The rough ride, p.19
The Rough Ride, page 19
“Yeah, I could live my whole life without having to sort out easements with Levi Granger, but if it comes down to it...”
“Well, best of luck to you with that,” Alaina said.
“Thanks.”
“Hey,” Fia said. “Would you and Elsie run down to the root cellar and get the canned rhubarb?”
“Sure,” Alaina said, and she and Elsie left the kitchen, heading out the front door of the farmhouse, and making their way down toward where the root cellar started.
“They still send us on errands like we’re kids,” Elsie said.
But Alaina realized it didn’t bother her anymore. Because she didn’t feel like a kid. She just didn’t feel that desperate clawing need to prove herself. And maybe it was because she had her own space now. Her own thing.
“So are you gonna tell me why you’re so spacey and blushing every five seconds?” Elsie asked.
Suddenly, Alaina understood something she hadn’t understood before. Elsie hadn’t wanted to share about Hunter because it felt too private. Too personal. She could understand that now. In a way that she never had before.
She’d taken it personally, but it wasn’t personal. Elsie hadn’t been able to share because she hadn’t known what to say. Because it felt like taking all of the things that had happened in the dark and dissecting them in the light would be wrong.
Because what had happened with Gus wasn’t funny. It wasn’t something to giggle about. It had stripped layers of protection away from her, but left her with something else in its place. It had changed a fundamental understanding of certain things inside of her, and she didn’t have the words for it.
She wanted to try, though. Because if she was going to understand what was happening, she needed to reach out. She pondered that. If it was reverting to her old ways. To trying to ease that restlessness rather than learning to sit in some discomfort.
No, this was different.
It was reaching out, saying what was happening, maybe even what she needed, rather than running.
“I... Something happened with Gus,” she said, feeling shy, when she never was. They went down the stairs into the root cellar, and she felt that actually damp air cooled her off. There were shelves of all the things that her sisters spent so much time canning and organizing.
“Something?” Elsie pushed.
“We...” She spread her hands. “Last night.”
She trusted that Elsie could figure out the missing words.
“Really?” Elsie looked shocked.
“Yeah. I... He’s...”
Did the words even exist for Gus? For what she felt for him? What she’d felt in his arms...
“It’s okay that you care for him,” Elsie said, gently.
Alaina swallowed. “I do. I always have. That doesn’t surprise me. It’s this... And it doesn’t feel weird, it just feels right. It’s Gus, and he’s so difficult. But he’s also so wonderful. And...”
“And you don’t have to know how things are going to go.”
“That seems to be the theme of the last twenty-four hours. I keep trying to remind myself of that. I keep trying.”
Elsie was looking at her, her expression so keen Alaina felt like she was looking into her.
“Was it good?” Elsie asked, finally.
Alaina shifted, feeling warm. It felt personal, but she was also...proud. Of him. Of them. It was the strangest feeling.
“He’s amazing,” she said. “I had no idea it could be... Travis was awful. Awful.”
Elsie blinked, and her mouth fell open.
“Well, it’s true,” Alaina said, and now that she’d started talking, continuing on felt easy. “I didn’t want to go bringing it up, because honestly, I’d rather forget about it. I’d rather forget about him. It was just... It was nothing. Just... Sex when you don’t know someone or like them, or when they don’t care about you at all? It’s nothing. It was over in minutes, and he didn’t care that I didn’t have an orgasm, and I didn’t feel different.” She’d wanted to. She’d thought it was that simple. Virgin, not virgin, and you were transformed. But it wasn’t. And she’d been silly. “Today I feel different,” she whispered. “Because with Gus there was something else. I mean, chemistry first of all. But there’s something else there.”
It made her feel small, and a little bit scared, that something else.
And she didn’t want to push to defend that, and it seemed like Elsie understood that.
“Well, it’s a good thing you’re married to him,” Elsie said.
“Yeah.” Except somehow she knew it wouldn’t be that simple, and she also knew she didn’t have the words to explain it. It would take too much of Gus’s story to explain it. And she didn’t want to do anything to reveal Gus. She felt like the keeper of secrets. Because he had told her things, said things to her, and they were hers. Just like he was.
He was her husband. That was the thing. Even if it wasn’t a traditional marriage, that felt like something. It felt special. It felt important and singular. And the things that she knew about him weren’t for anyone else to know.
“I’m just so glad that you have that,” Elsie said. And then she laughed. “Maybe I’m being ridiculous and shallow. But I was very sad thinking that you weren’t going to have great sex.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Because what I have with Hunter is so great. Then... It scared me a little bit at first. Because of the feelings, that something else you mentioned, it terrified me.”
“Except your something else was love,” Alaina said.
Elsie grabbed a couple of jars off of the shelves, and then stood there, looking at her. “Can you tell me you don’t love Gus?”
Alaina just stood there, feeling ironically rootless in the root cellar. Feeling a little bit unsteady.
