Ain’t Settlin’
Veronica Hardy
©Veronica Hardy
Smashwords Edition
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Prologue
Holly gripped her steering wheel a little tighter and stared at the line of red lights in front of her as she pressed delicately on the pedal. Five feet. Ten feet. At this rate she would be on the Parkway for another 45 minutes before she even got to her exit, two miles away. Early June and the heat was already bearing down on her, so she cranked up her air conditioning another level. She wanted on that state route so bad. Away from all the congestion. Away from the city. Even on her way out, the city seemed to get to her, weakening her resolve.
No, she would not be deterred. She couldn’t wait to get to where the sky is so big that it goes on for miles, to where she could actually make out all of the constellations.
Holly reached for another French fry, popping it into her mouth, the salty concoction coating her tongue and then sliding down her throat. She loved the way they tasted. Her own personal weakness. It wasn’t even her cheat day but she didn’t care. Work had been stressful and she didn’t want to diet anyways. She was doing it for her sister, Jen, who was trying to lose the baby weight after her second child.
Holly had reluctantly agreed, wondering if it was another one of Jen’s attempts at trying to influence her life. She did that a lot and Holly had long since been trusting of any plan that Jen concocted, especially when it included the Rubenseque beauty. She was always trying to set her up on dates (usually bald, overweight men of middling age with a good, solid job), suggesting new diets or exercise programs. It came from love, but Holly couldn’t help but feel a little bit of resentment.
Things came so easily to Jen. The perfect job, the perfect husband. A family and a beautiful house. Her little sister had always been the paragon that her mother looked to in order to measure her own success as a parent. Holly felt like a mulligan. The first attempt that didn’t count.
Jen called her crazy for spending all of her vacation time with Aunt Sheryl. Two weeks at her aunt’s sheep and cattle ranch. She had been looking forward to this vacation for months. She loved the smell of the open air, the warm nights where all she heard was the peepers down at the pond and the crickets fiddling their lullaby. It sure beat day in and day out answering calls for her boss and typing up letters. Four years studying economics and finance at a top ranked woman’s college and she was a glorified secretary. How ironic could you get?
For two weeks she could forget about the smog and the crowding and the job and just focus on what she truly loved. The sun and the mountains, the animals. The ranch. She had spent a month there every summer while her mom “got a break” from being a single mother. Aunt Sheryl never resented them, she let the girls play from sun-up to sundown, as long as they helped with the chores first. She felt beautiful when she was there, sun-kissed, her brown hair bleaching out to a beautiful red.
What her sister thought was gross, Holly did without complaint. Mucking stalls, brushing out the horses. She even got to help shear the sheep. She loved all of it. She never wanted anything else as a child and told her mom about her dreams to run a ranch just like Aunt Sheryl’s. Her mom just laughed at her and told her that she better hope she never inherited that “heap”. She needed a good education and to take a job that paid the bills. Focus on her career. So she did.
She couldn’t wait to get back to the part of her that enjoyed the country. Four hours and she would back where she felt like she belonged. Home.
She had no idea how just much it had changed.
Chapter 1
Holly pulled into the long driveway, dirt kicking up from between her tires, the familiar ping of gravel against the hot metal of her car as she approached the main house. It was like a beacon of hope, standing there only yards from the first barn. The one that housed the trucks, quads and the foreman’s office. The small structures got larger as she approached and she could see Aunt Sheryl standing on the porch, wringing her hands. She was looking to see who was coming as the dogs barked at her approaching car.
Holly had witnessed this scene several times over her lifetime, but Aunt Mary wasn’t with her. It left her with an empty feeling that she wasn’t quite ready for. Sheryl’s partner had passed from cancer only a few short months ago. They finally married only a couple of years ago in Vermont, just for her wife to be swept away by a cancer that started in her pancreas and ravaged her body from the inside out. Holly had tried to help as much as she could, video chatting with the two and planning funeral arrangements when it was obvious that Mary was not going to recover.
Holly fought back a tear and put a smile on her face. She was happy to be here, even with the hole that was in her heart. She couldn’t wait to feel her aunt’s hug. But she wasn’t the only one who wanted to greet her. When Holly got out of her little coupe a scruffy white dog she didn’t recognize jumped up onto her, licking at her face, its tongue reaching only air. She laughed and petted it, still in her three-piece dress suit. She gave it a generous scratch behind the ear.
“Lee Roy, get down,” A voice from behind her barked, his commanding tone all that it took for the dog to immediately hop down, “Come here, boy.”
The pup trotted over to a tall shadow in the doorway of the barn, his tail wagging expectantly as the shadow became a reality. A tail, muscular man with thick black, curly hair squatted down and ruffled the dog’s scruff. He was wearing a tee-shirt and wranglers with a ball cap on but Holly couldn’t help but imagine him in fine western gear and a cowboy hat. Not the kind she saw the “Cowboys” wearing in town, but a real one. One that got use out there in the Midwestern sun. He looked up at her with curious eyes as he petted Lee Roy. There was something familiar that she couldn’t place.
