The Cowboy, The Cheat, His Ex-Wife & Her Vibrator

by C. C. Coburn

  Beth indicated her mud–stained clothing. “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to get cleaned up first. You go ahead and eat with the kids and I’ll be back in a moment.”

  Gabe watched as she walked out of the kitchen. The room fell silent. Gabe looked back at the children and smiled. They eyed him nervously then tucked back into the food. The way they were devouring everything, Gabe wondered what they’d gotten to eat the night before. “Anyone care for a glass of milk?” he asked.

  They gave affirmative nods and went back to eating in silence.

  Upstairs, Beth peeled off her clothes and stepped under the shower. She held her face up to the spray and welcomed it as it ran over her skin, soothing and calming her. She really wanted to kill JJ. If only she could get away with it, she would!

  After fifteen minutes had elapsed since Gabe had heard the shower shut off, he began to worry about Beth. What was she up to? She sure had been strung out when she’d gotten home. He could feel her tension emanating throughout the room, could see the effort she was putting into trying not to clench her jaw. And then she’d thrown back a mouthful of aspirin. She was upset with her ex, and with good reason. He thought about last night and how desperate and vulnerable she’d seemed. Maybe she’d gone upstairs and taken more aspirin? How much aspirin was too much aspirin? he wondered.

  When another five minutes had elapsed and the children had finished their breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen—much to his amazement—Gabe decided it might be best if he checked up on Beth.

  “How about you guys give Applebee his bath?” he suggested. “And I’ll go check on your mom.”

  They looked at him warily.

  “And when you’ve bathed Applebee, we might go visit with Aunt Tilly and her kids?”

  Gabe was amazed how effective his tiny bribe was. The children shot out the back door in search of their dog. He climbed the stairs and looked into each room, searching for Beth. The first bedroom was painted red; he guessed it to be Jack’s, judging by the sporting paraphernalia adorning the walls. The next bedroom contained two beds and was painted tomato red on one side and deep sea green on the other. No points for deducing this was Mikey and Ben’s hideout. He turned back down the hallway and passed Molly’s room done out in bright pink and white. He smiled at the innocent little girl look of it. Molly was the image of her mother, only pocket–sized.

  The last bedroom at the end of the hallway contained a king–size bed with a naked woman sprawled on it.

  Concerned for Beth’s welfare and forgetting any sense of propriety, Gabe strode into the room. He halted by the bed and bent over her. She was snoring.

  He figured she’d gotten about as much sleep as he had last night, what with all his tossing and turning and dreams filled with making love to a woman with hair the color of soft toffee and eyes the color of cornflowers… the same woman lying naked in front of him. He pulled the covers up over Beth and tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  Gabe found the kids in the backyard engaged in a water fight. There was more water on them than on the dog. Molly squealed as Jack turned the hose on her. Gabe quickly ascertained it was with delight rather than terror. Applebee raced around the yard like a mad thing with Mikey and Ben hot on his heels. Gabe whistled to get everyone’s attention and was surprised when they all came to a standstill. He caught Applebee by the collar and attached him to his lead, and then the clothesline, then directed Jack to hose the dog instead of his sister and the boys to apply dog shampoo. Within minutes, Applebee was covered in suds and licking everyone’s faces. “Okay, time to rinse off,” Gabe said and turned to Molly. “How about you go get some dry towels for him, honey?”

  Molly blinked and then turned on her heel and raced into the house. Gabe wasn’t sure if she was getting the towels or telling her mother that Gabe had been bossing her and the boys around.

  Applebee shook himself vigorously, covering them all in water. Molly returned with the towels and they set about drying the dog. When the job had been completed as much as Gabe deemed possible, he let Applebee off his lead. The still–damp dog raced to the rear of the yard and rolled in some mulch.

  “He always does that after his bath,” Jack explained. “Mom usually leaves him tied up till he’s really dry.”

  “I’ll remember that next time. Thank you, Jack,” Gabe said as he got to his feet. “Now you guys need to put on some dry clothes before we go visit with Aunt Tilly.”

