by Gayle Keo
“Aren’t you joining me?” he yelled from the bathroom.
“In a sec, I was still unpacking.” She responded. She removed her clothes and headed to the bathroom. He glanced up and met her gaze briefly, then kissed her on the lips.
“I love you.” He said.
“I love you too.” She responded with a smile. “I want to let you know that, you have nothing to worry about. My ex is out of my life forever.”
“That’s a relief for me. I want you by my side always. I promise never to stop loving you no matter what.”
THE END
Another bonus story is on the next page.
Bonus Story 32 of 36
Laws of Passion
“I still can't believe that you actually opted to move to the country, Nick,” Gary said to his longtime friend over the phone.
“Well, the thing is that I figured that since my grandpa left me a ranch out south, I might as well go there and see how it goes. I'm going down there next week probably. From what I gather, it is a pretty sizeable piece out there, and I just might put it to better use so that we can make some profit out of it,” Nick said to Gary, excitement actually bubbling through him at the thought of moving south to Austin.
“So, what does the ranch deal in?” Gary asked as a matter of fact.
“Well, Gary, what do you think that ranches deal in apart from cattle and horses. I wanna go down there and make it the best cattle ranch ever, and maybe once I'm there, I could invite you over to see how things are going,” Nick said.
“I think that would be swell. I guess that means that you are now going to be a cowboy of sorts, huh, I can't wait to see how well you can ride a horse,” Gary laughed, running his fingers through his long hair before taking his beer bottle and drinking from it.
“You might not believe this, but I've been riding horses ever since I was a kid. I was even a jokey for a time when I was in the army,” Nick said, signing out of his computer and shutting it down.
“I happen to be one of your closest friends, and yet I feel as if I know so little about you,” Gary contemplated.
“Well, the thing is that there are things that we have never gotten around to talking about, and one of them happens to be horses. Anyway, I have got to go, I need to put my accounts in order so that I can start preparing for the purchase of new cattle and a slaughterhouse for the ranch. By the time that I'm done with that place, I am going to be a Texas legend,” Nick said, pulling the brim of his Stetson a little lower over his face as he grabbed his laptop bag and walked out of his office.
Nick had been taken by surprise a week earlier when he had received a call from a law firm telling him that he had just inherited a huge chunk of ranchland in Austin after the death of his grandfather. It had come quite as a surprise because he had not known that he had any living relatives at all. Upon hiring a private investigator, he had discovered that Francis Ford was indeed his biological grandfather and that he was the only bloodline left, apart from some cousins of his who had moved north to New York and could not be traced.
He was pretty excited to find that he had some relatives and even a grandfather that had taken the time to hire an investigator to find out if he was still alive. Nick's mother had died when he was barely six and then his father died while he was still in high school. When his father died, life had been hard for the young teenager, but he had worked hard in his studies while living with a well-wisher. As soon as he had graduated from high school, Nick had enlisted to the army because he did not want to feel like a burden to the well-wishers that he was living with, and it was from there that he had begun his life.
Due to his brilliance, Nick had quickly shot up the ranks within a span of a couple of years, before retiring to start his own business. He now dealt in supplying of construction material to many growing cities, and had quickly became a millionaire. Still, with all the money that he had, Nick had never really found true happiness. Maybe it was due to the fact that he felt so alone in the world due to no family. He had been in and out of relationships but could never quite find the reason to settle down with one woman. Most of the women that he met were just the usual gold diggers after him because they knew that with his sort of money, he could offer them a bright future where they did not have to work a day in their lives.
He had completely given up any hope in life until the law firm had contacted him last week, and that had seemed to bring some sort of life back into his life. When he had sent out a private investigator to find out whether Francis Ford was indeed his grandfather and reports had come that he even had some other relatives up north, it had given him renewed strength for life. He would look for them while in the meantime also looking for love. He was not getting any younger, at twenty-eight, and he was under constant pressure to get hitched, since most of his friends had already done so.
“Anita, could you please write out a check for half a million dollars to my newly acquired ranch. And please book me a flight down to Austin, I think that there is a lot of work that needs to be done down there, and I want to be there to do it personally,” he said to his young personal assistant, who sat at her desk dressed in a sexy outfit that showed off her cleavage in the most arousing way.
“Yes Sir, why don’t you let me come down with you, I have a good history with ranches, having been brought up on one, and my help could come in handy,” she said in her western accent, standing up to hand him some papers.
As usual, Anita was dressed to kill, the short dress that she was wearing hugging her body in a sexy way, and coming down to her mid-thighs. She had white milky thighs that could drive any man crazy, and many a time Nick had thought of making a hit on her just so that he could get in between them. He always stopped himself right on time since he knew the sort of scandals that such flings could cause. He was the one that made sure that his staff all dressed to kill. To him it was one way of bringing business to his business, and it always worked. He personally handpicked every staff member that worked in his office, be it female or male, always making sure to employ those that not only had brains, but were also attractive in a sexually appealing way.
