Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
RYE
Aubrey answered my call. She didn’t say anything, but just knowing she was on the line made me smile.
“Hey, Spitfire.”
I was pretty sure I’d rocked her world last night. At least, I hoped I had, but now that I was back at the ranch, staring at the same four log walls I always did, she felt so far away. Already, I missed the lightness of her house and all the pretty things she’d decorated it with. The only thing decorating my wall was an old, metal Pbr sign, and I’d nailed a couple hooks next to my front door that I hung horse tack on.
Actually, what I missed was Aubrey and the lightness of her laugh.
I left my uncle’s place before dawn this morning, and I cussed myself out the entire drive home for leaving after she’d asked me to stay. Hadn’t slept all night thinking about it.
“Hi.”
“You get my text last night?”
“Yes.”
What was with the one-word answers? Had I blown out the language center of her brain when I made her come on my tongue? Three times in a row and then watched a fourth time while she masturbated with my cock in her mouth.
“Did I wake you?”
“No.”
“I’m not gettin’ a real proof-of-life feelin’ right now with these one-word answers. Are you okay? Have you been kidnapped by pirates and they’re standin’ over you, not lettin’ you talk to me?”
Finally, she laughed.
“There she is. Mornin’.”
“Good mornin’. I’m sorry I didn’t text back. I’ll be honest with you. I had no idea how to respond, and I don’t really know what to say to you now either. I-I think I’m… embarrassed.”
I hummed my pleasure into my phone, and instantly, I was hard. This woman! What was she doing to me?
“Can’t stop thinkin’ about last night either?”
“No,” she responded breathlessly. “I don’t… I just— I don’t know how to talk to you now that we, you know, did… that.”
“Mm. Shook ya real good, didn’t I?”
“Rye, quit with the playboy crap, okay? Just talk to me like a normal person.”
“Okay, then you do the same.”
“Fine,” she said.
“Good. What time am I pickin’ you up Saturday?”
“Huh?”
“Our date,” I said. Had she already forgotten? Maybe I hadn’t rocked her world as hard as I thought I had.
“What date?”
“I told you we need to go out and get to know each other before the cattle drive in a few weeks. You think you’re gonna fool my mama if you don’t know the first thing about me?”
“Oh, I know plenty about you.”
“The size of my dick, sure, but don’t you think you should know somethin’ about my personality before we put this whole thing to the test?”
I could almost hear her rolling her eyes, but I was right.
“Fine,” she said. “Seven. Wait. What are we doin’ on this date?”
“There’s a new Thor movie out, or maybe it’s not Thor, but it’s one of those guys.”
“Oh,” she said, probably surprised we had that in common, but the last time I was in town, I’d heard her talking to one of her book-club friends about the previous movie when they walked past Red’s store. “I actually love superhero movies.”
“Yeah?”
“Show me a woman who says she doesn’t wanna watch that hunk of a man on the big screen, and I’ll show you a liar.”
I chuckled. “Should I be jealous?”
“Very.”
“Where are you headed off to?” my mama asked as I put a foot in my truck Saturday afternoon.
I’d showered and trimmed my beard, and my hair was as combed as it was going to get.
“Town.”
“You better be back early,” my dad added. “We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I know we do. I’ll be here.”
“You finish the chores I gave you? You better not be thinkin’ about leavin’ if your responsibilities haven’t been tended to yet.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and thought about the heifer I’d just had to wrangle. She’d twisted her ankle earlier in the day, so I soaked it in a salt bath and ran the cold hose over it for a spell. She was still limping though. If she wasn’t better by morning, I’d have to call the vet. My dad had never had the patience for the animal-care part of the job. He was better with numbers and the overall running of the ranch.
“Everything you asked me to do is done, on top of all the stuff I always do. That heifer’s still limpin’. If she ain’t walkin’ straight in the mornin’, I’ll call the doc. Until then, I’m off the clock, and I got a date so I’ll see ya.”
Mama gasped and touched her hand to her chest. “A date? Who with?”
Here we go. Time to plant the seed.
“Y’all remember Aubrey George from Wisper, used to go by Aubrey Abbott?”
“Ryder, she’s a married woman.” Mama huffed a breath, exasperated with me for something that wasn’t even true.
“No, Mama. She’s not anymore. Tommy died over ten years ago. You know this. You went to his funeral with Junior.”
Her shrewd eyes narrowed. “Well, isn’t she a little old for you?”
Jesus . Couldn’t I do anything right? She wanted me to find a woman. Now I had and the woman I chose wasn’t good enough, even though both my parents had adored Aubrey back in the day?
Damn. If I couldn’t get them on board now, my whole plan would be shot to shit, and Aubrey would have no reason to spend time with me anymore.
That would be a letdown of epic proportions. I just needed to try harder because I wasn’t sure how much kowtowing I had left in me. If things with my parents didn’t change soon, one of these days, I’d walk away and never look back.
“She’s in her forties. I’m in my thirties. What’s the problem? I thought you liked Aubrey. You just asked me about her not two months ago.”
“We did like her. But Rye, she’s a mother. She has two children. Are you sure you’re… capable of bein’ with someone who?—”
Wow. Really?
“Her boys are grown, Mama. They’re up at college in Bozeman.” At least half that statement was true. “And yeah, I think I’m well suited for Aubrey. We have a lot in common, actually.” And I could handle a couple college kids, right? We had their dad in common, and we all loved Aubrey.
Uhhh. Wait. I meant we were all fond of Aubrey.
Shit.
I couldn’t be in love with her. I barely knew her.
Technically, I’d known her most of my life, but I didn’t really know her know her. Not yet. But I’d daydreamed enough about her to convince myself what I felt was love.
