Montana (Modern Mail Order Bride Book 2) (6 page)

Pecola made her way out the door to see her husband ride up on a four wheeler. “Once I show you the lay of the land, we have another one of these that you can ride.  For today, we ride together, okay?”

He tied the basket down with straps then he climbed on and restarted the engine. “Up you go,” he said to her.  Pecola placed her hand on his shoulder and climbed on to take a seat behind him.

“Arms around my waist,” he said.  She followed his instructions.

“Hold on, Honey,” he told her and they sped away towards the lake. It was a nice feeling holding on to him as they rode across the land.  Her head rested against his back because it felt comfortable to her.  Holding him felt comfortable. What happened next completely drug her out of her comfort zone and made her crave the streets of Brooklyn.

S
erene was the first word that came to mind when the ATV rolled up to the lake. The drive path to the lakeside was a wide open cleared space redolent of large trucks driving the path on a regular basis. The closer they got to the water, the cooler the temperature became. Billy Joe parked the ATV a couple of feet from the lake and stood high on the pads of the vehicle to seek out a perfect spot to enter the water. Wood and debris blocked the idyllic spot to dive into the lake.

“I’ll have to come back with a truck and clear all of that out,” he told her as he turned the vehicle to move closer to the lake in the other direction

Billy Joe cut the engine and reached for the blanket to spread it out on the soft grass.  A movement at the water’s edge in the bulrushes caught both of their eyes.  Pecola didn’t get off the vehicle. The way the foliage moved in the water imitated something serpentine.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing at the water’s edge.

Billy Joe moved closer to the water as the black snake slithered out of the water onto land.  The expression on his face confused Pecola.  She even told him so.

“What the hell are you doing?  That is a big ass snake!”

“Yeah, it is also out of place,” he said as he reached for the knife in his boot. Out of the side of his eye, he could see his wife dismount the ATV. He held up a hand, asking her to hold still, but Pecola wasn’t hearing him.  The snake opened its mouth to show a pure white interior.

“Holy shit!  That is a water moccasin!” She yelled at him.

Billy Joe knew what it was; he just didn’t know what it was doing here in his lake, let alone in the state of Montana.  There was only one poisonous snake in the state, the prairie rattler that lived in rock facings.  This animal was out of place in more ways than one.  With nothing to stop it, it could dominate his lake front and change the ecosystem.  As much as he hated to kill it, this was not the place for the predator to make a home.  The knife was aimed, positioned, and thrown.  It did not make the mark; instead, it only marked the skin of the snake, which sincerely pissed off the slithering menace.

The angry viper came at Billy Joe with a vengeance. He took off running, making the snake chase him.  It chased him around the ATV twice as he fumbled to retrieve his Colt from the bag on the rear seat.  The whole thing would have gone considerably smoother if his wife had not taken off running.  He looked down the lane to see the back of her head and elbows swinging high while she moved at a clip. 

The snake struck out in his moment of distraction, almost catching his boot. Stumbling a bit, he doubled checked the barrel and fired twice, hitting the viper in the head. 
This is troubling
. One thing that troubled him was a non-indigenous snake being in the place he loved to swim. If he had been bitten, there was no local antivenin for treatment.  He would have probably died. The second thing which troubled him was his wife running off and leaving him, when, if he had been bitten, he would have surely died by the time she stopped running.

Billy Joe looked down the lane and she was still running.  He started the ATV and gunned the engine to its top speed to catch up to her.  “Slow down,” he said as he rode beside her. Pecola refused to look over at him as she continued her pace like she was out for a morning jog.

Pecola stopped when he sped up ahead of her to block her path, but she ran around him, making a beeline for the house. Again, he sped up and cut her off at an angle so she would have to stop.

“For God’s Sake, Honey, slow down,” he told her.

Out of breath, sweating, and panting like an overheated dog, she yelled over the engine, “You slow down!  That snake tried to kill you!”

“Yeap, I would have been in a world of hurt if he had bit me,” he said.  Her eyes were wide and full of fear. “Especially considering you left me.”

“I was going to get help!”

Billy Joe arched his eyebrows, “Oh, Yeah?  From whom?”

