Chapter 13 – Juliette
THIRTEEN
JULIETTE
“Okay, give it to me straight,” I said, as we were walking the fields a few days after Tank’s unceremonious departure.
Creed was doing his diligent inspection of the plants which were just starting to breach the soil, while I was mostly following behind. I knew what to look for and so far there were no warning signs.
I’d taken my stuff out of his room and back to my own room.
He wasn’t happy about it, but it’s not like he could say anything against the move. His navy buddy had almost raped me. I was traumatized.
Okay, I wasn’t. Not really. Or at least, that wasn’t the reason I’d moved back out of his room.
I moved out of his room because…I was starting to like it.
His snoring didn’t bother me so much. Yes, when I woke up in the morning or if I had to pee in the middle of the night, I had to start with gentle stretches or movements to alert him to my presence on the bed first.
But I’d gotten used to that, too.
Also, he was super warm. And while the days were warming up, Montana nights could still drop into the forties.
I hadn’t even had to wear socks when I was in bed with him!
If my toes got cold, I just got them as close to his shins as possible without touching him.
He was like my modern day version of a bed warmer.
So of course, I had to leave. Because if I stayed…if I stayed, there was no getting around the inevitable.
Cock feels good, Jules
Maybe there was no getting around it anyway, but I would deal with that down the road.
He looked back over his shoulder at me. “What?”
“So, you were a Navy Seal, right?”
He stared at the neat rows of crops lined up in front of us. “NWSO.”
“You with the letters,” I grumbled, finding a weed that I could pull out. “Did you kill Bin Laden or what?”
He rolled his eyes. “No.”
“But you could have?”
He huffed. “I only served with Seal Team Six on two specific operations and only in a supporting capacity. Not all S.E.A.L.s are STS. Those guys are the most elite unit of our entire force.”
I stopped in my tracks then. “So you’re a slacker then. Bottom of the barrel? Yesterday’s leftovers?”
He grunted. “Something like that.”
“Reason one hundred and seventy-two I don’t want to be married to you. You don’t even rank in the top performers of your former career.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Jules…”
His voice trailed off and I lifted my head to see what had caught his attention.
“Oh, shit!”
A horse moved slowly out from a cluster of trees on the north edge of the property line. About fifty or so yards away.
“That the Talley horse?” he asked me, over his shoulder.
“Yes, Mrs. Talley said it was a chestnut paint. That’s got to be him.”
The brown and white splotched horse bent his head down to feed on the grass. Completely unperturbed by the kerfuffle he’d been responsible for.
“I’ll call her,” I said, pulling my phone out of my overall’s pocket.
Did I mention I kept my phone with me at all times? I did. It felt like having this safety net underneath me at all times.
Need to run away? I could always find an Uber. (Yes, we had Ubers in Montana…they weren’t exactly littering the streets of Riverbend, but there were one or two ambitious teens who did it as a side hustle.)
Need to check the cost of a flight to Seattle? That’s what Expedia was for.
Need to get a sense of the current value of the property? Hello Zillow.
Need to see if you could find any mention of Creed O’Mara anywhere on the internet?
Yeah, no.
He didn’t exist as far as I could tell. Which, given what I now knew about him, seemed legit. I’d been doing as much research on Navy Seals as I could and they kept themselves as off the radar as possible, with obviously good reason.
“Tell them not to worry, I’ll have him tethered by the time they get here,” he said, even as he slowly moved in the direction of where the horse was grazing.
I stopped. “Dude, that horse doesn’t have a saddle or reins. You’re not going to get close to him. Just don’t make eye contact so he doesn’t startle and run off.”
He shot me a look over his shoulder that basically told me not to worry about it.
I pulled up Mrs. Talley’s contact information and she answered on the second ring.
“Hey, Mrs. Talley, it’s Jules from over at the Clarke farm,” I said.
Shit. Did I just refer to myself as Jules?
“Juliette, hi. What can I do for you?”
“Actually, it’s what I can do for you. We just spotted your paint on our property. He’s hanging out and grazing right now, so if you can get over here with some gear to fetch him…Hey, Creed! I’m telling you, you’ll only spook him!”
“What’s he doing?” Mrs. Talley asked.
“Dumb idiot’s got a rope in his hands like he’s going to fucking lasso him,” I muttered. Not registering I probably shouldn’t be cussing on the phone to my elders.
“I’ll send Jackson Jr. over with the horse trailer. Don’t worry if he bolts, that horse has a mind of its own. We’ll track him down eventually.”
I disconnected the call, shaking my head.
“They teach you rodeo in the fucking Navy? Because you’re going to need some of that if you think you’re going to get within ten feet of that horse!” I shouted out to Creed, who had a rope in his hand that he was knotting in a certain way.
He glanced back at me and made a motion with his arm as if to shush me from a distance.
“Idiot,” I muttered, happy to sit back and watch him make a fool of himself the second the horse caught his scent and bolted.
Except Creed kept moving forward like he knew the damn horse. Not overly cautious, just the right amount of confidence for the horse to know he wasn’t a threat, but he also wasn’t intimidated by the animal’s size.
So fine, he’d been around horses before. He said he spent time on the res with his mother’s people before going to school. But plenty of people might feel comfortable walking up to a horse, maybe even getting close enough to pet it.
Roping a horse? Holding on to that rope?
Especially if this paint had an attitude?
No way.
The horse started pawing his front hoof into the dirt, a warning signal to Creed to stay back, but the dumb man just kept moving forward. Forward. Forward.
