Chapter 5
The grim reality was that she had spent so much money on Joey that she again didn’t have her mortgage money. She stared at her phone in despair, steeling herself to call Trent, when the text popped up.
Evan: Want to go for a ride?
Her heart leapt even as her stomach dropped. She couldn’t keep seeing him. She knew this. She had to walk down a dark path to dig herself out of debt, and she hated herself for it. Little did he know that the horse trainer he thought he was dating was really moonlighting as a stripper in the worst kind of place with the worst kind of people. And every time she went back to Trent’s world, she was an inch closer to him regaining control of her life.
Nevertheless, Evan’s timing was impeccable. She wanted nothing more than to take her mind off the inevitable hell she was about to wade through. Once again, he was the perfect distraction. She texted back: Sure.
It was late afternoon. The sun was losing its bone-melting intensity when she heard his bike rumble to a stop at her gate. She met him in her driveway, expecting a moment of awkwardness. Should she kiss him hello? Were they a thing? She didn’t know.
“Hey,” she said with a quick smile. He had a black bandanna pulled down on his forehead above dark shades, but she saw his slow smile return hers, and he jerked his head subtly to tell her to get on. His charisma wrapped around her and erased her unease.
“So, I had a different idea,” she unlocked her gate and swung it open. His eyebrows went up, but he rolled the bike in and leaned it over onto its kickstand. “Let’s take a different kind of ride.”
“I like that sound of that,” he said, and she shot him a look that she hoped did Bonnie justice. He just grinned at her, not to be as easily intimidated as Clyde. Still, she hoped by putting Evan in her territory, she’d feel more in control. Bonnie and Clyde hadn’t been ridden that day and it was in her best interest to keep them ridden regularly so that they would be calm for the tourists. Like Monty, most horses got fat, spunky, and out of practice when they sat in a pasture too long.
She motioned for him to follow her down the driveway, where she had Bonnie and Clyde saddled and tied, waiting.
“Now, do these horses have rabies like that other one?” he asked dubiously, and she laughed.
“I’m quite sure they don’t. They’re very trustworthy. I put all my beginners on them.” He walked up to Clyde and rubbed his neck experimentally. Clyde nuzzled him.
“What are their names?”
“Bonnie and Clyde.”
“Oh sure, they’re named after violent criminals.”
She chuckled. “I’m pretty sure people die on motorcycles more than they do on horses. You’ll survive. Ready?”
“No?” he replied suspiciously. She led Bonnie up to a wooden mounting step, which had been there for at least twenty years since Canyon Bill had built it for her grandmother.
“Just lead him up to the step here, left foot in the stirrup.” She demonstrated, climbing the step so that it was easy to reach the stirrup on her side of the horse and swing over. She moved Bonnie a few feet so that there was room for Evan to bring Clyde to the mounting block. Evan managed to get himself on the horse without much problem.
“So, you just pull back gently on the reins to stop, or squeeze gently with your legs to go forward. Don’t do anything drastic. They know what to do. Plus, he’s in love with Bonnie, and he’ll want to have his head up her ass the whole time.”
“So, all men are the same, huh?”
“They really are,” she replied, laughing. Clyde tossed his head impatiently and sidestepped.
“Why is he doing that? Does he want to kill me?”
“No, he just doesn’t know what you want. You’re pulling on him, telling him to stop, but he’s already stopped. Just let your reins out. He’ll follow Bonnie.” Evan relaxed his death grip on the reins, and Clyde moved closer to Bonnie.
“Ready?”
“To die?”
She laughed. “I don’t want you dead. Neither does Clyde. Relax.” She urged Bonnie to walk off, and Clyde immediately followed.
“So he just does whatever she tells him to do?” Evan asked from behind her.
“Yep.”
“Not much for balls, huh?”
“No, he’s a gelding. Means he’s castrated.”
A strangled sound came from behind her. “Why would they do that to him?”
“Same reason we neuter dogs. Makes them easier to handle.”
Evan petted Clyde’s neck sympathetically. “Sorry, buddy.”
“The cattle guys have a saying…they castrate the bulls being raised for slaughter so they think about grass, not ass.”
Evan laughed. “Damn. You ranch girls are…different.”
She looked over her shoulder at him with a grin. “Sorry you came?”
“No, this is the coolest thing I’ve done in a while.”
She nodded her approval. Once they were through the creek into the orchard, there was room for the horses to walk side by side. Bonnie slowed down out of habit to let Clyde catch up. When he moved too close to her, she pinned her ears at him in a mild threat.
“Bonnie,” Kayla said in warning. The mare shook her head a little and stopped threatening.
“So this is what you do? Take idiots like me out on rides?”
“Part of it. I work with other people’s horses for training too. But trail rides for the tourists is usually steadier money. I have a few students for riding lessons too.” They finished the orange grove loop and headed back toward her farm.
With the horses, she was confident and sure. It was really the only part of her life where she felt that way. She showed him how to untie the cinch knot to release the saddle from his horse’s back.
“You have to lift up before you pull the saddle toward you, or you’ll yank on his spine.” She went to her own mare. “See?” She demonstrated, hefting the huge saddle up and then off.
She glanced back at him, but the look in his eyes suggested he wasn’t thinking about the horses right then. Still, he followed her lead, lifting his saddle up and off Clyde. She could feel his gaze on her back as she showed him to the tack room to stow the saddles.
He followed her back to where the horses were tied in the wash rack. Bonnie pinned her ears at Clyde again, shaking her head a bit in what even apparently Evan could tell was a threat, because he backed up a step.
“Bonnie! So help me, God, if you bite him for nothing, I will beat your ass,” Kayla snapped. Bonnie straightened up and put her ears halfway forward. If a horse could roll her eyes, Bonnie just had.
