by Ann Jacobs
Part of Bye would like to tear his father limb from limb for cheating on Mom. Another, more selfish part figured that as long as Mom didn’t know, she couldn’t be hurt. She might even be a little bit grateful for the occasional respite from her gruff, dictatorial husband. In any case, the days his father wasn’t on the Bar C were good days for Bye.
When his headache finally let up, he got up and went inside. Lying alone in his darkened room, he tried to persuade himself Karen meant no more to him than a good, casual playmate, and sharing her with Jack or another Dom shouldn’t bother him. He wasn’t sure he succeeded, because he couldn’t get the picture of her sucking Duval’s cock out of his mind. He didn’t like that picture at all.
I just don’t like sharing. I’m a selfish bastard.
He knew that. He’d been told it enough times. It wasn’t that he had any special feelings for any particular woman, just that he wanted whoever he played with all to himself. A nagging voice in his head told him he’d never felt that way before, but he shushed that voice and started counting windmills in his mind. That usually worked to put him to sleep, but not tonight. If he wasn’t thinking about Karen, he was worrying about his mom.
It was nearly three in the morning before exhaustion overtook him and temporarily banished his troubling thoughts.
* * * * *
“Bye, get up. Mom will be home in a few minutes.”
He blinked, looked up at Deidre and then at the clock by his bed. It was eleven o’clock, too damn early for him to be getting up after his restless night. “She got down to Houston less than a week ago, sis. They won’t be done with the tests for a few more days. Besides, if she was ready to come home now, Mike would have called me. Four isn’t home, and he doesn’t let the Bombardier leave the ground without two pilots.”
“Daddy got home early this morning and he and Mike left right away. He told me Mom had called him on his cell and said she was finished with the tests. I’d have gone with them but Daddy said no.”
Mom must have checked out okay. Or did she? Could they have found something so bad wrong that there was nothing that could be done?
Bye sat up, suddenly wide awake. A cold chill ran down his back in spite of the room being plenty warm. “Did Four say anything?”
Deidre shook her head. “Only that he’d talk to us when they get home. Bye, I’m scared.”
“So am I, but let’s try to think positive. Go on downstairs. I’ll get dressed and join you.”
“Do you really think she’s okay? Mom has felt awfully bad since I got home from college, and in the past few weeks she must have lost at least ten pounds.”
“So have you, little one.” Bye didn’t like the fact that Deidre seemed about to cry.
“I know, but Mom didn’t need to lose them.” Tears flowed down Deidre’s lightly tanned cheeks, but she managed to stifle a sob.
“I know. We’ll have to wait to find out what’s going on until they get here. There’s no use working ourselves into a frenzy of worry and what-ifs.” Bye felt like shedding tears himself, but he choked them back and tried to sound more hopeful than he felt. When his sister left, he got up. After a shower and a quick shave, he dressed and found her out on the porch, staring out toward the airstrip as though she could will the plane to get back here faster.
“If you’re that anxious, we could always drive over to the hangar and wait there,” he said, keeping his tone light. “That way we can see Mom as soon as the plane lands.” Taking Deidre’s shaking hand, he led her to the garage and settled her in an old Jeep they used to drive off-road, around the ranch.
As they waited in Mike’s office inside the hangar, Bye mulled over Four’s sudden return and Mom’s quick discharge from the Houston hospital. With every passing moment he became more convinced the news wouldn’t be good. To distract himself he found Mike’s stash of coffee and brewed a pot. After drinking three cups, his nerves were even more on edge by the time the jet rolled to a stop in front of the hangar.
He and Deidre rushed outside and waited at the base of the metal stairway. When he saw his parents’ stricken expressions as they stepped onto the airstrip, he knew for sure without being told.
They’ve found Mom has cancer, and it’s terminal. If it weren’t, they’d have kept her in the hospital for treatment.
Later, after Four had settled Mom in bed, he called Bye and Deidre to the ranch office and confirmed what Bye had already guessed.