Sonofabitch. With a flick of the wrist, he’d actually managed to get the rope around the paint’s neck. Loose, but still there. Then, gradually, it looked like he was cinching it up, a little tighter with every step he got closer.
Like clockwork, as if sensing the threat, the paint reared back on its hind legs, but it didn’t bolt. Just shook its head, its mane flying around him, until with a couple more stomps it once again stood motionless.
Creed didn’t move at all. Almost like he was waiting the horse out. Zero hurry. No pressure on the rope. Eventually, he stepped forward and rubbed his hand down the horse’s nose. Got his palm up in the horse’s snout and mouth so the animal could take in his smell.
Then, because apparently I was wrong about everything, I watched as Creed swept his body up onto the back of the paint, the rope in his hand, but not tight around the horse’s neck as to be threatening to the animal. Just a loose rein in order to direct him.
The paint danced a few steps forward, a few steps to the side, but Creed sat on him like a heavy weight the animal had no shot of bucking. He just moved up and down, left to right, until finally the horse stilled.
Maybe he stayed there a minute or an hour, I couldn’t say because I was absolutely gob smacked. My life had been firmly grounded in reality since I was old enough to understand who I’d been cursed with for a father.
But this shit was like something out of the movies. Some horse whisperer shit that didn’t really exist in real life.
Creed clucked a heel against the paint’s side and started moving him toward the barn. Still no sudden movements. Everything very controlled and contained. He was the boss of that horse.
Like…the boss of him.
I heard the engine of a truck rumbling down the road alongside our property, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Creed.
He was so fucking…himself. In control of everything. Like, why couldn’t I have been saddled with a buffoon who I could entirely dismiss as worthless? Have zero respect for. Someone I would never be remotely attracted to.
“Hey, Juliette.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. “Hey, Jackson.”
Jackson was the Talley’s oldest son and someone I’d seen enough around town to feel like I knew him, though he was a few years older than me. And being homeschooled meant I couldn’t call any of my peers in this town my classmates, or former classmates or whatever.
Jackson Talley, was just Jackson Talley to me. Although I’d heard enough from some of the girls in my church to know he was considered the hottest single guy in the entire town. (Not really a big deal.) The entire county. (Slightly bigger deal.) The entire state. (Way over exaggerating.)
I took another look at him and thought he looked like a younger version of his dad, which, I assumed, was the point of genetics. Good looking, sure, but so far out of my reach, I’d never thought of him as anything other than what he was. A neighbor.
“Mother. Fuck,” he muttered, coming up behind me. “How the fuck he get a rope around Will’s neck? And that horse let him mount him? Bareback?”
I shrugged my shoulders up to my ears. “Don’t know. Just did it.”
Creed got to within ten feet of us, then slid off the horse’s back and took the rope back up in his hand, leading him to where we stood.
“Consider me impressed,” Jackson laughed, and stretched his hand out. “Jackson Talley. Jake and Ellie’s oldest. Heard about you and Juliette.”
Creed shook Jackson’s hand. “Creed O’Mara.”
Heard about us? Hmm, I thought. Not congratulations. Which meant Jackson, probably much like his mom, was skeptical of our sudden marriage despite the rumors we’d tried to spread.
“This paint’s name is Willful. We call him Will for short, but you sure got his number.”
Creed didn’t say anything to that, just handed over the rope. “You run a breeding program over at the ranch?”
Jackson shook his head. “No, cattle is our only business. But my uncle, Cody, and my dad will stud out their horses in an attempt to recreate perfection, as they tell me. Hasn’t worked yet.”
“Horses are like kids that way,” Creed said. “DNA matters, but they come with their own personalities.”
“You looking for a horse?” Jackson asked him.
“No,” I answered.
“Thinking about it,” Creed said, at the same time.
I glared at him. I’d told him about the horse that I’d lost. I didn’t like to say her name out loud. I didn’t even like to think it sometimes because it hurt too much.
Margo. Mags. Margolita when she was being goofy.
For years, she’d been the best and really only company I had that liked me for who I was. Maybe that’s because I liked to feed her apples or maybe because she just understood me, I’ll never know. But I didn’t want to go through that experience of loss again.
Jackson laughed. “Yeah, you two sound married. Well, let me know. Like I said, we only breed a few for ranch use and personal enjoyment, but we’ll keep an ear out.”
“Appreciate it,” Creed said.
Jackson took Will’s lead and got the paint up into the trailer. Creed and I watched to see if he needed a hand, but Jackson was as competent a cowboy as they came. When he drove away, Creed watched the trail of dust that kicked up behind the trailer for longer than seemed normal.
“What?” I asked, knowing something was on his mind.
“How come he didn’t make an offer on this place?”
I huffed. “You mean, how come he didn’t bid on me? Gee, do you think it’s because he’s got scruples?”
“Scruples,” Creed laughed.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, slightly outraged. “People have them.”
“I’m sure they do. It’s just a funny word to me, is all. He’s a good looking kid. Surprised he’d want to stay on his parent’s ranch when he could have had something for his own.”
“May I remind you, that this place came with me.”
Creed ruffled my hair. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Jules. You’re not all that bad to look at.”
“You motherfucker,” I said, and started after him like I was going to kick him as hard in the dick as I could.
He just laughed and danced away from me like he thought I was kidding.
I wasn’t kidding. If I’d been able to land a blow, I would have.