by Lea Kinkade
Abby purchased her items then went to the grocery part of the store and picked up what she would need for several days. She would be working five days on then two off for the next few weeks and would be on call during some of her time off in case an emergency came up. Abby went back to the apartment and made several trips back to the car for her purchases. By the time she had everything washed and put away, it was time to have some supper and get ready to go to the club to meet Jessie, Jordan, and the rest of the girls.
* * * *
Dillon was just bringing his 1955 Knucklehead out from his garage when he saw Abby’s little Mazda pass the CRE compound and turn onto the highway. She must be moving into town today, he guessed. If he had his way, she would be back on the Ranch permanently within a very short period of time. He couldn’t see her clearly from this distance, but he didn’t need to. He remembered every curve of her body and strand of hair on her head.
God, he thought. She is so beautiful. Dark-brown hair down to the middle of her back and dark-blue eyes. She had a curvy body, with perfect breasts and hips a man could hold onto, that would render any man’s cock as hard as a rock. He was no exception. He was in a near-constant state of arousal when she was around. At five foot six inches, she was nearly a foot shorter than his six foot three inches, but he knew she would fit against his body perfectly. He’d had the pleasure of having her sweet body pressed against his a few months ago when they brought Delilah, one of the breeding program’s most important brood mares, through a difficult labor and delivery.
After working together to pull out the struggling colt, Abby threw her arms around him and hugged him to her delectable body in her exuberance. Dillon allowed himself a brief moment to enjoy the feel of her against him and then stiffened and drew away from her, knowing he had to hide his feelings for her until the end of the internship. They were both very careful not to touch each other in anything but a professional way after that.
Now, Abby was no longer a student but a full-fledged veterinarian, and a damned good one at that. He knew she deserved the job that hinged on her performance during the clinical internship. He also knew dating an employee of the Ranch, especially one who reported directly to him, would prove to be difficult. He offered her the job anyway. She deserved it. Both of them put in hellacious hours over the past two years to bring the Veterinarian-Sciences Division of CRE out of the dark ages. She absorbed everything he had to teach her. Oh, she wasn’t a pushover by any stretch of the imagination. She spoke her mind when she didn’t agree with him with respect to the care of the animals on the Ranch and the computerized records system they had implemented. They had some very heated exchanges. She had some valid points and really good ideas but, in the end, she hadn’t argued that the decisions were his to make. He only hoped she would be as malleable in their private life. He looked forward to the sparks that would blow up between them when they became sexually involved.
In any event, he was not going to penalize her because he was attracted to her in a major way. They would just have to come to an understanding before they started seeing each other that, if their relationship didn’t work for some reason, they would still be able to work together in harmony. Dillon wasn’t too worried about things not working out between them. She was perfect for him. He planned to do everything in his power to make sure that Abby Barnes was his wife by this time next year.
Dillon had already discussed the issue with his oldest brother, Xander, the CEO of CRE. Although Xander was leery of the whole “dating an employee” thing, he agreed to the out clause in Abby’s contract which paid her a lump-sum settlement equal to the remainder of the contract in the event that CRE wanted to break the employment contract before the five years was up. Dillon privately agreed to personally reimburse CRE if Abby invoked that clause. When he gave her a copy of the contract to review before she signed it, Abby hadn’t even asked about the clause in the contract.
Dillon had spent a lot of time over the past two years with Abby, sharing his knowledge of the realities of being a large-animal veterinarian for a ranch as large as CRE. As a result of her quick mind and the knowledge she had gained over the past two years, she was perfectly suited to taking on the second vet position at the Ranch. A five-year contract ensured CRE got their money’s worth and gave Abby the stability he felt she was looking for.
Dillon learned a lot about Abby over the past two years. Sitting around in a barn waiting for a mare to give birth or keeping an eye on sick cows gave people a lot of time to talk. He knew about her mother’s murder when she was eleven years old and the fact that she was there when it happened. She shared the basics of her turbulent relationship with her father to his mother, Cassie. His mother, knowing how he felt about Abby, shared these facts with Dillon. She also shared that Abby’s father died when she was twenty-four years old while she was in law school of all places. Abby was alone in the world and was looking for a place to belong. Dillon knew she’d already found it.
He also knew that Abby made a habit of meeting the girls, including his sisters-in-law and his oldest sister, Jessie, at Chaps & Spurs on Friday nights for conversation, drinks, and dancing. He and his brothers also met at the club on Friday nights to shoot some pool and catch up from their busy weeks. Over the past two years, Dillon spent more time than he cared to admit watching Abby dance with other men after he finished playing pool with his brothers.
Abby was a great dancer and a beautiful woman to boot. She never ran short of dance partners that he could see. As far as he knew, and he’d made it his business to know, she had not dated during the past two years. Hell, he’d kept her too busy at the Ranch for her to be able to sustain a relationship with any man. He’d done it on purpose. That was all about to change, however, as she moved into town and settled into a more routine and sane work schedule. He intended to take advantage of those changes starting tonight.
