Curvy Girls: Claimed By The Cowboy (The BBW and the Billionaire Rancher) (4 page)

He could always ask her which place she’d rather –

Hell.

The bathroom door gaped wide open, and he suddenly realized why there was a dull sense of emptiness in his chest.

She was gone. She’d gathered up her clothing and left, without waking him, without saying a word.

Stunned, Ty grabbed his underwear off the chair back where they were hanging and slid into them. He grabbed his jeans from the clothesline in front of the potbellied stove, yanked them on, and stepped out on to the front porch, barefoot.

Had she walked back to her property in the middle of the night?

No, far off in the distance, he could see a cloud of dust disappearing into the horizon. Someone had come and picked her up while he slept.  He swallowed hard, and felt an unfamiliar throb in his chest.

What the hell? Why had she run off like that?

Normally, he practically had to pry a woman off him in the morning – even though he always made it extremely plain that he was just looking for a quick roll in the hay.

But now that he’d finally spent the night with a woman that he wanted to see again, she’d evaporated like the morning dew, leaving him with an odd, dull ache of emptiness inside.

With a deep sigh, he walked back inside the cabin, dressed quickly, and grabbed his Nextel radio so he could call for one of the ranch hands to come pick him up, and send a tow truck out for his pickup.

Time to go back to the house and confront his older brother Clayton, lay down the law about Clayton’s plans for the ranch. He hoped they could come to a peaceful resolution, but he sensed that Clayton was spoiling for a fight.

His stomach churned at the thought of the inevitable showdown. Clayton had already invited developers from Graniti Industries out to the ranch, without consulting Ty, and they were driving all over the property, pissing off the ranch manager and the ranch hands, getting in the way, taking measurements, making nuisances of themselves.

Would he be able to talk sense to Clayton? It had years since they’d seen each other.  They’d both taken off as soon as they graduated high school, leaving behind Crooked Creek and the Jackson ranch, and never looking back.

Ty had eventually drifted back into ranching; it was in his blood. Clayton, who was more bitter than Ty and had much more reason to loathe his heritage, had turned his back on ranching completely, and gone into construction management.   Now he was swooping down on Crooked Creek like a vulture on a corpse, ready to destroy the town while pretending to save it. He’d partnered up with Graniti Industries, known for their massive property developments, and set his sights on the Jackson Ranch.

It was no wonder Abigail was so adamantly against it; for once, he agreed with her on something.

And why had Abigail’s name popped into his head again, anyway?  Damn the woman.

* * *

Cheyenne Larkin. Betsy Finkelstein. Carlotta Mancini.

They were Abigail’s best friends in the world, and they had her surrounded. Cheyenne sat to her left, Betsy and Carlotta sat across from her, at the Daily Grind coffeeshop.  They were staring at her like she was a bug under a microscope.

Abigail squirmed uncomfortably, taking another healthy swig of sweet, light coffee.

“Wow,” she said, looking up at her friends. “Suddenly, I know how all that wildlife feels when I’m staring at it through a telephoto lens. It’s actually pretty creepy.”

“Spill it, and get to the good stuff immediately,” Cheyenne directed her.

“Yeah. We want details. And we’ll know if you’re lying.” Carlotta was plowing through a giant stack of pancakes, shoveling forkfuls into her mouth without taking her eyes off Abigail. She and her husband Lorenzo, a sheriff’s deputy, were expecting twins. She was five months pregnant, the globe of her stomach already swelling gloriously, her smooth olive skin glowing. Her dark black curls were shinier and more lustrous than ever, and she ate enough to feed a small football team every day.

“Like how big is his cock?” Cheyenne added.  “I’d heard stories, but I always wondered.”

Betsy and Abigail both gasped. “Cheyenne! Keep it down!” Abigail hissed. “It’s possible that SOMEONE in the entire frickin’ town might not know what happened last night.”

Cheyenne glanced around the crowded restaurant. “Naaahhh. This is Crooked Creek. Population, nosy. By the end of the week everybody in town will know.”

“But you should watch your language in front of the children. Use euphemisms,” Betsy said virtuously, shielding Carlotta’s stomach with her hands.

“Betsy, they don’t actually have ears yet.” Carlotta swallowed a gigantic spoonful of cheesy scrambled eggs.

