Mirror Lake Ranch: Once in a Memory Read online

  “I’m ending it with her.”

  “At her own party?”

  “If I must,” I shrugged.

  “Thought you weren’t a thing?”

  Krys was such a pain in the ass. “She’s my girlbuddy?”

  “Girlbuddy? What the hell is that?”

  “More than a fuck buddy less than a girlfriend.”

  “Basically, you have been a fuck boy and leading her on.”

  “I hate you,” I told her.

  “So, you keep telling me,” she was sour and despite me trying to hate her I felt horrible.

  “Krys… I didn’t mean,” I tried.

  “Yes, you did,” she pulled away from me walking strong and powerfully forward. She didn’t need me to make introductions. Hadn’t needed me in high school – only the transportation to the party. Same as tonight, maybe even less.

  Jimmy may have tried to strip her of her confidence but she still had it all. All the sass, all the pretty words and proper handshake. The right hair flip and shake of her hips and bounce of her ass with every step in those high heels.

  Those cowgirls were going to hate her. But if she really came here looking for a rebound, she would have no problem not going home alone.

  I rolled my eyes and listened to some obnoxious hooting and hollering coming from a band of cowboys outside the stable and main party venue.

  “It’s Halloween. You’re supposed to be dressed up too,” I told them as I headed over.

  A lanky ass cowboy named Jake who worked more rodeo than the ranch he called home on the other side of town, handed me a beer.

  “Who’s the new girl?”

  I turned to see her gold dress disappear inside. “New York Trophy Wife.”

  “You’re kidding,” he answered as the other hooted and hollered. “How the hell did you get her?”

  “Unfortunate circumstances. She’s a recently unemployed trophy wife and my new ranch hand.”

  “No, serious,” a cowboy who’s name I couldn’t place said.

  “Serious as death. Moved in two nights ago. Per my kid sister’s orders. We were all Illinois brats once up a time.”

  “Is she looking for a re-bound. Hell, I could use a trophy wife,” the cowboy was starting to irritate me.

  “I don’t exactly make it my job to know what Krys’ sex plans are anymore.”

  The boys whistled.

  Fuck me and my ‘anymore.’

  I shook my head and walked towards the rest of the party ignoring the guys. After all, Ed was likely to jump my ass if he saw I let Krys walk in unescorted.

  I made it just inside the show arena of Rosethron when Brittany rushed over to me and threw her arms around my neck and pressed her lips to mine before I could stop her.

  I kissed her back only slightly before I could stop myself and tasted the vodka on her lips. Great, Brittany wasn’t exactly a good drinker. Like at all. She had a two drink limit before getting unreasonable.

  If the taste on her lips was any indication she was on drink six or seven.

  “Oh mi god! You dressed up this year! You look soooo hoottt,” she drunkenly purred running her hand up and down my chest.

  I grabbed her hands. She was a fifties style nurse tonight and I was trying really hard to remember why I wanted to end this. Why I couldn’t just fall in love with her and be done with all of this. It’s not like we couldn’t merge both ranches if we had to. She kissed me again this time on my neck before I could remove her. I glanced behind her and saw a gold shimmer.

  That was why. As much as my dick would be happy to plunge into Brittany right now, that would be about it. She was normally a pleasant enough woman to spend time with, no matter how naïve she could sometimes seem. That would all fade. With age and time.

  But looking at Krys. I didn’t want Krys anymore. I didn’t love Krys anymore. But still, whoever I was going to be with should give me the same fire she used to. And make all the memories of her that haunted my dreams disappear.

  I knew next to nothing about love. All my experience with the subject had been with Krys. But I also knew if I had really be in love with Brittany I wouldn’t feel the desire to rip out the throat of Robby McKormik the Rosethorn foreman as he asked Krys to dance.

  “Come on, Gentry,” Brittany pouted, “Let me show you off.”

  “Brittany,” I grabbed her hand and pulled her down a side exit to the stables.

