Ride 'Em (A Giddyup Novel) (13 page)

Mindy planted one toe and swiveled her heel back and forth, grinding a circle in the dust. “I assume you’re not just telling me this because you’re interested in architecture? Oh . . . he ties people up. So you mean some suspension, in the barn? Sure, I could go for that. Not both of you, though. That would be weird.”

“No, no, gross. He’s my brother. We don’t . . . well, not if there’s any sex involved. We’ve done, like, suspension demos where I’ve helped him rig some things that need two people.”

“The barn would actually be a wonderful place for suspension demos. So atmospheric, you know? You could charge admission. There’s plenty of room for spectators. Of course, you wouldn’t want to do it while you had the regular guests here.”

Logan chuckled. “That’d be one way to make some more money. I’ll have to keep that in mind. But . . . no. I just thought we could finish what we started the day you got here.” He ran his thumbs over her wrists, tracing the delicate veins and tendons. Imagining them bound in elegant twists of rope.

“In the tack room, you mean?” She looked up shyly—but at least not upset anymore. “You have a thing for barns, sir.”

“Yeehaw,” he confirmed.

She looked down again for a few seconds, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay. Just name the time.”

* * *

The atmosphere was perfect. Mindy stared up into the rafters, trying to pick out details above the point from which she hung by one foot. Everything was too dark, however, outside the pool of light from the lantern Logan had brought. The old barn wasn’t wired for electricity—that was one of many needed improvements. For years, it had been used only when they needed to isolate a fractious stallion or an ill horse.

“And the occasional pig or cow,” Logan added, sighing over a hank of rope he’d been casting out then rewrapping for the past few minutes. “God, this thing just won’t lie smooth. Yeah, Memaw and Papaw used to keep a little herd out here, and some other animals, for authenticity. You doin’ okay?”

“Super.” She hauled on the section of rope that looped up through the suspension ring, pulling herself vertical again. “I wish I could remember the three-point self-suspension thing. It’s chest and both feet, but there’s a certain order to how you get yourself into it. I can stay in that one forever.”

Logan looked up. “Ethan would know.”

She worked her foot against the pressure of the rope, shifting her weight to get more comfortable. “You really like him around for this stuff, don’t you? Should I be concerned?” The loops around her torso were compressing, but not dangerously so. At least she’d remembered that part of the process correctly.

“You’re fully clothed and suspending yourself. There is nothing sexual about this situation.”

“You sound a little grumpy about that, sir.” She grinned and inverted again, flipping her hair down against the old mattress Logan had dragged from the main house to provide some cushion under the suspension point. “Self-suspension is so much fun.” It really was. It always cheered her up, made her feel like a trapeze artist in the circus. Glamorous, with mad skills. Even if she was only doing the simplest tricks.

“So is tying other people up when they’re naked.”

“True. Fair enough. You didn’t press very hard for that, though.” She was vaguely concerned that he hadn’t. But she wasn’t sure if the pall currently shadowing his expression was frustration with her, general fatigue, moodiness, or something else. She didn’t know him well enough to know the difference.

She unknotted the loose end from her rope-wrapped midsection and lowered herself carefully onto the mattress, head then shoulders then back. From that position she could look up at Logan as he sat cross-legged at one end of the mattress.

He tied off the wrap he’d been working on and tossed it down in front of his legs. “Eh, fuck it. It isn’t perfect, so what?”

Mindy rolled to a sitting position and eased the loops of rope down from her rib cage. She left her foot bound, so she wouldn’t have to retie it in case the three-point process came back to her. “You look tired. I won’t have any hard feelings if you want to call it a night.”

He opened his mouth as if to protest, then shook his head and chuckled. “I’m pretty wiped out. This is my new normal, though, I guess. Not last night, as such, but the whole thing. Staying up too late to work out details, try to get new ideas. I don’t know . . .” He picked the bundle of rope up and stroked the loops thoughtfully.

“I’m exhausted, too,” she admitted, rolling on her side to face him and propping herself on one elbow. “I feel like I’ve put in a year’s worth of good honest work, these past few days. Plus all this fresh country air, my lungs don’t know what to do with themselves. So thank you for all that.”

He shot her a sardonic smile. “You aren’t exactly on the standard vacation package.”

“True, true. You could probably make a fortune selling my vacation package to the right clientele, though.” She sifted her fingers through the loops on the opposite end of his rope bundle. It was hemp, soft and beautifully dyed, almost the same cobalt blue as her shirt. “This is lovely stuff, by the way.”