“So, how big is your husband’s cock?” Cheyenne asked Carlotta, with a wicked grin at Betsy, who glared at her and then leaned down to shout at Carlotta’s swollen stomach “Don’t listen! Cover your little earbuds!”

“Seven thick, uncut inches. Why I married him,” Carlotta said around a mouthful of pancake, unperturbed. “Also, because he came with his own handcuffs.”

“Oooh. Does he have a brother?” Cheyenne’s blue eyes sparkled with hope.

“Yep. Francesco. You slept with him.” That was also true of a good percentage of Crooked Creek’s single male population under the age of 35. Cheyenne had a healthy libido and no sense of shame whatsoever.

“Oh, yeah. Last year. I think. He was pretty good, actually.” Cheyenne looked thoughtful, as if she were considering a repeat performance.

Carlotta held up her empty fork and waved it in the air. “Hell-oooo. We’re interrogating Abigail. Spotlight on Abigail. Let the storytelling begin.”

They all swiveled back to focus on Abigail again. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment.

“For the sake of argument, what makes you think that anyone else knows that Ty and I…”

“Fucked like bunnies?” Cheyenne finished helpfully. “Okay.  Everyone in the universe knows that Ty is back in town for Boone’s funeral.  Yesterday, when Molly made it back to the stable alone, and the storm hit, I figured you were stranded somewhere and I needed to come get you, so I called a bunch of people to find out where you might have gone. Dylan fessed up, because I threatened to kick his ass.”

Dylan, Betsy’s cousin from Montana, was the new staff photographer at the Crooked Creek Telegraph, one of the oldest newspapers in the country, in operation since the town was founded in the 1880s. It was owned by Betsy’s father.

“Tattletale,” Abigail grumbled.

She and Dylan were photo buddies, frequently going on nature hikes together to capture the stunning Colorado landscape.

“Pussy,” Carlotta said scornfully.  

Betsy shuddered, imagining the years of therapy Carlotta’s twins were going to need thanks to their mother’s potty mouth.

“Anyhoo, when he told me that you were on the Jackson ranch, I was worried because of the storm, so I called the ranch house and asked Drew if he’d seen you, and he said no, but he told me that Ty had left to look for a trespasser on the far east side of the property. Which is where you had headed.  Then around midnight, when I called Drew to see if you’d made it back to the main house, he said no, and he told me you guys were probably out at the Settler’s cabin.” Pause. “Fucking like bunnies.”

“He did not say that!” Abigail gasped, mortified. Drew Monroe had been the ranch manager on the Jackson property for thirty years.

“Something very much like that. Come on, he’s a rancher. They spend all year breeding animals. They’re very earthy.”

Abigail buried her face in her hands. Great. Cheyenne was right; everyone in town would know.

“We should talk about your sex life, Cheyenne. I’m sure it’s much more interesting than mine,” Abigail pleaded.

Cheyenne’s current conquest was Franklin Vandermere the Third, a wildlife biologist who was spending the summer in a rented cabin in Crooked Creek, writing about pronghorn antelopes for his dissertation.

“Nahhh. We’ve heard Franklin sex stories for a month straight. I feel like I know his private parts as well as my husbands’,” Carlotta said. “Don’t tell my husband I said that. You, on the other hand, hardly ever get any nookie, and then things end because it just doesn’t feel right, or whatever. Spill it.”

“Okay, fine.  Not that it matters. He owns a ranch in Wisconsin, and he’s going back there in a few days. He only came to town for his father’s funeral and to talk his brother out of plowing over the Jackson ranch – Betsy, put that notebook away! I have got a fork, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

Like a fast-motion cartoon character, Betsy had whipped her reporter’s steno pad out of her purse, and held pen poised over paper.

“Pshaw. Nothing scares me; I have four older brothers.” She shot Cheyenne a look. “Two of whom you’ve slept with.”

Cheyenne shrugged. “Eh. They were kinda uptight. I think it runs in the family.”

“We hold very public positions in this town; we have our reputation to think of,” Betsy said primly, then turned back to Abigail. “So, the potential development is not going through?”

It had been the talk of Crooked Creek for months now.

Everyone knew that Boone Jackson’s father had created some kind of mysterious trust governing what would happen to the ranch once Boone died; nobody was sure exactly what the terms of the trust were. The Jackson property sprawled over 20,000 acres; whatever happened to the ranch would affect the tiny town of Crooked Creek forever.