Chapter Three
She wants to enjoy the time she has left with her family, not spend it being pumped full of poisons the doctors say won’t buy her much, if any, time. His father’s words rang in Bye’s ears even as he railed inside at the sickness that was making Mom weaker every day. Seeing the pain she tried to hide tore at his heart, but he welcomed the emotion.
Without it he couldn’t have had the joy of talking with her, learning what she loved most about the ranch, her life and her family. Bye knew he’d always treasure hearing how proud she was that he’d put his own spin on ranching with his wind farm and how happy he’d made her by doing something that would help preserve the beauty of the land she loved while providing another source of much-needed energy.
For the past two months he’d been able to see his mom as more than the woman who’d soothed his bumps and bruises and always looked for the best instead of the worst in him. He’d gotten to know her as a person and a friend, learned what meant the most to her on a level he’d never explored before. For a guy who’d always fought the bit and tried to escape at every opportunity from the responsibility inherent with being heir to the huge Bar C, he’d enjoyed spending every day and every night here, trying to make enough memories of his mom to carry him for a lifetime.
Now that time was coming to an end. He stood on the porch, looking out at Mom’s flowers and mourning because she no longer had the strength to go to her sitting room window and look out at them. Weeks ago she’d had to give up the morning rides around the Bar C with him, first on horseback and later in the Jeep once she’d become too weak to ride.
An hour ago he’d had to leave her room or else worry her with the tears he could no longer hold back. “I love you, Mom,” he’d told her, a catch in his voice as he bent over her bed and kissed her dry, hot forehead. Then he’d left on the excuse of needing to talk with Doc Baines.
Deidre had more fortitude than he. She was still in Mom’s bedroom, listening to her struggle for each labored breath. His little sister was determined to stay the course as long as there was life left in Mom’s ravaged body. It had taken all the strength Bye had to sound calmer than he felt when he’d called Four on his cell a few minutes ago and suggested he might want to come back to the house.
There he was now, kicking up a cloud of dust as he roared into the driveway in one of the ranch pickups. “Why aren’t you in there with your mother?” he spat out as he bounded up the few steps and stomped mud off his boots. “You seemed to think I needed to hightail it back here from the northwest pasture.”
“Doc Baines thought it was necessary. He doesn’t think Mom will make it through the day. I’m not in there with her now because it would hurt her if she saw me crying. Men don’t cry, or at least that’s what you’ve always told me.” Bye was hurting too bad to hide his feelings. He didn’t give a rat’s ass what his old man thought.
“You’re damn right. I’ve let you spend the last two months entertaining Mae because that’s made her happy, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you snivel like a little girl now that her time’s almost up. Get hold of yourself and come with me. It’s time we see that she goes in peace, with her whole family by her side.”
That was one of the few things Bye ever agreed with Four about. The cancer had spread more every day, putting Mom in hellacious pain. She’d staunchly refused the medicines that would have helped because she wanted to stay conscious and spend her last days having quality time with her family. Doc Baines had been here the past two days, begging Mom to take the morphine that would ease he
r agony. Maybe she’d agree, now that her husband was finally by her side.
Bye had to get it together. He took several deep breaths, squared his shoulders, assumed a bland expression and followed his father inside.
An hour later Mae Caden breathed her last, with her husband, son and daughter gathered around her bed. It was over. Though Bye grieved for his loss, he consoled himself with the belief that his mom was in a better place now, where pain could no longer claim her.
He’d spent every night and day with her since she’d come home from Houston, watching her slowly leaving them all. He couldn’t leave the Bar C now, while everybody was preparing for Mom’s funeral. If he did, it would disrespect the woman he’d loved and respected more than anything. Arrangements had to be made, and he’d be part of those arrangements for the next few days.
* * * * *
Two days of making preparations for Mom’s funeral had Bye going stir crazy. He had to affirm that he was still alive, and that life would go on. He left Deidre and the housekeeper calling shirttail relatives and strode outside, thinking he’d have Vampire saddled and take a long, hard ride.
