Thunder In Her Body (9 page)

There were voices returning in the common areas, but mercifully they did not come down this hallway.  They lingered in that embrace for awhile longer.  It took both of them a few minutes to compose themselves before they reluctantly rejoined Clare and Aaron.  Aaron’s hair looked a bit disheveled and they surmised that he and Clare had probably shared their first kiss – but nothing could have surpassed what they just shared.

C
HAPTE
R 4

¤

       The Horses and the Hay

I
n the three-car garage sat Blaze’s four-passenger, quad- cab, silver Dodge Ram pickup truck.  Since they’d sometimes be in rough terrain, Aaron’s Cadillac was not the ideal vehicle to take.  So they piled into the truck, with Blaze helping Lynette up into the tall cab.

“Now, I don’t want you to hurt anything trying to step up that high,” he quipped, grinning like a possum eating a yellow jacket. Lynette stretched her 5 foot 3 inch frame up into the front seat.

“You’re determined to get back at me for my statement at the table, aren’t you?” she laughed, poking him playfully in his ribs.

“Payback is hell,” he laughed aloud, biting his bottom lip and wagging his shoulders.

Blaze liked how easy it was to joke with Lynette.  Their flirting was so obvious, intentional, and a prelude to what they both knew would eventually happen.  After the events of the last night, and her shameless remark at the luncheon table, it was on!  No more pretending.  They felt free with each other, to just be who and what they were – no airs, no pretense and all the barriers were down.  They had, by their mutual actions, allowed themselves to be vulnerable and accepting.  And that suited them both.

Aaron and Clare sat in the back seat and Lynette sat reasonably close to Blaze who reached over and gathered her hand into his.  He had such a wonderful touch.  As he drove he glanced back through the rearview mirror and saw Aaron and Clare quietly exchange a kiss, but he didn’t say anything to Lynette.  Gently, he massaged her hand in his.  He had a way of peeking over at her with a special smile that made her feel safe, wanted and comfortable with this newest entry into her life.

All of the old feelings – the glint of passion – now a torrent of passion - had returned.  They’d never been lost, but Lynette had successfully subordinated those feelings to her work and to purposely keeping herself free.  After she and Robert mutually terminated their relationship, she decided that she didn’t want any more entangling alliances, at least not for awhile.  She’d been caretaking other people since she was seventeen.  She wanted to take care of herself, to nurture her wounded soul.  She wanted to be a successful businesswoman and she felt like she’d been doing a pretty good job of it up until now.

Down a few dirt roads and up a couple of tortuous gravel tracks, and the truck came to a halt.

“Even though we had to come farther away from the house, this is the best place to see a broader view of the ranch,” Blaze said as they climbed out of the truck.  The acreage was vast and Aaron pointed to the vague boundary areas which they could barely make out in the distance near another mountain range.  In one pasture were cattle, an interesting mix of Herefords and some of what looked like Simmentals.  And for sure, Lynette recognized the beautiful long horns. Way far away, closer to the house was a small herd of horses.

“What are those buildings over there?” Clare asked.

“The wooden cabin is a bunk house.  Sleeps six pretty comfortably.  The red, wood one down from it is the horse stable.  Then, look over there, that’s a feed shed where we store hay and feed for the animals.  We keep the tack and ranch equipment in the barn right next to it along with the working equipment like the tractor, fork life and the like.  And of course, there’s the horse corral. Most of the time we let the horses run free like horses should.  When it gets real cold up here, we bring the horses into the stable over there, and any of the pregnant heifers.
The stable has ten individual heated stalls with room for about six other horses, if ever we get that many.  The cattle come up into that enclosure over there.  We’ve got gas generators with blowers on them to keep the air from freezing around the herd when they’re in there.  Winters can be pretty bad up here.  We didn’t have much winter last year, in fact, the whole county was under a drought, so the cattle did pretty well cold-wise.  We had to truck in a hell of a lot of feed because of it, though.  We only lost one calf and it was deformed, so Mother Nature took care of it,” Aaron explained.

“So you all work all this together?” Clare asked.

