Ride 'Em (A Giddyup Novel)

by Delphine Dryden

  And those were the breaks. Business was business. And wouldn’t Logan rather go up to the house and discuss this in private, rather than out here where these . . . large gentlemen were listening in on every word?

  Logan assured Derek this location was just fine. He pretended to listen, and nodded as Derek spoke. His ears were full of static. Because Mindy hadn’t shown. And if Mindy hadn’t shown, and Derek had, that either meant the whole thing really was a setup, or that Mindy didn’t want to be a part of his life after all. And it was clear Bud knew something was going down at Hilltop this weekend, or he wouldn’t have sent Derek at that particular moment on a Friday afternoon, right?

  So ultimately, what Derek said didn’t matter nearly as much as the larger question—which would show up next, the law or the press?

  He scanned the skies, half-expecting helicopters with cameras.

  Up the hill, they’d already started setting up the pony derby area; when he’d last seen the main corral, somebody was already long-lining a pair of nicely matched ponygirls, while two other handlers were gearing up their ponies for a turn in the ring.

  They were all so screwed, and he’d allowed it to happen.

  And then the police cruiser drove up, the top light clearly visible behind the other waiting cars.

  Sure. Of course. Inevitable.

  When he recognized Chet, he was a little confused. When he saw Mindy get out the other side, he gave up trying to make sense of any of it.

  She was in a suit—or a jacket with a dress or something like that, he couldn’t really tell—not dressed for the ranch.

  “Your backup’s here,” he told Derek, interrupting whatever the guy was trying to tell him.

  “My what?”

  Derek looked where Logan pointed. Mindy walked toward them, waving hesitantly at the giant biker who stepped in her way.

  “Name?”

  “Mindy Valek. I’m on the list. Logan, what . . . ?”

  He considered telling Bloodworm to keep her out, but figured there was no point. Chet was coming in anyway. None of it mattered now.

  When she’d been checked off and waved through, she jogged up to him and Derek, doing the awkward high-heel run. He hadn’t seen her in work clothes before; she looked a little disheveled, not nearly the crisp office look he would have expected.

  Mindy opened her eyes wide at him—pleading, trying to say something without words, he didn’t know what. Then she turned to Derek. “Mr. Larch, I’m so sorry you drove all this way. I think my stepfather has been trying to reach you, but your office seems to be closed for the day?”

  “We spoke around ten this morning . . .” Larch loosened his tie, looking even more uneasy. “Was there something after that?”

  “Yes,” Mindy said with a brisk nod. “He found out I was en route and gave me some directives. He wanted to set up a meeting with you for Monday afternoon.” She inclined her head toward Logan. “I can’t really share the particulars right now. I’m sure you understand. I also have some details to discuss privately with Mr. Hill. About the potential lease agreement they discussed this afternoon, after my stepfather spoke with you?”

  Potential lease agreement? What the fucking fuck?

  Logan held his hand up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I never—”

  “Right, right.” Mindy smiled at them both and shook her head. “There is a confidentiality issue, right now, because there’s another potential buyer. You’re right, Logan, I apologize. We can discuss it at our four-thirty meeting. So glad I made it in time, my car broke down. But the sheriff happened by and was kind enough to offer me a lift.”

  Chet had walked up behind her. He tipped his hat. “She’s going to be needing a new vehicle.”

  Her car had broken down.

  The sad face. It was because her car had broken down.

  The fog in his brain started to clear.

  “Derek, we’re hosting a private group here this weekend, as you can see. But I’ll be there Monday to discuss the loan with you and Jameson. And Mindy. Right, Mindy?”

  “Absolutely.” She turned a gorgeous smile on Derek, who smiled back like a man hit with a Cupid’s arrow. “It was so great to see you, Derek. So sorry for the mix-up! I’ll let Pop know I got ahold of you, so he can stop trying to reach your poor secretary.”

  Then she said some more things, and eventually put her arm through Larch’s and walked him to his car, still grinning and nodding and being all kinds of charming.

