by Alexa Davis
I lost a little confidence walking in the store, which apparently catered to special events and weddings. I looked at the clothes on display, but nothing was in my price range, or seemed right for a simple garden party. Hannah also seemed disappointed, so we moved on to one of her favorite stops, Solid Gold. The prices, if anything, were higher, but I justified the adorable print jumpsuit and scarf I had hanging over my arm as long overdue.
For the party, I found a white garden dress with a lovely red and blue floral print, with a sweetheart neckline and flared skirt. It was reminiscent of the 1950s, and I loved it. I found a perfect set of pumps to go with it, also in red and blue, and Hannah picked out some earrings and a gold necklace with a locket in the shape of a blooming flower.
I couldn’t bring myself to add up the totals and tried to block out the sales associate as he completed the sale. I could only thank God that I had no living expenses and that, since finding them Texas Tango and proving my skill with difficult foalings, they’d foregone both the title and free labor of “intern” and simply given me the wage of any on-site veterinarian. It was a significant step up, and I had planned to take the extra money and give it to my parents for the last of my medical expenses.
However, laden with my new clothes and sitting in the backseat again with my phone, a quick bank account appraisal laid my fears of poverty to rest. I transferred the money for my parents to my savings so that Hannah and Patty couldn’t accidentally tempt me to spend it and even slipped the new pumps on my feet just to admire them.
The next stop was the salon, and at first, I opted for a simple pedicure. After all, with my hard work, my hands would just get beaten up before anyone had time to notice if they were pretty or not. Patty talked me into a manicure with no colored polish, just to relax and to receive what she called “routine maintenance” on my hands.
“You, of all people, need the most frequent manicures, dolly,” she said, calling me by the nickname she’d bestowed on me the first time we’d met. Patty stood at over five foot ten inches, so my somewhat diminutive five foot two must have looked ridiculous to her.
I had to respect her, though. Not too long into my stay, I came upon Kaiser looking very ill and refusing to stand. Within minutes, I was able to say with a surety that the poor stallion had colic.
It was Patty who’d ended up out in the stable with me all night, long after Daniel had finally collapsed in a corner, unwilling to leave his best friend alone, but too exhausted by his worry to be of any use to the sick horse. As I looked at her the next morning, gray hair sticking out at every which angle, glasses crooked on her nose, I had decided that she could call me whatever the hell she wanted. She’d become my first real friend on the ranch after that. Happily, not the last, but still, the most cherished.
“What are you thinking, back there? You haven’t stopped smiling since you got in the car,” Hannah asked, breaking my reverie. We had finished getting our nails done, and after that, we’d stopped at the outlet mall to visit the Ulta store for makeup and hair supplies. With the tail end full of bags and still wearing flip flop sandals to keep our toes from smudging, we were finally headed home.
“Oh, I was thinking about how I got to know Patty, actually,” I replied with a grin. “The only thing I never found out is why an administrative assistant would take time out of her own schedule, and ruin her business clothes, to help out in the stable, not just for an hour or two, but all night long.”
“You know, Rachel, I think it just came down to, we’re all horse people, and the horse needed us all,” Patty replied. Hannah went on to disclose that her friend had been a champion rider when she was younger and had always had a soft spot for both Daniel and Kaiser.
“She was there when Daniel was born, actually,” Hannah related as she drove, occasionally glancing in the rearview at me. “Patty is the employee who has been with us the longest. She’s taken care of us for so long, I can’t imagine what we’ll do when she gets tired of us.” Hannah sighed, and Patty echoed the sentiment. I wondered what Tracy and I would be like when we got to this stage in our lives. If we were still friends, I figured it would be a lot like this.
There were several men gathered in the front of the big house when we arrived. As Hannah stepped down from the Escalade, looks of relief sprouted on most of the faces. Apparently in a collective effort to get supper on the table, the men pressed forward to offer the two older ladies assistance with their shopping bags and packages. Daniel appeared at my elbow with a hand outstretched to take my bags for me. When he felt the weight of them all on his wrist, he glanced at me in alarm.