“Thanks. Ethan made it.”

“Seriously? Wow.”

“He and a friend make it and sell a little online, and at some of the local conventions when they can get there. The friend also makes wooden toys, that’s the primary business. The rope’s just a sideline. They don’t have space to do anything over fifty feet, or dye in anything other than solid colors, which limits them.”

She gestured around them. “Why doesn’t he just do it here? All the space in the world. You could have an off-limits area so the vanilla dude ranchers don’t ever suspect there’s a kinky bondage rope factory or . . . however you make it.”

Logan pursed his lips. “That’s actually not a bad idea. He’s talked about moving out here anyway, he wants to build one of those little house trailer things that look like cottages.”

“A tiny house?” She loved them. Wouldn’t want to live in one, but she thought the idea was great for the right person.

“Yeah. He says I should open up for people to park them here. Rent the land. Another way to make money. I just . . .” He shrugged and rested his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands.

“You don’t want to spoil it. I get it now. I really do.” It broke her heart. Riding and walking all over the ranch the past few days, she had seen the raw beauty of the place. She didn’t want it spoiled, either. Just thinking about what would have happened if she’d succeeded in getting him to sign the lease made her physically ill.

Or possibly that was spending too long in an inverted suspension. But still.

“You’re the last person I should be telling this to.” He leaned his forehead into his hands. “But I don’t know if I can make this work.”

He wasn’t talking about their relationship. Or lack thereof. For a second she was tempted to pretend she thought that was what he’d meant, but then she couldn’t take the thought of any more subterfuge.

She stroked his hair, combing her fingers through the waves. “Maybe look at the numbers when you’re not so worn out?”

He shrugged. “I’ve looked. Ethan’s looked. Our accountant is still looking but hasn’t sounded that hopeful. There are just too many big, established ranches out here that we can’t compete with on cost, and we haven’t come up with a unique draw. Our preliminary numbers looked better, but there were a lot of factors we didn’t know to account for. Seasonal cost changes, some of the operating expenses we learned about as we did the initial restoration. We had some overruns there, too. To do it the way we really wanted, go high-end and cater to a boutique crowd like I wanted, work the hunting angle Chet suggested, work the living-history angle with some cattle and a full vintage blacksmith shop like Ethan wants, we’d need a lot of money and a lot of time. And we won’t make enough in the meantime to get us there. It’ll be a few years of barely breaking even and then the place sliding downhill because we don’t have the capital to improve it to the point where it could make us more money. And . . . ugh. The whole thing is turning into a train wreck.”

It was the longest speech she’d ever heard him make, and she wished she could make it better, but she couldn’t. She could only offer some pleasant distraction. “So. You want to walk me back to my place, maybe fool around a little?”

Logan tapped his fingers against his forehead. “Maaayyyybeee.”

Taking it as a yes, she stood and stretched, wincing as her various bruises and welts made themselves known. She reached a hand down and after a second he took it, allowing her to pull him to his feet. He continued the motion straight into a hug, picking her up gently by the waist and swinging her around once before kissing her on the cheek.

“What was that for?”

“Letting me vent.” He set her down, only to bend, grab her by the knees and shoulders, and quickly scoop her into his arms. This time, he kissed her hard on the mouth, not letting up until they were both breathless. “That was for offering to make me feel better with sex.”

“Any time.” She said it automatically, senses still reeling from the sensation of his lips and tongue and end-of-the-day stubble. She didn’t expect him to take her up on it.

“Maybe next time we could bolt the door in here and get you naked. Probably need a gag so you won’t frighten the guests when I bullwhip you, though.”

“Next time? Logan . . .” She kicked her feet, and he set her down again.

But he didn’t let up on the topic. “Yeah. Next time. Like when you drive down here some time from Dallas. To visit. I could take you to Minnie’s for pie and everything. We could go to a drive-in movie.” He seemed so certain about the next time, she found herself believing him. At least enough to pretend for tonight.

She sat and started unwrapping the rope from her foot and ankle. The marks were perfect, pink and deep and clear. She wondered what the ones on her torso looked like. “The drive-in hasn’t been there since we were in high school.”

“It’s still there,” he corrected her, throwing the rest of the rope into his bag. “They just don’t show movies anymore. And most of the screen is gone. But I figured we could park and watch something on a tablet. Bring some popcorn. Make a night of it.”

