1. Ellie
— ? —
Ellie
His side of the bed is cold when I wake up at five-thirty, and I lie there for a second with my hand on the sheets where he should be, feeling how cold it is, before I make myself get up.
I pull on his flannel over my tank top because it smells like him and I don’t care who knows it. Grab my jeans from the chair where I threw them last night. Pad barefoot down to the kitchen to make coffee, two cups, because I know where he is and I know he hasn’t had any yet.
He’s been working with a gray colt that doesn’t want a saddle, and he’s been at it for a week now, up before dawn and down at the working pens while the rest of the ranch is still sleeping.
The colt is beautiful and wild and scared of everything, and Jacob has been patient with him in a way that makes my chest ache, because most people never get to see that patience.
I pour two cups and carry them out into the morning air, my feet shoved into his boots that are three sizes too big for me, the sky just starting to go pink and gold at the edges.
The working pens are close enough to the house that I can hear the horses before I can see them, the soft sounds of hooves on dirt and the occasional snort, and I lean on the rail with the coffee cups warming my hands and watch him work.
He’s in the round pen with the gray, moving slow and easy, his sleeves shoved up past his elbows and his jeans dusty and his hat pushed back on his head.
That voice. He’s using that voice, the low steady one he only uses on horses and on me in the dark, and hearing it out here in the open morning makes my thighs press together.
He’s talking the colt through it, telling him he’s okay, telling him there’s nothing to be scared of, and the colt is listening, his ears flicking back and forth, his feet finally starting to settle instead of dance.
The gray is all muscle and nerves, and he’s been giving Jacob hell for days.
I’ve watched from the bedroom window in the early mornings, watched Jacob circle him for hours, never raising his voice, never losing patience, never giving up.
Most people don’t understand this about my husband.
They see the size of him, the hard jaw, the way he doesn’t smile at strangers, and they think he’s cold.
They think he’s cruel. They don’t see him like this, talking a scared animal down from a panic with nothing but his voice and his presence, his hands gentle on the rope, his whole body loose and calm even when the colt rears and kicks.
The colt takes a step toward him and Jacob doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe as far as I can tell.
He just keeps talking, keeps that low steady voice going, and the colt takes another step, and another, until his nose is almost touching Jacob’s chest. Jacob lifts one hand, slow, and puts it on the colt’s neck.
The colt shudders but doesn’t bolt. Jacob strokes him once, twice, and then steps back and lets the animal breathe.
I could watch this forever. I could stand here all day with cold coffee in my hands and just look at him. Every girl in this county grew up wanting a cowboy, and I got the one who’s the real thing, and I still can’t believe it some mornings.
His forearms, tan and corded with muscle, with that white scar across the knuckles of his right hand from a fence that bit him years ago.
His shoulders under his shirt, the way the fabric pulls tight when he moves, the breadth of him.
His hands, big and rough and capable of such impossible gentleness.
His ass in those jeans, and God help me I want to bite it.
I want to sink my teeth into the muscle and leave a mark and I want him to turn around and see me watching and I want him to do it right here against this fence with his whole crew pretending not to notice.
He turns the colt loose and watches him trot to the far side of the pen, and there’s satisfaction in the line of his shoulders now.
He’s made progress today. The colt let him touch him.
Tomorrow maybe he’ll let Jacob put a blanket on his back, and the day after that a saddle, and eventually this wild scared thing will trust him completely because that’s what Jacob does. He earns trust. He doesn’t demand it.
My coffee goes cold in my hand and I don’t notice and I don’t care.
He knows I’m there without turning around.
I don’t know how he always knows, but he does.
His body is tuned to mine even when he can’t see me.
He hands off the rope to one of the hands and walks to the fence, and his eyes go down me slow and hot, taking in the flannel that’s his and the jeans I pulled on in a hurry and the boots that are too big and probably make me look ridiculous.
I can feel him looking at my legs, my hips, the way the flannel gaps open at my throat because I didn’t button it all the way.
