“I’ve told you that it isn’t just about me. I have Brianna and Alex. I-”
I cut him off, “I know you do and I think you are doing a great job with them. They adore you, Ryan. They will be happy wherever you’re happy. You’re just going through the motions and living. But not the way you want.”
Silence meets me on the other end of the line. Why did I have to open my mouth? I was so excited to hear his voice and now I’d probably just thrown away whatever it was we were trying to have.
“Ryan?”
“I’m here. You’re wrong. They’re happy to be on the farm. Where our parents lived most of their lives. Where Brianna and Alex have lived their entire lives.”
“Is that what they’ve told you, Ryan?”
“Miranda.”
Was that a warning to stop? Because I am on a roll. I don’t know why but my blood is flowing through my veins. Somehow, it has become so important to me to make him see this, to fight for him. And, I was on a roll.
“No. I’m serious. Have you actually talked to Brianna and Ryan about selling the farm and moving?”
“They’re too young to know what they want.”
“Ryan, they’re not too young. You don’t think they have an opinion about this?”
“That’s enough, Miranda. I’m not talking about this anymore. What you and I have going on is simple and uncomplicated. Please let’s just leave it that way.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ryan
“Ryan, haven’t seen you in here lately. Been busy?”
“Yeah, I have. Fixing the teeth on the baler. Someone ran into part of my fence last week and had to replace that. Never ends,” I say, shaking my head.
Dean, one of my neighbors, sits at the counter of Thatcher’s Feed along with three other men I know. The owner, Thatcher Patterson, is behind the counter opening another bag of peanuts. Who wanted peanuts at eight a.m.? These guys. Cap definitely. Not me, although not from lack of Dean and Thatcher not trying. I was fine with my coffee, poured from Thatcher into my aluminum drink can.
“Some asshole knocked over my mailbox about a month ago. They’re not gonna mess with it now. I reinforced it with steel pillars when I put it back into the ground.”
We all laugh at Cap’s remark. As one of a few welders in Lone Star, his comment isn’t over-exaggerated in the slightest. He isn’t a guy you want on your bad side. Coming from a long list of biker-related siblings, uncles, and cousins, no one really pried too much into his personal life. His dad has been in prison since Cap was twenty-three and eleven years later, I get the feeling his dad is still issuing orders from inside the pen.
But despite all of Cap’s tattoos and leather, he’d always been a good guy to the four of us. Never sure where he found all the biker babes, he did, especially around Lone Star. But he kept a steady stream of them nonetheless. Thatcher, on the other hand, well I hadn’t seen him with a woman in a looong time.
“Heard our city council member here got into a fight.” Leave it to Cap to say this.
“Rumors,” I wave my hand away.
“Always rumors. Especially when that asshole Yates is involved.”
“You beat up Yates?” Dean asks, clearly haven't heard the news yet.
“I would’ve loved to see those guys throw down,” Buck laughs, as he cracks another peanut.
“Can you imagine? Our pretty boy here and Yates?”
All the guys bust out in boisterous laughter, cackling and re-enacting the fight. The fight that wasn’t even supposed to exist. The fight I’d just said I hadn’t been in.
“You guys,” I shout, looking over my shoulder to confirm we are the only ones inside the store. “I’m on the city council, remember? I don’t go around getting into any fights. With anyone.”
“Right, right. We forgot,” Cap snorts.
“And I’m not a pretty boy.” This rouses another bout of laughter from the guys.
“Whatever. I’m out of here. Call me when you got my invoice ready,” I tell Thatcher.
“Always do.”
Thatcher has lived in Lone Star all his life. His parents are big wigs who manufacture silos for commercial businesses as well as for private land owners. Not wanting to follow in his asshole father’s footsteps, he’d managed to buy the feed store from them when his grandfather passed away and he’d inherited money. The gut was eternally single and never one to complain about it. I didn’t get it.
Coming out of the feed store, I walk the half a block to the post office and pick up a certified letter requiring my signature. High Plains Corporation. I’d barely began ripping the thing open when I run into Miranda.
“Ryan.”
Today she is wearing a white skirt that hits just above her knees with one of those collared shirts. Bright red. A woman with confidence. Power. And shoes that exposed her cute little toes. Great, and eyes that hint at sadness. Immediately my protective instincts flair up.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.” She tries moving past me and I lean into her, stopping her progress.
“Tell me,” I demand. Then it dawns on me, “This is about our conversation, isn’t it?”
She cocks her head to the side, remaining silent.
“Look, we’re going to have to get past this issue. You are under the opinion of one thing and I believe it’s something very different. Can you do that? Can we do that if we’re going to be friends?”
“Well, of course. Just because I say something you may not like doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, right?”
“Exactly. Plus, we still have a little bit of this more-than-friends thing going on that we need to do.”
“Such as?” she teases.
I walk away from the front door of the post office, guiding her by her elbow toward the side of the building, ignoring her squeals of half-protest and half-delight. I turn so that I am leaning up against the dirty brick wall, not willing to get her power outfit dirty. I pull her into my arms and kiss her. Unable to stop my tongue from seeking out the warmth of her mouth.
