Hometown Hope: A Small Town Romance Anthology

by Zoe York

  Stetson stood there, his arms lightly encircling her, waiting ever-so-patiently for her to speak. A light summer breeze had her hair dancing in it, but Stetson pushed it back for her, letting her gather her thoughts.

  “When I left Paul, I spent a long time reading self-help books and books on domestic abuse. He may never have hit me, but he hurt me in ways that can’t be seen. He made me start to doubt my sanity, by questioning if I’d been flirting with an orderly or security guard at work. I hadn’t been, but after a while…it’s amazing how it can start to screw with your mind. Maybe I had been staring at the security guard without realizing it. Maybe I had laughed flirtatiously when a guy told me a joke, and I just hadn’t realized it. Maybe Paul was right, and I was just slowly going nuts – not in control of my own body.

  “But after I left him, I started to realize that this was what the psychologists call ‘gas lighting,’ where a person makes you start to question your own reality. I worked through all of that, and finally came to the realization that Paul is just sick upstairs.”

  She bit her lip as she looked up into his deep brown eyes, worrying it before forcing her to finally say her realization. “But through it all, I never dealt with the emotional abuse of him making me feel ugly. It’s funny because somehow, I was both beautiful enough to tempt men to flirt with me, even though everyone knew I was engaged to Paul, and ugly enough that Paul sometimes had to force himself to sleep with me, because he knew that I crave physical intimacy. But he’d tell me beforehand what a sacrifice he was making, for me. How kind he was being, to me. He even told me one time that my natural odor was a turn-off, so I started wearing heavy perfume, trying to cover me up.

  “I dealt with some of this stuff, but after all this time, I’m realizing – I haven’t dealt with it all. I’m still kind of broken inside, Stetson. Last night was a lot of fun, but we’d both been drinking and…you don’t have to still pretend to want me if you don’t anymore. This…this is who I am. This is the real me. I have issues; I’m not gonna lie. You might not want to deal with all of this baggage, and I…”

  She stopped, and then whispered, “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to walk away.”

  The light breeze carried her words off, floating on the current, swirling over the farm and away into the world, dissipating, dissolving into nothing at all.

  Maybe they could just forget everything. Maybe she could go back to the office and add up numbers and force logic into the world, one Excel column at a time, and he could go back to wrestling calves and driving tractor and they could pretend that nothing had happened. “What, that banker? Yeah, she came and looked over the books for a while, but she’s gone back to Boise now.”

  He lifted her chin gently but inexorably, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Baby, I have a glued-together left eyebrow, an eye turning beautiful colors, and a hand bandaged up from accidentally punching the front of my grandfather’s tractor. I have so much baggage, I’m gonna start ordering matching sets, complete with little wheels on the bottom so I can more easily tow them along behind me. How do you think I got such rock-hard muscles?” He flexed and pointed to his sizable bicep. “That’s from carrying my baggage everywhere I’ve gone since I was a small child.”

  He scooped her up into his arms effortlessly, carrying her back inside the house, pushing the front door closed behind him with the heel of his boot. “Sometime, I ought to tell you how I spent years thinking that I killed my mother. Hey Carmelita,” he shouted, looking up from Jennifer’s gaping mouth, “Jennifer and I are gonna go study some spreadsheets. In detail. No need to come help us figure things out – I think we’ve got this one.”

  “Spreadsheets…your mother…” Jennifer sputtered as Stetson took the stairs two at a time, carrying her in his arms like she weighed no more than a newborn babe. “You’re gonna hurt your back, carrying me around like this,” she informed him, trying to glare seriously up at him.

  “Well then, it’ll be worth every twinge of pain I suffer,” he said, closing the door to the master bedroom behind him. “And anyway, you’re as light as a feather. I could carry you around all day long.” He dropped her on the bed and then crawled in after her. “But right now, I have other things on my mind…”

  Chapter 38

  Stetson

  Dropping Jennifer onto the bed and watching all the right parts of her bounce was definitely the highlight of his day.

