Crossover, Texas
Crossover, Texas
https://amzn.to/2E7vYWO
Freia Hooper-Bradford
Chapter One
Sissy floored the old Cadillac and hit eighty. The flat Texas land, as monotonous the next ten miles as the last ten, whizzed past.
She reached for the chrome radio knob, turning up the volume of her favorite oldies station. The music differed from the western stations Rory listened to in his pickup. “What in hell is that?” he always complained when she tuned in oldies from her days of youth, desire, and romance.
“Uuuh…when we kiss, fire…” The provocative song reverberated from the car's speakers. How long ago had she felt fire when they kissed? Would she still be feeling fire if she was married to someone like Mr. Black? She had met Rory’s boss on the first day they arrived at the legendary Black Ranch. Mr. Black drove up in a fancy pickup, welcomed Rory and shook her hand. He looked expensive. She figured his boots and cowboy hat cost more than one month of Rory’s salary. Mr. Black’s eyes seemed to appraise her as if for a horse or cattle sale. She had been horrified when a hot flash turned her head into a flaming caldron, and hoped he hadn’t noticed. She considered ‘was Mr. Black as hot as he looked?’
Sissy eased off the accelerator when the car pushed ninety. Her thoughts that day had been foolish fantasies. If she used Rory’s words, she’d have to call them as useless as tits on a boar. That description would be just about right. Married forever, the time for fire and romance belonged to her youth.
She would surely hear gossip about Mr. Black tonight. Susan had called to introduce herself as soon as she and Rory moved into their little ranch house. Susan had explained that her hubby, Bob, worked for Mr. Black. “Bob drives them big cattle rigs. Hell, you’ll learn that everything about Mr. Black is big. Biggest damned ranch in Texas and Mr. Black’s suits are made out of hundred dollar bills. Working for the man gives our cowboys a hell of a big head. We gals got to stick together. Tell your hubby that we’re having a Tupperware Party. The boys don’t complain if they think we are being good little housewives,” Susan had reminded her.
Sissy pushed down on the accelerator. To hell with driving the speed limit. This part of Texas looked like an endless badland and, if she didn’t cross it fast, she would never cross it. She turned the volume up louder.
The evening breeze had finally cooled the choking heat to sultry warmth. Naturally, as soon as she and Rory moved to Texas, the damn air conditioning on the Caddie had quit again.
The Cadillac was her escape into another world; a different world from the dust, dirt, cattle, and chickens. The car had been twenty-nine years old when she bought it a few years ago. They could never have afforded a new car of any kind, especially a Cadillac. Rory approved only because the big car pulled a horse trailer easily.
Rory rarely drove it. “It’s a girl’s car;” he said, “all that chrome and stuff is for pimps and girls.” He drove the brown pickup with the noisy tailpipes, faded paint, and seat covers as rough as goat hair.
When Sissy drove through Crossover, the brick buildings on Main Street looked deserted. Susan had given her directions. “Past the light. It’s the only one. Cross the railroad tracks and turn right to where the semis and livestock rigs are parked. That’s my hubby Bob’s kingdom.”
Two pickups were in front of the house; both of them typical Texas wheels with gun racks over the back window. She had already learned that no self-respecting redneck in Texas drove a pickup without gun racks. The sensible economy car hiding under a blanket of dust she guessed was Susan’s car.
A woman with a thick mane of strawberry hair answered the door, holding a cigarette out of the way. “I’m Susan. Glad you made it.” She led the way to the living room. “Girls, meet Sissy. She’s our new Gallina. This is Jane, my dearest neighbor and partner in crime. Jane is married to Ted, the sheriff in our lovely cowpoke town of Crossover. Ted is a cowboy at heart, but these days his big gut gets in the way of riding a horse. He’s the only one of our husbands who doesn’t work for Mr. Black.”
“I beg your pardon,” Ted’s wife, Jane, wagged her finger, “Mr. Black owns this part of Texas. He also owns the Sheriff. My husband might as well work for Mr. Black.”
“And this is Laurie. She lives ten miles south of Black Ranch Headquarters. Hubby Jeff is responsible for a million miles of fences on the ranch.” Her hostess swept her hand toward a woman with a cherub face and doe eyes. “We got two more ladies, but they’re not here yet. Glad to have you as our new Gallina. One request; what we talk about here stays here.” Jane and Laurie nodded in agreement with Susan.
Sissy was about to ask what ‘Gallina’ meant when a woman with glossy black hair and a stunning face, reminiscent of the movie star Cher, opened the door and waved a greeting at everyone.
“Meet Sissy.” Susan inhaled and blew a ribbon of smoke toward the ceiling.
“Our new Gallina?” The Cher look-alike reached out with a manicured hand. “I’m Raina. I live on the Mudflats section on the Black Ranch, in the opposite direction from where you live. Welcome to Gallina night.” She flipped a bluish black strand of hair out of her face.
“You cut your hair.” Susan squashed her cigarette stub.
“Susan, I needed something new. Now that my book is published, I need a new image.”
Jane brushed her frizzy hair, held together with a blue ribbon. “Ted would have a fit if I cut my hair. Maybe I’ll shock the hell out of him by cutting it.”
Susan also brushed her vibrant strawberry hair, and Laurie caressed a strand of brown hair streaked with gray.
“Raina, what’s it like to be famous?” Laurie continued to play with her hair.
“I’m not famous. I just sold one book. It was enough to buy the red Triumph. It needs restoration, so it’s not worth much.”
“Looks like a dream car to me. Talk about dreaming, if you keep writing those racy sex scenes, you’ll get us all in trouble. Reading the book made me want to bed the first good looking guy.” Susan grinned, her face transformed into smoker’s skin with a myriad of hairline creases around her green eyes. “Was Shel the inspiration in those scenes? Got to admit, he’s still one sexy cowboy.”
Raina’s eyes admonished her friend. “Don’t you give our new Gallina the wrong idea. My husband is a pussy cat, not a devil rooster like the hunk in my book.”
“Sure, whatever you say.” Jane threw the author a look of disbelief. “By the way, do you ever let Shel drive your sports car? You zip around in that red bomb as if you’re a single girl.”
“Janie, are you envious?” Susan grasped her neighbor’s arm.
“Oh, hell, you have to admit we’re all envious. Money, fame, that sexy cowboy husband; but I’m mostly jealous that Raina can get the hell out of Crossover whenever she wants.”
