Page 17 of Baker
“Hey, stop,” I sharply said as I placed myself between Hanley and my horse. Her lowered ears rose back up, but I could see the plotting going on behind those cocoa eyes. “Do not do it,” I added just to drive the command home. I loved this girl, but she could be a little…well, prissy, at times. I turned to Hanley, who was smiling softly. “Sorry, she’s not usually that snippy.”
“Hey, I get it. I just fucked the man she loves. I’d try to bite someone who did that to my bae too.” He gave me a quick kiss as my horse continued to wrinkle her lips and snort loudly.
“We’ll work on her manners,” I said as the hum of honey bees, warmed by the sun rising higher in the bright blue sky, filled the meadow. They were probably coming in to visit the buds on the redbuds as well as the dandelions and smartweed opening for the warm sunny rays. “So, uhm, I think I will be out here tomorrow to tighten up the fences. Maybe I’ll drop by?”
“Sounds good. If I’m not here, I’ll be out there.” He waved a hand at the vast ranges. I inclined my head. He looked so damn good standing here with only some low-slung jeans hugging his lean hips. Bare feet and chest, whiskery face, and the glow of a man who had been recently sated. I’d done that. My ass hadbrought him pleasure. And it wanted to do it again.Iwanted to do it again.
“I’ll keep an eye out.”
With that, I threw a leg over Prissy’s back with practiced ease. With the sun on my face, I was hoping to look like a cowboy from an old western movie, tall in the saddle and riding off into the sunrise after kissing the schoolmarm. It all fell into place until my ass hit leather. I winced internally but gave Hanley a small wave as I tapped Prissy’s side. She threw her head a time or two before carting me from the redbud grove.
I was halfway home, squinting into the sun as my asshole screamed in protest when I remembered that my hat was not on my head as it should be but lying on the floor of Hanley’s tent. Huh. Guess I’d have to visit him tomorrow to get my hat back. That is, if the ride home didn’t destroy me.
Somehow, I did get home without too many tears. There was the normal gathering at the kitchen table when I limped in. Seeing all my half-brothers gawking at me, I was instantly feeling like a bantam rooster. Feathers rustled and ready to fight. A man could only be so cordial after riding for miles with a sore anus. My courtesy had withered about a mile from the redbud copse.
“Good lord you look like a few miles of bad road,” Granny said from her seat at the table. She was wearing a plastic cape of some kind over her clothes. Bella was behind her, adding some sort of bottled color to her hair. Aquamarine, by the looks. What the actual hell? Who had talked my grandmother into coloring her pretty silver hair so that she looked like a mermaid? All money was on Bella who was staring at me as if Bigfoot had gimped into the room.
“You have bruises all over your neck,” Dodge pointed out. Linc leaned left, right, and then nodded in agreement. Ford glanced up from a sketch of the new boutique-slash-springhouse he wasfinalizing. The kid had some talent for drawing. Not that he was architect material, but his preliminary drawings were good. “Did you ride into a hornet’s nest?”
“No, I didn’t ride into a hornet’s nest,” I snapped while yanking open the freezer to find an ice pack amid the containers of frozen peaches and chicken broth. “Prissy sighted a coyote and rode me into a redbud clump.”
Well, someone rode someone in a redbud clump, that’s for sure.
I ignored my inner jokester. My ass was too tender for chuckles.
“That horse is the jumpiest thing.” Granny sighed. Bella resumed humming as the others sipped coffee while staring at me like I was a museum display. I shoved a bag of peas aside to locate the ice pack under some frozen diet meals. Granny loved her little low-calorie pizzas. “Remember a few years ago when she nearly dumped you on your ass when she seen a traffic cone out on the main road?”
I did remember that. Clearly. “That cone didn’t belong there,” I tossed out as I shut the freezer door. Everyone stared at the ice pack. “I wrenched my back trying to avoid being pricked by the redbuds.”
Well, someone got pricked in the redbud clump, that’s for sure.
Ha. So funny me. This was why I never aspired to be a stand-up comedian. I had no sense of timing for jokes or dancing.
“Shit, maybe one of us should ride out with you from now on,” Dodge offered. I snorted. None of them were great shakes on horseback. We’d been having lessons, but they had a long way to go to be able to handle their own spooked horse, let alone someone else’s. Also, fuck that. I had a hat to fetch, and that required privacy.
“Nope, I’m good.”
I walked out of the kitchen as normally as possible. Granny would birth a bison if she knew the ice pack she used for her arthritic knee was going to be applied to my asshole. Maybe I would just buy her a new one next time I was in town. I might need this one again if I was lucky…
7
Chapter Seven
The next morning, I slept in.
Well, slept in like a baby until Granny had her morning shooting session and the house bolted awake at the sound of gunfire at dawn. I guess being dicked quite magnificently had made me more tired than usual. You’d think the city boys would be growing used to the plink-the-can reveille every morning, but so far that would be a nope. Yawning then smiling at the sounds of three men and Bella dragging themselves out of bed to check, I took stock of myself.
Other than a tender ass, I felt good. Great actually. As the others muttered and cussed softly while tramping past my bedroom door to line up for the bathrooms, I lay in bed, calm as a cuke, thinking about how nice it was to have a fuck buddy. He also was nice. I enjoyed talking to him. Plus, Hanley was great in the sack—or on top of the sleeping bag, I should say—and seemed more than into having sex whenever we could. I really enjoyed our hookup yesterday. Nothing made me feel moremellow than being pounded thoroughly. Maybe it was because I could, for a little while, let someone else be in charge. God knows I’d carried the weight of this ranch since I was old enough to understand what being the man of the house meant.
Today if all went as planned, I hoped to ride out to the redbuds, visit Hanley, get fucked, and fetch my hat. Then work on fencing. A feeling of contentment washed over me, and I basked in it. The basking lasted exactly seventeen seconds. A hearty rap on my bedroom door yanked me from that mellow state like a hammer to the forehead.
“Fucking hell,” I mumbled before shouting at whoever was at the door to come in. Ford, he of the shaggy gold hair and hound dog eyes, stuck his head in. I scrubbed at my eyes as he entered a few steps, the floorboards creaking, and glanced his way. “No, she isn’t going to stop target practice until she hits all the targets. Seeing as her cataract surgery is scheduled for July, I’m figuring she won’t hit the broad side of a barn until after that.”
“Oh, uhm, no, I’m not here for that.” He shuffled in a bit more as the dulcet tones of Lincoln singing “Love Train” by the O’Jays at the top of his substantial lungs exploded through the thin walls. We both winced. The man might be able to carry kegs of beer on his meaty shoulders, but he could not carry a tune to save his life. “I meant to tell you this last night, but I was working on the boutique’s indoor fountain and lost track of time. Then when I remembered you were already in your room and Dodge said not to disturb you once you were in your den of solitude.” Ha. That Dodge was a real riot. I gave him a raised brow to indicate he needed to get to the point. “The guy who owns the goats says he needs to bring them today instead of later in the month.”
“Today?” I sat up straight, the sheet and blanket pooling in my lap. Ford nodded, then bit down on his lower lip. The kid wasso nervous all the time. Jumpy as a cat on hot bricks as Granny would say. “Jesus. Are we ready for them to come today?”
“Mostly yeah.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, shoulders slumped, eyes darting around as if he expected Freddy Krueger to leap out of my closet. “Just need the feed.”
