by Cat Cavaleri
Now I purse my lips and fold my arms over my chest.
“Lugging hay bales and greasing that tractor with you yesterday was fine,” I say. “But I’m not wrestling any of those woolly bastards ever again.”
She giggles and takes my arm.
“Verna has chickens and a vegetable patch. There won’t be a sheep in sight, I promise.”
“You’re quite the ranch hand,” Verna says, accepting the chilly glass of lemonade I offer her. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”
“I’m strictly an amateur,” I reply, settling onto the old-fashioned mid-century chair next to hers in the cozy little sitting room at the south side of her house.
“Then you’re a quick study. Enthusiastic,” the elderly woman says, taking a sip and appraising me with her sharp blue eyes. “You were quite handy with the hoe out in the carrot patch. And Rodney’s in love with you.”
“I never thought a rooster would follow a person around like a puppy,” I laugh. “I figured he’d try to peck me to death when I went into the hen house to collect the eggs.”
“He knows you’re a nice boy,” she replies. “Roosters can sense these things. So can I.”
“Well, thank you. Both of you,” I say, leaning back in the chair and letting out a sigh. “It was fun, to be honest. Gathering eggs, hoeing weeds, watering the beans. And no sheep.”
She lets out a snort of agreement.
“I never liked sheep. My husband and I raised cattle when we were younger, before the children were grown. I miss those cows. I miss him. But now, I’m ready for something…new.”
From the kitchen, I can hear the clink of bowls as Missy prepares Verna’s lunch, and the gush of water as she rinses the vegetables we gathered. Hank will pick them up, along with the eggs I liberated from Rodney the rooster, and transport them to the café tomorrow morning.
“Hank’s ready for something new, too,” Verna continues, as if reading my thoughts. “He’s been ranching since he was a little boy. Seemed like he’d ranch until the day he dies. But when I heard how he’s taken to working in the café…”
She pushes her cane aside, leans forward, and holds her glass out to me. I take it and set it on the end table for her.
“Sometimes, after years of doing the same thing, day after day, year after year, you need a change. Hank’s ready for a change. So am I.”
So am I, a voice inside me whispers.
“I was born and raised in Bryce. It’s been good to me. But now, it’s time for me to move on. My sisters are in Florida, my boys and my grandbabies are in Chicago. I want to be with them. Get a taste of city life. Go to Disneyworld,” she laughs. “I believe me breaking this old hip of mine was a sign: that it’s time for a change. Do you understand?”
I nod.
“I want to sell this place. The ranch and the café. But nobody’s in the market for an off-road café in the middle of nowhere. And they’re certainly not interested in a three-acre ranch. It’s an old person’s ranch. A hobbyist’s ranch.”
“Or maybe…” I say slowly. “An amateur’s ranch.”
Verna’s blue eyes twinkle.
“An enthusiastic amateur’s ranch,” she agrees.
7
Missy
“I want to take you to my favorite place in the whole world,” I tell Connor after our work at Verna’s is done, after she whispers to me, “He’s a keeper, Missy,” after he takes my hand as if it were the most natural thing to do as we walk down the dirt road.
I lead him by the hand to the most remote corner of the ranch, the place where the trees are thick and a slow stream wends its way between smooth rocks.
“Look up,” I say, pointing into the branches of the tallest tree.
He tips his head back, the sun dapples the thick cords of his neck, and he smiles.
“A tree house?”
“Technically, a deer blind,” I say, putting one foot on the lowest of the slats nailed into the trunk of the tree and reaching a hand up to the next highest.
“Deer what?”
“A hiding place for hunting. Dad built it before I was born. When I was ten, he gave it to me. I wired it for electricity when I was thirteen.”
I start climbing. I can feel Connor’s eyes on my thighs, my ass. He lets out a low whistle.
“I’m impressed,” he says. “A teen electrician.”
“Ha,” I reply, hauling myself from slat to slat. “You’re an action and comedy star.”
I hear him scrambling up the tree after me, closing the distance with incredible speed. I gasp as his body surrounds mine, pressing me against the rough bark, holding me safe and secure.