Raina waved the comment away as if it was nothing new. “I’m still a cowboy’s wife, living her hubby’s life. We ride and work cattle along with the men in god-awful heat. Without a paycheck, I might add. We hunt mangy flea-bitten Texas deer on Saturday, barbecue on Sunday, and Monday to Friday we look forward to Saturday and Sunday.” Raina turned away from her friends. “By the way, I met your husband, Sissy. It’s Rory, right? He and my husband, Shel, seemed to hit it off. Both of them think cowboy is a religion. Our guys will surely invite Rory to their drinking, gun collecting male macho group, the Gallos Mezquino. Means roosters. But you got us. We Gallinas are family.”
“Rory didn’t mention anything about Gallos Mezquino.”
Jane started a gale of laughter. “Sissy, none of them are going to admit that they meet to drink, tell dirty jokes, and brag. The bucks they shoot get bigger every year. The boys pretend they meet for a legit reason that they call the Southern Baptist Gun Collector Association.” Her grin looked facetious. Jane was as thin as reed. Her tight black tee shirt was imprinted with white letters, ‘Itty Bitty Titties’.
“They baptize each other with beer.” Their hostess, Susan, passed a can of nuts and set a six-pack of Coors on the coffee table.
“Out with the old, in with the new.” Jane said, as she popped her beer can and held it in the air as a toast. “To our new Gallina.” She took a swig of beer, “And may Corissa enjoy her life.” Jane took a second swig.
“Corissa?” Sissy asked.
“She’s our old Gallina. She fled the ranch like a hunted prairie chicken.” Raina said, with a serious look on her face. “Corissa and her husband BJ lived in the ranch house you and Rory live in. BJ was a Black Ranch cowboy who had an affair with another cowboy’s wife, and got shot by the husband. The husband probably figured that he had the right to use old Mexican law to shoot BJ, but he went to prison all the same. Corissa fled to her family in Iowa. The shooting happened in your house. The gossip is that your house is cursed,” Raina gave a reassuring smile to Sissy. “But I wouldn’t give it a second thought, if I was you.”
“I live in a house where someone was murdered?” Sissy said incredulously as memories from her past crowded into her head.
“The curse is just gossip. It was a crazy crime of passion,” Susan added, shrugging off the tragedy.
Sissy nodded slowly; the word crazy struck a chord. She considered telling the girls about Rory’s jealous streak, but didn’t want to make Rory look bad, maybe dangerous, before they even got to know him. “So I’m replacing an old Gallina? I still don’t know what that name means,” she said, deciding not to mention Rory.
Susan drained her beer and looked at the can as if it should not be empty. “Gallina is a hen. Pronounced guyeena, spelled g-a-l-l-i-n-a. We are the old stewing hens. We have to stick together. The women who live and work at Black Ranch Headquarters have their own little clique. We couldn’t gossip about the Blacks if they were around. The other wives live on sections of the ranch too far away. Hell, Raina, Laurie, and you have to drive over thirty miles. Our men owe us time to visit. They dragged us way out here so they can ride in the wild mesquite empire and pretend it’s a hundred years ago.” Susan smiled and tossed the empty can.
Sissy thought for a moment. “That’s what attracted Rory. But you live in town, Susan.”
“Crossover’s not much of a town, girlie. Bob would rather be out at your place with nothin’ around except brush, scrub grass, and bawlin’ cattle. Me, I bathe in the dust from the auction yard and get drunk by just smelling the booze from the fermented corn in the grain elevator. And watch out for the postmistress, she’s as snoopy as a pig’s snout. Don’t tell her nothin’ you don’t want her to put on the bulletin board.”
“Got it.” Sissy lifted her beer can. She hadn’t expected the beer party, but then she felt a connection she hadn’t expected either. She wouldn’t tell Rory about the beer.
Susan brought another six-pack and popped the lid on a can. “See, Miss New Gallina, we also have a husband forum, and that includes Mr. Black. It ain’t something we want spread around Headquarters. Mrs. Black is a fancy woman and she don’t need to know about certain things.”
“Here, here.” Laurie raised her new can of Coors. “On that note, where's Bob, Susan?”
“Bob is hauling cattle to Montana or he’d be at the Locoweed Cantina.”
“Ted is in Corpus Christi at a friend’s, reloading shells for hunting season.” Jane pointed to a photo of five burly men holding guns, next to a dead buck with wide antlers. “My sheriff husband, Ted is the one with blond hair. Susan’s hubby Bob is the one with black hair and the wild mustache. Laurie’s Jeff is the skinny, bald one. The one that looks like a western movie star is Raina’s for-better-and-worse half. Stag is the one with the red hair and freckles. I took that picture and made them take off their cowboy hats so I could see their faces. You should have heard them complain.”
“Who is Stag?” Sissy felt Jane’s undercurrent of discontent and pride at the same time. Didn’t she feel that way about Rory?
“Stag is Annie’s husband.” Jane replied; then addressed Susan. “By the way, Susie, did Annie call?”
“No. She’s cow-towing to Stag again instead of leaving the asshole.” Susan gave a shrug.
“Is Annie a Gallina?”
“Yep. Annie is our country version of Marilyn Monroe. Her figure and face don’t show her age. Chris Black would have had her in bed except Annie is too scared to give him a second look. Stag is the accountant for the Black Ranch. He is the only cowboy with a college degree. You’d think Stag would be on top of the world. He ropes calves on weekends and has a home in the subdivision with the fancier houses, but he gets roaring drunk and beats Annie.”
Laurie shook her head. “I hope Annie is okay.”
“Wouldn’t Ted have to arrest Stag for beating his wife?”
“Sissy, good ol’ boys live in Crossover where men wear big belt buckles and women know their place. Even if Annie made out a complaint, what’s going to happen? Ted will ask Stag to keep him company for a night in an unlocked jail cell. And then what happens to Annie after that?”
This time, Sissy felt an undercurrent of anger connecting her new friends during the long pause that followed.
“Laurie, where is Jeff?” Raina interrupted the silence.
“The Landing. Where else? My hubby is probably picking up a floozy right now.” Laurie replied, an air of resignation in her voice. She let out a laugh to lighten the mood.
Raina laughed with the others. “Sissy, the Landing is the bar out by the lake. It’s full of stinky guys bragging about catching big fish while they keep an eye out for lonely fishing widows in their campers, so they can sink their hooks into them.”
“The bar right here in beautiful downtown Crossover is the Locoweed Cantina. It also ain’t no palace.” Susan said, as she returned from the kitchen. “Bob used to warm the bar stools there, when we had our babies. Excuse me, my babies. Bob figured the babies belonged to me until they could drive a Mack truck.”
