by Sable Hunter
This news hit Tamara hard. He was leaving? “When?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Not anytime soon.” A plan was formulating in his mind, but it wasn’t fully developed yet.
They didn’t mention Belle Chasse again, but the knowledge followed Tamara around like a thundercloud. Only when he held her tight that night, flying her to the stars – only then did she quit worrying. Time would take care of this, she had to believe that to be true.
Twice a week, they attended the meetings together. The time came, with his help, that she stood before the group and told her story. It wasn’t easy. She was still so shy for others to hear her speak. Each time she stumbled over a word, her eyes would seek Jaxson out and he’d give her the special smile that filled her with confidence.
After the sessions, they usually took Owen on an outing. Putt-putt. Bowling. The movies. Ice cream. Tamara grew to love the little boy as much as Jaxson did.
She also made progress with Chris. He developed confidence. Actually, their confidence grew together, feeding off one another. Tamara hoped if she could help him, maybe someday she could train others. The job at the stable was fine, but she longed to do something more meaningful. Something that Jaxson could be proud of her for doing.
And they played games. Yes, they were learning games, but Jaxson made them so much fun, she didn’t mind. Tamara looked forward to every single second they were able to spend together.
For Jaxson’s part, he read everything he could find on her condition. He threw himself into her recovery. One article said that the best treatments for aphasia victims were done at home. So, he took that to heart – constantly striving to rebuild her language and memory skills. One of the websites he haunted said that with proper exercise the afflicted part of the brain could reorganize and strengthen, overcoming the injury, and regaining abilities in varying degrees. He printed out that article, taping it on the inside of his closet door. Every day he read it, and every day he committed himself to making it come true for Tamara.
Today was no different. He read the article, patted the paper, and took off downstairs. This was a special evening. They’d just come in from riding the fence, checking for places the wire needed replacing. As luck would have it, the rest of his family had all scattered in different directions and they had the place to themselves. He planned on grilling some steaks, taking a walk in the moonlight, then making love to her until she begged him to stop.
Which was a tall order. His girl was insatiable.
Thank God.
“Hey, puddin! Where are you?”
“Here!”
He found her in the kitchen making a salad. She’d freshened up too, wearing some sexy little red cover up over a bathing suit that he hadn’t been privileged to check out – yet. “I’m heading out to fire up the grill.”
“K. I’ll bring. Everything.”
He stole a kiss and flipped open her shirt, his eyes bugging at the sight of a wicked, wicked bikini. “Oh, you are so fucked.”
“Hope so.”
Capturing her lips for a quick smooch, he grabbed the platter of steaks and headed out to the grill. She followed not far behind him, bringing the salad and some pieces of corn on the cob to add to the grill at the last minute.
“This looks good.” He admired the table she’d laid for them. It was full of sides, drinks, and a homemade cobbler for dessert. “You’ve already made several trips out here.”
“I like. Taking. Care of you.”
His heart warmed at her admission. Jaxson couldn’t deny, he was happier than he’d ever been. As far as he was concerned, his life couldn’t get much more perfect than this. One of these days, he needed to make sure his family realized this wasn’t casual. He was dead serious about this girl.
Once he put the steaks on the grill, he came to sit with her at the picnic table, looking out over the lake and the high white stone cliffs. “It feels nice out here.”
After the shower, he’d pulled on a pair of shorts. Tamara was so happy that he didn’t seem to think about his prothesis anymore. She felt proud that she’d been part of the reason for this newfound confidence. “Yea, it does,” she answered. “Swim after?”
“Aw, is that why you’ve got on that sexy bikini? You intend to swim?” He teased her. “I thought you just wore it to drive me crazy.”
She walked away from him and flipped up the back of her shirt, letting him see the bottoms were a thong. “Pee-pie.”
Jumping off to take after her, Jaxson caught Tamara a few steps away. “Did you really say pee-pie?”
“Yes.” She giggled helplessly.
He cupped her breasts, rubbing them through the material. “What does that even mean? It sounds kinky.”
“No. You say it. To a baby.” She covered her face with both hands, then opened them to peek at him. “Pee-pie.”
“A baby, huh.” He’d been thinking about babies lately. “You’d look good pregnant.” He kissed her neck as he plumped her tits.
Tamara froze in his arms, waiting for him to say more. The leap from babies to marriage wasn’t a long one, but…the steaks began to sizzle and he ran over to rescue them.
Once the food was done, they sat down to eat and played footsie under the table. “What’s up tomorrow?” he asked her.
“Stables and Chris.”
“Full day. You still want me to come over?”
She frowned at him. “Course.”
Her answer satisfied him. “Good.” He winked at her. “Cause I’m addicted to you, Tam. I don’t want to spend a night away from you.”
Hope and love soared so high in her spirit that she almost lifted off the ground to sail away on the breeze. “Want to be with you. Too.”
Once they were through, he suggested a swim.
“Too soon after food?” she asked, remembering the old rule her parents told her.
He shook his head. “I don’t intend to swim.” He ran a finger across the upper swell of her breasts. “I wanted to fool around.”
