After the Sunset

by Mary Calmes

  It lasted too long; I couldn’t breathe and had to pull back to drag in air. Instantly he bit gently down on my now-swollen lower lip, nibbling, sucking it back inside his hot mouth.

  My moan was deep and full of aching, throbbing need.

  His answering groan lifted my eyes to his.

  “You make those noises, Stef, and I will put you over the table, company or not.”

  I coughed to try and get my over-stimulated body under control. “So you’ll go there, to Zach’s ranch, and do what?”

  His hands slid off my face, but he didn’t move away. Instead he wrapped his strong arms around me, one hand on the small of my back, pressing me forward. “I’ll put people on horses and take ’em off, I’ll teach them to rope, and ride, and lead trail rides, all that sort of crap.”

  “But why? I mean, why do you have to go?”

  “’Cause Zach, he always asks his family to help him out because if he pays his own men to be there, then there goes his profit.”

  “Your guys would do it for free.”

  He nodded. “They would, but I would never ask them.”

  “How come you didn’t know about this before?”

  “He doesn’t normally ask me, but I guess he’s got himself a bigger group this time than usual, and since he needs the money, he didn’t wanna turn down the extra people.”

  “So you got drafted.”

  “I got drafted,” he agreed.

  “He’s never called you before.”

  “Nope, normally he wouldn’t, but he’s backed into a corner right now, and he didn’t have no other option.”

  “So you’re leaving me,” I teased him.

  “Yessir.” He grinned evilly. “For five whole days.”

  “I could die from that.”

  “Me too.” The raw, needy sound of his voice made everything tighten down deep in my stomach as he leaned his head forward to kiss me again.

  I lifted to meet him and the kiss became a needy whimpering, grinding, clothing-in-the-way, hands-everywhere connection in seconds. One day our chemistry would stop being raw and incendiary and would find a less passionate level. It just hadn’t happened yet.

  “Hey, Rand,” Glenn called as he exploded into the room, “what the fuck is—oh.”

  When Rand’s cousin opened the kitchen door, he found my boyfriend’s mouth hovering over mine, his hand cupping my ass, the other in my hair, and my arms wrapped around his neck. Really, even if I’d drawn him a picture, or taken one, it couldn’t be any clearer. So his next question seemed ridiculous.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  I tried to pull free, but Rand drew me closer.

  “I’m mauling Stef. What’s it look like?”

  Even with the visual, it took Rand looking at him like he was dumb as dirt and me squinting at him for the scene in front of him to sink in.

  “And you wasted your time invitin’ that gal along, Glenn,” Rand told his cousin. “I got all I need right here.”

  At which point Glenn Holloway finally got it.

  I TOOK my time in the shower, and afterward I simply pulled all the water out of my hair, ran product through it, and messed it back up. I was home; I didn’t need to be pretty. It felt good to be in a worn pair of jeans and big thick socks and a long-sleeved T-shirt. I wanted to eat and lie around and watch TV sprawled out in Rand’s lap. I was hoping it wasn’t going to be weird downstairs, but if it was, I would come lay in bed. And going to bed with Rand… just the idea sent a flash of heat over my skin. I wondered if I just stayed upstairs how long it would take for him to join me.

  It was cute that the second I got out of the bathroom, Bella was there on the other side of the door waiting for me. Her huff of breath made me smile. She sounded like she was irritated.

  “I take long showers,” I said defensively. The head tip let me know that she had no earthly idea what I was talking about.

  Minutes later I was at the top of the stairs ready to go down when Rand appeared at the bottom.

  “I wanna talk to you,” he said, smiling up at me.

  “Talk,” I told him, descending toward him, staring into his eyes. The heat that was returned made my stomach flutter.

  “I’m leavin’ in the morning.”

  “So you said.”

  “C’mere.”

  When I was a step above him so that we were eye to eye, I stopped. “Will you really be gone a week?”