“Maybe the next time, Anita. This time I am just going to go and take a look at the ranch to see what it might need and what needs to be discarded,” he smiled at her, knowing that the main reason that he was not taking her along with him was because he might end up doing to her things that are far from any ranching or work.
“How long will you be gone, Mr. DuPont?” she asked politely, looking a little disappointed.
“I'm not sure, but when I'm ready to come back, I'll let you know so that you can book my return flight,” he said to her, perusing through the papers that she had handed him. “While I'm gone, I would like you to take charge here and keep me up to speed with everything that is happening, okay?”
She nodded at him as she settled down on her seat again, still regarding him the way that she always did, almost as if she was undressing him and even fondling his dick with her eyes.
*****
“If all y’all ain’t gonna pay for your drinks, I'm gonna have to be forced to pull out my rifle,” Solange Smith said to the two rowdy cowboys seated on the bar stools of her saloon.
“Is this bitch trying to threaten us,” the one with brown rotting teeth said as he broke into a loud drunken laughter.
“If all y’all ain’t gonna pay for your drink,” the other one imitated her, making her start becoming even angrier.
It was a good thing that she was used to dealing with these sorts of customers every day and she knew just how to handle them. She ran the saloon in a small dusty cowboy town of Elm Tree, located several miles away from Austin city. At times she wondered what a young woman like her was doing in these parts and yet she had so much more potential out there. She had come to Elm Tree out of necessity after being framed for a murder that she did not commit, back in the city. It was a long story that she did not like thinking about but preferred to concentrate on her business. At le
ast it made her enough money to live a comfortable life here, despite the fact that it had its challenges. Many a time, there were outlaws that came from the desert and they ended up raiding all the shops and businesses, including her saloon, forcing everyone to start from scratch all over again.
After the first robbery had taken place soon after she had moved into Elm Tree, Solange had grown a lot wiser. She had gone ahead and made an underground safe in her office at the back of the saloon and she kept her deposits there after every few transactions. That way even when they struck again, they would never take all of her loot. It had worked well for her so far because they usually made off with very little money that was not such a problem recovering.
Solange planned to leave Elm Tree as soon as her name was cleared. This was definitely not a town for a city girl like her that was used to the good life out there. For starters, there seemed to be no young people around her own age, most of the men here being men in their forties onwards, and almost all married. Solange knew for a fact that at twenty-five she was not growing any younger, and that she would soon have to find herself a partner very soon. She had not even gotten any decent sex since moving into the town and as each day went by, she felt the craving within her loins becoming more and more. She was constantly feeling horny and yet there was no way that she could make out with these old dirty cowboys. She could not allow herself to stoop so low, and besides, she would not want to cause a scandal with their wives.
Upstairs, she had a brothel where most travelers and locals would come to relieve their lust. That was probably her biggest income maker and she would source women from all parts of the state and put there on a commission basis. It was a good thing that the law out here was not as strict as in the cities, because she had never been caught for running a sex selling business. Even the sheriff was one of her major clients, which meant that she was pretty safe for the meantime.
“All right gentlemen, I'm going to ask you one more time, are you going to give me my money or not?” she said, reaching under the counter for her rifle.
“Why don’t we go up to one of your rooms so that we can pay you with a good fuck, I'm sure that would be better than money,” one of the cowboys laughed, spitting onto the ground.
That was enough for Solange. She had already taken enough insults from the men and now one of them even had the audacity of spitting on her floor. She pulled the gun out from under the counter, cocking it and pointing it at the men.
“I ain’t gonna ask you again, put my money on the counter and leave, I think that you’ve had enough to drink for tonight,” she said in a stern voice, the cowboys sobering up when they saw the double barrels pointing at them.
“It’s all good, we were just kidding with you,” one of them said, pulling out a thick wad of notes and placing it on the counter. “Keep the change, we’ll see you tomorrow.”
They slid off their bar stools and made their way out of the saloon staggering. Solange at times wondered how the cowboys got onto their horses when they were that drunk, but had never really gotten around to going out to watch them mounting. She followed them to the door and locked it, before going to the counter and emptying the cash box. She counted all the money carefully and then took it to the office and put it away in the concealed safe. Closing the store, Solange made her way upstairs to the brothel.
For a woman in the male dominated cowboy west, Solange was doing pretty well for herself. Most of the women here were housewives that would never dare to venture into business and yet Solange Smith was doing better than most of the businesses that were ran by men. Despite her thriving businesses, Solange still knew that when the time came for her to leave, she would leave, unless a really good reason arose for her to stay in Elm Tree.
*****
“Giddy up,” Nick said to the horse, kicking it in the sides as it galloped off towards the prairie.
