by Jade Cary
“My problem.”
Dane shook his head. “Okay, Princess. What can I do for you today? How can I help you?”
“Tell me what you know.”
“I was currying horses in the barn when your pops rolls up in his truck. My old man was somewhere, but came running when he saw your dad kicking up dust. I guess he’d heard something had happened because he headed your dad off before he could get to the bunkhouse where Ramon was. Some loud words were exchanged and as things started to calm down, Ramon comes out of the bunkhouse with a Smith & Wesson in his hand. That’s when I came out. I didn’t want trouble. I had bags packed for boot camp and a foot out the door, and I wasn’t hot on the idea of burying my old man over love trouble from the neighboring ranch.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“Short story is my dad orders Ramon to put down the gun and get back in the bunkhouse, and your dad is coming toward Ramon, hands raised, saying the same thing. Ramon goes back inside, our dads converse some more, and as your dad is getting back into the truck and mine is heading inside the house, Ramon comes out again. Before we can get to them, they’re on the ground. Gun goes off, your dad rolls off Ramon. Done. Boom.”
“Done? Boom?”
“It was an accident, Asher. Ramon was the aggressor, but no one intended to kill anyone. No one needed to die that day. It was a scandal for about a month. Brooks got involved, and it went away. Meanwhile, Maria’s up at the hospital and your dad’s wondering if he gets to take her home or bury her. You know Ramon ran her off the road, pregnant and all.”
“I know.”
“That kid’ll never be…”
“Normal?”
“Undamaged.”
“I know. He’s a great kid.”
“I know he is. Still, you didn’t need to be here for that, Asher. Be glad you were somewhere else.”
“I’m not, but thank you. That’s a whole separate issue I’m trying to get straight.”
“Well, get it straight. You didn’t need that—fifteen-year-old girl in the middle of that shit. No, Asher. Not here.” He sighed and looked around, as if the answer were in his living room. “The old folks got that one right.”
“I could have handled it, at my dad’s side. I was anything but delicate.”
“True. But I also know that had you been my kid, I’d have shipped you out, too. Some things a little girl doesn’t need to see.”
“God, now I know why I never came back here. More years of not worrying my pretty little head over men’s business would have driven me to drink—or kill.”
“You know that’s not how it is, especially with your family, or with mine. Your pops was only trying to protect you, Chandler. And I guess so was Brooks. We’re of that mindset, for sure.” Dane stood. “I’ll tell you one thing: this shit here?” He waved his hand in my general direction, and I guessed this shit here meant my very presence in his house. “Would not fly with me. I was Brooks, I’d have a posse out looking for you, and God help you once I found you.”
“He won’t need one until tomorrow at noon when I don’t walk off that plane. He’ll see me when he sees me.”
“You’re a handful, Asher. You’re lucky you ain’t mine.”
“Yours. Like a horse, or a Heifer.”
“We do it different here, Asher. You know that. Leave that PC shit in New York.”
“You sound just like Jed. How comforting.”
“So,” he said after the silence went on a while. “What do you want to do? You’re welcome to stay here, cool off a bit, talk. I got room.”
“I’d like that. I’ll make dinner. Least I can do.”
“Damn straight it is.”
At seven a.m. the next morning, as I sat on the front porch with a cup of coffee, a worn truck pulled up. A woman stepped out, jean-clad, boots dusty, blonde hair pulled back. I’d have known Tabitha Holland anywhere. Dane walked up from a paddock as she lifted a boy of about three down out of the back.
“Ha, there he is!” The child ran to Dane, and Dane scooped him up.
“Tabby!” I jumped down off the porch and we hugged. “You look amazing!” we both said in unison.
“My brother told me you were back. Sorry about your dad, Chan. I’d have been there but I had all three kids with the flu that weekend. They’re just mending now…hey, Dane…keep him away from the shit, will you. Eric, honey, stay with uncle Dane.” She turned to me. “Lord.” She blew her bangs out of her eyes.
“Three kids. Tab! Come sit. I want to hear it all.”
