Mirror Lake Ranch: Once in a Memory Read online

  Mirror Lake Ranch

  Once in a Memory

  Kendra Plunkett-Witt

  Copyright 2018

  Dedicated to my sister Jamie.

  You believe in my writing, in my career and most importantly you begged me for a completely romance based story.

  Chapter 1

  Krystina

  “God, I hate him,” I muttered to myself glancing at the folded-up piece of paper in front of me that contained ten digits and nothing more, as the stewardess announced the descending of our flight from New York to Denver.

  I wasn’t even sure which him I hated more. Jimmy – I’m sorry James – or Gentry. I was legally allowed to hate the first, after all what was the point of an ex-husband if not to be an outlet for distasteful feelings?

  Technically, Gentry was saving my ass. I had no desire to go crawling back to the hole of hell we three had called home not so many years ago, I wasn’t very close with what family I had there. Now, I had nowhere to go now that I was an unemployed trophy wife.

  My departure gift from my marriage had a lot of zero’s in the right places and could set me up for life back home while only keeping me just so in the big city. I had no desire to bathe in the humiliating shame that was my failed marriage – failed love – by staying in NYC.

  So, when my high school best friend Gloria called from her very busy mom life to say she had convinced her brother to hire me on at his ranch, thousands of miles from my mothers and my ex-husband in New York, I shouldn’t have resisted. But I did. Because it was Gentry and I despised him. But Gloria didn’t know that or why I felt it. With that I eventually shut up and accepted. Not because I knew a damn thing about ranching or Colorado. Hell, I even would place bets that I wouldn’t enjoy it.

  But Gloria was right.

  I was husbandless, jobless, essentially homeless and running low on friends, allies and options in my old life until my head was cleared. My bank account would let me start over elsewhere but Gloria’s husband Damion was a highly trained private investigator who scared the shit out of me and worked on his wife’s whim.

  Gloria had decided that in my current state I needed friends. So I was move to Gentry’s. Who was not a friend but answered to his sister. I was lucky Gloria wasn’t forcing me to be a nanny to her kids. The vomit inducing happiness she found a few years ago was not what I needed.

  The plane landed and soon we were all being ushered off the terminal and into Denver International. I hung in the back of the crowd. I hadn’t spoken to Gentry in nine years, five months and two days. I hadn’t seen him in that long either with the exception of across the room at Gloria’s wedding four years, eight months and nine days ago.

  Yeah, Gentry Hollis made that kind of impression that left a girl counting.

  I strapped my cross body carry on to me and stood nervously waiting for my three other pieces of luggage. I had Gentry’s number on a piece of paper in my coat pocket and wished that Gloria had sent me an updated picture of her older brother.

  Gentry didn’t do social media. I know because I had searched in a very creepy stalking manner over the years and furiously so in the last fifty-two hours since his sister had decided our fates.

  I pulled my bags from the convoy belt and trudged through the airport searching every face in the crowd for a long few moments and just before I begun to fear that he had changed his mind and not shown up after all, I heard a deeper yet all too familiar voice behind me shoot chills up and down my arms.

  “Krystina.”

  I’m not sure why I thought I would need an updated picture of to recognize him. Gentry hadn’t changed but for the slight aged improvement. At eighteen I didn’t think a man could get any better looking than the muscles and testosterone that build his nineteen year old body. Dark brown hair, striking green eyes and bold, defined jaw. Now a crease or two along those same eyes and stubble the jaw was the only imminent change I saw when I faced the man that would forever haunt me the most.

  Mentally I stumbled for words. A thank you, an apology, a greeting, any damned thing. People milled around us but I didn’t see them. Not really, just as a back-ground blur. Gentry pulled all my attention like the vortex he was. His boots were polished, his jeans dark and his coat a fur lined blue jean jacket. A black felt cowboy hat rested in his hands showing that his hair hadn’t faded or thinned.

