ShotgunRelations, page 4
He mastered her as no one ever had before. She loved it. Truth be told, she’d started falling in love with him long before he’d even noticed her.
* * * * *
The following morning Liz blinked when she woke up. When she finally got her bearings, she realized she was still in Jack’s bed, pleasantly sore from the most intense sex she’d ever experienced. Here he was, standing next to the bed wearing unbuttoned jeans and a big grin. He looked incredibly sexy with his bare chest and that dagger tattoo on his arm. “Coffee?” he asked as he handed her a steaming mug.
“Thank you Master.” She took the mug, noticing he’d added milk. “You remembered how I like it.”
“You have to have a memory for detail in my line of work.” Sitting beside her, he stroked her thigh. “What are you doing today?”
“Making sure the ranch hands do their jobs.” Liz couldn’t help resenting the fact that her mother paid no attention to anything but the main house, even on Sundays when their ranch foreman, Frank Williams, was off. “No rest for the wicked.”
Jack shook his head. “Pity. I had plans to keep you right here until I have to be in court tomorrow for a trial that may last most of the week. Drink up though, and I’ll take you home.”
“I wish I could stay, but…”
He gave her a quick, hard kiss. “It’s okay. I understand you need to take care of your ranch. But you’re going to save next weekend for me. All of it, from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. I intend to keep you naked the whole time unless I decide to take you to the club.”
“I don’t know, Master.”
“I do.” He didn’t sound angry—just supremely confident. “Tell your foreman his days off this week will be weekdays, not Sunday. Or get your mother to oversee whatever the help has to do. Honey, if I’m your master, you’re going to have to fit your schedule to mine, since I haven’t been able to persuade judges to do that.”
Liz wished that was as easily done as said. “I’ll try. Frank, our foreman, has always had Sundays off so he can take his wife to church. Until Daddy died, he had Saturdays and Sundays off, and it took some serious persuasion for me to get him to agree to work Saturdays and take Mondays off instead.”
Jack stood and looked down at her. “You submit to me, honey. Not to any of your employees. Not anymore. If I have to, I’ll set every cowboy on your payroll straight about who’s their boss, but I think you can do that just fine by yourself. If you need me to though, I’ll step in.”
Part of Liz wanted Jack to take an interest in the Laughing Wolf. Another part liked the fact that he hadn’t tried to insinuate himself into ranch business right away, the way some of her old boyfriends had done. “If you’d like, you can come home with me and ride along while I check the fences between the Bar C and the Laughing Wolf.”
“You think I can manage to dominate a horse?” When Jack laughed, it accentuated the crinkly lines around his eyes.
“I imagine you can. You are a born Texan, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t brought up on a ranch.” He sounded a little unsure of himself, and that surprised her.
“Can you ride horseback?”
He shrugged. “I rode a lot when I was at boarding school, but that was a long time ago. I’m sure I won’t be able to ride circles around your cowboys. Or you, for that matter. I doubt I’ll get thrown though.”
“I’m willing to chance it if you are. I’d love to have company riding fences.”
“Then I’m all in. Get dressed and we’ll head out to play cowboys and cowgirls. Maybe we’ll stop for a break and have a quick fuck in one of those line shacks that dot every ranch around here.”
Liz laughed. “There just may be one along the section where we’ll be checking fences.” She lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “Master.”
She hated putting back on the outfit she’d worn to Bye’s wedding, but she had no choice so she started dressing. “I’ll have to change into jeans when we get to the house.”
“I’m glad. Have I ever told you I think you look mighty pretty in your jeans, with your hair in a ponytail?”
“Thanks, I think. I feel more at home in jeans than I do in this garden-party dress.” Giving Jack her hand, she went with him to his car.
* * * * *
The Bar C went on for miles, from the outskirts of Caden to another farm road that led around a Bar C pasture on the high plateau, where cattle grazed around dozens of pumpjacks, and windmills turned high above land dotted with colorful Texas wildflowers. “Now that looks like efficient use of land,” Jack said, trying to mask his resentment toward his old man.
