Chapter 7: Flynn

I dragged myself back to my ranch and started feeding all the animals I had stabled up. My horses were begging for food, and I felt a pang of guilt that I left them be for so long. I had no intentions of staying overnight in that trailer, much less with some piece of ass, blast from my past. So, I decided to feed them some dessert for breakfast, give them plenty of sweetened water to drink, and went ahead and opened their stalls so they could get some fresh air in the pasture. I was supposed to be giving lessons today, but I walked on up to my home and decided to cancel everything for the day. I could tell already that my mind just wasn’t in the right place.

My mind kept flying back to last night. Sure, I’d missed her. That woman lit up my world back in college. I may not have been anywhere near a virgin when I met her, but she sure as hell made me feel like one. Everything was a new experience with her, and every night I woke up with her in my arms was like the first time I’d ever woken up next to her. The light would always catch her hair just right, and her light snoring would always make me smile. There wasn’t a morning where I’d grind into her back that she’d push me away or tell me she was too tired.

God, I missed slipping in between her wet heat in the mornings.

. Nothing could mimic the feeling of sliding into her from behind every morning before I got up and made us coffee, and every morning it happened, I knew it was where I wanted to be.

Until she up and left and never looked back.

It was disgusting, really, how much I loved that woman. I told with the guys at the rodeos that she was just my lucky charm, but, she was the woman I planned on spending the rest of my life with. The week after we graduated, I had a ride planned. I was gonna take her with me, and if I won, it would give me $5,000.00. I was gonna take that money and buy her the ring she deserved, and I was gonna get down on one knee at the next rodeo, in front of God and everybody else, and ask that woman to be my wife.

I wanted her to bear my children and be my family. I wanted her to sell her fashions out of a store she dreamed. I wanted to build that store for her alongside her father with my bare hands in between my traveling to rodeos, and I wanted to have a farm full of animals to retire to so we could watch our grandkids run around with the ponies and puppies. I wanted to wake up every morning and smell her heat on my skin. I wanted to slip behind her in the shower every evening and slowly press her back against that tile wall. I wanted to make her dinners and take her out and experience family vacations with her. I wanted to yell and scream and fight behind closed doors before pounding her into the wall while grunting how sorry I was and how beautiful she looked wrapped around my cock.

But she took all that with her when she left without a word and never looked back.

Hell, she didn’t even tell her parents where she was going!

I made my way out to the bulls and fed them good before I headed on over to the little heifer barn I had. I didn’t keep too many heifers around, just enough to breed with the bulls who were retired so I could sell the calves they birthed for the rodeos, but I’d always made sure they were reared to a certain age before I ripped them from their mothers. Some breeders sold them the moment they plopped, but I wanted my heifers healthy. There wasn’t any reason to give away any calf that was born before their first birthday, and I kept it that way on my farm.

Just because I made money off my animals didn’t mean I had to be cruel.

Once the bulls were taken care of, and the few small babies I had were tended to, I trotted on over into the heifer barn. Right then, I had eight of them, and three were already reaching an age where they wouldn’t be able to bear calves any longer. I had two that were pregnant, and I made a mental note to call the vet and come check on them. One wasn’t due for a few more months, but one we were keeping an eye on. She had been due two days ago, but she was still upright, and the calf was still growing regularly, so the vet wasn’t fussing.

But I guess I just worry too much about my animals.

I milked the cows in the barn before I fed them their next meal, and I went over to pet both of my pregnant heifers before giving them some words of encouragement. I snaked my phone out of my pocket and dialed the vet up the road, and he agreed to come by and take a look at them. I told them I didn’t think she was in labor, but I did want to keep an eye on her in case something were to go wrong. If she was carrying a bull, I could use the money, and if she was carrying a heifer, I could use one to replace the three aging out in my little population.

Chelsea would’ve done wonderfully in this type of lifestyle.

As long as I’d known her, she’d loved animals, but horses were her favorite. The first time we ever went horseback riding together was on the weekend in between one of her family’s camps, and I just couldn’t get over how beautiful she looked on that majestic animal. Her hair blew back in the wind, and her hips rolled graciously on top of the horse’s galloping form, and it was the first and only time I’d ever fallen off the back of a horse. She turned herself around and galloped back towards me, and I could see the worry in her eyes before a smirk upturned on her face.

“Got them bulls under control, but can’t handle a little horse?” she had quipped.

To this day, it’s my favorite memory of her. She was concerned, but confident. Graceful, yet dominant.

My god, the life we could’ve had.

I finished tending to the cow barn and slowly made my way over to the chickens. It was egg collecting time before I sprinkled down some seed, and I could hear my dog howling at my presence from the kitchen window. Lord knows the mess my beagle probably made while I was gone, and while Chelsea continued to flood my mind, I couldn’t be angry at myself. I had gotten another chance to lay with her. To feel her skin underneath my fingertips and hear her sounds whispered into my ear. God, she felt just as warm and tight as the first time I had laid with her in college, and it was as if I could feel her legs still wrapped around my waist. I mindlessly gathered the eggs from the nests as the memory of her scent wafted up my nose, and my hand shook while I fed the chickens as her groans and grunts filled the caverns of my ears.

She had flooded my soul in college, and she wiggled her way back in, and while I was mad at being weak, I couldn’t be mad at caving. That woman was a mystery I had yet to decipher, and I had to admit that I’d still give quite a bit to spend my life trying to figure out why.

I might not give everything, but I’d still give up a lot more than I should for a woman who left me the way she did.

I still wonder to myself why in the world she left...

I guess I technically could have asked her last night, but damn, I was so fucking shocked to see her at my door. Of all the people that could’ve come knocking on my trailer door after that ride, it had to be her. I should’ve asked her why she was there… whether she came to see me or if it was just a coincidence that I was riding that particular day. I should’ve asked her why the hell she left. I should’ve yelled about how much I loved her, how much I cared for her, that her leaving threw me off a bull I couldn’t stand to get back on. I wanted to blame her for so much and yet, I still wanted to throw her onto that bed and fuck her body senseless into the mattress in that rickety trailer.

So, that’s what I did. I threw away my anger away the moment she began crying on that fold out couch and I decided to show her what she left. I decided to show her exactly how I had memorized her body. I decided to shower her with my affections just like I would have every day in between our last meeting and our current one.

But I didn’t want to shower her because I was angry with her.

I wanted to show her because, deep down, I really was hoping, that this time, she would stay. Whatever made her leave the first time, I was hoping to trump it. To be better than it. To show her that I supported her and cared for her and that I would give up and do anything to make her happy.

But I still woke up alone.

That’s what actually made me angry. That’s what really made my blood boil as I ripped the egg basket and marched for the house.

It wasn’t the fact that she left.

It was the fact that I didn’t want her to leave… and it was the fact that she didn’t care that she did.