  We stared at each other for another long awkward moment before Gentry motioned to the dark maroon luggage I had wrestled off the belt and next to me.

  “That’s all you brought?”

  “For the moment. I didn’t think most of what I left in storage back in New York is exactly Colorado ranching material.”

  “Probably not,” he replied with a slight frown. Great. Still a man of few words.

  Gentry grabbed my luggage with ease and headed towards the exit. I followed behind feeling like a little lost puppy.

  I thought I knew cold in New York. But Denver’s crisp snowy air proved that all to be a lie. Snow was falling at a steady clip but it didn’t seem to bother Gentry. He strode through the parking lot with purpose, coming to halt next to an early 2010 model four door, dark green Dodge Ram pick-up truck. Sitting down my bags in the mucky parking lot mush just long enough to fish out his keys and wrench open the back door.

  I don’t think he saw me flinch at the dirty snow slush that dripped from my bags as he tossed them in.

  ‘I am no longer that girl. I am not a plastic surgeon trophy wife anymore. I will adapt to life here. Ranch life. The kind of girl I was pre-James. Pre-New York.’ I gave myself a mental and stern pep talk.

  I climbed in the passenger seat of Gentry’s truck and situated myself.

  “Call Gloria while you have cell service and let her know you arrived safely and that I picked you up,” Gentry grumbled making it sound as if at some point it was questioned at if he would meet me here at all.

  I glanced at my phone, my reception was already spotty so I opted to send my best friend a quick text instead. Satisfied it had sent, I put my phone away and leaned into my seat, staring into the edge of the city as we moved away from it.

  “Might as well try and sleep if you can, gonna be three, maybe four hours to the ranch in this weather.”

  “Guess that means you aren’t willing to have a catch-up conversation then?” I asked, knowing the answer but being petty enough to ask for it anyhow.

  “Guess not,” he replied adjusting his grip on the steering wheel.

  “You going to just ignore me the entire time I’m here?”

  “Best I can. Besides, you won’t stay here long, little New York. It just ain’t your style.”

  I was fuming. Heated so…. So… annoyed at Gentry Hollis. Maybe our situation was my fault and partly Gloria’s, but still. I expected pleasantry, fake or not, even from him.

  Was he already planning on how to get rid of me? How to run me off? I stared into the blackness out of my window and bit my tongue.

  Chapter Two

  Gentry

  I hadn’t intended to be blunt or rude to Krystina. Not entirely. I had spent two hours arguing with Gloria when she called to ask – no demand – that I invite her childhood best friend to the stay with me at the ranch. Not that it mattered, had I declined Gloria would have just gone over my head to our Uncle Ed who technically still owned and ran the place.

  Krystina wasn’t the trailer park princess from down the street anymore. Like me, like him, she had been determined to leave that small hell hole in Illinois. And so, we all had. Jimmy first, although he was from an upper end family and running towards not away – to some fancy swanky school out East.

  Me, I escaped to the ranch the next ye
ar … all excited to jump at my uncle’s offer of working with him and taking over. The thrill of building some kind of future for me… and for her.

  But the her had changed her mind. She got accepted to the same school as Jimmy and wanted to try her luck at a higher education.

  That was that. I never got into the social media craze. No internet worth a damn and no desire to follow the lives of people I escaped. But, fear not, Gloria kept me appraised of all the gossip during our frequent phone calls.

  James proposed, Krystina said “yes”. They had a big to-do in the city. To which Gloria had been there for and provided too many excruciating details.

  I was ever so grateful when Gloria met Damion several years back. It meant a greater distraction and fewer updates on Krystina. Until four months ago when Gloria called to tell me Krys was filling for a divorce. That was all. No elaborate story with all the gruesome facts or fiction. Just that one sentence.

  Until three days ago.

  I had argued that with all the money she had surely gotten from Jimmy and her socialite friends, she would be fine. But Gloria was convinced that she needed/wanted a change of pace. A familiar old life friendly face to keep an eye on her.

