Page 20 of Deacon

I blink hard, running a hand over my face. The truck is hot, and I’m sweating. I crack the window as we get into Knifely and pull up beside the curb. Jensen gets out, and we meet on the sidewalk outside the general store.

“What are you looking at?” Jensen asks.

I tear my eyes from the café window. Through it, I can see the back of Freya’s head—long dark hair, braided, leaning on the counter as she talks to a customer. There’s the prettiest little arch to her lower back, right before her perfect ass I’ve spent too much time thinking about.

I swallow. I can do this. I can handle this without fucking up.

“I said, what’re you gawking at?” Jensen says, louder than he needs to because I’m standing three feet from him.

I jerk my head toward the café. “That’s where Freya works.”

“Well, let’s go in then.”

Jensen starts walking, and I grab him by the elbow and haul him into the general store. He stumbles in, hat askew.

“Jesus, what’s wrong with you?” he spits.

“Don’t talk to her.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because I haven’t talked to her yet,” I say. “I don’t want to scare her off.”

He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind—and maybe I have, but I want this so bad that nothing can fuck it up for me. I need time to figure out what’s going on with her family and then do this right, with the flowers and gifts and shit.

I’m pretty sure that’s the way it’s supposed to go.

Jensen’s jaw works. “Alright,” he says. “But I’m a great wingman.”

“And I’ll let you know when I need assistance,” I say.

He’s satisfied by that, and we head to the diner a few blocks away. We talk for a while, not about Freya, thankfully. The waitress serves us watery coffee, but it’s hot, so we both have two cups. It’s helping me get my head on straight to get off my ranch and out of my truck.

Jensen and I have been up to Sovereign Mountain more than usual in our spare time. I don’t know if I would call myself friendswith Gerard Sovereign. He’s a hard man to befriend, but I like his land manager and close friend, Westin Quinn, a lot. I would pay good money to get him out to Ryder Ranch to work for me, but he’s loyal to a fault.

Maybe I just need to spend more time in South Platte and at Sovereign Mountain. I think being holed up at Ryder Ranch is making me lonely.

We part ways. Jensen has some work to do, and I should be getting back. I’m almost to my truck when I see something through the general store window—a bolt of soft green fabric, the same color she always wears. It wouldn’t be strange for me to buy it because, if I’m being upfront, I have a whole trunk in the attic of little things that remind me of her. I can’t help it. Everything I see that reminds me of her makes me feel like this could be more than delusion.

Like it’s all part of a path I can follow straight to her.

So, I buy it, because I’m pussy whipped for a girl I’ve never even spoken to.

And I get some fern-green lace to go with it.

Back at Ryder Ranch, we finish up chores and lock the barns. Andy goes to his house with Ginny, and I’m alone again, rattling around in this big house with nobody.

I have a drink and then I have a smoke on the back porch. Then, it’s time for bed, but instead, I go up to the third floor to stand in the attic room for a while. There are a set of four skylights covered by panels. I hit the button that slides them back and stand there, staring up at the sky.

This whole acquiring a woman thing takes longer than I expected.

My eyes run over the fern-green walls I painted and think about Freya and every time I’ve seen her in the last few weeks. She does the same things every day, the way any person does, but there’s something about her every move that has me infatuated.

When I designed the house, I’d hoped this could be a playroom—of the adult variety—in addition to whatever my future wife wanted it to be. Probably for reading or something by day. Up until now, I never had the motivation to finish it.

But now, I do.

I stand in the center of the room, looking up at the sturdy central beam. I enjoy power plays, aspects of BDSM, and I prefer being in a Dominant role during sex. I wanted a private place to play with my future wife. This beam was supposed to be an anchor point for a ring or two. The idea was, the submissive could be suspended with her head hanging upside down so only the sky and stars were visible— a kind of sensory deprivation.

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