13. Johree
JOHREE
I watched as Jesse’s eyes flicked over every aspect of my quarters visible from the doorway, where he’d come to a standstill upon entering.
I tugged him forward gently with my tail, which served to make him cognizant of the fact that he was blocking the entrance.
“Oh! Sorry!” he said, looking embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to keep y’all from coming in.”
Both guards smiled at him.
“It’s fine,” Fethri assured him as he and Kiprr made it inside, allowing the door to close behind them.
I gestured towards the main seating area. “Let’s all take a seat.”
Jesse’s eyes widened. “You’re sure you don’t want to put a throw over the couch or something? If Buster gets up on it, and he’s quite likely to try to sit with me, he’ll get it covered with hair. Don’t be fooled by the short coat. He leaves his hair everywhere.”
I widened my smile. “That’s perfectly fine. The droid will get it when it cleans.” I pointed to a vaguely humanoid droid docked in a niche between the main living area, the elimination and cleansing chamber, and the two bedrooms.
He still didn’t release Buster from his leash, instead bringing him along as he wandered over to inspect the droid.
“Wow! This looks almost exactly like Rosie from The Jetsons. That’s, ah, an animated TV show about a family who lives in the future. It’s really old but still funny. Um, they had a housekeeping droid.”
“You may redesignate it as Rosie,” I told him. “It will be coming with us once the manse is built.”
He shook his head. “I can clean.”
His jaw jutted out stubbornly. He really was adorable when he tried to be obstinate, not that I’d ever tell him that, as I was certain he wouldn’t appreciate it.
“You’ll have plenty of other things to do, but if you decide to perform some of the household tasks before the droid gets around to them, that’s not a problem.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Well, I should hope not!”
I settled onto one of the couches and patted the space next to me.
Fethri and Kiprr sat opposite where they could keep a visual on the entrance.
Jesse sighed, coming to sit next to me as I’d requested.
He then unhooked Buster from the leash, which he draped over the arm of the couch, and sure enough, Buster jumped up on the other side of him, looking very pleased with himself.
“I guess I can't keep putting off telling you, so please wait to ask questions until afterwards.”
The three of us nodded and, apparently satisfied with our silent responses, he gave us a nod in return and continued.
“My great grandpa served in the US Navy, and when he got out, he used his VA loan to buy the land he built the Double J Ranch on. He built up a herd of beef cattle, which my grandfather then added a small horse herd to. My dad took it over when grandpa got too old to do much around the ranch, and growing up, as the only son, it was always said one day the ranch would be mine. I grew up doing chores around the ranch, and while other boys did Scouts, I did 4-H. My sister helped bottle feed rejected calves and the odd foal, but always complained about it. She didn’t even enjoy helping Mama cook, which is probably just as well since she can burn water.
When Mama died, Dad ended up hiring a cook who’d prepare all the meals for the ranch hands and us.
My sister refused to do 4-H, sticking with Brownies before dropping out in fourth grade.
She spent nearly all her time playing with her Barbie styling head she got that year for her birthday, putting makeup on it and doing its hair.
I went to college to learn business, to help me make sound decisions about the ranch’s future.
My final year, she met Ted while attending beauty school at the local Vo-Tech.
She ran into him at a local coffee shop, and right after she got her certificate and was hired at Pam’s Pamper Parlor in town, they got married in our backyard.
Ted’s an accountant and is the junior partner at the local tax preparer’s office, which is really just a fancy way to say Harold Meyer has him pay half the office rent and power bill as well as for the spring water delivery for their water cooler.
No sooner had they said their “I do’s” than my sister insisted Dad let Ted handle the ranch’s accounts.
I graduated, and Dad insisted I come straight home, so I did, and I wasn’t real happy about that.
Doing our taxes, sure, but actually managing our accounts?
That felt wrong, as neither one of them had anything else to do with the ranch except for coming to Sunday dinner twice a month.
Dad gave in, letting me handle the ledgers before handing them off at the end of each month for Ted to look over, supposedly to help advise us on how we could lessen our tax liability.