“Don’t get all grammatically correct on me now.  It was a six-foot poisonous snake out for vengeance!” she cried. “I was going to get those men in the barn!”

Sighing, he removed his hat running his fingers through that thick black hair. “Honey, were you worried that I wasn’t going to protect you?”

“All I saw was a snake.  There are no poisonous snakes in Brooklyn!”

“I understand that, Honey,” he said almost in a patronizing tone. “Running away says to me that you do not trust me as your man to take care of you.”

For the first time since seeing the snake, she stopped to look at him.  His pants leg was stuck in his boot, the knife handle jutting up and the Colt 45 in his hand.
Damn, he looks sexy
.
Focus
.

“I didn’t think about that,” she said softly.

“Honey, there isn’t anything on this land that I don’t know.  Every animal that walks, crawls, hibernates, or populates, I am aware of it,” he told her.

“Stop honeying me!  Water moccasins are not indigenous to Montana. There is no way in hell you knew about that legless monster; it was almost six feet long,” she exclaimed.

“True; I have an idea how it got here.  I just hope it was the only one and a male without a partner,” he told her.

Fist clenched she walked closer to him, “Billy, whoever put that snake in the lake did so to harm you.  Who knew we were going for a swim today?”

“I didn’t tell anyone.  I only came up with the idea when I saw you on the back porch. My mind was more on seeing you half naked.”  His cheeks blushed a bit.

“Then we have an even bigger issue.  Someone who has access to this ranch put that slithering assassin in there waiting for you to come and dive in.  All of those loose branches pulled over the point where you normally climb into the water.  This was no coincidence,” she looked at the house like she was ready to bolt.

“You are really one with the melodrama, ain’t cha?” he said to her.

“That viper was trying to kill you, man!”

His hand gripped her arm. “Seriously, I can handle this, but I need to know right now, honest and true, your hand to God Pecola...” she paused when he looked at her. “Do you trust me to take care of all of your needs?”

“Yes,” she lied.  Trusting him to take care of her was one thing; someone trying to kill him with a deadly snake was another.  If someone could get on the land to release a dangerous snake, what was to stop them from releasing a mountain lion or an actual lion?

Her mind was in overdrive as the squelch of the radio drew his attention away. “Don’t move, please,” he asked her as he reached for the radio.  “Johnson One, go ahead,” he said into the radio.

A deep country twang came through the radio. “This here’s Pap.  You were right Sonny. Lucky Lady is foaling. You might want to get in here!”

Another duty called to him and required his immediate attention. The foal was going to be a nice payday once it was reared.  His mouth was tight when he spoke in a tone that was far more dictator than husband. “Get on!”

Pecola didn’t argue with him as she climbed aboard the ATV.  Billy Joe started the engine and drove towards the barn, coming around the side of the large red building to the back door. He extended his hand to help her down.  A burly man with a red face, tight lips, and bucked eyes looked at Pecola like she had landed from Mars.

“Kovey,” he said to the big man. “This is my wife, Pecola.  Pecola, this is Kovey, our feedlot manager.”

“Hi,” she said softly, trying to remain smaller than she felt next to the huge man.

“Hey,” he spoke back.

Pap was in the back corner with Lucky Lady.  The mare had taken to her side and was trying desperately to push out a hundred pound baby.  The soft hay on the floor of the foaling pen would serve as a cushion to the newborn, who was also desperately trying to get out. The arrival of the new resident to the Rocking J Ranch was not without drama.

“Get in here, Sonny,” Pap called out.  Billy Joe grabbed a set of clear plastic gloves that came all the way up his arms.  He made his way towards the foaling pen with Pecola following closely behind him, peering over his shoulder to take a gander at the mama who grunted through the sounds of child birthing.

The sight of what was before her was considerably more than she could handle. The image of the front legs of the foal along with his head sticking out of the animal’s really large baby maker made her gasp.  As the foal began to kick and move his head, the mother moaned, pushed, and squirted out a load of brownish liquid goo.  Pecola opened her mouth to say something, but the only thing that came out was her breakfast, Exorcist style.

