Chapter 8
CHAPTER
EIGHT
“Deuce ain’t around?” I ask Hudson as he slides the fifth empty milk crate into the bed of his truck.
He stops, draping his arms over the bed of the truck, gloved hands dangling as he stares at me from under the brim of his hat. “Well damn, Jake Turner. Tell me you don’t want to help me out without telling me.” He smirks.
I scratch the side of my jaw and tug on my gloves, grabbing a stack of milk crates. I slide them in the bed, filling up the truck fast. “Oh no, it ain’t that,” I sigh, closing up the tailgate once he slides the last armful into the bed. “I’m not great company today.”
Hudson tugs his gloves off and I do the same, right before we pop open the doors and jump into the truck. He lets it run a minute, the heat blasting our faces as we wait for the engine to warm up. “I have to admit, I do have a slight ulterior motive.” He raises his palms, grinning. “Not that I didn’t want to spend time with you, Jake,” he teases.
He reaches up, taking off his sunglasses, which he doesn’t normally wear. I almost made a joke about them when I got here, but thought better of it because a man with three babies at home is not a man getting a lot of rest. Pointing that out isn’t necessary.
But as he tosses the glasses onto the dash, I realize it’s not lack of sleep that had him wearing shades this morning.
“Holy shit, Hud,” I breathe, twisting in the seat to check out the shiner discoloring his left eye. He chuckles, lifting his hand to gently touch his face, hissing a little at the subtle contact. “You invite me out here to help beat someone up or what, man?” I question, only half serious as I lean in to better inspect the swollen and bruised flesh. “Shit man,” I breathe, “how big was he? Who was he?” I peer around him to inspect the other side of his face. “Just the one punch?”
Hudson laughs a little, but when his eyes meet mine, there’s a touch of discomfort there, confusing me.
“What?” I ask, my heart racing at the idea that someone in Bluebell fought or hit Hudson Gray. Hudson is the nicest guy I fucking know.
He makes cotton candy flavored milk, for Christ’s sake. Who wants to hit a guy like that?
“I didn’t ask you to run into town with me so I could show you my black eye,” he says, his voice wavering uncomfortably. Well hell, now my interest is really piqued.
“No?”
He shakes his head, smoothing his thumb and forefinger down the edges of his full beard. “Listen, you know my wife Dolly, right?”
I roll my eyes. “Of course I know Dolly.” She’s got a booth at the farmers market making water color greeting cards and lets local artists run it when she’s running the Gray Farms booth. Jo Jo loves Dolly’s cards, and she loves the Ellington sisters. Everyone in town does. “How is she? Wait, did someone attack Dolly—” I look at the black eye again and my brain leaps into overtime.
Hudson sighs, shaking his head. “No, no, don’t let your mind start workin’ now. Dolly is fine.” He presses his lips together, a little groan echoing in his chest. “She is… more than fine,” he sighs, and I have to force my gaze out the front of the windshield for a second before jealousy swallows me up.
I don’t have some secret crush on Dolly. And I’m happy for Hudson that they’re so damn happy.
It’s not that.
It’s that Hudson and I were single parents, together. Our kids were never close in age, so we were always at different ends of the spectrum of flying solo, but still, we were somehow in it together. That’s how I’ve felt for the last four years.
Then he met Dolly.
And I’m still single.
And Jo Jo wants to be called Lene and she doesn’t want to ride horses.
“You okay?” Hud asks, nudging me with his words .
“Sorry,” I respond, my voice husky to disguise the internal wallowing. “What happened to your eye?”
Hudson smirks, but I don’t miss the slight pink crawling up his neck, settling into his cheeks. “Dolly,” he says, studying my reaction.
“Dolly?”
He nods.
My mind is working overtime now, thinking that Hudson brought me out here to tell me that… Dolly hit him?
His young wife abuses him? But they’re so passionately in love?
Is that… no, that can’t be , right?
“Hudson, does… your wife hurt you?” The question sounds so foreign, but at the same time, if this is his way of asking for help, I’d be a prick to ask him if he’s joking. I know Dolly is passionate, maybe that passion translates to violence, too?
Silence spreads out between us and nerves twist in my gut. My God, Dolly Ellington-Gray is abusive? Just as I’m about to circle that thought with serious consideration, Hudson erupts into laughter.
He tips his head back, laughing so hard that he brings his thumb and forefinger to his face, pinching the tears from his eyes. “Oh man,” Hudson says between raucous bouts of laughter. “That… I mean, it’s not a joke. Spousal abuse is serious. But your face. Jake,” he laughs again, shaking his head, making me laugh a little, too.
“Well, hell, Gray, I don't know. You bring me out here to load milk cartons then show me your black eye and start talking about Dolly. I thought you were telling me in your way that you’re abused and I was trying to take it seriously!”
At that, Hudson breaks out into a laughter so deep that he gasps and gasps, silently fighting to get a breath .
I tamp my hand down, indicating enough. “Alright. You’ve had your fun.”
He finds his voice as he tries valiantly to chase the giggles away. “This bruise,” he says, tapping the edge of his swollen eye. “This is a bruise… of passion .”
I blink at him. “Of pass— ooooh. ” Oh fuck. I look at the bruise again, this time seeing it differently, seeing it for what it is. I try to envision Dolly with her fist reared back, but damn, could she even leave that mark? “Passion,” I repeat, still studying Hud’s eye. “Jesus, she can really throw a punch, can’t she?”
