Forever's Affection (Forever In Luck Series Book 3) (9 page)

A
few hours later, he saw her standing at the barn’s entrance looking his way.
Ignoring her, he went about his business. He refused to go to
her,
she would have to come to him. Studying the directions
for the grill he’d bought, he continued putting it together.

“You’re
breaking the rules you know, by looking at the directions. Men don’t do directions.”

 
Glaring at her, he answered, “Yeah, well I’m a
wuss
remember, and apparently women don’t do
directions either.”

“I’m
sorry.”

“Why
were you angry?”

“The
trees are overgrown and have taken over the area behind the barn, and the barn
is old. I think it best to cut back the trees should there be a barn fire,
because the way it is now the trees would go up like matchsticks, and as they
wrap around the yard to the house, the whole place could burn down.”

“Okay,
now tell me why you were angry.”

Looking
confused, she paused then answered, “I just did.”

“No,”
he said shaking his head. “You didn’t, you gave me a reason for why you were
doing what you were doing, along with an explanation for your concern. But and
overgrowth of trees and the potential for fire does not make a person angry.
Have you received any counseling?”

She
closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Two
years.”

“Alright
then, you should be able to tell me why you became angry with me. We both know,
but you need to say it.”

Irritated
with the process, she reluctantly relented.
“Because my
control over the situation was threatened.
I told you I came with
baggage.”

“Yep,
you sure did.” He paused and looked at the grill’s directions. “The question is
,
do you want to hold on to it or let it go?”

“It’s
not that easy,” she answered defensively.

“No
one said it was, but it’s not impossible either, unless you think it is.”

“Will
you go riding with me?”

Stopping,
he looked up at her. Now he was the one confused. “Like on a horse you mean?”

She
nodded.

“Well,
ahhh
, sure, I guess. You’ll have to teach me.”

Smiling
widely, she nodded. “I will, finish
up,
I’ll go saddle
the horses.”

“You
mean now?” He did not want to ride a horse.

She
laughed. “Yeah, I mean now.”

Sighing,
he answered, “Alright, go saddle the horses.”

CHAPTER 5

A
half hour later, Kris was atop a large greyish-blue horse feeling stupid. “So
this is Ricochet, the one who took off the night of the storm. Great.”

Dani
smiled. “I’ve never known him to bolt with a rider, he was just scared and the
fence was down.”

“Just
so you know
,
I don’t trust this situation in the
least.”

She
snickered. “Welcome to my world.”

“Aha,
that’s what this is all about, teaching me a lesson are you?”

Shaking
her head, she answered him, “No, it’s just that you want to talk about things
that are difficult for me and I feel safest on a horse, so here we are.”

Okay,
so maybe this experience was worth it. “So this is like therapy then?”

“It’s
positive reinforcement.”

“Alright,
I’m game. Let’s do it.”

After
a quick tutorial they were down the road and across the highway. Following 280
^th
Avenue, they turned onto the entrance to the Gandy Dancer Trail and rode side
by side.

Dani
broke the ice when she said flatly, “I reserve the right to not answer anything
I don’t want to. What do you want to know?”

“Just
tell me about you.”

Silence.
“Well, aside
from what you already know, I’m obviously the product of an illicit affair, I
don’t know who my father is, my younger years were unstable,
things
didn’t get much better until I went to D.D.’s ranch. As I said, he was good to
me, but I was screwed up by then, and being left behind by my mother did a
number on me mentally.

“D.D.
did his best, but how does a young girl talk to an older man about such things when
she’s scared and trusts little. We just never talked about it, we kind of had
this imaginary beginning, and we developed a life together somewhere in the
middle. “I remember sitting at the breakfast table, my heart racing a million
miles a minute, numb through and through, wondering where my mother was,
knowing the answer and wanting to die. When I got the courage up to ask, D.D.
looked at me and said, ‘I thought we’d go get you a horse today,’ and that was
it, we were a family so speak.

“He
taught me much of what I know about horses, hunting, and fishing, as did many
of the ranch hands. But it was the horses that I learned from the most, because
they became my refuge, my therapy so to speak. I related to them, and if you
paid attention and listened to them, they’d treat you well. I was safe with
them, and was only at risk of getting knocked on my butt if they got pushy or
wanted to play. So horses it was, and I trained with them, showed them,
competed with them.”

