by Alice Ward
“Oh, yes, about that. The attendant on the plane and I had a nice sit down to keep me a bit more relaxed. We shared a cup of tea and sandwiches. Turns out that Lily, that’s her name, well, Lily and I have quite a bit in common.”
“You both are overly dramatic?”
“Cute. Actually, she also grew up in the equine industry on her family’s farm, except her family lived in California. They’re gone now, and she lost the farm. So, she chose a new career but misses her old world.”
He stopped massaging my foot. “And this has to do with us how?”
“It has to do with us,” I explained in a careful tone, “because with the kids heading off to college in a couple of years, I’d like to have a backup so I can take some time off when I want to. I need a farm manager. Sort of like Bernie used to be, but this time, they would really be a farm manager more than a personal assistant.”
We were both silent long enough to think about Bernie and wonder where he was and why he no longer stayed in touch or collected the money Worth sent.
“So, you made her quit her job and follow you home like a newly adopted puppy?” Worth’s tone was a bit sarcastic.
“Of course not. I’d never hire someone without your approval, you know that.”
“I do?”
I ran a hand down his arm, feeling the muscles flex and relax. “Well, now I wouldn’t. Those were different times. You were being sneaky, and I had to do the same.”
He nodded as though this made perfect sense. “I see.”
I nodded and shifted so he could massage my other foot. “The company she works for is putting that jet in for a routine inspection, and she has a few days off. I invited her here as our guest. At worst, I thought she’d have a nice little vacation in a place that seems like home. At best, she might be that manager.”
“You always have things worked out so neatly. Did you mention your plans to her yet?” He was teasing me. I didn’t take the bait.
“Worth, you’ve said you’d like me to spend more time with you. This is the only way I could possibly do it.”
“Not really, Auggie. You know, we won’t exactly starve if you don’t muck stalls every day. We could sell this place and move to town, or to China, for that matter.”
“Worth! You know how I feel about this place, and the kids need a home to come to on weekends and holidays. If you took horses away from me, I’d go crazy. I’m not exactly the tea cakes and bridge type, you know.”
“I’m quite aware of that. But, at the same time, you recognize that eventually working with horses will be too much to handle, especially at the rate your business is growing.”
“I was sort of hoping that one or both of the twins would take over,” I mentioned casually.
He turned to me, serious now. “Auggie, you can’t do that, and you know it. You didn’t like your mother making plans for your future, and it’s not fair that you try to do that for them. If one or both of them choose to do it of their own volition, that’s one thing. But don’t push. Promise me?”
I nodded. I knew what he was afraid of. For years now, ever since Ford had been sent away, we silently held our breath that nothing would go wrong with either of the twins. It almost felt as precarious as parents whose pregnancies miscarry over and over. You don’t know what you did wrong, but you try very hard not to repeat those mistakes. There was no logic to it, but there was no logic to life overall.
I whispered, “You think he’s still out there?”
Worth didn’t hesitate. “I know he is. I’d feel it if he weren’t.”
I nodded in agreement. I had to let it go at that. There was no other choice.
CHAPTER TEN
Hawk
The time had come to expand my business by hiring personnel. This didn’t appeal to me, but things were at the point of either expansion or go bust. I couldn’t continue at the pace I was working, nor did I particularly want to. I wanted to spend time with Liane. She was all I could think of. No matter how often I saw her.
I decided to offload much of my work to another company and become the contractor. It was the smart move, but any time I reached out to depend on a relationship, it always exploded. That sort of insecurity underwrote much of my life. I knew better than to let it ruin my business. It wasn’t about wealth. I’d already accumulated fortunes enough to last several lifetimes. This was about proving to myself, or so I wanted to believe, that I could succeed on my own. I understood enough about myself to know it was the driving force behind everything I did.
I dreamed of marching into Father’s study one day and throwing bags of gold and accolades upon his desk, proving that I didn’t need his love in order to be a whole person. Sometimes I almost succeeded in actually believing myself.
I flew out to California and looked up a few college friends who had stayed in the tech world. They put together some meetings and by the week’s end, I’d inked a deal with a very quiet, very deep firm who had cultivated a reputation for their discretion and caution. They didn’t even have a name, just an email address and a phone with voice mail. These were rare in the tech world. Most of the tech guys, including women, were in it for bragging rights. They were generally the ugly kid who never got invited to parties and had something to prove. Their money made their dicks or tits bigger, as the case may be. That’s not what I was looking for, and the only way to weed those out was face to face.
I didn’t mention to Liane that I’d be gone. It would take too much explanation, and I wasn’t ready for that. She really didn’t know a great deal about my personal life, and I think much of what she knew, she assumed. She was so different from other women I’d known. She never pried into my life. Never stalked me online or slyly suggested that she come out and see my place. Perhaps it was the British restraint, but I didn’t think so. It felt more like she had no need to do these things. She already knew what she needed to know. It was the most liberated I’d felt in my life, and I couldn’t believe it had taken a quiet church mouse to pierce my veneer.
I was in a dilemma, though. I was falling too fast, too easily. My guard was down. As good as she was, I knew there must be danger somewhere, and my brakes were off. That could prove fatal to me.