“Our son, Colin, was Rory’s little cowboy” Sissy said.” He and his Daddy were inseparable. Colin learned to ride and handle a horse when he was four. Rory was disappointed when Colin decided to become a teacher, instead of carrying on the cowboy tradition.” Sadness seeped into her head and chest, as she thought of all the things that could have been. The mood in the room seemed to drop as all the ladies considered their families.
Sissy watched Susan lower her head, her strawberry hair hiding her face. “Those days before the babies. When Bob was still sexy.”
Raina matched Susan’s melancholy tone. “That first meeting when your eyes lock, your legs get wobbly and your head is spinning. That is always the best. The next time is never as good.” Raina, smiled and tried to lighten the mood, “Talk about romance. You think Mr. Black has a new honey? I haven’t heard anything lately.”
“Mr. Black is married, isn’t he?” asked Sissy
“So?” Susan replied, “Mr. Black playing around has been ranch gossip as long as I can remember. Why do you think Chris Black hires young women at his hacienda at Headquarters? Most of his horse trainers, the ground crew and the cowboys working at Headquarters are young men with young wives. All potential conquests, right?” Susan paused and took a swig of beer, “Mr. Black doesn’t mind hiring older men with their older wives for the sections at the ranch where you, Raina, and Laurie live. Those places are far from Headquarters. That’s not to say that Mr. Black wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to screw a good looking Gallina.”
Rory had not mentioned that kind of gossip about Mr. Black. “Isn’t he worried a husband will come after him?”
“Mr. Black is Mr. Texas. Nobody comes after Mr. Black.” Raina drew an exclamation mark with one finger in the air.
“If Bob caught me playing around with his boss, he'd kick my ass all the way out of Texas.” Susan added.
“Girls, save the dreaming. We’re too old. Chris Black is thirty something or maybe early forties. He doesn’t want to go to bed with a dried up old hen.” Laurie shrugged, despite the look of possibility in her eyes.
“We are not that old. We still look damn good, if I may say so.” Jane said as she flipped a strand of her frizzy hair. “I happen to think none of us are over the hill. Raina, you still look like the fabulous Cher even with your shorter hair. My dear neighbor, Susan; look at your boobs and that sexy strawberry hair. Me, I’m too skinny to have a lot of wrinkles or a double chin. Annie is our cow-town Marilyn Monroe. Laurie, color your hair and you’d be a knockout with your doe eyes, and our new Gallina; she’s Raquel Welch.”
“Jane, get real. I’m no Raquel Welch.” Sissy laughed.
“I’m serious. If we fix ourselves up with lots of make-up we are still knockouts. The real Raquel Welch is around our age, and every man hyperventilates when they see her. How old are you, Raquel?”
“Forty-nine.” Sissy did not feel like laughing this time.
“And Susie?”
“Fifty real soon. You know that, Janie.”
“Cher?”
“Fifty-one and counting backward.” Raina laughed.
“Wish I was, but I have to add two years.” Laurie pulled on a wrinkle next to her mouth.
“I’ll be fifty-four soon. Hell, I’d bet we’d be better in bed than Mr. Black’s young chicks,” said Jane, defiantly.
“Well then, Ladies, I have a proposition.” Raina got up. “Let’s see which one of us can get Mr. Black into bed.”
“You are not serious.” Susan grimaced at her friend.
“Serious as hell. What do we have to lose? Soon we’ll be more winkled, stooped, and dried up. Our husbands don’t appreciate our sexuality anymore. We raised our kids. The husbands and kids don’t need us the way they did back then. We deserve one last fling. Don’t tell me that you all don’t have the hots for Chris Black.”
Raina held out her hand. “It’s a deal. Let’s all shake on it.”
Chapter Two
At only half past nine, the temperature had already climbed toward ninety. Sissy blew at a strand of hair that had escaped a pink curler and wiped sweat from her forehead.
She had not expected the knock on the door and straightened from her bent position. Rory’s imposing boss, Chris Black, peered past the screen door until she motioned for him to come inside.
“Hi Sissy. Looks like you have your work cut out for you.”
“Today is wash day.” Damn. She sounded as if she was the maid.
“Now that you’re settled in, I just wanted to check how you are doing. I want my employees and their families to be comfortable. That aside, I wanted to make sure you have all you need before I leave for California.”
“Thank you. Rory likes the ranch. He’s always wanted to work on a big outfit like this.
“Do you ride, Sissy?” asked Chris.
“I do. My horse is the bay in the corral.” If only Chris Black would leave. He must think her the frumpiest wife on his ranch. Right now, he might as well be twenty and she eighty.
“If you’d like, you can help us sort cattle this afternoon.” His hint of a smile did not reveal what he thought. He tipped his hat, smiled again, and turned on his boot heels toward the door, leaving her in the steaming room in the midst of two piles of laundry on the blue linoleum floor.
She leaned against the wall of the laundry room and closed her eyes, taking her back to that one unspoiled afternoon when she had fixed her gaze at the vast blue sky and whipped cream clouds drifting above an ink tinted ocean while she let sand sift through her fingers.
She thought he had left her, but when she opened her eyes, Chris Black was right there, kneeling between her legs, the softness of his mustache stroking her thigh. He had been there all along, floating like a dream until she woke and knew the dream was not a dream after all. Sleeping, dreaming, waking— she could feel his longing as strong as her desire.
She stretched luxuriously, her body aching for his warm hands and tongue. A pool of suntan oil lazily collected in her belly button. Oil shimmered on her bronzed skin. Beads of perspiration slipped like pearls from mounds and dips of her body. Her heart beat in rhythm with the pounding surf.
His soft mustache left her thigh and she felt him sliding down toward her feet. For a few heartbeats, she thought he might leave, leave her there in the sand to wither away with a longing that would haunt her until death. Instead, his fingers brushed away the sand from her feet. She wiggled just a little bit when his tongue tickled the sole of her foot. She made herself lie still. Nothing, absolutely nothing should interfere with the electric charge in every cell of her skin. She felt his breath on her ankle, his lips moving ever so slowly along her leg until his tongue was seeking the inside of her knee. He lingered in that most tender spot until she felt his mustache caress her thigh, at first above the knee, then higher and higher, but he did not caress the one spot where her whole womanhood centered. Not yet, not yet, but, oh god, oh god, how long could she wait? Electric currents zapped her groin. Maybe she would die of an over-speeding heart before he could pull off her bikini bottom. When he did pull off the skimpy garment he did so with a single yank. She wanted to grab his hand and make him feel her swollen wet pussy, make him want to enter her with his rock hard cock. Was he worried that someone would see them? Was that the reason he had not taken her right here?
