16
Wes
I spent the hour I had before I picked up Kristin gathering everything I thought I might need to make the day special. I did some shopping at Wally’s and then went over to Fleming’s, the lone “department” store we had in town. I don’t know that Fleming’s qualifies as a department store, but they are the only place in Chandler that has a little bit of everything, and they were likely to have the items I was looking for. I found just the things I wanted without drawing a lot of attention to myself and then headed out to the liquor store before I made a quick stop at the florist.
After I had gathered all my supplies, I made a quick phone call to Dad to see if he could arrange something for me. I let him know about my plan, and he was happy to oblige and said things would be ready when I got home. It was then on to Kristin’s place to pick her up.
Since everything in Chandler seems nearby, it was just a short drive over to her apartment to get her. I was ready to walk up to her apartment to greet her, but when I pulled into the parking lot, there she was waiting for me. She had a blue denim jacket on to match the jeans she was wearing, with a simple white tank top on underneath. She didn’t see me in my SUV right away, so I got to look at her standing in the sunlight for a moment before she looked my way. Even dressed in a simple outfit, she looked radiant.
I rolled down the window of my SUV and gave her a smile and wave as she headed over to the car. Kristin opened the passenger side door and climbed into the car.
“Good morning,” she said to me with a smile as she put her seatbelt on.
“Good morning to you,” I said happily. I pulled out of my parking spot and back onto Main Street to head out towards Route 5 and the farm.
“So what are we doing today?” Kristin asked me.
“I have some nice surprises planned,” I told her. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
“I like surprises,” Kristin said with a mischievous grin. We drove along out towards Route 5 as Kristin watched.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you this morning,” she said to me honestly.
“Why not?” I asked her.
“I thought maybe you would be doing something with your daughter since you just got back home.”
“Well, I tried to get her involved in something today, but she had already made plans with her friends. I dropped her off at Harding’s this morning, and she said she would be with her friends all day. So it’s just you and me, I guess.” I looked over at Kristin to see her reaction, and she smiled at me.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I don’t mind some alone time with you.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said to her as I pulled onto Martin Road. Instead of driving up towards my place or my parent’s house, I made the left just onto the road and headed out towards the farm area.
“Where are we going?” Kristin asked, watching the farmland as it went by. The road was more than a little bumpy out this way, and thankfully my SUV was four-wheel drive enough to handle it.
“You’ll see in a minute,” I told her. I made another left onto another dirt road, and we pulled up to the small parking area before the stables. I turned the car off and hopped out, and then went over and opened the passenger door for Kristin, helping her out.
Kristin took my hand as she stepped out of the SUV.
“How chivalrous,” she commented as I closed the door to the car.
We walked towards the rear of the car, where I picked up the bags I had in the trunk, and then we began the short walk over towards the barn. When we reached the barn doors, I slid the large door open to reveal the stable area. George Peters, Dad’s right-hand man with the stables, was already in there.
I walked over to George and gave him a hearty handshake. Like my Dad, George had been working around horses his whole life. He was a bit older than Dad, a tad over sixty, but he was in better shape than many of the twenty-something that I would come across each day as a ballplayer. His hands were very strong, and he always had a deep tan, even in the winter months here in Pennsylvania.
“How are you, George?” I said to him, not having seen him in a few months.
“Doing great, Wes,” he said to me as he took his work gloves off. “I was sorry to hear that you were home. I was looking forward to seeing you play down at PNC again this year.”
I was still getting used to everyone saying how sorry they were that I had been cut.
“Well, we’ll see how things work out. I still have some options out there,” I told George, reassuring myself as much as him. I turned and looked at Kristin, who had stayed a few paces behind me as she looked around at the stables.
“George,” I said to him, “This is Kristin Arthur. She’s the librarian in town.”
George took his hat off and extended his hand to her. “Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Arthur,” he said politely.
“Nice to meet you too, she said, shaking his hand. “Please, call me Kristin.”
“Okay, Kristin it is,” he said with a smile. George turned to me. “I think I have everything ready for you,” George said to me. He looked down at the bags I had in my hands. “You want me to load those up for you?”
“That would be great, thanks, George,” I said to him as he took the bags from me. George walked away towards the stables while Kristin walked over to me.
“The barn is beautiful,” she said to me as she looked around at the ceiling and the surroundings.
“Dad and George do an amazing job keeping up with everything, and they have a good team of people here helping them all the time.”
“How many horses are here now?” Kristin asked as she peered back towards the stables.
