River's Escape (River's End Series, #2) (6 page)

“Good. Yeah, I want to do this. Did you tell Dad?”

“Yeah. Why?”

He shrugged. “Just curious. He won’t let Ben do it.”

Kailynn and Erin exchanged looks. Charlie had grown fascinated recently with the local rodeo. It was the first interest Charlie had shown in anything with horses, or the ranch lifestyle. Only it wasn’t the horses that caught Charlie’s usually bookish personality; it was the big, bucking broncos. He went nuts cheering for them and watched it on TV for hours while narrating the entire schedule of events. He began to recognize correct form and could predict when someone couldn’t hold on. He knew so much about it, Kailynn often had to tune out his excited, yet thorough, explanations.

Erin was taking him up the valley a few miles to watch one of the locals practice.

Erin stopped and glanced at her. “How was last night? Ian and Shane never showed up.” Erin grinned and rolled her eyes. It pained her to hear Shane so casually mentioned. Her cheeks inevitably flared in color when she even began thinking of him.

“Last night was pretty much the usual. Big fire. Lots of beer. Lots of dirty talking. You know, the usual.”

Erin laughed in her pretty way. Her smile used to be a rare thing indeed. When she did smile, it was huge and brightened her entire face. She was so lovely, at first Kailynn was even intimidated to talk to her. But she was so nice, without knowing it, and likeable that one just wanted to smother her with compliments so she’d finally get a glimpse of who she really was. She had a rather distorted view of herself.

She hung an arm around Kailynn’s shoulders, which was not easy as she was half a foot shorter. “You need to get out of here. That is not you. Or your future. When are you planning to go to college?”

Erin said that to her at least once a week ever since Kailynn confided in her last year. During one of their talks, she said that was her innermost dream. Erin pounced on it in a way Kailynn never expected. She prodded, and talked, and pushed Kailynn. She thought it was the coolest thing she’d ever heard. Kailynn understood her passion. Erin couldn’t read, so it was literally a pipe dream to her, and in many ways, to Kailynn too, although she never said so to Erin. That would have been too mean because she could do the work, while Erin, quite literally, could not.

She smiled and pretended to shoo Erin off. “Right now, I need to just finish making your dinner. Go. Have fun.”

Erin gripped her hand. “Really, Lynnie, this isn’t you. You don’t even drink. Drew Nichols? Come on. You can do so much better.”

“You miss the point, Erin. There is nobody better around here.”

“The Rydells.”

She made a face. Erin was half into hero-worship for all of them after how they helped her. “They are my employers. Not part of my dating pool.” She would not even admit to Erin it was exactly the opposite.

Charlie and Erin left just as Ian entered. He slipped in the front door and stopped dead. Never one to stomp in, or slam doors, he was more like a tall, slim, quiet ghost moving around than a man.

She turned back to the stove and pretended to busy herself by preparing dinner. She really hoped he hadn’t heard the tail end of the conversation between Erin and her. Ian hung up his hat on a hook near the door as he leaned over and took his boots off. He set them neatly beside the door, being very conscientious she’d just cleaned the floors. He never used his feet to knock his boots off and dump them, or let them clatter to the floor while dislodging dirt and horse manure. She really appreciated that about him. After she cleaned, however, it was none of her business what any of the brothers, sons, or even Erin did to the house. Still, it was nice that Ian seemed to notice whatever she did and took special care not to ruin it.

“Your brothers are here.”

She was leaning into the oven, peeking at the cornbread. She straightened up. “My brothers? Oh. Are they staying for dinner?”

He shrugged. “Usually, when they show up at this hour.” They did so often and it annoyed the crap out of her. There, at the Rydell house, she cooked much better meals than she did at home, owing to the much larger food budget Jack provided for her. She could experiment a little more than she could at home. Then her lousy, lazy brothers had the nerve to follow her there and scrounge dinner off the Rydells. Of course, that also meant Shane would at least come in and eat. She could never predict with him. Jack and Ian were like clockwork, along with Ben and Charlie and Erin. But Shane? Whoever knew what that man was doing?