  The kids chorused their approval and raced towards the house. Concerned that they’d wake their mother, Gabe called to them, but they were making too much of a racket to hear him. He placed two fingers to his lips and whistled to them again. When they halted in their tracks and turned towards him, Gabe felt a small amount of triumph at his ability to quiet such a rowdy bunch with the same technique he used to get his horse to come to him from the far end of the paddock. He decided against telling Beth about that for the moment.

  “Listen up, guys. Your mom’s a bit pooped so she’s taking a nap. I want you to be real quiet when you go up and change. Otherwise, if she wakes up, she mightn’t want to go visit Aunt Tilly. Okay?”

  They nodded in unison. Gabe knew they wouldn’t want to miss out on visiting Aunt Tilly and her kids. They were the best of friends. With exaggerated stealth they crept into the house and up the stairs to their rooms.

  Gabe smiled after them. They were good kids. No doubt the influence of their mother.

  Gabe dried off as best he could with one of the towels left over from Applebee’s bath. Then he left a note for Beth explaining where he’d taken the kids and asking her to call him when she woke up and he’d come get her. He left the keys to his Jeep just in case she needed to go anywhere in the meantime, explaining that he’d taken the kids in the SUV, as his vehicle didn’t have enough safety belts.

  Five minutes later, the children were all downstairs and ready to go. With a whistle to Applebee, Gabe watched in fascination as they all piled out the front door and into the SUV like a miniature tornado. After locking the door behind him, they set off for Tilly’s.

  Beth couldn’t figure why it was so quiet when she woke up. Then she realized that the munchkins were with JJ this weekend. With a pleased sigh, she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. She really should do this more often. Sleep in when the kids were away…

  “The kids!” she cried and sat up with a start. JJ had left them in the playground at the apartment for some reason. No, that must’ve been a dream. JJ wouldn’t be so irresponsible…

  She lay back down and tried to settle back to sleep, feeling strangely lethargic. Must’ve been the aspirin, she thought. The aspirin she’d had to take because she’d drunk too much cheap wine and been woken up by JJ so early this morning to tell her to come and get the kids.

  “Ohmigosh!” she cried and threw back the covers and raced downstairs. She’d slept in and forgotten to get the kids! She pulled open the front door.

  An elderly couple was passing by with their poodle along the sidewalk. They glanced up at the sound of her door opening. They stood frozen, staring at her, their mouths agape.

  Oh, lordy! It’s already all over town what a bad mom I am for leaving my children unattended in an apartment playground, she thought, then realized her car keys were upstairs. She turned to go back inside and heard a car’s horn tooting on the street outside. She spun round to see that young lout, Ollie Stevens, and his partners in petty crime, waving out the window to her.

  “Hey! Nice buns, lady!” he cried. “Pity about your boobs!”

  “What?” Beth looked down at herself. “Ohmigosh!” she cried again and tried to cover herself as she backed into her house and slammed the door. She leaned against it, breathing heavily. How humiliating!

  She ran back upstairs to get dressed, searching the bedroom for her jeans that she was sure she must’ve taken off last night and dumped there somewhere. She found them on the floor of her bathroom, covered with mud. It took her several seconds to grasp why
they were covered in mud and why she was stark naked.

  She sat down heavily on the toilet seat and put her head in her hands. “Hoo boy!” she muttered. “You take a few too many aspirin and look what happens to you. You lose your mind, run round naked in public and start talking to yourself!”

  That still didn’t explain why the house was so quiet. She pulled on the old robe she’d worn last night when Gabe Hunter had come a–calling and raced back downstairs. She figured if he was still here somewhere, then he’d already seen her in it, complete with missing tooth, so her precious reputation was already shot and couldn’t possibly get any worse. Could it?

  When she couldn’t see or hear any sign of anyone human or canine, she began to worry. Had Gabe Hunter kidnapped her children? And if so, why? More intriguing, was why he’d also want to kidnap a useless mutt like Applebee.