  Well, throwing Paul into that puddle was a close second. But that was more satisfying, whereas watching Jennifer smile up at him, visibly pushing the doubt away and choosing to focus on the here and now…that was just damn sexy.

  He quickly skimmed her (his?) shorts off her hips, and the ratty t-shirt off her body, leaving – just as he’d expected – a completely naked Jennifer underneath. “You always come down to breakfast only half clothed?” he growled, nibbling his way up the sexiest pair of legs he ever did see. There was this cord of muscle that ran up the back side of her calf that he wanted to follow wherever it led. Preferably up north, but he’d follow it almost anywhere at this point.

  “When you’re as small as I am up top,” she said with a shrug and a hitch in her voice as he began sucking on the calf muscle, “bras are more of a fashion statement, rather than a necessi-ty.” Her voice broke on the last word as she groaned with lust. “Oh, oh, oh, that feels…”

  And then she was tossing her head back and forth on the bed, moaning and mumbling to herself. He permitted himself a self-satisfied smirk. Seeing what his lips did to her definitely did something to him.

  “I’ll have to remember this for future reference,” he murmured as he worked his way up her thighs. The calf muscle had disappeared, but her thighs were even more enticing, if that was even possible, and he hadn’t even gotten to the grand finale yet.

  He nosed her swatch of curls, breathing in the unique scent that was pure Jennifer Kendall, and sighing with pure lust. He’d never met a woman who smelled so amazing.

  Which reminded him…

  “Babe?”

  “Ye…yeah?” she finally got out, legs spasming with pleasure.

  “Paul is an idiot. And he needs to have his nose fixed.”

  And with that, he finally gave her what she wanted as he licked his way up her delicious pink pussy.

  Pink pussy, pink tits…

  “My favorite color is pink,” he announced as he blew cold air over her clit.

  “Ohhhhhh…” Jennifer exclaimed, but somehow, he wasn’t thinking that it was in excitement over his color preferences. The arch of her back, her clasping at the bedspread…

  She might like pink, but probably not that much.

  He smiled with self-satisfaction again. Teaching Jennifer how much fun it was in bed?

  Priceless.

  Chapter 39

  Jennifer

  Jenn woke up with a mumbled sigh. Something amazing had happened, or maybe that was just a dream she’d had, but her thighs were sticky with cum and so just a dream didn’t seem right but—

  And then she felt hard muscle, lying next to her. Her eyes popped open and she stared at her bedmate. She was in Stetson’s bed – again – but this time she was waking up next to him instead of him being gone and then she remembered, remembered everything she’d told him on the front porch – why the hell had she told him all of that?! – and she wasn’t breathing right and then his eyes fluttered open and he grinned lazily, a grin that quickly transformed into panic.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, reaching out for her and pulling her against him. “Did you have a bad dream?”

  “I just…why did I say…why did I tell you all of…”

  She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying to calm her racing heart.

  “Why did you tell me all of that stuff while we were out on the front porch together?” he asked softly.

  She had her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she nodded. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Now he can really hurt you.

  “Maybe because you
know I’d never use something like that against you.”

  Her eyes popped open, swimming with tears and disbelief as she stared at him. But she didn’t know that. He could!

  “I don’t trust easily,” he said softly. “I actually had that thought just the other day. About you. That I had to be careful about what I told you and how much I let you in. I think that honestly, though, I’ve already let you in more than any other woman I’ve ever dated, including Michelle. It’s not easy to bare your soul to someone else. All I can do is give you my word not to abuse that trust.”

  She bit on her lower lip, contemplating what he said. Could she trust him? The last time she’d believed that a male had good intentions, she’d ended up in an emotionally abusive relationship for years.

  But mostly, she just felt overwhelmed. Wrung out. Waking up twice in one day in a panic, yelling at Paul, finally telling him everything she’d wanted to tell him but never had, opening her wounds up to Stetson’s gaze…

  It was exhausting.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, he pushed her hair out of her face and said softly, “I think we’ve had enough serious, life-altering discussions for one day, don’t you? I think it’s about time we have that farm tour I’ve been promising you for two days straight.”

