“I deserved this! I had this coming!” Thunder in all his steadiness pranced at my side.
“I know zero about women, but I doubt that hanging all over this thing,” he motioned to Bethany, “and simply introducing her as the new horse handler, went over so hotly.”
Bethany slapped Brandon across the face at being called this thing, glared at me and walked off.
“I never meant anything by it,” I attempted to defend myself.
“You’re an idiot,” Ethan agreed with Brandon.
“I don’t date. Was I supposed to flaunt my relationship?”
“Instead of making yourself look single yes,” Brandon told me.
“Not to mention all those years of having to hide the relationship. I’m sure she’s more than ready to tell the world,” Ethan added.
“We haven’t had that conversation yet.”
“We,” Ethan motioned to himself, Brandon and Uncle Ed, “all live with you and all work with you. The both of you. We have to knock on doors and yell before walking around corners of the shed to make sure we don’t accidently get a free porn show. And everyone knows it’s not just sex. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if it was. If it was purely physically you wouldn’t give a damn where she was.”
I hated them because they were right. Hated this conversation because I sounded like a bitch and really just hated myself. Krys, though I could guarantee it wasn’t showing, was sitting at Carla’s bar right now and hurting like hell.
“Load up the horses and help breakdown the arena and I will take this trip home so you can find her,” Ed offered. I’d say it was because I was his beloved nephew. But that wasn’t true, he really loved Krys and probably preferred to keep her over even me.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Krystina
“Drinks on me,” I told the bartender, Lacy, at Carla’s. “Just open a tab.”
“Will do,” she said and fetched our beers as Jake and I clambered onto our bar stools.
“How did the rodeo go?” Lacey asked Jake.
He half shrugged. “Got my entry fees back that’s about it. Some guy from out of town I didn’t know won bulls. Gentry took broncs and all-around.”
“Good, that means he will be in to celebrate. I need to pass on some news about my uncle’s place.”
“Family finally ready to list it?” Jake asked.
“Yeah. Had the lawyer in here a few days ago. I told him we may have someone interested. But there was some New York type suit in here. Asked me where it was and when I told him it cut into the Mirror Lake Ranch he got real interested. I told him we weren’t quite ready but he gave me five hundred dollars and his card to call when we were.”
“Gentry wants to buy this land?” I piped up.
“Been talking about it. Cuts into the ranch and would be good for his expansion. But not a hell of a whole lot else for anyone but you all. The way it’s set up its hard to get to and all,” Jake told me.
“He’s right. Not even developers would want it. But it’s ninety -two acers to add on,” Lacy added. “Besides, this suit, Gentry would be the only one to want it.”
I reached into my bra and pulled out a wad of cash.
“That’s how socialites keep money?” Jake asked.
“No, that’s how Trailer Park Princesses from Illinois do. It’s safest there trust me,” I counted all the cash I had. “Seven hundred and sixty-five dollars. That enough to make you rip up that business card Mr. New York gave you?”
Lacy reached under the bar and pulled her purse out and handed me the business I card and I handed her the cash. “You either really like Gentry or really don’t like New Yorkers anymore.”
“A little bit of both,” I handed the card to Jake without looking at it. “That say Doctor James Delore?”
“How did you know.”
“I smell sulfur when it comes to him.”
“Ah, the ex-husband.”
“The one and only.”
“Hey, you just gave Lacy all your cash. How you paying for our drinks?” Jake asked and I pulled out a Black Amex card.
Chapter Thirty
Gentry
It had been an hour since the rodeo ended and I squeezed Ed’s truck around back of Carla’s bar. He had used mine to take the ranch horses back home and had convinced Robbie to ride along.
Boots and Brandon had disappeared some time ago and Ethan slipped out just before I did. But I saw their trucks here. There really was nowhere else to go.
Ethan, the good friend he was, was leaning against the side of the building waiting for me.
“Be calm,” he warned as I walked towards him.
“I am calm.”
“You’re never calm when it comes to Krys. She makes you crazier than normal.”
“Is it as terrifying to you as it is to me that you are the voice of reason?”
“Excruciatingly painful.”
There were a handful of people standing around outside the front door. I said a brief hello and thanked them when they congratulated me and made my way inside. We opened the door in between songs from the DJ Carla had hired.
People cheered when I walked in. Okay, so I missed this part too. As close to fame as I would ever get.
I scanned the room and saw Krys against the bar talking to Jake and his kid sister Melissa. She was genuinely laughing at something Melissa had said and her eyes skimmed through the crowd and to me.
She half raised her beer to me as our eyes grazed past. The gap between us in the packed bar quickly closed and I lost her for a second. A group of girls who all appeared to be good friends and all exs of mine in one way or another swarmed to me. Bethany, Brittany, Tanya, Kayla and a red headed girl who I had slept with on at least four occasions and could never remember her name.
Dear God, I knew they were acquaintances but did they start a damn club? Or just decide to make tonight hell for me?
I shot Ethan a pleading look and he just laughed at me. I searched the crowd and attempted to avoid the gaggle of exes. Finally, I saw her again. Melissa was leading her to the dance floor.
