by Avery Gale, Jess Buffett, Willow Brooke, Lynn Ray Lewis, Gracie Meadows
The slam of the service door broke the mood he was in. He straightened and pushed her to an arm’s length from his body, still holding onto her hips to steady her, while he got his breathing under control. She had a more difficult time forcing herself to calm down, but gave a slight nod when she could finally stand on her own, and moved further away from him. He turned away without another word, and left the barn. That was the last time she saw him before she left the ranch.
Chapter Three
The bed sheets were a tangled mess when she woke. After her shower, she had fallen into an exhausted sleep. The towel that had been wrapped around her hair was on the floor, and her right foot must have been hanging out from under the covers, because it was freezing cold. She made a quick run to the bathroom and came back to make her bed before dressing in her Saturday morning uniform of jeans and a t-shirt. After her second cup of coffee, she booted up the cheap laptop she had bought and worked on one of her online courses. Her circumstances might have changed, and she had needed to apply for financial aid for the rest of her schooling, but she was determined to finish and get the degree. By noon, she finished with the class and sent the assignment back. She was pulling all A’s in the three classes she was taking, and planned to continue keeping her grades high. She loved learning, and enjoyed each new assignment like a puzzle master enjoyed a new, more complex puzzle. Discovering the answers gave her satisfaction. The difficult work also gave her a rest from thinking about how to deal with the problem of Matt.
Six months ago, she would have opened a vein to go on a real date with the man; now, she wondered whether he had asked her out because he felt sorry for her, or if he wanted to talk to her about maybe taking her old job back, or was he really interested in her? She had relived that kiss in the barn a thousand times, and a thousand times she woke frustrated and breathing hard, sometimes sobbing in disappointed grief. She felt cheated all of those years, and then he gave her the one good memory just as she was ready to give up on him. Since he left and didn’t look back, so did she. She wasn’t built to play those games; she was a one-man type of woman, and so far, her one man had been reluctant, to say the least.
The day dragged on as she took her clothes to the Laundromat to get that task out of the way, still wondering about Matt’s motives. By the time she needed to begin getting ready for tonight’s date, she was a mess of nerves. She chose to wear a dual kick pleated panel skirt and a beautiful soft angora sweater. She found the outfit in a thrift shop and couldn’t resist. The new strappy heels gave her the advantage of towering over almost every other woman and half the men she met whenever she wore them. When she first tried to wear heels instead of her cowboy boots, it had resulted in a sprained ankle. Vonda made fun of her and, after she healed, helped her learn to walk in heels. It had not been an easy thing to do; she was used to striding around in her boots. Now, she’d learned to walk in shorter, slower steps, constantly aware of her balance and posture.
Looking in the full length mirror attached to the back of the bathroom door, she tried to see herself as Matt might see her. Her light brown hair was streaked with natural blonde highlights, and she was wearing it down tonight, so it curled around her shoulders, clinging to the fuzzy mohair of the long-sleeved powder blue sweater. The darker blue of her eyes was emphasized by the dark brown mascara she wore without eye shadow. Only a touch of light pink blush for her cheeks and a swipe of pearly pink lipstick completed her makeup. According to the online beauty tips she studied, less was more, so she always tried to get away with the bare minimum when it came to makeup.
Her large breasts were too big in her opinion, but the v-neck of the sweater only showed a small amount of cleavage. Her waist was pronounced and flared out into wide hips. Vonda always teased her about her “birthin’ hips.” It was her cousin’s polite way of describing her wide ass. Not that Vonda had any room to talk. The wide ass must have ran in the family, because hers was even wider than Eddie’s, and her chest could only be described as majestic, or so her husband always told her.
The shoes helped bring the entire picture of sophistication together. They weren't the strappy stilettos that she planned to wear this evening, the weather was much too cold for that. Instead, she was wearing a simple cobalt leather pump with four inch heels. They still brought her five foot eight frame eye to eye with six-foot-tall men. She liked the way she looked tonight, even if she was wearing pantyhose and high heels. The weatherman was predicting snow for tonight, so she was happy she would be wearing her warm sweater, and that she had found a wonderfully warm, lined, full-length coat that would keep the worst of the wind off her legs.
The knock on her door at exactly seven o’clock startled her. She hurried over to unlock and open it to admit the big man into her small cheerful home. He stepped inside and looked around after offering her a smile that made her want to wrap her arms around him and demand he finish what they had started all those months ago. He looked so different in his western style suit. Oddly enough, the beautifully tailored suit was dark blue and matched his eyes, and her own ensemble.
He took her hand, holding it up to twirl her slowly around, as he pursed his lips, letting loose a long whistle. “Very nice, Miss Parker. You look lovely tonight. Seeing you like this, a man could hardly imagine you in jeans, scruffy boots, and pigtails.”