  She nodded, pushing her worries to the back of her mind. He was right – she really didn’t have much choice except to trust him. It was too late to take her words back now. She could freak out later, after the farm tour was over; maybe tonight, as she laid in bed – by herself – and tried to process everything.

  No sleeping with Stetson again until you’ve thought through all of this. By yourself.

  She would be a good girl…later. For now, she wanted a break from it all.

  “Deal,” she said, and swung her legs off his four-poster bed. After hurrying into the guest bathroom to clean up and get ready for the tour, she peeked back into the master bedroom and found it empty. She headed downstairs instead, where she found Stetson and Carmelita talking in hushed tones.

  Carmelita looked up with a warm smile on her face. “Stetson says he is finally going to show you the Miller Farm. You two go have fun. It is important to relax after such a man dares to come here and says what he did.” She made shooing motions, pushing them through the door. “Go, go. I will make a pie. You can have dessert when you come back.”

  She closed the door behind them.

  Jennifer looked up at Stetson and laughed. “Is she always this bossy?” she asked dryly.

  “You have no idea,” he muttered, grabbing her hand and pulling it through the crook of his elbow. “I think Carmelita was a mother hen in a past life.”

  They wandered down a large, sloping hill that ended in an even larger clearing ringed with forest. “I keep the four-wheeler in here,” he said, pulling her towards a small shed off to the side. “We can ride double.”

  After he pulled the machine out and had her securely in place, scooted up tight against his broad back, her arms wrapped around him, he took off slowly, skirting around the base of the hill and towards a cluster of buildings.

  “I’ll take you to Nudges’ arena first,” he said over his shoulder, turning between a large red barn and a smaller, faded wooden outbuilding. “Every girl loves cute cows.”

  She tried to keep her skepticism to herself. She’d seen her fair share of cows as she drove past fields in the Treasure Valley – once you got out of Boise proper, there was a fair amount of farmland between sprawling housing developments – and had never thought of them as being particularly cute. Healthy, content, at ease…sure. But “cute” seemed like it was taking it a step too far.

  He pulled up to a corral and helped her off the four-wheeler. She looked up and spotted a pink nose sticking through the weathered, gray slats of the corral. Stetson guided her over to a gate and shut it securely behind them. “So, this is Nudges. You might have already guessed why we call him that.”

  The sturdy little guy was busy shoving his nose up against her arm so hard, it was lifting her arm up in the air. “Hi!” she said with a startled laugh, and began scratching him behind his ears. He closed his eyes with apparent satisfaction, his incredibly long lashes laying against his cheeks in bliss.

  “Are all cows’ eyelashes this long?” she asked as she started to scratch harder. Nudges was getting so into it, he was probably going to fall over any minute now.

  “Yup. Keeps the flies out of them. You’ll never find longer eyelashes than are on cows and horses.”

  Jennifer pulled her hand away and Nudges followed it with his tongue, giving her a thick swipe up the hand. She laughed with delight.

  “How old is he?” she asked. “And where’s his momma?”

  “Funny story, that,” Stetson said, grimacing. “I paid a stud fee to bring in a bull from southern Utah this past year, and after he hung out for a month, having done his duty, the owner was driving here to pick him up and take him back home, when he gets in this massive car wreck. He spent a month in the hospital – internal injuries and the whole bit. So of course, I’m hanging onto the bull in the meanwhile, and where was he hanging out? With the girls. I don’t have corral fencing strong enough to keep a horny bull in. If I have to keep a bull here, it’s gonna be in with my girls. If he’s gettin’ some on the regular, well then, he’ll be easy as pie to be around and won’t be doing his best to knock my fences down.”

  “Some things in the animal world remind me so much of the men I know…” Jennifer said with a laugh and roll of her eyes.

