by Lee, Judith
Later, if his dad needed to stay in Casper for treatment, he would help them find a rental house so they could be close to the hospital. He might get a head start and look at the Casper Star Herald’s internet site tonight and send Jenny to look at them while his mom was with their dad. All the boys wanted to be there with their dad, but they had to respect his wishes and keep the ranch running. He just hoped there was something the doctors could do for him. Waiting for the test results was torturous.
After dinner, steak, fries, and a salad, they watched a little Rockies baseball on the TV. Mom had called and said Josh was set to begin the tests in the morning. She sounded hopeful. These doctors were reluctant to say he just had a few months to live like the local doctor had said and since the local doctor wasn’t a specialist, Cody held more faith in the Casper oncologists. He knew they would find his dad the help he needed even if it was outside of Casper. But his mom had wanted to start as close to home as she could. However she would travel anywhere in the world to get him treatment if it would keep him alive. Luckily dad had always kept a good health insurance policy on himself, his family and all the ranch hands. Took up a chuck of money, but Cody knew the ranch was profitable enough to take care of the cost of the policy.
After he took his shower, he laid on the bed in his boxer shorts and ran his hand over his eyes. In Cody’s opinion, his dad was the greatest man he had ever known. He was supportive and loving to the family. He was always helping his neighbors. He had been the kind of father that took time off to take them fishing and watched every sporting event all the kids had even if it meant he had to work until midnight when he got home. Cody and his dad were very close. Frankly, he looked up to him as the type of man he inspired to become. He didn’t want to lose his dad. Getting depressed wasn’t going to be the answer. He needed to stay strong for everyone.
Cameron and Dakota had called earlier and were at the next rodeo site wondering if he’d heard anything about dad. He filled them in on the day’s events including Jenny’s wreck, and the sheriff suspecting that Marcus had ran her off the road. Dakota was unhappy that Tammy hadn’t stayed at the ranch with Cody, but he understood how important it was for her to be with her family as well. They hung up, and Cody thought about Tammy willing her to call him.
A little later his cell phone rang, and he quickly rolled on his side and picked up the phone from the dresser noticing it was Tammy.
“Hi darlin’, everything okay there?”
“Hi Cody, yeah, I’m all settled in and mom and dad are glad I came home.”
“Did they call the sheriff and let him know what’s happening with Marcus?” He hated to talk about Marcus but he could have followed her home, and her safety was paramount to him right now.
“Dad called, and our attorney even came and saw us. It’ll be alright. I’m sure he thinks I was in that truck and hopefully he’s gone into hiding. Dad got out his big shot gun and loaded it, and I have my hand gun loaded and by the bed. I’ll keep it with me. I’m not going to put myself in any position where he can get to me. I’ll be careful, I promise.”
“Good honey.”
“How are you doing Cody? I’m sorry I ran off so fast. Damn I hate how he makes me so panicky and I didn’t want to put your family in danger.”
“You had to do what you had to do. It’s okay, I understand. Doesn’t mean I don’t wish you were here.”
“Such a sweet talker,” she smiled. “Heard any news about your dad?”
“Nah, tests are tomorrow.”
“I’m probably only going to stay for a couple of weeks. Dad wants me to move back home, but I really love my job. I’m not going to hide forever.”
There was a comfortable silence and they listened to each other breathe.
“Cody, last night was something I never thought I would experience. I know you could have any woman you want, but I’m glad you showed me…made me feel so special.”
Just remembering last night, his heart beat sped up and his loins tightened.
“You are so beautiful. My promise still stands. Will you touch yourself for me right now?”
“Oh Cody…” she said in a playful tender voice, gently laughing. “Are we going to have phone sex?”
He chuckled at her, “Not as good as the real deal but I’d like to pleasure you any way I can. What are you wearing?”
“Pink silk camisole top, and silk boxer shorts.”
“Oh, I would love to suck your nipples through the silk. Can you touch your nipples for me?”
“Okay, I’m touching them, and pinching them like you did last night.”
“Honey, put the phone next to your fingers so I can hear you caressing your tits for me.” He could hear the silk gliding back and forth.
“Can you hear? Your voice is making me so wet.”
“Oh God Tammy, my cock just sprang out of my pants. Take one of your hands and put it between your legs, gather your cream and start moving your fingers in a small circle on your clit.”
“Oh, God.”
“Tammy, I’m going to stroke myself while you make yourself come. Keep talking to me baby, God I miss you.”
“My eyes are closed and I’m imagining your fingers touching me. I want you inside me so bad.”
“Me, too, baby… “
“I’m coming Cody, Oh God, I’m….”
He heard her moan and it was too much, he came into his hand.
Breathing heavily, he bit his lip and tried to imagine what she looked like.
“Tammy, you okay?” he whispered.
“Better…but not as good as last night.”
“And not as good as it’s going to be when I finally get to take you. Did you see the mark I gave you last night?
“Yes, it reminded me of you when I was showering earlier.”
“I better let you get some rest. Stay out of trouble and give your best to your parents. I’m looking forward to meeting them. Please call me tomorrow whenever you have time, or text me and let me know you’re okay. Miss you, Sunshine. Good night.”