She, her husband and three kids lived in Sheridan, about an hour away. Jack Hanson, whom I remembered from high school, had his own construction company—actually, he and Dane owned it together.
“I got Nick, Pearl and the baby there. He’ll be in preschool soon and I’ll feel like I’ve been reborn.”
“At least until three when school lets out,” I said. I told her about my life for the last fifteen years, and about what brought me home. I spoke about Charlie, and about how I had no idea about him until I came home. I talked about his issues and my plans for him.
“That sounds incredible. Really, Chandler.” She sighed and looked out to the rangeland. “Dane told me why you’re here.” She shook her head. “You’ve had a lot a contend with. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“I remember when it happened, but I don’t think anything came of it. Your dad was still around, at the ranch, working until the day he passed.”
“I know. It’s the not knowing, Tabby. It’s being kept in the dark like I’m some backward child unable to deal with the truth.”
“Yeah, well, honey, you know how this place is. Baby steps. You’ll get there. You back for good, then?”
“Yes. I still have business to take care of so I’ll be in and out, but yes, I’m back for good.”
“I’m so glad. I want my old friend back.”
“Me, too, Tabs.”
Tabitha looked out to the driveway. “Oooops. Okay.” She stood. “Eric! Come on, baby. Time to go.” I looked up too and saw what got her in such a hurry to leave. Jed Brooks stepped out of his red truck with fire in his eyes.
Dane shook hands with Jed, little Eric perched on his shoulders, and they chatted for a minute. I looked from Tabby to Dane.
“Sorry, honey,” she said. “A trip to town and two words to one person and suddenly the whole place knows you’re back.”
Jed came to the foot of the porch. “Hi there,” he said, a smirk pasted on his puss.
“Mmmm.” I turned to Dane. “I’m wondering if there’s one man, ONE MAN in this town who possesses the balls to have my back for one fucking second.” Between Ryder McKinney and Dane Holland, I didn’t stand a chance, and there were hundreds more where they came from. Little Eric’s eyes went wide as if he’d heard it before. “Sorry, sweetheart,” I said to the child. Dane scowled, Tabby laughed, Jed turned beet red.
“Time to go,” he said through clenched teeth.
I hugged Tabby and we planned lunch in the next day or two, then I placed my hands on Dane’s shoulders. “I’ll think up a way to thank you, Holland. Be sure of it.”
Dane laughed. “Time to face the music, Asher. You’ll feel better after.”
“Welcome to the 50’s, where men are men, and women are, well…not.”
“Damn straight.”
I kissed his cheek anyway. “Some king you are.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it.”
I got in the rental, turned the engine over, and…nothing. “Oh, what the hell! What did you do?” I yelled at Dane out the window.
“In here, honey,” Jed said, patting the passenger seat of his truck. I checked the backseat. My bag had already been transferred to his. “We got a forty mile ride in which to talk, and talk we will.”
I recalled the last time I was in the truck with him and we talked. I got into the passenger seat with a huff, but without argument. What was the point?
“I’ll have a hand run your car over la
ter, Asher,” Dane said. “After I put that hose back in.”
I leaned out the window. “Nice, Squid. Really.”
“Call, you need anything. And I mean that.”
“Yeah. Like jumping into a pit of vipers. I’ll call straightaway.”
He patted the truck like the ass of a horse as Jed drove off. Slaying Dane’s dragons would have been preferable to what the rest of the day would bring.
More Dragon Tales
The man looked good, no question. I was still pissed, so as far as I was concerned he could take his faded jeans, his black collared shirt with the elk horn buttons and rolled-up-to-the-forearms sleeves, and the black biker boots, and shove the whole fucking ensemble up his well proportioned, lying ass.
“Welcome home, Chandler Elise,” he said as he drove down the dirt road toward the highway.
“Welcome home, Chandler Elise,” I mocked. He laughed. Not even a chuckle. A laugh.
“I missed you.” When I didn’t answer, he reached for my hand. “Chandler.”
“Stop,” I said, pulling away.
