Ain't Settling: A BBW Romance

Ain’t Settlin’

Veronica Hardy

©Veronica Hardy

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Prologue

Holly gripped her steering wheel a little
tighter and stared at the line of red lights in front of her as she
pressed delicately on the pedal. Five feet. Ten feet. At this rate
she would be on the Parkway for another 45 minutes before she even
got to her exit, two miles away. Early June and the heat was
already bearing down on her, so she cranked up her air conditioning
another level. She wanted on that state route so bad. Away from all
the congestion. Away from the city. Even on her way out, the city
seemed to get to her, weakening her resolve.

No, she would not be deterred. She couldn’t
wait to get to where the sky is so big that it goes on for miles,
to where she could actually make out all of the
constellations.

Holly reached for another French fry, popping
it into her mouth, the salty concoction coating her tongue and then
sliding down her throat. She loved the way they tasted. Her own
personal weakness. It wasn’t even her cheat day but she didn’t
care. Work had been stressful and she didn’t want to diet anyways.
She was doing it for her sister, Jen, who was trying to lose the
baby weight after her second child.

Holly had reluctantly agreed, wondering if it
was another one of Jen’s attempts at trying to influence her life.
She did that a lot and Holly had long since been trusting of any
plan that Jen concocted, especially when it included the Rubenseque
beauty. She was always trying to set her up on dates (usually bald,
overweight men of middling age with a good, solid job), suggesting
new diets or exercise programs. It came from love, but Holly
couldn’t help but feel a little bit of resentment.

Things came so easily to Jen. The perfect job,
the perfect husband. A family and a beautiful house. Her little
sister had always been the paragon that her mother looked to in
order to measure her own success as a parent. Holly felt like a
mulligan. The first attempt that didn’t count.

Jen called her crazy for spending all of her
vacation time with Aunt Sheryl. Two weeks at her aunt’s sheep and
cattle ranch. She had been looking forward to this vacation for
months. She loved the smell of the open air, the warm nights where
all she heard was the peepers down at the pond and the crickets
fiddling their lullaby. It sure beat day in and day out answering
calls for her boss and typing up letters. Four years studying
economics and finance at a top ranked woman’s college and she was a
glorified secretary. How ironic could you get?

For two weeks she could forget about the smog
and the crowding and the job and just focus on what she truly
loved. The sun and the mountains, the animals. The ranch. She had
spent a month there every summer while her mom “got a break” from
being a single mother. Aunt Sheryl never resented them, she let the
girls play from sun-up to sundown, as long as they helped with the
chores first. She felt beautiful when she was there, sun-kissed,
her brown hair bleaching out to a beautiful red.

What her sister thought was gross, Holly did
without complaint. Mucking stalls, brushing out the horses. She
even got to help shear the sheep. She loved all of it. She never
wanted anything else as a child and told her mom about her dreams
to run a ranch just like Aunt Sheryl’s. Her mom just laughed at her
and told her that she better hope she never inherited that “heap”.
She needed a good education and to take a job that paid the bills.
Focus on her career. So she did.

She couldn’t wait to get back to the part of
her that enjoyed the country. Four hours and she would back where
she felt like she belonged. Home.

She had no idea how just much it had
changed.

Chapter 1

Holly pulled into the long driveway, dirt
kicking up from between her tires, the familiar ping of gravel
against the hot metal of her car as she approached the main house.
It was like a beacon of hope, standing there only yards from the
first barn. The one that housed the trucks, quads and the foreman’s
office. The small structures got larger as she approached and she
could see Aunt Sheryl standing on the porch, wringing her hands.
She was looking to see who was coming as the dogs barked at her
approaching car.

Holly had witnessed this scene several times
over her lifetime, but Aunt Mary wasn’t with her. It left her with
an empty feeling that she wasn’t quite ready for. Sheryl’s partner
had passed from cancer only a few short months ago. They finally
married only a couple of years ago in Vermont, just for her wife to
be swept away by a cancer that started in her pancreas and ravaged
her body from the inside out. Holly had tried to help as much as
she could, video chatting with the two and planning funeral
arrangements when it was obvious that Mary was not going to
recover.

Holly fought back a tear and put a smile on her
face. She was happy to be here, even with the hole that was in her
heart. She couldn’t wait to feel her aunt’s hug. But she wasn’t the
only one who wanted to greet her. When Holly got out of her little
coupe a scruffy white dog she didn’t recognize jumped up onto her,
licking at her face, its tongue reaching only air. She laughed and
petted it, still in her three-piece dress suit. She gave it a
generous scratch behind the ear.

“Lee Roy, get down,” A voice from behind her
barked, his commanding tone all that it took for the dog to
immediately hop down, “Come here, boy.”

The pup trotted over to a tall shadow in the
doorway of the barn, his tail wagging expectantly as the shadow
became a reality. A tail, muscular man with thick black, curly hair
squatted down and ruffled the dog’s scruff. He was wearing a
tee-shirt and wranglers with a ball cap on but Holly couldn’t help
but imagine him in fine western gear and a cowboy hat. Not the kind
she saw the “Cowboys” wearing in town, but a real one. One that got
use out there in the Midwestern sun. He looked up at her with
curious eyes as he petted Lee Roy. There was something familiar
that she couldn’t place.

