by Snow, Nicole
“Sherry and Terry,” I say, hoping it’ll get her to back off. “Good kids. Must be close to ten now. They’ve got their ma and lots of friends, even if I miss ’em sometimes. Their prick of a father visits sometimes, too.”
Her eyes light up. “Oh?”
I grit my teeth. Last thing I want to sit here and talk about today is goddamn Nathan, but maybe I should if it’ll get her off sniffing at me.
“He’s the kind who never wanted to grow up. A little boy in a grown man’s body. Can’t hold down a job, drinks too much, ran up debts sis was still paying off, last I checked...and he fucked around on her.”
“Oh, no. I’m sorry. I’ll never understand how a man with kids could–”
“He regretted it right away. Even got down on his hands and knees and begged her to take him back. But the cheating was the final straw for an asshole who proved he couldn’t be trusted to act like a man. Sis kicked him to the curb the next day and got herself a lawyer. Thankfully, they stayed civil for the kids, but I’ll never get over that little idiot. He had gold and he treated her like trash. He’s lucky he moved out when he did, before I had a chance to introduce his ass to my boot.”
Bella bursts out laughing. Can’t blame her. Guess I do get more wound up than I should about my ex-brother-in-law.
“Sorry, sorry,” she croaks, covering her mouth. “It’s just...the image. You chasing some guy around like a chicken.”
That makes me smile, imagining it myself. “Yeah, well, he’s a fucking dolt. I’ll never understand the shit he did. Never.”
Her eyes soften, turning the shade of sun-kissed grass. “One of these days, you’ll make your real wife very happy, Drake. You’ve got something rare a lot of guys don’t have anymore – respect.”
I try not to snort. Hell will freeze over before I’m ever hitched beyond this sham marriage. But in a way, she’s right.
I’d kick my own ass up and down the ends of the earth before I ever threw away a wife, a family, a life like they were nothing but some shitty hand-me-down I could pick up again next paycheck.
Changing the subject, I ask, “So what’s happening this afternoon?”
She tells me about some letter she’s written to the employees of North Earhart and asks if I’ll read it for feedback.
“Sure. Right now?” We’re both done eating.
“I’m going to clean up the kitchen first, and I want to give it one more good read-through.” Her pearl white teeth show as she smiles. “Just to make sure I’m not trying too hard to sound like Gramps.”
“All right. Let me know when you want me to look it over.”
“Are you done with the wind vane?”
“Yeah. Works like a charm.”
She turns, hands on her hips. “So which building are you going to climb up on now?”
“I’m done with the roofs. But I do need to pull some hay out of the loft in the barn.”
She picks up our bowls and plates. “Any request for supper?”
I have one. Her, right here on this table, legs wrapped around me, every moan I fuck out of her sliding down my throat like a sundae as I devour her little tongue.
But that’s not something I should even pretend is on the menu, so I say, “Nah.”
Then, recalling our annoying visitor, I tell her, “Think we’ve had enough fun here today. Why don’t we go into town for supper? You can show Erin your ring if she’s working tonight.”
She holds out her hand and stares at it. “It really is pretty. I guess it’d be a shame if it were just us staring at it. Seriously. It must’ve cost you a fortune.”
It did, but I’d known it would have to be. The price hadn’t fazed me, especially with Knox picking up most of the cost.
It’s simple, not showy or extravagant, yet elegant, too. Just like her.
“Glad you like it. My buddy sent me several pictures, said I could pick out anything, but I kept going back to that one.”
“How’d you know my size?”
“Lucky guess. Nothing more to it.” I smile because it’s true.
Her eyes twinkle. “Well, you’re a good guesser because...it fits perfectly. Plus, it would’ve been kinda awkward if you’d tried to slide it on in front of Mom, and it just got stuck.”
“Yeah, fuck.” The humor dancing in her eyes makes me want to kiss her again, so I stand before I do something stupid. “So, we’re on for the diner tonight? Around six or seven?”