  “I’d never try to deny it,” Stetson said with a naughty grin. Nudges had wandered over to him as they were talking, apparently ready to get his second dose of loving from the humans in his corral, and so Stetson stroked Nudges’ side as he talked. Nudges really got into it; leaning up against Stetson’s legs with almost his entire body weight plastered against him.

  Stetson didn’t even seem to notice.

  Jennifer was pretty sure that if Nudges did that to her, they’d be in a pile on the ground together. Nudges weighed more than she did, she was almost sure of it.

  “So anyway, apparently one of the girls hadn’t caught before – one of the younger heifers – but after the bull’s extended stay…well, she’s no longer a heifer. Let’s just put it that way.” He grinned at her lasciviously. “The bad news is, in cow years, she’d just hit puberty, and just like you don’t particularly want a 16-year-old girl pregnant, you don’t want young heifers pregnant either. They have no idea how to be a mom, and since everyone else was way ahead of her in the pregnancy cycle, none of the moms who’d been around the block a time or two would show her what to do. By the time she gave birth, she was in a high stress mental state, and she immediately rejected Nudges. Wouldn’t have a damn thing to do with him. High stress will do that to a cow, especially a young one.”

  “Wow.” Jennifer just stared at him. “Wow. Like, that should be a soap opera storyline or something. I had no idea…”

  “Cows have amazingly complex social structures in place,” Stetson said with a shrug. “I’ve been working with them for about a decade now, and I don’t even pretend to understand them fully. A lot like the females I know.”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes, ignoring that comment. For now. “So how is Nudges still here, if his mom wouldn’t nurse him? Did you bottle feed him?”

  “Oh hell no,” Stetson said, laughing. “I just don’t have the time. You know who’s really good at bottle feeding? Christian’s sister, Yesenia.”

  “Your foreman’s sister?”

  Stetson nodded. “She’s 16 and wanted Nudges as her 4-H project. I knew there was no way I could take care of him, so I gladly turned him over to her. As you can tell, he’s just about the friendliest boy you’ll ever meet.” He was still stroking Nudges down the side as he continued, “She’s done a bang-up job with him. Bottle fed him for the first month, then switched him to hot feed. Honestly, she’s not going to win with him. He’s too far behind the rest of the steers t
hat’ll be shown in the 4-H fair because of being born later, but all in all, he’s been catching up. He’ll be a good showing for her, and she’ll make a nice bit of cash from the sale that she can save for college.”

  “Sale…” Jennifer looked down at the adorable boy who’d made his way over to the feed bucket, slurping down dinner. The idea of selling him off so he could go to a slaughterhouse…

  Stetson put his hand under her chin. “I know it’s hard, especially when they have personality like Nudges does. But it’s how I make my living. A T-bone steak comes from somewhere. I supply that somewhere. I can’t afford to be squeamish about it.”

  She nodded, looking down at the ground as she did so. He was right, of course. But he was also right about it being hard.

  Rows and columns in a spreadsheet were so much more containable. So much more manageable. So much less painful.

  “Ready to take a look around the barn?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said, trying to put a brave face on it. She was fine. She was totally fine. She followed him out of the corral, waiting for him as he shut the gate behind them.

  Totally fine.

  Chapter 40

  Stetson

  After a restless night in bed where Stetson had to take his trusty companion out on yet another less-than-satisfactory date, he got up bright and early. He tried to work a little less on Sundays, if only so he didn’t get the death glare from Carmelita over it, but there were still chores that had to be done every day, no matter what.

  After a quick shower, he headed outside to get water troughs filled and check on the wheat and corn. Everything was looking great, and for once, Stetson had a smile on his face that he just couldn’t wipe away. More than the cows and the crops, his whole life was looking fine. Jennifer hadn’t yet found that magic wand that would save the Miller Farm, but he had faith in her that she would. She was too damn smart not to. Or at least plead her way through to some sort of arrangement on his behalf. She’d know what to do better than he ever could. He just had to trust her.