“Night Cody.”
After he heard her disconnect, he wondered how she could have gotten into his blood so quickly. He got up and got a towel to clean his hands off. In the morning he would try to make sense of how this connection with her had gotten out of hand so quickly. He thought it was a good thing, at least he hoped it was. The timing was crappy with his dad being sick and turning over a new page in his life, but he’d see where things went. Right now he just knew he needed to get her back here and he needed to honor his promise to her. He wanted to take her to bed so bad he couldn’t stand it. He felt his life leaning on the precipice of something really wonderful.
***
Marcus Street was lying in the bushes wearing the Army camouflage clothes he had picked up at a second hand store. He had been watching the ranch with his high powered binoculars for a day. He hadn’t seen Tammy since the night he thought he had driven her off the road.
He was proud of how he had tracked her down. First he had scouted out her parent’s house for several days and confirmed she wasn’t living there. Then he’d gone to the college library and went online looking for her. It was easier than he thought. He knew her degree was in home economics with a second degree in land management. It would be the perfect combination for a state worker. After looking at all the new hire announcements, he had finally found that she was a new Ag agent in Gillette, at the Campbell County Ag Extension office. Stealing a truck had been easier than he thought, too. It still amazed him that people left their vehicles unlocked with the keys in them. Wyoming was such a backwards state. He switched the plates with another truck; this one was a blue one, so when they reported the red truck missing they’d be looking for a red truck with different license plates.
He had gone to Gillette and found Tammy leaving the Ag office and he followed her. When she turned into the Camplex fairgrounds exhibitors’ parking he had to drive around to the other side where the public parking was. By the time he
got back to where she had parked he couldn’t see where she had gone. He looked for her all afternoon and hadn’t found her. Her car was still in the parking lot so he decided to wait for her by her car and then he could grab her quickly.
It was a long day and night. He was getting thirsty and hungry. He finally decided to leave, thinking she must have gotten a ride home with someone else when he saw her walking with a cowboy and holding his hand. He swore under his breath as he saw the large cowboy take her in his arms and dance with her in the parking lot.
Shit, she was his wife, and she was acting like a whore. When he finally got her he was going to have to show her who was boss again and this time she wouldn’t get away.
After a while the cowboy had walked her to the car, and she drove off. He couldn’t get her with the cowboy watching. The cowboy was walking toward a big truck. Marcus scribbled down the license plate and took off running toward his car in the other parking lot.
He drove around looking for her but she had disappeared. It was time he gave her a call and let her know he was coming for her. Earlier in the day, he had called the Extension office and gotten her cell number with the excuse that he needed to talk to her right away about the grasshoppers that were invading his garden, and was surprised how trusting the employee was as she gave him the number.
He needed to get something to eat and crash for a few hours before he called her. He wanted to call her in the middle of the night when she was alone. But he ended up sleeping until early that morning. Even now he laughed at how frightened she had been and he was looking forward to resuming his life with her. No one screamed or cried and begged as good as she had. That’s what turned him on and she was going to be his again very soon.
He would wait until dark and go looking for her. The next night he found the cowboy’s truck parked at a bar and he waited. It was dark where the truck was parked and it would make a perfect place to snatch her. He had picked up a bat at a sporting goods store and he’d use it on the cowboy.
A woman wearing a cowboy hat came out with a cowboy. Marcus just knew it was Tammy. The cowboy kissed her, and as Marcus was getting closer, then the cowboy turned and walked back into the bar. Perfect, he thought, she was taking his truck. But before he could get to the truck to open the door she peeled out. He ran back to his car and followed her. He was so angry that she was kissing the cowboy that he decided to run her off the road. Just as she turned down a dirt road, he slammed into the back of her truck. She hit a bump and rolled several times with the truck stopping on its side. He was starting to get out of the truck when he saw headlights coming down the county road, so he got back in the truck and took off.
The next morning he drove down the dirt road and saw the sheriff’s car and an ambulance near the wrecked truck, but the woman they were hauling out didn’t have red hair. The evening before, he couldn’t tell the color of her hair because it was so dark. He had followed the wrong woman. He decided he better lay low for a few days. Marcus was furious he had assumed it was Tammy just because it was the same truck. That bitch was going to pay for all the trouble she had brought to him.
Now as he lay in the bush, he decided that maybe she had fled the city, and he would have to start his search all over again. He had called the Extension office and was told she was on vacation. Marcus had been so sure she was holed up on the ranch, but there had been no sight of her. That meant he was going to have to go back to Laramie and survey her parent’s home again. If there was one thing he had learned in jail it was patience. When the time was right, he’d get her. He’d follow her wherever she led him until she was alone and he could get her. And when he got her, she would wish she had never tried to leave him.