“Sure!”
“All right, darlin’. Let me know when you want me to read that letter.”
I use the back door, and as I’m walking toward the barn, just for the heck of it, I pull out my phone and open the surveillance app again.
The barn camera catches Edison again, and I click on it, making it stop its slow surveillance and zoom in. He’s still in the same spot, but this time rather than just staring back at me, he lifts his head and nickers.
Crazy beast. I unfreeze the camera so it starts moving again. Then, just as I’m about to close out, I notice something else.
The fence. I zoom in. It’s down.
What the hell? I haven’t checked it this past week, but it’s down.
The same section I’d patched up before winter, after the incursions that got the first run of cameras installed. Frowning, I look it over, knowing there haven’t been any big storms that could’ve done it. This doesn’t happen accidentally.
I walk to the pole shed and climb in the ATV. Using the gate next to the barn, I head into the pasture.
As I start driving toward the fence, Edison rears up on his hind legs and kicks the air.
If Bella wasn’t here, I swear he’d have escaped again long ago, and I’d have had to chase him down.
He rears up again, almost like he wants me to drive to him and not the fence.
Curious if that is what he wants, I divert off toward him. He nickers and tosses his head, as if to say, get your ass out here, man.
My shoulders tense. Whatever’s going on here, I don’t like it one bit.
I scan the area around him. Can’t see anything out of the ordinary.
I wonder if it’s a snake or a gopher that’s startled him and he’s not wanting to move now, but that would be unusual for him.
“What’re you doing out here?” I ask as I pull the ATV up next to him.
He paws one hoof at the ground, lowering his head, snorting loudly.
I get off to search the grass. It takes me a few seconds before I hit something hard. Something that shouldn’t be there.
Two small, dark circles. A set of black rubber caps for binoculars, I realize. They aren’t mine, or Jonah’s.
Fuck.
Edison nudges my shoulder with his nose, and then, with a toss of his head, runs off, galloping to the barn.
No mistaking it, that horse wanted me to find these, and now that I have, he’s off to greener pastures.
Shoving the covers deep into my back pocket, an idea hits me as I watch Edison enter the corral through the open gate from the pasture.
Right here, where I found the covers, there’s a mighty clear view of the entire ranch, including where those men tried to take Edison and the front door of the house.
I get down in the grass and search again, but nothing else turns up. There’s got to be more.
So I climb in the ATV and head for the downed fence. Grass grows fast this time of year, but within a few yards, I find tire tracks.
Wide tracks, more like the kind left by a truck. They lead straight through the opening in the fence, and beyond.
I push through the growth and follow them all the way to the highway, to a spot on the other side where the ditch isn’t deep.
Here, a vehicle could cross without too much trouble, drive right into the pasture – after cutting a section of fence. I frown.
Whoever did this doesn’t know the place well, or they’d have just used the gates that are less than a quarter of a mile away from both sections they cut.
Retrieving tools and
wire from the box on the back of the ATV, I repair this section before heading back to the barn.
As I’m driving away, I can’t help thinking we’ve got a bigger problem than I feared. These intruders came with tools and a plan. It wasn’t some damn sloppy scouting mission meant to sniff out our weaknesses.
Suddenly, I worry high-grade cameras might not be enough to secure the fort, whenever these bastards decide to return – and they will.
* * *
I find Bella by the barn after parking in the pole shed. She’s feeding Edison a candy cane, his big chops crunching loudly.
“I’m thinking about getting another horse,” she says.
I blink. Thinking of the trouble Edison caused over the past few years, I ask, “You sure you’re ready for two? Why?”
“To ride, silly,” she says, turning with a soft smile. “Edison’s getting too old.”
As if he gets what she said, Edison lets out a loud snort of protest, showing his teeth the entire time.
“Don’t think he likes that idea,” I say. “This is his little kingdom.”