“Jensen, you remember my niece, Holly. Jensen is the new ranch foreman. Mr. Bill retired just after Mary… passed. Jensen was working under him, so I promoted him to foreman. In fact, Jensen has been working here since he was a teenager, you may even remember him,” When Sheryl realized that Holly did not, in fact, remember him, she continued, “He has been doing a wonderful job here. A lot of new ideas. Isn’t that right, Jensen?” Aunt Sheryl beamed as she came down the porch steps. She never gave compliments she didn’t mean. He must have been doing a wonderful job.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jensen said as he stood and tipped his ball cap a little bit in recognition.
He was taller than she realized, towering over her with his thick, muscular frame. He looked intensely at Holly, his gaze seeming to linger on her. He knew her, she just didn’t know him.
It was enough to make Holly swoon. She had no idea how she was going to get through two weeks of this. She swallowed and remember that she would get through this like she always did whenever she encountered a man who made her weak in the knees. By remembering that no man who looked like that would be remotely interested in her. He probably had a country bunny somewhere down the road waiting for him every night.
Holly felt weak as he walked towards her, his saunter every bit as masculine as she expected, the muscles beneath that thin tee-shirt flexing as he came towards her. She felt beads of perspiration forming on her hairline. Hopefully he would think it from the heat of the Midwestern summer. Not from him.
“Pleased to meet you, Holly,”
Jenson extended his hand to her, it was at least three times the size of her own. She gulped and moved to extend her own before he took his back.
“Sorry Ma’am, I’ve been busy working. Don’t want to get you dirty” He said as he wiped it on the back of jeans before extending it again.
She took it without hesitation, wanting to touch him, to make sure he was in fact, real. His firm grip was very real as his bright green eyes bore into her own pale blue. It felt like he was searching her soul. She couldn’t help but blush as his touch lingered, not wanting to let go but she eventually retracted from him, tearing her gaze away from his face.
“Well, I am glad that the two of you have gotten the chance to meet. Supper is on the table, so we will eat as soon as Jensen gets himself cleaned up. Holly, do you want to help me in the house?” Holly nodded, grabbing her suitcase out of the backseat of her little coupe and followed Aunt Sheryl up the stairs of the porch and into the farm house. But not before she looked back to see Jensen walking back to his office. The view was the reason for her blush that time.
The inside of Aunt Sheryl’s home never changed. The pale yellow of the entrance was framed by rich wooden accents. Bears and deer, typical country décor. She hung her jacket and set her suitcase at the foot of the staircase. School photos of Holly and Jen were still hanging on the wall of the stairs as she entered, the various stages of her acne and weight there for the world to see. It was embarrassing, but endearing. She walked down the hallway to the kitchen, a meal set for three on the kitchen table. Most of the time, the foreman supped with the family and the hands were on their own to make their own meal in the community kitchen, so she wasn’t surprised that Jensen would be joining them. One seat on the table set for 4 was left empty, a stark reminder that Aunt Mary would not be joining them.
Aunt Sheryl smiled weakly at her from the counter, a pitcher of her signature sweet tea in her hand as she looked back at her niece. She looked tired. Worn. Holly walked up to her aunt without hesitation, grabbed the tea, put it on the counter and wrapped her up into a great big hug. Her aunt seemed to sink into her embrace, relishing the physical contact. After a long moment Holly backed away to see a stream of tears running down her aunt’s face. Sheryl quickly wiped them away and then went back to pouring sweet tea for the three of them.
“I miss her too,”
“I know, kiddo. We all do,” Sheryl brought two cups to the table and then grabbed the third and drank from it, “Come on, and tuck in. That hunk of a foreman is going to be here any moment and you better at least be sitting so that you don’t faint.”
“Aunt Sheryl?”
“What, you think I don’t have eyes? I might be gay, but I at least know when someone of the opposite sex is handsome. And I know when my niece is swooning.”
“No one says swooning, or hunk for that matter, any more. You are showing your age.”
Sheryl went to protest but they hear the familiar creak of the mudroom door and clammed up. Jensen walked in, his shoes off and his hat gone. His jet black hair was combed back, his soft curls gathering around his neck as he sat into what must have been his chair, opposite Holly’s.
“It all looks good Miss Sheryl, you really do outdo yourself every night,” Jensen complimented as he grabbed a fried drumstick and sunk his teeth in.
Holly hesitated over the food. Fried chicken, corn and mashed potatoes. Her favorite home cooking. Normally she would not partake in such fare, but it smelled amazing.
“You better eat Miss Sheryl’s food, it is better than any restaurant in a fifty mile radius,” Jensen claimed between bites. No ridicule in his face, nothing but a genuine smile that reached to his eyes, the small creases alluding that he was in his early thirties.
“So, Miss Sheryl says you live in Indianapolis, work for a financial firm. You work with numbers?” Jensen asked as he grabbed a rolls, buttering it.
“Yes… er… not exactly. I currently work as an administrative assistant. It is an entry level position. Hopefully, in time, I will move into an area that includes financial management.”
“You mean like proposing budgets, accounting for expenditures?” Jensen asked, never missing a beat.