  Laying it on a little thick, possibly. But the guy seemed to eat it up. So Logan didn’t care.

  By Monday afternoon, he’d have all the receipts in order, everything accounted for—or at least enough to bring his payments current and then some. Because things actually did seem to be going according to plan after all. Better than plan.

  Mindy had come to the rescue.

  * * *

  “I’m rethinking best practices for how to run a business,” Logan said, as he ran the bullwhip over his hand then flung it wide, letting the full length uncurl.

  Mindy swallowed and turned her head away, trying not to think about where the whip might land first. “This is probably not the best practice, honestly, sir.”

  “See, that’s where I think you’re wrong.” He flicked the whip softly, letting it wrap around her calf in a gentle caress. The leather scuffed at her skin as it coiled away again.

  She shivered, but not from the cool night air.

  “What do y’all think?” Logan asked the small group of onlookers. “Responsible business ownership right here?”

  “Responsible some kind of ownership, all right,” called a latex-clad top from the row of burlap-covered straw bales serving as a bench.

  Mindy and Logan chuckled at the same time. She gripped more tightly at the ropes around her wrists. “Oh, he doesn’t own me.”

  “That reminds me.” Logan came up behind her, pressing against her bare back. Rough denim against her butt, his belt buckle a cold note in the small of her back, his chest warm and firm under the thin cotton layer of his plaid shirt. He looped the whip somewhere, possibly over his shoulder, and dug in his pocket for something. “I have something for you. I forgot all about it earlier, with all the . . . excitement.”

  “Is that what we’re calling it?” She tried to press back against him harder, but couldn’t get a purchase with her hands secured over her head, limiting her range of motion.

  “Shh. Here.” He held something in front of her—a black cord with a jewelry clasp. A small cardboard tag hung off it on a ring, cream tag stock with a brown reinforcement around the hole, like something you’d see hanging from a lamp in an antique shop. On one side, it read Ariel. Logan flipped it after a second so she could read the other side. Under the protection of Wildcat.

  His scene name—the term for oil wells that weren’t in a big oil field. When he’d told her, she’d laughed until her sides hurt.

  He undid the cord and fastened it around her neck, where it hung at the level of her collarbone, with the tag hanging over her sternum.

  “Robert said you don’t do the leather household thing,” she murmured, leaning back to press her cheek against him. The angle was awkward but she needed the contact. “Or collaring.” Protection meant different things to different people, but it was still a big commitment, and not one she’d expected.

  “Robert doesn’t know everything.” Logan reached around and fingered the tag, then let his hand drift down to tweak her nipple until she squeaked. “And it isn’t a collar.” He brushed his lips against her shoulder. “Yet.”

  She sighed, relaxing into his touch, letting in the pain, but also the affection. Letting in all the possibilities. Her life might be in utter turmoil, but it turned out that this, this one thing, she hadn’t fucked up entirely. And it was not a small thing. Only one element was needed to make her night complete.

  “Will you whip me with that thing now, sir? Or do I have to beg?”

  He chuckled, the vibration
running through her whole body. “Let’s get this party started.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Logan reassured Mindy that the former parking lot of the old drive-in wasn’t nearly as creepy as she was making it out to be. When they arrived, though, shortly after dark on a Sunday night, he was glad he’d downloaded a backup movie in case Camp Killsaw 3 seemed too grim for the venue.

  He’d been looking forward to a little shrieking and clutching, but Mindy was right—watching a horror flick on the tablet in that empty abandoned lot would have been an open invitation to the mythical guy with the hook for a hand who preyed on young, illegally parked couples in love.

  So they spread a sleeping bag and blanket in the bed of Logan’s truck, and watched The Princess Bride for what must have been at least the tenth time for each of them, and he and Mindy repeated all the same favorite lines and laughed in all the same places and it was pretty much perfect. Except the bagged popcorn they’d gotten at the general store was a little stale.

  After the perfect ending, they stared up at the stars, fingers and legs entwined, awash in the smell of old popcorn and bug spray, alive with possibility.