Tanya mis-stepped to the left and I took the opening and made a beeline for Krys. I cut in between her and Melissa dancing and picked her up around the waist and spun her around with me.
“There’s my pretty little trophy wife,” I said loud enough she and everyone near us could hear.
And she slapped me across the face. Hard. The girl had some wallop. “I am not your wife nor your trophy!” she hissed as I sat her back down and she turned her attention to Melissa.
I heard hysterically laughing from the club of exes and those asshole friends of mine.
I walked over to Brandon, Ethan, Jake, and surprisingly, Boots. He wasn’t as angry with me as he had been.
“You’re horse handler doesn’t seem to like being handled herself,” Jake laughed, gasping for air.
“So she told you, and everyone else managed to know but me?” I asked taking a beer from Brandon.
“She paid me in free drinks to listen and Melissa thinks you’re an ass. I concourse. Anyone would agree even the gang of ‘Hollis Honey’s?’ I think that’s what they call themselves. Nothing to brag on no one wants your sloppy seconds,” Jake remarked.
“Speak for yourself,” Brandon said looking behind me to the girls. “Who’s the red head?”
I winced. “I wish I knew. I want to say Carli? But I’m not sure.”
“No wonder women hate you,” Ethan slapped me on the back and disappeared into the throng of people.
Chapter Thirty-One
Krystina
“I can’t believe you actually slapped him,” Melissa squealed motioning to Lacey that we were ready for another round.
“Spur of the moment.”
Jakes kid sister Melissa was a hoot. She was a twenty-two year old senior at Colorado state and in town for the rodeo. She was a barrel racer, go figure. But unlike the rest of the female race she didn’t gush over Gentry.
“He�
��ll come around and start behaving,” Melissa said handing me my drink.
“You are the optimistic.”
“I’ve just know him half my life.”
“Really?”
“Jake and I grew up just two ranches to the East of Mirror Lake. Just a tiny operation that took Dad and just one hired hand to run, but it’s home. I was eleven when Gentry moved out here and started running with Jake. Jake got him in the rodeo. Gentry used to have Jake drop off stacks of letters to the post office that he didn’t want Ed to see. I offered to set him up an e-mail account in town but he brushed me off. Most of those letters were to you weren’t they?”
I nodded. “For the first year, yes.”
“That explains the crankiness when he came back. He was boar. Finished training Thunder Storm and jumped on the circuit with Jake and that was that for a long time. I took growing up with those boys a lot differently than the rest of the girls did. I learned to take great lengths to distance myself from emotionally damaged cowboys.”
“How’s that going for you?” I asked following her gaze as it rested on… Ethan?
“Too well. I’m a twenty-two and never had an old man.”
“They aren’t all that great, but someday one will come along or maybe even just open their damned eyes.”
“A girl can dream right?” Melissa grabbed my hand and drug me back to the throngs of people on the dance floor.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Gentry
Unfortunately, lots of eyes had been on me and Krys when she had slapped me. The dirty look from Carla told me she was disappointed, in me probably. Carla had been attempting to keep me in line and clucking like a mother hen since before she and Ed had gotten together. Now the only difference was she would yell and both me and Ed. Then in turn, he would bitch at me as punishment for getting him yelled at. It was vicious circle.
On the upside, the slap had thrown the exes from my tail. Something else to be said about my lack of game tonight.
I lost my nerve at re-tracking Krys down for almost two hours. Instead deciding to celebrate my good rides with drinks. I watched her dance with Melissa, the ranch hands, and in general everyone but me.
Finally, I slipped a twenty to the DJ to play a song and give me the microphone. All as Melissa and Krys had taken over dancing on the back bar that was seldom used for anything but tonight Carla was slinging basic beers for cash at.
I grabbed the mic and pushed Brandon and Boots out of the way and took stage on the opposite end of the small bar from her. She rolled her eyes at me and started to follow after Melissa who had jumped down when the music started.
Krys used to tell me I was a fast talker and I was in more ways than one. This meant that I was a fast singer and a die hard Garth Brooks fan. I could typically pull this off though I wasn’t nearly as drunk as I typically was when I attempted it.
It was also her and Gloria’s favorite song to dance to back in high school when they had all of the two beers it took to get them wasted.
As I started belting out the words to Fever best I could, Krys downed the rest of her beer, pulled her cowgirl hat down low and started dancing.
I tried hard not to get lost in the sway of her hips or distracted by the catcalls of the boys in the crowd. I grabbed her hand and spun her on the toe of her boot. I held her close to me as I was finishing the last lyrics to the song.
The crowd cheered. Whether it was for me, Krys, or the fact that we were finished, I don’t know. I pulled Krys close to me. Chest to chest, my hand on her lower back. Just an inch separating our lips.
I brought the microphone back up. “Everybody my wonderful and amazing girlfriend, Krystina DeLouch!”
I leaned in for a kiss but she stepped away giving me a wicked smile and let the boys help her from the bar. I jumped down behind her tossing the microphone to some random bystander. I had given her what she wanted, she was not going to play games with me.
Yet here I was, being the one to follow after her.