“Crazy.” She flung the foot rope at him, and he caught it deftly.

“But cute. Admit it.”

“Yeah. You have a certain appeal.” All-American cowboy engineer sadist appeal. Which was apparently her Kryptonite.

He took her hand firmly on the walk back to the cabin. He pointed out some stars—not just the Pleiades and Orion’s Belt and the Big Dipper, like most guys who thought girls couldn’t possibly already know these things, but some ones she actually didn’t know. When they arrived at the cabin, he greeted Moose with solemn dignity and a promise to maintain detente.

Mindy excused herself to go to the restroom and when she came back out, stark naked, ready to show Logan her lovely new rope marks, he was facedown on her bed. Not quite snoring. But not exactly
not
snoring.

At least his boots were off.

She set a five o’clock alarm on her phone, turned off the lights, flipped a blanket over them both, and cuddled against his side like she belonged there.

T
hey all agreed they’d hit it lucky with the weather—the drop in temperature after the storm had held, so it was cool and breezy the next day, and promised to be down in the high fifties after nightfall.

About half of the guests were already gathered around the fire pit, working on setting up the first bonfire. Floyd Gordon had no idea how to stack wood for a fire, but that was okay. Everybody was still having a good time.

Mindy handed Floyd another split log from the pile behind the bench, and tried not to giggle at the faces Logan’s cousin Chet was making behind the guy’s back. Not to mock, but if Chet’s jaw got any tighter or his eyes any squintier, he’d turn into a cartoon character. The poor guy was so frustrated watching the inept fire-building that Mindy expected steam to burst out of his ears any second.

Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. “Hey, Chet. Uh, Sheriff Garcia. I heard Robert mention earlier he had some old newspapers saved up. Have you seen him anywhere recently?”

Chet turned his scowl on her, and for a second she thought she was about to reap the whirlwind. Then he nodded sternly, seeming to get the hint that she was trying to give him an out. “Chet will do. In this setting. I will seek Robert out. Excuse me.”

He strode off like a mountain man on a mission to hunt down the last grizzly and wrestle it to death. That was a happier look for him than watching Floyd lay an inadequate fire.

“Thank you, sweetheart. I thought he was gonna stare a damn hole in my back.”

She turned back to Floyd, giggling, wondering why it really didn’t bother her to have Floyd call her sweetheart when back in Dallas she’d have had to leave the room to cool down for half an hour if she’d heard that. “Let’s hope he takes a while to twist up a lot of kindling out of that paper. It’ll give you time to clear the area so you can’t see him sneak back and move your logs around.”

Floyd’s wife, Thelma, cackled. “I have to do that with the Christmas tree tinsel every year. He’s used to it.”

“I can
hear
you, you know!” Floyd placed the last log in the careful stack, then stepped back, brushing his hands off on his thighs. “Ah, hell with it anyway. It’s fire, not rocket science. My experience, if the wood’s dry, it’ll catch and do just fine. If ol’ Chet wants to switch it up, that’ll do just fine, too.” He joined his wife and one of the other guests, Marlene Jackson, on their bench.

Mindy had seen good ol’ boys come to blows over less serious matters than how to stack a campfire, but she kept her skepticism to herself. At least there was no beer in the equation. Yet.

The Delgados, Bob Jackson, and Mary Havlicek were all still out on their last trail ride of the week. It was an hour or so until sunset, which meant Lamar would be leading the riders back from the High Trail any minute. The smell of searing meat drifted over from the big barbecue grill next to the kitchen door. Beneath that, a hint of white jasmine floated on the air; the vines ran rampant in the as-yet-untamed back garden. Cicadas churred. Some sort of insect or frog made a gentle but insistent peeping noise. The Gordons and their new friend talked companionably, laughing softly, seeming just as loath to disturb the quiet as Mindy was.

Mindy looked at the fire pit, marveling that she’d helped build it just a few days earlier. She felt like she’d been at Hilltop Ranch forever. She couldn’t imagine being back at work Monday, or even driving through Dallas to get to her apartment. Instead of trying—which made her shoulders tense and her belly ache—she let the late afternoon peace settle over her. The moment was fleeting and bittersweet, but she’d take what she could get.

“Mindy, where’d Logan get off to?” Marlene asked.

“Front porch.” She didn’t need to look over to the house to answer. “He had some invoices he needed to go over before supper. Is there something I can help you with? I’d be happy to go ask—”

“Oh no, no. Just wondering. You let him work for now so he can be free to eat later.”