“Just action,” he whispers. His breath sends a shiver through me, and the hard, hot pressure of his hips against my buttocks nearly makes me lose my grip. But I know he’d never let me fall.
I boost myself the last foot onto the flat platform two stories above the ground.
“This is very exciting,” he says, springing up next to me with unbelievable ease. “I’ve never been in a grown-up tree house before.”
“More like,” I say, unlatching the little door. “A grown-up blanket fort.”
I flick a switch and ropes of crystal-white Christmas lights suspended from the ceiling come to life. I hear Connor inhale sharply as we crawl into the enveloping folds of the plush comforters that hang from the walls and loop across the ceiling. Our knees sink deep into the cushy stack of quilts that line the floor six deep. The blind is just twelve by twelve feet, and not quite tall enough for either of us to stand up. We remain on our knees, facing each other.
In the red and purple and deep pink intimacy of the space, I can hear him breathing. I can hear myself breathing, too.
“This is my special place,” I say. My voice sounds husky, muffled by the soft fabric that surrounds us. “I don’t invite just anyone in.”
“I bet you had your first kiss here,” he says.
He’s so close. The knuckles of his left hand graze my thigh and we both pretend we don’t notice, but we both do.
“No,” I say. “I had my first kiss behind the horse arena at the Wyoming State Fair when I was thirteen. It was nice. He won me a stuffed elephant at the ring toss afterward.”
I touch him.
My hand slips up the hardness of his ribs, sliding over the parallel paths of his abs. I can feel them through his T-shirt, can picture them from the videos I watched. I long to run my lips over them, my tongue.
“I had my first kiss on the set of Jimmy Cabot, Boy of the Year when I was twelve. It was awkward as hell. It took eight takes and she told me I was a ‘dork wad supremo’ afterward.”
His left hand swivels and his palm cups my thigh. It slides up to the back pocket of my jeans and rests there, squeezing, making me go weak.
“What does that even mean?” I ask, my eyes closing as I lean into him.
“I have no idea,” he murmurs, and his lips meet mine.
In all the “Sexiest Connor Larson scenes” I watched last night, he seemed aloof, indifferent. Heartbreakingly sexy, but utterly cold.
That’s not the man before me now. I open my eyes as he pulls away and his gaze is alert, alive, penetrating. It’s so tender and so warm.
“I want to be with you, Missy. But only if you want me. I mean…” he hesitates. “Me. Not That Guy From The Movies.”
“I don’t know That Guy From The Movies,” I murmur, laying my hands on his bristly cheeks and drawing his face down to mine. “Remember? I only know a cute boy from a commercial, and a funny, sweet, sexy man I met in a little town in Wyoming.”
His lips take mine hungrily. His arms encircle my body and his hands run over my back, my shoulders, my neck, searching, searching, and then finding my breasts. I gasp as he takes them, clasps them, teases them so that even through three layers of clothing the electricity of his touch jolts me.
“Take your shirt off,” I murmur, and for a moment I have a doubt.
I want to see him peel his
shirt off. Slowly. I want to watch him reveal the smooth, muscular glory of his chest, my eyes inching down his deeply carved abs like raindrops. I want what I saw in the video last night.
Does that mean all I want is That Guy From The Movies?
No.
I want to transform what I saw, make it genuine and honest. I want the real Connor. The one who’s here with me. Not the idealized fantasy stoically performing for the dead eye of the camera.
“Look at me while you do it,” I say.
He does.
His hauntingly vibrant eyes bore into mine as, on his knees before me, he reaches down and grasps the hem of his T-shirt. Slowly, he lifts it over his abdomen, then his chest, then his head. He holds it in one hand for a moment, then drops it onto the soft quilts.
“Now you,” he says.
I unbutton my work shirt, slide both arms out, and toss it aside. Before I can touch my tank top, he grasps my wrists firmly. Firmly, but so gently.
“No,” he says. “Let me.”
His gaze devours me. It’s relentless. He says, “Let me, and look at me while I do it.”
