by Ali Parker
"You're going to learn today."
"Yay!" I tried to sound enthusiastic about it, but failed miserably.
David moved around to help me up onto the saddle, his hand coming up to grab my ass as he lifted.
I shot him a look, and he grinned in that flabbergasted little boy way that some men seem to have. It was disarming and seductive all at once.
He climbed up onto his horse, and we started riding. It was a little touch and go at first, but after a few minutes I got into enough of a rhythm that I could speak without falling off.
"So how well known are you around here?" I asked.
"Pretty well known, I guess. People come all the way out from Perryville to hear me."
"How far is that?"
"About ten miles."
I must have given him a strange look because he suddenly looked defensive.
"Hey, that's a long way to go when you're on a tractor."
"Are you serious?"
"Some of the boys figure that they can drink if they're on a tractor because they aren't really driving." I stared at him blankly and he grinned. "I'm kidding. They don't drive tractors. Except Steven."
He said the last part with a sigh and a subtle shake of his head.
"How many people usually come out?"
"Last week we had about forty-six. Three of them were asleep. Well, one of them was technically dead there for a couple of minutes. That happens a lot, though. We just have to kind of pop him one in the chest and he wakes back up just fine. He's eighty-six and isn't supposed to be drinking. He owns the bar, though, so we can't tell him not to. Every time it happens he just kind of picks back up on the story he was telling. I'm telling you, though, Jesus is coming for him one of these days, and soon."
I couldn’t help but stare at him with my mouth hanging open. People couldn’t make this kind of shit up. They just couldn’t.
***
We had fixed three fences, checked in on a sick cow, sprayed some weeds, and I had made another unsuccessful attempt at picking up a bale of hay when I heard a loud bell clanging in the distance.
"Time for lunch," he told me, getting back on his horse. "Come meet my mama."
Butterflies danced in my stomach again.
We rode back toward the house and he helped me down, holding me in his arms off the ground for just a few seconds longer than he needed to. When my feet touched down again I had to fight the urge to stroke my hands down his chest and the ripples of his abs.
"Put a shirt on before you come in this house," a woman who I assumed was “mama” said from the porch before heading back inside.
David grabbed a shirt from the fence post and slipped it on as he led me toward the house. We stepped through the door and were immediately confronted by a row of people staring at us. I stepped back slightly, but he put his hand on my lower back and guided me forward.
"This is my family. Everybody, this is Sarah. She's an agent from Tennessee."
His mother looked me up and down in that scathing way all good Southern women have mastered by the time they are three.
"You don't look like an agent," she mumbled.
"Thank you," I replied. "That's what I was going for."
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Wild as the Wind
The Dawson Brothers #2
by
Ali Parker
Chapter 1
Ted
"This is ridiculous, you know that, right?" I threw a bale of hay over the fence with so much aggression it hit the ground on the edge and bounced a few more feet into the field.
"What's ridiculous?" Luke asked, coming up behind me with a salt lick block to drop into the field with the cattle.
I glared at him over my shoulder and climbed back onto my horse. Of course he would act like there was absolutely nothing different going on. Luke was the baby of the family and the quintessential mama's boy. Anything mama cooked up, Luke was most likely going to follow right along with, no matter how annoying the situation was for the rest of us.
"The fact that David’s gone to Tennessee with his girl. We’re never going to pick up the slack. I haven’t managed to find time to set up the computers, and it’s going to be a challenge to make sure the ranch keeps running properly during the transition. We don’t have enough hands. Sucks he left us hanging."
"He didn't up and leave us hanging," Luke said, climbing up on his horse so that we could ride to the next field. "He went to get his career started. Besides, Dad put you in charge for a reason. He thinks you can handle it."
I scoffed and pushed my horse into a slightly faster pace. With my older brother's work now on my shoulders on top of my own, I needed to get through each of the chores faster to make sure that I was able to get everything finished before the sun went down. Cramming in computer work didn’t seem realistic, but I wasn’t ready to admit that to my father just yet, not when he’d been against them for so many years. As it was, I had to skip fixing two fences and hoped none of the herd figured it out and decided to head out on their own adventure. That would mean having to chase them down, and I had too much shit to do as it was to embark on an impromptu cattle drive anytime soon.
"Do you think Sarah’s going to jump-start his career as promised? I can’t see him doing anything in Tennessee other than small shows and maybe sing at the occasional open mic night. Oh, and Sarah, of course. I'm sure he'll be doing her plenty."
"Bitter are we?" Luke asked.
I didn't want to admit it, but I was feeling bitter about my older brother's recent escape from the responsibilities of the family ranch. It wasn't necessarily that he had gotten the opportunity to go to Tennessee. It was more that it happened so damn quickly none of us even had the chance to figure out what was going on until it was already done. One night he was singing on the little stage up at Kinsey's Bar, trying to keep himself from going stir crazy from living the same day over and over again on the ranch, and the next he was shacking up with some tiny little music agent named Sarah in our grandfather's cabin.