  “We can sneak to the house,” she purred.

  “That’s not what we are doing,” I told her.

  “We could.”

  “That I’m sure. Look Brittany, are you sober enough for a serious talk?”

  Her smile faded. “Of course.”

  “You are aware that we were just having fun and that we aren’t serious right?”

  “Well… yeah, I guess,” her face fell even further. I am such a dick.

  “Damn Britt. You are such a great girl and you know that. I tried but it’s not right for me. I realized that awhile ago it has nothing to do with Krys if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Well, she came into town and now you’re dumping me!”

  “Her divorce just reminds me that there is to short a time we’re here, to not try and force love out of attracting and affection.”

  She laughed that drunk girl laugh at me.

  “Britt I just didn’t want to be the fuckboy that stayed when I couldn’t give you more. Your party is a great opportunity to mingle with all the single men in a sixty-mile radius. And to forget about me.”

  “Whatever Gentry, you were never that good anyhow,” and she waked out.

  I would have taken the last comment to heart but she was drinking, I had just dumped her, and most importantly, I knew better.

  I was fuckin great in bed.

  I didn’t see Brittany when I walked back into the stable arena. The music was changing and as the song faded I heard the crackly musical tone that was Krystina’s laugh. In an instant I pin pointed her. She had her hand on the check of David Briland, son of the bank’s president Ezell Briland and quickly following in his daddies footsteps.

  The two looked like a couple. Of course David was a twenties mobster so they matched, but that wasn’t the point. Krys was laughing and from the look of things from here, she was flirting.

  She had picked up some big city sass and was working it. To the one man in the room who would appreciate it the most.

  I smiled, Krys look so happy. I hated her for it.

  Boots slid up next to me. “Your old lady is making out with some guy I’ve never met. We kicking his ass?”

  “Brittany?” I asked.

  “Yea.”

  “Broke up with her.”

  “When?”

  “About three minutes ago.”

  “Reasonable mourning period,” he handed me another beer.

  “Yeah, well girls got to do what a girls got to do.”

  “What about that girl,” we watched David lead Krys onto the dance floor.

  I drained half my beer in two gulps. “Krys does what she wants. Always has, always will.”

  “You’re still in love with her.”

  “Have you ever known me to be in love with anyone?”

  “Besides yourself? No, not really. So I’m going to ask her to dance.”

  “Fine,” I growled and downed the rest of the beer. Before I knew it I was cutting Boots off and cutting in on David.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Krystina

  David Briland was the most civilized man I thought I would find here. He worked at the bank and had graduated from university in Philadelphia so he had done the whole back East thing as well. Plus, he was handsome and funny and our costumes matched. So before I knew it he was leading me onto the dance floor.

  As soon as we started dancing David was nearly thrown out of the way by Gentry.

  “Not exactly proper dancing etiquette,” I informed him.

  “If you haven’t noticed Ms. DeLouch, this isn’t exactly the ballr
oom at Buckingham.”

  “Manners are still to be expected.”

  “Honey, I’m a cowboy poised as a firefighter, manners aren’t in my hat tricks.”

  I sighed as he wrapped my arms around his neck. “The point of this intrusion? Davis is a very nice man.”

  “Briland is a bore. So he should be your type.”

  “I have no type Gentry. Note you and then…”

  “Don’t even say his name.”

  “He was a horrible husband but he was a decent human being.”

  “I doubt that,” Gentry said as we swayed to the music. I doubted it too but I wasn’t about to tell Gentry so.

  “This isn’t answering the why you cut in question.”

  “I don’t know. Just did.”

  As we made circle around the dance floor I saw Brittany the nurse, giving mouth to mouth resuscitation to a cowboy. “Looks like some things changed. Took her moments to get over you.”

  “Probably twice as long as it took you.”

  I felt slapped and pulled away. Or tried to, he wasn’t letting go.

