Millie
“Millie, honey,” Bonnie cried from the porch steps. “I think all your stuff is here.”
Addy had gone out for the day with her friend Elizabeth, who lived in town, and Elizabeth’s mother was taking them for ice cream and then to the cinema in Knightingale, therefore I’d been helping Bonnie bake some pies for the ranchers. I say help, but she’d actually been teaching me, as I was not known for my culinary skills at the best of times and pies were way out of my comfort zone.
We’d heard a vehicle beeping as it came up the track, so Bonnie had gone to investigate and seemingly it was all my belongings.
The two men in the truck helped me in with the boxes and piled them in the lounge, then after declining a cold drink and a piece of lemon cake, left with another beep of the horn.
“Is this everything you own?” Bonnie asked.
I shook my head. “Not all of it, just things I thought I’d need for a year on a ranch.”
I held up the pair of red stiletto shoes that I had pulled from the first box that I had opened. “Although, not sure I’ll need these.”
We both giggled as I examined the four inch heels before throwing them back into the box.
“Well, if you leave them there I’ll get Ted to help you up with them when he gets back.”
Garratt and Ted had gone to see a guidance counsellor friend of Ted’s, to find out what Garratt’s educational options were, although I had a feeling that Garratt had already decided that college was not for him. After that meeting, Ted was dropping Garratt and a couple of his friends into Knightingale. Today was Garratt’s 21st birthday and he couldn’t wait to buy his first legal beer. Bonnie had wanted to throw a party, but Garratt didn’t want one. Most of his friends were away at college, where he had expected to be, so he didn’t fancy ‘a fucking tea party with Mom, Dad and Addy playing musical fucking chairs’. Knightingale it was then!
“Okay, thanks Bonnie,” I replied. “But I’ll just check what’s in each one first. I left in such a hurry I have no idea what I shipped over.”
“No problem, honey. I’ll put the last of those pies in the oven then I’ll go over to the bunk house, see what supplies they need.”
“Do you need me to come and help?” I asked.
“No honey,” she replied, waving a dismissive hand at me. “It’s just checking the cupboards, that’s all. No, you stay and sort through your boxes.”
I sighed contentedly as Bonnie disappeared. She was such a lovely woman and she had made it so easy for me to fit in on the ranch. Everyone had, to be honest. Well, everyone except Jesse, he was like a grizzly old bear that hated to be disturbed.
For the next hour or so, I searched through the boxes and made a pile of anything that I realized that I wouldn’t need. I was going to put them in another box and ask Ted if he’d store it somewhere for me for the year that I would be here. I had just pulled out a framed photograph of Dean and me, when Jesse stormed into the house. My pulse quickened and if I hadn’t already been sitting, I think my legs would have gone to jelly.
“Oh hey,” I said, looking up at him from my cross-legged position on the floor. “Your mum is over at the bunk house and your dad is with Garratt in town.”
“And Addy?” he asked, scratching the top of his head. “Where’s she?”
My heart jumped a little. Had he come to the house to see Addy? Was Garratt right, was Jesse finally extracting his head from his a-hole?
“She’s on a play date with a friend. They’ve gone to the cinema, sorry, the movies. I’m trying to remember to use the correct lingo,” I babbled. “But I keep forgetting.”
Jesse gave me a hint of a smile.
“Well if you are, for the record it’s my Mom, not my Mum.”
The way he said Mum made me giggle, he seemed to struggle to get his tongue around the word. Then as soon as I thought of the word tongue, that was it, my mind started to conjure up other visions of Jesse and what he could do with his tongue. To hide my embarrassment, I looked down at the picture in my hands.
“What’s that you’ve got there?” he asked, lowering his six feet plus frame to crouch next to me.
“Oh, just a photograph. My stuff from home arrived.”
Without any warning, he took it from me and examined it. His eyes came up to meet mine and then went back to the photograph.
“Boyfriend?”
“No, not anymore.”
“He’s not waiting for you?” he asked, handing the photograph back.
I shook my head. “Let’s just say we didn’t end on a positive note.”
“That why you answered Mom’s ad’ for the job-to get away from him?”
I expected Jesse to stand, but he stayed in the crouched position, with one arm resting on his knee while the other hung between his legs. I could feel my skin start to heat up as the smell of him invaded my nostrils. He smelled of leather and musk and hard work and it was absolutely intoxicating. Putting the photograph in the box, I turned to look at him and felt my heart flutter again; I was going to need a pacemaker at this rate. He looked amazing, despite the dirt smeared across his cheek and the greyness under his bright blue eyes.
“So what happened, you fall out of love with him?”
Jesse’s gaze on me was as intense as his questioning. I’d been here eight days and this was the most he’d spoken to me. I had been pretty much invisible to him before now.
“He cheated on me,” I said without thinking, Jesse’s eyes hypnotizing me into laying myself bare. “In fact, he more or less dumped me at the altar. Well, he did dump me at the altar, no more or less about it.”
Jesse’s eyes widened. “Fuck me, who’d he leave you for, a Victoria’s Secret model?”
I started to laugh. “How do you know about Victoria’s Secret models?”
“I may work long hours Millie, but I ain’t dead from the waist down and we do actually have the TV, newspapers, the internet, running water and all that shit out here.”
I thought I’d offended him, but the corner of his mouth lifted into a small smile.
“Okay, point taken,” I giggled. “And no, he was not a Victoria’s Secret model.”
“Say that again.” Jesse’s mouth dropped open as he tilted his head closer to me. “Did you say he?”
I nodded as the shame hit me in the chest like a lead weight. Jesse’s finger came under my chin, and lifted my gaze to his.
“That’s not on you, Millie,” he said softly. “If a man likes other men, there isn’t a lot you can do about that. You really don’t have the equipment to change his mind.”
I gasped at Jesse making a joke and started to laugh. Jesse didn’t laugh but he gave me a smile that crinkled his eyes, then he stood up and started to walk towards the door.
“Fucking dick head, though, if you ask me,” he said with his hand on the door handle. “It’s like having prime beef at home and going out for McDonald’s every night.”
With that he was gone, as was my heart. Jesse Connor was going to be my downfall, I just knew it.