  “No, four days actually. I’ll get to Zach’s place tomorrow afternoon, and then bright and early Thursday morning the guests will arrive. It’s four days there at his ranch, it’s done Sunday morning, and then I’ll be home the same night.”

  I nodded. “So it’s not like you’ll actually be working his ranch like you do yours.”

  “Ours.”

  “Ours,” I repeated, putting my hand on his cheek, liking the feel of the firm skin and stubble under my palm.

  “I’m so glad you came home early.”

  “I would’ve been here in another hour anyway.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said as he leaned forward, kissing my cheek, the motion tender and sexy all at once. “But sooner is always better.”

  I sighed heavily as his nose brushed over the side of my neck.

  “You smell good.”

  It was amazing how smoky and low Rand’s voice got whenever he talked and kissed me at the same time. The gruff, low growl never failed to make me hard.

  “I wish I didn’t have to go.”

  I looked up into his face. “I could come.”

  He shook his head. “All the spots on the guest list are filled.”

  “No, Rand, I could help you.”

  His snort of laughter made me scowl.

  “Rand.” I lowered my voice, the warning there.

  He cleared his throat, tightening his arms around me when I tried to shove free.

  I growled at him.

  “Love,” he tried hard to stifle the chuckle. “Just because you live on a ranch doesn’t mean you can ride a horse.”

  “Rand—”

  “Stef.” His smile was big and wicked and made his eyes glitter. “Baby—”

  “Don’t call me baby, and I can ride a horse, Rand.”

  “Correction, you can ride your horse because you basically raised her after her mama passed, but any other horse would not allow you to just sit there and do nothing.”

  “What’re you—”

  “That horse does everything, Stef. You just hold the reins. She runs when she wants, she walks when she wants, rides into streams when she wants,” he chuckled, his hand sliding down my back, slipping up under the T-shirt to my skin. “She loves you, same as that damn fool dog, but any other horse and you’re gonna break your neck.”

  “Rand—”

  “I like your neck in one piece.”

  “I’m going,” I told him matter-of-factly. “Case closed.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said indulgently.

  I arched an eyebrow for him.

  “Baby, it’s not how you think.”

  “I’m not thinking anything, and quit with the baby.”

  “Stef—”

  “Excuse me.”

  We turned to find Rand’s cousin Ginger descending the stairs behind us. He let me go as she took the final step to the floor, but one of his hands moved to the small of my back and stayed there. Her own was instantly offered.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I told her as we shook.

  “I feel like such an ass,” she said, biting her bottom lip, her hand squeezing mine. “What you must think of me.”

  I smiled at her.

  “I just… I didn’t know that you were living here, and when Glenn said that I should invite Lisa, I thought it would be funny.” She breathed out.

  I eased my hand from hers as Rand slid his up to the back of my neck, his fingers massaging gently, tenderly.

  “I had no idea that you and Rand had bee
n together for two years already. No one tells us anything.”

  “That’s because when my mother got remarried, your father, along with Glenn’s, stopped speaking to her,” Rand reminded Ginger. “Maybe if your dad, good old Uncle Cyrus, wasn’t such a prick, you would know more about my life.”

  “Rand,” I scolded him.

  “Whatever,” he grumbled. “I’m going for Zach, not for you or Glenn or anybody else. And you better tell your girlfriend that she’s shit outta luck about marrying this rancher, all right?”

  She gasped as he leaned in, kissed my temple, and turned around, walking toward the kitchen, yelling.

  “Oh my God, he’s so mad,” she said, her voice tiny.

  “He’s just upset because he doesn’t like to leave his ranch or me,” I said gently. “And tomorrow he has to do both.”

  She nodded as I saw tears fill her eyes.

  “He’s just loud.”

  “He’s been scary as long as I’ve known him.”

  “Really?” I chuckled. “You think Rand’s scary?”

  “You don’t?”

  “No,” I assured her. “Never.”

  She nodded.

  “Tell me how you guys are related.”