Krys weaved through the people and headed for the back. I grabbed her around the waist after we had escaped the majority of the crowd and pulled her into the bars broom closet. I shut and locked the door behind us and turned on the lights.
“What the hell?” she started but I pushed her against the door and covered her mouth with mine. She moaned, opening to me and let me run my tongue on the inside of her lips. I reached between us and undid her belt buckle.
“I’m still not happy with you,” she protested as I popped open her pants and pulled them off her hips. I caressed her folds through her panties. Hot and soaked as they always were from the first kiss.
“We will talk about it later,” I promised her, ridding myself of my own belt, pants and boxers. I spun her around to face the door and ripped her lacy thong from her tight ass.
“Gentry!”
I kissed her neck. “Say stop and I stop Krystina.”
I paused giving her a moment to protest. Instead she pressed her ass into my dick and bent over even more. That a girl. I shuddered as I thrust my dick into her pussy. Krys quivered herself under my touch as the party raged on outside the door, just feet away.
It didn’t take long for her to explode all over my cock and it was too much for me. I came inside her.
Krys collapsed against the door and I struggled to stand. I found a new pack of bar towels, ripped them open and handing her one to clean off. She wiped down and pulled her pants back up as I did my belt. I took the towel from her and picked up the remains of her panties, wrapping them up and stuffing them in my pocket.
“I’ll side step outside and dump it in the dumpster. I promise, no one will know.”
I could see her blush. Damn that always got to me. No matter how brash she could be, no matter how dirty she had just been in my arms, she always managed to look so pure. “They will know.”
“I hope so. I shouldn’t wish you would appear unchanged after that.”
She shoved me in the chest. “I don’t want them to think I am that kind of girl.”
“Not worried about my reputation?”
She laughed. “Not particularly. You seem to have a reputation of your own.”
“That I do. But this was different.”
“How so?”
I adjusted my hat and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and under her own topping of black felt.
“How is this different?” she asked again.
“Any other time I would have taken a girl like that would be because I didn’t care. I would be to lazy to leave and wouldn’t want to miss the party with my boys. But with you, it was because I couldn’t wait. I needed you. I had to be inside of you,” I kissed her and pulled my locked out from where it rested between her breasts. “Most importantly because of this.”
Krys pressed her body into me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Please don’t ever stop loving me.”
Chapter Thirty – Three
Krystina
Sunday was back to business as usual on the ranch. I made a point to tell Gentry that the land was for sale. Might as well get my money worth.
That evening I watched him spread out his papers on the kitchen table. Budgets, projections, assets, bank statements. The who enchilada. He bitched at me again for not cashing my paychecks. I hadn’t opened any of them as of yet and had no idea what they amounted to nor did I care.
I promised him yet again that I would get to it as soon as I opened a bank account local or when we went into the city. I tried offering my assistance but he wouldn’t hear of it. My guess was that the ranch wasn’t as flush as he pretended it was.
And since it bothered me that Gentry refused my help I did the next best thing. I cornered Ed in the barn.
“How big of a deal is this new acreage to Gentry and Mirror Lake?”
“Did you ever learn to make small talk?” Ed asked me as he brushed down his horse Brownie. I was a straight shooter and Ed appreciated it but he hated getting bombarded.
“Never was one of them fancy talk lawyers.”
Ed straightened his back, putting his brush on the edge of the stall door and patted Brownies neck. “To Gentry it means a lot, he has this constant need to prove himself. The ranch could expand eventually. Run another hundred head or so. Not to mention with the layout owning that parcel would mean a lot. The old man who used to own it let us cross him to get to our North Eastern piece. Instead we have to go up and around or haul them by road. Originally it was part of Mirror Lake decades ago. One of the first sons took that piece and it was sold off later on.”
“What’s the asking price for it?”
“Three hundred and eighty-five thousand.”
“Is it worth it?” I asked pulling a carrot stick from my pocket for Brownie.
“It’s an okay price.”
I watched Brownie eat his carrot and dreaded the next question id didn’t want to ask. I didn’t have to though because Ed offered.
“There’s no mortgage on the ranch but taking one on could strain him. If the bank will loan it.”
“That’s sounding like a big if.”
“Don’t worry about him,” Ed said opening the stall door to let himself out. “Even if he don’t get it he will be okay.”
“I’m not sure about that,” I whispered. “There is someone else interested.”
“Who?”
“According to Lacey, my ex-husband.”
Ed was silent for a moment. Latching the door and picking up his grooming tools to put away. “Guess we just need to say a prayer or two then.”
***
The days drug on. I spent time shopping with Melissa anywhere there was a place with a cash register. Time with her was fun and relaxing. I was finding myself with the easy kind of friendship that I had with Gloria.
I also watched the pain she had around Ethan. She like him tremendously and I would never take her for a shy woman when it came to men. But Ethan had a baby with an ex-old lady which made a difficult combination.
Melissa had helped me hand pick items for everyone for Christmas at the ranch. Ed, Carla, Gloria and her husband and the two kids, all the ranch hands. A bottle of holiday Jack Daniels for her brother Jake. I had a special pair of new boots on back order for her that she still didn’t know about.
Mirror Lake Ranch: Once in a Memory Page 11