Mirror Lake Ranch: Once in a Memory Read online

  But I still couldn’t believe how cruel I had been or how little I cared. I pulled my pants up. She would be covered in scratches from the hay and she pulled her dress down sobbing.

  I walked out of the barn leaving her to her own misery.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Krystina

  Even the nights I spent alone in my dorm room sobbing, hoping, praying he would change his mind – I never hated Gentry. But that all changed tonight. What had started off so innocently and escalated quickly into a brink of hell fire and passion, ended with me getting burnt.

  What a cliché especially when we both knew better. But the ecstasy took control. The feeling of Gentry back inside of me – that was the only word for it, ecstasy. The most natural high with the hardest crash.

  I sobbed softly as I re-adjusted my dress best I could. My shawl lost to God only knows where. The hay had scratched my stomach, chest, thighs, face, hell everything. I felt so dirty, I was dirty. I could feel Gentry’s sticky cum drying on my back. I was a train wreck nearly as bad as Teffy herself.

  But none of that mattered. Gentry had purposefully done everything in his power to belittle me. I always used protection. We always had to face each other. Always.

  The roughness hadn’t bothered me. Unfortunately, I had been betrayed by my body and strong armed into enjoying it. However, Gentry hadn’t done it to pleasure me, only to hurt me.

  To take the first moment of pure please I had it months and months and use it to remind me that he still hated me. Gentry Hollis was the biggest mistake I had ever made.

  I sobbed harder. I couldn’t help it. I had nothing to wipe my tears with. Complete with me own misery I didn’t see Boots walk in. He cleared his throat softly and I panicked. He was a few feet away and I jumped up, attempting the best I could to be sure I was covered and ran out of the barn without a word.

  There was nowhere to go but the house. I made it in without any more incident but cut and bruised feet. No one was in the bathroom and thanking the skies for small miracles, I stepped into the shower.

  How was it just a few hours ago I stood here, more excited than I had been in ages? When my skin was as clean and as Gentry free as I could get it, I stepped out wrapping myself in an extra large towel.

  I picked up the gold dress I had loved so much. It wasn’t ruined. No, rips or tears. Nothing that would stain its shimmer. I never wanted to lie eyes on it again. I wadded it up and tossed it in the trash.

  Gentry’s bedroom door was closed when I peeked the staircase. I could hear the soft sound of classic rock barely audible seeping through. It was Gentry for “leave me the fuck alone”. Not that I cared to ever see him or speak to him again.

  I let myself into my bedroom. Thankful for the birth control implant in my arm. James had insisted on it. He hadn’t wanted kids and that had been fine by me. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around how I thought I had loved that man. James or Gentry.

  I turned on my own radio to a country playlist in hopes it would drown out my crying. No need to give him the satisfaction of hearing my pain.

  ***

  I woke up still sore between my legs. The instant reminder that last night was more than just a nightmare. It had been a very long time since I had sex and even then, James was a twig in comparison to Gentry.

  My alarm read six in the morning. I still very much wanted to lie in bed and mope. My face was stiff from all the tears and my pride vanquished. But I couldn’t do that. If I did that would mean that Gentry won and I had grown tired of losing. I crawled out of bed and dressed in my new every day wear and pulled my hair back and headed down the stairs.

  Ed had stayed at Carla’s last night and I expected Gentry to be out the door already. He wasn’t. The look on his face told me he wanted to be though. He was filling the coffee thermos he carried everywhere and the thermometer in the kitchen window gave an outdoor temp of only thirty – four.

  The atmosphere between us was a hell of a lot chillier.

  I got a coffee cup from the cabinet as Gentry put the pot back. Empty.

  “Here,” he said unscrewing his thermos.

  I held up my hand. “I can make my own. Just go.”

  I wanted so badly to hold my head high and stare him in the face. I couldn’t, if I did I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to reign it in. Instead I stared straight ahead. Which at this distance put me at chest level to him, eyes down. Pride gone. He stayed standing there for the longest ten seconds of my life. Then he walked out to the mudroom where I heard him put on his boots and then go out the door.

