All Jacked Up (Rough Riders #8)(77)

Female laughter.


Keely blushed.


“Oh, I’m sure Kelly can regale us with plenty of quaint little tales from her life in the Wild West, Laura.” Martine sipped her white wine. “I imagine you have a horse?”


“Actually, I have two horses. One—”


“So you don’t have a car?” Martine snarked back.


“Of course I have a vehicle. A truck.”


Snickers.


“With mud on the tires, a gun rack and a bale of hay in the back?” a snide blonde sidekick of Martine’s tossed out.


“Oh, Reagan, don’t forget country music blaring as she’s driving down the gravel road to take care of her horse,” the another brunette threw in.


“Horses,” Martine corrected sweetly. “She owns more than one, remember? I’ll bet one’s a real stud.”


Laughter.


“How does Jack feel about letting you ride another stallion?”


Don’t say a word.


“No, seriously, Kelly. We’re pleased for you and Jack. Even if we’re a bit surprised by his…choice.”


Martine flashed her fangs. “You have been married before?”


Keely frowned. “No. Why would you—”


“I just assumed girls in your neck of the woods married early. Anyway, I’m sure your family is pleased you caught a man like Jack.”


Caught. Like I laid out a trap line? Give me a f*ckin’ break.


“Does Jack get cattle or land or pigs or something after you get married?” the nasty blonde asked with mock-sincerity.


“Or forty acres and a mule?” another added.


Martine admonished her. “Theresa! That was not nice. I’m sure that ‘bride price and dowry’ nonsense is a thing of the past.” She peered at Keely through slitted eyes. “Isn’t it?”


Tittering and whispers.


Keely wanted to crawl into a hole and die. This situation was beyond any horror she’d ever encountered. Nothing would make these women be civil to her. They saw her as fresh off the farm meat and decided to cut her down to size, one petty, shallow little slice at a time.


Fight back.


No. She wouldn’t embarrass Jack in front of his colleagues, which meant no firing off rude suggestions. She’d suffer the humiliation with whatever dignity she could muster. But if Jack wanted to hang around with his vicious friends after dinner, she’d plead a headache and return to the room.


Don’t you mean slink off to your room like a whipped pup?


Backing down and biting her tongue was a new experience. These blowhards needed a serious smackdown, but Keely McKay couldn’t wield the verbal paddle tonight. Or any other night.


People started drifting into the banquet room. Keely didn’t budge, praying the pit vipers would slither off. Maybe she could regroup with others who weren’t so incredibly vile. But mostly she hoped Jack would come save her.


So much for her feminist mantra of not needing a man to rescue her.


Martine whispered loud enough for all her friends to hear. “I realize you’re used to hearing a dinner bell clank as a signal for chow time, but if you follow the herd you’ll realize they’re starting to serve dinner.”


“Thank you.” You miserable, tight-assed sow.


“Or you can just come along with me since we’re sitting together.”


Sheer panic arose. She wasn’t sitting with Jack?


Martine’s lips curled into a sneer. “Oh, you poor thing. Didn’t Jack tell you? Typical of him, he’s so aloof and unconcerned for anyone except himself. At these events they separate the men and women. So the men can talk business and the women…well, you can imagine how fun it’ll be, us getting to know you over five dinner courses.”


Her stomach lurched. She doubted she’d be able to choke down a single bite.


And if Keely thought it couldn’t get worse, she was sadly mistaken.


Theresa asked if she chewed tobacco.


Reagan asked if she used hay as toothpicks.


Laura asked if she hunted and killed her own food.


Martine asked if she made all her own clothes.


After they tired of making fun of her, they took great joy in ferreting out how rural Keely was. They gasped upon hearing she’d never been to New York City. Or the Caribbean. Or the Orient. Or Europe.


She’d never heard of any of the clothing, shoe and handbag designers they yammered on about ad nauseum. She’d never attended an opera or a Broadway play or the ballet. When Keely admitted she’d been to an art opening—namely her brother Carter’s—they’d rolled their eyes. “Western” art wasn’t real art.


Keely hadn’t anticipated Martine’s snideness. But it’d gone beyond Jack being her former lover type of jealousy. And Keely didn’t understand why Martine bothered to engage in the “Kelly is a low class bumpkin” attack if she believed Keely so far beneath her social stratosphere.


The meal, the insults, the sheer horror of the night dragged on. And on.