It’s perfect.
With the almost-summer bright blue sky stretching above us into eternity and the partial shade from this giant oak tree that keeps us semi-hidden from any looky-loos, her lips taste like coconut. Her mouth is sweet and pliant against my lips as my tongue continues its claim on her. She is fucking perfect. So right for me, the way she molds into my body. The way she bends at my will the second I lose myself in her. The way she can so easily understand me when no one else can.
“What are you doing?” she whispers into my mouth. “People will see us.”
I am hard as fuck and have never felt so at peace in my life. I didn’t give a rat’s ass who saw us. Something in the back of my mind promises I will regret that later, but now, with Miranda’s petite hands wrapped around my neck and her sweet coconut lips fanning my mouth, I don’t fucking care. I want this woman so bad, I hurt. My chest aches. I can’t breathe. My cock has never felt so needy. I want to make love to her right here. In this perfect place I’ve found underneath this perfectly grown oak tree.
“Don’t care.”
I continue to kiss her, sucking in each breath she exhales. Out of her mouth and into my own. As if in doing so, I can capture her soul and somehow, this world around us will fade away. Kissing her and wondering how I could have possibly gone on this long without this woman, this addiction, in my life.
She pulls away again, breaking the spell and once I come down from seventh heaven, I realize she looks quite mad.
“What?”
“You can’t do this, Ryan. You insist over and over that we can’t do this, that it would ruin your reputation, the twins. And yet, here we are in the fucking town square making out underneath this…this nice tree.”
Her eyes glisten with tears and in that second, my bubble of perfect, bursts. She is right. I didn’t want to face this conundrum. I wanted to continue having my cake and eating it too. As I stare into her brown eyes, I
know I have to make a decision. I need to decide what is important to me. Providing Brianna and Alex with a life free from drama and rumors, at my expense, was purely inconceivable. Living said life without this woman who lived with a burden on her shoulders so great, and was too stubborn to let her problems fall on anyone else, was inconceivable too.
I know what my heart wants. But are the things I want right for the kids in my life? I am all they have. The only person who will be there for them. Good or bad. Sometimes I did a better job with them than I’d expected. But there’s no way I can make the wrong choices and have them living with the consequences. Problem was I wouldn’t know what the right or wrong decision was unless it bit me on the face. All I know is this moment is perfect. She is perfect with her wavy hair framing her face and those small stampings of freckles she tries to hide with make-up; I want to kiss every last fucking one of them.
But will perfect now be perfect later? I release her out of my hold so we’re no longer touching, already hating myself for thinking the things I’m thinking. I guess she can see something in my eyes too before I even say anything because as I start to open my mouth, she turns and walks away leaving me with a raging hard-on all alone against this dirty brick wall, under this perfect sky and perfect oak tree.
I want to chase after her. Something holds me back and I don't. That something is doubt. Doubt about my life and which direction it is going in. Doubt about how to proceed. As a stand there, unmoving in my no-longer perfect place, I wait for some unspoken guidance from my parents. Hoping they will tell me how to manage my life while making sure Brianna and Alex have the best life possible.
Chapter Nineteen
Miranda
It’s never bothered me in the past to be put on the back burner. For most of my life, that’s how it has been. I came in last. My dad was a sleaze ball when it came to parenting. When I was ten, he would get so drunk making me dinner – spaghetti-o’s straight from the can – he would forget them, eventually passing out and I would have to scour that pan trying to lift all of those tiny noodle circles off the pan until my fingertips burned. Thinking back, I question why I never found the pan sooner. Why I couldn’t have saved the spaghetti-o’s from burning? I knew it was inevitable. Why hadn’t I paid better attention? At ten-years-old, living through this for most of my life, you would have thought I would have been more responsible.
The sad part was that I was okay with being put on the back burner. I accepted it because that was just the way it was. No one ever gave two shits about my opinion or what I did, but for some strange reason, Ryan had set this bar for me.
For him.
All of a sudden, once I’d started helping him, I knew he cared. I knew there was more to him than just getting into my pants. I knew this. Yet, he was nowhere near admitting this. In doing so, I had no idea what to do or how I should proceed. I wanted Ryan. I wanted to be a part of his life. I felt resentful that he didn’t want people to know about us.
It was more than resentment. I hated it. I was jealous over it. I wanted to be someone he cared enough about that he wanted to tell the world. Even if it was only for now. The next few months. Where ever and how ever long our relationship would last. I wanted to be his. I wanted people to know I was his.
“Why the change in mood? You left here happy and now you look like your world’s about to crumble.”
“I’m fine. Anything new while I was out?”
“Nope. Seriously, Miranda, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I’m fine. I’ll be at my desk if anyone needs me.” I walk away quickly. Usually I am superb at masking my feelings. I don’t know what’s come over me if Abby can read me so easily. I need to step up my game.
I pull out my notebook with all the notes on Ryan’s water rights. I’d written down the websites of the water stock companies and other things I thought would be important in my journey on trying to find out more about High Plains and why they would be interested in Ryan’s water rights.