  I moved only once he was gone. Changing the coffee filter, filling it with water. I was starving as I hadn’t had anything since lunch yesterday besides some long gone dessert Carla had brought me at the party.

  I opened the fridge and stared rumbling around for breakfast ingredients. Omelet with sausage and cheese it was.

  I had it fixed up in a jiffy and ate at the kitchen table. A far cry from the food I had adjusted to with James. There was nothing low fat about it. The grease and the carbs were welcome comfort food. I would need the strength for another day filled with ranch work and hating Gentry.

  I cleaned up my mess in the kitchen and pulled on my boots and coat. I hoped against all hope that the horse barn would be empty and that Gentry would, with any luck, be long gone for the day. No one but horses greeted me when I opened the door, anxious for their breakfast so I started in on the chores.

  “Glad you all can’t speak a language we understand,” I told Storm with a kiss on the nose.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gentry

  Sunday mornings on the ranch were typically pretty quiet. Which was good. Especially considering last night. I left Krys in the barn and headed to my room like some sullen teenager. I found an old Tom Petty album and half a bottle of Crown Royal and started my way through both.

  Neither was a distraction strong enough when I could hear Krys come up the stairs and turn on her own music an hour later. But the music and the reasonably thick walls couldn’t hide the sound of her crying and she was trying hard to keep it hid.

  I thought hurting her would somehow make me feel better. Somehow make me ok. Make her feel the same shitty-ness I felt when she left me. That all backfired. I wanted to go to her, to comfort her. I couldn’t do that either. This morning I bypassed the horse barn, she was up and I knew she would tend to her four-legged friends.

  I walked to the calving barn where I kept a small office and the hands typically gathered for morning assignment. Robbie and Brandon had the weekend off so I was left with Boots and Ethan. Ethan’s truck was parked by the bunkhouses and it was good to know he was back from daddy duty.

  I pushed the door opened and was cold clocked, hard, in the left side of my jaw. I stumbled back trying to find my footing. I wasn’t expecting this shit at seven in the morning.

  “What the fuck did you do to her?” my attacker yelled.

  Fuck it was Boots. I charged him and he caught me in the stomach with a knee as I flipped him over my desk and sent us both to the ground. I got a good hit on him when I felt someone yank me off. No small chore on any day.

  Ethan.

  “What the hell are you two doing?” he shouted throwing me against a wall and positing himself between us.

  “He started it!” I sounded like I was five and tattling to my mom.

  “Ask him what he did to her!” Boots shouted back.

  “Her who?” Ethan asked confused.

  “Krystina! Everyone saw her leave with him. I come back an hour later to find her in the barn sobbing, looking roughed up as shit and she ran away barefoot barley covered by her dress when she saw me!” Boots lunged my way once more but Ethan pushed him back. “You better not have fucking raped her!”

  “Would I ever do that!” I roared. I was very quickly losing what grip on reality I had this morning. “We’ve been friends for years Boots! You know me. If anything happened between us it was because she wanted it!”

 
“Since she came here you’re not yourself. She hasn’t been here three damn days and you’re as bi-polar as when I met you,” Boots looked at me and shook his head. “Stay the fuck away from her.”

  Ethan let him pass and we watched him disappear outside and head towards where he kept his gear. I would guess he was going to the high range. So be it.

  Ethan turned to me. “He got you good.”

  I felt my lip. It had split open and there was a trail of blood down my chin. “What did he see that set him off? Used to be you and Boots were almost as tight as we were till this weekend.”

  “I ended it with Brittany and there was a couple of dances with Krys,” I shrugged.

  “Dances don’t start this.”

  “We came home early. She wanted to ‘take a breath’ I may have convinced her otherwise.”

  “And she ended up in the barn how?”

  “It happened there. On the hay bales, in the aisle.”

  “Oh, come on Gentry! You at least cleaned up the rubber? I work there, my horse lives there!”

  I grimaced.