“Well yes and no,” Aaron answered.  “Blaze is like the overseer over this, but he has his own stretch of adjoining land farther over on the other side.  So he helps me over here, and I help him over there.  We share the labor of the hired hands and when necessary we hire extra help.  He especially takes care of business for all of it when I have to be in court for several days.”

There were questions in Lynette’s mind about this arrangement, but she knew the necessary answers would come later.  No need to be too curious.

They drove down a gravel path, going slightly back toward the house, to where the horses were grazing.  There were five beautiful animals.  A palomino that seemed nervous with new people around; two deep red colored ones whose shiny skin and muscular outlines glistened in the afternoon sun.  A black one with white boots and a grey and white dappled one that came immediately over to the fence to greet them.

“This is Big Boy,” Aaron said proudly.  He’s gentle as a lamb and rides real well.  He’s one of the first ones I bought.  He sires good, strong offspring also.

“Good boy, good boy,” Aaron said as he stroked the horse’s long nose and kissed him like someone would kiss a child.  “The Palomino is still a bit skittish.  We took him in from some people who didn’t take very good care of him.  Fed him well, got the vet out to check on him.  He’s gonna be fine.  He just needs more time to relax.  I’ve got Maurice working with him a couple times a week.  He’s a natural with horses,” Aaron finished.

“Who’s Maurice?” Clare asked.

“We’ve got two other hands that work for us full-time.  They stay over at the bunk house.  If either of us has to be away from the ranch, they know just what to do, and they look after all the animals.  That’s why they live out here and not nearer to the main house.  There’s always someone on the property at all times.  We never leave the animals completely alone,” Aaron added.  “We’ve got underground wiring out here, so even though cell phone reception can be a problem, they can always use the land line to contact whomever they need to. There’s a satellite dish on the back side of the bunk house so they get lots of channels, especially the sports links, and I understand that Hawk also has a CB radio,” Aaron said.

“They like it out here pretty well,” Blaze added, “and trust me, the town ladies don’t mind the ride out here either,” he quipped, winking at Aaron.

“We’ve tried to make their accommodations as comfortable as possible.  They’ve got electricity, as long as we do,” Blaze laughed.  “It’s fairly common to have power outages up here, especially during a bad storm.  If that happens, there’s a gas generator out back.  They can heat with electric, or use firewood and electric; whatever works best for them.  They have a refrigerator and microwave, electric stove; really all the comforts of home.  There’s a deep well out here and the only thing we couldn’t put in there was a washer and dryer because of the septic system, and the bad percolation down here,” Blaze continued.  Aaron added that, “they come up to the big house a couple times a week to wash their clothes and do their laundry.  You probably didn’t notice but there are two washers and two dryers in the laundry room.  That’s so everybody can get their things washed with a minimum wait.”

“We all sit out on the deck, have a couple of beers, shoot the bull while their things wash, so it’s kind of an ol’ boys atmosphere around here,” Blaze added.  “They’re good men.”

“Hawk, is he Native-American?” Lynette asked.

“Yeah.  I grew up with his daddy.  Good family,” Blaze said.

“Maurice is a gangly ol’ cowhand.  White boy from up around Colorado.  Got tired of the deep snow, and I think some girl’s family ran him out of there,” Aaron laughed, “so he feels safe here.  Good worker.  We’ve been lucky with those fellas.  Been with us for years.  I even bought them a new pick up truck to share, ‘cuz neither one of theirs had much life left in ‘em.  Their trucks are good enough to knock around the place, but when they need to go to town or go out on the highway, I like them to have good, dependable transportation.  Got ‘em a Chevy.  Maybe for Christmas we’ll take them down to Albuquerque and let them each pick out a nice, used pick-up for their own.  What da’ you think Blaze?” Aaron asked.

“I think that’s a fine idea.  They deserve it.  Look at that ol’ blue thing of Maurice’s.  It’s not worth shooting,” Blaze said, pointing toward a decrepit old pickup that once was probably a navy blue color.  It was more rust now than color, but it still ran.

“I bet we can work a deal and get two trucks for around twenty-five thousand, What da’ ya think?” Aaron again asked Blaze.