  “That’s not fair… that was never fair,” I yanked my arms from his. “I waited for you. I waited.” I left Gentry in the middle of the dance floor and was fighting my trapped tears and trapped furry when a small dainty woman in her late forties stopped me.

  “Krystina!” the woman was ever energetic. Course we all had been drinking. “Oh this dress does look amazing on you. What are you drinking? Let me get you another.”

  “I am sorry,” I started. “Have we met?”

  “Oh not officially. I’m Carla – Ed’s ‘old lady’. He has told me so much about you, feels like we’ve met.”

  “That’s fine. My apologizes. I haven’t had enough time with Ed to hear all about you.”

  “There’s nothing at all interesting to hear. Come, let’s grab a drink and that table in the corner and I’ll give you the 4-1-1 on everyone here. I own the bar in town. So if there’s gossip I know it.”

  “From small towns to big cities, human nature never changes and gossip is always the rage!”

  I sat with Carla and laughed for near an hour. Talking to the people who came to her, as they all did.

  Carla was a divorce from years back and one grown daughter not around here. She and Ed have been dating just over two years and she wanted to travel. Just as soon as Ed got Gentry right where he wanted him on the ranch.

  “Ed tells me there is no history with you and Gentry. But I ain’t blind. I can see things you know. Way Ed tells it, Gentry had his heart set on bringing some girl here years back. It was all about the dream of this life he envisioned.”

  “What happened? When she didn’t come?” I asked barely trusting my voice.

  “Rodeo’s, buckle bunnies and the bottle. Least till he got busted up one to many times and Ed called him back. Threatening a boot up the ass worse than any bull could do.”

  “He’s harder than he was,” I told her staring at the guy pounding a shot in fireman yellow.

  “You left the boy – this is just what the man became.”

  “I never, I never, meant to leave the boy.”

  ***

  I hoped slightly that David would find me again, but he didn’t. Damn Gentry. Always ruining things.

  For as high class as Rosethorn looked martinis weren’t on the menu so I was left to the whiskey. I felt I was doing quiet fine with my liquor choice as I watched Gentry lead a red haired kitten to the dance floor. What a generically slutty costume.

  I’d pull it off so much better.

  Now I can say I understood Gentry’s cutting in while I had danced with David. One second I was chatting with Carla, the next I was stepping in between Gentry and the Stray.

  I brushed her off and did Gentry one better. I stretched up to him and pressed my lips to his and felt his hands on my hips. He moved his mouth against mine and in my alcohol daze it was everything I remembered.

  “That’s not proper dancing etiquette,” he told me when our lips parted.

  “Just payback, for earlier,” I sighed.

  “But fire fighters are supposed to rescue kittens.”

  “I bought the damn costume I’ll rip it right off of you,” I snapped.

  Our eyes met and stayed locked.

  “Promise?”

  I nodded and he drug me off the floor.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gentry

  Before I knew it, I had pulled Krystina from the dance floor and half drug, half carried her from the party and to the truck. I didn’t care if everyone here thought – or rather knew – exactly what we were headed to do.

  I loaded up my flapper into the truck and fired it up. If Brittany and I had been leaving, Brittany would have her hands all over me. Kissing my neck and having me swerve all over the road.

  But this was Krys. Krys had never been that girl. Safety came first for her in all routes. Vehicles in park, seat belts on while in motion and condoms always.

  She was always all complex. A good girl with a touch of spice. Though the distance, however small it was, and the lack of contact put a cool down on the fire that raged on the dance floor. I wanted to reach over and squeeze her hand. Keep the physical contact. Keep the fire. But hand holding? I ain’t eighteen anymore. I didn’t want to give Krystina false hope – not that she would give a damn.

  She was quiet. She smiled at me slightly. I was all but drifting when I pulled into the driveway. I slammed it in park and killed the ignition. I was already out of the truck and on Krys’ side as she slid out in her heels and shimmering sleek gold dress.