“I care about him a whole lot.”
“You always have,” Elsie said.
“You know, I didn’t really ever want to get married, Elsie. Or have kids. And here we are. And I don’t really know what to call the feelings I have for him.”
“You don’t have to,” Elsie said.
Alaina nodded. “No. I don’t have to.”
When they left the root cellar, she felt oddly better.
Because she had affirmed what she’d been working toward this whole time. She didn’t have to know.
And when they finished with all their baking, and they packed up some goodies to each take home, and she went outside, expecting to carpool with Elsie like she had coming over, Gus was out there standing up against his truck instead.
“I don’t think I need a ride home now,” she said.
And the look of blazing intent on his face made everything in her burn.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HE MOVED AWAY from the truck and walked over to her, and her stomach swooped.
This was complicated. He was complicated. This rough, gorgeous man.
He had occupied this elevated space in her mind. In her life. Almost immortal, and now she felt...close to him. Next to him.
Much more aware of all the ways they were the same. And even more intimately aware of all the ways that they were different.
She squeezed her thighs together just subtly. Something to ease the ache that spread in her so instantaneously the moment she laid eyes on him.
“Come on, mite.”
And his nickname for her sent a little rush of pleasure all over her.
“Bye,” she said to everyone else, scampering quickly to the truck and getting inside. He rounded the front and got in slowly, closing the door behind them and looking at her. “I brought a picnic,” he said.
“You did?”
“Yeah. I thought...you’ve been cooking so much.”
“I literally have a bushel of freshly baked bread with me.”
“There’s never so much food that you can’t have fresh-baked bread.”
She laughed. “Okay. That’s true.”
They started driving, but they took the dirt road that went past McClouds’, way up toward the hills.
There were no fields on that part of the ranch. Not much really but wild timber and craggy mountain peaks.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s just a spot I like,” he said, dismissive.
But that was how he was, she realized then.
There was so much about Gus McCloud that wasn’t quite what he seemed. And she had always thought that the big lie that he told was that he was mean, when in reality he was really quite a nice guy.
But now she was thinking that Gus wasn’t the lie he appeared to be. He was nice; it was true. He was also mean. Intense and rabid like a wounded animal when things got too real.
He fancied himself blunt and honest, and she didn’t think that was true either. And even now, he minimized whatever it was this was.
But Gus didn’t do anything accidentally. Every single thing he did was with intent. From marrying her to setting down the ground rules.
Because he did want her. And he had. And the way that he played that off from the moment they’d gotten married had been a lie. Laughing at her when she’d asked about sex. Pretending he’d never thought of it.
So now she had to suspect everything.
She did wonder, though, how much of it was that he didn’t know he was lying. Just how much he had detached himself from the truths way down in his soul.
“Gus,” she said softly. “Where are you taking us?”
“I think even more importantly, I’ll tell you, it was Violet who made the food.”
“Violet was at the Sullivans’ all day.”
“I know. She made this for me yesterday.”
She blinked up at him in confusion. “But you were mad at me yesterday.”
“Not the whole day. I had planned ahead on providing a meal for you. Because you’ve been doing so much.”
“Thank you.”
“I do want to make sure...” He shook his head. “What are you getting out of this?”
“As of last night about six orgasms. But, I don’t think that’s what you mean.”
“No. And I need to know. I’m older than you, and I’ve had fantasies about you I’ve suppressed for a long time, and hell... I have to make sure it’s not my own enthusiasm driving this.”
“It’s not, Gus. Believe me.”
“One thing I want to settle on is...exactly why you want to take care of the house. Of me.”
“For a long time, I thought that maybe I wanted adventure somewhere else. But I think what I really always wanted was something that was mine. Something no one could take away from me. Everything changed when my dad left. My mom became a different person. And then when she left, the house became totally different. My sisters changed the ranch, and they sort of did it all by consensus, and not on purpose, but they didn’t ask me. And everything that I knew slipped through my fingers so damn quickly... This, having a partnership. Having something that belongs to us both... That means something to me. The idea of having a baby...a child that I love, that no one can take from me...it actually makes me happy. I’m coming to that conclusion, anyway. The thing is... I hadn’t put a lot of thought into what I wanted from my life. I just had a lot of feelings. And I avoided the difficult ones. But the problem with avoiding difficult things is you can’t set real goals. You just flail around a lot and feel like things aren’t fair, or they aren’t right, or they aren’t working. But now I feel calmer. Like I can sit back and see what truly works for me. And what truly doesn’t. But this little place that I’m carving for myself at McClouds’...it feels good.”
He looked pleased, and she liked to see that. “Well, I’m glad to hear it.”
She looked out the window, at the dense groves of trees, the ferns down at the base of them. It was beautiful here. Rich and green. And all that beauty made her heart ache. And when she looked at Gus, her heart stilled.