“Don’t look at me like that!” I declared. “I haven’t purchased new clothes for myself in almost two years!” I petted the bags from Solid Gold lovingly. “I deserved this, so I gave it to myself. No judging.” I wagged a finger in his face. I called Skipper, who looked like he hadn’t moved a muscle since I left. With sad eyes, he thumped his tail on the deck, as if to say “Mom, can I have five more minutes?” I laughed and followed Daniel to the mini-veranda of my cabin, leaving Skipper to hang out with his new favorite canine-buddy, Honcho.
“Do I get a preview?” Daniel asked as he laid the parcels and bags on my bed. He slipped his hands around me and rested them lightly at the base of my back. I moved in closer and he slid one hand down to cup my behind and gave it a little squeeze. I giggled in spite of myself, and he kissed me long and deep. Pulling back for air, I licked my lips and tasted honey and hops.
“Mmm. Is that some sort of beer I taste on your lips?” I asked, feigning shock. It was a well-known “secret” around the ranch that Pete was learning to brew his own beer. I assumed that this was a sampling of his latest experiment. “You should let Pete know, I like that one,” I said as Daniel kissed me again, cutting off anything else I could say as his tongue dipped and stroked inside my mouth, coaxing a moan from me as he gripped me against him, one hand on my ass, the other sliding up between us to tease my breast through the fabric of my shirt.
“Oh God, you do drive a man to drink, Rachel,” he panted. I kissed him on the jaw, and grazed his neck with my teeth. For a split second, I remembered my encounter with Sara in town and stiffened, and thought to pull away. Instead, I shoved the bags off my bed onto the hardwood floor and pulled him to me, falling back onto the mattress as the bed caught the backs of my knees. I slid back on the bed and crooked a finger at him, motioning him to join me.
With an abrupt laugh that had nothing to do with humor and everything to do with anticipation, Daniel knelt over me on the bed. He spread my knees with his hands and knelt between my legs, running his fingers down the insides of my thighs until he reached the “V” of at the top of my legs. Even through my jeans, he could feel my heat, and his breathing went shallow as he licked his lips and stared into my eyes.
His eyes never left mine as he undid my jeans and pulled them off. He tossed them aside and grabbed a handful of my panties, rubbing his thumb over the damp center before tugging them down my legs. I waited for him to stare at the light scarring that traveled down my right thigh, but he didn’t look at my nakedness at all.
Instead, he began unbuttoning my blouse. With each button, he pushed the freed fabric out of the way and kissed my stomach, over the scars to the smooth, untouched skin above them. As he reached the last button, I started to sit up to pull my arms out, but he shook his head and pushed me back down.
I laid nearly naked on the bed, with only my bra and the sleeves of my shirt covering any part of me. Daniel kissed me on the lips, flicking his tongue between them before moving down to my neck. He left a hot, wet trail on my skin as he made his way down to my breasts, pulling each mound of flesh from the bra and kissing and sucking the tender skin around my nipples. He drew one nipple into his mouth and sucked hard enough to make me gasp. My hips pressed up against him automatically.
I ran my fingers through his thick hair and clenched my hands into fists as his fingers found the trembling, wet center of me. I felt my bo
dy clench around him, and he stopped sucking my nipple and became very still. I looked down, worried that I’d done something wrong. He was staring up at me. His eyes were full of something dark and hungry that I’d never seen before. He released my breast and slid down the length of my body and nuzzled the mound of flesh below my belly button.
I gasped as he pushed my legs as far apart as they would go and drove his tongue inside me. The pleasure built so quickly that my breath came in little gasping screams while I fisted the bedding up in my hands and held on, as though the waves that were crashing over me could sweep me away. Soon, I was drowning in the sensations of his fingers and tongue inside me, his rough stubble rubbing the tender skin of my upper thighs raw.