“Yes it is. Four brought in the oil and gas wells, but Bye’s the one who started the wind farm a couple years ago. His mother encouraged him to do it.”
“Four?”
“That’s what everybody calls Bye’s father. I’m glad ‘Five’ never stuck with Bye. His mother didn’t like people calling her son by a number.”
“What was Mrs. Caden like?” Though Jack had never met her, he’d heard people—Bye and Deidre as well as other folks around Caden—say nothing but good things about his father’s late wife. He’d often wondered how different his life might have been if he’d been her son as well as Four’s.
Liz turned to him and smiled. “Mae Caden was one of the nicest women I ever met. She loved Bye and Deidre unconditionally, even when they did crazy things that made her worry. I doubt that Four would have let Bye build his wind farm if not for Mae championing the project. He wasn’t at all anxious to encourage alternative energy sources that might someday supplant oil and gas. I suppose he had his reasons, because there must be close to a hundred wells pumping crude out of Bar C land.”
Jack guessed from the way she talked about Mrs. Caden that Liz had found a friend in her. He doubted Liz’s own flighty mother had been much of an influence on her. Mavis Wolfe was as airheaded as any woman he’d ever met, totally oblivious to everything and everyone except herself. He wished he could have met Liz’s dad before his death, since Liz had obviously gotten most of her good traits from him.
Halfway down into the valley, he turned onto a blacktop road topped with a metal arch that had a large brass replica of a laughing wolf dangling from its high point. “We’re almost there.”
“Yes. We’ll be riding back up this way to check the fences I told you about.” When Liz laid a hand on Jack’s knee he found he liked the casual intimacy. “Next week I’ll have the brush mowed down in that pasture, but I’ve been holding off because I like to see the wildflowers that spring up amidst the weeds. Pretty soon we’ll have a cold spell and most of them will die.”
Every time he spent time with her, he learned another facet of her personality. Practical in most things, she occasionally gave in to whimsical impulses like the one that had made her spare some flowers from a thresher’s teeth. He was coming to care more for her each day—and not just because he’d found the perfect submissive for his bed.
He pulled into the driveway in front of the main house, a rustic-looking two-story place built of native limestone he figured was probably around a hundred years old. A narrow, detached garage built from the same material looked as if it had been a coach house at one time. “Where would you like for me to park?”
“You can pull in on the grass, over by the garage. That way, if Mom needs to leave she’ll be able to get out easily.”
The middle-aged cowboy who’d stared at him when he’d picked Liz up for the wedding yesterday spat out a mouthful of chewing tobacco and glared at Liz. “’Bout time you got back here, boss-lady.”
Not about to let the asshole get in Liz’s face, Jack stepped forward. “You apologize now. What makes you think I’ll stand by and let you disrespect a lady?”
“It’s all right. Frank, go on now and take Nancy to church.” Liz sounded conciliatory, and that pissed Jack off.
“All right. I’m going. I sent the crew out to round up more calves for branding. They should do okay without you riding herd on them.” Frank started to leave but Jack caught his arm and spun him around until the foreman had no choice but to stop and face him.
“Apologize to Miss Wolfe. Now. I never want to hear you’ve spoken to her again the way you just did.”
“Sorry.” From Frank’s tone it was obvious he wasn’t sorry at all.
Jack itched to wipe the belligerent expression off the foreman’s leathery face. “Go on. Do what you need to do.” He watched as the foreman got into a jeep with a laughing wolf painted on its doors and drove away.
“Don’t you want to come inside and say hello to Mother?” Liz asked
Jack didn’t much care for Mavis Wolfe and didn’t feel up to making nice. “I’ll pass. You go ahead inside and change. I’ll head on down toward the barn and commune with the horses, if that’s okay with you.”
“It’s fine, Master. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
“One other thing, honey. Don’t wear any underwear. I want to know your shirt and jeans are the only things between me and your breasts and pussy.”