Jaxson didn’t have to tell her twice. She jumped up, threw off the cover-up and headed for the pool. “Last one. Rotten. Egg!”
He sauntered along. “I’ll have to be the bad egg, I guess.” His cock was too hard to run.
Before diving in, he removed the prothesis, he wouldn’t need it in the water. Once he was in the pool, Jaxson swam to catch her, pushing her to the very edge. With the buoyancy of the water, he could stand on one leg unaided. “I’ve been wanting to do this.”
“What?”
“Fuck you standing up.” He shucked his shorts while she tossed aside the red bikini.
“Ex…Good idea.”
He nipped her chin, not caring that she chose a simpler word. Truth be told, she was just perfect as far as he was concerned. She might not yammer like other women, but when she said something – it was worth hearing.
“Gimme that mouth,” he demanded with a grin.
She planted a kiss on him as sweet as candy. Jaxson was so aroused, he almost lost it. He kissed her over and over, unable to get enough.
“Down.”
Raising his head, he gave her a questioning look, then laughed when she pushed him low enough in the water so he was on the same level with her breasts. “Is this what you want?” he began to lick and suck her nipples, giving them the attention he knew would drive her crazy.
“Oh, yes,” she sighed, laying back against the side, letting her legs float out in front of her.
When he raised his head to claim her mouth again, she found his cock, sliding her hand up and down while they kissed feverishly. When he’d taken all he could, he stood on his one good leg and picked up her thighs. “Wrap them around me, babe.”
Complying eagerly, Tamara gasped with relief when he pushed deep inside. “Oh, yea. So good.”
The first few seconds of his cock in her pussy was the same as always. So good, it made him crazy. He felt bolts of electricity race down his legs. She was so tight, he had to work for it, flexing his hips to gai
n entrance. The woman didn’t make it easy for him either. As soon as he was in just a little bit, she began working her pussy. Squeezing. Milking. She’d told him once how good it felt to her – and God knows, it felt good to him. “That’s it baby, suck me deep.”
In the water, he felt free. Taking her body, he lifted her up and down on his cock, moving so much they were making waves. “Damn,” he breathed, his eyes rolling back in his head. The pleasure was so intense, his whole body vibrated. “Oh, fuck!” Jaxson intended to go slow. Make it last. He wanted to make her come twice before he lost it. Go slow. Impress her with his strength and stamina. Instead, she made him so crazy, he was fucking her like some randy teenager with no control at all. “What are you doing to me?”
“Making you. Crazy,” she whispered.
“Gospel.” The woman spoke the truth.
“Don’t stop,” she told him as she rode his cock, sliding up and down on the hard length. Clasping. Tightening. “Feels good!” Tamara was delirious with it. She tilted her hips to take him deeper, wishing she could dissolve into him. Become one.
God, she was waxing poetic.
Running her hands down his back, she wished she had more hands – there was so much of him to touch. To love. She moved around to rub his chest, to play with his nipples, grinning when he widened his eyes at the unexpected pleasure.
As he fucked her, she felt it coming. Building. Growing. Rising up. The promise of full-ecstasy.
“Damn, I’m gonna cum,” he announced with seeming regret. He wasn’t ready. This was too good to stop.
But she was ready, she needed it. She craved it. “Yes!” she cried out as the tightly wound threads of her pleasure unraveled. Her whole body pulsed with glorious bliss.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he announced as he continued to pump, loving how he could feel her pussy walls fluttering around him as she came and came.
“Try.”
Her one-word comment sent him flying over the edge in several seconds of earth-shattering explosions. He didn’t want it to end. His only consolation – beyond the sheer ecstasy of the release – was the amazing fact that she belonged to him and he could do it again and again.
Gathering her close, he held her while the aftershocks rocked their bodies. “I love being here with you like this.”
“I love…” She looked at him with her heart in her eyes. “You.”
There, she’d said it. Again.
Jaxson gazed at her, his face slowly breaking into a smile.
He was going to say it, she thought. He was just about to say it.
“Tamara…I…”
“You two having a party?”
Tamara ducked down into the water as his brother Ten walked up to the edge of the pool.
“Go. Away.” Jaxson ordered him, his face set in an uncompromising scowl. “Whatever this is – is private!”
“Fine. When you’re through, Daddy wants to talk to you. He just drove up.”
“Tell him I’ll be awhile.”
“Will do, Michael Phelps.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Tennessee walked away, laughter floating over his shoulder.
“Sorry. Dammit.” He helped her gather her clothes. “I guess I’ll take you home.”
“Okay.”
Tamara was disappointed. The spell was broken. Now, she’d never know what he’d been about to say.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Okay. Good. Job.”
Tamara knew Chris was tired. He seemed a little off today.
“You picked up. Leg High. Great!” she said, beaming at him.
The program designed for Chris included some simple exercises to correct motor imbalances. She’d spent a great deal of time studying and memorizing the methods other trainers used to help autistic children. There were some key techniques that seemed to be working well. Giving Chris a choice between two exercises made him feel in control. Providing specific positive reinforcement gave him an identifiable sense of accomplishment. The exercises themselves were simple. Stepping over hurdles, star jumps, bear crawls, and work with weights or a medicine ball.