His compliments went right to her needy heart. It was admiration she saw in his eyes and, if she were not deluding herself, a touch of heat was there also. The knowledge he found her pretty made up for the discomfort of the heels and even the damn pantyhose. She smiled and picked up her coat, which he promptly took from her hands and held out for her to slide her arms into. Then turned her around and pulled the sides together and tied the belt, before placing a whisper of a kiss on top of her head. He stepped back, and she grabbed her purse as they walked out the door.
They talked about the ranch on the way to the restaurant, and she laughed as he told her how much trouble he had been going through to replace her in the barns. “How dense does a man have to be to understand that a horse sleeps standing up? The man came with excellent references, but when I checked on him, he was trying to get Gypsy’s Spirit to lie down and go to sleep. When I asked him why, he told me that all pregnant females needed rest and that she was too heavy for her legs to hold up for so many hours at one time. He was very patient with me while he explained his reasoning, like I was the moron there.”
She laughed so hard that she only actually heard about half of what he was telling her. When he told her about the next man that he’d hired, who had played classical music to the animals so they would stay calm while he napped, she was pissed on the animals’ behalf. “He was moonlighting at a bar in town, singing with his band. When he got to work in the mornings, he would feed the girls, and then sleep until noon. I found him sleeping in the corner while his helper tried to help one of the cows deliver her calf.”
When they got to Arabella’s Grill, she excused herself for a few minutes to repair her makeup. Looking into the mirror, she saw that her eyes were sparkling, and that most of her mascara had been washed into the corners of her eyes from the laughter on the drive there. She quickly made the few simple repairs and rejoined him just as the hostess began to lead him to a table for two, tucked cozily in the corner of the dining room. He held her chair for her, and it finally sank in, this was a real date, this was how a man that was interested in a woman treated her when they went to a place like this. It was just like you see in the movies, or in the commercials, except this was real life, and it was happening to her. She liked it. He wouldn’t go to all of this trouble if he weren’t interested in her as a woman. The knowledge made her gift him with a wide smile that had him raising his head a bit, and his eyes seemed to zero in on her mouth. She could have sworn his nostrils flared too, but decided that was a fanciful idea, so she picked up her menu and tried to concentrate on the chef’s offerings.
While she was thoroughly enjoying the last delicious bite of the Napole
on mousse that had looked too tasty to turn down, the man at the table across from theirs stood, then went to one knee right there in the dining room with fifty people looking on. He proposed to the woman who sat in stunned silence for long minutes, making everyone around the couple nervous for the man, before she nodded her head and knocked him down onto the floor when she tried to embrace him. She ended up on top of him with her hands on his shoulders, pinning him to the floor. She was straddling his waist, while her already-short dress rode up to give the onlookers quite a view of the cheeks of her ass, as she rained kisses over his face, dripping tears and declaring her own love for him.
The entire dining room erupted in applause, with many people giving the couple a standing ovation for the display of love and affection they were unafraid to show the world. Most of the women in the room were wiping tears from their eyes, while the men either smiled indulgently or shook their heads in silent pity for their fellow man who had fallen into the marriage trap.
On the way back to her apartment, they discussed the scene at the restaurant. Matt seemed to think the guy was nuts for proposing to the woman in front of all of those people. “I felt sorry for the guy. Let’s face it, he bought a ring, and has to hope she likes it. He had to get the guts up to propose and even did the whole down on his knee thing, and then she hesitated. I get the fact she might have been surprised, but come on. He dodged a bullet there. She could have said no, and he would have been left hanging in front of all of those people.”
She understood what he meant, even if she didn’t agree. “I understand what you’re saying, Matt, but he must have known in his heart that she loved him, or he wouldn’t have been so willing to be made a fool of possibly. He was right. I bet you didn’t notice that she looks like she might be a couple months pregnant, too, did you? Maybe he proposed to her in such a public place because he was certain she wouldn’t let him be humiliated in front of all those people; did you ever stop to think about that?”
They debated the wisdom of public proposals all the way to her place. She invited him in for coffee, but he declined, leaving her with a deep kiss at her door. “I’ll call you tomorrow; maybe we can make arrangements for you to come out to the ranch next weekend and stay. We can get some riding in. Maybe have a campfire or something.”
Chapter Four
Matt was having a bad week. Every time he turned around, there was another crisis to deal with. The only real bright spots in the week were the two times he took a breather to call Eddie. He was glad she had quit working for him, so he could finally ask her out. He’d suffered a case of blue balls every time he was in her vicinity since he had seen her skinny-dipping in the creek bordering the east pasture, where they let the thoroughbreds graze. She had been probably eighteen then. Her naked breasts teased his eyes as she bobbed up and down in the cold creek water trying to cool off.