Kovey yelled, “For a little thang, she hocks it up like a man!”

The foal looked as if it was wrapped in a white satin sheet as it struggled to come into the world.  Billy Joe moseyed into the pen, squatted low, grabbed the forearms of the foal and pulled hard.  Another gush of liquid that smelled of sour urine, blood, and something else she could not describe wafted in the air.

This is too much.

It is all too much.

I have been writing about this stuff for years and never, ever experienced any of it. I am so stupid.

His eyes were not on the foal as it took its first gulps of air and rolled in the hay.  Billy Joe removed the gloves and handed the stained plastic to Pap, who was talking to her but she couldn’t hear him.  Her legs were giving way when the feel of weightlessness took  hold of her body.  Pecola was falling but she never hit the ground.

“I gotcha, Honey,” Billy Joe said as he caught her in his arms.  “It’s okay, Baby, I got you.”

The feel of her in his arms was something he was getting used to. 
I have only been her husband for 24 hours, but I feel like I have known her all my life
. Loving her was going to be so much easier than he’d originally believed. Life on the ranch was going to be far different than it had ever been and for that reason alone Billy Joe was excited about the changes.

“I
garunbetcha she has low blood sugar or something!” Pap called after Billy Joe as he scooped his wife up in his arms. “You can tell by what she spewed that she ain’t had no food in her belly; that was all watery...no chunks or nothing!”

“Thanks for noticing that bit, Pap,” he mumbled.

“She sure is cute as a brown button, but she gonna have to learn to eat some real food if she is gonna make it out here in Montana,” Pap spoke again.

Billy Joe changed the subject.  His wife was his concern, not his men’s. “Hey Pap, you and guys keep an eye out.  We found a water moc at the lake, which is why we came back so soon,” he told the foreman.

Kovey nearly knocked him down “A water moc?  Here?  How in tarnation?”

“My thoughts exactly.  Someone is up to no good,” he said as he stepped through the barn door.  He was bone tired from the early morning.  He didn’t sleep well with his new wife lying beside him all sexy like. Unaccustomed to sharing the bed with anyone for several years, getting comfortable was troublesome for more than just his libido.  The bed also squeaked terribly each time she turned, moved, or exhaled too deeply. Still, the taste of her hung around his mouth even after he’d brushed his teeth.  When he burped, he relived the moment of her pleasure infused with a touch of honey all throughout the night. When he finally fell asleep, it was time to get up and get moving.

Billy Joe blew out a breath of sheer relief when his tired butt made contact with his favorite chair.  There was no need to even bother to lay his wife down in the bedroom nor on the couch. Since no movement came from him or his beautiful brown ball of joy, he leaned back into the cushion, one hand on her bottom to hold her in place, while the other rested on her thigh for good measure.  Sleep took him over within seconds.

As the respite seeped into him, Pecola came awake.  Her eyelids fluttered as her brain took inventory of the warmth surrounding her.  The constant rhythm of his heartbeat resonated in her ear while her head rested against his chest.
My husband. My husband just helped deliver a foal.
  She shifted her weight attempting to get out of his lap, but his hand tightened under her bum, pulling her closer.

Pecola tried again, but to no avail. He muttered with his eyes still closed, “You trying to get away from me so soon?”

“I am moving over to the couch,” she said trying again to extricate herself from his grasps.

He pulled her back and wrapped his other hand around her waist. “Not yet.  I like holding you,” he mumbled.

Defeated, leaning into to him, she confided in a low voice to the button hole which appeared hold a spot for the missing button on his shirt. “I keep passing out, it seems,” she said.

“Honey, you need to eat more.”

“I need to get a grip on reality.  My reality has changed and I can’t seem to face the choice...my choices...I am so stupid!”  she said, nuzzling her face into his chest.

He used his right index finger to raise her chin so that her eyes looked upon his face. “Pecola, do you feel in your heart that marrying me was a bad decision?”

“No, I don’t,” she said truthfully.

“Was making love to me awful?” he asked her, wanting, yet not wanting to know the answer.  Pecola searched for the right words to answer the question, but she couldn’t find the correct phrasing.