  She wiped under her eyes. “Well, Well, my father, and Brent’s and Brandon’s, is Cyrus Holloway, and he and Rand and Charlotte’s daddy, James, are brothers along with Rayland, Glenn and Zach’s father, and Tyler, who lives here with you all.”

  Rand’s Uncle Tyler and I were very good friends, had been for longer than Rand and I had been together. I used to see him when his niece Charlotte, my best friend and Rand’s sister, and I came to visit.

  “Hey.”

  I looked over my shoulder, and Glenn was there with Brent.

  “Stefan?”

  “Yes?”

  He shoved his hands down deep into the pockets of his jeans. “I’m real sorry I didn’t put it together who you were. I should’ve asked.”

  “And I should have just told you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Rand and his family and my dad and ours, we’re having us a little problem with Rand’s mama gettin’ remarried as she still owns a portion of the grazing land in King, and my daddy thinks she should just sign it over to him since she ain’t a Holloway no more.”

  “But Rand is.”

  “Yeah, but Rand has his ranch, and even though it don’t do as well as mine or Zach’s, it’s still enough to take care of him and provide for his family.”

  I scowled at him. “How is the Red Diamond not doing well?”

  He gave me a patronizing smile. “I know you don’t know much about ranching, but there should be a lot of traffic around here if you’re doing well.”

  “Rand sells his beef over the Internet mostly,” I told him, trying not to look at him like he was stupid. “He has a company in Lubbock that deals with distribution and a PR company in Amarillo that does his marketing. Did he tell you about his contract with Grillmaster or did he fail to mention that?”

  He looked like I’d hit him.

  I waited.

  “He—”

  “Rand just bought and sold four non-working ranches here in Winston to the developer Mitchell Powell who plans to create a huge resort that will bring in millions of dollars in revenue to this county and the next. He’s building a school in Hillman in the fall. How does any of that say that his ranch is not doing well?”

  “I… my father said his ranch was failing.”

  “Twelve years ago.” I was indignant. “But I assure you that the Red Diamond is much better off than yours or your brother Zach’s.”

  We were all standing there silently as Rand yelled for everyone to come eat. As silent minutes ticked by, he suddenly appeared beside me.

  “What are we doing?”

  Glenn turned to look at him. “Stef tells us that you’re the one who got the Grillmaster account, Rand. Is that true?”

  He glared at his cousin. “So you’re the guy who didn’t have distribution rights before you bid on the contract?”

  “Yes.”

  Rand nodded and then shrugged. “I ship my beef all over the US, Glenn. You should think about that side of the business. Only selling to local businesses will not keep you in the black and allows no room for growth. I diversified before I met Stef, but went further with it afterward so that no amount of stupid-ass redneck prejudice would keep me from providing for my family and the families of my men. Unlike your ranch, you won’t see any people driving down the road to the house, but my server is clogged with orders.”

  Glenn was ashen, and I wondered why.

  “I could buy you and your father’s ranch and Zach’s if I wanted. Tell that to your ignorant cracker father.”

  There was some really bad blood between the two families that I was only right that second hearing about.

  Glenn was suddenly in Rand’s face, finger poking into his collarbone. His face was red and he was close to snarling. “My father wants that land up in King, Rand, and so do I. Your mother has no right to—”

  “You want the land?” Rand asked icily, stepping back, sideways, so that I was suddenly behind him, shielded. “Buy me out.”

  “I knew it!” he crowed. “Your mother signed it over to you!”

  “The minute she remarried, the rights reverted to me, asshole. The land is mine now, Glenn, so you can tell your father that a Holloway owns it.”

  “You—”

  “If he wants it, like I said, he can buy me out. I can graze my cattle other places.”

  “Got lots of other land, do you.?”

  “Yessir, I do.”

  “You know we don’t have that kind of—”

  “Then fuck you, Glenn,” he snarled at him, trembling when I put my hands on his hips, willing him to calm down. “That land was my father’s, and I have as much right to it as any of you.”