The sight of her fully nude body that day in the sunshine, while she contorted, trying to check for leeches, made him hard just thinking about it. From that day forward, every time he saw her, she seemed to be posed in some suggestive way. She would be bent over a bale of hay, looking up at him from a position on her knees, or lying in fresh snow, laughing as the flakes fell on her face as she worked her arms and legs up and down to make an angel in the snow. She was his biggest temptation, and his biggest obsession. He avoided the barn once he gave her the position her father held. Old Lenny sure had fucked the girl over. Although Matt hadn’t really wanted to give her the job that Lenny had had, he knew she was actually qualified. She earned every penny he gave her, and he knew it. Knowing the men he sent to be help for her wanted her themselves drove him nuts, and every time he’d had to fire one of them for saying something vulgar, or fighting over her, he took it out on her. He ended up paying for new dental work when he busted out Driscoll’s front teeth. Irvin went to the ER with a broken hand. The last two boys were sent to ride fence lines, and they were still out keeping the fencing in good shape. They’d argued with him, but he told them that if they wanted a job that was the only thing he had for them to do. The last day he saw her on the ranch, had been his breaking point. He had almost taken her into the feed room and lost himself inside her untried body. He left for an unplanned buying trip that night to avoid the temptation of whisking her off to his bedroom and keeping her there until neither of them could walk.
Unfortunately, she was an innocent. He didn't take innocents into his bed, and no matter how tempting she was, he wasn't about to start with her. When a man took a girl’s virginity, he was making her a promise; at least that is what his father had always said. “If you break it, boy, you better be ready to pay for it, ‘cause it is a one-of-a-kind thing. Most females want a man to care enough about her to put a ring on her finger and a roof over her head. So a smart man leaves those females alone until he is ready to settle down.” It was his father’s idea of a man to man talk, and Matt had taken his words to heart. No matter how much his body lusted after her, he wasn't ready to settle for one pussy for the rest of his life, no matter how sweet and fresh that flesh might be.
She had been on her own for almost seven months. By now some man had taught her the joys of the flesh. She was too tempting to be left alone for long, and if that kiss they shared was any indication, she was ripe for the picking. He found himself envying the man that took her innocence, but at thirty-one years old, he was not ready to settle down. He loved women, loved everything about them, except when they got possessive. Once a woman started to cling, he was gone.
If he had been of a mind to get married, Eddie would be a good choice for him. She loved the animals and could ride any horse he owned. She could milk a cow, rope them, and even cook one. From the warmth of her kiss, he knew she would keep a man’s mind on her in the bedroom, and not straying to other women. Yes, she would make a good rancher’s wife, if a man were ready to settle down.
By Friday afternoon, Eddie was ready to leave and not look back at the office, her apartment, or anything else that didn’t have the Everly Ranch brand stamped on it somewhere. It had been a very long week. Part of the reason might have been hearing Matt’s voice on the phone just before she went to sleep two times since their date. She finally got home, peeled off the hated pantyhose, and showered, before digging out her old ranch gear and boots. She packed only what she might need for the weekend on the ranch. He hadn’t mentioned going anywhere, so she didn’t bother to pack anything fancier than slacks and sweaters to change into for dinner. It was after six before she got on the road, but she felt her spirit lighten with every mile that brought her closer to the ranch and the man who owned it.
She drove her old truck into the driveway to the house for the first time in her memory, and parked it next to the house. If Matt wanted her to move it later, then he could tell her where. For now, it would do. She pulled her suitcase from the seat beside her and walked up to the door. Why did she feel suddenly as if she was doing something wrong? It was a perfectly innocent plan: spending time together, riding, talking and, if she were going to be honest with herself, she hoped the weekend would include more kissing and, hopefully, relief from the unrelenting need to have him naked with her in bed, showing her that everything she’d dreamed about was possible in reality too.
He must have been watching for her to get there, because he came up onto the porch behind her just as she reached for the doorbell. She heard his boot steps on the wooden planks and turned to smile at him. “I wasn’t sure whether to ring the bell or knock on the door, or just walk down to the barns and say hi to the girls first. To tell you the truth, I’ve missed them.” She barely got the last word out, before she was pulled into his arms and kissed with an enthusiasm that she returned with all of the pent up longing she had been feeling since the last kiss they shared. When he let the kiss lighten and fade into small nibbles on her lips, he rested his forehead on hers.
“It’s been a long week, and seeing you standing here all fresh and pretty made the wait worth it. Let’s go inside so you
can get settled in and I can shower and change out of these dirty clothes. We have been attacked by some kind of flu bug round the bunkhouse and some of the hands have been sick, so I needed to help out more than usual. Dinner should be in the oven, so we can eat as soon as I get cleaned up, if that’s okay with you.” He laid another hard kiss on her lips and picked up her forgotten suitcase, before opening the door and waiting for her to enter his home.
He led her upstairs to the room across the hall from his room. She remembered his room from the last time she had been in his home. This room was almost as large as his. The brass bed was a double sized, and the dressers were heavy, solid wooden things that were beautifully preserved and polished by loving hands. No one would take such care to make certain every crevice of the ornate carving was dust-free like this, unless they loved their work. Scatter rugs littered the hardwood floor, and the heirloom quilt on the bed made her wish she had a family who handed down things like these. To belong to such a heritage must give Matt satisfaction and pride that she could only imagine. She put her clothing away and went down to the kitchen to wait for him.