He laughed to himself as he remembered how easy it had been for him to get out of jail on probation. Because he was a professor and had never had any trouble with the law, he started helping all the inmates learn how to read and use the computers. He attended AA meetings, and met with a counselor every day sharing how sorry he was for hurting Tammy and causing the accident that hurt an innocent family. He proclaimed that the worst punishment of all was living with the sorrow he would feel for the rest of his life for causing so much pain to his victims. With a combination of his good work in prison and all the positive comments from the prison staff at his parole hearing, he was let out of jail. And now his plan to get Tammy was in motion.
Chapter Seven
The week went by slowly. Tammy had met with her counselor. She had encouraged her to start writing in a journal again. It had helped her the first year to get through each day, but Tammy had thought she was over those anxieties. She got a new journal because she didn’t want to be tempted to look back over her first diary. The horrors would surely take her back to the weak woman she once was.
She’d found the job of her dreams and was so proud of what she had achieved. Even though she hadn’t wanted a man back in her life again, and she told herself that she could live a happy contented life without a man, she hadn’t expected to feel this deeply for Cody. It still scared her to think another man could control her like Marcus had.
And never in a million years would she have thought she would want a man who wanted to be in control, to be in charge as he told her. But it had been earth shattering. It had showed her that she could be a strong independent woman and still let another man, who only wanted to give her pleasure, take full control over her body. However, it didn’t mean she was ready to give him her heart. She was working to trust him. She needed more time to find out if he was as good of a guy as he seemed to be.
Surely after he had his fill of her, he would be ready to find another challenge. The women that had kissed him at the Ag booth were all ready to give him the sexual favors he would like. Many of them had probably already shared his bed. Still there seemed something special happening between them. Or was it just wishful thinking that she could capture his heart.
It was too soon to think about loving him, but she cared about him. Hell, she wanted him desperately. Could it be that she was using him to see if she could reach heights she had never reached before with a man? Marcus was the only man she had ever had sex with, she refused to call it love making. Was she still too innocent, still in the infancy stage of knowing what she really wanted from a man? God, she didn’t want to be that woman with Cody.
If she totally gave herself to him she really wanted it to be forever, without any regrets that there might be another man out there. One that might be a better fit.
No I am not that woman, she told herself. I’m falling for this wonderful man and heaven help me, but I think he is falling for me, too.
Writing in her diary was supposed to be therapy…to make her see things more clearly. It wasn’t supposed to make her have more doubts.
She closed her journal. What she really needed to do was go fabric shopping with her mom tomorrow and start another quilt. The last quilt had taken her two years to make and was better therapy to her than anything she had done. With each fabric she had cut, each seam she sewed, each applique she had cut out and appliqued down with tiny, almost invisible stitches, she had gotten stronger. It taught her patience and control. There was that word again, control. Tammy needed to make her own decisions and live her life as she wanted. Quit worrying about the ‘what ifs’. Life could be snuffed out in the blink of an eye, or she could get a serious illness like Cody’s dad, or any number of things could happen and her days on earth might be cut short. It was time to charge back into her life and take chances.
If Marcus found her, she was ready to defend herself. If Cody wanted to make love to her, she should enjoy it with all the zest that life had to offer even if she wasn’t sure of their final destination.
Didn’t the last fortune cookie she had tell her to ‘Let go of your fears and step into the unknown’? She still had it in her purse.
Cody called her later that night. When she heard his voice, with his normal salutation, “Hey darlin’, how are you?” her mind was already ma
de up. She was ready to go home.
“Hi Cody, boy do I want to come home. This has been a long week. Mom wants me to stay another week but I want you so bad…I mean I want to see you. Miss your kind of home cookin’ if you know what I mean.”
“That’s the best news I’ve had today. And I’m right there with you. Never have I heard what I have in mind for you called ‘home cookin’ though,” he laughed.
“Maybe I should call you ‘comfort food’. But let’s not tell my mom that. She has stuffed me with homemade mac and cheese, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, fried chicken…Oh God if I stay here much longer; I’m going to be a size bigger. Will you still want me if I come back looking like the Pillsbury Dough woman?”
“Absolutely…the more of you the better.”
“Yea, you say that now but wait ‘til you see me before you make that statement.”
“Speaking of seeing you. I want to ask you something, and I have to do it over the phone and not in person like you want me to.”
“I’ll give you some leeway here as it was my idea to run off. Ask away Cody.”
“I wondered if you would like to meet me in Cheyenne, and bring your parents, I would like to meet them for Frontier Days? My sponsors want to give me a proper going out retirement party after my ride. I’d like you to be my date. Sit in the family and friends section with my brothers and sister. Mom and dad can’t come but I’d really like you to be there for my final ride.”
He could hear her crying, “Oh Cody, I would be honored. I would regret never getting to see you ride, even if you just land on your ass and don’t make the 8 seconds.”
“Don’t have any confidence in me, huh?”
“Really I do, more than you know. More than you know. Could you give me a ride back to Gillette after the event so my parents don’t have to drive me home?”
She heard him take a deep breath, “That’s just what I was hoping for; I even have a room for us if you want to stay with me. Will your parents need a room?”
“I’m sure they’d like to go watch but it’s only 45 minutes for them to go home. So you’re stuck with me as your roommate,” she giggled nervously.