Thelma poked Marlene in the side. “She’d be happy to go ask him, if you need something.”

“I’ll bet. But I don’t need anything.” Marlene shouldered her friend back, then shook her head and smiled at Mindy. “Don’t you mind us. But the two of you are very cute together. Have you set the date yet?”

Mindy’s face flushed so fast and hot she thought her skin might literally be smoking. “Uh . . .”

“Mar
lene
,” Thelma chided. “She doesn’t have a
ring
.”

Oh, help me, Jesus
. “We’re really just friends. I live in Dallas. It’s not . . . not that kind of deal.” She was tempted to tell them exactly what kind of deal it was. She had to get out before she blurted something about floggers and domination. “I’ll just go check on dinner.”

As she backed away then turned and ran, she could hear Thelma and Marlene chiding each other. She didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was to get away from the gossip danger zone. Even if that meant marching straight to the porch of the main house, where Logan sat on the creaky swing with a stack of papers and his laptop.

On the way she passed Chet and Diego, staggering back toward the fire pit with a galvanized tub full of ice and longnecks. They were studiously avoiding eye contact, and Chet’s jaw was clenched again. Mindy had no idea what the story was there, but she could tell there was one, and likely a doozy. She’d remembered them as good friends from way back. Diego was a masochist, she’d gleaned that much on this visit. Chet seemed like such an obvious Dom. But who knew, maybe they’d just fallen out over high school football or politics or something.

Logan spotted her on the steps and closed his laptop, stacking it on top of the papers on the bench, as she reached the porch. “Fire all ready to go?”

“Waiting for the inaugural match. And I guess for the trail ride to be over, so everybody can see. Did Lamar already radio Robert? I smelled the barbecue firing up.”

“Yep. Any chance you’d help Lamar put the horses up? That way maybe folks can get their dinner a little faster and we can get the whole fire party on before it’s full dark.”

“I don’t count as ‘folks’?” she teased. “Sure, no problem.”

“I could
order
you to do it.” He fake-frowned, as if he were seriously considering it, and started the swing in motion with both feet.

“Well, you know, then if I screwed up you’d have to put me over your knee in front of all those people, and the jig would be up, so it’s probably for the best if you don’t. I’ll volunteer. Just save me some ribs, please.”

“Yes, ma’am. Can I put you over my knee later, though?”

Mindy smiled and glanced out over the porch rail. Nobody was nearby. Probably everybody wanted to give the “lovebirds” their space. “I don’t think I have any unblemished real estate left back there, but I guess you could try.”

“Maybe next time.”

“Logan . . .” She hadn’t put her foot down last night, which was probably a mistake. Facing him again, she set her shoulders and forced herself to shut that prospect down. “I’m going back to Dallas tomorrow, and I’m going to stay in Dallas. I can’t come back here. It wouldn’t be healthy for me.”

He crossed his arms across his chest, squinting at her, and she suddenly saw the family resemblance between him and Chet.

“You said yourself you felt homesick for this place. That means it’s part of you. And this week . . . you look so at home here. Like you belong here. And you seem
happy
here, and miserable about going back to Dallas. For which I don’t blame you. But I don’t see how coming to a place where you feel more like yourself isn’t healthy.”

She wanted him to be wrong. Clearly and demonstrably wrong. It infuriated her that he wasn’t. “I was happy on vacation. But I have to look at the long term. I thought, I don’t know, that I’d reinvented myself after I left here. That I was somebody new and better now. Like a swan. But from the first day back here I’ve done nothing but come smack up against the fact that I’m still just the ugly duckling. I was never the swan. So what have I been doing all this for? I feel like coming back will only remind me of that. Make me feel bad about what I’ve accomplished.”

Logan chuckled, a little puff of air that spoke of wistfulness as much as it did amusement. “Have you ever met a swan? I don’t recommend it. They’re pretty from a distance but up close they’re kind of nasty. They’ll attack anybody who tries to come into their territory. Seriously, they’re some of the bigger assholes of the bird world.” He let the forward motion of the swing propel him to a standing position, one sweeping move that brought him straight in front of her. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe, as he brought his hands up to her cheeks. “But more importantly, Mindy, you were
never
the ugly duckling.”