  “It’s family land, and you’ve got no right to it!”

  “I’ve got the same rights as you!”

  “You’re not welcome there,” he voice was cold, leveling his gaze on Rand, “and neither is your boyfriend.”

  “The land is just as much mine as yours, Glenn, and there ain’t shit you can do about it.”

  He balled up his fists, and Rand did the same, twisting into a defensive stance, prepared to fight.

  “No!” I yelled, and both men turned to me. “Not in my house.”

  “Fuck you,” Glenn barked at me.

  “Don’t speak to him,” Rand warned his cousin. “Don’t even look at him.”

  The world swirled around us. Profanity flew between the two men, Ginger was crying, her friends were clueless about what was going on, and in the middle of everything, Brent told Glenn to calm down because he was frightening Emily.

  “Fuck you,” Glenn yelled at him. “You’re such a pussy-whipped piece of—”

  At which point, Brent, who I’d thought was quiet and subdued and sort of dorky, ended up hurling himself at Glenn. It was chaos then until I heard Rand’s Uncle Tyler, Glenn and Ginger’s Uncle Tyler too, come in and yell.

  “What in the blue blazes is goin’ on in here?”

  No one said blue blazes in real life, and that was funny. What was not, was the rifle he was holding in his hand.

  Everyone froze because of it.

  “I thought it was some kind of home invasion thing,” he announced to us.

  “You’re watching too much TV,” I told him.

  He shrugged in agreement. “Now what in Sam Hill is goin’ on?”

  Really, the man’s expressions were hysterical.

  As Rand threw up his hands; I realized that no one was going anywhere now that Tyler was there to mediate.

  “Here, honey.” He gestured over to Lisa. “Come stand by me.”

  I rolled my eyes at the twinkle in his eye as she walked over to him.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Rand groaned.

  I rounded on him and leaped, and he had to scramble to grab me. As I wrapped a
rms and legs around him, I heard the deep contented sigh that came up out of the man. He brushed the hair back from my face and looked into my eyes.

  “Now you see there,” Tyler mumbled. “If Stefan weren’t home, you’d all be dead now.”

  And I smiled as Rand nodded.

  Chapter 3

  I HAD been really confused until Tyler explained it all to me. All the times I had been to the ranch before Rand and I had gotten together, his extended family had been there and I had been warmly welcomed into the fold. That my being gay was suddenly a problem made no sense.

  “You ain’t never seen no Holloways,” Tyler told me. “You seen Millers only.”

  “What?”

  So Tyler told me that those men, and women, the ones who had been kind and funny and everything else, were Rand’s mother’s family, the Millers. They all lived close by in Lubbock and Midland and Slaton and Paducah.

  “Then I never met Rand’s father’s side of the family.”

  “That’s right,” he nodded. “’Cept for me.”

  I’d had no idea.

  As I watched Glenn and the women leave a half an hour later, I apologized to Rand for causing the rift between him and his family.

  “It’s got nothing to do with you,” he said, grabbing my hand and yanking me after him upstairs.

  “Rand—”

  “Stop,” he cut me off, starting up the stairs, pulling me along.

  I realized suddenly what was happening. “Rand you still need to feed your cousin Brent and his girlfriend, and you have to pack and—”

  “After,” he told me, having reached the top of the stairs and dragging me down the hall with him. “And the food is there. They just need to eat it.”

  “But you need to be down there playing good host.”

  “Fuck it. They know I ain’t one, and Tyler can entertain ’em just fine.”

  “But I should—Rand! You don’t just fuck your boyfriend in the middle of dinner and make people wait to talk to you and—”

  “You’re not my boyfriend,” he said flatly, shoving me through the doorway only to kick the bedroom door shut behind him. “You’re my partner.”

  I was about to remind him that he was not raised in a barn when my eyes met his, and I forgot what I was going to say.