Hudson erupts in laughter again, shaking his head. “She’s not into passionate punching, Jake.” His lips wobble with a laugh he’s clearly holding back. “This was from her knee…” he adjusts his hand. “She was trying to find her seat and kind of missed the first time.”
Her seat? I– oh . Oh shit. Okay. “I just learned too much about you,” I tell him.
He smirks. “You ain’t done yet.”
“What?” I ask, still staring at the shiner. “You need me to lie and say I punched you or something?”
Hudson laughs again.
“I am so glad you find this all so amusing,” I grouse, folding my arms over my chest.
“I’m fine with anyone knowing how I got the black eye. I don’t mind telling folks that my wife and I have a very active sex life.”
I twist up my face. “I don’t want to be your diary.”
“Fair enough.” He points to my boots, then up to my belt. “Reason why I asked you out here, kind of privately, wasn’t to tell you how kinky Dolly is.” He tips his head to the side as his lips curve down in question. “Well, I mean, not exactly but in a way, kind of. ”
“Get to it,” I deadpan.
“I was hoping you could make me… some items .” He clears his throat, and for the first time since he showed me his eye, he seems slightly uncomfortable. “Some toys.”
I look at my belt and shoes. “Custom pieces?”
He blinks at me. “Unless the saddlery has a backroom full of whips, yeah, something custom.” I think of the cabinet in my garage, locked, with the key on my person at all times. The cabinet is full of floggers and crops, none of which have a single thing to do with horses.
“You ever made anything like that before?” he asks, his voice quieter than before, despite the fact we’re alone.
I look at him, fidgeting with the button on my sleeve. “Yeah.”
He nods slowly, as if taking a pulse. Hudson knows I’m single. And no one has ever seen me with a woman before, not since Janie. Right now he’s probably trying to decide if I have a secret sinister life, or if I’m just sad and lonely.
Kind of wish right now it was the first one.
“Alright, well…” He scratches the side of his jaw before glancing out the windshield, no doubt trying to decipher how to ask for just what he wants without things getting weird. Truth is, we blew past weird minutes ago when I thought his wife punched his lights out.
“What are you wanting?” I ask.
He keeps his focus on the barn outside of the truck when he says, “Dolly gave me a list.” He digs into his pocket, passing me a rumpled piece of paper with purple pen, each word written in cursive, the i’s dotted with hearts. I read through the list as heat pricks at my skin, arousal flaring in my veins. Not trying to feel aroused around Hudson, I fold up the list and shove it into my pocket. “I can do it. ”
He nods his head. “You’re gonna make my old lady real happy.”
I can’t help but smirk. “And you?”
His smile is ear to ear. “She’s happy, I’m happy.” He starts up the truck and pulls out, headed back to the ranch. “It’s funny. I never thought I’d fall in love again. Or marry, for that matter. If I could meet myself years back, when Bear was just a baby and my ex was just gone, and I could say, Hudson, hang on, because some gorgeous blonde young thing is gonna save your life, you just gotta make it five years, well hell, I’d have said I should buy a lotto ticket.” He puffs out a breath. “Because I’d have thought winning the lotto was more likely.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I decide on an estimate for his list.
“Shouldn’t be more than a week. Two tops. I can make a few items on this list in a single night.”
The leather steering wheel slides beneath Hudson’s palm as he drifts into a turn. “Well alright. That’s fast!”
“Well,” I sigh, staring out at the large oak tree down the road, the marker between his property and the Ellington house. “Now that Jo Jo doesn’t wanna go riding with me, I have absolutely nothing to do in the afternoons. And I never had anything to do in the evenings. So… a week. Week and a half tops.”
I get out of the truck, opening the door to mine. Hudson smiles at me over the hood. “Well how’s she liking cheerleading?”
I shrug. “She got moved up to JV.” Miss Riley Rivers flashes through my mind.
Hudson nods. “Good for her.” He lifts a hand. “Alright, Jake, thanks again. I gotta get inside and tell Dolly the good news.”
Just then, the front door opens, slamming against the house with a thud. Dolly, her hair up in a messy wad on top of her head, a paint brush poked through it, steps out. In a white dress that looks like a nightgown, her feet bare and face free of make up, she places one hand on her belly, where a baby is growing. She grips the banister with the other hand. “You were gone so long,” she whines. Hudson takes the steps two by two, collecting her in his arms, their lips fusing in a moan.
That’s my cue.
I get into my truck and drive up the dirt road toward the street, and for some strange reason, I think about what it would feel like to use those toys.
Except I’m not thinking of Hudson using a whip on Dolly.
I’m thinking of Miss Riley Rivers.
How would she react if I dragged the soft, loose tail of my flogger along her bare shoulder? If I whipped her naked ass, would she count aloud for me or would she scream for freedom? These things I make… I’ve never used them, but when I close my eyes in bed at night, I imagine it.
What it may feel like to leave a mark on her ass with my whip, to bring my lips to the rough, pink edges of that mark and kiss away the soreness while she gains strength for another swat. I think about that too often, and now, with a list of things to make stuffed into my pocket, I have a legitimate reason.
She stays on my mind the entire drive back to Turner Saddlery, and she’s still there when I get to work on Dolly’s list that afternoon.
The thing about private thoughts is that no one has to know. And in that way, exploring this side of myself with Miss Riley in my head is the absolute best escape.