He lifted my hips for a better angle and the shift pushed me screaming over the edge. My back arched and body writhed as he rubbed his fingers over that spot again and again. Shuddering, I collapsed onto the bed and shuddered, blindly reaching for his hand as I regained control of my breathing and let my heart slow from its frantic pace.
“Are you okay?” he said to me. All I could do was nod, eyes closed. He chuckled and slid up behind me to spoon me against his body. “You taste like sunshine,” he whispered in my ear, making me shiver as the echo of my orgasm breathed over me at his words.
“As soon as I can move, I’ll return the favor.” His chest was warm and solid against my back, making me feel protected and whole. His hand trailed over my side, and I flinched as he found the bunchy scar tissue of my lower abdomen. He pushed my hair away and kissed the nape of my neck.
“Nope,” he whispered into my ear. “Later, maybe, but right now, you just lay here and know that I’m not going anywhere.”
Tendrils of love wrapped themselves around me everywhere he touched my skin, wending their way through my veins to my heart. I knew in that moment that I could never just walk away without breaking myself with the effort. I couldn’t tell him my painful truth while he held me sated in his arms, but now, I would have to.
Chapter Ten
Daniel
I slipped out of Rachel’s cabin through the back kitchen door without being seen and got cleaned up in my own quarters. I looked out my window and saw men gravitating toward the long table on the back porch for dinner. The next day, the table would be full of finger foods, barbecued pork and beef, habanero cornbread, and tureens of chili varying in heat from “you’ll regret this tomorrow,” to “melt your face off at first bite.”
Tonight, it was the simple fare that usually preceded a feast. Fresh vegetables from the garden were barely cooked and set out with melting pats of butter and sprinkled liberally with salt and pepper. Slow cooked chicken and rice and beans were served in their pans with hot sauce and pickled jalapenos on the side. The smell of fresh rosemary and pepper made me salivate as I joined the others at the table.
The men were all freshly showered and changed from their work clothes. It was an unspoken rule that we never showed up to mom’s table dirty. The rule had only ever applied to us boys as we were growing up, but the men of the ranch had all started cleaning up as examples to us, and it was just part of our tradition now.
I watched for Rachel, but the seats around me, coincidentally, the ones closest to the food, filled fast, and by the time she arrived, the only room at the twenty-foot table was at the end near my parents. I watched her easy way with them, talking and laughing with my mother and even coaxing a smile out of my taciturn father. Something about her just fit here. She was as much a part of Lago Colina as the sunrise, the mustangs, and the stables she loved so much.
The waning light of the evening sky touched her hair and gave her a halo. A nudge to my ribs reminded me that I wasn’t alone and I stopped staring at her, while Pete and the guys around me snickered at me.
“You gonna put a ring on that or just keep sneaking back to your own place when yer done?” teased Hugh, a grizzled old cowpoke who came out of retirement each year to help with the summer and fall herding.
I dipped my head and laughed. I should’ve known I couldn’t put anything past these men. They’d been rooting for me since the day Rachel arrived, and the constant reminders that she’d be good for me were only going to increase now that I’d given them ammunition.
The teasing quieted down after they got rowdy enough to attract the attention of their boss at the end of the table. I watched and hid my grin behind my hand as he casually looked up and the guys went silent, each of them suddenly deeply interested in the food on their own plates. Everyone was excited for the following day, even if the guys each had to take turns gently reminding folks to stay at the party, instead of in our stables or in the big house, where inevitably, a few curious party-goers would get lost.
My dad stood up as the supper din died down, and while my mother and Patty cleared the table, he read off the morning rotations and changes made to accommodate the celebration. He then asked Rachel to stand. Shyly, she got to her feet, shooting me a furtive glance. I shrugged my shoulders, but couldn’t stop smiling.
“As you all may know, Rachel came to us to learn from our technological advancements, to help her as she finishes her veterinary degree from our own Texas A&M this fall.” The guys all whooped and clapped in support, and he waited a moment before continuing. “While learning from us, she has made significant improvements in our own procedures and found more effective ways to treat some of our most difficult foaling circumstances.”
