by Avery Gale, Jess Buffett, Willow Brooke, Lynn Ray Lewis, Gracie Meadows
Her dreams were filled with the vision of Mathew when he smiled at her tonight. She dreamt of the two of them together, his wide chest under her hands, his lips tasting hers, and their bodies twined together. Waking up with her nipples stiff and her thighs wet from arousal embarrassed her. She was alone, so there was no reason to feel embarrassed. The act of sex was a beautiful thing; unfortunately, dreaming of sex with Matt was not exactly normal. The man had never given her the time of day.
She remembered his tenderness with the new foals; he would softly praise their mommas while he ran his hands over the spindly-legged creatures. She also remembered, with less happiness, the night her father died. She was finishing up in the barn after the EMTs had taken her father’s body away in the ambulance. She hadn't known what else to do. The animals hadn't cared if she stumbled around, blinded by tears, as she settled them for the night. She liked to think animals felt sympathy as the horses nudged her with their soft muzzles, and the cows stared at her with their large, liquid brown eyes.
He found her in the stall with Dancer’s Dame, helping the beautiful mare bring the newest colt into the world. She had followed protocol and beeped the house to let someone know that one of the ladies was giving birth, then ran back to the distressed momma to soothe her through her long labor. She had pulled the little one from the exhausted mother’s birth canal, when the mare stopped pushing with the colt only halfway expelled from her body. There was no time to lose if both animals were to be saved, so she did as her father had taught her to do. Mother and colt were both on their feet getting to know one another while she sat in the corner of the stall and cried her eyes out.
She felt warm arms come around her and pick her up. She was too deep in her grief to care who was comforting her, she needed the shoulder that was beneath her cheek. She didn’t pay attention to where he carried her; the hurt deep inside was given free rein, and she let it take over. He sat her on the toilet seat and started a hot shower, before holding her upright and peeling the bloody clothing from her body. She found herself pushed under the warm water of the shower while his broad naked chest continued to pillow her head as her sobs quieted. He wrapped her in a big fluffy towel and carried her to his bed, letting her legs fall to the floor as he pulled back the thick comforter and sheet, then helped her to get in the bed, and pulled the covers over her. She fell asleep, and didn’t wake up until late into the next morning. Her clothes were clean and folded neatly on the bench at the foot of the bed. She wasted no time dressing and remaking the bed, before slowly making her way down the stairs, where she found Jackie Ford, the housekeeper, kneading bread dough.
Mathew left early that morning to go into town. Jackie told her that she was supposed to eat and then take the rest of the week off, at least until after the funeral. She sat at the kitchen counter on a bar stool and drank a cup of delicious cream-and sugar-laced coffee as the old woman finished beating on the large ball of dough and put it aside to rest. The kitchen was a warm, comfortable place where she had spent many hours over the years, and she gradually calmed down while chatting with the lady who used to sneak her cookies and brownies when no one was looking.
“I’m sorry about your dad, but we both know those animals meant more to him than most people, except maybe you and your brother. I saw him chase a cowboy that was dumb enough to cross him once. Old Lenny chased that boy down with a bullwhip, and the only thing that saved him was Matt’s daddy. He had to talk fast because your daddy wasn’t taking no excuses for the boy’s behavior.” It was gratifying to hear someone talk about her father, and they shared stories about Lenny Parker for an hour before the housekeeper needed to get lunch ready for the ranch hands.
Since Eugene, their normal cook, was visiting his daughter for the week, feeding the cowboys lunch and dinner became a job for the housekeeper to do. With nothing better to do with herself, Eddie began helping with the preparations. She grabbed a thick sandwich and left,before the men came to collect the food.
When she got to the small cabin she shared with her father, she itemized the list of things she needed to do before the funeral, and get with her brother as soon as he got to town, so they could arrange the funeral. Since she was effectively banned from the birthing barns, she used the time to pack up her father’s possessions. She found two pictures of her parents together; they were smiling into each other’s eyes and looked very young. Prayer cards from her mother’s funeral and her mother’s favorite earrings were in his top drawer. Lenny Parker had died a very well-off man. He had thousands of dollars sitting in a bank account, yet he always told her that he could only send her brother, Danny, to college, that there was not enough money for her to go as well. She was devastated; why did he do that? Why was Danny more important to him than she was? He could have at least helped her to pay a portion of the cost of community college, but he lied to her even then.
After the funeral, she received the worst blow possible. Their father’s Will stated that her brother was their father’s sole heir. She was to receive her mother’s earrings and little else. “I have done my duty by Edna by raising her as my own child, in accordance with her mother’s wishes.” Eddie was handed an envelope after the Will was read, and ushered out of the lawyer’s office. Danny looked on with compassion as she read the letter from the man she had believed was her father her entire life.
Dear Edna,
I had no wish for you to find out that you aren't my natural child this way. I have raised you as my child and given you my name because I loved your mother until the day she died. I don't know who your father is; she refused to name him. I will tell you that he is a local man because she never left town when we separated for the two months that summer. Good luck with your life, I want you to know I do care about you.