“Geez, I’m not even sure right now,” I told her. “Somewhere between ten and fifteen, I think. Most of them Dad owns, though he does board a few for some other people.”
I gently took Kristin’s left hand, and we slowly walked down the stable area where the horses were. I could see the awe on her face as she saw the beautiful animals we had there. There were a couple of the workers milling about in the stables, caring for the horses, but for the most part, it was pretty quiet today.
“The horses are beautiful,” she said to me as we walked. Just then, George walked over to us.
“Are you ready?” George asked me.
“Sure are,” I said to George as we followed him out the other end of the barn.
“Ready for what?” Kristin asked with anticipation.
We walked outside where George had two of the horses ready for us. Kristin and I walked over to the smaller horse, a chestnut brown filly named Bonnie. Kristin was gently petting her as we walked over to her face.
“This is Bonnie,” I told her.
”She’s so pretty,” Kristin whispered.
“I probably should have asked you this before, but… do you know how to ride?” I said to her, hoping she would say yes.
“It’s been a few years,” she said to me, “but I did ride with a friend of mine back in Georgia when I was a teenager.”
George helped Kristin get into a helmet, and I helped Kristin get mounted on her horse. She seemed to have no trouble getting on and seated properly. When I saw that she was okay and George was there holding Bonnie, I mounted my horse, a dark brown horse named Pops.
It had been a while since I had ridden, but I had been on a horse since I was a toddler and knew exactly what to do.
“All set?” I said to Kristin. She nodded to me with a big smile on her face.
“Thanks, George,” I said to him. “I’m not sure how long we’ll be out.”
“Not a problem,” he said to me. “Just shoot me a text when you are on your way back. Either I’ll come over and meet you, or one of the hands will be here to help you.”
We started slowly down the trail on the farm as Kristin and I both got used to the feeling of having a horse beneath us. Kristin looked a little hesitant at first as she tried to get command of everything, but her previous riding experience seemed to kick in pretty quickly, and she was more at ease with riding in just a few minutes.
We walked along pretty slowly as we took in the gorgeous spring day all around us. Trees and flowers were just beginning to bloom all over, and the clear sounds of the different birds in the area were all you could hear outside of the slow clops of the horses’ hooves.
“All this property is yours?” Kristin asked me as we walked along.
“A lot of it belongs to my parents,” I said to her. “The initial horse farm wasn’t quite this big, but I bought the land adjacent to the farm so Dad could expand out and we wouldn’t have to worry about someone developing it into something else.”
“This is amazing,” she said to me.
After about half a mile or so of riding, we came up a small hill. Once we crested the hill, you could see where the pond area was. The sun glistened beautifully off the water at this time of day, and there was just a hint of a gentle breeze in the air to make the atmosphere perfect. We worked our way down the small hill and brought the horses to a halt in a small grove of trees where there was a hitching area for the horses.
I dismounted my horse and got him hitched and then helped Kristin down from her horse and got Bonnie settled. I then grabbed the saddlebags that were on Pops and carried them with me, taking Kristin’s hand as we walked over towards the pond.
About twenty feet or so from the pond we had set up some picnic tables under some trees. The land was pretty flat here and nicely tended to so it looked perfect. Sitting on the picnic table was a large wicker hamper basket that I had asked George to have brought down for us.
I led Kristin over to the picnic table and had her sit down. I stood next to her and reached into the bags I had and took out the small bouquet of flowers I had bought and handed them to her.
“Oh, Wes, thank you,” she said to me. She took a quick smell of the arrangement of daisies, tulips, and chrysanthemums. “They are lovely.”
“I’m glad you like them,” I said to her. “To be honest, it’s been a long time since I bought flowers for a woman. I wasn’t sure if I had picked out something nice or not.”
“It’s perfect,” Kristin said.
I then took a tablecloth out of the hamper and spread the red plaid cloth over the picnic table.
“I know it’s still a little early for lunch,” I said to her looking down at my watch, “but I have a few things we can have now.” I took out the grapes, apples, cheese and crackers that I had picked up and put them on one of the plates that was packed in the hamper. I then sat next to Kristin as we snacked and looked out over the water.
“This is an amazing spot, Wes,” she said to me as she snacked on a red grape.
“It’s pretty nice,” I said with a sigh. “It’s always been my favorite spot on the farm. After we got this all fixed up, I would try to come down here as often as I could. Sometimes we would have parties down here, or I would bring Izzy down here. Many times I would just come down here by myself to enjoy the solitude.”