“You should stay too. You cooked it, after all.”

Ian was nicer than most of the other brothers. He often invited her to stay, although she never did. It felt too weird. She smiled with absent-minded politeness. “No, I’m meeting Drew in town.”

Ian made a sound that was something close to a grunt. “Sure.”

She grabbed her stuff before running into her brothers. She wasn’t in the mood for them. Or for Shane to see her, yet again, cooking and cleaning for him. She smiled as she passed by Ian. “See you later.”

“Yeah, see you.”

And that was it. The usual extent of their conversations. She rarely learned anything new about him, or him about her. They never discussed anything real. She never even knew what he did all day. It was some banal version of the same thing.

She met Drew at the tack store and waited for him to get off. They went out to an empty field where Drew shot one of his guns at a target before they ate some sandwiches. They made out for a while and he dropped her back at her house. She groaned inwardly when they pulled into her driveway. Another fire blazed against the night sky with her brothers and the Rydells lounging around it. Drinking and partying just the same as last night. Drew gritted his teeth. “Damn Rydells. Are they ever not here?”

She shrugged. “What difference does it make to you?”

“I don’t like how Ian looks at me.”

“Ian looks like that at everyone. It’s not a special look, exclusively for you.”

“He’s probably eyeing up my dick. He might want me. Creeps me out.” With that crude and homophobic slur, Drew shoved himself out of his car, apparently intending to come inside with her. She sighed, and hated when he talked like that. She might have had issues with Ian, but Drew talking that way was totally uncalled for. Ian’s business was his own, and he never regarded anyone with any particular expression on his face, so she knew Drew was full of crap. He was just still sour that Ian dared to lay down some kind of law about her.

She thought it was still weird he did that too.

Drew went straight through to her bedroom again. There was no one in the trailer, and her dad’s door was shut. She sighed and followed him. Again, he put the dusty, dirty boots on the bed. She sat down beside him, primly crossing her legs before putting her hands on them. She wasn’t in the mood tonight. Drew’s last remarks festered in her brain like a rotting fish. She felt a strange kind of offended sentimentality toward Ian. If he were gay, no one should have said stuff like that about him. They should have been respectful and nice, treating him no different than Shane or Jack. Was it any wonder Ian kept so quiet?

Drew leaned closer and pulled on her. “Forget about him. What do you say, Lynnie? Tonight? Come on. I’ve waited for you long enough, haven’t I? I mean, feel what you do to me.” He lifted her hand in his as he spoke before pressing her hand
there
. Right on his crotch between his legs. His jeans were stiff and hard. She didn’t press it, or even look. She bit her lip harder as the blush in her cheeks reddened rapidly with heat. He pressed on her hand and she felt hotter from her nerves and utter embarrassment. She wasn’t ready for that. She grew flustered, not from desire, but from shame and embarrassment to even be touching
it
. She wasn’t cool. She knew that. No twenty-three-year-old should be so shy about a penis. A jeans-covered one, at that. But she was. She could not force her eyes to even look into Drew’s, much less at where her hand was. She bit her lip and stared harder at her knee.

“Come on, Lynnie. What more do I have to do?”

She finally pressed on her fingers so they pushed against his jeans and quickly pulled them back out. She sensed how hot he was under his jeans. She didn’t know how she felt about that, except her own body felt cold and taut with nerves.

Pushing his hips into her hand, he groaned and pushed harder on her hand. “Harder,” he grunted and she did as he said. He closed his eyes and she stole a glance at him. Her hand sat on him, almost innocent-looking. She was nervous; but this was good, wasn’t it? She was supposed to do this. She was supposed to want to do this. He seemed to like it. She pressed again. He brought his hand up to the snap of his jeans. No.
Crap. He was going for the button.
He was going to undo it. He got it undone and started to peel the jeans down. It reminded her of peeling a banana. She mentally laughed at the comparison before… she found him putting her hand inside his jeans. He had no underwear on. She closed her eyes and just let her hand lie there. It was warm. Smooth. Hard. It was definitely up, not down. Sure. She knew it did that. But it felt different than she pictured. She let out a long breath. She wasn’t sure about this. Did she want to be doing it? Just this? She should at least do this, shouldn’t she?