“Marrying me really was a grander-than-necessary gesture, Gus. All you had to do was kiss me. Does it bother you to realize you could have had me for cheaper?”
He turned to face her, his brow lifted. “You keep saying things like that, and then you get mad if I say anything...”
She bit her lip.
“That’s why I get mad,” she said. “Because I’m afraid that’s what you think.”
He blew out a breath. “No, I’m not mad. Because I didn’t want you cheap. I wanted you for keeps.”
The sound of the tires on the gravel filled the cab and rumbled through her chest.
And the truck wound around the side of a mountain, rising in elevation, and he didn’t stop driving until they reached the very top of it. Parked on the edge of the cliff face that looked out over the ranch below. And it was like looking down at a scale model. Bright green patchwork that made up the Kings’, and the Garretts’. The big pond and endless orchards at the Sullivans’. And the lush green of the McClouds’. The river winding through it. It was beautiful to see it like this.
“It’s everything,” she said. “All of us.”
“It sure is. I love this place. And I know what you mean. About building something that feels real. That feels like it’ll last. Because so much of it... It doesn’t. So much of life just keeps on changing. And I had a whole childhood of things just getting worse and worse... I wanted to make things better. There was a point where I decided I wanted to make them better.”
“Was the collective...? The way that things are run now, was that your idea?”
“Not me by myself. The Kings had a lot to do with it.”
“Why don’t they really socialize with anyone?”
“Shit, I don’t know. I assume they have their own demons. But I respect the heads they collectively have on their shoulders when it comes to managing things. They’re fine ranchers. What they do with their cattle operation is genius. It’s a lot of work, and they’re willing to do it. We don’t need to be friends.”
“Yeah. I guess not. So you and the Kings.”
“And Sawyer. We went to Fia, talked to her, and that was when she laid down the law regarding how she wanted things to go at Sullivans’. Your sister... She was so young then, and having to take over with your dad being gone... Your mom didn’t really want to help with it.”
“I know.”
“But that’s how it all came together. Us just deciding to make something new. To make something that was ours. Would last.”
“That’s how I feel now.”
“I never thought I’d have kids. So there’s something...something meaningful to the fact that this thing I’ve been working on... There’s someone who can have it. I had to throw my dad out in order to take over this place. But I’m gonna give it gladly to our child.”
“That’s...that’s... Thank you.”
“Yeah. Well. You really got to quit thanking me for doing the bare minimum.”
“Nothing you’ve done is the bare minimum.”
He shrugged. Then he reached into the back of the truck and pulled out a picnic basket and a blanket. “You game?”
“Yes.”
She grabbed some of the bread and jam that she brought, and they spread the blanket out outside right on the edge of that cliff, the view stretched out before them.
She was filled with a sense of purpose then. A sense of direction. That this was theirs. And that they would grow it and share it and pass it on.
But then mostly, she was just filled with interest in the picnic basket, and the sandwiches that were inside, which were beautifully made.
They ate in silence, and she moved a little bit closer to him when she was halfway through the sandwich, then a little closer still, so that her leg touched his. And she noticed when he closed his eyes and let his head fall back at the glancing contact.
And when she did it again, he made a low sound in his throat.
“Yes?”
“Stop being a tease,” he said.
“Who said I’m teasing?”
“You are a problem.”
“So are you.”
She popped the last piece of her sandwich in her mouth, chewed and swallowed, and that was when Gus kissed her. Slow, deliberate. Nothing like the way he had devoured her last night. He was exploring her, like he had nothing better to do, his tongue sliding slowly against hers, his rough hands moving up to cup her face, stroking her cheeks. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body against him as best she could while she parted her lips, allowing him to take the kiss deeper.
He acted like he had nothing better to do, and nothing else on his mind. Then he moved his hand slowly down her back, his thumbs coming around to skim the undersides of her breasts. And she ached. The slow, maddening seduction, the sensuality of it. Her nipples went tight, ached for his touch, but he didn’t give that to her. He kept on going slow, moving those hands all the way down to her hips, his thumb still stroking her as he moved across her curves. They parted for a moment, and she looked up at him, deep into those green eyes. Familiar, unfamiliar, all at once. Seeing that hunger there. And that spark that was all him.
She wanted to capture that moment. That moment when he was her protector, her lover, her friend from all these years and a stranger all at once. When he exhilarated her, made her feel like she was flying off the edge of this cliff, and made her feel comforted at the same time. Because he was everything. And this was everything. And she wished there was a way to capture it like fireflies in a jar, so that it could glow in her hands for the rest of forever. Because part of her was afraid. Afraid that she would lose it. Afraid that she would lose him. Because nothing in her life had ever stayed. Everything gold turned brown eventually and faded away. And she wanted this to last forever. Their own little world made of happiness. And every pass of his mouth over hers added another layer to that conviction, that determination. To everything they were. It didn’t erase what they’d been before, it added to it.