  “Gentry,” Ethan was growing pissed now and I deserved it. “You didn’t.”

  “She’s responsible. I’m sure she’s on something. I pulled out anyhow.”

  “I love my daughter. I would die for her. But not wrapping it was one of my top ten biggest fuck ups. But that’s not the point. I mean, I could see sleeping with you leaving woman sobbing a few regretful tears…”

  “That wasn’t it.”

  “Then?”

  “I may have done everything in my power to ensure that she hated me, and remember that I hated her.”

  “After?”

  I shook my head slowly.

  “I want to kick your ass now. Get the fucking horses!”

  “Can’t, Krys is in the barn. She likes the horses.”

  “And the memories I’m sure,” Ethan muttered more than a few choice curse words all directed at me. I rarely pissed him, Ethan was the most laid back of us all. “Get in the truck, lets check the herd.”

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later Ethan and I still hadn’t said anything to each other. He was waiting for me to confess more sins and I was in the talking mood.

  “You are going to tell me. I’ll throw you off the damn mountain if you don’t.”

  “I loved her. We were young and dumb. High school relationships don’t even count in the long run. None of it should matter anymore. We would have been together thirteen years, hell, this week. She wasn’t even sixteen yet. Her mom’s something special, granted my folks always had their issues but they treated Krys like one of their own.

  “She was terrified at the thought of losing that. Not having some place to run, of changing the situation, of letting anyone know we were together. Every day she became more of my life and I was so stupidly in love that I told her I would marry her. We would come here to the ranch and build a life.

  “Legal age in Illinois to marry is eighteen. She knew her mom would never sign the papers to set her free for a wedding and chances were slim of getting a judge to declare her emancipated. We decided to wait, I promised I would keep her safe.

  “And one night after I graduated I had the chance to keep that promise and I did. Afterwards, my parents and Ed thought I be best to come here. I begged her to come but she was scared. By the time she turned eighteen in April her senior year she decided to finish out and graduate valedictorian. I came back to see her and Gloria get their diplomas. I waited for her. Thinking Boston was all some front. It wasn’t.

  “I came back to Mirror Lake at the end of the summer and she left for college. She made her choice and I made mine. I spent a year working this place every day. Building myself into a man who could take care of her and building an ideal life in my mind for us. I went back to get my wife and came home alone. I was just nineteen and a dumbass. But it took a long time to forget it.”

  “Why did you let her come here? You could have told Gloria, she would have understood.”

  “I wanted to see her miserable after James and the divorce. Broken by the choice she made when she chose that over this. See her as fucked up as I was. To see here as this New York bitch I had made her out to be in mind and finally put the last nail in the coffin to forgetting her once and for all.”

  “Backfired a bit didn’t it?” Ethan chuckled.

  “Pretty much.”

  “And now?”

  “She hates me. She needs to hate me. She will either leave right away or stay on long as she can to make me miserable. Either way when she leaves Mirror Lake I will never see her again.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Krystina

  The days passed and I did all I could to work through my shit, alone. I tended to the horses and rode Storm as much as my body could handle. I loved the horse and found extra pleasure in knowing he was extra special to Gentry.

  Tensions with us were still high. We had exchanged only a few mandatory words. I kept my calls with Gloria short and those with my realtor long. It was time to leave Mirror Lake Ranch.

  Friday I made the announcement at breakfast to Ed and Gentry.

  “I’m going back to New York on Monday. It’s been an entertaining week but it will be easier to house shop from the city.”

  “Don’t go just yet. Seeing you as little as I do who knows when or if an old man like me will get the pleasure again?” Ed said and it made me smile.

  Gentry was quiet until there was a sudden jerk under the table. Ed had kicked him. “You know you’re welcome to stay.”

  I half smiled at him. His jaw same as healed although I never did find out what happened to it. “It’s time Gentry,” my voice was softer than I had planned.

  “Time for what?” Ethan and Boots asked in unison as they stumbled in the back door half pushing each other like children.