  Change of pace I could provide, friendly face not so much.

  Since I left Mirror Lake Ranch five hours ago I tried telling myself I could let go of my stubbornness, my pathetic grudge and a failed whatever we had a decade ago. I had myself talked into it too.

  That was until I saw her. Anyone else would have looked exhausted and disheveled. But not her, in a black New York style pea coat that matched her long silk hair that she had pulled back into a simple, perfect pony tail.

  Damn, New York, Damn Jimmy Delore. Damn Krystina DeLuch. Damn myself for still wanting her.

  I tried to think of her all bitch, uppity and city-fied like but she had been none of those things. She looked almost nervous when I called her name at the airport. I thought if she would act cold or like she forgot where she came from then it would be enough of a turn off.

  But it didn’t work. All seeing her again made me want to do was slam my dick into her sweet slick folds over and over again. Bouncing her head off my headboard until she forgot all the nonsense of the last ten years.

  I glanced over at her now. She had unbuttoned her coat and used her scarf as a makeshift pillow, she had dozed off now. The rise and fall of those heavy, perfect tits that every guy in high sixty miles tried to get a look at in high school. I involuntarily shuddered and focused back on the road instead of on my growing cock.

  Fuck she better get her shit together quick.

  ****

  Much to my asshole of a word, we rode in near silence the rest of the way to Mirror Lake. I had woken Krys up as we turned down the ranch road. She growled a grumble as she stirred and even that sounded sexy as hell.

  I was going to have to keep my distance from her. I glanced at the gleaming numbers on the truck radio. Twelve-twenty-three. Ranch mornings started early but lights were still burning at the big house.

  Uncle Ed would still be awake waiting on us. Go figure. He loved me and worried about me being out in the weather like this and coming in from the city. Plus, he was excited to see our new guest. Ed didn’t know why I had baulked at the suggestion, if he did he never let on. Hell, Gloria didn’t even know.

  I was typically welcoming to women at the ranch as long as they didn’t get in the way. Womanizer wouldn’t be the term I would use for myself, though I had been called that before. But if the boot fit I supposed I should wear it.

  “Who all lives here?” Krys asked as I put the truck in park.

  “At the big house it’s just me and Ed. Now you too. I got four cowboys in the bunk house behind the barn. Probably you won’t see them too much.” Or at all. The boys would take a cotton to her all to easily.

  “I’m here to work,” Krys started but I cut in.

  “You’re not built for work like this,” I told her as I cut the trucks ignition and threw open the door.

  “I’m not some fragile little being or some high maintained floozy. It’s been a while but not so long I forgot what “real life” is.”

  “The ranch ain’t the trailer park,” I shot back, intentionally trying to hit below the belt. She hated that place. I slammed my driver’s side door and threw open the back door and grabbed her bags.

  Krys muttered something pissy under her breath and kicked her own door open and jumped out of the truck. I heard the side door of the house open and the deep gruff voice of Ed as he stepped onto the small porch. “Took you long enough to get back boy.”

  “Ed!” Krys cried with excitement and darted up the steps lucky to not fall and bust her ass on the layer of snow and ice.

  “Krystina DeLuch! In the flesh!” he called back, sweeping her up in a hug and spinning her around.

  Uncle Ed hadn’t been around a lot when we were growing up. After all the ranch wasn’t exactly close to us in Illinois. But like me, he doted on his little sister, my mother, so visits did happen when they could and for thirteen years solid Krys and Gloria were inseparable so Ed and Krys had met.

  “It’s good to see you and on my ranch,” Ed continued and I cleared my throat. It was OUR ranch.

  “Oh hush up boy. Get those bags inside and up the stairs to Krys’ room. Girl come in and get comfortable. Cup of coffee?”

  “Ed it’s late. Morning comes early,” I replied. I just wanted this night over.

  “For you maybe. Me and Krys don’t have to be up with the sun, we have some catching up to do.”