Fuck it, he thought angrily. I don’t need my horse. I need a friend. A human friend.
He needed a woman’s softness. To find comfort in her arms. A picture came in his mind of dark, intelligent eyes and long, dark hair that felt like silk beneath his fingers. It wasn’t a picture of just any woman. Bye needed Karen.
Not for her hot body or her tight little cunt. Hell, he wasn’t looking for sex right now. It was the last thing on his mind. He needed Karen’s understanding, her comfort and her friendship. He was through denying it.
He pulled out his cell phone and got her office number from directory assistance. Hesitating for just a second, he let the operator connect him automatically.
“This is Karen Oakley. May I help you?”
Bye almost hung up but his need trumped his good sense. “Karen, this is Bye Caden. My mom passed on, day before yesterday. I’m pretty wrecked, and I need you bad.”
“You want to go play at the Neon Lasso?” She sounded a little shocked but not entirely unwilling.
“No. I can’t go there, not now. If I did, it would seem that I don’t respect Mom’s memory and I do. Besides, that’s not why I want to see you.”
“Where, then? I’m pretty sure you don’t want to meet me in town or at my place since I live with Pop on the Rocking O. Also, I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to drive up to the ranch house at the Bar C and sashay right up to your front door.”
Bye agreed. “What about meeting me tomorrow afternoon at one of the Bar C line shacks that’s close to the farm road between our ranches?”
They agreed that would be the safest bet, once Bye assured Karen that all the nonessential ranch work was at a standstill until after the funeral and none of the Bar C hands would be using line shacks. Once they’d agreed to meet at the rough-hewn cabin closest to the junction of the farm road Karen took to go home and one that crossed the southwest corner of the Bar C, they settled on meeting at five thirty, after she left her office. “I’ll send one of the ranch hands to your office in the morning with a key.”
She sounded hesitant. “Are you sure he won’t say anything to your father?”
“I’m sure. I’ll be sending Manuel. He still has a job because I spoke up for him with Dad when our foreman wanted to fire him along with his older brother who’d started a fight with one of the other hands. I trust him implicitly.”
“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Thanks for agreeing to meet me, baby. You just may save my sanity.” Bye stuck the phone in his jeans pocket and took a look at some forbidding dark clouds in the western sky. If he didn’t miss his guess, they were in for a hell of a storm.
* * * * *
By the next afternoon Bye was beyond desperate to escape the constant ping-ping of raindrops forced by a high wind into the ranch house windows. He couldn’t take any more unrelieved grieving. He couldn’t bear to watch all the household staff scurrying about to ready the house for his mom’s funeral tomorrow. Most of all, he couldn’t stand watching Four stare out the windows as though he’d lost his best friend, or listening to Deidre sob quietly as she catalogued Mom’s jewelry to be stored in the Bar C’s office safe. He ignored the incredulous looks shot his way when he stomped out of the house, mindless of the rain and wind.
Driving a ranch pickup that shuddered and bucked in the storm that mirrored his dark mood, he squinted through sheets of torrential rain that made the windshield wipers practically useless. There it was, a few feet off one of the farm roads that crisscrossed the Bar C, the line shack where he’d asked Karen to meet him. Knowing he was kidding himself, he tried again to persuade himself he was after hot, wild sex to prove he was still alive, but that didn’t fly. He wanted Karen for something personal, emotional, and he might as well admit it to himself if no one else. He pulled over, parked and sprinted through the pounding rain and wind gusts that nearly blew him over.
When he stepped through the door, slamming it against the fury of the storm outside, Karen dropped the blanket she’d wrapped around her like a toga and stepped into his arms, naked as the day she was born. “I had to undress. My clothes got soaked on the way in here from my car.”
