A Wild Ride (Jessica Brodie Diaries #3)

A Wild Ride (Jessica Brodie Diaries #3)
K.F. Breene



Chapter One

I walked into William’s house with my butt bare and my pants draped over my arm. We’d just had a love-making session in the car on the way back from bull riding practice in which I admitted that he was the one.

I was under no illusions that I was mature enough to marry yet, so I gave him a promise. Like I was in grade school. I had the guy of the century, I was so happy my face hurt half the time from smiling , and all I could offer up was a promise.

I should just punch myself in the mouth right now.

At any rate, that’s where matters stood. Plodding along. It was a comfortable pace since I still worried about his social status versus mine. I still worried that he would realize a girl from the other side of the tracks—or so his mom thought—was too much work to fit into his snobby society of wealth and power. And sometimes gaudy taste.

Halfway to the shower, William asked, “What is the deal with the dirt and smell?”

I started laughing. “I assume you mean me?”

He laughed, also. “I meant to ask you earlier but never got a chance.”

“I need Lump’s help on something. Unfortunately, she is going through a pre-adult crisis at the moment, and made me shovel hay with her in return.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. As a heart attack, which I almost had. So I spent the evening helping Adam, and his new ranch hand Lump, bail hay. It was not the most fun I have ever had.”

William laughed and kissed me on the head. “It’s good for you.”

“That reminds me, when are you working on your ranch next?”

“Tomorrow, why?”

“Can you save some stuff until I get off work? I want to watch you.”

“You want to watch me work?”

“Yeah. Without a shirt, preferably.”

He laughed again and shook his head. “Is it worth you being put to work helping?”

“Only if I get a happy ending.”

“Deal.”

William lived up to his promise. The next evening he was shirtless, sweaty, and working in the evening sun. I watched him for a good while, admiring his play of muscles, his powerful strokes, the sun glinting off those powerful shoulders—he saved the most manly task for last, chopping wood.

When he was sufficiently embarrassed, he made me start carrying and stacking the wood into piles. Without my shirt.

That night I was living in a country song, though I decided taking a sexual hay ride was way overrated. It was scratchy and itchy, and I had to thoroughly wash my lady bits to make sure I was hay free. But laying with William, watching the setting sun through the barn door, was dreamlike.

Time started speeding up as we got nearer Christmas. I had talked in length with Adam about an attack plan for William’s bull, which was the item William most wanted and couldn’t have because the guy wouldn’t sell to a Davies. I was convinced I would get that little sucker. If I had to dress like a slut and prance around, I would.

Unfortunately, I would also make Lump do it. It was unfortunate because in order to agree, Lump made me work with her on Adam’s or William’s ranch three days a week. On the days I danced I got a fur-low. Lucky me.

Lump was the big glitch in my happy life. My long-time friend from L.A. was not finding her groove. She was violent, temperamental, and most of all, unsettled. Worse still, she didn’t know what the problem was. She didn’t know how to fix the issue.

So she lost herself in hard work. And since misery loves company, guess who had to sweat way more than she wanted to? Exactly, my ass.

As opposed to me, on the farm she worked hard and quietly, rarely saying two words to anyone. She had her music in her ears and occasionally sang along with a perfectly pitched voice. William or Adam would stop what they were doing to listen. I stopped, too, just for the break. Which embarrassed Lump and cut off the singing.

One evening, when we were at William’s ranch, he had to go deal with some cow problem, leaving Lump and I to finish nailing a new fence to the fence posts. I was getting pretty good at this farm stuff, but I still would’ve rather pushed buttons on a keyboard than do it. Lump was in one of her reflective moods, listening to her music and getting lost in the physical exertion.

At one point she straightened up after hammering in a nail and said, “You know Adam really well.”

Any excuse to stop was a good one. I leaned against the post and said, “Yeah. Why?”

“He always watches to make sure you don’t fall over your own feet and hurt yourself. When we were at his ranch he helped you over the animal paddock but didn’t help me.”

“Uh…” I didn’t know if she was mad, glad, jealous—what? To hedge I said, “I’ve fallen over it before and landed on my face. William got mad at Adam for not helping. No one seems to realize that I’m dense, not incompetent!”

“I was there for that, idiot. Willie wasn’t mad. But anyway, you need help because you are a klutz, albeit a graceful one. When you trip you hurt yourself. I don’t, generally, because I rarely fall on my face. I also don’t like getting help, and you don’t mind it.”

“Uh…” I was lost. I returned to hammering nails. It was less confusing.

“Adam knew that.”

“Knew what? That I’m a klutz? Everyone knows that.”