“You’ve got yourself worked up,” he sighed.
“Oh, lord, Jed, if you sit there and patronize me, so help me Christ…” Tears were brimming. I was exhausted and insane with rage.
“I am not patronizing you. We have a good drive ahead of us, and we’re going to talk. I need you to be able to hear me.”
“One thing I can still do is hear.”
“Cut the sass, Chan, right now. You’re acting like a child.”
“Fuck you, Jed.” I said this turned toward the window and a bit under my breath.
“That’s enough!”
He could hear, too. Good. He sighed and sped up, his jaw working madly and his eyes blazing. Now we were on even ground. I felt better.
“You going to tell me what happened, Jed, or should I tell you? Once I started digging there was a lot to read. Kept me up all night long.”
“You got Holland’s side. What more do you need?”
“That’s how you’re playing this now?
“You don’t give me the courtesy of coming home and letting me explain. Instead, you come a day early so I can go to the airport and stand there like a schmuck and wait for someone who’s already arrived. That’s how you’ve decided to play it. Second time now.” He had a point, first time being, of course, when Brenda got me riled and I turned to tequila instead of Jed. Lesson not learned, it appeared.
We were silent for the five miles it took to get on the highway that would take us home. The drive was beautiful, taking us through gorgeous farmland with rolling fields for miles, golden bronze now, as fall approached. Once out on the open largely deserted highway, he sighed again, which meant he was about to speak.
“Ramon found out about your father and Maria, and he left the ranch. He wanted Maria to go with him. She did. She wanted some time with Ramon to explain things. He didn’t know she was pregnant then; neither did your father. Dammit,” he said as his phone chimed. He answered, grunted a lot, blurted a few terse words, short and to the point, and hung up.
“Problem?”
“Yes. One thing at a time, huh?”
I shrugged. “Whatever you say—which isn’t much so far. I knew all this already.”
“Chandler, I am warning you; keep up that smart mouth and I will pull this truck over. I know you’re mad but I won’t put up with your shit. You’ve taken that far enough. Do you understand me?”
I stared out my window.
“Chandler.” His voice was barely above a whisper but he might as well have screamed.
I waved my hand dismissively as I counted cows in a newly mowed field. He veered the truck over toward the side of the road. Panic rose in my gut. He threw the truck into park and unsnapped his seat belt.
“I hear you. I understand,” I blurted.
“Do not fucking test me today, lady.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and it was enough to get him buckled and back on the road again.
“Eventually Maria came back to the ranch and Ramon stared working at The Hollow O for Ted Holland.”
“I know that, too,” I said, as respectfully as possible.
“By then Ramon knew about Charles and Maria, and that she was pregnant.
One night he caught her leaving the ranch out on Prong Creek Road about a mile from the highway. He ran her into a ditch. Intentionally, unintentionally, didn’t matter. Your father went nuts. He went to the Hollow O to confront Ramon. He was probably going to haul his ass to the Sheriff, maybe beat the hell out of him first. He certainly wasn’t going to kill him. Ramon pulled a gun on him. Goddammit!” Jed picked up his phone. “What! I’m an hour out…handle this! I can’t…”
Nor could I. I’d heard enough. I snatched the phone out of Jed’s hand and threw it out my open window. “Please continue,” I said.
Jed looked at me, stunned. A hundred feet up the road from where I’d tossed the phone he yanked the steering wheel so hard I thought the truck would flip. He came to a stop in a wide turnabout next to a fallow pasture.
“You have got to be…you’ve lost your fucking mind,” he said. I’d never seen him so angry. Of all the times he gave me the hairy eyeball for saying fuck, he’d said it quite a bit since I’d returned to The Last Best Place. Maybe I brought out the beast in him. I was sure that was it.
“I’m tired. I’m a little testy because I’ve learned, via Google, that my father killed a man, who happened to be the husband of his lover. And believe me, dear heart, I am in my right mind.”
“Okay, well, now you’re going to get your ass out of this truck and find my phone.”