  “So I did two things today,” Mindy finally said.

  “Oh, yeah?” He was expecting to hear something mundane like laundry and inventory, because she liked to keep him abreast of that stuff. Or sometimes it was making the perfect sandwich, all for me, none for you. Which was fair. Since she was usually telling him via Skype, from her place in Dallas. She had quit her job, but was still technically looking for something else in her own field—though she commuted to Bolero on weekends, and he’d put her on the payroll officially the minute she allowed him to.

  “I talked to Mom.”

  “Oh, shit.” He half rolled over, leaning on one elbow to study her face. “How did that go?”

  She shrugged. “About as well as you might expect. I don’t know. Maybe a little better? I kept worrying that Bud would somehow find out about Giddyup—what it really is, I mean—and that would become a factor, but as far as she knows I’m just making a really questionable career move to leave my secure job with family for some wacky startup dude ranch. That’s not quite as bad as ‘wacky start-up kinky dude ranch.’ So she’s worried, but more puzzled and hurt than anything else.”

  “Hurt?”

  “That I’d walk away from Bud’s generosity.”

  Ah. So she hadn’t had the whole talk with her mom. “Are you ever going to tell her about him?”

  Mindy shifted her head, looking up at him and lifting a hand to his cheek. “Yes. And soon. But it can’t happen too close to the holidays or it’ll ruin Christmas. Better to plan on that ruined Christmas starting in summer, than at the last minute, right?”

  “Right.” He traced his finger over her cheekbone, where the moonlight highlighted the curve. “Do I get to meet her first? Before she knows my full role in the ruination?”

  “Yeah, I think you do. Well, and you’ve already met Bud.”

  “Maybe a separate meeting ...”

  “Probably better, yes.” She patted his cheek, and he started to lean in to kiss her, but she stopped him with a finger to his lips. “Don’t you want to know what the second thing is?”

  He’d forgotten there was a second thing. He nodded somberly as if he’d been interested all along.

  Mindy ran her fingers up into his hair. “You know that little blue house over on Maple that was for rent?”

  “Behind the Bewliss’s?”

  “Yeah. It’s not for rent anymore.”

  It took a second for her meaning to sink in, then Logan grinned. “You’re moving back home full-time? Seriously?”

  “The lease was almost up on my apartment in Dallas anyway. It was time. So ... I can actually start doing more at the ranch during the week, instead of trying to cram it all into the weekends when I’m here.”

  “And . . . you’ll be here.”

  “I hope you can still afford me full-time.”

  “You know it.” He couldn’t not afford her. She was the idea girl. Not to mention the heart of Hilltop Ranch, as far as the visitors were concerned.

  Hell, as far as Logan was concerned.

  He reached up to take her hand, pressing it down beside her head and holding it there—pinning her, enjoying the hell out of watching her face shift as she went from talking-about-the-day mode to submissive mode. Ready to give him whatever he wanted—ready to take whatever she needed.

  But all they needed right then was a kiss. Perfect and pure.

  * * *

  Robert made the best coffee. And he also, it turned out, knew a great deal about inventory management software.

  “But I never expected I’d be showing you how to do it. Who would’ve dreamed . . .”

  Mindy highlighted the field he indicated and pored over the pull-down list of categories. “This is the top-level one, and that’s . . . consumables, right?”

  “Yeah. Not top-level, though, that was what took us to this form. Kitchen. All food goes through the kitchen category, even the stuff for the trail ride cookouts and snacks. Except the snacks for sale in the gift shop when we get that set up, that’ll be on its own point-of-sale system.”

  She finished the entry and moved to the next item, which was basically the same except for the amount. “After this you’re gonna show me how to generate the shopping list, right? Is it the same for vanilla events?”

  “Yeah, the numbers just vary more because we don’t always get the cap. No wait list or begging for spots when it’s not Giddyup time.”