Dillon planned on getting to know the lovely Dr. Barnes even better after his game of pool with his brothers. She would never know what hit her. Before the week was over, he and Abby would be in an exclusive relationship. Dillon’s dominant personality wouldn’t accept any other outcome. He’d already waited two agonizing years.
Right now, however, he needed to go see his mom. Although he knew his brothers, Levi, Xander, and Ryan, had gone to their father, Alex, for help in wooing their wives, Dillon knew he needed to talk to his mother about his feelings for Abby. He knew that she, a woman who had dealt with a husband who could be domineering at times, would be able to give him insight into how best to handle Abby.
Dillon and his mother were very close. Everyone in the family acknowledged how close they were. It was only natural for Dillon to go to his mother for advice. They shared an intense love for their Cherokee roots and studied their culture, incorporating as much as possible into their modern lives. There was very little they couldn’t talk about. Although he never told his mother exactly what he liked during sex, he had a feeling that she had heard rumors around town and that she knew. She never mentioned it to him, though she told him on several occasions that the women he was dating weren’t right for him. She’d been right, but Dillon didn’t exactly want to know how she had come to those conclusions.
Dillon’s intensity and need for domination during sex came as a complete surprise to him. He never saw his father or his other male relatives even hint at the need that drove him in the bedroom. At first, he thought he was a freak. He felt the need to dominate when he was having sex with a girl even in high school and college. Oh, he wasn’t the whips-and-chains kind of Dom, but he definitely liked to call the shots while having sex. He made a point of picking girlfriends who were relatively inexperienced so they wouldn’t catch on right away that he was so controlling in his sex life. He also tried really hard to tone down his domineering nature since moving back to the Ranch and dating women in town. Knowing about Abby’s father, he worked even harder during these past two years to control this need. He’d stepped back and let her find her own
way as a veterinarian on the Ranch. For the most part, unless it was a safety issue, he let her handle the problems that came up as she worked on the Ranch in her own way. It hadn’t always been easy. His natural inclination was to step in and solve the problem for her but he knew that would fly like a lead balloon.
He let himself be who he was with a couple of women, in Deseo and surrounding towns, with whom he had some longer-term relationships. Long-term meaning more than a couple of weeks. Although the women seemed to like it at first, ultimately, they didn’t seem to want that kind of relationship for the long haul.
He never tried to dominate a woman outside of the bedroom, but he was very protective of what he considered his. He definitely considered Abby and his family to be his. Abby seemed drawn to his intensity if her hardened nipples in response to his domineering personality were any indication. He noticed her reaction several times when they were sparring over some issue in which they had taken different stances. However, he didn’t know how she would deal with it in the bedroom, where he was even more intense.
Outside of the bedroom, she didn’t put up with any crap from him. If he went too far, she let him know it. Would that intensity and need to dominate affect his relationship with Abby negatively? He knew about how her mother had died and that she had grown up with a father who was excessively domineering. With her father, it was more than just protection of his little girl. It was an intense need to control everything around him to a minute degree. Dillon wasn’t like that.
He’d talked to his mother several times about Abby over the past two years. Shortly after Abby came to work for the Ranch as an intern, his mother invited her over for Sunday lunch. Once she saw how Dillon behaved around Abby, his mother pulled him aside and they had their first discussion about the lovely Abigail Barnes. Cassie Chisholm believed Abby was the woman for Dillon and gave Abby her seal of approval by inviting her to Sunday lunches and special family gatherings over the past two years.
During the past two years, Dillon and Abby spent a lot of time together, and he felt he had come to know her very well. He also made sure that she got to know the real Dillon Chisholm. He didn’t want to start over from scratch once he told her he wanted a more personal relationship with her. He wanted their relationship to grow from where it was now. In other words, it was his intent that their relationship move forward rapidly. These past two years had been a sort of platonic courtship with Abby. He wasn’t willing to take a step backward. If he had his way, he would be in her bed tonight.
* * * *
Abby dressed carefully for the coming evening at Chaps & Spurs. As usual, she was meeting her friends at seven o’clock for drinks, conversation, and some dancing. Now that her clinical internship was over and her hours would be more normal, she was going to take one of the cowboys she regularly danced with up on his offer of a date. She needed to get her mind off of Dillon. Hell, maybe she would date a couple cowboys. That should keep her mind off of Dillon.
She’d had enough of pining for a man she couldn’t have. As her employer, Dillon was just as off-limits now as he had been for the past two years. She had landed a plum job with CRE and she was not going to do anything stupid, like getting into bed with her boss, to jeopardize it.
Abby hadn’t had a boyfriend since her second year at law school. Well, she quit during her second year at law school so she could probably refer to it as her last year in law school. She finished out the semester after her father died in March six years ago because she wasn’t a quitter. However, after her father’s death, she quickly decided to take charge of her own life for a change and went back to college for a year to get the required classes. Then, she followed her dream and applied for one of the coveted spots at Texas A&M veterinary college.
Abby had wanted to be a veterinarian for as long as she could remember. Her mother knew about her dream and encouraged her interest by volunteering at the local animal shelter with Abby on the weekends and in the summers. Everything changed when her mother was murdered by street thugs when Abby was eleven years old.