I folded my arms and affected the most petulant pose I could come up with. “No.”
“Get out, Chandler, right now, or you will see a side of me you’ve never seen before.”
He gave me about five seconds to come to my senses before he opened the driver’s side door and got out, grabbing the keys at the last minute. He came around the front of the truck, and with a press of a button, I locked all the doors. With the press of his own button, he had them unlocked again. We played this game until my timing fell off and he yanked the passenger side door open.
“Get out.” When I ignored him, he hissed an expletive, unhooked my seatbelt and dragged me off the seat. I hit the ground with a jolt, and as he held me with one hand, he unbuckled his belt with the other.
“All right. All right! I’m going.”
“I’m through messing around, Chandler.” The ends of his belt fell open and dangled at his waist.
“I’m going,” I growled, brushing past him.
He grabbed my arm and jerked me around. He took my chin in his rough hand. “Find that phone, and it better be working.” He was seething, his eyes like a black ocean, his face almost purple. He was beginning to feel a fraction of what I’d felt the last 48 hours, though not for the same reasons.
He smacked my ass to get me going and my heart pounded as I took myself down the road in search of the damn phone. Hasty? Impulsive? Immature? All of the above.
God, what the hell was I thinking?
I scanned the area around me as I walked, thinking about the new phone I’d buy Jed once I’d found his, broken and unrecognizable. Then I remembered the armored tank he’d clapped onto the thing to protect the glass and inner workings. Damn thing was ugly as a boil, but I had a feeling that boil would save my hide.
I heard it ringing and ran toward the sound. I picked it up as the ringing stopped. Eddie—Jed’s last call, wondering what the hell happened. I wondered, too. Something was up if Eddie Muenster was calling.
I walked back toward the truck, not in any great hurry about it. I dusted the phone off on my pant leg as a show of good faith and handed it to him.
“Sorry,” I said.
“I’ll bet you are.”
“It was ringing.”
“Lucky for you.” He tossed the phone on the driver’s seat and stood before me, hands on his hips, belt
still dangling. Not good.
“That was not…I am not at my best right now, Jed.”
“No kidding.”
“I’m sorry. I apologize.”
His eyes, dead as steel before, were diamond hard and bright with fire. His chest heaved as if he’d just run a mile, and his jaw worked like an angry saw.
“Goddamn you, woman!” He snatched up a fist-full of my hair, right at the nape, where I’d feel it best, and pulled my head back. “You make my fuckin’ blood boil.” His mouth crashed down on mine and he took me without guilt or guile, his tongue invading me, his teeth grabbing my lip and pulling, then letting it snap back into place simply because he’d had enough. The weeks away, the buildup of frustration—sexual and otherwise—consumed us both.
My hands went to his shirt and I pulled it out of his pants. He took my hands, lifted them above my head, and went for the front of my jeans. Without a word, he opened them, yanked them down and tore my panties from my body. Forearm under my bare ass he lifted me onto the leather seat. My sandals dropped off my feet and he pulled my jeans off my ankles, letting then fall to the ground.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he growled in my ear as he went for the front of his jeans, ripping them open. He pulled them down enough to pull his cock out and, without a word, impaled me to the root. I screamed out and hooked my heels into his ass as he fucked me hard, never taking his eyes off me.
“Gonna whip your ass ‘til you can’t breathe.” He pulled out slowly, and then plunged hard, his balls slapping at my backside.
“Okay,” I breathed in his ear.
“You won’t sit down for a fuckin’ week when I’m done with you,” he hissed, jerking his hips, his cock punishing me with such exquisite pleasure it suddenly did not matter that we were on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere.
“Jed,” I breathed.
He slid his hands under my hips and jerked me onto his hard cock, lifting me at an angle to take him deeper. His thrusts tapped relentlessly against my cervix, the ridges along his cock rubbing against that pleasure point behind my pubic bone. He left one hand under my hip and wound the other into my hair, pulling my head back. He attacked my neck while he pounded into me, grunting expletives and threats in time with my beating pulse.