  The ranch had settled into a routine: one Giddyup weekend a month, and the rest of the weekends and some weekdays taken up with what a lot of the staff called “vanilla time.”

  They’d had to let Lamar in on it. To everybody’s surprise, the old guy hadn’t batted an eye. He’d said something cryptic about it seeming like old times again, and that was that. He’d taken to hanging around the horse barn during Giddyup weekends, talking to the pony players and giving people advice about tack. Next month he was slated to give a daytime talk about proper leather conditioning.

  Mindy couldn’t get over that this was her job now—this and a hundred other administrative duties at Hilltop. She didn’t really have a title—she and Logan couldn’t seem to agree on one—but she was definitely making herself useful. For the first time in years, she felt happy with her work. Happy with her surroundings. All it had taken was a lot of trust and a group of kindhearted kinky people with a shared vision for outdoor fun and games.

  “You know,” she pointed out to Robert, “we really all have you to thank for this. You were the horseshoe nail.”

  “The what now?” He looked up from his stack of invoices, fluttering his ridiculously long black eyelashes. He looked about twelve; Mindy always had to remind herself he was almost her age.

  “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the—”

  “Horse was lost. Yeah, I know the expression, I just didn’t know where I came into it.”

  “Well.” She gestured around the kitchen, where she usually sat with her laptop and paperwork on guest-weekend evenings while Robert finished cleaning up from dinner. He no longer did a full dinner on Giddyup Fridays, so tonight he’d had light duty. “It started right here. If you hadn’t called Logan “sir” that first night, I wouldn’t have twigged that he was kinky. I wouldn’t have gotten involved with him. We wouldn’t have played around on the trails or in the old barn, which got us thinking about how great this place could be for kink. And so on. You were really the magical element. Kind of the—ah, nope. Never mind.” She stopped herself, clamping her lips together, but Robert’s curiosity was too fired up to let it go.

  “Give.”

  “It’s awful.”

  “Mindy. Give.”

  “Okay, you were basically the . . . gayus ex machina.”

  After a second of silence, he clapped his hands over his mouth and started bouncing, paddling his feet in place like
a toddler whose Christmas dream had just come true. From behind his fingers a mumbled stream issued forth: “Oh my God oh my God oh my God!”

  “That’s not offensive? Wait, where are you—?”

  He ran past her, still squealing. “I need the desktop computer, I have to go start designing the T-shirt right now!”

  “But you’ll miss the fire lighting!”

  “I don’t caaaarrreeee,” came his reply, dwindling as he turned the corner into Logan’s office.

  Still laughing, Mindy checked the time then started stacking papers, slipping things back into their folders and tidying everything up for the night. She didn’t want to miss the fire. It was fast becoming her favorite tradition, and it was nearly time. Guests had started assembling in the yard; the breeze brought her the rising noise of happy voices, the occasional crack of a whip or jangle of a harness.

  Slipping out the back door, she made her way to the fire pit, where it was easy to pick Logan out of the crowd. He was wearing his black hat, and the dark red shirt she’d gotten him. Black jeans, black boots. Pure Kinky Cowboy. The perfect look for Wildcat, the head of house at Giddyup.

  She had on black boots, too, and a wrap dress with a single tie. Nothing else but her cord and tag—which he’d carefully relettered last week in Sharpie, then laminated. At some point, he claimed, he’d have it duplicated in etched silver. She expected she’d see a few other versions before then. Each one a little more permanent than the last. He thought he was sneaking up on her, but he wasn’t all that sneaky. Nor did she need him to be.

  When the fire went up, the dress would come off. Always a fun start to the weekend. Around October, Logan assured her, he would set up outdoor space heaters so they wouldn’t have to give up that part of the Giddyup tradition.

  “When Ariel gets naked, the party gets going,” he’d told her firmly when she raised the concern. “That’s the deal.”

  “I think it’s really when the fire starts, but okay.”

  He spotted her and held his hand out, and she made herself walk, not run, to his side.

  “Accounts all taken care of?” he asked, then kissed her forehead.