Abby was with her mother when she was murdered and could still remember the smell of the gunpowder after the gun went off. She remembered her mother falling to the concrete platform and not waking up despite Abby’s efforts to rouse her. She sat next to her mother holding her cold, limp hand down in the subway tunnels until one of her father’s friends, another New York City cop, led her away to a nearby bench to wait for her father to arrive. Her father was a police detective with fifteen years’ experience and arrived before they took her mother’s body away. He had crouched down to look at her mother under the blanket someone put over her then simply picked Abby up and took her home.
After her mother died, it was just her and her dad. She knew her dad loved her a lot, but he didn’t really know what to do with a prepubescent daughter traumatized by her mother’s murder. He did the best he could on his own but was determined to see her be a successful lawyer. He scoffed at her desire to become a veterinarian and shamelessly pushed her into college and then law school.
Since it really didn’t matter what she majored in for law school, she majored in premed as a sort of rebellion against her father. He hadn’t cared as long as she applied for law school after college. Abby knew her father was probably yelling at her from beyond the grave for her decision, but she didn’t regret it one bit.
Abby felt Dillon’s presence the moment he entered Chaps & Spurs. Even if Kendra, one of Jessie Chisholm’s childhood friends who was a regular in their Friday night group, hadn’t been counting down the Chisholm brothers’ arrival at the club, she knew she would have sensed him come in. Man, he looked good enough to eat tonight. He was wearing his usual outfit of dark jeans and a concert T-shirt. The jeans were black and his T-shirt hugged every bulging muscle. She could see the ends of the tattoo that went down his biceps and past his elbows, and she felt her nipples harden while her pussy softened and grew damp.
God, she really needed to get laid. She should not be lusting after her boss like this. It would bring nothing but trouble. So, when the man himself winked at her on his way to the stairs, she just sat there with her mouth hanging open. Her wits returned to her about the same time as his fine backside disappeared up the stairs. Shutting her mouth, she raised her beer to her lips and took a sip of the ice-cold brew, choking a little when it went down the wrong pipe.
As the other women dragged her into their conversation, Abby found her thoughts diverted from Dillon and his unexpected wink. Kendra was complaining about the antics of her boss over the past week, and Emily was talking again about finding a full-time job.
Emily, who went to high school with Jessie, worked part-time for her brothers over the past several years at their used-furniture store in town. She left Deseo for college in California and started a job in Los Angeles after graduation. However, several years ago she inexplicably returned to live in Deseo and started working for her brothers part-time.
Her brothers, Cody and Cade, were very protective of her and kept the men in town from getting too close. Periodically, she got fed up with their interference in her personal life and threatened to strike out on her own. Abby didn’t think she would ever really do it, but she had fun talking about it and her friends always listened to her patiently. There was a sadness surrounding Emily that nobody seemed to be able to penetrate. Abby didn’t think even Jessie, Emily’s best friend, knew exactly what had caused her to return home with so little explanation.
At 8:00 p.m. the DJ started the first set and the men that were already milling around the women’s table laid claim to several of them for the first dance. Jaime Hernandez asked Abby before anyone else had a chance. Abby really liked Jaime. He was tall, dark, and handsome and had always acted like a gentleman around her. They danced a couple of dances and he got her agreement to dance with him later in the evening. Abby didn’t slow dance with any of the men at the club. For the past two years, she hadn’t wanted to give anyone the impression she was looking fo
r more than a few dances and she didn’t want to be accused of leading anyone on. Maybe it was time to change things up.
The waitress was taking orders when Abby returned to the table and ordered another beer. Several good-looking cowboys hung out at the table talking and flirting with the women. Abby danced with several other men before she saw Dillon come down the stairs from where the pool tables were located.
Abby saw Dillon look over at the direction of their table, and his eyes rested on her as she flirted with two cowboys she had seen in the club the past several weeks named Deke and Mark. They were new to the area and were working out at the Ranch. Most of the cowboys who frequented Chaps & Spurs worked at the Ranch, but people came to the club from as far away as Corpus Christi, a little more than an hour away.
Abby felt her senses go on high alert as Dillon made his way to her as she sat at the table. The chair next to her was empty and she looked on in astonishment as he cut through the men standing around the table like a hot knife through butter. He proceeded to sit down in the empty seat and put his arm proprietarily along the back of her chair. Leaning in closely, he said in her ear, “Come dance with me, Abby.” Absolutely dumbfounded and unable to come up with the words to refuse, Abby gave a jerky nod and took the hand that he offered her.
Dillon led her to the dance floor just as the DJ started a slow song. As Abby made a move to leave the floor, Dillon stopped her with a hand on her arm and a smile. As he took her in his arms to “Must Be Doin’ Something Right” by Billy Currington, Abby tried hard to relax as the sensual song wrapped around them but she could feel her body reacting to the close contact. In contrast, Dillon seemed very relaxed as he pulled her body in closer and rested his chin on the top of her head.