“You’re going to be late,” he says, and his voice is still low from talking to the colt, rough with morning and with me.
“I’ve got time.”
“Not enough.”
He reaches over the top rail and puts his hand on the back of my neck, right there in front of his crew, and pulls me in and kisses me.
It’s not a quick kiss. It’s not a have-a-good-day-honey kiss.
It’s his tongue in my mouth and his hand tightening on the back of my neck and my body pressed against the rail so hard I can feel the wood biting into my hips.
His other hand comes up to grip the fence beside my head, caging me in, and I can feel the heat of him even through the barrier between us.
His hips press forward against the rail, and I can feel how hard he is through his jeans, thick and insistent, and my whole body flushes hot.
His crew is pretending very hard to check tack a stone’s throw away, every single one of them suddenly fascinated by buckles and leather, and I know they can see us, and I know he doesn’t care.
He’s staking a claim in front of all of them, making it clear whose I am, and the possessiveness of it should bother me but it doesn’t.
It makes me wet. It makes me want to climb this fence and wrap my legs around him and let them all watch.
I’m the one who stops it, laughing against his mouth, my hands fisted in the front of his shirt.
“Jacob.”
“What.”
“Your men are watching.”
“Let them watch.” His thumb traces the line of my jaw and his eyes are dark and hungry and fixed on my mouth. “Come home early tonight. I want to have dinner with you.”
I pull back to look at him, my heart stuttering in my chest. He never says it first. He never plans things, never offers, never brings up our Friday dinners before I have to remind him.
Friday night is supposed to be ours. Candles on the table, the good wine, a meal I spend all day thinking about.
For three weeks straight the ranch has come up instead.
A fence down in the north pasture. A sick horse that needed watching.
A delivery that came late and had to be dealt with.
Three Fridays in a row I’ve eaten alone at a table set for two, the food going cold while I waited for him to walk through the door. Three Fridays of him stumbling in after I’ve already given up, apologizing with his eyes while I scraped untouched chicken into the trash.
We live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, but I can’t remember the last time we actually sat down together and talked. He’s gone before I wake up and home after I’ve fallen asleep, and the dinners that were supposed to be our time keep getting swallowed by the ranch.
“You mean it this time?” I keep my voice light, but I need him to hear this. “Because I’ve got chicken marinating since this morning and I’d rather not watch it go cold again.”
His face changes. Guilt, maybe. Or frustration with himself. “I mean it.”
“Six o’clock. At the table. Just us.”
“Just us.” His hand tightens on my neck, possessive. “I’ll be there.”
Maybe this will be the week we actually sit down together.
Maybe this will be the week I get to wear the red dress and light the candles and have a real conversation with my husband instead of passing him in the hallway on his way to bed.
Maybe this will be the week he looks at me across the table and I remember why I married him, instead of lying awake wondering if the ranch will always come first.
“Okay,” I say, and I let myself believe it. “Don’t be late.”
He kisses me again, quick and hard, a promise and a threat, and then he’s back over the fence and walking to the gray colt with his shoulders easy, and he just kissed me senseless in front of a dozen men, and my knees are shaking and my underwear is ruined, and he knows all three.
I watch him go and I have to take a breath before I can walk back to the house.
My whole body is buzzing and my heart is pounding and I’m going to be thinking about this all day, about his hand on my neck and his cock hard against the fence rail and the way he asked me to dinner first. He wanted it.
For one minute at a fence I mattered more than the thousand other things demanding his attention.
Maybe this week will be different.
***
I shower and dress and do my makeup and I’m out the door by seven-thirty in the morning, and I spend the whole drive into town thinking about tonight.
The red dress, I decide. The one that’s too short for church and too tight for company, the one that makes his eyes go dark every time I put it on.
I’m going to light the candles I bought three weeks ago and haven’t had a chance to use.
I’m going to put on that playlist he pretends to hate but always ends up humming along to.
I’m going to make him sit across from me and actually talk, about anything other than cattle prices and fence repairs and which pasture needs rotating.
At the office, the day crawls by.