He had arrived at the ranch the evening before and he was pretty excited at being here. The land was much bigger then he thought, and it was bordered by a river to the south, and another ranch to the north. In the morning he had toured the northern part of the ranch and now he was off to explore the southern part that was bordered by a river. The cattle were in the southern prairies and he intended to watch the cowhands doing a head count.
It felt good to be out west, because here people did not realize who he was. They did not know that he was one of the richest men in the mid-west and they therefore treated him as just another boy that had inherited family land.
“Well, boss, and that there is where them cattle is,” the foreman of the ranch said to him after almost an hour on horseback.
“Wow, I didn’t know that one could have so much cattle,” Nick said as they broke into an open field where there was an endless sight of cattle disappearing into the horizon.
“That is why I was telling you that it is going to be very hard for the ranch hands to take a tally of all the animals today,” the foreman said as Nick looked around at all the cattle and horses in disbelief, thinking of the best way forward.
“Okay, I think I know what we are going to do, we are going to do an aerial count of all the adult females and then from there, we can try and get a round figure of all the animals. From now on, we will be tagging all the newborn calves so that it is easier for us to keep count,” Nick said, getting off his horse as he continued to scan around deep in thought.
“Pardon me, Sir, but what is an aerial count?” the foreman looked confused.
“We will count the animals from an airplane,” Nick laughed.
“It’s gonna be pretty hard to come by an airplane in these sides, Sir, I don’t know of any folks that have any of those, because as it is, the ranchers are already struggling with the drought, and the prices of beef dropped greatly,” the foreman said.
“Don’t you worry about that, Jake, I'm going to figure out a way around that. Now, we had better get back to the ranch house, I'm feeling pretty exhausted. I hope that there is somewhere I can catch a cold beer in town.”
“There is actually a canteen out in town, although I'm not really sure if you are going to like it, you don’t look like the type to go to such places,” the foreman said.
“If there is something that I have learned in life, Jake, it is never judge a book by the cover,” Nick said, mounting his horse as they began riding back to the ranch house.
The sun was just coming down by the time that they were arriving back at the ranch house.
“Welcome back home, Sir, it looks like you took after your grandfather, the old man would go out all day without anything to eat, only darkness bringing him back here,” Jake’s wife said to him fondly as he stepped into the house.
Maggie was the one that handled the affairs of the house, cooking and all. She and Jake had worked for his grandfather for years and they were full of very fond memories, taking their time to tell Nick all about it. According to them, Francis had been one of the kindest men that were left in the countryside, and his death had affected them greatly. They had been like his family while he lived alone and when Nick had arrived, they had thought that he would relieve them of their duties and probably sell the ranch, something that he had no plans of doing.
“Well, I guess it is in the blood,” Nick smiled at her.
He already liked the both of them, even though he barely knew them. They made him feel like he had a family to come back home to. Inside the wooden house, a sweet mouthwatering aroma came from the kitchen, stimulating his appetite.
“Mmm, something smells good in here,” he said, taking off his Stetson and placing it onto a hat rack.
“I prepared some grilled chicken and potatoes along with a fruit salad. I hope that you'll like it. Unfortunately, we don’t have any liquor in the house, but you can ride into town, Madam Solange owns a saloon there,” she said cheerfully to him.
“Thank you, Maggie, I guess I'll ride into town later on, it might give me the opportunity to meet up with some of the townsfolk here,” h
e said to her, patting her on the back.
*****
It was a Friday and as usual on such a day, the saloon was packed with cowboys. Most of the customers were her regulars as well as farm hands that had received their weekly wages. Solange sat in the inner side of the counter, watching her customers closely. It was the usual boring crowd, but then what could she do about it apart from make do with what she got.
“Another beer, Andy,” she said to the sheriff.
“Yes, Madam Solange, another beer will do, and then maybe you could get me one of your best girls upstairs,” he winked at her knowingly.
“That shouldn’t be a problem at all, as a matter of fact, there are some new hot girls that came in yesterday, and I'm sure that you would like to try out some fresh meat,” she smiled at him, carrying a keg of beer to his table.
She was walking back to the counter when she heard the door of the saloon opening, and when she turned to look, there stood a man that she had never seen before. He was slightly older than her and was dressed very decently, even wearing a gold watch, despite the fact that he was wearing cowboy gear. He stood in the doorway looking around the room before his eyes finally settled on her, his deep blue eyes searching hers. Solange found herself blushing deeply as something stirred in between her thighs.
This had to be the most handsome man that she had ever laid her eyes on, and Solange found herself staring at him, unable to look away. Everyone in the saloon turned to look at the newcomer, and he nodded at them, tipping his Stetson as he walked towards the counter. Solange felt as if her thighs were going to give in, her strength draining away for some unknown reason. No man had ever made her feel this way, and it was only because everyone in the saloon was suddenly concentrating on the stranger as he came to a stop at the counter, that she got back her composure.