finally, Simone finished putting everything away. She went to her bedroom, threw herself down on the covers and called Jason. Usually they texted during the day and he called her at night before they both went to sleep but this was a special occasion. Plus, she needed to make sure he’d be home during her days off. She was his good little slave, after all. She wouldn’t do anything without permission first.
Jason picked up after only two rings.
“Hello, sir,” she said.
“Hey,” Jason said.
Hey? Not Hey, Spanky? Or Hello, baby? Just hey?
“Is this a bad time?” Simone asked.
“Ah, well, my sister and the girls are here. We’re about to go for a ride.”
Mystery solved. There were vanilla family members afoot. That’s why he was playing it so cool.
“Right this second? This won’t take long.”
“Go on.”
“I had a cancellation. A big one. So now I have a week off between gigs. I have a reception tonight, a christening tomorrow and then I can leave on Monday to come see you. I could stay five whole days. Would that work?”
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