She did not care! Her whole body demanded more and more of him. Nothing mattered except all of him belonging to her. She thought it total torment when his tongue continued to lick, stroke, and slip on the oiled skin toward her navel. His pace was agonizingly slow, as he licked and kissed the route to the bottom of her breasts. She arched her back to entice his tongue and lips onto her nipples. She wanted to scream, wanted him to yank off her bikini top and throw it into the ocean. How she needed him to ravage her breasts with his mouth and tongue. Oh, and how she needed him to push his manhood deep inside of her throbbing flesh. Instead, she lay helpless with ecstasy when he kissed his way over her bra with a gentle bite of her nipples pointing through the fabric, before his hot breath caressed her throat. On his journey with his tongue and lips, he had slid his cock along her leg. She moaned, deep, guttural, like an animal on the path of destruction when she felt the wetness of his tongue on her ear and the tip of his cock teasing the entrance to her distended cunt. She felt frantic, enough so that she roughly clamped both legs around his back, to force his cock deep inside. Now he belonged to her, all of him…
Sissy opened her eyes when the dog barked frantically at something outside. The damn dog had dragged her back to reality.
As the last washing machine load agitated, Sissy saddle soaped Rory's manure stained boots. Yesterday she had complained to Rory about the dirty boots that messed up the porch and added that cleaning the house was damned hard in the sweltering heat. Rory had responded by saying “How’d you like to be out on a horse in this crappy heat all day?” and the conversation ended.
Of course, Chris Black’s home would be air-conditioned and his wife didn’t have to put up with a swamp cooler sounding like an aircraft engine. Surely, Chris Black’s wife had maids, cooks, dishwashers, and someone to shine thousand-dollar alligator boots. Rory described the Black home at Headquarters as an enormous hacienda.
After she threw the next load into the dryer, Sissy changed from her robe to a pair of jeans and a white shirt, tying the shirt at the waist. She pulled the pink curlers from her hair and fluffed it with a big-toothed comb. She painted her face with black eyeliner, emerald eye shadow, and lipstick the color of wet fuchsias to match her fingernails.
This time she approved of her image in the mirror. She shook her head, her abundance of red curls cascading over her forehead and along her cheekbones, now highlighted with Revlon's deep mauve. “Not bad,” she said to the mirror. Rory never appreciated that she still tried to look sexy. Would Mr. Black? Raina’s bet belonged into another world, but what was wrong with an admiring glance she so longed for? How much longer before men did not notice her anymore?
Sissy turned sideways in front of the mirror. Her jeans stretched around her rear as trim and tight as in her teenage years. “Hmm,” she said to the mirror again and pursed her lips. She startled when she heard the utility door slam. Rory had come home early for lunch. His high-heeled cowboy boots clunked across the kitchen floor.
“Hi, I just started fixing lunch,” she called and hurried into the kitchen, not wanting Rory to catch her primping. She knew his response too well. What the hell are you getting all gussied up for?
“I'm already tired. Damn, it's hot out there.” Rory said, as he pulled off his cowboy hat, tromping back to the utility room to leave his sweaty hat on the washing machine.
Sissy set out bologna, bread, pickles, mayonnaise, and ice tea.
“Mr. Black stopped by at the far water tank. He'll be back after lunch. We’ll cut out a few of those cattle he wants to ship. Why don't you saddle up and help?” Rory asked, as he fixed a sandwich, double-decker everything. She could smell the hint of sweat from where the hatband had left a dirty mark.
“Sure,” she shrugged, “I wouldn’t mind giving my horse a workout.” At least that would give her a chance to take her mind off this morning’s fantasy. “Oh, by the way, Mr. Black stopped by here earlier too. I forgot to tell you.” Sissy thought back to the fantasy and smiled to herself.
“I still can’t believe our luck getting hired on this outfit. Been dreaming about working on a ranch like this since I was a kid. Don’t like the damned heat, but hell, that don’t last all year. We live kind of far out. At least you met some of the gals. Could get a might lonely out here without women friends. You should meet the crew at Black’s Headquarters. A lot of the families been there for generations. Why don’t you get to know those gals? You might get to know Mrs. Black. She’s all class,” said Rory.
Of course, she would never tell him that the Gallinas excluded Headquarter women. “I like the women I met. We had a nice evening.”
“You still ought to get to know Mrs. Black. I read in the paper she’s involved in a lot of charities. Her name is Estelle Carmen Estaban Black. Don’t that sound fancy? Anyway, get to know her. You never know what that might lead to.” Rory attacked a second sandwich. They ate in silence until he pushed himself out of the chair. He groaned his usual aches and pains groan. “I'm going to lie down for a while.”
She left the dishes in the sink for later. The house was far too hot to wash them. Instead, she hurried to catch her bay horse to saddle up before Mr. Black arrived. At the thought of Chris Black, she noticed that tingle of anticipation.
By two that afternoon, the heat radiated like a broiler oven, blistering everything not hiding in the shade. Dust in the corral stirred up with every movement of the horses and milling cattle.
Sissy did not need to spur her horse. He had already anticipated the cow’s moves, lowering his haunches, sprinting in front of the cow to head her off to the gate that Rory guarded. Rory stepped aside to allow the cow to run past him in a panic before he closed the gap to the rest of them intent on following.
“One more.” Chris Black pointed to a cow in the midst of the herd. She guided her horse into the restless bunch until he faced the cow. Her horse knew this was the one she wanted. He pinned his ears back and headed the cow away from the rest of the cattle to Rory's open gate.
“That's it,” Mr. Black called, “let's load ‘em up.”
Two Mexican ranch hands drove the cattle through a chute into the stock trailer. She rode ahead of Chris Black, tossing her head to loosen her damp hair. She could feel him watching her. He had been watching her from the moment he arrived.
The cattle stomped into the trailer and one of his ranch hands pushed the sliding locks over the gate. Chris Black’s eyes seemed to roam past her face to her hips and her tight fitting jeans.
“Thanks for the help.” He met her eyes for one heartbeat before loading his horse into a fancy horse trailer, as expensive as his deluxe pickup.