He thought he heard her whisper, “Yes, Master,” as she headed for the house.
* * * * *
Cowboy boots weren’t made for serious walking. Jack’s feet ached in several places by the time he got near the barn, so he climbed onto the top rail of a nearby paddock and observed half a dozen horses cropping the grass and frolicking around. He squinted into the bright sunlight, then put on his sunglasses even though he was sure they looked weird with the straw Stetson that Liz had assured him he’d need to keep the sun out of his eyes.
He didn’t know why he’d once thought he’d enjoy being a rancher, because with every furtive glance at the rambunctious horses he figured his ass would hurt worse than his feet by the time he finished this ride—that was, if he survived it.
Bye would certainly laugh if he saw him now. At least that wasn’t likely, since he and Karen had flown away to a resort in Baja California as soon as they could decently leave their wedding guests.
“You picking out your horse?”
Jack turned at the sound of Liz’s voice and watched her as she sauntered across the field with a sexy swing of her hips. She seemed in her element now, in jeans and a long-sleeved red plaid shirt. Her ponytail swung in the breeze and he liked the way the sunlight seemed to bounce off the golden-brown strands. When he jumped down from the fence and went to join her, he couldn’t resist taking her in his arms.
“I’m gonna have to get you a cowgirl outfit to wear when we go play at the club,” he whispered close to her ear. “One that looks just as sassy as what you have on but leaves a lot more of you uncovered for me to ogle.”
He found he liked the way she blushed when he said something to embarrass her. “Yes, Master. Which horse would you like to ride today?”
“I think I’ll let you pick for me. Keep in mind that I’ll find an interesting way to punish you if you put me on one that bucks me off.” When a grizzled old cowboy limped out of the barn toward them, Jack stepped back from Liz, not wanting to undermine her authority with her employees.
“I think you’ll look good on Zeus. He’s the black gelding over by the gate.” She moved in that direction and spoke to the cowboy. “Tom, saddle Zeus for Mr. Duval. I’ll ride Athena today.”
“Yes ma’am.” Tom glanced Jack’s way, a curious look on his weathered face. Then he snapped a lead onto the black horse’s halter and led him into the barn.
“Zeus is a fierce sort of name. Are you setting me up for a spill?” Jack asked Liz as they waited for Tom to come back with the horses.
“No, Master. If I wanted to give you a hard ride, I’d have told Tom to saddle him.” She gestured to the paddock on the other side of the barn, where an equally jet-black horse snorted and pawed the ground. “His name is Neptune. He’s Zeus’ sire. Right now he’s chomping at the bit to get at some of the mares that are in heat. I wouldn’t ask anybody to ride him when he’s got mating on his mind.”
“They’re both good-looking horses. Why’d you have Zeus gelded?”
“His dam has some flaws in her bloodlines. We didn’t want those flaws being passed down. She got bred with Neptune by accident—meaning that Neptune jumped a fence and had himself a good time around seven years ago.”
So Zeus was a bastard too. Jack looked again at the stud that had sired Zeus. The horses looked alike to his untrained eye, except that Neptune stood a few hands higher—much like Four towered over him. “I take it Zeus is better behaved than that one?”
“Much better. You don’t really think I’d put my master in danger, do you?”
Jack squeezed her hand. “I don’t think you would. I know you like how I can make you feel.”
“You’re right. Here come our horses.”
Liz’s mare was pure white. “Athena and Zeus contrast nicely,” he said. “Are all your horses named for Greek and Roman gods?”
Liz laughed. “No. Only the ones Neptune has sired. Athena here was a real surprise. Most of Neptune’s get have been black or blood bay, no matter what color mare he was mated with.” She scratched her mare’s nose when she took the reins from Tom.
When Tom handed Zeus’ reins to Jack, the big horse nuzzled his chest. “I think he likes me.”