I do.
I look into his beautiful eyes as his rough fingertips scrape up the roundness of my belly, up the curves of my waist, up the sensitive undersides of my arms, slipping my shirt off. His face vanishes from my sight for a moment in a blur of white cloth, then it’s before me again and his lips take mine.
I can’t bear to wait. I reach back and unhook my bra. It falls away as his lips travel to my earlobe, then my throat, then into the depth of my cleavage. He remains there, his face buried deep, and his fingers creep up to stroke and toy with my nipples.
I can’t hear myself, I’m too dizzy, too feverish, but I know I’m moaning. My hands scrabble at his belt, his zipper, tugging, exposing, and his do the same to me. Then we’re falling backwards into the pillowy luxury of the quilts. Our feet kick at our jeans, freeing our legs to twine together, warm skin against warm skin.
I can feel the rigidity of his erection straining through his briefs, fighting against the insubstantial material of my underwear, and then there’s only a thin layer of fabric grinding against my bare flesh as my thumbs hook my panties off.
He doesn’t follow suit. Not yet. Instead, he disengages his lips from my breasts and moves them down my body, working the skin with his teeth lightly, killing me with desire at each soft bite. When he reaches the terminus of my abdomen, he slips both hands between my legs and gently pries them apart.
I think I know what’s coming, but he surprises me. He turns his head to the side, lining his lips up with mine, the outer lips that enclose and conceal what lies inside. He presses his lips to me and we kiss as we did before, but I can’t kiss him back. I can only lie still and savor the feel of his lips working mine, parting them, his tongue slipping inside me as it previously slipped into my mouth.
I try not to move, try not to bring a premature end to this agonizing delight, but my body begins to buck wildly as the purest pleasure I’ve ever felt overwhelms me. I seize the waistband of his briefs and tug, stretching the elastic, shimmying it down his hips, down his thighs, freeing something I want more than I’ve ever wanted anything in all my life.
“I want…to see you,” he pants as he presses against me, then forces himself to disengage. He rolls onto his back and pulls me on top of him.
I swing one leg over him and mount, lining us up so he can enter. For an instant, I hesitate. I hold us apart and look at him: I look at him as he looks at me. Then I sink down onto him, an exquisite impalement that causes me to arch back like a rearing horse and dig my nails into his hard thighs.
I felt a tantalizing hint of this pleasure as we rode bareback together and the firmness of his groin thrust against my buttocks to the rhythm of the horse’s gait. This time, there’s no tease, no unfulfilled promise. My head goes back and my eyes close as the friction of his thick cock rubs me, strokes me, brings me to the brink.
“Look at me,” he moans, his hand caressing my cheek, his thumb sliding over my lower lip.
I force myself to open my eyes, to tip my face down to his, and look deeply into his eyes as I cry out, pleasure exploding within me in a final cascade of climax. His eyes never leave mine as his cry matches mine, his entire body stiffening as he fills me with his own hot, liquid release.
“Connor?” I say, as I lay in his arms afterward, exhausted and utterly satisfied. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
His head lifts slightly from the quilts. I can feel his eyes on me.
“What?”
“You’re a dork wad supremo.”
Beneath my cheek, his bare chest begins to vibrate with laughter. His index finger digs gently into my ribs and I, too, become convulsed with giggles.
“Just for that, you’re never getting a stuffed elephant from me. Not even if I win the ultimate grand prize ring toss at the world’s fair!”
“Damn,” I say, settling back into his arms. “I really wanted that elephant.”
His lips trace the contours of my forehead, then my cheek. I sigh, reveling in a sense of perfect contentment I haven’t experienced in a long, long time.
Maybe ever.
From somewhere at our feet, deep within our pile of discarded clothing, a melodic ringing begins.
Reluctantly, Connor eases himself away from me and sits up. He digs through the tangled shirts, socks, and jeans to pull out a sleek, top of the line cell phone.
“It’s D’Angelo,” he says.
“Don’t answer it,” I say, stroking his back.