“You’re sexy as hell when you talk smack to the horses,” he said, and a bubble of laughter erupted from her. After hosing the horses off, Kayla turned them loose onto the grass to dry in what was left of the fading evening sun.
He caught her at the back wall of the barn and crowded her in for a kiss. All that sass and confidence went straight out of her. Her breath hitched and her palm defensively fell flat on his chest. But with a caress of his fingers against her jaw, he coaxed her instead of plundering. Her hand on his chest relaxed. She yielded to him. The unspoken conversation was easy. He swept both hands into her hair, holding her still as he kissed her. A little shudder swept through her, her body surrendering to him even though her brain did anything but.
Her thoughts were like a million lottery number balls bouncing around in the glass dome waiting for one to fall out to decide her fate. It was an even toss-up between fear and desire. Which would be the winning number?
“Come on, I’ll walk you home on my way out,” he said softly in her ear. They strolled up the driveway hand in hand. Like before, it was unexpectedly comfortable. Out of the corner of her eye, she read his relaxed body language. He kissed her softly at the side door of her house, without expectation. In the absence of anger or sexual demands, she was left with a fluttering glee. It was like a tiny, brand new butterfly emerging from a cocoon, stretching sensitive wings into a gentle breeze. She smiled at him, and he returned it. When she let herself into the house and pressed her back to the door, her face felt hot. Her hands were shaky, but this wasn’t fear. It was excitement. Happiness.
No sooner hadEvan closed the door behind him at home than a scratch sounded on the other side. A few moments passed, and then an impatient “woof” came. He opened the door, irritated, to the smiling face of the black Lab-ish mutt who took up residence on his porch after he had fed her a pizza crust. Crazy Jimmy said that he’d seen someone dump her out of a truck and leave. Her timing now was such that he could only assume she’d been out in the dark somewhere waiting and watching for him to come home. Despite his hope not to get attached, the thought of her sitting out in the dark waiting for him squeezed his insides.
“Didn’t I tell you you can’t come inside?” he chided the dog, who cocked her head as if listening intently, then darted past him into the air-conditioning.
“You ate my razor, you crazy fucking dog. I don’t want you in here!” She hadn’t actually eaten it, or she’d probably be dead, but she had chewed up the plastic handle past the point where it could ever be used again, and managed not to hurt herself somehow.
He sighed and put down a bowl of water, which she readily drank from, then dunked her face in up to her eyes, slinging water all over his kitchen floor. He really wanted to hate her. She was such a pain in the ass. But she was just so cute and happy, despite having been dumped out of a moving truck on a country road and left to fend for herself. He had to admire her resilience. When it came right down to it, he just didn’t have the heart to turn her away. He poured her a bowl of kibble he’d picked up at the feed store, and she got to work on that. She was still pretty thin.
Despite the dog scampering about his kitchen looking for something to get into, Kayla was all he could think about, and he was annoyed with himself for it. What was it about this girl? They didn’t all stick in his head like a song he couldn’t stop playing. Maybe her reluctance was part of the allure. He’d never had any trouble getting a date or getting laid if that was what he wanted. She was different. She seemed interested, but also scared. She seemed conflicted in more ways than one and, for whatever reason, committed to maintaining her lonely existence out on her farm. Maybe if he could just fuck her, he could get her out of his system. That smile she’d given him before he left was like sunlight after a month of rain. He’d do anything to see it again. Especially to be the cause of it. She was beautiful anyway, but that smile lit her up like magic.
Her place was in rough shape. He could tell that just from riding by. He’d asked his neighbor about it. He said it had sat empty for a few years after the old lady died, while the courts and the banks argued about it, before it had finally gone to Kayla. Beyond that, nobody wanted to say too much about Kayla, other than snickering that she was a “hot little ticket.” Evan didn’t like the sound of that, coming from outlaw rednecks like those. It also didn’t fit with the girl he had held and kissed, who had trembled in his arms in the dark. The contradiction was addictive, and he longed to figure her out. After watching her move about the barn, he finally had the chance to memorize the feel of her while he kissed her. The thought of being balls-deep inside her felt like his blood was gasoline and a match had just dropped, sizzling through him. He envisioned her delicate trust of him and the sounds she would make when he rewarded her with pleasure.
But there was enough uncertainty in her response tonight that he knew it wasn’t happening yet. Even now, the memory of letting her go seemed to intensify the fire in his blood to the point that he was burning from the inside out.
Some nights were a long torture of staring heavy-lidded into the dark. The clang of bars echoed in his head. The murmuring of trapped men, pacing like caged tigers. Sometimes he sat out on the porch and just listened to the thick song of the swamp at night. With a fresh rain, the frogs would come out and sing an incredible cacophony of joy, for their habitat had just become the whole world. The black was deep and damp and alive, not like the stale concrete night of prison, always smelling faintly of piss, bleach, and fear.
The dog would lie at his feet, sometimes with her chin on the top of his boot. It was the only time she would usually ever let him touch her. She was a warm, breathing reminder he was finally free. The black night of the swamp was so rich with sound and texture that even with his eyes closed, he could sense that it went on forever, and he wasn’t trapped. He could breathe. Tonight, he pictured Kayla’s smile.
But his past was like a stain on him forever. What girl would want to date a man with his history?
At first when she questioned him about club affiliations, he’d been relieved. Some girls were drawn to the clubs, drawn to the patch holders. They wanted to live that dangerous life and be arm candy to the most dangerous man in the pack. She’d been clear that she wanted no part of it. God knew neither did he, and she became more interesting to him for it. On the other hand, it also meant if she ever found out who he really was, she would probably never want to see him again.