“I don’t mind.” The warmth from her body seeped into his pores. It chased away the cold and dampness, and the bone-deep sadness that had overwhelmed him as his mom had slipped away from him inch by slow, agonizing inch. Karen made him feel alive again in a way he hadn’t felt for months. He hugged her first then bent and whispered against the long, dark curtain of her loosened hair. “Thanks for meeting me here. I don’t think I could have handled the club scene, not today.”
“Bye, I’m so sorry about your mom, but at least she’s not hurting anymore.” She stood and framed his face between her hands as she met his gaze with soulful dark eyes. “And I’ve missed seeing you. I’d have called at your house if I’d dared, to see how you and she were doing.”
He understood. “That’s okay. I should have called you at your office before, but all I could think about these past weeks was the fact that Mom was dying and there wasn’t a fucking thing any of us could do to prevent it. She was hurting so much I could barely stand seeing her, but she wouldn’t let Doc Baines give her anything to dull the pain until right at the last. She said she wanted to enjoy every last minute with her family and take the memories with her when she had to go.” Bye paused, rested his head on Karen’s shoulder and absorbed the comfort she offered. “I know I should be grateful she’s not suffering any longer, but…”
“Hush, baby. You loved her. And you’ll miss her something fierce. Same as I still miss my mother, and she’s been gone since I was knee high to a grasshopper.”
He couldn’t help smiling at her expression, one he used to hear from Mom every now and then. “You’re right. Losing Mom is gonna hurt me for a long time, but at least I had her for almost twenty-eight years. Thanks for meeting me here.”
“I wanted to be with you or I wouldn’t have come. I’ve missed you. Let me help you get out of these wet clothes before you catch a chill.” Her hands gentle, she unbuttoned his soggy denim work shirt first before unbuckling his belt and releasing the button and zipper on his jeans. “Kick off those muddy boots.”
Bye was more than willing to indulge her. He was soaked through to the skin, and he was starting to shiver. As soon as he kicked the work boots away, though, Karen sat on her ankles, her hands clasped behind her back—the picture of the submissive lover who’d captivated him from the first time they’d played together at the Neon Lasso.
She held that posture only for a minute. She moved her hands and peeled his socks off first before reaching up and tugging his wet jeans down around his ankles so he could step out of them. Her warm breath tickled his thighs as she came up on her knees and hooked her fingers under the waistband of his boxers. Slowly, taking her time to caress his half-ha
rd cock, she got rid of the shorts, leaving him to shrug out of his shirt.
“That’s right. Let me see those beautiful muscles. I’d almost forgotten how hot you are.” She stayed on her knees before him, using her hands and her warm breath to coax him to full arousal. “You like me best when I’m on my knees, don’t you?”
Reaching down, he fisted her hair in both hands, raising her head as she was about to take him in her mouth. “Not now.” Bye wasn’t sure whether he wanted to toss her on the narrow bunk in the corner or…
He recalled their last scene together when he’d buried his face between her firm, smooth legs and lapped at her cunt and clit until he heard her scream that had come out muffled by another Dom’s cock. He’d been ambivalent about the role he’d been playing, so much so that he hadn’t come that night until he finally took charge and claimed her pussy the way he’d wanted to while she had been giving head to the other Dom.
He hadn’t come here for sex, and something told him that if they did this now, it would mean a hell of a lot more to him than the wildest club scene he’d ever experienced. “This isn’t what I need right now, baby.”
“What do you need, then?” When she looked up and met his gaze, she seemed confused.
“This.” Needing the understanding Karen didn’t serve up with the honeyed, meaningless words of sympathy he’d heard from too many well-meaning neighbors, Bye pulled her up and held her close. He savored the smoothness of her skin against the sun-baked roughness of his own and the silky brush of her hair against his chest. For a long time he just held her, his hands as still along her spine as her own were at his waist.
He appreciated the warmth from a small fire she’d started in the rock fireplace along one wall of the one-room shack, but even more, he was thankful she was here. She made him feel a little less alone.