“Zeus likes everybody. Come on, let’s get busy.” When she mounted, Liz shot Jack a pointed look. “You okay, Master?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Jack swung up into the saddle and waited for Tom to adjust the stirrups.
Tom finished what he was doing and stepped back. “Does that feel okay, Mr. Duval?”
“It’s fine, thanks.” Drawing on old memories, Jack dug his heels into Zeus’ side and loosened his grip on the reins. “Let’s catch up with Athena.”
Riding through the overgrown pasture with her master made the flowers seem brighter, the sky above bluer than before. Jack made an arousing picture on Zeus’ broad back—a dark, handsome man astride a horse with gleaming jet-black hide that almost matched the stubble on his rider’s strong jaw. Even the straw Stetson perched on his head at a rakish angle lent a sense that he belonged here, to her land. To her, as much as she belonged to him.
When they reached the fence that separated the Laughing Wolf from the northwest corner of the Bar C, Liz had to force herself to take care of business when all she really wanted was to keep looking at Jack.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
She smiled. “We watch for broken fences between the Laughing Wolf and the Bar C, and for Bar C cattle that may have strayed through the cut. In this pasture, if there are any cattle, they probably belong to the Bar C, since we haven’t been running cows here since last spring. When we’re riding along the farm road, we pay special attention to places where it looks as though the fence has been cut and then repaired, because nobody has ridden this section for a couple of weeks. We shouldn’t see tire tracks, but if we do, then we’ve probably had a visit from a rustler.”
“Rustlers? Seems to me that the prospect of spending ten years or more in prison should be a pretty good deterrent for somebody considering getting himself some free beef.”
“You’d think so. But as the economy gets worse, rustling has become a real problem. We’ve lost twenty-five almost market-ready steers in the past couple of months, which is why the hands are out counting heads on our main pasture, which is bordered on two sides by outside roads.”
Jack let out a low whistle. “If one person made off with all of them, that would be grand theft for sure.”
“If they took one, it would be that. Feedlot-ready steers sell on the hoof for upwards of two thousand dollars apiece.”
“I should have guessed, with decent steaks selling for more than ten dollars a pound. Hey, aren’t those tire tracks?”
They certainly were. The overgrown grass was bent and broken where a vehicle had come off the road and apparently driven straight to the fence that separated the Laughing Wolf from the Bar C. Liz dismounted and examined the fence where the tire tracks stopped. “Somebody cut this fence and then repaired it. Not long ago either. What I can’t figure out is why. We don’t have any cattle here.”
“Maybe they weren’t stealing from you, honey. Looks to me as though there are plenty of cows over there.” He gestured toward the meadow where cattle were grazing among the dozens of pumpjacks.
“Why would rustlers cut two fences, though, when they could have gone right onto the Bar C and taken whatever they wanted?” Liz looked along the distinct tracks to the section of fence next to the road. “Let’s go look and see if the fence was cut back where the tracks started,” she said as she mounted Athena and spurred her along the path of the tracks.
Jack beat her there and slid off Zeus. “My guess is that you haven’t had people riding fences while there haven’t been cattle here to tend. I imagine Four is pretty careful to protect his cattle, not to mention those oil wells. Here’s where it looks as if the fence was cut and pieced back together.”
“You’re right.” After dismounting and checking the section of fence Jack had indicated, Liz shook her head. “I’d better let Four know he may be missing some of his prize Brangus steers, but I can’t imagine him not knowing that already. He has cowhands counting heads of cows and riding fences every day.”
“Maybe some cowhands are the ones doing the rustling.”
“That’s certainly possible but I doubt it. Bye mentioned how Four has been mighty careful to run background checks on all his employees since one of the wranglers ran off with Deidre a few months ago.” She followed Jack’s gaze toward the spot where somebody had cut the fence between the two ranches. “I’d hate to think anybody who works on the Laughing Wolf is a rotten apple, but I’ll talk to Frank and see if he’s hired anybody recently without thoroughly checking references.”
