Chapter Two
Gentry
I hadn’t intended to be blunt or rude to Krystina. Not entirely. I had spent two hours arguing with Gloria when she called to ask – no demand – that I invite her childhood best friend to the stay with me at the ranch. Not that it mattered, had I declined Gloria would have just gone over my head to our Uncle Ed who technically still owned and ran the place.
Krystina wasn’t the trailer park princess from down the street anymore. Like me, like him, she had been determined to leave that small hell hole in Illinois. And so, we all had. Jimmy first, although he was from an upper end family and running towards not away – to some fancy swanky school out East.
Me, I escaped to the ranch the next year … all excited to jump at my uncle’s offer of working with him and taking over. The thrill of building some kind of future for me… and for her.
But the her had changed her mind. She got accepted to the same school as Jimmy and wanted to try her luck at a higher education.
That was that. I never got into the social media craze. No internet worth a damn and no desire to follow the lives of people I escaped. But, fear not, Gloria kept me appraised of all the gossip during our frequent phone calls.
James proposed, Krystina said “yes”. They had a big to-do in the city. To which Gloria had been there for and provided too many excruciating details.
I was ever so grateful when Gloria met Damion several years back. It meant a greater distraction and fewer updates on Krystina. Until four months ago when Gloria called to tell me Krys was filling for a divorce. That was all. No elaborate story with all the gruesome facts or fiction. Just that one sentence.
Until three days ago.
I had argued that with all the money she had surely gotten from Jimmy and her socialite friends, she would be fine. But Gloria was convinced that she needed/wanted a change of pace. A familiar old life friendly face to keep an eye on her.
Change of pace I could provide, friendly face not so much.
Since I left Mirror Lake Ranch five hours ago I tried telling myself I could let go of my stubbornness, my pathetic grudge and a failed whatever we had a decade ago. I had myself talked into it too.
That was until I saw her. Anyone else would have looked exhausted and disheveled. But not her, in a black New York style pea coat that matched her long silk hair that she had pulled back into a simple, perfect pony tail.
Damn, New York, Damn Jimmy Delore. Damn Krystina DeLuch. Damn myself for still wanting her.
I tried to think of her all bitch, uppity and city-fied like but she had been none of those things. She looked almost nervous when I called her name at the airport. I thought if she would act cold or like she forgot where she came from then it would be enough of a turn off.
But it didn’t work. All seeing her again made me want to do was slam my dick into her sweet slick folds over and over again. Bouncing her head off my headboard until she forgot all the nonsense of the last ten years.
I glanced over at her now. She had unbuttoned her coat and used her scarf as a makeshift pillow, she had dozed off now. The rise and fall of those heavy, perfect tits that every guy in high sixty miles tried to get a look at in high school. I involuntarily shuddered and focused back on the road instead of on my growing cock.
Fuck she better get her shit together quick.
****
Much to my asshole of a word, we rode in near silence the rest of the way to Mirror Lake. I had woken Krys up as we turned down the ranch road. She growled a grumble as she stirred and even that sounded sexy as hell.
I was going to have to keep my distance from her. I glanced at the gleaming numbers on the truck radio. Twelve-twenty-three. Ranch mornings started early but lights were still burning at the big house.
Uncle Ed would still be awake waiting on us. Go figure. He loved me and worried about me being out in the weather like this and coming in from the city. Plus, he was excited to see our new guest. Ed didn’t know why I had baulked at the suggestion, if he did he never let on. Hell, Gloria didn’t even know.
I was typically welcoming to women at the ranch as long as they didn’t get in the way. Womanizer wouldn’t be the term I would use for myself, though I had been called that before. But if the boot fit I supposed I should wear it.
“Who all lives here?” Krys asked as I put the truck in park.
“At the big house it’s just me and Ed. Now you too. I got four cowboys in the bunk house behind the barn. Probably you won’t see them too much.” Or at all. The boys would take a cotton to her all to easily.
“I’m here to work,” Krys started but I cut in.
“You’re not built for work like this,” I told her as I cut the trucks ignition and threw open the door.
“I’m not some fragile little being or some high maintained floozy. It’s been a while but not so long I forgot what “real life” is.”
“The ranch ain’t the trailer park,” I shot back, intentionally trying to hit below the belt. She hated that place. I slammed my driver’s side door and threw open the back door and grabbed her bags.
Krys muttered something pissy under her breath and kicked her own door open and jumped out of the truck. I heard the side door of the house open and the deep gruff voice of Ed as he stepped onto the small porch. “Took you long enough to get back boy.”
“Ed!” Krys cried with excitement and darted up the steps lucky to not fall and bust her ass on the layer of snow and ice.
“Krystina DeLuch! In the flesh!” he called back, sweeping her up in a hug and spinning her around.
Uncle Ed hadn’t been around a lot when we were growing up. After all the ranch wasn’t exactly close to us in Illinois. But like me, he doted on his little sister, my mother, so visits did happen when they could and for thirteen years solid Krys and Gloria were inseparable so Ed and Krys had met.
“It’s good to see you and on my ranch,” Ed continued and I cleared my throat. It was OUR ranch.
“Oh hush up boy. Get those bags inside and up the stairs to Krys’ room. Girl come in and get comfortable. Cup of coffee?”
“Ed it’s late. Morning comes early,” I replied. I just wanted this night over.
“For you maybe. Me and Krys don’t have to be up with the sun, we have some catching up to do.”
“Ed, Gentry is right. I should go to bed. I am here to work so I should be up early with him. Course I did nap on the way in.”
Krys and her damn wanna be ranch work ethic.
“Nonsense,” Ed declared. “Tomorrow you relax then in the afternoon Gentry will take you riding and give you a tour, weather permitting.”
“I got plenty to do tomorrow Ed,” I added shutting the door behind me.
“Well I would do it myself but I got to meet a lady friend tomorrow afternoon in town. I’ll get one of the hands to help show her around,” Ed suggested.
“I’ll take her!” my enthusiasm came from nowhere as I headed for the stairs with Krys’ bags. I didn’t want to take Krys. I didn’t want her here, to be around her, see her or have a damn thing about her being on my sacred ground. It just wasn’t a good idea. But I sure as hell didn’t want to see my employees falling all over her. Any spark, any anything between them. I had been around Krys for a whole four hours and I had already regressed ten years in maturity.
If I couldn’t have Krystina DeLuch no one could. At least while she as at Mirror Lake.
Krys stayed downstairs with Uncle Ed and I tossed her bags in the guest room. Acutely aware that it was just this one wall that would separate us. Ed’s room was down stairs and on the other end of the house.
Granted, with the ranch I was gone all day every day. But the problem with Colorado winters was nights were very long, very cold and very lonely.