Ride 'Em (A Giddyup Novel)

by Delphine Dryden

  It had been pretty damn satisfying to tell him that, though.

  When that Friday finally dawned, he walked outside and thanked the weather gods. Early April could have gone any direction, from cold and rainy to blazing heat and drought. But it was cool and fair and not too humid, and Logan felt something stir inside him as he sipped his coffee and watched the sunrise. Hope. For the first time in months, Logan actually had hope.

  The staff would be filtering in as they finished up their other jobs. Chet couldn’t make it until late in the evening, but Ethan would be there after lunch sometime. And at three thirty sharp, Logan would get to see Mindy again. He fingered the length of fine cord in his pocket, then tried to clear his mind. He still had a spreadsheet full of last-minute details to see to and smooth out and check off. More than enough to keep him busy.

  At lunchtime, Logan had trouble forcing down his second ham sandwich, but he muscled through it. He wanted to be well fortified. He didn’t want to think about seeing Mindy again. He was worried if he started, if he let that thought and the attendant hope and want into his mind, he’d lose sight of all the myriad things he was supposed to keep track of for the weekend. All the things everybody was counting on him to do.

  Monday they would know whether the profit was real—whether the risk had been worth it. For the weekend, all they could do was stick to the plan as much as possible, roll with any last-minute changes, and try to make sure everybody had a great time without getting hurt . . . in unintended ways.

  The arrival of Ethan and the biker security crew kept him occupied for some time after lunch. A great group of folks, eight bearded guys and four “old ladies” who rolled their eyes when their husbands referred to them that way . . . they invited Logan over to the campground to visit and have cookies any time he liked while they were there.

  “Bikes have always been Gerry’s hobby,” one of them, Judy, explained with a sweet, almost maternal smile. Then she winked and whispered, “He’s really a tax accountant. I am, too, that’s how we met. I’m the one who got him into kink, that was always my hobby.”

  The group also contained, it turned out, a few fellow engineers, several IT folks, a high school math teacher, and a lawyer.

  Ethan beamed with pride as he and Logan helped the first shift of two guards set up the checkpoint across the main road. There was already a gate at the cattle guard, right below the spot where the main drive forked off into the smaller road leading directly to the campsite. The gate was usually propped open; the bikers closed it, then set up a portable sunshade with a camp table and chairs right next to the big folding sign that read, “Welcome to GIDDYUP! (Private event: no general admission).” Then the “security team” settled in with the final checklist, a walkie-talkie, and a chart detailing who would be taking the subsequent shifts. They had everything covered.

  “Aren’t these guys awesome?” Ethan stage-whispered to Logan as they unloaded an ice chest with water bottles, sodas, and snacks from the back of Logan’s truck.

  “They do look intimidating,” Logan agreed. Even knowing that Big Gerry and “Bloodworm” were an accountant and a sys admin, respectively, he was a bit daunted by their beards and leathers and overall air of badassery. “And everyone will totally buy that the private function is a biker thing, too. That was a stroke of genius.”

  They lugged the cooler under the shade tent; Ethan grunted as he lowered his side. “They’ll probably wonder why it isn’t louder, but that can be part of the mystique, I guess.”

  “I am a little worried one of Chet’s deputies might miss a memo and try to hassle these guys.”

  “Logan. Chill. Things will be fine.”

  “Yeah, but,” he suggested, “what if they aren’t? This whole thing is still kind of crazy, and if it goes wrong, the potential for disaster is huge. I’m on board, but that doesn’t mean it’s not sane to worry.”

  Ethan opened the cooler and selected a water bottle, twisting the top off and emptying a third of it in one gulp, then wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “You’re a naysayer.”

  Logan closed the cooler firmly. “I’m not a naysayer.”

  “You just said . . . that was just naysaying, what you just said. You’re being one right now.”

  “So anybody who harbors a reasonable concern is a—who says that, anyway? Nobody calls people naysayers anymore, this isn’t the freaking eighteen-nineties, Ethan.”