It twitched under her fingers and she suddenly snatched her hand back. No. She didn’t want this. Not with Drew. Not like this. It seemed like maybe she’d never want it.

“Oh, come on, Lynnie. You can’t just stop. You’re killing me.”

She knew it was a mistake to touch him. She didn’t want to do anything beyond that. Maybe it was wrong of her to stop, but she just could not force herself to do it. She suddenly stood up. Drew grabbed her hand and pulled her towards him. “You’ve been teasing me for months. Just finish it this time.”

She twisted and turned, trying to dislodge his grip on her. He was close to setting her hand back on him. She tried to yank her hand from his grasp. Still nothing. She finally had to lean down and bite his hand when he refused to let her go, having no other choice. He suddenly stood up with a screech of shock. “You bitch! You bit me!”

Holding his hurt hand, his jeans now forgotten and still undone, flopped down onto his thighs. His penis was quickly losing its hard on. She averted her eyes. Nope. Still didn’t want to see a penis. Her vague recollection of it was it was purplish and veiny and looking kind of like an uncooked sausage.

She recoiled from him. He grew really angry. His eyes flashed and he stepped towards her. “You wouldn’t let go of me,” she explained finally, her voice losing all its volume when faced with his anger.

“Well, you don’t freaking go off and bite a dude, just because he wants you to finish the hand job you started.”

“I didn’t start it,” she added, her tone still almost a whisper.

“Y-Y—”

Her bedroom door opened and smacked hard into the wall. There was no doorstop to slow its momentum. A picture rattled, and she whipped around, horrified at being caught. Drew’s pants were down. But what shocked her even more was who she saw standing there. Her dad was leaning against the doorjamb while glowering at her.

“What the Sam Hell is going on in here? And why is this shithead’s penis hanging out of his pants?”

She closed her eyes when her father’s rough-hewn voice roared into her bedroom. Barely a half second later, the door was filled with Ian. She turned away, her humiliation causing her to blush from her neck to her face.

“Close the door!” she screeched. Drew had the decency to turn around, still favoring his injured hand while grasping for his pants.

“I will not. I heard him call you a bitch. You dare call my daughter that?”

She turned slightly, shocked to see her father raising his chest and kind of peacocking around. She had been inviting boys to her room since she was sixteen. No one ever said a word. Never. Not her father. Nor her older brothers. No one asked what she did, or didn’t do, and no one seemed to worry if she had sex, or not.

“She bit me!” Drew exclaimed as if that excused and explained everything.

“Why? ‘Cause you were flapping your junk at her? ‘Course she bit you. Get your sorry ass out of my house and don’t ever go near my daughter again.”

She turned back around. Her father was kicking Drew out? She didn’t know whether to be mad at him, or to hug him for showing he cared.

Ian stepped back from the door. After quickly assessing the small entourage in her doorway, she stared down at the floor before her. This was undeniably the worst moment she ever endured.

“I think she’s the kind of girl who invites men into her room. What did you think we were doing in here, old man?” Drew said after fully clothing himself and turning back to glare at her dad. He was a sad sight. Smaller now that his posture had shrunk and his muscles were atrophied from spending too much time in bed. His hair was extra long and white, and it kind of fell around his head like a mad scientist. Still, he was defending her. She never dreamed he cared about what she did in the room.

“You ain’t no man. Now get out of here, boy. Ian, assist this asshole to the door. He don’t seem to know proper English.”

Ian stepped forward, grabbing Drew by the forearm and escorting him unceremoniously out the door. Drew snarled as he yanked his hand away. “Don’t touch me, fucking faggot.”