  She raced back into the kitchen and spied a piece of paper wedged under the salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen table. She scanned the note from Gabe, then expelled a sigh of relief. The guy obviously had a screw or two loose himself if he was willingly choosing to spend his free time with four kids and a dog with a liking for rolling in mud.

  She put a call through to Tilly, but Gabe picked up. Taken aback by the reassuring sound of his deep voice, she lost her own for a moment.

  “Hello?” he said again. “Gabe Hunter speaking. I’ll get Tilly for you.”

  “No!” Beth squeaked then cleared her throat and tried to sound sophisticated. “It’s alright, Gabe. It’s me. Beth,” she purred, trying to sound sexy.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Beth. Beth Harman. The woman whose kids and dog you kidnapped.”

  “Oh, that Beth Harman,” he said and she could hear the amusement in his voice. “Did you have a nice nap?”

  Beth glanced at the clock for the first time. Good Lord! It was coming up to one–thirty! “Um, yes, I did. Are the kids okay?”

  “Sure. They’re eating barbecue. I’ll have Tilly put some aside and come get you.”

  The thought of having Gabe Hunter alone in the house with her once more was very appealing. Then again, they wouldn’t have time to get up to much mischief as Tilly would be expecting them back and get anxious if they were too long. “No, it’s okay, I’ll drive over.”

  “You can use a stick shift then?”

  “Huh?”

  “My Jeep’s got a stick shift.”

  “Oh. Well, I haven’t used one since I learned to drive, but I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure. I’ll expect you here in five minutes then.”

  “Give me ten. I’ve got to get dressed.”

  “Naked, are you?”

  His brazen question caught her off guard. “Yes. I mean… no. That is to say, not quite.”

  “Sounds intriguing. Sure you don’t want me to come by?”

  The events of the evening before were starting to filter back into her consciousness. She’d really made a fool of herself with Gabe Hunter. He probably thought she was a sex maniac. Okay, so maybe she was a bit sex starved, but she was certainly no maniac!

  “Beth?”

  “Yes?”

  “I can call by and collect you. It really isn’t a problem. In fact, maybe I should, you’re sounding kind of vague. Are you sure you’ll be okay to drive?”

  “Of course,” she said, forcing brightness to her voice. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She hung up the phone before he could confuse her any further. The problem was, hearing his voice did funny things to her. It made her feel giddy, like the first stirrings of falling in love. She groaned. No! Never again was she going to fall in love. It was just the aspirin messing with her head.

  Back upstairs she splashed cold water on her face, then dressed in a clean pair of jeans and searched her wardrobe for a suitable shirt to wear with it. One that was casual but stylish; one that was sexy, but didn’t scream ‘sex maniac’. After another five minutes, she had a pile of discarded clothes on her bed and could feel another headache coming on from the stress of it all. With a sigh of frustration, she reached into her wardrobe and pulled out a blue chambray shirt and shrugged into it. When she glanced in the mirror, she surprised herself with how it brought out the blue in her eyes. She left the top two buttons undone, ran a brush through her hair and picked up Gabe’s keys from the kitchen table.

  After several attempts at starting his Jeep and stalling it, she remembered to use the clutch. Five minutes later, she’d finally managed to kangaroo–hop the vehicle out of her street and turned it in the direction of Tilly’s place. She would’ve enjoyed the feeling of the wind in her hair, if she could’ve gotten the darned vehicle out of first gear. In the end, she gave up crunching gears and drove it all the way to Tilly’s in first.

  When she pulled up in the street outside, Gabe came bounding down the front steps two at a time and down the front path with a black look on his face. Beth was worried he was going to chew her out for driving his vehicle around in first gear. Especially when he tore open the door on her side.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “Are you alright? You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago!”

  Immensely relieved that he wasn’t angry about her little problem with the gearbox and pleased that he’d been worrying about her and not the Jeep, she leaned forward and kissed him.