  His brother grinned. “Reckon I’ll call folks what I want to call folks, dagnabbit.” He pretended to hawk and spit, making a ptooie sound as if he’d slung chaw at a spittoon.

  “It’s really a shame you’re too late for the vaudeville circuit.”

  Bloodworm reached past them to open the cooler and pull out a Dr Pepper. “Ah, brotherly love. Change of subject, Doc, but after our shift here, you’re gonna help me tie up Mrs. Bloodworm, right?”

  Ethan nodded. “I am, indeed, if she’s still interested. I cheated and blocked out a ten o’clock slot on the sign-up sheet in the old barn. On one of the side beams. That’ll give you plenty of time to get some dinner, shower, whatever.”

  “Perfect.”

  Logan checked the time. Two o’clock. Details flooded his brain, and he bounced on his toes, trying to drive some of the stress out.

  A car drove up, the driver’s window rolling down as it slowed to a stop. Logan vaguely recognized the driver from his usual club in Houston, and waved a greeting as Bloodworm checked him off a list and Big Gerry let him through the gate, directing him up the campsite driveway. A couple of volunteers from the MiniKinkFest planning group, who’d arrived an hour or so earlier, would help him out from there, getting him to his assigned parking spot and tent pad.

  A truck with a trailer in tow pulled into the spot the car had just vacated.

  Logan snagged the walkie-talkie and gave Diego and Robert the heads-up that their guests were starting to arrive.

  A wasp nest was reported on the side of one of the rented Porta-Johns. Logan investigated, found it was just dirt daubers, but knocked the mud nests off anyway.

  A dead snake was found near one of the tent pads. But it was dead, and it was just a small brown grass snake, so it wasn’t a big deal.

  Robert broke down in tears when he thought he’d ruined one of the giant pots of slow-simmering venison stew with too much salt. But he pulled himself together, threw a few extra potatoes into the mix, and soon pronounced it fit to serve to dignitaries and heads of state. Logan assured him that if he ran across any heads of state, he’d send them straight up to the buffet line at supper time.

  Logan kept his phone firmly in his pocket. He had been good all day—all two weeks, really—trying to play it cool. Not make any assumptions about Mindy’s plans once she arrived at the ranch. To say they hadn’t parted on good terms was the understatement of the century, and no definitive plans had been made on their subsequent calls and Skypes, so he had no idea what would happen during the Big Kinky Weekend of Kinkiness; he just thought it was a good sign she’d planned to attend. A show of good faith, and a guarantee, as she herself had pointed out. She could hardly point a finger at anybody else if she was there, too, getting her freak on. Naked. Hopefully.

  He told himself she could get her freak on with any number of people; there would almost certainly be volunteers to help her with that. It was wrong to want to kick those volunteers out of line and demand she let only Logan play with her. They were both adults. They could have a professional relationship. They could even let bygones be bygones, and just be old friends who knew each other from way back. It didn’t have to mean anything.

  At three o’clock he texted her. Knowing she was driving and probably couldn’t reply, knowing she was likely only half an hour away at most anyway, it was only a smiley-face emoji. Let her take it as she would.

  Half an hour later, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

  She’d replied with a sad face.

  He was still puzzling over it when his walkie-talkie hissed at him. The security g
ate’s channel. He toggled the switch, icy fear seeping from his heart to chill his veins. “Logan.”

  “Boss? Yeah, I think you need to get down here. We have a problem.”

  * * *

  From the moment Mindy’s day had started, it had been heading downhill. She should have never gotten out of bed. No, she should have never checked her email after waking up, that was really the turning point.

  Or maybe it was deciding not to replace her car when she got the raise. Another possibility.

  She refused to draw the self-blame line back any further. She wouldn’t say she should have never gone to Hilltop Ranch in the first place. And she wouldn’t say she should have never helped plan this so-crazy-it-just-might-work weekend to help Logan save the place.