“Works for me,” he nodded.

“Would you all like to see inside the bunk house?” Aaron asked.

“No, not really,” Clare said.  “That’s their home.  We don’t want to intrude.  It wouldn’t be fair, especially with them not knowing we were coming.”

“That’s fair,” Aaron agreed.

“Let’s go drag out some feed since we’re here,” Blaze said to Aaron.

“Ok.  Ladies, we’ll be right back,” Aaron said as the guys hopped into the big silver truck.  Lynette and Clare watched the back of the vehicle bounce up and down as it maneuvered over some bumps and drove about two hundred yards away to the stable.  The guys loaded four bales of fresh hay and a bag of feed and drove back to the fence.

In that brief time that they were gone, Lynette slipped into one of her introspective modes.  She had obviously allowed herself to become infatuated with this beautiful and fun man.  But
man
was the operative word.  She wasn’t sure she wanted another man in her life, at least not right now.  But she really liked him.  He made her feel sexy and wanted.  He made her feel a lot of things; foreign things, but all good.  And if the truth be told, she wanted to lie beside him and make love to him.  For a second she wrestled with the fact that she could have sex with him, without any entanglements.  She was grown, free, modern and independent.  Yet something told her that there was a power in him that wouldn’t let her be cavalier with her body or her emotions.  Her instincts said he deserved better than that, too.  Something was pulling her relentlessly to him, into him.  It was a power beyond her immediate comprehension.  This was an emotional danger zone, but somehow she felt that she wanted to go with it; that the risk was worth the danger.  He was worth whatever was to be.

The horses had plenty of water in a huge metal corrugated tub, but Blaze turned the spigot on anyway to areorate the existing troth.  The men carried the bales into the fenced area, snipped the baling wire and busted them open.  They shook the hay loose, unleashing a rain of dirt and hay particles, which flew right at the ladies, who sputtered from the debris.

“Sorry about that,” Blaze apologized with a smile.

“Wanna feed them?” Aaron asked.

The horses’ lips felt funny on Lynette’s hands, but they were gentle as they ate right out of her flattened palm. Aaron let out a yelp as he tumbled over a bale.  It seemed that Big Boy was not only gentle, but a prankster.  He waited until Aaron bent over with the baling clippers, and he butted him with his nose, pushing Aaron head first over the bale.  Aaron landed in a backward sitting position, looking startled and rather silly with hay covering his face. Clare bent over slapping her knees, laughing to the point of tears, trying not to pee on herself.

Lynette watched Blaze walk.  Even the simple act of walking was attractive to her.  He walked as if walking was easy, even pleasurable.  His slim hips were in perfect alignment with the rest of his muscular body.  He walked silently with the pressure on his heels, not his knees.  And when he stood, he positioned his long legs slightly apart.  It was the casualness of his body that enticed her.  Blaze beckoned Lynette to come inside the fence and lifted her hand to pet one of the reds.  She wasn’t in anyway afraid of the magnificent stallion.  For the most part, she was fearless with animals.  She didn’t have much experience with horses though.

“Easy now,” he said, “he won’t bite you, but you need to move your hand slowly so you don’t startle him at first.”

Blaze leaned over Lynette’s body with his chin grazing the top of her head and the front of his entire body pressed against the full back of hers.  Both of his arms reached over her shorter shoulders as he placed the coarse brush in her hands.  He lowered his voice so only Lynette and the horse could hear.

“Stroke him like you’d stroke something you really liked, something you wanted to really enjoy your touch” he said quietly, as he lifted her hand, covered it with his, and gently guided it down the horse’s withers.  The horse enjoyed it; Lynette enjoyed it.  Blaze had positioned himself with a wide stance to keep his balance.  It made his lower area very accessible to the softness of her behind.  She could feel him rubbing against her. Blaze was teaching her how to curry a horse and one of a thousand innocent ways he could make love to her.  She was more than aware that whenever he could, he stood close to her, he somehow touched her, or he would begin to speak to her when the others wouldn’t necessarily hear.  If it was soft vulgarity, it was meant only for Lynette’s ears.