I did what came naturally. I panicked. And trolled.
Women looking for sugar daddies in California were thicker than oranges on their trees. I ambled down to the hotel bar and set up shop at a corner table. I put the bait in the water and waited, but it didn’t take long.
The waitress brought me a drink and nodded toward a blonde at the bar. I tipped my head in thanks but let it sit on the table, untouched. She turned on her stool from time to time, contemplating why I didn’t touch the drink. Women and cats share that characteristic — curiosity.
She sent over a bottle of expensive wine, thinking I just didn’t care for her first choice. Again, I told the waitress to leave it unopened but acknowledged the gift. This was making her crazy. Now, she was on a mission. She probably expected another woman to walk in shortly, which was why I wasn’t accepting her overtures. I sat quietly and didn’t look at her, but focused on making scribbles on a napkin.
For all she knew, I was sketching out a new app or a miracle invention. Tech people were like that. It never occurred to them that you might have ordinary thoughts and even weaknesses. They were a culture of challenge and triumph. Why else would someone live there if not to be in the ongoing tech laboratory that lay along the coast? It was crammed into unkempt ranch houses pocking neighborhoods where the rent was cheap, and no one had to take out the trash if they were deep in a key line of code.
The bar stool babe had all she could take. As I watched from the corner of my eye, she picked up her drink and wound her way between the tables to arrive at my side.
“Not like the drink?” she asked. I knew that would be her line. She was just like all the others.
“Don’t like drinking alone.” I played out a bit more line and then tightened the reel to wait.
She smiled
now, on familiar ground and pulled out the chair. “Mind if I join you?” she asked although she’d already answered herself. I barely motioned to the chair with the tip of my finger, making it obvious that it didn’t matter to me one way or another.
“Why the sunglasses?” She swirled her words within a current of drugstore perfume and cheap whiskey. I’d seen it before. She was on the skids and had pulled together her last cent to get out of the hole.
I didn’t answer her question but asked one of my own. “You staying here?”
That caught her off guard, and I knew it. She couldn’t afford a broom closet in this place and would probably starve for a week due to the wine that now sat unappreciated on the table between us. She thought a moment and then replied slyly, “I’d like to.”
Oh, yeah, she was just my type. Stupid, predictable and entirely and completely forgettable. I stood up, threw a hundred on the table, picked up the wine and offered her my hand. I saw her glance at the hundred. It would have gone a long way toward eating that next week. She wasn’t sure if there was money in my invitation, but she was greedy and gambled it would pay off. She accepted my hand and followed me out of the bar and into the elevator.
We emerged at the penthouse, and I watched from behind my lenses as she tried to behave as though this was normal. I saw her sneak glances at the expensive art on the walls, the counter holding baskets of fruit, cheese, imported wines and platters of caviar and sushi that had just been refreshed by the staff. She walked toward the windows and then quickly turned away.
“What’s the matter? Afraid of heights?” I couldn’t help but poke at her.
She nodded and closed her eyes, putting her hand on her stomach as though she were queasy.
“If you’re gonna throw up, there’s the bathroom. There’s a toothbrush on the vanity. Brush before you come back.” She blinked at me, then fled. She must have recuperated because I didn’t hear any gagging and moments later, she emerged, her blouse opened to her waist.
I pointed at an opened doorway, and she trotted off in that direction, pulling off heels as she walked. She was so, so classic; so pathetically classic. I gave her a few minutes and poured myself a whiskey before presenting myself in the doorway. She was waiting for me, naked and shivering beneath the satin, quilted bedspread. I kicked off my shoes and socks but took my time removing the rest of my clothes. Naked, I stood next to the bed and looked down at her before ripping back the covers and inspecting her naked form as though she was a biology class mouse about to be dissected. She attempted a half smile and looked up from beneath a phony eyelash that had come half unglued. I rolled my eyes and dove onto the bed.
She gasped, then smiled as I grabbed a handful of her bottle-colored hair. I pulled her head back so far she couldn’t see what I was doing. Her eyes were huge, but she moaned.
“You like it rough?”
She couldn’t move her head, but she licked her lips. “Yes.” The word was a tiny breeze of air.
I let go of her hair and slid my hand down to her throat. I didn’t clamp down to restrict her breathing, only to make her submissive. When her muscles relaxed, I let go and spread her thighs apart before rolling on the condom I’d tossed on the bed. Without preamble, I rammed into her balls deep. She cried out at the suddenness of it but arched her back, giving me more of her. Over and over, I drove into her without so much as a kiss or brushing her nipple. This was sex, nothing more.
In my head, I summoned up every nuance of rejection and hatred I’d endured, pounding her hips deeply into the mattress with my fury. I was like a cold, steel piston; relentless and unfeeling. I knew what I was doing was wrong, using her this way, but couldn’t seem to stop myself.
Then something quite unexplainable happened. What felt like a current of warmth and light descended over me like a layer of insulation from the world around me. I tried to lift my head to see if there was a physical entity above me, but my body was becoming unbelievably heavy. The burning anger became sadness, and I actually felt a bit frightened. My dick went limp, and I fell out of the blonde and onto my back, staggering beneath the strange sensations rolling through me.