  She wasn’t sure who was more shocked by her impulsive action, her or Gabe; Tilly or her husband, Chris; the kids or Applebee—all of them watching from the front porch. “You really must teach me how to drive a stick shift again, one of these days,” she said, climbing out of the vehicle and striding up Tilly’s front path as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

  Gabe watched her sashay into the house and shook his head. She was nuts. Beautiful and crazy and completely lovable. If only she was interested in commitment, not just sex.

  The afternoon had passed very pleasantly indeed, Beth thought as she sat on the loveseat on Tilly’s back porch and watched the men and children—seven kids in all—play touch football. The sun was going down behind the big oak trees along their fence line. It was that tranquil time of day between afternoon and evening.

  “So what do you think of him?” Tilly asked beside her and bit into an apple.

  “Who?”

  “Gabe, of course!”

  “Oh, him, ” Beth said. “I think he’s a very nice man. A very nice man who I’d very much like to have sex with.”

  Tilly coughed. Then she spluttered some. Beth whacked her on the back.

  “I’m okay,” Tilly choked out, holding up a restraining hand to Beth. “You just caught me by surprise, that’s all.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “Beth! For goodness sake! You just said you want to have sex with my cousin. It’s a bit like talking about your parents having a sex life. It’s one of those places you don’t want to go.”

  Beth bit into her own apple and chewed for a while. “Okay. I won’t discuss with you how much I want to have sex with your cousin again.” She took another bite, chewed some more and asked, “By the way, do you happen to know anything about vibrators?”

  “What?” Tilly really did choke this time. Loudly. Enough for the men and kids to stop their game and come over to inquire about her.

  Tilly waved them away. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Some apple went down the wrong way,” she said.

  When they’d resumed their game, Beth asked again, “Well, do you?”

  “Good grief! Why would you want to know that?”

  “Because if Gabe doesn’t come across soon, I’m going to have to buy one.”

  “Oh. My. Lord. I don’t believe I’m hearing this.” Tilly took the last bite of her apple and tossed the core into a flowerbed. She turned to Beth and eyed her keenly. “You think a vibrator would be better company than my cousin?” she asked, incredulous.

  “I thought you didn’t want to talk about your cousin and me and sex.”

  “Forget I said
that. You’ve piqued my curiosity. Please explain why a vibrator would be better company than my perfectly virile–looking cousin.”

  Beth gazed at Tilly’s perfectly virile–looking cousin and felt a pleasant tingle of desire. He was perspiring from the effort of the game. His hair was damp with it. She wondered if he was hot enough to take off his shirt. Then she’d get to see if her fantasy about his lovely hairy chest was accurate. He sure had plenty of dark hair on his head, so he was sure to be hirsute in all the other places it counted too. JJ wasn’t hairy at all. JJ had weekly waxing appointments at the Xanadu Spa.

  “I didn’t say I thought a vibrator would be better company than Gabe, you did,” Beth said and curled her feet up under her. “Naturally, he’d be much better company at functions such as this, or going out to dinner or even to a movie, because you can’t have a conversation with a vibrator. But in bed you’re kind of past the conversational stage, so maybe a vibrator would be better.” She glanced across at Tilly with a completely innocent expression.

  Tilly laughed. “You’re having me on, aren’t you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re kidding about a vibrator being better company in bed… than a man.”

  “Well, if they weren’t better company, then why were they invented?”

  Tilly gave up trying to keep from laughing. When she finally got herself under control, she said, “Beth, darling, promise me you’ll never change?”

  “O…kay,” she said slowly, warily eyeing her friend. “But you still haven’t answered my question,” she reminded Tilly. “Do you know anything about vibrators?”

  Before Tilly had a chance to answer, Beth’s attention was caught by the sight of Gabe removing his T–shirt. “Oh, my…” she sighed as she watched him peel it off over his head. He looked just like one of those well–muscled guys in some action TV commercial who strips off for some reason or another. “Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my,” she muttered, her eyes glued to every ripple of muscle, every flash of sweat–slicked skin and his lovely hairy chest that dipped down… down… down… “Ohh, yess!” she groaned.