  Although those choices certainly hadn’t made her current life any easier.

  That morning’s nine o’clock meeting, called at the last minute via email, had been the final nail in the coffin of her career hopes. Bud and her assistant had both known she was planning to go out of town that morning, so she’d assumed the meeting had to be an emergency; she’d thought, foolishly as it turned out, that she might even be needed at the office for her expertise.

  When she’d dashed into the conference room at nine fifteen, hair still slightly damp, wearing a too-warm blazer to hide the fact that her wrinkled dress needed a visit to the dry cleaner, she’d pulled up short at the sight of Bud, two of Mindy’s “team” members, and her assistant, clearing the agendas from the table and gathering up their coffee cups.

  “Oh, we’re done, Mindy,” Terry had said perkily. “Didn’t you get the follow-up email?”

  “We didn’t need you for this one after all,” one of the land men added. “Sometimes faster to cut out the middleman.” He seemed to realize what he’d said, after his mouth was closed. He ducked his head and sped from the room, mumbling something about a call he needed to make.

  Bud hadn’t said anything until the rest of them left. Then he’d smiled his most pleasant, avuncular smile before speaking. “Taking a trip over your long weekend, right?”

  “Yep.” And she could have been on the road already. “Did you really get me in here for nothing?”

  “Oh no.” His smile turned nasty. “I just wanted to remind you, before your little junket, that you dance to my tune now. Have a nice drive, ballerina.”

  Then he’d nodded at her and gone on his way. He hadn’t needed to say anything more to make his point; he controlled her. He’d orchestrated the whole meeting to rub her face in that fact.

  She’d gone to her office, closed the door, and sat for at least twenty minutes, willing tears of anger and frustration not to fall. She’d fingered her cell phone, fighting the temptation to text Logan. She didn’t need to look outside for sympathy; she needed to quit her job and let her mother know what a conniving tool she’d married.

  Her mother would not want to believe that of Bud. And Mindy might fuck up their relationship permanently. But she’d been silent long enough.

  Monday, she’d finally decided. She would quit and talk to her mom on Monday, after a weekend of stress relief. Or at least of a different flavor of stress.

  Then she’d gotten into her car, not bothering to change because she was starting the drive so much later than she’d expected. She could change at Hilltop.

  The noises had started right outside Waco, after she’d stopped for gas. The noises, and the slight shiver of the steering wheel. An alignment problem, possibly. She turned the radio up a notch louder and ignored it. Sang along to all the classic country she could find, tuning the radio occasionally as local stations faded in and out of range.

  Up until the outskirts of Bolero, she did a great job of fooling herself that the rattling wasn’t getting any worse. But the second she hit the intersection to turn either toward town or up toward the hills, and tried to make the turn, the steering wheel shimmied so hard she could hardly grip it. Straight ahead one mile or so was a gas station at the edge of town. Instead of turning, she headed for that instead, checking the time on her phone and noticing she’d missed a text.

  It was nearly three thirty. The text was a smiley face from Logan from a half hour earlier.

  The wheel shook again and she tossed the phone back into the passenger seat, using both hands to guide it down the road. She could see the gas station up ahead.

  A horrible ratcheting noise filled the car, and she yanked the wheel to one side, steering sharply for the shoulder. Something caught and scraped against the pavement, as if the car was dragging some piece of machinery along under it. The noise ended in a heavy, metallic clunk as the car shuddered to a halt.

  Heart pounding, Mindy turned the ignition off and gasped for air; until then, she hadn’t realized that it wasn’t just the car shaking, it was her.

  The chassis ticked and settled for a few seconds. Stillness fell. A truck drove by, slowed, but didn’t stop.

  The gas station was still at least a quarter mile down the road.

  Mindy cursed and banged the steering wheel, then cursed some more as pain shot up from the heel of her hand.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  The pain and outburst cleared her head enough for resignation to set in. She picked up the phone first, texting a sad face to Logan. She tapped a finger on the screen thoughtfully, reaching for the proper wording for an apology.