  I threw her against the truck and grabbed her hair in my left hand and wrapped my right around her waist. I kissed her, licked her lips until she opened to me. Our tongues danced forcefully and my dick pressed against the very uncomfortable pants that made up my costume.

  “Inside, now,” I murmured between kisses. She pulled away from me and gave me a small laugh.

  “Come on,” she grabbed me by the suspender straps and drug me towards the barn.

  “I don’t think that the barn is a comfortable as my bed.”

  “You need to take a breath Gentry.”

  “You haven’t been in my bed,” I laughed.

  She grabbed my hand and I followed her. I would probably follow her to North Korea if she asked right now. Or at least my dick would.

  I pushed open the door to the barn. “What are we doing here?”

  “Taking that breath.”

  “Not exactly what I had in mind.”

  “This is just a stepping stone for me. I know that – it was forced upon me, upon us. I still don’t know what comes next. But I know I like it here. I haven’t had a chance to get down and do any real ranch work,” her voice made her feel far away.

  “And you think a roll in the hay will screw that all up. We are adults now,” I brushed a strand of falling hair from her face.

  “I know. I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve never had, casual…” her voice trailed off leaving me to wonder. I slid my arm around her pulling her close.

  “There’s a first time for everything.”

  We kissed again and she pushed the coat from my shoulders and the suspender straps down. She was still very ready. It was so easy, to fall into her again. A black hole I would never crawl back out of.

  “Gentry,” the moan was soft and the most erotic sound I had heard in a decade.

  In a swift moment I had her hair falling down. I kissed her neck and slid my hand down her back and grabbed her ass lifting her up and into me. To many layers of clothes between us.

  She undid my pants with one hand and I slid my hand under the dress to feel the teas of the lace that was already soaked through.

  She put her hands on my face. My eyes met hers – it was a big mistake.

  ***

  I hated the small quarters that was the back seat of the rust bucket Impala I was driving. In the last few months our relationship had escalated. But Krys still wante
d it secrete. Losing my parents home, however crappy I found it, would be hell for her. And with Krystina safety was everything.

  She pulled a condom from her purse with one hand as I fumbled with her jeans and my own.

  “There is only one way to do this easily,” she moaned as I ripped her thong from her skin. She tried to turn her body away from me to give me her ass.

  “Not like this,” I growled rolling her back over and in turn getting a cramp in my thigh.

  “Thought all guys liked it doggy style?”

  “I am sure I would love to take you from behind someday,” I ripped my own pants down followed by my boxers. “This has only happened a few times between us.”

  “And by this you mean sex?”

  “Yes sex. Sneaking around sucks.”

  “Happy fifth time.”

  “Oh it’s going to be happy.” I bent my head to her tits taking one in my mouth. “Until this is a regular occurrence I will have you in a position where I can kiss you. Where I can look in your eyes as you explode on me.”

  “I love you Gentry.”

  “I am in love with you Krystina. Always, no matter what.”

  ***

  Apparently, ten years hadn’t made some memories fade far enough. This was still happening though.

  I spun Krys around and bent her over a stock of hay bales shoving her dress up to her tits and my pants to the ground. I grabbed my dick, he was more than ready to go.

  I ripped into her bareback. It felt good. Too good. Like going home.

  I thrust in and out. As fast and as hard as possible. This – even in what had been a perfect moment that I was ruining – it felt to amazing.

  I put my hand on her shoulder blade pushing her down harder into the hay bales and slammed into her with all the force I had.

  I felt her quiver around my dick. I smiled – even in a rough heartless fuck I could make her cum. I leaned forward and whispered in her ear between slams of my dick into her cunt. “My heart forgot you. My dick didn’t. I still hate you.”

  It built up in me. Fuck. I pulled out as she half moaned half sobbed. I exploded on her back and as my wave of pleasure washed over me, instant guilt followed but I pushed it aside.

  I degraded her. I hated her – that wasn’t a lie. She killed so much in my so long ago that had never rejuvenated.