“It’s probably for both of us. Camera problem might have fixed itself on the road. It wouldn’t be the first time,” he says, answering it on speaker phone. “Hey, D. You calling everyone back to the set?”
“I wish,” the stress in the director’s voice makes my nerves stand on end, even in the cozy confines of the deer blind. “Tim’s with Anya and Javier at the college. Doing terrible things to our ninety-eight-thousand-dollar camera. I can’t watch, so I’m in Cheyenne waiting on the lens. Plane’s scheduled for eight tonight.”
“Yikes,” Connor says, shrugging at me. “I wish there was something I could do.”
“There is,” the director replies. “Rashawn’s been looking for you. You’re not in your trailer?”
Connor stiffens slightly.
“Why’s your assistant looking for me?”
“We’re gonna make hay while the sun shines, as the agricultural folks around here say. I’m sending Rashawn to come get you—where’re you at?”
“D’Angelo,” Connor’s voice is tight now. “What’s going on?”
“If we can’t film, we can promote. I’ve drummed up the local press…as much of a local press as they’ve got in this so-called city. We’re going to do TV and radio interviews, we’re gonna make an appearance at the mall, and I’ve scheduled a big meet-and-greet at the hotel during dinner. Maybe we’ll get you to put in a surprise appearance at a nightclub, if they’ve even got one around here.”
Connor’s jaw clenches.
“No way.”
“Yes way. One hundred percent yes way, Larson. Promotional appearances are baked into your contract. I’m sending Rashawn in a car to pick you up. Get pretty and get your head in the game.”
Connor rakes his hand through his hair.
“I’m not doing it.”
“The hell you aren’t!”
“I’m not!” Connor barks. The anger in his voice makes me flinch. “You know how much I hate the mob, D! You know I can’t stand it—”
“Tough shit!” the director shouts, making the phone’s speaker buzz. “You’ve always been a pro, always been a dream to work with. On set. But you’re a goddamned nightmare when it’s time to play to the fans and the press. Don’t be a diva. Don’t. Or I’m calling Morton Helms again to put you in your place.”
Connor’s face goes white.
“That was you?”
“Damned right, that was me. And we’re do
ne debating. Give me your location and go wait for Rashawn. Now.”
Connor looks as though he’s going to refuse, then a resigned expression washes over his handsome features.
“Wilson Ranch,” he mutters. “Three miles outside of town due north.”
He hangs up without another word.
He sits very still for a long moment. Then he picks up his clothes and begins to pull them on.
“Connor?” I say softly.
He doesn’t answer, so I, too, start to dress.
“Do you hate it that much?” I ask, when we’re both fully clothed.
He nods.
“Maybe…” I say. “Maybe I could come with you. For moral support.”
“No!” he exclaims.
I recoil.
He looks away.
When he turns back to me, his face is bleak.
“I don’t want you to see me like that.”
We walk back to the house in silence. We wait on the porch in silence. When the director’s assistant rolls up in a rental car, Connor opens the passenger door and gets in. In total silence.
I raise my hand hesitantly and wave.
“Good luck,” I venture.
He doesn’t answer. His face is somber. His eyes are lifeless. He shuts the door and doesn’t return my wave. He just gazes at me through the window as if I weren’t real.
I do my ranch chores. I eat dinner with my dad. I keep my eyes on my phone, waiting for a call or a text from Connor.
Nothing.
It’s a three-hour drive to the city. Of course he’ll stay overnight, of course he’ll be driven back by the director’s assistant in the morning. But why can’t he call or text me? Just to say good night?
Before we head off to bed, Dad and I turn on the ten o’clock local news out of Cheyenne. Usually the top story is an accident on I-80 or a dire weather report. Tonight, it’s all about movie star Connor Larson, right here in Wyoming shooting his latest blockbuster film.
I’m taken aback when they cut to footage of a crowd of fans at Frontier Mall earlier in the day. Hundreds of bodies jostle against one another violently, hundreds of hands reach out, the fingers looking for all the world like claws. The blinding flash of phones and the deafening screams of “Connor! Connor! I loooooooove you!” make my head swim.