by Parker, Ali
As I sat at my computer, he settled in the chair across from my desk.
“Thank you so much for all of these great ideas, Dylan. You don’t know what this means to me. It’s amazing and I really think it could turn this ranch around.”
“I love you.”
I stopped typing and looked up at him to see he was staring at me with love in his eyes. I couldn’t believe he had just blurted that out.
“Dylan—what?”
“I love you, Helen. I’ve been trying to think of the right way to tell you, but I haven’t been able to do it. In this moment, I feel nothing but love for you, so I had to say it. I love you. I’m in love with you. You drive me crazy, woman.”
“Dylan—I can’t—I mean, we—”
“No. I don’t want to hear any of that again. You love me and that is obvious, so why can’t you just give in to it? Why are you so afraid of being happy?”
His question hit me to the core, but I knew the answer. The last time I was happy and in love it was taken away from me quickly and without warning. If I gave in to love, that could easily happen again. I couldn’t take a chance on that kind of pain and loss again. No way.
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Go. Get out of my office right now.”
“But Helen—”
“Fine. Then I’ll go!” I stood up and stomped out of there, slamming the door behind me.
29
Dylan
I had made a big mistake by telling Helen that I loved her; that I was in love with her. I thought she would reciprocate. I could see it all over her face and knew that she cared for me. I could feel it in her kiss and in her touch and see it in the way she looked at me. But when I said those words to her, she didn’t like it at all. In fact, she hated it. She stomped off and put distance between us.
Damn. I had really, really screwed up. We’d spent the entire day together, bonding on the project to change up the guest experience on the ranch. Then I had to go and push things, push her with my stupid words. Now we were back to square one and she was avoiding me again. It had been two days and I’d barely gotten her to say two words to me. She intentionally avoided me every chance she got.
Bursting at the seams with anger, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was angry with her for not wanting to talk things over and for giving me the cold shoulder after everything we’d been through. I was angry with myself for pushing things too far, when I’d finally made some progress. In general, I was just angry and needed to release that anger somehow.
I decided to go into town and maybe go by the dance hall to see if Hardy was there. Maybe he would let me go a few rounds on the mechanical bull just to blow off some steam. But before that I needed to do some errands and pick up a few things from the hardware store that were needed for the fencing project I was working on at the ranch.
Being away from the ranch would also relieve me of the frustration of seeing Helen walking around looking so beautiful, yet not being able to get anywhere near her. It was complete torture. The hardware store sat on the edge of town and after completing my business, I walked to my truck in the parking lot behind the store. Calling it a parking lot was a stretch, since it was barely a packed dirt area that gave way to mesquite brush and hill country wilderness.
Ring. My phone went off so I quickly pulled it out of my pocket hoping it was Helen. It was my brother Tanner.
“What’s the news brother?” I answered the phone.
“Just checking in. Haven’t heard from you in a while.”
“You don’t need to check up on me, I’m a big man now.”
“Oh, is that so? A big man, huh? Is the big man catching some big fish then? I hope you’re putting some in the freezer to bring back to us. We don’t get fresh fish in the middle of the state,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah I can do that,” I said, knowing I would just say I forgot when I returned home.
“When are you coming home anyway? This has been the longest trip you’ve ever taken,” he said.
“I’ll let you know when I make that decision. It won’t be too far off,” I said, realizing that I hadn’t really thought about going back home. That was an interesting thing to consider. In my mind I had thought about staying at the Larson Dude Ranch for a very long time. It was true. I hadn’t taken a trip this long before, not by myself, anyway. I wasn’t even homesick, but maybe that was because I’d just been home for a few days.
“Good, when you come back there will be a lot of good work for you,” he said, laughing.
“Oh great, can’t wait for that,” I said.
“Well, well. Look what we got here, Andy.”
I turned to see three of the Taylor Brothers—Andy, Brandon, and Christian. Shit.
“Who’s that?” Tanner said in the phone.
“Trouble,” I answered.
“Well, if it ain’t Mrs. Larson’s sexy boy toy,” Andy said, getting closer.
“Dylan, what’s going on?” Tanner said, but I didn’t answer him. I sat the phone down away from my ear, but I was so focused on the storm coming toward me that I didn’t end the call.
“Don’t talk about Helen like that,” I said.
“Somebody’s getting defensive, I think it must be true. Only a man that’s been inside of a woman would defend her like that,” Andy said.
“You said you would leave Helen alone. That was part of the bet, and I won that bet fair and square, or did you forget?” I said, not backing down. They had hit me at the wrong time. I was full of anger when I set out from the ranch earlier in the day, bursting to blow off some steam, and if they weren’t careful, they were about to discover what that was like.
“We said we would leave the ranch alone and we did. I haven’t gone back on my word. I don’t do that,” Andy said.
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk shit about the ranch and that fine piece of ass, Helen Larson,” Brandon said. “Say, when are you leaving town? When you leave, she’ll be looking for a new cock to suck on. I can put my cock in that pretty little mouth, and she’ll love it.”
Whack! I punched Brandon in the mouth.
“Dylan! Dylan!” I heard Tanner shouting my name from my phone that was already on the ground.