Sissy nodded with an ephemeral smile before turning to help Rory herd the remaining cattle back to pasture. Rory had not seen the smile that she hid behind her throbbing heart.
https://amzn.to/2E7vYWO
Freia Hooper-Bradford
Chapter One
Sissy floored the old Cadillac and hit eighty. The flat Texas land, as monotonous the next ten miles as the last ten, whizzed past.
She reached for the chrome radio knob, turning up the volume of her favorite oldies station. The music differed from the western stations Rory listened to in his pickup. “What in hell is that?” he always complained when she tuned in oldies from her days of youth, desire, and romance.
“Uuuh…when we kiss, fire…” The provocative song reverberated from the car's speakers. How long ago had she felt fire when they kissed? Would she still be feeling fire if she was married to someone like Mr. Black? She had met Rory’s boss on the first day they arrived at the legendary Black Ranch. Mr. Black drove up in a fancy pickup, welcomed Rory and shook her hand. He looked expensive. She figured his boots and cowboy hat cost more than one month of Rory’s salary. Mr. Black’s eyes seemed to appraise her as if for a horse or cattle sale. She had been horrified when a hot flash turned her head into a flaming caldron, and hoped he hadn’t noticed. She considered ‘was Mr. Black as hot as he looked?’
Sissy eased off the accelerator when the car pushed ninety. Her thoughts that day had been foolish fantasies. If she used Rory’s words, she’d have to call them as useless as tits on a boar. That description would be just about right. Married forever, the time for fire and romance belonged to her youth.
She would surely hear gossip about Mr. Black tonight. Susan had called to introduce herself as soon as she and Rory moved into their little ranch house. Susan had explained that her hubby, Bob, worked for Mr. Black. “Bob drives them big cattle rigs. Hell, you’ll learn that everything about Mr. Black is big. Biggest damned ranch in Texas and Mr. Black’s suits are made out of hundred dollar bills. Working for the man gives our cowboys a hell of a big head. We gals got to stick together. Tell your hubby that we’re having a Tupperware Party. The boys don’t complain if they think we are being good little housewives,” Susan had reminded her.
Sissy pushed down on the accelerator. To hell with driving the speed limit. This part of Texas looked like an endless badland and, if she didn’t cross it fast, she would never cross it. She turned the volume up louder.
The evening breeze had finally cooled the choking heat to sultry warmth. Naturally, as soon as she and Rory moved to Texas, the damn air conditioning on the Caddie had quit again.
The Cadillac was her escape into another world; a different world from the dust, dirt, cattle, and chickens. The car had been twenty-nine years old when she bought it a few years ago. They could never have afforded a new car of any kind, especially a Cadillac. Rory approved only because the big car pulled a horse trailer easily.
Rory rarely drove it. “It’s a girl’s car;” he said, “all that chrome and stuff is for pimps and girls.” He drove the brown pickup with the noisy tailpipes, faded paint, and seat covers as rough as goat hair.
When Sissy drove through Crossover, the brick buildings on Main Street looked deserted. Susan had given her directions. “Past the light. It’s the only one. Cross the railroad tracks and turn right to where the semis and livestock rigs are parked. That’s my hubby Bob’s kingdom.”
Two pickups were in front of the house; both of them typical Texas wheels with gun racks over the back window. She had already learned that no self-respecting redneck in Texas drove a pickup without gun racks. The sensible economy car hiding under a blanket of dust she guessed was Susan’s car.
A woman with a thick mane of strawberry hair answered the door, holding a cigarette out of the way. “I’m Susan. Glad you made it.” She led the way to the living room. “Girls, meet Sissy. She’s our new Gallina. This is Jane, my dearest neighbor and partner in crime. Jane is married to Ted, the sheriff in our lovely cowpoke town of Crossover. Ted is a cowboy at heart, but these days his big gut gets in the way of riding a horse. He’s the only one of our husbands who doesn’t work for Mr. Black.”
“I beg your pardon,” Ted’s wife, Jane, wagged her finger, “Mr. Black owns this part of Texas. He also owns the Sheriff. My husband might as well work for Mr. Black.”
“And this is Laurie. She lives ten miles south of Black Ranch Headquarters. Hubby Jeff is responsible for a million miles of fences on the ranch.” Her hostess swept her hand toward a woman with a cherub face and doe eyes. “We got two more ladies, but they’re not here yet. Glad to have you as our new Gallina. One request; what we talk about here stays here.” Jane and Laurie nodded in agreement with Susan.
Sissy was about to ask what ‘Gallina’ meant when a woman with glossy black hair and a stunning face, reminiscent of the movie star Cher, opened the door and waved a greeting at everyone.
“Meet Sissy.” Susan inhaled and blew a ribbon of smoke toward the ceiling.
“Our new Gallina?” The Cher look-alike reached out with a manicured hand. “I’m Raina. I live on the Mudflats section on the Black Ranch, in the opposite direction from where you live. Welcome to Gallina night.” She flipped a bluish black strand of hair out of her face.
“You cut your hair.” Susan squashed her cigarette stub.
“Susan, I needed something new. Now that my book is published, I need a new image.”
Jane brushed her frizzy hair, held together with a blue ribbon. “Ted would have a fit if I cut my hair. Maybe I’ll shock the hell out of him by cutting it.”
Susan also brushed her vibrant strawberry hair, and Laurie caressed a strand of brown hair streaked with gray.
“Raina, what’s it like to be famous?” Laurie continued to play with her hair.
“I’m not famous. I just sold one book. It was enough to buy the red Triumph. It needs restoration, so it’s not worth much.”
“Looks like a dream car to me. Talk about dreaming, if you keep writing those racy sex scenes, you’ll get us all in trouble. Reading the book made me want to bed the first good looking guy.” Susan grinned, her face transformed into smoker’s skin with a myriad of hairline creases around her green eyes. “Was Shel the inspiration in those scenes? Got to admit, he’s still one sexy cowboy.”
Raina’s eyes admonished her friend. “Don’t you give our new Gallina the wrong idea. My husband is a pussy cat, not a devil rooster like the hunk in my book.”
“Sure, whatever you say.” Jane threw the author a look of disbelief. “By the way, do you ever let Shel drive your sports car? You zip around in that red bomb as if you’re a single girl.”
“Janie, are you envious?” Susan grasped her neighbor’s arm.
“Oh, hell, you have to admit we’re all envious. Money, fame, that sexy cowboy husband; but I’m mostly jealous that Raina can get the hell out of Crossover whenever she wants.”