Now he had packed up his jeans, boots, and guitar, and was off on his quest to Tennessee to make a name for himself in the music industry. It seemed like I was the only one in the family who saw how utterly absurd this whole situation was. It wasn’t like he was broke or even a struggling artist.
Despite our never getting with the times when it came to technology, my dad had built our cattle and horse ranch into a lucrative business that ensured our comfort for years to come. My other two brothers and my mother and father had the same feelings toward his singing hobby from the time he started singing at Kinsey's, and even when Sarah first showed up. Finally, Dad gave David his blessing to pursue his dreams before Mama was released from the hospital.
My heart ached thinking of my mama being ill. Colon cancer was a tough battle, but thankfully Mama’s always been a fighter. She seemed real proud of her sweet Davey, but I hated that he hadn’t even stayed a full day to welcome her home. Of course, they fell all over him when he returned like he was already some big star.
If he had only given me a bit more time to get used to the whole idea it might not have been so difficult. Or, more likely in my opinion, time for Sarah to figure out that he was not too terribly much more than a carbon copy of the other singers that swarmed around Tennessee and head on back home without him. Don’t get me wrong, my brother has an amazing voice, but I still wonder if that was her plan all along. She had to know the kind of money my brother had, and I wondered if it was solely his talent that she was interested in. Her career had been in trouble, so was he like a built-in insurance policy? Regardless of my brother’s situation, it sure left me in a bind.
The sun started to slide down as I finally finished up the last of my chores and headed in for supper. It was tense around the table like it had been for the last few nights. We all sat in stony silence as Mama brought in the platters of food and placed them in the middle of the table for us to pass around. She moved much slower than normal but insisted on r
eturning to her kitchen as soon as possible, and there was no arguing with her to take it easy.
"Did you get those fences fixed today, Ted?" my father asked in between bites of mashed potatoes.
I shook my head and shoved a bite of pork chop into my mouth.
"No, I didn't have the time."
"Don't talk with your mouth full, Ted," Mama said from her place at my father's elbow.
"You haven't had the time for three days now. What about that fancy computer program that’s supposed to make things more efficient?"
I sighed and took another bite of my food. This conversation had become the bane of my existence. There was always something that they didn't think I was doing the way I should be or a list of things that I hadn't gotten to that they thought I should have.
"I know, Dad. Unfortunately, there is always a new list of things to do in the morning. If I could find time to set it up, it would make things a whole hell of a lot easier. But that, like everything else around here, is going to take time. Time I just haven’t had. I can’t even put Luke or Mason on it. I need them in the fields. "
“Well, you boys put that work on yourselves. We’ve been running things just fine on paper until you boys decided to spring this little technology mutiny on me. You took advantage of our weakened condition to do it.”
My blood boiled. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. Besides, it will work, but I need more hands. I’m not only down David since you’ve been scarce in the fields yourself.”
“Watch your tone with your father, Teddy. You two are going to have to work it out,” Mama said. Her demeanor changed enough already with shaky hands and a tight set in her jaw that I could tell she was upset by our tone. She didn’t need the stress, and I didn’t want it.
It was all too much. David had only been gone for a few weeks, and I was already tired of the walking on eggshells around my parents to not upset the balance.
"It's all right, Mama," I said, taking a final bite and pushing back from the table so that I could stand up. "You know he’s been dreaming of retiring from the time Luke was born. After all, you gave him four sons, and that's all we meant to him—free ranch hands. I mean, he had Mason giving the calves their shots by the time he was three. You can't expect that he wants to put forth any more effort than he absolutely has to now."
"What the hell is your problem?" Dad demanded in his growling, furious voice that always made Mama tremble even though everyone knew he would never raise a finger to her, and if he did, he would be minus a few of the vital body parts he has been quite fond of over the years.
"All I've heard my entire life is 'loyalty to the family, loyalty to the family.' We grew up being lectured about taking care of the ranch and how it was our family's legacy to us. Then, some little so-called agent shows up, and you let David run off to Tennessee without another thought, leaving me to pick up the slack. We were already stretched thin, and now you're expecting me to do another person's work, and all you can do is bitch and moan when I'm not able to handle every single thing on the list.”
I let out an exasperated sigh and started toward the door. I heard Mama calling after me but didn't bother to stop.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going up to Kinsey's. It seems to be the place to go to get away from here."
I was almost to my truck when Mason caught up with me.
"Want some company up at Kinsey's?" he asked, shrugging into his denim jacket. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
"You can buy me several." Mason gave me a strange look. "Well, hell, Mason, if I’m going to drink I want to feel it. I'm going to sidle myself right up to the bar, drink a few beers, and flirt with the bartender. Maybe I'll find some girl to take me away, too, and then you can take over the ranch."
"Are there any girls left in this town that you haven't had in the back of your truck?"
I climbed up behind the wheel of my truck with a laugh. He might be right. If I were going to find someone willing to settle down with me, she was probably going to have to come from a different state. Not that I had any interest in settling down anytime soon. There was only one girl I’d ever imagined could bring me to do that, and she wasn’t talking to me.