Leonard Parker
She looked at Danny, hoping he would deny the words she read. He tried to smile at her shock, but she was having none of it. “You already knew? You knew he refused to help me go to college; you knew that I didn’t even get a paycheck for helping him all of these years because he said we had to work off the rent for our cabin. Instead he was banking every penny, and I am left with nothing while you walk away with all of the money? Never one hug, never a good word, I thought it was because he felt awkward, or that it was just his way. I cooked for that man and cleaned for him, took care of him when he broke his leg, and this is what I get for loving him in spite of all of his coldness.”
She walked away, not seeing where she was going, and the dual-wheeled pick-up truck from Everly Ranch had to swerve to avoid mowing her down in the middle of the road. The big man that left the truck, where it stopped in the middle of the road, stomped over to her as she continued to walk down the middle of the road raging out loud. Matt grabbed her arm and halted her next step.
“Danny, leave me the fuck alone, you got the money, you got the education, you got the love, you got it all, I have six pairs of blue jeans and ten tshirts. They will not fit you. I was left with nothing; it’s all yours, and now that I know you knew this was happening all along, I hope you choke on it.” She tried to jerk her arm away, but the hand wouldn't budge. “Get your goddamned hand off me, you backstabbing thief.” She swung her other arm around, fist raised, and was shocked to see Mathew Everly was the one who had halted her. Too late to pull her momentum, her fist connected with his bicep with no visible sign of hurting him, even if her knuckles felt like she’d slammed them against a wall. He shook his head and pulled her to the pick-up, and tossed her into the passenger seat.
Chapter Two
She sat in his truck and tried to calm herself. What was he going to do about replacing her father, and how much time would he give her to find a new job and a place to live? He never said a word until they pulled up in front of the cabin she had shared with her father. The place was Spartan, to say the least; her father had never allowed her to purchase anything frivolous or unnecessary. She watched his jaw tighten as he looked around, then pulled out one of the two wooden kitchen
table chairs and pointed to the other, indicating that she sit down.
“Now, I think I understand what the problem is; from hearing your tirade back in town, seems you got the short end of the stick in more ways than one. I want you to tell me the whole thing.” She shook her head no, and he slapped the table hard. “I am not playing with you, little girl, tell me what happened and we will decide what needs to happen from there. I have to make a decision, and I need all of the information I can get before I make one.”
She told him all of it; she even handed him the crumpled letter from Leonard Parker. “I asked him once why I didn’t get paid like everyone else on the ranch, and he told me that we were a two for one deal, that you allowed him to bring me along to help but wouldn’t pay me. I saw the bank statements; he kept what you paid him and used the money I should have gotten for food and gas money, he even paid for life insurance policies for the two of us, with Danny as the beneficiary. He told me he had to pay rent on this place too, and that you were a cheap bastard, but since you had good taste in animals, it was worth working for next to nothing for the privilege of working with the livestock. All I can think is that he must have hated me all of these years to do such a lowlife thing. Danny knew all about it; when we left the lawyer's office, I confronted him, and he smiled. He actually had the guts to smile, like I should be happy for his good fortune.”
He nodded his head a few times while she talked, then drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “How old are you now?” When she told him she was twenty-two, he nodded again, then stood. “You are now in charge of the birthing barns; you will have two men to clean the stalls and help you with the heavy lifting. You have the same rules as before, but this time, you will get your paychecks. And another thing. Sometime in the next week or so, I will have someone drop a computer off here. You can get a degree online, and the ranch will pay the tuition. As far as your fath…Lenny goes, I’m sorry he treated you like that. We all thought he was being over-protective when a few of the hands wanted to ask you out, but he told them you weren't interested in men. I am guessing that was a lie too.”
He walked to the door and was ready to step through it when she remembered that she owed him. “I never got the chance to thank you for helping me that night, the night my…the night Lenny died. I’m not normally so emotional. I really do appreciate your help.” He nodded again, and looked at her. She never figured out what made him come back and give her the tight hug that he did, but she sure needed it at the time. When he stepped back his fingers touched her jaw and then he left. She went back inside and sat in the same chair she’d been in earlier and just stared into space for the longest time, wondering what her tomorrows would bring. She was relieved she still had a home, and a job, but the knowledge that Mathew Everly was actually going to help her get the education she had been denied and wanted for years, was unbelievable. She fell even deeper under his spell.
For the next two years, she worked like a slave for the man who had both her respect and her love. She was working on her bachelor’s degree after working hours, and at the rate she was going, would have the diploma in her hands within the next eighteen months. The morning of her twenty-fourth birthday was the last day she could claim any kind of security in her life.
Matt walked into the barn and looked around until he saw her bucking a bale of pure sweet alfalfa over to the horses' stalls. She grinned when she saw him look her way, until she saw the scowl on his face. She finished her awkward walk with the ninety pound bale and dropped it on top of two others, she had moved a few minutes earlier, before she turned to find out what he was upset about. Normally, he would ask how the animals were doing, conduct his own inspection, and then leave.