“Fucker!” I shouted.
“Get him!” the other Taylors shouted.
Andy came at me first. Whack. I got him with an uppercut, sending him stumbling back. But it was the only good shot I got. In no time, Brandon was on one side of me and Christian was on the other. They held my arms and Andy came toward me with a devilish grin on his face. I braced myself for what was coming.
Bam! Andy punched me in the gut. I doubled over but couldn’t completely do so because I was being held up by the two brothers. Andy punched me in the face, then punched me in the gut again. This was not a fair fight, but I didn’t expect fair from these brothers. They had no honor. Using the two brothers that were holding me as support, I threw my legs up, kicking Andy in the face with my cowboy boots before he could come at me again. His lip split wide open, and he didn’t like that at all. I felt the two brothers let go of me, but suddenly I had three sets of fists coming at me from all sides. Before I knew it, I was on the ground, eating gravel. Bam, they kicked me in the gut, in the shoulder. In the back. They were giving me a thorough pounding.
“Dylan! Fuck!” I heard Tanner shout over the speaker. I could see my phone just a few feet away from me but couldn’t reach out for it. Besides, my brother couldn’t help, they were hundreds of miles away. Crash! Andy squashed my phone with his boot heel, breaking it. Damn it.
“What the hell is going on here? You boys stop it!” I heard Mr. Carrie holler from the back door of the hardware store. “I’m calling the cops.”
The Taylor brothers stopped and ran to their pickup truck. “Let’s get out of here! Hurry, I’m not going back to the pen for this asshole!”
I rolled onto my back and looked up at the blue sky. There were vultures in the sky doing that particular dance they di
d. They liked to fly as though they were in a cyclone, but slow and smooth, circling around. It was mesmerizing to watch, something I loved to see out on the ranch. Now it was helping me ground myself and deal with the searing pain I was feeling.
“You alright son? Shit. You are busted up good. I’m going to call the cops,” Mr. Carrie said coming to my side.
“No, Mr. Carrie, it’s all right. Don’t call the cops,” I said, rolling over and getting up to my knees. Slowly, I got up to my feet.
“Then let me take you to the doctor, at least. You don’t look good at all,” he said.
“I’ve looked worse, trust me. Thank you for stopping the fight,” I said, shaking his hand. “I reckon I’d look a fair bit worse if you hadn’t.”
He protested some more as I picked up my phone. It was crushed, damn it. I threw it in the back of my truck. Then I climbed in and turned on the ignition. Mr. Carrie looked completely stunned that I was just driving away. He didn’t know that I was scrappy and came from scrappy stock. This was nothing. Yes, I was hurting, but in all honesty, it had let out some of that steam I’d been holding onto. Sometimes you just needed a good fight.
I definitely didn’t need to go to Mickey’s to ride that mechanical bull now. I grabbed my rearview mirror and tilted it toward my face. Now I saw why Mr. Carrie was so concerned. There was a streak of blood running down the right side of my face from a cut on my temple. It wasn’t gushing, so I knew it wasn’t bad, but it was busted open. Must have been from the cowboy boots, I thought. My fists were already sore and turning purple, and I could tell I had a shiner puffing up on my left cheekbone. I ran my tongue along my bottom lip, feeling and tasting the blood. A busted lip, just like I had given Andy. Those Taylor brothers weren’t up for a fair fight. It should have been me against one of them, but I couldn’t say I was surprised.
Turning down the driveway of the Larson Dude Ranch, I parked the truck in front of the house. I got out and felt the pain running through my body. I even had a little bit of a limp, but I could tell that it wasn’t too serious. I just needed to get to my bunk, take a hot shower and get this blood and dirt off of me.
“Dylan! Oh my Lord! What happened?” Helen had come out of the front door onto the porch. She quickly came down the stairs and ran over to me. I was glad she had some concern for me, at least. I was afraid she had written me off altogether.
“Just a little fight, that’s all.”
“A little fight? You’re bleeding. We’ll have to get you to the doctor. The clinic is open, but the hospital is more than an hour away,” she said.
“No. It’s not that serious. It looks way worse than it is, Helen. I promise.”
She sighed. “Are you crazy? You’re probably in shock. You can’t feel anything.”
I smiled at her. “Oh, I can feel everything alright. But this ain’t my first rodeo. I just need to get cleaned up.”
She put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Come inside.”
With her arm delicately wrapped around my back, she walked me inside her house and took me up to the bathroom.
“We need to take off your clothes,” she said.
30
Helen
When I saw Dylan get out of the truck, my heart dropped to my stomach. I ran over to him without thinking about anything except his well-being. I just couldn’t lose him, too. Not after everything I had been through with my late husband, I couldn’t lose Dylan as well. Even as I thought that, I was somehow aware of the conflict between that thought and my rejection of him the other day.
There was blood running down the side of his face and a purple bruise was already forming under his eye. He sort of limped as he took a step forward and all of that let me know he was actually really hurt. Dylan was a tough cowboy, and he didn’t hurt easily. He typically moved past the hurt, so the fact that he was struggling as much as he was let me know he was actually in severe pain. When I first saw him, I thought he’d been in an accident, but his truck seemed to be all right. Then I realized he’d been in a fight. I should have known.