Raina waved the comment away as if it was nothing new. “I’m still a cowboy’s wife, living her hubby’s life. We ride and work cattle along with the men in god-awful heat. Without a paycheck, I might add. We hunt mangy flea-bitten Texas deer on Saturday, barbecue on Sunday, and Monday to Friday we look forward to Saturday and Sunday.” Raina turned away from her friends. “By the way, I met your husband, Sissy. It’s Rory, right? He and my husband, Shel, seemed to hit it off. Both of them think cowboy is a religion. Our guys will surely invite Rory to their drinking, gun collecting male macho group, the Gallos Mezquino. Means roosters. But you got us. We Gallinas are family.”
“Rory didn’t mention anything about Gallos Mezquino.”
Jane started a gale of laughter. “Sissy, none of them are going to admit that they meet to drink, tell dirty jokes, and brag. The bucks they shoot get bigger every year. The boys pretend they meet for a legit reason that they call the Southern Baptist Gun Collector Association.” Her grin looked facetious. Jane was as thin as reed. Her tight black tee shirt was imprinted with white letters, ‘Itty Bitty Titties’.
“They baptize each other with beer.” Their hostess, Susan, passed a can of nuts and set a six-pack of Coors on the coffee table.
“Out with the old, in with the new.” Jane said, as she popped her beer can and held it in the air as a toast. “To our new Gallina.” She took a swig of beer, “And may Corissa enjoy her life.” Jane took a second swig.
“Corissa?” Sissy asked.
“She’s our old Gallina. She fled the ranch like a hunted prairie chicken.” Raina said, with a serious look on her face. “Corissa and her husband BJ lived in the ranch house you and Rory live in. BJ was a Black Ranch cowboy who had an affair with another cowboy’s wife, and got shot by the husband. The husband probably figured that he had the right to use old Mexican law to shoot BJ, but he went to prison all the same. Corissa fled to her family in Iowa. The shooting happened in your house. The gossip is that your house is cursed,” Raina gave a reassuring smile to Sissy. “But I wouldn’t give it a second thought, if I was you.”
“I live in a house where someone was murdered?” Sissy said incredulously as memories from her past crowded into her head.
“The curse is just gossip. It was a crazy crime of passion,” Susan added, shrugging off the tragedy.
Sissy nodded slowly; the word crazy struck a chord. She considered telling the girls about Rory’s jealous streak, but didn’t want to make Rory look bad, maybe dangerous, before they even got to know him. “So I’m replacing an old Gallina? I still don’t know what that name means,” she said, deciding not to mention Rory.
Susan drained her beer and looked at the can as if it should not be empty. “Gallina is a hen. Pronounced guyeena, spelled g-a-l-l-i-n-a. We are the old stewing hens. We have to stick together. The women who live and work at Black Ranch Headquarters have their own little clique. We couldn’t gossip about the Blacks if they were around. The other wives live on sections of the ranch too far away. Hell, Raina, Laurie, and you have to drive over thirty miles. Our men owe us time to visit. They dragged us way out here so they can ride in the wild mesquite empire and pretend it’s a hundred years ago.” Susan smiled and tossed the empty can.
Sissy thought for a moment. “That’s what attracted Rory. But you live in town, Susan.”
“Crossover’s not much of a town, girlie. Bob would rather be out at your place with nothin’ around except brush, scrub grass, and bawlin’ cattle. Me, I bathe in the dust from the auction yard and get drunk by just smelling the booze from the fermented corn in the grain elevator. And watch out for the postmistress, she’s as snoopy as a pig’s snout. Don’t tell her nothin’ you don’t want her to put on the bulletin board.”
“Got it.” Sissy lifted her beer can. She hadn’t expected the beer party, but then she felt a connection she hadn’t expected either. She wouldn’t tell Rory about the beer.
Susan brought another six-pack and popped the lid on a can. “See, Miss New Gallina, we also have a husband forum, and that includes Mr. Black. It ain’t something we want spread around Headquarters. Mrs. Black is a fancy woman and she don’t need to know about certain things.”
“Here, here.” Laurie raised her new can of Coors. “On that note, where's Bob, Susan?”
“Bob is hauling cattle to Montana or he’d be at the Locoweed Cantina.”
“Ted is in Corpus Christi at a friend’s, reloading shells for hunting season.” Jane pointed to a photo of five burly men holding guns, next to a dead buck with wide antlers. “My sheriff husband, Ted is the one with blond hair. Susan’s hubby Bob is the one with black hair and the wild mustache. Laurie’s Jeff is the skinny, bald one. The one that looks like a western movie star is Raina’s for-better-and-worse half. Stag is the one with the red hair and freckles. I took that picture and made them take off their cowboy hats so I could see their faces. You should have heard them complain.”
“Who is Stag?” Sissy felt Jane’s undercurrent of discontent and pride at the same time. Didn’t she feel that way about Rory?
“Stag is Annie’s husband.” Jane replied; then addressed Susan. “By the way, Susie, did Annie call?”
“No. She’s cow-towing to Stag again instead of leaving the asshole.” Susan gave a shrug.
“Is Annie a Gallina?”
“Yep. Annie is our country version of Marilyn Monroe. Her figure and face don’t show her age. Chris Black would have had her in bed except Annie is too scared to give him a second look. Stag is the accountant for the Black Ranch. He is the only cowboy with a college degree. You’d think Stag would be on top of the world. He ropes calves on weekends and has a home in the subdivision with the fancier houses, but he gets roaring drunk and beats Annie.”
Laurie shook her head. “I hope Annie is okay.”
“Wouldn’t Ted have to arrest Stag for beating his wife?”
“Sissy, good ol’ boys live in Crossover where men wear big belt buckles and women know their place. Even if Annie made out a complaint, what’s going to happen? Ted will ask Stag to keep him company for a night in an unlocked jail cell. And then what happens to Annie after that?”
This time, Sissy felt an undercurrent of anger connecting her new friends during the long pause that followed.
“Laurie, where is Jeff?” Raina interrupted the silence.
“The Landing. Where else? My hubby is probably picking up a floozy right now.” Laurie replied, an air of resignation in her voice. She let out a laugh to lighten the mood.
Raina laughed with the others. “Sissy, the Landing is the bar out by the lake. It’s full of stinky guys bragging about catching big fish while they keep an eye out for lonely fishing widows in their campers, so they can sink their hooks into them.”
“The bar right here in beautiful downtown Crossover is the Locoweed Cantina. It also ain’t no palace.” Susan said, as she returned from the kitchen. “Bob used to warm the bar stools there, when we had our babies. Excuse me, my babies. Bob figured the babies belonged to me until they could drive a Mack truck.”