“I’m tired,” Chris told her as he raised his arm and wiped sweat from his brow.
“Sit.” She pointed to the mat. “I’ll get drinks.”
Hurrying to the kitchen, she grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge. While she was there, she checked on a roast cooking in the crock pot for later. Tamara was hoping Jaxson would come over that night. She hadn’t talked to him since he’d dropped her off at home after they’d been interrupted in the pool by his brother. Hopefully, nothing was wrong.
As she headed back outside, Tamara mentally reviewed Chris’s progress. He was doing well. Her practice included performing most of the exercises with him. Doing them together helped keep Chris on track and aided Tamara with her own issues. She found the repetitive moves were helping her own reflexes and responses. The one thing she still found infuriating and hard to manage was the gap that still existed between her thinking and the ability to communicate. She could have running monologues with herself, complex thoughts and plans, but moving those ideas from her brain to her mouth was daunting. Tamara liked to think she was improving, but there were times when she couldn’t put two words together to save her life. Sometimes she grew so frustrated with herself she wanted to bang her head against the wall. Other people, especially at the Stables, grew agitated with her at times. Only Jaxson seemed to possess the patience of Job when it came to listening when Tamara tried to convey a thought or idea.
Crossing the yard from the house to the storage building, she took a small detour to pick up a piece of paper that had been blown onto her property by the wind. Wadding it up, she picked up her pace as she covered the remaining distance. There were a couple more exercises she wanted to do with Chris before his mother arrived to pick him up.
“Here. Ice cold.” She walked into the room, fully expecting to see Chris lounging on the mats. When he wasn’t where she expected him to be, Tamara looked quickly around. The room wasn’t that big. There were no real places to hide. “Chris! Chris!”
He was gone.
“Oh, no!” Placing the water bottles on the floor, she dashed around, making triple sure he wasn’t hiding behind a stack of mats. “Chris!” After she determined he wasn’t in the building, she darted outside, running around the yard, back into her house, searching everywhere she could possibly think of. “Chris!”
Upon realizing the young boy was no longer at her home, Tamara panicked. She raced into the street and looked both ways, cursing that her legs no long obeyed the demands to run as fast as she once was able to do.
“Chris! Chris!”
Fearing the worst, Tamara called the police. She did her best to explain what was going on, but the 9-1-1 operator finally hung up, convinced the call was a prank. Scared out of her wits, she called Chris’s mother. “My Ra,” she panted, pressing a hand over her racing heart. “Chris. Gone.”
“What?”
She repeated. “Chris gone. Went for water. Came back. Gone.”
“Gone? How could…you!”
Myra hung up and Tamara knew she was on her way. Raking her hand through her hair, Tamara knew she needed to contact the police, but she’d already tried. Not knowing what else to do, she called Jaxson.
…After hanging up his saddle, Jaxson took a cloth to wipe off any dust or sweat. Next, he took a thin bar of glycerin soap and spread a thin film over the leather. Taking care of tack wasn’t hard. An extra five minutes a day could save hours and make the saddle last years longer than it would without proper care.
As he worked, he considered what his father had told him the evening before. At first, he’d been resistant, Belle Chasse meant a lot to him. Plus, he was in a mood. Having his plans with Tamara interrupted hadn’t set well with him. Yet…when he listened to his father, the elder McCoy’s reasoning made sense. Maybe, if he hadn’t been so self-absorbed in the last year, he would’ve picked up on the si
gnals.
The family was changing. Growing. Moving on.
In Jaxson’s mind, everything should stay the same. He’d never bought into the American idea that every member of the family should be independent from the other. Standard jokes on television made fun of children who never moved out of their homes.
Jaxson believed the Europeans handled it better. Families lived in groups. People with means bought land and large houses and shared the room and the resources with their family. Even in the US, this proved true in some cases. The Kennedy compound was a good example. Their Tebow cousins followed the same idea – several of the brothers built their own homes on the ranch, while two couples shared the main house. Jaxson always thought their family would do something similar. Staying together, all of them congregating around Highlands, making their homes near to one another.
Christian McCoy might be getting on in years, but he was astute and discerning as ever.
Jaxson, the family is evolving. Heath is involved in his business; he and Cato spend more time at the resort than they do at home. Tennessee and Molly’s future is down at Big Bend where his wind farm is located. Ryder’s home is with her husbands’ and so is Pepper’s, she and Judah will live in Austin when he’s not on the road. Which leaves Highlands and Belle Chasse.
In between Tamara, the ranch, and his work with the support group, Jaxson’s life was pretty full. Still, he’d spent time working out a plan for Belle Chasse. The man he’d hired to start readying the land for grazing and planting was working out well. At some point, he figured to split his time between Texas and Louisiana – but how that would work, he didn’t know yet. His relationship with Tamara took priority and everything else would sort itself out – or so he thought.
Highlands is in your blood, son. You might not realize it, but you’ve poured your heart and soul into this land. I know you love Belle Chasse, but I think Philip is the one who belongs there.
His father had gone on to tell how he and Olivia had visited the plantation the week before.