  Sorry I’m late for all the kink

  Nope, shouldn’t focus on the kink, he might not have that in mind right now. Delete, delete, delete.

  My car broke down, I’ll get there when I can

  Too impersonal.

  She tried another few things but had arrived at nothing good when a knock on the window scared the phone right out of her hands. She fumbled for it, but dropped it into the foot well, as she turned to see who the fuck.

  Chet.

  She was either the most mortified or the most grateful to see him that she’d ever been to see an officer of the law.

  She tried to roll down the window, but the key was turned all the way off. Holding up one finger, she flicked the key halfway, and pressed the button.

  He was staring at her through the cop glasses with his judgy frown clearly visible below the mustache.

  “Miss Valek.”

  “Sheriff Garcia.”

  “It was my understanding you were due at Hilltop by no later than three thirty this afternoon.”

  She sighed. “Your understanding was correct.”

  Chet looked at his wristwatch—Mindy found herself faintly surprised he didn’t carry an old-fashioned pocket watch instead; it seemed more his speed. “It is three thirty-five. I have also received a distressed text message from my cousin regarding an unwelcome visitor to the ranch.”

  “What?”

  “Explain why you are not where you said you would be. And why you are dressed for business. What are your intentions?”

  Just one contraction. She would have thanked him for just a single, solitary contraction, or at least a kind look at that moment. “Well, Chet, it seems that after getting called in to work this morning unexpectedly, only to decide to quit my job because I’m being completely shut out and everything is terrible—and that may end up meaning my mom is gonna disown me—I spend five hours on the road trying to make it to the one place I actually want to be, and ten minutes before I can get there, my car completely falls apart. That’s what it felt like, anyway. I tried to turn up the farm road to get to Hilltop, the car wouldn’t turn, then it seemed like the whole damn thing fell out a piece at a time and it sounded like I was leaving it all in the road for about a hundred yards or so, and then I pulled over so I could say some curse words at the car because it wasn’t going anymore, and here you find me. This hasn’t been my best day.”

  His frown deepened. After a second he removed his hat, and bent out of sight. Mindy leaned out the window to see what he was doing. He hadn’t gone far, and he didn’t stay down long before standing up again and replacing his hat.


  “Your story checks out. As least as far as your car is concerned.”

  “Ya think?”

  Chet gave a heavy sigh, and his jaw flexed. “You didn’t leave any car parts in the road. However, your CV joint is, I believe the mechanical term would be, entirely fucked.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  He opened the door for her. “Roll up the window, gather any valuables. I’m driving you to Hilltop.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  When the cruiser rolled up at the back of the short line of cars,

  Logan didn’t even think about Chet.

  What he thought was, Great, and now a cop. Just what this get-together needed.

  It was all over. He might as well start packing his bags.

  Derek Larch wasn’t a bad guy. Not actively evil. He had even been nice enough to come visit Logan in person, because he felt the emails were too impersonal, and Logan had consistently declined to meet with him.

  Logan hadn’t had time. But Larch didn’t know that. And hey, he’d gone to school with this guy. They’d eaten hundreds of lunches in the school cafeteria, eyeing girls and talking about sports. Been on the academic decathlon team together. Even been in the same group to rent a limo for Senior Prom.

  Rough as the situation was, Logan almost felt bad for Derek, because more than anybody currently up at the ranch, Derek’s hands were pretty much tied. Bud Jameson had him over a barrel—and wasn’t that an image Logan wished he’d never conjured.

  Bud had been nothing but pleasant to Derek. But Derek knew what Bud was. Everyone did. Everyone knew exactly what Bud wanted, and Derek didn’t have a leg to stand on as long as Logan wasn’t 100 percent solid on his loan. He’d given Logan all the slack he could, but he wasn’t willing to lose his job over it. The time had come. He was selling it off. And he was pretty damn sure the loan service company who was buying it was absolutely in Jameson’s pocket.