“Did… did your ex-wife like coming here?” Kristin asked with some trepidation. I could see she was a little nervous about bringing her up, but she was probably curious as well.
“Rachel was gone before this place was finished,” I told her. “She was never much of the outdoors type anyway. She was more of the indoor, luxury hotel kind of woman.”
“I’m sorry,” Kristin said to me. “I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.”
“It’s fine,” I said to her. “Rachel comes from a wealthy family around here. I think she was used to certain things and liked that way of life. I was able to give it to her, but she didn’t like the idea of living on a farm in a small town while I was out traveling around to big cities. She had images of a different life than what I wanted. I wanted to play ball, but I would have preferred coming back to the quiet around here than staying at a hotel in a city somewhere.”
“Do you talk to her at all?”
“Rachel? Not since the divorce was finalized really,” I said to her. “She used to call Izzy now and then, but even that has stopped over the years, at least as far as I know. She’s enjoying her life in New York I guess. It’s just the two of them, no kids, and I’m sure they go out and travel and do all kinds of fancy things together. If she’s happy, then that’s fine.”
I reached into the saddlebag and pulled out a bottle of wine and a corkscrew. The hamper had a couple of glasses in it so I could pour us some of the red wine to go with our snack.
“Is there anything you don’t have in there?” Kristin asked me, half-joking.
“I just wanted to be prepared, so I think there’s a little of everything in here,” I told her, looking into the bag.
After we finished snacking, we took a walk together down towards the edge of the pond. The water was clear and quiet, and other than the occasional bird swooping down over the water, there wasn’t much action going on there. We stood next to each other, holding our glasses of wine, looking out over the water. Kristin reached over with her right hand and took my left hand in hers, holding it. I turned and looked at her and gave her gentle kiss on the lips. We stood on the edge of the water, kissing lightly for a few minutes before she broke the spell.
“So… what else do you have planned for today?” she said to me slyly.
“Well I did pack a lunch,” I told her. “Just some sandwiches and chips, and some chocolate for dessert.”
“I’m not very hungry right now for lunch,” she told me. I watched her as she slowly walked away from me and back up towards the picnic table. She took a look in the hamper and pulled out the two rolled blankets that were packed in there and walked over to the small clearing beyond the table that was shaded by some trees. The clearing was just beyond a small fire pit that we had there.
Kristin spread out one of the blankets, colored to match the tablecloth, on the grass in the clearing, and sat down on it. I walked over next to her and sat down with her and looked into her eyes. She looked at me and placed her left hand on my cheek, cradling it, and then leaned in to kiss me. I kissed her back, deeper than I had before. There was more emotion and feeling behind this kiss, and I felt her move her body close to mine.
I wanted to take cues from her, not moving too fast, but at a pace she was comfortable with. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her more passionately. I moved my lips from hers and slowly kissed her cheek, sliding my lips down gently to the nape of her neck. As I kissed her, I could feel Kristin shrug out of denim jacket, leaving her neck and shoulders bare to me. I continued to kiss my way down her neck to her right shoulder, planting small kisses along the way, as she held my head there in her hands.
I could feel that her breathing was starting to quicken a bit and the strap of her tank top had slid off her right shoulder as I was kissing her. Kristen moved from me slightly, just enough so that she could lift her cotton tank top slowly over her head. She came close to me again, and I slowly guided her down onto the blanket, kissing down her neck until I reached the top of her breasts. I traced the outline of the tops of her breasts with my index finger, lightly moving my finger back and forth over her as I resumed kissing her. I could see her breathing quicken each time my finger went over her until I slipped my finger down and found the small clasp in the front of her white lacy bra. I deftly undid the clasp with my forefinger and thumb and gently pushed the cups of the bra to the sides of her body.
I caressed her left breast in my hand, placing my palm over it and lightly rubbing, so my palm grazed her nipple over and over as it rose and became erect. I could hear Kristen gasp as her nipple became more and more sensitive in my hand and her back arched up off slightly off the blanket so she could feel a firmer touch on her body. I kept lightly caressing her left breast while I leaned over and began to kiss her right breast, moving over and around it, getting close to her nipple but never touching it, just getting teasingly close with my lips.
My lips hovered just above her right nipple as I kept lightly cupping her left breast. I softly blew on her right nipple, watching her body react as Kristin let out a light moan. I leaned closer and gently drew her nipple into my mouth, causing her to moan louder this time. Kristin pushed her body closer to me again, bringing her breasts tighter against my hand and my lips. I moved my lips over to her left breast then, switching things up, to excite her even more.