  “Ed, Gentry is right. I should go to bed. I am here to work so I should be up early with him. Course I did nap on the way in.”

  Krys and her damn wanna be ranch work ethic.

  “Nonsense,” Ed declared. “Tomorrow you relax then in the afternoon Gentry will take you riding and give you a tour, weather permitting.”

  “I got plenty to do tomorrow Ed,” I added shutting the door behind me.

  “Well I would do it myself but I got to meet a lady friend tomorrow afternoon in town. I’ll get one of the hands to help show her around,” Ed suggested.

  “I’ll take her!” my enthusiasm came from nowhere as I headed for the stairs with Krys’ bags. I didn’t want to take Krys. I didn’t want her here, to be around her, see her or have a damn thing about her being on my sacred ground. It just wasn’t a good idea. But I sure as hell didn’t want to see my employees falling all over her. Any spark, any anything between them. I had been around Krys for a whole four hours and I had already regressed ten years in maturity.

  If I couldn’t have Krystina DeLuch no one could. At least while she as at Mirror Lake.

  Krys stayed downstairs with Uncle Ed and I tossed her bags in the guest room. Acutely aware that it was just this one wall that would separate us. Ed’s room was down stairs and on the other end of the house.

  Granted, with the ranch I was gone all day every day. But the problem with Colorado winters was nights were very long, very cold and very lonely.

  Chapter Three

  Krystina

  It took me a few beats to find my bearings when I woke and to remember just where I was. The Mirror Lake Ranch. Gentry’s ranch.

  I was snuggled up under layers of thick quilts and forgone my normal silky sleepwear for an old Boston University sweats and was grateful for the decision. Even with the wood heat, the upstairs guest room had a slight chill to it.

  I climbed out of bed and was jolted to life when by bare feet hit the hardwood. A quick glance at the alarm clock told me it was after nine. Although it was fast approaching two when I had bid Ed a good night and crawled into bed I assumed I had missed several hours of ranch life.

  Tomorrow I had every intention of being up when Gentry was. I would earn my keep while I was here. If only to prove him wrong.

  I gathered my toiletries bag and headed down the stairs to the one bathroom the ranch house had. An addition that came decades after the home had initially been bui
lt.

  Gentry’s bedroom door next to mine was open, showing it empty. No real surprise there.

  The stairs creaked in an old home could have been considered creepy but instead it was a re-freshing and homely kind of sound. I showered and took care of business. Feeling warmed and ready for ranch life day one.

  “Coffee,” Ed asked when I appeared in the kitchen.

  I accepted the coffee already aware from last night that the men of this house drank it black and there was no creamer but sugar and milk if I would like it. The coffee cups were plain and came on in 1970s style colors as if they had been discards from some old diner.

  With a quick glance around the house it was easy to see that it had been kept neat, though lacking a woman’s touch in the several years that had passed since Mrs. Sutto, Gentry’s grandmother, had taken care of it.

  While Ed had a “woman friend” now, he had never married or keep a girlfriend at the ranch to my knowledge.

  Since Gloria had found her true love she had often expressed worry over Gentry him taking too much after Ed. Keeping the ranch as a mistress but never finding someone truly special. I also knew from Gloria that after Gentry moved here he dabbled in rodeoing and hadn’t lacked for female companionship but that waned when he retired from the road some years back.

  Probably due to the decrease in fresh meat in these mountains.

  Not that I cared. I held no romantic desires towards Gentry Hollis the least.

  “What are your plans for the day?” Ed asked sitting a plate of eggs and bacon in front of me.

  “Wrestling that tour out of Gentry first chance I get and finding myself some chores, I’ll be more than willing to help around the house but I want to help out there as well.”

  “You may change your mind on that. Might only be a week into November but it’s already bitterly cold. Are you outfitted for it?”

  Even my rougher New York winter wear wouldn’t hold up on the ranch in strength or warmth.

  “I know you got plans today, but any chance I can get you to run me into town tomorrow?” I asked sheepishly.