  “New York on Monday,” I told them.

  Boots half smiled at me. He hadn’t brought up seeing me in the barn. He had gone out of his way to be nice to me and cold to Gentry I noticed. Another time, another life. . .

  “You’re set on it,” Boots asked and I nodded.

  “Well good riddance I say!” Ethan joked playfully and I punched in him in arm. “Still gives us two days eh, Trophy Wife?”

  “Yes, two days.”

  “Storm will miss you,” he said giving me a hug.

  “I plan on riding a bit. Maybe go back down to the lake this afternoon.”

  “May I join you?” Ethan asked, I nodded and Gentry mutter something inaudible behind me.

  “How’s one?”

  “Perfect,” he leaned over the table and snatched a waffle and a piece of bacon off of Gentry’s plate.

  “I’ll cook some more if you’re hungry,” I offered him.

  “I’m set,” he said inhaling the bacon.

  “I’m not,” Gentry protested looking down at the empty plate.

  “Cook some more your damned self then. You know how,” I told him and went to find my boots.

  ***

  A few hours later Storm and I followed behind Ethan and his old mare Pinocchio down towards the lake.

  “You think you will come back and visit us?” Ethan asked and I couldn’t hold in the laugh.

  “No. I would have loved to but I won’t come back and you know why.”

  “He’s a good man.”

  “He’s an asshole.”

  “You don’t know! When I met him you don’t know how he was,” Ethan said raising his voice.

  “I don’t?” I was growing bitter. “Is this what this ride was? To trap me and bitch about Gentry Hollis?”

  “Not originally or intentionally. But you should know.”

  “Fine. My flights booked and it doesn’t matter anymore anyhow. So tell me, tell me about Gentry.”

  “I got a two years on him. Found him on the circuit down around San Antonio. He wasn’t twenty yet. He rode like hell and was a damn good performer in the ring. The old timers saw it right off. I didn’t
, not at first. He was good because he had no fear. He didn’t care, living or dying it was all the same to him.

  “He drank like a fish and fucked like a whore. To the outside world Gentry Hollis was the rise of the cowboy, cream of the up, he was the perfect image. But you spend enough nights in cramped bunks with someone you find out a lot they don’t want you to know. He called your name, drunk or sober, every night in his sleep for the better part of three years.

  “I never told him. I don’t know if any the girls ever did but there was a reason they never stayed. Loving you, you leaving. It damn near killed him. He spent three days in a coma from a bull he never should have gotten on but I couldn’t stop him. I was there, when he woke up. He just looked at me with a sad smile and said ‘I wasn’t lucky enough for brain damage, I can still remember her.’ He was twenty-five. Ed flew out, kicked his ass from Oklahoma all the way back here. Made him get his shit straight.

  “This was all a crock of shit. Neither one of you had to listen to Gloria. You both wanted a chance to destroy each other and you know it.”

  I was crying now. I couldn’t help it. It felt that was all I was doing anymore. Being with Gentry proved much harder than emotionally then my entire divorce process. “I left him! That’s how you think it went? I changed course? I broke his heart?

  “My whole life he wanted this ranch. I knew where he would end up. But he came here sooner than I thought he would. That was my fault, I tried to come I did. I couldn’t. I spent months applying to every college and university. He knew that. Knew I got into Boston, knew the financial aide and scholarhsips were the best I could get there.

  “When the scholarship money ran out I was coming here. Close as I could get I was vigilant at applying here. But you know how expensive law school was? I had $100,000 in loans. It should have been way more if not for the aide. Seven years Gentry and me, back then we couldn’t keep ourselves from drowning. This ranch is well enough, but not for that. I was trying to protect this place! A place I had never seen!

  “So I went to Boston. I asked him to come. Two – years, three at tops. He said no. It was him who stopped the calls, him who never wrote back. If he ever got a fucking e-mail account I never knew it. The things I did, I went through, I waited. I hoped. I prayed. It was him who left me. It was him who changed his mind!” I was sobbing as Storm and I rode off.