“Our son, Colin, was Rory’s little cowboy” Sissy said.” He and his Daddy were inseparable. Colin learned to ride and handle a horse when he was four. Rory was disappointed when Colin decided to become a teacher, instead of carrying on the cowboy tradition.” Sadness seeped into her head and chest, as she thought of all the things that could have been. The mood in the room seemed to drop as all the ladies considered their families.
Sissy watched Susan lower her head, her strawberry hair hiding her face. “Those days before the babies. When Bob was still sexy.”
Raina matched Susan’s melancholy tone. “That first meeting when your eyes lock, your legs get wobbly and your head is spinning. That is always the best. The next time is never as good.” Raina, smiled and tried to lighten the mood, “Talk about romance. You think Mr. Black has a new honey? I haven’t heard anything lately.”
“Mr. Black is married, isn’t he?” asked Sissy
“So?” Susan replied, “Mr. Black playing around has been ranch gossip as long as I can remember. Why do you think Chris Black hires young women at his hacienda at Headquarters? Most of his horse trainers, the ground crew and the cowboys working at Headquarters are young men with young wives. All potential conquests, right?” Susan paused and took a swig of beer, “Mr. Black doesn’t mind hiring older men with their older wives for the sections at the ranch where you, Raina, and Laurie live. Those places are far from Headquarters. That’s not to say that Mr. Black wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to screw a good looking Gallina.”
Rory had not mentioned that kind of gossip about Mr. Black. “Isn’t he worried a husband will come after him?”
“Mr. Black is Mr. Texas. Nobody comes after Mr. Black.” Raina drew an exclamation mark with one finger in the air.
“If Bob caught me playing around with his boss, he'd kick my ass all the way out of Texas.” Susan added.
“Girls, save the dreaming. We’re too old. Chris Black is thirty something or maybe early forties. He doesn’t want to go to bed with a dried up old hen.” Laurie shrugged, despite the look of possibility in her eyes.
“We are not that old. We still look damn good, if I may say so.” Jane said as she flipped a strand of her frizzy hair. “I happen to think none of us are over the hill. Raina, you still look like the fabulous Cher even with your shorter hair. My dear neighbor, Susan; look at your boobs and that sexy strawberry hair. Me, I’m too skinny to have a lot of wrinkles or a double chin. Annie is our cow-town Marilyn Monroe. Laurie, color your hair and you’d be a knockout with your doe eyes, and our new Gallina; she’s Raquel Welch.”
“Jane, get real. I’m no Raquel Welch.” Sissy laughed.
“I’m serious. If we fix ourselves up with lots of make-up we are still knockouts. The real Raquel Welch is around our age, and every man hyperventilates when they see her. How old are you, Raquel?”
“Forty-nine.” Sissy did not feel like laughing this time.
“And Susie?”
“Fifty real soon. You know that, Janie.”
“Cher?”
“Fifty-one and counting backward.” Raina laughed.
“Wish I was, but I have to add two years.” Laurie pulled on a wrinkle next to her mouth.
“I’ll be fifty-four soon. Hell, I’d bet we’d be better in bed than Mr. Black’s young chicks,” said Jane, defiantly.
“Well then, Ladies, I have a proposition.” Raina got up. “Let’s see which one of us can get Mr. Black into bed.”
“You are not serious.” Susan grimaced at her friend.
“Serious as hell. What do we have to lose? Soon we’ll be more winkled, stooped, and dried up. Our husbands don’t appreciate our sexuality anymore. We raised our kids. The husbands and kids don’t need us the way they did back then. We deserve one last fling. Don’t tell me that you all don’t have the hots for Chris Black.”
Raina held out her hand. “It’s a deal. Let’s all shake on it.”
Chapter Two
At only half past nine, the temperature had already climbed toward ninety. Sissy blew at a strand of hair that had escaped a pink curler and wiped sweat from her forehead.
She had not expected the knock on the door and straightened from her bent position. Rory’s imposing boss, Chris Black, peered past the screen door until she motioned for him to come inside.
“Hi Sissy. Looks like you have your work cut out for you.”
“Today is wash day.” Damn. She sounded as if she was the maid.
“Now that you’re settled in, I just wanted to check how you are doing. I want my employees and their families to be comfortable. That aside, I wanted to make sure you have all you need before I leave for California.”
“Thank you. Rory likes the ranch. He’s always wanted to work on a big outfit like this.
“Do you ride, Sissy?” asked Chris.
“I do. My horse is the bay in the corral.” If only Chris Black would leave. He must think her the frumpiest wife on his ranch. Right now, he might as well be twenty and she eighty.
“If you’d like, you can help us sort cattle this afternoon.” His hint of a smile did not reveal what he thought. He tipped his hat, smiled again, and turned on his boot heels toward the door, leaving her in the steaming room in the midst of two piles of laundry on the blue linoleum floor.
She leaned against the wall of the laundry room and closed her eyes, taking her back to that one unspoiled afternoon when she had fixed her gaze at the vast blue sky and whipped cream clouds drifting above an ink tinted ocean while she let sand sift through her fingers.
She thought he had left her, but when she opened her eyes, Chris Black was right there, kneeling between her legs, the softness of his mustache stroking her thigh. He had been there all along, floating like a dream until she woke and knew the dream was not a dream after all. Sleeping, dreaming, waking— she could feel his longing as strong as her desire.
She stretched luxuriously, her body aching for his warm hands and tongue. A pool of suntan oil lazily collected in her belly button. Oil shimmered on her bronzed skin. Beads of perspiration slipped like pearls from mounds and dips of her body. Her heart beat in rhythm with the pounding surf.
His soft mustache left her thigh and she felt him sliding down toward her feet. For a few heartbeats, she thought he might leave, leave her there in the sand to wither away with a longing that would haunt her until death. Instead, his fingers brushed away the sand from her feet. She wiggled just a little bit when his tongue tickled the sole of her foot. She made herself lie still. Nothing, absolutely nothing should interfere with the electric charge in every cell of her skin. She felt his breath on her ankle, his lips moving ever so slowly along her leg until his tongue was seeking the inside of her knee. He lingered in that most tender spot until she felt his mustache caress her thigh, at first above the knee, then higher and higher, but he did not caress the one spot where her whole womanhood centered. Not yet, not yet, but, oh god, oh god, how long could she wait? Electric currents zapped her groin. Maybe she would die of an over-speeding heart before he could pull off her bikini bottom. When he did pull off the skimpy garment he did so with a single yank. She wanted to grab his hand and make him feel her swollen wet pussy, make him want to enter her with his rock hard cock. Was he worried that someone would see them? Was that the reason he had not taken her right here?