“Did
you have trouble with the ranch hands?”

“Nothing
happened if that’s what you’re asking. If things started getting tricky, they
were usually gone the next day, D.D. and the others having run them off. I
primarily stuck to myself, so if any one of them showed any particular
interest, it was on their part, not mine. D.D. knew that and took note, if he
didn’t like the vibe they were gone.”

“So no boyfriends?”

She
laughed. “Like as in innocent relationships with boys my age, not as a teen, a
little tough when you’re a foot taller than them, a string bean, and have the
hair of a wooly mammoth. No, it was always men, not boys, who were drawn to
me.”

He
looked over at her, smiling. “Stop, I like your hair.”

They
rode in silence for a bit before he asked, “So what about school?”

She
looked off in the distance. “Not where my heart was. I went only because I had
to.”

“Did
D.D. have a wife? Forget that, obviously not, if he and your mom
were
an item. I mean, were there any women in your life? How
did you learn girl stuff?”

She
shook her head. “He was married for a time, before his wife died. They only had
Deegan and he was gone by the time I came, being twelve years older than me.
As far as women, none really.
A couple of the hands had
wives, but they lived elsewhere. As far as girl stuff, one of the female
teachers at school told me about getting my monthly and what to do. I’m pretty
sure D.D. asked her to, because when I came home, there was a bag of ‘girl
stuff’ as you call it on my bed. Anything else was learned from watching girls
at school, or at horse shows, TV, and I never needed the sex talk as I already
knew about that.”

“What
happened when D.D. died?”

Her
tone turned frosty. “My mother and Deegan showed up.”

“And?”

“I
should’ve left,” she clipped.

“And
you didn’t because?”

“I
had obligations.”

She
was clamming
up,
move away from this he told himself.
“Where was Deegan all the years you were at the ranch?”

“On
the rodeo circuit,
slumming
it with the bunnies, being
a general pain in the ass where ever and whenever he could be. He and D.D.
never saw eye to eye.”

Okay,
she was talking
again,
he’d managed to maneuver that
minefield. “So then what happened?”

 
“After they showed up, or
after the main event?”

“He pretty much
decided I came with the ranch, he just figured I needed to earn my keep…He was
a stag in rut and I was handy.”

 
“Hmmm, I pretty much surmise that the time
from when they showed up to that of the main event was not good, so how about
after.”

“Went
to a woman’s shelter and into hiding, received counseling, tried to establish
some semblance of a normal life without much luck.”

“Did
you maybe press charges?”

Silence…
“No.”

“Have
you been with anyone since?”

Silence…
“A couple.”

“And?”

She
took a deep breath and let it out. “It didn’t work out.”

“Any
particular reason why?”

Silence…
“Because I disassociate, and because of things like happened earlier when you
came over. They didn’t have the patience, and I didn’t have the energy.”

“Disassociate?”
He was going to have to do some research on sexual abuse and rape.

“Grin
and bear it, my bodies there, I’m not, cold fish, take your pick. Apparently
I’m supposed to beg for it day and night. I’m a terrible blow to a man’s ego.”

Oh
boy, good thing he had plenty to spare. “So, how did you end up here?”

“Women’s
shelters are pretty much supported by underground connections. One such
connection heard of my story, knew who I was, and offered to be my benefactor.
This individual grew up at the hands of an abusive father and has ties to
Wisconsin. My being here is because of this person’s help. Can we maybe talk
about you now?” she asked, the exhaustion in her voice indicating a need for a
break.

“Yeah, sure.
What do you
want to know?”

“Anything that will take me out of my
cesspool of a life.”

“Born
and raised here, two parents, married, two brothers, a sister, friends, jock in
high school, graduated, been a dairy farmer all my life. Love football,
hunting, fishing, and then there is the taxidermy thing. I enjoy planting and
harvesting crops, playing in the dirt, and just hanging out with family and
friends. Essentially, I’m pretty low maintenance, but my family would say
otherwise.”

She
laughed. “A regular Leave It to Beaver life. I love it! I didn’t meet your mom
though.”

“Yeah,
she died about seven years ago when she ran into a deer coming home one night.”

“I’m
sorry to hear that. Your family sounds nice. Now what about the girlfriends, I
know there are some.”