Fuck. Everything was all messed up and chaotic in my head. I really did want to go forward with my plan, but wasn’t it just a means to my own end? All I’d ever wanted was Aubrey’s attention, but now that I had it, it didn’t feel like enough.
“I gotta go.”
“Don’t forget dinner tomorrow night,” Mama said. “It’s your birthday.” Oh, so they did know I wasn’t just their employee, and they hadn’t forgotten they had a third son.
That got my dad’s attention for a second. He had forgotten, and a little tic of his cheek was the only outward appearance of recognition.
I nodded. “I’ll be back late tonight, and I’ll be ready to work in the mornin’.”
Like I always am, with my mouth shut, my intelligence insulted, and my hope for the future of the ranch in the toilet.
“Hey, man,” my oldest friend, Bax, said when I called him on my way to pick up Aubrey. “Happy birthday tomorrow.”
“Thanks.”
“How you been? I called you last week, but I never heard back. Thought you mighta dropped off the face of the planet.”
“Naw, I’ve been around.” Man, I missed the days when Bax, his brother, Brand, and their little sister, Abey, and I would ride out on our ATVs and get lost in mud and hills. They and their youngest brother Dixon had provided some of the best memories of my life growing up. “Just been busy and kinda stuck in my head. How are you and Athena? What’s she, like, eighteen already?”
“Don’t joke. She’s thirteen, and she’s already a handful. I can’t even imagine eighteen.” But he’d been doing a great job with his only kid since his wife, Candy, passed. “Anyway, what’s up?”
“Nothin’. Just wanted to call you back. I’m on my way to town, actually. Got me a date.”
“A date for your birthday? You sure you wanna risk tyin’ the memory of the day you were born to a disaster? Who you goin’ out with? Please tell me it’s not the woman who disabled your engine when you told her you wouldn’t impregnate her after three weeks of ridin’ the Rye train?”
“Ugh, don’t remind me. That was Tiffany, the barrel racer. Nope. Not her. And what’s with this Rye train? You’re the second person to use that stupid phrase in a week.”
He laughed. “Who is it then? If you’re comin’ to Wisper, do I know her?”
As much as I’d dreamed about her, I’d never told anyone how badly I wanted Aubrey. Devo had guessed because I usually spent time with her when I came to town since her job was across the street from Red’s store, and apparently my face gave a lot away.
“You might. It’s Aubrey George.”
Bax was quiet for a minute, and I pictured the confusion and then the dawning on his face while he put two and two together. “Wait a minute. The bookstore chick? Isn’t she, like… older?”
I laughed. “Yeah, Bax, she’s a few years older than I am. But you and me? We ain’t so young anymore. You yourself, sir, are pushin’ forty.”
“Yeah, don’t remind me. Some days it feels like sixty. But we used to go in her store all the time,” he said. “Remember she used to sell us comics?”
Oh, I remembered. To this day, I’d never even opened a comic, let alone read one, but I’d bought one from the lovely bookseller every other week so I didn’t miss out on Aubrey’s warm smile. She must’ve thought I was the biggest nerd, coming to town to buy comics at twenty years old when she worked part-time at the bookstore while her boys were in school. She bought it from the previous owner six months after Tommy died and revamped the whole thing.
I also remembered the argument I’d overheard between her and Tommy at José’s Diner a couple years before that when Presley and I had gone for lunch one Saturday. We sat at the booth behind Aubrey’s, and when she told her husband she’d gotten a job at the bookstore, he was pissed. She’d tried to tell him how much she loved being around books and that she really needed time for herself, but all Tommy had focused on was that his friends might think he couldn’t provide for his family if his wife had to work. I still remembered the look of disappointment and sadness that flashed across her face that day.
And I’d never forget Presley’s reaction to overhearing an argument between two people he didn’t know from Adam. He wanted to drag that fucker, Tommy, to the alley behind the restaurant and teach him a lesson for talking to his own wife like she was a disobedient child.
Good ol’ Presley. He didn’t talk a whole hell of a lot, but when he did open his mouth, I’d learned to listen because he was wise.
I wasn’t sure what had changed Tommy’s mind, but Aubrey did take the job. Whatever the reason, I was still grateful because it had allowed me to see her, and that I’d gotten glimpses of her in her happy place, around books, was probably the reason the fake-dating idea had come to me. She’d do anything for her store.
“Listen,” I told Bax, “we’re doin’ the spring drive in a few weeks at the ranch. You wanna bring the family, eat some barbecue, and listen to Presley fuck up a fiddle?”
“Yeah. That sounds good. I’ll ask Mama. Brand might like to tag along too. He’s been stayin’ here with Athena and me while he’s workin’ on the new cabin rentals and Abey’s and Mama’s houses. He could use the opportunity to get out and see someone other than his problematic brother. I think I’ve stressed him out enough lately. Maybe we can get him to drink a little and cut loose.”
“What’d you do to your brother?”
“Nothin’, it’s just that we lost some of our funding for the new business. Brand’s already put a good chunk of his own money into the project, not to mention his time and skills. The dude put up the bare bones of a cabin by himself in a day. It’s insane.”
“What happened? How’d you lose the funds?”
“Oh, some big shot investor from South Dakota skipped town. Nobody seems to know how to get in touch with him. But I’ve got it figured out. I’m gonna sell off a piece of the farm. We’re not using all this land anyway, and the family agreed. It’ll be on the market by the end of next week.”
Hm. Suddenly, my brain got stuck on the spin cycle. So many ideas popped into my head.
Good farmland for sale right outside Wisper?