He didn’t make her wait for an answer for his reason for being in a foul mood. “Where are the boys who are supposed to be carrying the heavy things around here?” When she shook her head and told him they hadn’t shown up this morning, and it was really no big deal, he let her have it.
“Jacob and Autry are in jail, the Sheriff called this morning wanting to know if someone was going to come down and bail them out. It seems they got into a fight over a girl and beat the hell out of each other over the girl. The one who each one claims smiles at him the most and likes him the best. She bakes cookies and brownies because one likes cookies and the other one likes brownies, and she laughs at all of their dumb jokes.”
He stood over her still scowling, and she felt like hiding from him. Jacob and Autry were her helpers. She…damn. He must have seen comprehension dawn in her eyes. She felt like a lump of lead had settled in the pit of her stomach. Baking cookies and brownies? What did that have to do with anything? “They are nice boys, boys like sweet treats now and then; when Danny was home I always baked him snacks, but I never said I like either of the guys like that. I have never, no, never...” She was shaking her head back and forth. How could he believe she was leading those two young cowboys on? Especially when the only man in the world she could see herself flirting with stood in front of her with a dark look turned her way.
He removed his Stetson with one hand and ran his fingers through his thick brown hair with the other, “Look Eddie, this isn’t the first time I have had to step in like this. Do you remember Driscoll and Irvin?” She nodded her head looking puzzled. “They were making bets on which one was going to have you first, they agreed to take turns, but the first to have you was going to be decided in a poker game.”
She turned and sat on the lowest bale, still feeling pole-axed. The men before those last two had been flirtatious, but she ignored their advances and even told them to knock it off, or she would report them. She never said a word to Matt, but he must have found out and let them go himself. His final words to her that day cut her deep in her heart, so deep she decided to leave the job she loved, and the man that she loved, because she finally realized she was wasting her life pining for a man who would never love her, and saw her as a burden, a charity case.
The next day, she went into town and visited with her cousin, Vonda. She was the only blood relative that Eddie had in the world as far as she knew, and they remained close in spite of the revelation concerning her parentage. They talked about mundane things, and she casually mentioned she was thinking about looking for a different line of work. “I have two years of online college, and I am still taking courses, so I'm not entirely useless, I should be able to find something I am qualified to do. Right?” By the time she left, she had several places to look for work and a couple of possible small apartments that might be affordable.
Three days later, luck was with her. Vonda called, her husband’s receptionist was quitting to take care of her kids because daycare was too expensive, so Randal needed a new girl in two weeks. That worked out well for Eddie, so she typed out her letter of resignation and dropped it off at the main house on her way home that night. She started sorting the few possessions she owned. Packing everything that wasn't essential for the next two weeks and stacking the boxes by the door and it kept her busy for the first week after work.
Monday of the second week Matt stormed into the barn while she was mucking out a stall. She no longer worked side by side with the men who were sent to assist her. They were in the cow barn, cleaning it, in the same way she was taking care of the horses. He looked even more thunderous than the last time he had visited the barn. This time she continued her work as he stood there waiting for her to attend him, Well, let him stand, let him wait, all he can do is fire me. Finally, she gave in and looked at him.
He held a piece of paper in his hand; it looked like it had been crushed and smoothed out at least twice. “Do you want to explain this to me? You have nowhere to go, and no one to go to. You have no training. What in the hell do you think you are doing resigning from this job? I gave you the damn job because it’s all you know how to do. That fuck, Lenny, really screwed you over, and you were left with nothing, so how do you propose to fend for yourself if you are only qualified to shovel horseshit and feed animals?�
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All the pent-up emotion rose to the surface from deep inside her. The men she loved were certainly pricks, that was for sure. Rather than yell and scream like she really wanted to, she calmly told him most of the truth. “I have another job, and as you said a while back, you shouldn't be burdened with another man’s mistake. You said that having me around was more trouble than it was worth. And you said some other things that I hope I misheard, because I have always pulled my weight and earned the paycheck you give me each week. I have an apartment, so I have a place to go. I might not have a person to go to, but I’ve never really had one of those to begin with, so it’s nothing new to me. Now you won’t have to keep a revolving door for the hired hands.”
She pulled her bleeding heart together to approach him and held out her hand to him. “I do want to thank you for all the help you have given me, and for the opportunity to work with these beautiful animals. This place has always been home to me, but it’s time for me to move on.”
He took her hand, but rather than shake it, he pulled her into his arms, and she found herself being kissed. She didn’t struggle or fight the angry crush of his lips; she returned it. She allowed her mouth to open when his tongue pushed through the seam of her lips and moaned as she felt his tongue explore the warm moistness of her mouth. His hands found her breasts and played with the already hardened nipples, before traveling down her back and cupping the cheeks of her ass, pulling her tightly against his hard body. She could feel his thick shaft pressing into her belly and felt her own body become liquid. Her hands finally had free license to bury themselves into his thick hair, and she held on to fistfuls of it as his mouth let hers loose, to travel down her jawline in a slow journey to a spot just behind the back of her ear. She could hear his deep breathing and knew her own matched his, but would not stop him from seducing her senses for anything.