Now as he lay naked in the bathtub, soaking in the hot water, I ran a soaking sponge over his wounds, which were all becoming more visible by the minute.
“Sorry,” I said, as he winced when I ran the sponge over the wound on his temple.
“It’s all right. It just stings a little.”
“I beg you, Dylan, let me take you to the clinic. Or let me have a doctor come here,” I said.
“There is no need for that. I assure you, this only looks bad. You’ll see once I’m all cleaned up and get some ice on it.”
I sighed, knowing how stubborn he was and accepting that I wasn’t going to win this fight. I trusted him to know his body, and how bad he was, but I knew that he could be cocky and arrogant, and that it was his pride keeping him from seeking medical attention.
“What if you are wrong? What if you have a concussion or internal injuries?”
He grinned at me, smiling crookedly with his busted lip. “You really are worried about me, aren’t you Helen?”
“Of course I am. Look at you, if the cuts aren’t enough, you’re also going to be black and blue all over,” I said, dunking the sponge into the hot water and cleaning his shoulder. He had a lot of dirt all over him, like he had been down on the ground rolling in it.
“I’ve been in worse shape, trust me.”
“So, what exactly happened?”
“A little run-in with the Taylor brothers.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“There I was minding my own business on the phone with my brother and walking to my truck in the parking lot of the hardware store when they came up and started talking shit about you.”
“And you couldn’t just let them get away with it, right? Couldn’t you have just gotten in your truck and left? Why do men have such a problem being the first to back down?”
“Honor, I guess. But yeah, I wasn’t going to let them talk about you like that. Not on my watch. I threw the first punch, it’s my fault. But there were three of them and only one of me.”
“Jesus, three of them? I guess I should be glad you’re not dead.”
“Yeah, so am I. If old Mr. Carrie hadn’t come out of the back door and told them he was calling the cops, I just might be right now. I honestly don’t know if they would have stopped or not.”
My blood ran cold because I knew that he wasn’t lying or exaggerating. Andy Taylor had already been to prison for Lord knows what. I knew boys got away with letting things go too far when they were heated and in a fight. With three of them against one, a simple wrong kick could have killed him. Thinking about that made me realize just how close to losing him I may have come.
“Please, let me call the police and report this. Those bastards can’t get away with this,” I said.
“I’m not a snitch, Helen. That’s not how this works,” he said, looking at me very seriously. I rolled my eyes at this code of the west bullshit behavior. “Really, I’ll be fine. I promise. You will see once I’m all cleaned up,” he said, grabbing my hand that held the sponge and putting it against his chest. He leaned back in the tub playfully and closed his eyes.
“Oh, is that how it is? I’m suddenly your servant?” I teased him.
“Yep. Get to work taking care of me,” he playfully replied.
“All right,” I said, and plunged my hand into the water and wrapped it around his cock. His eyes sprung open and he looked at me, lust filling his eyes with desire. I looked at him playfully and started to move my hand back and forth. If anything, at least this would distract him from the pain he was feeling. He groaned.
“That feels nice,” he moaned.
“Good.” I moved my hand slowly. I didn’t want to add to his pain by accidentally touching him the wrong way. I delicately moved my hand in the water. Kissing him was out of the question with his busted lip, though my lips ached to do so. In truth, I wanted to kiss every part of his bruised and battered body. But I knew that ton
ight there would be no sex because he was wounded. So I decided to just give him pleasure.
“How about that? Feeling better?” I asked, as I moved my hand up and down his now rigid cock. The water splashed just a little.
“Yes. Fuck, that feels incredible,” he said, looking at my hand.
“Shh,” I said, pushing my hand lightly onto his chest to push him back against the tub to relax.
He gave me a slight grin, understanding that I was going to take care of him.
31
Dylan
I sat on the front porch trying to drink coffee through my busted lip. It wasn’t easy. The liquid was steaming hot, which didn’t help either. But I needed it in order to wake up and help my sore body get through the day. I set my coffee down on the rail and looked out at the Texas sky. It was a beautiful day, one that had come after a very beautiful night. I had to admit that having Helen take care of me was a really nice experience. She was tender and caring, and in those moments, I could tell that she actually did have feelings for me—deep feelings. Even if she did deny it.
Standing up, I stretched, very slowly. My body was bruised and sore, but it wasn’t as bad as Helen thought. I had known I would be fine, having been hurt enough times in the past to be able to tell when a doctor was needed. I’d been in more than a few fights and other mishaps in my day. I wasn’t beyond going to the doctor but didn’t need to this time. Taking another drink, I winced as the hot coffee touched my busted lip.
The sound of a vehicle approaching caught my attention. Most of the guests would not be arriving until dinner time. A truck turned down the driveway and I was completely stunned. How the hell did they find me? I put my cup down and walked off the porch toward the parking lot area in front of the house. When the truck came to a stop, the doors opened, and my brothers sprung out.
“Dammit, Dylan! You had us worried as all hell!” Tanner said. The truck they drove up in was his. Connor, Wyatt, and Tanner were all walking toward me, mad as all hell with mean looks on their faces. I was speechless.