If she was beginning to wonder if he was just a hired hand with little cerebral activity she quickly reversed the position. He knew what he was talking about and he had to have been highly educated.
“Eventually, I hope but I would at least settle for writing invoices or working with the accounting firm,” Holly squeaked out, biting her lip as she watched him. He was more gorgeous than any playboy at her job. This intelligent, tan, muscular man had everything she was looking for. He probably didn’t realize that she existed. Not in that way. They never did.
No one ever asked about her work, not all the blind dates, not her friends, not her sister. No one. As soon as she explained what she did and that she was currently an administrative assistant they shut her out, not caring about her hopes and dreams. But here she was, in her Aunt’s kitchen talking to a ranch hand about her career. She smiled at the thought and bit into her own leg of chicken.
“Yeah, ranches do that kind of thing too, some on a large scale, but ours is on a smaller scale. Though recently it has been growing,” Aunt Sheryl admitted, joining the conversation.
The small talk continued throughout the meal and Holly learned that the ranch had recently made a full transition to grass fed, antibiotic-free cattle and sheep. That the flocks were feeling better and there had been less medical issues. Also that profits increased significantly, and that they had been able to contract several deals with local co-ops and health oriented grocery stores. She didn’t realize as a child that so much went into running the ranch. It was, after all, a business. She just enjoyed her time with the animals and didn’t think about anything else.
She had a new appreciation of what Aunt Sheryl and Aunt Mary did for a living. They had an entire staff of employees, accountants, lawyers and managers. Especially as the ranch grew.
After dinner Sheryl poured the three of them Sangria, “Well gang, I need to relax with my wine in the bath. So I am going to retreat, but the sunset sure is pretty this time of day.”
Her aunt scooted upstairs, giving Holly an infuriating wink before she scurried away. She was trying to set her up. With someone who probably only dated country girls that could work part-time as models or country video girls.
Holly grabbed her wine and walked outside onto the back porch. It wrapped around the side of the house and had a beautiful westerly view. The sun was just beginning to dip down behind the horizon but she could already see the first stars of the night. Stars. Something she hadn’t seen in years, between the light pollution and the actual pollution. She sighed and sat down on the porch swing that Aunt Sheryl had installed for Mary as a present when she had moved in. A blanket was folded there because a Midwestern summer night got nippy sometimes. Especially in early June.
“Your aunt says that you used to come out here all the time and that you have a way with the animals,” Jensen said as he walked out, his frame looming over her as he followed her to the porch. He had his shoes and hat back on and it shielded his eyes, making it hard to read his expression. Country boys.
He was just talking to her to be polite, Holly reminded herself. She was his boss’s niece. He had to make conversation with her, he didn’t want to.
She had forgotten about him when she saw the skyline, or lack thereof. No buildings, just the occasional tree that abruptly interrupted an unchanging horizon among the meadows, the gentle slope of an Indiana landscape going on seemingly forever in the distance.
“Yeah, I loved it here. I dreamt about it every day until I was here and then it went too fast,” She admitted, just whispering the words as she fell in love with the countryside all over again.
“Why not come live here?” His question was direct. Personal. She wasn’t expecting it but didn’t see a reason not to answer him.
“Oh, I don’t know. My mother pressured me to work in
the city, my sister told me I was crazy to consider it. Hell, Aunt Mary and Aunt Sheryl even paid for my education. They said I was making a good choice. So I went along with it.”
It was the truth. Even if she didn’t like it and for whatever reason she felt like she needed to purge herself of it right in that moment. Once it was out she felt a weight lift from her shoulders. She was going to enjoy her time here. Cherish it. Before she had to go back to her city existence.
“Well, I hope you enjoy yourself these next couple of weeks, Miss Holly. I think the country has a lot to offer,” Jensen set his wine glass down on the side table that was next to the swing and set off down the porch steps. Holly couldn’t help but watch that muscular rear sway back and forth as he made his way to the main barn.
At least she had some eye candy to look at on her vacation.
Chapter 2
Holly threw the saddle on top of the blanket and went to work pulling it snug and straightening it out. It was a beautiful morning and she couldn’t wait to get on a trail. She knew she shouldn’t go alone, but she had her cellphone in case something happened. Besides, she knew all the trails like the back of her hand and it wasn’t the first time she had taken a horse out alone. She lingered around the stable, wondering where Jensen had gone off to. She had hoped to see his thick muscular frame before she went her own way.
After all these years she still knew the proper way to saddle a horse. This particular one, Lucy, seemed to be docile and just the right temperament for a beginner. She was anything but a beginner; however she didn’t want to get into more than she could handle, especially after so many years. She rubbed down Lucy’s neck and checked her handiwork one last time before she walked the horse out of the stable and hopped on.
Holly worked Lucy at a trot then a gallop on the packed down dirt trail. It was safe here. The horse was more gentle and stable than she was powerful but it was exactly what Holly was hoping for as she pushed the horse to her limits for just a moment. She then slowed to a gentle trot, then a walk, more content to explore the scenery than experience the wind in her hair.
Ain't Settling: A BBW Romance Page 1