I’d kept my list of all the people buying property and land around Lone Star, still thinking that perhaps I would need it for future reference. I’d submitted two requests on the High Plains website asking if someone could contact me. So far, nada.
I draw circles on my paper. Thinking. More circles. More thinking. There has to be more going on here. Obviously. I am stumped. I cannot figure out what my next move should be. Maybe Ryan is right. Maybe this is a wild goose chase. If he isn’t ever going to sell his farm or his water shares, what’s the point? And after our encounter today, I felt deflated. I no longer cared one way or the other. At least that was what I kept telling myself.
It didn’t matter who High Plains was or how much they were willing to pay for his shares. Because the fact was, Ryan wasn’t interested in selling. Or was he? Digging that deep, on some level, had Ryan entertaining the idea. Of the possibilities of selling the water or his farm and what he could do with the money. He would be able to sell the farm and have enough of a nest egg to figure out what he wanted to do.
Well, despite what I thought, Ryan had asked me to try to figure out who High Plains was and why they would want his water shares. I went to work, searching each of the four water stock companies, jotting down tidbits of information I thought would be useful in the long run.
People wanted water rights for so many things, come to find out. I’d learned if you were a farmer, like Ryan, having water rights was essential. They used it for irrigation and there was no way a farmer would sell his water rights. In doing so, he’d make a solid case that his farm would fail. What was a farm that grew crops and raised cattle without irrigation?
It was also used domestically for people. City drinking water, potable and non-potable used for watering city parks and people’s yards. New home builders needed a water source for new subdivisions. Water also needed to be kept in lakes and rivers to maintain aquatic life as well as to provide recreations like boating for the general population.
Water was essential.
Owning water shares was golden.
I went back to the buy, sell, transfer website where people could sell their shares and perused through some of the bids. High Plains. Holy shit! Something finally! They did exist. They were actively bidding on five shares of A&T Water Stock for three thousand dollars a share. A little under the price I’d seen the day before. I clicked on the active bidding link. I had to register as a user. No surprise.
Once done, I log in and click the link. It’s my lucky day. It is like an open chat room for the bidders. Screen names are popping up as each name chats with the other as the item being bid on, gets closer and closer to closing time. I watch and wait. I am dying to jump in there and speak with this High Plains handle but I know I have to tread lightly. I need to consider my options, how to approach this. Yet it also occurs to me that this might be my only chance at learning anything more about the mysterious High Plains.
I scroll back through the comments the users had made before I entered the chat room and am unable to find anything significant. It was all typical banter amongst buyers and sellers. High Plains is engaged, making it clear he…or she…is only after A&T shares. Why just them? They aren’t the most expensive shares even though the current price point was mind-blowing.
I sit back in my chair and simply watch. Without Ryan, who I really wished was here and not left behind underneath the shade of that tree alongside the post office where he’d kissed me senseless, I couldn’t offer up shares to sell or buy. This is his project and I have no clue what he would want me to do. In fact, there isn’t anything I can do as I watch High Plains interact with the others on the screen.
When it is clear High Plains isn’t doing much of anything except waiting for the bid to end, where he is still in the cat bird seat, my nerves finally calm and I relax. He especially doesn’t give any identifying information, no hints to where he is, or who he is, which was making my nerves wear thin. Super annoying.
Once the bid ends and High Plains wins, I
log off. I have other real work to do this afternoon and since that took up twenty minutes of my time and had essentially netted me nothing, I was behind. Pushing my Notebook of Ryan aside, I focus on the article I’ve been working on regarding the city’s new plan to change the downtown road from bricks to pavement. What did the citizens of Lone Star want? While the old bricks gave the downtown a sort of charm, when the bricks pulled loose from wear and tear, it sure became a bumpy ride.
Hours later, most of my work done, I check on one final item. Brianna’s article. We could fit it in next week’s edition. She would need to get it in here as soon as possible to check for any obvious errors, in order for it to be submitted on time. She is going to be thrilled! I am so excited for her and cannot wait to share the good news. Right at five, I pack up my stuff and make my way out to Ryan’s place, ignoring the millions of butterflies in my stomach as I try not to think of our post office encounter.
Chapter Twenty
Ryan
The package from High Plains sits on my counter taunting me. I fucking ignore it as I vigorously wash my hands with GoJo. Gnawing at my gut, it brings to the forefront many things I’ve masterfully ignored for five years. I choose to ignore it now because I don’t want to deal with it. Don’t want to deal with these things that haunt me, my life and even though Miranda has only been in my life a short amount of time, after today at the post office, I didn’t want to deal with her, either.
I would explode if I saw her. In more ways than one. We have this inexplicable connection and I feel it, bonedeep, as much as I hear it when she speaks, that she wants me to face this reality of living without the farm. Living somewhere where I would be happy, doing a job I would be happy doing and at the same time, giving Brianna and Alex a good life. I can feel my temper simmering below the surface, at any moment, with the slightest pressure, I know I will burst at the seams.
Wet: A Small Town Romance (Love in Lone Star Book 1) Page 11