Their visits to the ranch began to get more frequent, increasing the Sunday dinners to every Sunday and often Saturdays too, calling my Dad during the week ‘just to chat’ etc.
I can see now it had been an escalation with stealing the ranch from me in mind.
They had to be influencing Dad behind my back all that time; otherwise, he’d have ignored the comments his new fiancee made about my being gay and that causing potential problems for the ranch. ”
He looked down at the tightly clasped hands in his lap.
“I actually think my sister had something to do with that too, as Miss Susie goes once a week for a wash and set, every Wednesday, which folks in town call ‘Blue Wednesday’ as the older ladies all go for the Wednesday Wash, Rinse, and Set special.” His lips quirked up on one side.
“The rinse always leaves their hair with a blue tint. My grandmother used to go, and her white hair always ended up looking bluer than most, bless her soul. That and my Dad said she suggested I stay at the ranch as a ranch hand for a while, so I don’t think she meant for Dad to actually just give them the ranch entirely. ”
I did not like what I was hearing. “Your sister and her mate and your father’s new mate convinced your father to give your sister the ranch?” I demanded, hoping I had misunderstood where this had all been leading to.
He sucked in a breath, letting it out in a small gust.
“That’s about the size of it. We all sat down for Sunday dinner, and Dad let us know he was marrying Miss Susie and they were buying an RV and leaving on an extended honeymoon seeing America.
Then he dropped the bomb, saying Miss Susie had pointed out my being gay made people uncomfortable, so it would be better for me to let my sister do the store runs to the feed and hardware stores and Ted take over the rest of the ranch, with me taking over as ranch foreman once our chief ranch hand I’d been helping retired.
So, instead of an owner, an employee.” He ran a hand over his face, looking troubled, and Buster whined, licking his other hand.
“I’m okay, buddy,” he reassured the canine, giving him a gentle scratch behind an ear.
“Miss Susie has always been really devout, never missing a service at church. She went to morning service every Sunday, including the adult Sunday school, and Wednesday evenings, she’d go to that one too.
And she also attended some ladies’ thing there every week.
But the thing is, she was always nice to me, so this came kind of outta left field.
And for her to say she wouldn’t marry Dad unless he kept me as a ranch hand who didn’t have any business dealings even at the feed store, well, that feels odd.
But if my sister bent her ear while doin’ her hair, I can see how she’d be easily convinced that she would be helping Dad and saving the ranch.
To put it mildly, she’s a bit gullible.”
“That makes it even worse, because if that’s true, they also duped Miss Susie," Kiprr pointed out.
“Yeah, well, she was still willing to let me lose my inheritance because of what other people might be thinking about me, so I’m not willing to forgive her either.
But I really would like to get my horses.
One’s the gelding my Dad got me as my tenth birthday present, and the other is the mare he gave me when I graduated from college and returned home.
Both have papers in his name, though, not mine, and well, when he said what he said, I lost my temper and said some things, so I reckon he will be feeling right salty about that and won’t want to let me have them. ”
“The press will sniff this out,” Fethri said, giving me a significant look.
“I was afraid of that. They’re going to want to know all about me and my family, huh?”
I placed a hand on his thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze, my tail circling his ankle.
“They will. Thank you for sharing this with us so I can let my fathers know. They will have the Press Office try to get a handle on it. As for your vid idea, I think you should get started right away. Just don’t mention your family directly, except to talk about the hope that soon the horses you left behind with them will be here, enjoying new lives at New Haven. ”
He nodded. “Okay, yeah. If I don’t sound critical of them, if what they did comes out or they say something negative about me, it’s them that will look bad.”
“Exactly.” I bumped his shoulder gently in a show of solidarity.
“I’ll do it,” he said, a determined glint in his eye. “Tomorrow I’ll see what I need to use to do it and maybe even get started making my first vid.”
I had a feeling his family was not going to know what hit them and his horses would be on their way much sooner than he dared to hope.