Chapter 5
Travis
“Hey, girl. Guess what? You are mine.” And if I hadn't known how some horses could react, I would have questioned the entire event that had taken place in that pen at the auction.
As I drove us home from the auction and general store, I recalled the moment I saw that the horse had known what Corrine had meant. Right down to the smallest of detail.
I couldn’t remember when the last time was that I had enjoyed a morning away from the ranch.
Hell, I couldn’t remember when I had even enjoyed myself so much.
Also, the moment I had placed my hand at the small of her back in the general store I noticed that the majority of the red hat society had been in attendance.
Yet I didn’t mind if this particular rumor hit the mill.
I wanted them all to know that she was taken, that she was mine.
I would have to talk to her to make sure that she was on the same page as I was. That would take time of course, but when I became determined about something, I set about achieving it.
She was mine. But by all that was holy, I would be hers too.
I had called ahead to the ranch while I had loaded the bags into the back of my truck.
“Yeah, boss?” Parker answered on the second ring.
“Got two of them. One of them is of the highest order and she can go into my personal selection. The other one is the one you recommended.” When I had the last of the bags stowed, I climbed up into my truck.
“Thanks, Boss.” I could hear the smile on the foreman’s face through the speaker.
With that, I let out a soft chuckle and hung up the phone. That gelding I had just purchased was going to be getting spoiled for the rest of his days.
And, yes you guessed it, she had also tried to pay for the food in the general store.
Not only that, but we had stopped to grab some fuel. She had also tried to help pay for the fuel as well.
Never have I ever met anyone that was as honest and as forthright as she was.
I was hooked, lined, and caught.
The moment we made it back to the ranch I spotted Rick, one of the hired hands, and called him over.
“Take the bags in the back of the truck and put them in the big house. Put the cold stuff in the fridge, you can leave the rest of the things out on the counter.” With a nod from Rick, which I didn’t like because all though he nodded at me, the entire time he had his eyes on Corrine.
Before I could snap at Rick, I heard Corrine’s soft sing-song voice as she spoke quietly to Stormy.
Corrine’s steady voice sounded true, “You ready girl?” Stormy had even whinnied her response.
Parker lifted the latches on the back of the twenty-three-foot trailer.
However, when Parker had first walked into the trailer to get the horses, he had turned and high-tailed it out of there.
“Stormy.” Corrine softly ticked at the mare for being ill-tempered.
“You are going to be staying here. You have to make friends.” Corrine didn’t even hesitate, she untied Stormy’s lead rope and pulled her from the trailer with no fuss from Stormy. Just like they hadn’t seen one another just a minute ago, instead of the years that they had been apart.
It was like watching a puppy follow its master. Heck, I didn’t even blame the mare.
“I’ll be damned. That horse tried to kick me when I got close to her.” Parker spoke as he re-entered the trailer and got out the gelding.
“What’s his name, boss?” I heard another one of my hands, Greg call out. I then noticed that almost all of my hands had come from the pastures.
I contained the smile that wanted to fight forward on my lips. “Titan.” I simply said.
And just like that all of my men nodded and glanced at Corrine. They knew their boss wouldn’t simply name one of his horses with only one name. They were his. They deserved titles.
However, I had liked that one word that summed up the big black gelding.
“I like it.” Sam replied.
Wes walked over to Stormy where she stood behind Corrine, and just like at the sale, while Corrine had placed her body in front of the mare’s, the mare had her head held protectively over Corrine’s shoulder, “And who is this beauty?”
Before I could comment that he needed to be looking at the horse when he said that and not at Corrine, it was Stormy who replied back with a snarl of her own.
I was really starting to like that horse.
“Her name is Stormy. She is going into that open stall. She belongs to Ms. Matthews.” The moment those words came from my lips, all of the men took notice.
Suddenly all of those heated looks that they had been giving Corrine had changed and had morphed into looks of respect. The same look that they gave to me.
“Follow me.” I nodded to my men as Corrine led Stormy to the stable where she would be held.
“This stall is hers.” I nodded to the one that was right across from my own horse Champion.
Every single stall that was in this section where all mine. I had roughly around two million in these stalls alone.
“The stall directly across from hers is Champions.” Corrine nodded.
“What do you think girl? Looks like paradise to what you have been put through, huh?”
A few of the men chuckled when they saw that Stormy had indeed replied to her when she nodded her own head in response.
“Want to let her run free for a while?” I didn’t miss the smile that lit up Corrine’s face.
“You bet. I can’t wait to see her just be happy.” Corrine pulled Stormy behind her; however, what I had missed was that Corrine had already unhooked Stormy’s lead rope.
The horse dutifully followed Corrine, but she still pranced her high end.
“The left side of the pasture is set up for the mares. The right side is for the geldings. And that far pasture where you see that big appaloosa prancing is for my stallion. He is too territorial to be with any other Stallions. He would kill them.” I remembered that day.
We had lost a good horse, and all because a hand hadn’t realized that he had let another stallion that wasn’t near as big as Champion, into the pasture with him.
Luckily, that Stallion was a new acquisition of mine and not that of a client.
As soon as I had the gate opened Corrine stood there. She brought her hand to Stormy’s neck and rubbed.
The moment Corrine stepped to the side and offered her arm out towards the pasture, Stormy slowly walked away from Corrine and the moment she knew that Corrine wouldn’t be harmed, that was when she kicked up her hind legs and went soaring through the pasture with her tail raised into the air.