She laughs and hugs his neck. “Oh, bud, you’d love it if I found you a cute little filly.”
I hate how she leans and wags. It’s too damn nice a view of that ass in her jeans, calling to me so fierce my palms burn.
That’s all it takes for my cock to rise, too.
So this is my fate. Doomed to wander around this place for the next six months with a hard-on that could pound nails.
I tear myself away, grabbing a pair of gloves before I walk to the ladder going up into the hay loft.
Once up there, I open the door in the floor over the hay stall so I can toss down some bales to keep Edison happy for the next several days.
“How’s it looking? I haven’t been up here in years.” Bella’s voice echoes behind me.
I toss down the bale in my hands and turn, fully prepared to tell her she shouldn’t be up here now, but my throat locks up.
The sunlight shining through the end window falls right on her, casting an illusion like magic. The dust motes floating in the air twinkle around her like stars on a dark night.
Then her face lights up as she looks around, almost as bright and perfect and beautiful as the halo around her. “Whoa! It’s still here!”
She rushes to the front corner, where a rough-hewn table is attached to the wall and a small, crude bench is pushed underneath it.
“This was my writing table.” She pulls out the bench and sits down. “It’s a little small for me now, but at the time it was perfect.” Smiling, she runs a hand over the table. “For a couple of years when I was little, I wanted to be a writer. I’d sit up here for hours penning stories about girls and their horses. I think Gramps kept a few tucked away in a drawer somewhere.”
It’s so vivid I can almost see it. Her as a little girl high on dreams, sitting there, scribbling away.
“And over there,” she says, pointing to the stack of hay behind me while standing up. “That’s the spot where I’d always take an afternoon nap.”
I grab another hay bale. “That couldn’t have been real comfortable.”
“Oh, it was, and it smelled so good. There’s just something about it, something warm and familiar.”
Fuck. The last thing I need right now is picturing her lying down in this mess of hay, sunlight exploding around her, illuminating every sweet bit of her begging for my mouth.
Snarling, I toss more hay down the opening and when I turn around, she’s climbing on the stacked bales.
“Hey, watch yourself up there!” I holler, afraid she’ll lose her balance.
“I’d climb all the way to the top,” she says, while climbing the next level. “And lie down with my hands behind my head, content with life. I miss that sometimes.”
She does exactly what she says. Slips down on the top row, with her hands behind her head, smiling off into the half beam of sun falling across her face.
I’d stacked the bales in here last fall and have been throwing them down for Edison every week since. There’s only a single row of bales left on the top.
“Be careful,” I say, grabbing another bale from the wide bottom row. “You might slip off and fall.”
Her defiant laugh echoes off the ceiling. “That’s what Gramps always used to say when I’d beg him to let me sleep out here all night long. He never did let—”
Her sentence turns into a shrill squeal.
Fuck, I toss the bale down the opening and spin around just in time to see her look up. She’s already tumbled off the top row and is about to fall off the second. There’s barely a third row, a fourth, and then the hard floor.
Leaping forward, onto the stack, I race over and catch her as she rolls.
Though she’s not heavy, my foot slips between two bales, and we both end up sliding onto the bigger fourth row.
I’d twisted to prevent myself from landing on top of her. Instead, she’s on top of me, laughing her little head off.
She plants both hands on my shoulders and arches her back, giving me a full view of those tits stolen straight from heaven.
Shit. My mouth goes cotton dry.
The neckline of her tank top never plunged that low before. I’d have noticed the lacy edges of her bra, those perfect, palm-sized swells straining at their confinements.
Looking up at the top row, she says, “Oof. Either those bales got narrower, or I was a lot smaller back then.”
The pressure of her hips firmly presses against mine, turning my cock hard and pulsing.
She wiggles slightly, as if enjoying how it feels, and then looks down at me. Those forest-green eyes are narrow but bursting with mischief.
I swear, if she’s not fucking careful, she’ll –
Her hips move. A coy, teasing grin forms as she senses my hardness, then angles down on my cock.