He
shook his head. “Not really, one in high school, the rest just…trysts, I
guess.”

“
Ahhhh
,” she said raising her eyebrows and grinning. “I get
it, the love them and leave them type.”

No
sense looking into the past right? Man, he wished he had made better choices.
“I really hate myself right now.”

“Why?”

He
looked straight ahead, seeing a bend in the trail. “Because how will I ever get
you to trust me with that in my history?”

“Hate
to break it to you, big guy, but your history could be pristine and I’d still
not trust you. So forgive yourself and move on, change things if you want, but
don’t feel guilty on account of me.”

“So
what are you saying, there’s no hope for us then?”

“No,
I’m saying that it doesn’t matter what kind of person presents themselves to
me, one with an impeccable past, or one as yours, I wouldn’t trust either, and
likewise, you shouldn’t trust a woman based on her past either. The past is
just that, the past, but people use it as leverage to gain privilege, the
problem with that is that people change with each experience, so how they
behaved then is not necessarily how they’ll behave now. For me, trust needs to
be earned and built, and in my case it will simply be more difficult, if not
impossible to do because I’m screwed up in the head.”

Smiling,
he looked off into the distance, seeing a crossing not a bend. “I don’t believe
that for a second. You’re not screwed up. Do you even realize what you just
said? You’re trying to convince me how you untrusting you are, and for good
reason, when you basically made the argument that you trust people can change.
If they can change for the worse, they can change for the better, right? In
other words, the survivor in you believes in rehab, of you and others. You’re
not screwed
up,
you’re just stuck in the process.
There’s hope Dani, you may very well trust again.”

*****

Stopping
her horse, she sat there, thinking about what he’d said. She’d heard the words
you can trust again if you get help and try, maybe even said them a time or two
because it was the right thing to say, but they’d never been anything but a
pressured expectation, until now. Now, in this moment, it wasn’t an
expectation, it was a possibility, and didn’t that make all the difference in
the world.

“Ah
Dani, what the hell is your horse doing?”

She
looked up just as Ricochet, started off the trail and into the trees. She
laughed. “He’s taking you for a ride.”

“Great,
can’t he do it up on the trail?”

“Sure,
hang on.” She whistled and Ricochet did just that, turned and bounded back onto
the trail and trotted over to her.

“Okay,
I think I just aged ten years.”

Leaning
forward, she reached for Kris’s hand, pulling him closer and giving it a
squeeze. Looking up at him, she said, “Thank you.”

Glancing
over his shoulder to where he and Ricochet had been, and then back at her, he
said, “I don’t know what just happened, but okay.”

“You
gave me
hope,
I haven’t had hope in a long, long
time.”

 
He smiled. “Shouldn’t I get a
reward,
you know that whole positive reinforcement thing.”

Hah,
typical male. “You did, I took your hand and gave it a squeeze.”

“How
about for the whole ride the gentle, yet runaway horse thing. What’s my reward
for that?” he asked, testing the limits.

Smiling
to her herself, she supposed she kind of liked him. “I don’t know, maybe I’ll
let you put your arm around me, I’m not sure.

Perking
up, he sat contemplating what she’d said. “How fast can these horses get us
back to the ranch?”

She
had to chuckle. “Why?”

“Because
I have a surprise for you, and it’s not a worm or a rifle?”

Smiling
widely, she answered, “Fast.”

“Will
I get a reward for going fast on the horse?”

He
was such a Y chromosome.
“Depends.”
Why was she always
attracted to the hot blooded ones?

“On?”

“If
you can stay on and not fall off,” she teased.

“Get
your lasso. Give it to me,” he demanded, putting his hand out.

Laughing,
she pulled out her lasso and put it around Ricochet’s head.

“Hey,
that’s for me not the horse. Tie me on,” he demanded.

She
shook her head. “That would be cheating. Hang on big guy, let’s go.”

“Cheating?”
he responded indignant, grasping the saddle horn. “The hell it would be, it’s
like training wheels,
I’m
new at this.”

“We’ll
make a cowboy out of you yet,” she answered as the horses began to gallop.

“I’m
not wearing a cowboy hat,” he said defiantly, while bouncing around in the
saddle.

Laughing,
she responded, “Remember how you felt when you saw me handling your guns?”