“I know, I know. I was the homecoming queen. But really only because of vote division. Honestly, it should have been Annalise Hernandez, but then she and Lisa Thibodeaux had that god-awful fight, and their boyfriends started smear-campaigning, and—”

“I remember, but that’s not what I meant. It’s that you always seemed to know where you belonged, and you always seemed to . . . I don’t know, be so happy when you were making other people feel happy? I guess your parents had their issues, I’m sure that was a problem at home and maybe what I saw was only you compensating for that. But as far as school or the stables, or anywhere else you showed up . . . you were always so good at getting in there, being part of the group. Helping out, organizing things, being ten places at once. You kind of made things better wherever you went. This week you’ve made things better here. You’re really
good
at that and you seem to enjoy it. It makes me sad to think you aren’t getting that in Dallas.” He stroked her jawline with his thumbs, pushed his fingertips into the hair behind her ears. Held her like she mattered. Like she was a precious thing he was afraid to drop.

She needed him to stop, or she was going to cry, and that wouldn’t make things better for anything. It would have been so much easier if he’d been wrong. If he’d been an asshole. She reached up and squeezed his hands, then pulled away and made fists by her thighs to keep from reaching out for him again.

“I make things better at work. I’m good at my job. I’ve worked so hard to be good at it. Too hard to let myself get turned around by a bunch of emotional stuff I don’t have time for.”

The hurt on his face echoed in her gut. But what was she supposed to do? She wasn’t wrong, she wasn’t lying. She
had
worked hard to get where she was. This week’s mammoth failure aside, she was good at what she did, and she had invested a huge amount of time and effort in her career. It wasn’t smart to fuck that up just to get laid, no matter how brilliantly.

“I’ll come there,” he blurted.

Mindy’s jaw literally dropped for a second before she could respond. “I had not even considered that possibility.”

“I hadn’t, either,” he admitted. “But listen, it could work. I don’t have a sub right now, you don’t have a dom, neither of us is seeing anyone outside the lifestyle, either, right? And this week was great. We’d be stupid to just let it go. We can make it work. We can make
something
work.”

Hope rose in her chest, seasoned with flattery and a sudden ridiculous affection. “We . . . could try?”

“Yes!”

The trail riders chose that moment to return, the whole group shouting and waving to them en route past the house to the barn. Mindy cleared her throat as she waved back, then turned to Logan, unsure what to say or how to feel. Too soon, too sudden.

“And maybe I could drive down sometimes, too. That seems only fair. Especially if the barn was free.” She wanted to keep it on that footing, the D/s level. That seemed safer than suggesting they were trying to start up an actual . . . relationship.

Logan raised an eyebrow. “But we still get to go to the old drive-in.”

“Okay. No scary movies, though,” she bargained, sensing she’d already lost any hope of control over this thing between them. It was going wherever it was going, taking on a life of its own. “Because it’s a huge abandoned field and we’d be there, unauthorized, after dark, and that seems like an open invitation to a hatchet murderer.”

“You worry about murderers way too much.”

“Maybe you don’t worry about them enough,” she suggested, looking past him toward the barn. “I should go help Lamar.”

“Yeah, I need to help Robert, so . . .”

“I’ll see you by the fire in a bit.”

They hesitated, then moved in for an awkward hug that turned into something else halfway through. Not exactly friendly anymore, but not sexy, either. Something tender and new and too good to examine right then.

Mindy stepped away first and ran off the porch after the trail riders, her heart beating like a hummingbird’s wings.

* * *

Stable duty turned out to be an easier task than she’d feared. It was cool enough outside, and it had been a slow enough ride, that none of the horses required much grooming. By sunset, she and Lamar were finished and headed back to the fire pit, where Logan greeted her with a plate of ribs and corn on the cob.

Hunger was the best sauce, not that the barbecue needed it. Like everything Robert had cooked that week, it was insanely good; the man was a genius in the kitchen and an artist over the grill.

She wondered if Logan would find more jobs for her to do before the evening was out. He seemed determined to fill every last minute of her remaining time, almost as if he could make her forget she wasn’t really a part of the Hilltop crew. Or as if he himself kept forgetting that she didn’t quite belong here.

She had trouble remembering that herself. When she’d finished her barbecue and stood by the fire pit chatting with the Jacksons, Bob made some corny joke and she laughed and caught Logan’s eye and they’d shared a smile that was pure benign conspiracy. They both knew the joke was corny, but they both liked Bob because he seemed like a nice guy. That glance of pure understanding made her feel like they were suddenly in this thing together, Mindy and Logan. Partners in crime. It was an entirely novel, intoxicating way to feel about another person, and she had no idea what to do with it.