Her eyes dance across my face, from my eyes to my lips and back again.
“What do you think, Drake?” She lowers her face so our breath mingles, asking in a low murmur, “Are the bales smaller, or am I just bigger now?”
Fuck if I know. I don’t know anything except how bad I want to shred her clothes, pull her legs open, and sink down inside her. Don’t know anything except how bad I’d love to flip her over and pound her so hard we send the top rows crashing down around us.
She knows what she’s doing, too. That thrills the hell out of me, realizing what a glorious tease she is.
I pull off my gloves, tossing them aside, and show her two can play.
My hands don’t hesitate, grasping her ass. I pull down as I grind my hard-on into her, making her feel every rough inch that’s ready to go long and deep. “Parts of you are bigger now, darlin’. Grown up and better.”
Giggling, she kisses my chin before lifting her head and arching her back again, giving me a full view of those tits, twin moons aching to be sucked. “What parts?”
I can’t hold back. I drag my cock against her, delighting in the torture, making sure her pussy gets the full force of my friction. Her fingers clench, bunching up my shirt at the shoulders, and I nearly blow in my pants when I see her eyelids flutter and her lips part.
Fucking mercy. I wait till her eyes are open and locked on mine again before speaking.
“You know what parts I mean. You really want me to be so specific?”
She twists her shoulders, drawing more attention to her tits. “Maybe. Or maybe I just have a tough time understanding, cowboy.”
Oh, hell, she’ll understand plenty by the time I’m done with her.
A low growl sears my throat as I slide my hand under her shirts, the black and white plaid one and the white tank top, all the way up to the strap of her bra. “I’d have to see to know for sure.”
“I suppose you would.” Her face heats, her voice mellowing by the second, breath spilling into it.
I swallow another growl. It damn near scratches my throat as I unhook her bra, freeing the bounty that’s been my obsession since the day
I first laid eyes on Annabelle Reed.
She bites her bottom lip as she shifts, planting her knees between my thighs.
Not sure if she’s going to climb off me and put an end to this, I wait for her to make the next move.
I nearly lose my shit when she sits up and shrugs out of the plaid shirt. As it falls onto the hay, I slide my hands over her soft skin, up till I cup the sweetness that’s been tugged free from her bra.
She lets out a little moan and presses against my palms.
Her nipples are pebbles, so fucking ready I can’t tell where her tingling ends and mine begins in my fingertips. I lick my lips, ready to taste them.
“Can’t see, darlin’.” My throat feels like it’s full of gravel and sounds that way, even to me. “Gonna have to help me out.”
A tremor rolls through her. Slowly, she grasps the bottom of her tank top, and in one swift movement, pulls it and her bra over her head.
Fuck! They’re...somehow – some-the-hell-how – even more miraculous than I imagined.
My dick jolts, then rejoices as she lowers herself on top of me.
Planting her hands on my shoulders again, she stretches forward, her tits nearly touching my chin.
“Better?”
There’s only one way it could be, and it ends with me deep inside her.
My body goes stock-still. Every last bit of this young, delectable woman is fucking gorgeous. Total perfection.
But my eyes are lost in what’s rosy, begging, and right in front of me. “Better. But now we’re gonna have to do more than look, darlin’.”
She twists so one nipple barely brushes my chin. “Yeah?”
“Fuck yeah,” I snarl, cupping one mound. I massage the firm softness of it as I slowly slide my tongue over her beaded nipple.
Her whole body jerks like she’s been shocked. So I do it again, and get a little moan in reward.
“You like that, you’ll love it even more when it’s on your clit,” I growl, diving lower so I can pull her nipple with my teeth, graze up her neck, all the way to her ear. “I’m gonna make you ride my tongue, woman. And I’m not stopping till you come your fucking brains out on my face.”
“Oh, God.” She barely gets it out, shuddering, before I’m back at work.