Boone’s health had been in decline for some time, due to his heavy drinking; when he was admitted to the hospital with end stage cirrhosis of the liver, and given weeks to live, his son Clayton hadn’t wasted any time.

Clayton hadn’t bothered to visit his father in the hospital, but he’d invited property developers out to the ranch even before Boone took his final breath.  In town, they’d bragged about the casino and the condominiums and the new thousand-home subdivision they were going to build, along with the spa directly on top of the hot springs on the Jackson property.

Crooked Creek, which the town was named after, was a tributary of the Colorado River, feeding directly into it, and it ran right through the Jackson property, which bordered the river, so the land had enormous value.

Currently, the town had a population of 351.  Clayton’s plans would change the character of the town forever;  once he was done, he might as well have wiped the town off the map.

For now, the developers had been stalled.  Nobody could proceed until Boone died and the land passed into his son’s hands.

But now that Boone was gone, what would happen to Crooked Creek? Nobody in town knew.

Abigail sighed. “I don’t have anything official, Betsy. Ty told me that he was going to make sure that his brother’s plans didn’t go through.”

“Well, that’s at least good enough for the Tattler. I’ll cite an anonymous source who is very close to the Jackson family.” Betsy flashed her a smirk.  The Tattler was the Telegraph’s gossip column.

“So, getting back to the interesting stuff.” Cheyenne pinned Abigail with a look.

“Fine, fine! Jeez, if I’d known that everyone would find out…” Abigail paused to think about it. “Actually, I still would have done it. He was incredible. Multi-orgasmically, earth-shatteringly incredible.” Now all of her friend’s eyes were boring into her, and they were riveted. Even Betsy. 

At the booth behind them, the Cottonwood Lane Ladies Wednesday Night Bingo Group, who had been chatting animatedly, fell into a hush and swiveled their heads to listen.

And Abigail told the tale of her one and only night with Ty Jackson to a rapt and enthralled audience.

Chapter Five

It had been three days since the best sex of her life, and Abigail wasn’t finding it as easy to get over Ty as she’d hoped.  Why should that be a surprise? She’d fantasized about him all through high school. She’d finally had the chance to live out those x-rated fantasies…and she felt like one night wasn’t enough.

And, to make the situation even more frustrating, she’d gotten a dozen calls from a Wisconsin number, which she suspected was Ty’s cell phone number.

There was no point in answering. Ty lived in Wisconsin. What kind of relationship could they have? A relationship that was over before it began.  And no matter what Ty said about how he’d be proud to be seen with her, Abigail knew as well as anyone that pillow talk was meaningless. Guys would say anything to get a woman into bed. She remembered exactly what type of woman Ty dated in high school; slim, stunning, flashy, delicate…she was none of those things. She was chubby, cheerful, best-friend Abigail.

She’d briefly considered extending the affair for as long as Ty was in town, but she was already having enough trouble putting him out of her mind. If she let this go on any longer, she’d find herself really falling for him. No way would she let that happen.

She’d come home from work to have her lunch at home, so she could let Goldie out, as she did on the days that her mother couldn’t come home from her family’s store. Goldie was outside barking her fool head off at a sassy squirrel; the squirrels loved to shoot up the pine trees in the back yard and hang twenty feet over Goldie’s head, taunting her with their insolence.  Sometimes they pelted her with pine cones; at least Abigail was pretty sure they did it on purpose.

With a sigh, she cleared her lunch dishes from the kitchen island, setting them in the sink.

Her mother Ruby was in town working at Knudsen & Wintergreen’s, the feed and grain store her family co-owned with the Knudsen’s since the 1890s.   Ruby didn’t really need to be there, but ever since Abigail’s father had died of a heart attack two years ago, her mother had thrown herself into work, spending all day at the store, volunteering at the town’s animal shelter and at the church…anything to avoid spending time in the house where she’d lived with her husband for forty years.

Abigail couldn’t say she blamed her mother.  She could still feel her father’s presence in every room of the house. He’d put up those blue beadboard cabinets as an anniversary present for her mother. He’d built the butcherblock kitchen island where they ate their meals.  Pictures of Ruby and Emmett on all of their vacations, at every town event, hung on the walls of every room in the house.