I started to kiss my way down her body again, going over her taut stomach until I reached the top of her jeans. I unbuttoned the jeans and slowly eased the zipper down, exposing just the top of the lacy white panties she wore to match her bra. I put a hand on each side of her jeans and eased them down her legs, down to the tops of the sneakers she wore. I quickly pulled her sneakers off and tossed them to the side so I could finish taking off her jeans, which then ended up in a ball off to the side of the blanket.
I worked my way back up her legs, running my fingertips lightly over her calves and up to her thighs. Kristin squirmed lightly on the blanket as my touch sent shivers up and down her body. I was between her legs know, kneeling, moving my fingertips over and over up and down her thighs, tracing along the edges of her panties. My fingers grazed gently over the front of her panties, causing her to gasp again. I held my palm there for a moment and could feel how warm she was, and one finger, and then two, slowly eased their way inside her panties to touch her.
I could feel her wetness right away, and she gasped lightly as one finger slipped barely inside her. I moved my body up to kiss her deeply on the lips as my fingers moved a bit deeper inside her. My kiss stifled her moan once again, and I moved down from her lips to kiss her neck again.
“Wes,” Kristin panted softly. I moved my fingers slowly in and out of her, and she moaned again, as I could feel her thighs tighten on my hand.
“Oh God, Wes, please…” Kristin’s hands were reaching down, running over my body, practically tearing my shirt open. I was relishing watching her, seeing her react to my touch and how much pleasure it was bringing her, but I also wasn’t sure how much longer my body could hold out from wanting her.
I pulled myself away from her body and slowly stood up. I could see Kristin gazing at me through eyes half open as she watched me pull off my shirt. I kicked off my boots and then unbuckled my belt so I could remove my jeans, leaving me in just my black briefs. It was obvious how aroused I was from all the interaction, and I pulled my briefs down to remove them, and then lowered myself back down between Kristen’s legs.
My hands immediately went to the waistband of her delicate panties as I pulled them down her legs and tossed them aside. We were both naked now, and Kristin immediately pulled me close to her body. We kissed deeper and more aggressively this time and feeling her soft, bare flesh against mine was almost more than I could take. I went down to kiss her again, this time pulling her close to me so that I could slide myself inside her.
We both groaned at the sensation as I moved into her. Kristin clutched my body tightly, pulling me close to her with her hands on my back. I moved into her slowly at first, but then her body was signaling to me that she wanted to move faster. Within moments we were in a rhythm, moving with and against each other. I felt Kristin wrap her legs around me, pulling me even closer to her if that was possible. Her body then tightened on me, going tense as I felt her start to orgasm.
Her body’s response and reaction were more than I could take any more. I groaned as I thrust into her once more and felt my own orgasm overcome me. I held her warm body against mine tightly as we kissed over and over, letting the waves of pleasure roll over us again and again.
I softly rolled to the right, so I was laying next to Kristin. I put my arm around her to pull her closer to me and held her there as we both looked up at the trees creating the shade above us. Sunlight softly filtered through the branches and just budding leaves.
“So is this part of what you planned for today?” Kristin said to me as she caught her breath.
I glanced over at her. “No… I mean I’m glad it did happen, but I never planned for that… I mean…” I was feeling very flustered at the moment, and Kristin leaned in and kissed my neck, nuzzling into me.
“It’s okay, Wes,” she said to me. “I didn’t plan on it either. There was just something about the moment, the mood… and you.” I could feel a slight chill run through her as the breeze blew a little, and I grabbed the other blanket and threw it over us for some extra warmth. Kristin’s right hand lightly toyed with the hair on my chest as we laid there peacefully.
Within just a few moments, Kristin had drifted off to sleep. Her gentle breathing continued as I held her close to me. I couldn’t believe what had just taken place. I had never done something like this before with any woman, but there was something about Kristin that had stirred up feelings in me that I had not experienced for a very long time. I felt drawn and connected to her, even though we had only known each other for a few days. I certainly wouldn’t be here with her like this if I didn’t feel that way.
This was the first woman in a long time that I felt comfortable and happy with. Kristin was also the first one that didn’t care about baseball, how much money I had or anything to do with fame and fortune. I looked at her in my arms and brushed a few locks of her hair out of her face so I could see her clearly and watch her sleep in my arms.
I laid back, putting my left arm behind my head, and closed my eyes to relax. This was the first time in days, maybe weeks, that felt stress-free, without worry, and yes, happy. I could feel myself falling asleep as well.
You could get used to living a life like this, my brain said to me as I drifted off.