There was the mustang that she had shown everyone else. It was another sight to see how one person could mean so much to a twelve-hundred-pound animal.
“She looks happy.” I couldn’t help but laugh as Stormy ran the length of the pasture to get her bearings.
“Now that’s a happy lady.” Parker nodded as he led Titan to the other pasture and released him.
The old man knew.
Just as Stormy had. They were home.
And just maybe if I received what I wanted, Stormy would never leave, and neither would her owner.
“When do you need to start making the lasagna?” I asked her after a few minutes as we had watched the two horses enjoying a safe place to land.
“Right now, I guess. That way I have time to make the sauce. I also want to take stock of what all you do have so I can maybe prepare a few meals for you as well.”
Just as we turned, I heard Champion. It seemed that my horse wasn’t the only one that would be staking a claim.
We walked side by side up to the main house.
As I watched as Corrine stared in awe at the open floor plan that I had now, nothing else in this world could have made me even more proud, than the moment when Corrine saw my home.
When I had purchased this land and had this house built, I wanted it to be something that I could walk into every day and allow it to wash away all of the stress of the day.
To this day, I have never felt as much pride as I did at this moment.
“Your home… my god… it’s amazing. I don’t really think there is a word in the English language to describe it… Holy Moly.” I looked in her direction to see what had caught her eye.
Then it seemed like Corrine just simply floated on air, and straight into my kitchen.
Since I had dreams of this being the home where I would raise my family in, my wife deserved a top-of-the-line kitchen even if she didn’t want to cook, then I would hire someone to make all of the meals, then at least the cook could prepare all of our meals with little to no effort.
And since I saw that future with the woman that was now standing in my kitchen, “How do you like it?”
However, Corrine hadn’t said not one word to me.
I chuckled as I stared at her for a few moments before I turned around with a huge smile on my face and made my way out to the stables to finish off my list of chores.
Wiping my hat across my thigh, I used the sleeve on my forearm to wipe the sweat from my brow. This was one hot summer they were having.
As I was walking into the kitchen, Parker came running into the house like a bear was after him.
“Cougar in the southeast pasture.” Parker was winded, to say the least.
I heard the inhale from the kitchen. Even with pink cheeks and her hair all skewed, she was gorgeous.
“Please be careful. I am going to head on home. Lasagna is in the oven keeping warm, a salad is in the fridge, and garlic bread is on the stove. I also made you a few sandwiches that can be heated up or consumed cold. I hope this will help this weekend.” Corrine offered me a smile.
“Thank you. Please be careful driving home.” I felt like an ass for being short with her, but I had seen firsthand what a cougar could do. It could be a slaughter.
For the next two hours, I and my men hunted.
When I heard a shot ring out, followed by, “Got it.” I was bone-weary.
However, the smell of the lasagna as it greeted me when I re-entered the house was simply amazing.
Just as I grabbed the hand towel to retrieve the lasagna, I saw a note lying next to the garlic bread. ‘I also made a peach cobbler. Night.’
Without thinking too much into that action, I carefully grabbed the paper to fold it as I placed it inside my wallet.
The next day I enjoyed the left-over lasagna, well what little of it that was left, that Corrine had made yesterday. How was it that leftovers always seemed to taste even better the second time around?
I had just finished timing one of my horses to make sure that it was sound enough to enter it into the Rose Race in two weeks in California when I saw one of my neighbors climb out of his truck.
I had attended the memorial service that Pete Turner had held for his wife.
“Pete.” I removed the glove from my hand as I offered it to the man for a shake.
“Denton.”
“How have you been doing?” I could only imagine losing someone after being married to them for sixty years.
“It’s harder than I ever imagined it would be.” I had no doubt of that.
“Want a cold beer?” I didn’t enjoy taking a drink in the middle of the day, but I knew there was a reason for the older man to show up to my ranch unannounced.
“That would be fine.” Pete said.
Nodding I led him to my front porch and left him sitting in one of the rocking chairs while I headed inside and grabbed us two ice-cold beers. None of that light crap either.
“It’s hard. I can’t even bear to step foot in my own home. The smell of her is everywhere” I took a pull from my own beer as I listened to Pete.
“I can only imagine.” I stared out at the herd as it moved this way and that way.
“You know when she went on a girls trip, I wouldn’t even sleep in the house. I crashed in the bunkhouse. The men thanked me after the first time because they all had received new mattresses.” I smiled at that thought as Pete carried on.
“I wanted to offer you the first option to buy my land. It butts up to yours.” I allowed a few minutes to pass between us, I already knew what I would say.
I simply nodded.
“You know I had purchased a racehorse that was gorgeous. I had gifted it to Mary. She loved it, but I made her a hand-crafted table that she had been asking for to paint and draw on. The way her face had lit up, it was the smallest gesture with her. God do I miss that woman.”
The moment a tear tracked down the older man’s face, all I could do for this man was to sit here and listen. Most of the time when someone is grieving, they just want an ear to listen.
I wondered silently what would be the gesture that would capture Corrine then it hit me square in the face. A lot of women wanted that grand big gesture, but not Corrine.
Something deep down had me wanting to keep it small and simple.
Just then a thought occurred to me, the food wouldn’t be as great tasting as hers, but it was the act of trying that mattered. Right?