My tires kicked up dirt as they spun against the driveway before we backed out and headed down the road toward Kinsey's.
Chapter 2
Lauralee
I climbed up on my favorite barstool, the one at the very end of the bar that let me lean back against the wall and survey the entire room without making it too obvious. I loved to people watch and often found myself sitting back to observe. But while I was no stranger to Kinsey’s, I didn’t frequent it often. Tonight I had a special purpose. I needed to see for myself what kind of drunken antics my brother, Bailey, had been up to. It helped that I was fairly unnoticeable. Unlike the other girls that prowled Kinsey's on Friday nights, I hadn't packed myself into a dress made out of approximately one yard of spandex and high heels that could probably double as deadly weapons if the woman wearing them got pissed off enough.
In fact, I hadn't done anything after I finished work other than take off my hat, so at that moment my feet were encased in boots still caked with dirt from the workday as they balanced on the center rung of the barstool. I cracked a peanut in one hand and tossed it into my mouth. The bar seemed a bit mellow compared to a typical Friday, but I figured that most of the people who usually came out had come to see David play, so now they were in their formal period of mourning for the loss of their local entertainment.
Just as that thought went through my mind, I heard the antiquated bells on the front door of the bar chime, so I glanced up to see who was coming in. Ted and Mason Dawson swaggered in and scanned the room. Speak of the devil, I suppose. The two men paused just a few steps inside the bar and glanced around like they were on safari, waiting for the next big game to wander by haplessly. Mason didn't have quite the level of lasciviousness in his look that his big brother did. There was a touch more innocence in his eyes even as he tried to follow right in Ted's footsteps.
There was absolutely nothing innocent about Ted, though. He hunted the girls in that bar without a single shred of shame or subtlety. This hadn't earned him too much favor with the mothers in town, whose warnings to their daughters about Ted ranked right up there with not taking gym class when you were on your period because it would exhaust you and always wearing clean panties just in case you got in an accident. Or with the fathers in town, many of whom had special gun cases dedicated to armories designated for Ted and the potential for hasty nuptials. For said girls, however, Ted was seen as a rite of passage of sorts.
If you had one too many Saturday nights all by yourself, call Ted. If you were itching to get rid of that pesky virginity, call Ted. If you absolutely had to try out that new sex position that everyone was raving about that you had studied in great detail in your favorite gossip magazine, but either didn't have a boyfriend to test it out on or wanted to make sure you had it down pat before you whipped it out, call Ted.
All of that reputation had been built in the years since we’d broken up, and despite a few efforts to sweet talk me, I hadn’t given in to him since.
I gave a little bit of a shudder and turned to the beer being set down in front of me by the bartender.
"Thanks, Lucy," I said, holding down the napkin she had placed the glass on and peeling my beer away so that I could take a sip.
"You're staring at that boy hard, aren't you?" she asked suspiciously.
"What boy?" I asked, then realized what she meant and nearly choked on my beer. "Ted? You can't be serious."
I wiped off my mouth and glanced back over at Ted. He had been in the bar for all of five seconds and two girls were already draped on him and vying for his affection. From the stories that I had heard, they didn't have to compete too hard. He would gladly bring both of them home, and if they weren't into that, he would line them up and serve them one at a time, deli style. I wondered if he made them take numbers.<
br />
"You aren't making a real good case for yourself," Lucy said, glancing between Ted and me.
"Trust me, Lucy, there's no case to be made. I had my fill of that boy a long time ago, and I'm not interested in a replay."
"Oh, you did, did you?" Lucy said, leaning on her elbows on the bar and giving me that twinkly-eyed look that the girls did when they wanted to start gossiping.
"Don't you start looking at me like that. It wasn't like that, and it never will be."
"What was it like then?"
"We grew up together as neighbors. He was my brother Bailey’s best friend until he noticed me and we started dating. I thought I was in love with him, but then he ruined everything with his nasty temper and overprotective nature. Once we broke up, he got busy navigating the panty lines of every girl in the county."
"Not mine," Lucy said with a pout, straightening back up and pulling the white bar towel off of her hip so that she could wipe up some wayward condensation from the scarred wood top of the bar.
"I would wear that badge with pride, Lucy," I told her. "You could do so much better than Ted."
She glanced over at him and looked back at me as if I had completely lost my mind.
"Honey, they don't come better than Ted. Except maybe for David, but that little agent woman came and snatched him right out of the potential gene pool."
I tried to be subtle looking over at Ted again. She wasn't lying. He did grow up hotter than hell and with a body to sin your way there. The problem was how frequently he gave girls a personal escort then dropped them on their ass and hightailed it back to his family's ranch.
My brother’s voice brought my head around. He was oblivious to my presence from the other end of the bar, and I frowned as Lucy sauntered over and poured him a drink. He staggered off to the back table he’d been at where his flavor of the week waited.