Her eyes wide, she rolled away from me and to her feet, gathering her clothes as she rounded the bed to leave the room.
“Hey!” I tried to bark, but it sounded like a pathetic whimper. I reached for my wallet and threw two thousand-dollar bills in her direction. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. Wanted to ask for her forgiveness. She didn’t deserve the treatment she’d just experienced at my hands.
Like a dog sneaking a bite of a dropped steak, she took a step forward and scooped up the bills. I heard the elevator door ding as it opened and again as she flew downward in it. I wondered if she had enough sense to halt the elevator until she was dressed, wondered if she’d be alright.
I laid on the bed, laboring as though trapped in thick syrup and wondered briefly if this was what a fly felt like when it became tangled in the spider’s web. I wondered if I was having a stroke or maybe an aneurism. I really didn’t feel sick at all. In fact, quite the opposite. I felt light and warm and smothered with love. There was nothing I wanted to do but lie there and revel in it, and that’s exactly what I did. Eventually, I fell asleep, or so I assumed the next morning when I awakened. Perhaps I’d died for a time.
I threw my things together and had a limo waiting to take me to the airport. It wasn’t until the jet landed at Standiford Field that I relaxed enough to breathe.
I headed straight for the Y — straight to Liane. She looked up from her perch behind the counter as I cleared the doorway. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been there that day. I think I would have gone mad.
“When are you off?” I asked in a strained voice.
Her eyes were steady as if she’d been expecting me. “I’m just now getting my things together.”
“I need you to come with me.” I couldn’t put it in any better language than that. I was beyond thinking rationally.
“I know,” she said simply and came around from behind the counter. She leaned up and kissed me fully on the mouth, then on the side of my neck as she whispered the words I would never forget. “I love you. I’m here. It will be okay.”
***
I headed toward my car, but Liane came up beside me and snagged my keys from my hand. “I think I’d better do that.”
I fought off the urge to kiss her again; the need was so great. I nodded and climbed into the passenger seat. “Drive where I tell you,” I said, and she nodded.
We didn’t speak — words just didn’t seem to be appropriate. I gave her directions, and although it had grown dark, she drove competently and without question. When we came to my driveway, I opened the glove box and hit the remote to open the high gates that fenced me from the world. She pulled forward through the opening and paused long enough to make sure it locked behind us. She seemed nonplussed, although I knew it was a novel and potentially dangerous situation in which to place herself.
She trusts me.
We pulled up to the house, and as we climbed from the car, Diablo was restless and snorting, his hooves kicking the walls of his stall. He knew there was a stranger on his turf.
I took Liane’s hand and led her to the barn to meet him. As soon as she walked into the warm, fragrant space where only a single light bulb burned a circle of awareness, he settled immediately. In fact, he became docile and raised his muzzle toward her hand so that she might stroke him. She cooed to him, and he came closer, wanting her to open the gate and climb aboard. I recognized instantly the effect she was having and did as he wanted. Snapping reins onto his bridle, I heaved myself onto his back and sat upright, extending my hand down to Liane to slide up behind me. She did so easily, and Diablo shifted from side to side like a child nestling down into a soft blanket.
We left the barn and let Diablo have his head, but he didn’t gallop as he normally did when first released. He walked, almost in a dancelike movement designed to keep her seated and
against the warmth of his hide. The moon was bright, and there was no need for light. He knew his way, and I trusted him. Liane snuggled into my back, her arms wrapped around my waist — not to keep from falling, but in a hug of love. Diablo knew where I wanted to go. Like so many times before, he always knew.
We stood at the highest point where Carlos Acres could be seen, rolled out like a carpet of magnificent grandeur and lights. In the darkness, I could almost pretend that it belonged to me, as it should. I could ignore the fact that there were people there who didn’t want me; didn’t even care if I was alive. Yet, of all that lay before me, it was their love I wanted most.
Liane said nothing, and when we returned to the barn, she slid off effortlessly and picked up a brush to groom Diablo gently before returning him to his stall. Without asking, she nabbed an apple from a nearby bucket and fed it to him, stroking his muzzle.
As we walked to the house, I asked, “Do you ride often?”
She smiled, a tiny upward tilt of her lips. “I’ve never touched a horse in my life.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hawk
The house was warm, but unnaturally quiet when we walked through the front door. I opened a window to air things a bit. “Why don’t you shower while I make us a pot of tea and something to eat?” Liane suggested.
I nodded, and it felt like I was gliding as I walked. It was all so effortless. I toweled off after the shower and threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. I found her waiting, curled on the sofa with a tray set up on the coffee table. Two steaming mugs of tea sat next to a platter of sandwiches and it occurred to me I’d never seen a more delicious banquet.
“Sit down, Hawk,” she said, pointing to the chair opposite hers. “We need to talk about a few things.” They were the words that I’d waited to hear but didn’t want to say.
I picked up a mug and nodded before sitting down. She wasted no time, and her voice was almost like a symphonic instrument awaiting its cue to begin playing.