She smiled, blushing at his praise, and her eyes widened in utter shock when he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Rachel has not only given us the opportunity to continue breeding with our own beautiful Pesky, with less risk to her or her foals, she has also gained us access to a stallion with a truly impressive bloodline, the arrival of which we are celebrating tomorrow with our friends.” He paused and looked at Rachel. “Let’s all give Rachel the thanks she deserves for all her hard work and the amazing addition she’s been to our core crew. Don’t know what we’re gonna do in September without you, girlie,” he admitted.
I smiled and clapped with the rest of our guys, but his words hit me like a fist to the gut. I truly didn’t know what I’d do without her, and being a two-hour drive from her school could’ve been two hundred, what with running the ranch and her trying to study and probably working somewhere more convenient. I ignored the tight ball of worry that settled somewhere under my supper, making me feel a little queasy.
Our clapping and cheering increased when Dad handed her the check I’d filled out earlier for a finder’s fee of five grand. My mother brought out a cake she’d somehow found time to bake between party preparations and Patty followed with fresh local chocolate ice cream from the dairy down the road from us.
Rachel blushed, and I saw her eyes shining in the lantern light from unshed tears and almost laughed out loud when she threw her arms around my dad in a huge hug. Her gratitude touched him, and he ducked his head and patted her on the back awkwardly. She pulled back and thanked him again as she accepted the plate of cake and ice cream offered her.
After we had all binged on dessert and sat talking and laughing long enough that the remaining ice cream was nothing but a puddle in a bucket in the middle of the table, a few guys were conscripted to finish cleaning and do dishes, and Rachel escaped, ducking into the dark and heading toward her quarters. I heard her call for Skipper and his barked reply, followed by sweet, feminine laughter. I considered breaking the promise I’d made to myself and knocking on her door, but instead, I went to my office and locked myself in. I worked until my eyes burned and the computer screen became unreadable to me.
The house and property were all completely quiet and still, and the stars lit the yard as I staggered to my cabin by the tree line. I rubbed my eyes as they adjusted to the darkness of the interior and looked down just in time to avoid stepping on the soft, sleeping form of Skipper, who had made his bed in the middle of my rug.
Fully awake now, I quietly snuck to my bedroom doorway. Inside, sle
eping peacefully on top of the covers, was Rachel. She was lovely in a little tank top and a pair of my boxers. Her hair feathered out across the pillow, giving the effect of a dark wash of ink against the white pillowcase. I watched her sleep for a minute, then went ahead and stripped down to the boxers I was wearing. I gently lifted her and slipped the bedding out from under her.
I pulled the sheets and quilt up around her shoulders, freezing for a second when she stirred and sighed in her sleep. Assured that she wasn’t about to wake up, I climbed in next to her and cuddled in close, spooning her like I had earlier in the day. She melted into my body as though we’d been sleeping like this for years. Her small frame fit against me like a key to a lock, and I wrapped my arm around her, resting it in the soft curve of her tiny waist. I breathed in the clean soft scent of her hair and let the rhythm of her breathing lull me to sleep.
When I woke in the morning, she was already gone. There was a note on the bedside table. She reminded me that she had to skip our ride today to get her chores done in time for the party, and told me she expected me to save her a dance. I smiled at the thought that I’d have room for anyone else on my dance card with her around.
Kaiser was irritable when I got to the stable. It seemed that he was unhappy that Peacemaker and Rachel weren’t with us, so I asked Pete if he would do me a favor and saddle up Peacemaker while I texted Rachel and let her know we were taking him out for her. Pete and I rode out to the high pasture, where Kaiser automatically turned toward the path to the creek we usually took with Rachel. Instead, I led him in the opposite direction, and we rode the fence line and talked about how our equestrian center was going to be growing, now that we were expanding our breeding program.