The Bride (The Bride #1)(14)
Peen was not sexy.
Since she was not getting the picture, I finally had to grab her hands and take a solid step back. “Not here,” I snapped.
“What?” she screeched. “We’re alone.”
“She’s freaking upstairs. What if she comes downstairs for some damn water?”
Her face got hard then. “Oh sorry. Wouldn’t want to upset your wife.”
And there it was. Fun drunk Janet was gone. Apparently that last shot had finally kicked in. I, however, still wanted to salvage the night.
Translated, I wanted to fuck someone. And my girlfriend was Janet.
“Look, let’s just go to the bunk house. We’ll have all the privacy we want.”
“The bunk house? We can’t even have sex in the house where you now live because you’re afraid of what…? Ellie is going to find out that you have sex?”
“She knows I have sex,” I muttered. Not really even comfortable with that.
“I got it. Sam was old fashioned, so you wouldn’t let me spend the night. But get real, Jake. Ellie is a big girl who I’m sure can handle me being here.”
“Actually she asked that I not let you stay overnight in the house.”
That was probably the wrong thing to say. I literally watched my chance to get laid evaporate in front of me.
Janet’s arms were crossed over her chest, her face was hard. Not the image of a woman who still wanted to give me head.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Look, it’s her house. She knows we date, yes. But it’s not like she knows you that well. How would you feel if you woke up and some stranger was making coffee in your kitchen?”
“I’m not some fucking stranger, Jake. I’m your girlfriend of two fucking years. And I’m not going to hide out in the bunk house like I’m… I’m… your fucking mistress!”
I really hated it when she cursed. She didn’t do it often. But when she started, she couldn’t stop herself.
I lowered my voice in an attempt to get her to do the same. I did this so I wouldn’t have to tell her to be quiet, which whenever I did that with difficult drunk Janet, she invariably got louder.
“I don’t get what the big deal is. You’ve always been fine with the bunk house. It’s nice in there with the fireplace going.”
She stood, wobbled on her feet a little, but steadied herself.
“Take me home.”
“Janet…” I sighed. I really wanted to get laid.
“Now.”
“Yeah. Okay.” The night was over. I could see it in her face.
I drove her home without a word between us. There was no point. She was too drunk to really listen or understand anything I might have said. I thought about the hand job I would give myself when I got home as a way to distract myself.
The reality was that by the time I took her back to her place, then drove all the way back to Long Valley, I was too tired to do anything but crash. A rancher worked seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and I needed to be up at dawn.
I made a mental note to talk to Ellie about always locking the door before I fell asleep.
Six
Ellie
February
“This is weird. Do you think everyone will be staring at us?” I asked Jake as I sat in the passenger seat of his truck while I looked across the parking lot of Nash’s Grocery Store.
“Why would people be staring at us?”
“Uh, it’s our first official appearance as a married couple in town.”
Jake huffed as he popped open his door. “We’re at the grocery store, Ellie. It’s not like we’re going to walk in as they announce us Mr. and Mrs.”
Fine, he didn’t have to be freaked out, but I was. We were three weeks into our fake marriage, with only fifteen months and one week to go.
Javier and Gomez were back. It took a little bit of explaining in my best Spanish that my dad was dead and I was married to Jake. They didn’t blink. Like it made sense that we would marry and carry on with the ranch.
They called me boss lady. They called him boss man. They did the work as always, with little conversation and no complaints.
But as soon as the calves started to drop the work increased by threefold. Protecting the newborns, watching for predators who had a penchant for calf afterbirth, constantly monitoring the weather for sudden drops in temperature. During calving season a rancher had to be super hyper-focused on all of it.
It was a big deal to take time out from that, but today we decided we would go grocery shopping together. This way I could get a handle on what he liked and him the same with me.
Which meant that one us (which would be either of us at times, because the idea that only women grocery shopped was sexist) could do grocery shopping in the future and we would be confident we knew what the other person liked.
As it was restock day at Nash’s, I was feeling pretty confident they would have at least one of everything I typically bought.
We grabbed a cart and started with fruit.
“I like apples,” Jake said. “Any kind.”
“That’s fine, but a few bananas too. Also I’m allergic to anything berry.”
“No berries, got it.”