“Jensen, you remember my niece, Holly. Jensen
is the new ranch foreman. Mr. Bill retired just after Mary… passed.
Jensen was working under him, so I promoted him to foreman. In
fact, Jensen has been working here since he was a teenager, you may
even remember him,” When Sheryl realized that Holly did not, in
fact, remember him, she continued, “He has been doing a wonderful
job here. A lot of new ideas. Isn’t that right, Jensen?” Aunt
Sheryl beamed as she came down the porch steps. She never gave
compliments she didn’t mean. He must have been doing a wonderful
job.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jensen said as he stood and
tipped his ball cap a little bit in recognition.

He was taller than she realized, towering over
her with his thick, muscular frame. He looked intensely at Holly,
his gaze seeming to linger on her. He knew her, she just didn’t
know him.

It was enough to make Holly swoon. She had no
idea how she was going to get through two weeks of this. She
swallowed and remember that she would get through this like she
always did whenever she encountered a man who made her weak in the
knees. By remembering that no man who looked like that would be
remotely interested in her. He probably had a country bunny
somewhere down the road waiting for him every night.

Holly felt weak as he walked towards her, his
saunter every bit as masculine as she expected, the muscles beneath
that thin tee-shirt flexing as he came towards her. She felt beads
of perspiration forming on her hairline. Hopefully he would think
it from the heat of the Midwestern summer. Not from him.

“Pleased to meet you, Holly,” Jenson extended
his hand to her, it was at least three times the size of her own.
She gulped and moved to extend her own before he took his
back.

“Sorry Ma’am, I’ve been busy working. Don’t
want to get you dirty” He said as he wiped it on the back of jeans
before extending it again.

She took it without hesitation, wanting to
touch him, to make sure he was in fact, real. His firm grip was
very real as his bright green eyes bore into her own pale blue. It
felt like he was searching her soul. She couldn’t help but blush as
his touch lingered, not wanting to let go but she eventually
retracted from him, tearing her gaze away from his face.

“Well, I am glad that the two of you have
gotten the chance to meet. Supper is on the table, so we will eat
as soon as Jensen gets himself cleaned up. Holly, do you want to
help me in the house?” Holly nodded, grabbing her suitcase out of
the backseat of her little coupe and followed Aunt Sheryl up the
stairs of the porch and into the farm house. But not before she
looked back to see Jensen walking back to his office. The view was
the reason for her blush that time.

The inside of Aunt Sheryl’s home never changed.
The pale yellow of the entrance was framed by rich wooden accents.
Bears and deer, typical country décor. She hung her jacket and set
her suitcase at the foot of the staircase. School photos of Holly
and Jen were still hanging on the wall of the stairs as she
entered, the various stages of her acne and weight there for the
world to see. It was embarrassing, but endearing. She walked down
the hallway to the kitchen, a meal set for three on the kitchen
table. Most of the time, the foreman supped with the family and the
hands were on their own to make their own meal in the community
kitchen, so she wasn’t surprised that Jensen would be joining them.
One seat on the table set for 4 was left empty, a stark reminder
that Aunt Mary would not be joining them.

Aunt Sheryl smiled weakly at her from the
counter, a pitcher of her signature sweet tea in her hand as she
looked back at her niece. She looked tired. Worn. Holly walked up
to her aunt without hesitation, grabbed the tea, put it on the
counter and wrapped her up into a great big hug. Her aunt seemed to
sink into her embrace, relishing the physical contact. After a long
moment Holly backed away to see a stream of tears running down her
aunt’s face. Sheryl quickly wiped them away and then went back to
pouring sweet tea for the three of them.

“I miss her too,”

“I know, kiddo. We all do,” Sheryl brought two
cups to the table and then grabbed the third and drank from it,
“Come on, and tuck in. That hunk of a foreman is going to be here
any moment and you better at least be sitting so that you don’t
faint.”

“Aunt Sheryl?”

“What, you think I don’t have eyes? I might be
gay, but I at least know when someone of the opposite sex is
handsome. And I know when my niece is swooning.”

“No one says swooning, or hunk for that matter,
any more. You are showing your age.”

Sheryl went to protest but they hear the
familiar creak of the mudroom door and clammed up. Jensen walked
in, his shoes off and his hat gone. His jet black hair was combed
back, his soft curls gathering around his neck as he sat into what
must have been his chair, opposite Holly’s.

“It all looks good Miss Sheryl, you really do
outdo yourself every night,” Jensen complimented as he grabbed a
fried drumstick and sunk his teeth in.

Holly hesitated over the food. Fried chicken,
corn and mashed potatoes. Her favorite home cooking. Normally she
would not partake in such fare, but it smelled amazing.

“You better eat Miss Sheryl’s food, it is
better than any restaurant in a fifty mile radius,” Jensen claimed
between bites. No ridicule in his face, nothing but a genuine smile
that reached to his eyes, the small creases alluding that he was in
his early thirties.

“So, Miss Sheryl says you live in Indianapolis,
work for a financial firm. You work with numbers?” Jensen asked as
he grabbed a rolls, buttering it.

“Yes… er… not exactly. I currently work as an
administrative assistant. It is an entry level position. Hopefully,
in time, I will move into an area that includes financial
management.”