She did not care! Her whole body demanded more and more of him. Nothing mattered except all of him belonging to her. She thought it total torment when his tongue continued to lick, stroke, and slip on the oiled skin toward her navel. His pace was agonizingly slow, as he licked and kissed the route to the bottom of her breasts. She arched her back to entice his tongue and lips onto her nipples. She wanted to scream, wanted him to yank off her bikini top and throw it into the ocean. How she needed him to ravage her breasts with his mouth and tongue. Oh, and how she needed him to push his manhood deep inside of her throbbing flesh. Instead, she lay helpless with ecstasy when he kissed his way over her bra with a gentle bite of her nipples pointing through the fabric, before his hot breath caressed her throat. On his journey with his tongue and lips, he had slid his cock along her leg. She moaned, deep, guttural, like an animal on the path of destruction when she felt the wetness of his tongue on her ear and the tip of his cock teasing the entrance to her distended cunt. She felt frantic, enough so that she roughly clamped both legs around his back, to force his cock deep inside. Now he belonged to her, all of him…
Sissy opened her eyes when the dog barked frantically at something outside. The damn dog had dragged her back to reality.
As the last washing machine load agitated, Sissy saddle soaped Rory's manure stained boots. Yesterday she had complained to Rory about the dirty boots that messed up the porch and added that cleaning the house was damned hard in the sweltering heat. Rory had responded by saying “How’d you like to be out on a horse in this crappy heat all day?” and the conversation ended.
Of course, Chris Black’s home would be air-conditioned and his wife didn’t have to put up with a swamp cooler sounding like an aircraft engine. Surely, Chris Black’s wife had maids, cooks, dishwashers, and someone to shine thousand-dollar alligator boots. Rory described the Black home at Headquarters as an enormous hacienda.
After she threw the next load into the dryer, Sissy changed from her robe to a pair of jeans and a white shirt, tying the shirt at the waist. She pulled the pink curlers from her hair and fluffed it with a big-toothed comb. She painted her face with black eyeliner, emerald eye shadow, and lipstick the color of wet fuchsias to match her fingernails.
This time she approved of her image in the mirror. She shook her head, her abundance of red curls cascading over her forehead and along her cheekbones, now highlighted with Revlon's deep mauve. “Not bad,” she said to the mirror. Rory never appreciated that she still tried to look sexy. Would Mr. Black? Raina’s bet belonged into another world, but what was wrong with an admiring glance she so longed for? How much longer before men did not notice her anymore?
Sissy turned sideways in front of the mirror. Her jeans stretched around her rear as trim and tight as in her teenage years. “Hmm,” she said to the mirror again and pursed her lips. She startled when she heard the utility door slam. Rory had come home early for lunch. His high-heeled cowboy boots clunked across the kitchen floor.
“Hi, I just started fixing lunch,” she called and hurried into the kitchen, not wanting Rory to catch her primping. She knew his response too well. What the hell are you getting all gussied up for?
“I'm already tired. Damn, it's hot out there.” Rory said, as he pulled off his cowboy hat, tromping back to the utility room to leave his sweaty hat on the washing machine.
Sissy set out bologna, bread, pickles, mayonnaise, and ice tea.
“Mr. Black stopped by at the far water tank. He'll be back after lunch. We’ll cut out a few of those cattle he wants to ship. Why don't you saddle up and help?” Rory asked, as he fixed a sandwich, double-decker everything. She could smell the hint of sweat from where the hatband had left a dirty mark.
“Sure,” she shrugged, “I wouldn’t mind giving my horse a workout.” At least that would give her a chance to take her mind off this morning’s fantasy. “Oh, by the way, Mr. Black stopped by here earlier too. I forgot to tell you.” Sissy thought back to the fantasy and smiled to herself.
“I still can’t believe our luck getting hired on this outfit. Been dreaming about working on a ranch like this since I was a kid. Don’t like the damned heat, but hell, that don’t last all year. We live kind of far out. At least you met some of the gals. Could get a might lonely out here without women friends. You should meet the crew at Black’s Headquarters. A lot of the families been there for generations. Why don’t you get to know those gals? You might get to know Mrs. Black. She’s all class,” said Rory.
Of course, she would never tell him that the Gallinas excluded Headquarter women. “I like the women I met. We had a nice evening.”
“You still ought to get to know Mrs. Black. I read in the paper she’s involved in a lot of charities. Her name is Estelle Carmen Estaban Black. Don’t that sound fancy? Anyway, get to know her. You never know what that might lead to.” Rory attacked a second sandwich. They ate in silence until he pushed himself out of the chair. He groaned his usual aches and pains groan. “I'm going to lie down for a while.”
She left the dishes in the sink for later. The house was far too hot to wash them. Instead, she hurried to catch her bay horse to saddle up before Mr. Black arrived. At the thought of Chris Black, she noticed that tingle of anticipation.
By two that afternoon, the heat radiated like a broiler oven, blistering everything not hiding in the shade. Dust in the corral stirred up with every movement of the horses and milling cattle.
Sissy did not need to spur her horse. He had already anticipated the cow’s moves, lowering his haunches, sprinting in front of the cow to head her off to the gate that Rory guarded. Rory stepped aside to allow the cow to run past him in a panic before he closed the gap to the rest of them intent on following.
“One more.” Chris Black pointed to a cow in the midst of the herd. She guided her horse into the restless bunch until he faced the cow. Her horse knew this was the one she wanted. He pinned his ears back and headed the cow away from the rest of the cattle to Rory's open gate.
“That's it,” Mr. Black called, “let's load ‘em up.”
Two Mexican ranch hands drove the cattle through a chute into the stock trailer. She rode ahead of Chris Black, tossing her head to loosen her damp hair. She could feel him watching her. He had been watching her from the moment he arrived.
The cattle stomped into the trailer and one of his ranch hands pushed the sliding locks over the gate. Chris Black’s eyes seemed to roam past her face to her hips and her tight fitting jeans.
“Thanks for the help.” He met her eyes for one heartbeat before loading his horse into a fancy horse trailer, as expensive as his deluxe pickup.
Sissy nodded with an ephemeral smile before turning to help Rory herd the remaining cattle back to pasture. Rory had not seen the smile that she hid behind her throbbing heart.
No comments have been added yet.
