Chapter 1

Bales of hay surrounded the tractor shed where a couple was engaged in some quick and steamy afternoon sex. A beautiful Latina stood with her back against a wide wooden post, gasping in sexual delight while clinging passionately to her tall blond cowboy lover.

The button bodice of her dress was loose and open. Her bra was tugged down exposing her plump breasts that were jiggling tantalizingly for his hungry mouth. His hot breath burned her golden nipples as he vigorously suckled and nipped each one, making her throw back her dark head with sharp gasps and moans with lusty delight.

"Ah, mi ranchero grande! Papi! Harder! Harder!" she begged in-between "oooh's" and "aaah's", enjoying the rock-hard cock plunging into her wet and willing pussy.

She had her soft brown and green-checkered skirt hiked up around tummy, her golden legs tightly wrapped around his half-clothed hips. He was pumping hard between her soft thighs, savoring each deep plunge into her sucking channel.

"Ah, madre dios, you feel so good inside me, mi ranchero grande!" she gasped breathlessly with arms around his big shoulders, her bare buttocks grasped by his big, warm hands.

Aside from deep grunts, he said nothing. He wasn't much of a talker. He was a doer. In sexual delirium, he grabbed her to him, and then dropped her on a bale of hale so he could thrust a little harder, feeling his balls already tensing, ready to fill her with his hot seed. He twisted lean stiff fingers in her deep brown curls, shoving deeper and harder into her as she gasped in lustful ecstasy, clinging desperately to him.

"Puta madre! I'm cumming... !" she wailed.

"Urrrrggghh..." he growled long and deep, feeling as if every molecule in his body was exploding when he hit his climax. His cock swelled and exploded, jetting thick strings of sperm deep inside her contracting tunnel, over and over again.

Moments later, he laid himself quietly over her as they both caught their breaths. Their hot, no-strings-attached sex was always a welcome break from hard work on the ranch, and Elena was always ready for him. She was ready for anyone, but especially for him. They've been lovers for months now, and although she was adamant that she didn't want more than this, he was beginning to feel more for her than lust.

"I always cum hard with you, mi ranchero. You're the best," she said with a smile.

He lay a moment with eyes closed until he felt every ounce of sperm drain into her willing body. "I reckon you say that to all us pokes," he chuckled, hearing her giggling above him. He raised his head and then got off her before walking to the washbasin to clean himself.

"Si, but I mean it only with you," she said coyly. She rose to sit and found her white panties on the bale of hay. She slipped her golden slender legs through the openings and rose to her feet, pulling them up around her curvaceous hips and behind, ending with a snap.

"Gotta get back to work," he said, adjusting his denims. Then he ran his hand back through his blond locks before he put his cowboy hat on.

"Me too," she sighed. "I still have to change the sheets in your father's room although they're never dirty. He's been at me to hang 'em out in the sun to dry instead of using the dryer, but that's just too much work. So he makes me change his sheets every day to punish me," she said with a cute pout.

They both walked toward the wide doors of the shed and into the sunlight, heading back to a large, white ranch house in the distance.

"Well, he's an old cuss who's set in his ways," he said, shrugging. His mind was already on the new bales of hay that had come in earlier that day. There was a lot, and he wasn't looking forward to stacking them.

"Hey ranchero? Would you be jealous if I slept with your younger brother? He's been lookin' at me in that way and I don't think he's been with a woman for a long time. You know how I love to mentor the young ones. Unless," she smiled coyly up at him, "you want me to be yours only."

Her words stung him deeper than he was willing to admit. His handsome face grew just a little harder, but he merely shrugged as they climbed onto the verandah that encircled the entire house from front to back. It was then when he noticed it needed a good sweeping.

"I don't hold any papers on you, Elena. Do what you want." Then he smiled down at her. "You always do, anyhow," he said with a chuckle.

"Cabron!" she said and she slapped him playfully before they parted ways...

~~*

A dusty dark green Range Rover drove along the rural roads of longhorn cattle country in southeast Texas. On her way to her destination, Isabella Beaumont-Boucher, a native of the next State over, had passed quite a few of those magnificent beasts with the enormous horns. They fascinated her. Those horns looked so disproportionately large in relation to the rest of their body that she wondered how they kept from toppling over.

"They have to weigh at least a ton," she whispered in awe as her eyes seemed glued on one longhorn that stood, up close and personal, by a stretch of white fencing ... looking right back at her. "Amazing" she whispered. "And cheeky."

The radio softly played pleasant country music. It astonished her how music on the radio can suddenly change depending on the region. She'd listened to at least ten different stations from Nevada to here already! Quite an experience.

An all too familiar golden-oldie country song came on and she looked at the lit face of the car stereo with suddenly wounded eyes. It was Rose Garden by Lynn Anderson: her mother's favorite song.

"Is that you, Mama? Are you trying to tell me something?" she whispered as she briefly gazed up at the blue skies. Then she sighed. "Hoping against hope, I really hope it's the rose garden part. I can use it right about now."

Then she cleared her throat, perked up behind the wheel, and began to sing along, "You'd better look before you leap, still waters run deep, and there won't always be someone there to pull you out... and you know what I'm talkin' about." Then she sighed again. "Yes, Mama, I do now. I do know what you're talking about," she said with a sad whisper. "And that's why I'm traveling on this dusty road to god-knows-where."

When she felt tears burning behind her eyes, she cleared her throat again. She hated getting all choked up although she had every right to feel sad. But that's not why those tears were threatening to fall now. Whenever she thought about her mother, she couldn't help it. She missed her so damn much. No sense in crying over spilled milk, though. Time to change the radio channel, so she did...

Although she drove a luxury vehicle of foreign make and model, the Range Rover was well equipped for the bumpy dirt and asphalt roads of rural southeast Texas. It wasn't a vehicle normally found around those parts. Heavy pick-ups were the norm, and American made jeeps, SUVs, and vehicles outnumbered any foreign model by far.

This was Bellville, Texas: ranch lands, farmlands, and cattle country—and she was clearly out of place there. That would be because she wasn't from Bellville or Texas, for that matter.

She slowed the Rover when she came to what appeared to be the end of the white wood fencing surrounding the spread of many acres. A few large longhorns were grazing on lush green lands behind those fences and far beyond. She had to admit, this was by far the best-maintained spread she'd seen for miles—and she'd seen many.

This ranch, with its prominent two-story home, was also well cared for. The sight of it bolstered her mood. When she first drove off in search of Barrington Ranch, she was afraid that she might end up on some rundown spread in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't as if she'd refuse employment if offered. After all, beggars couldn't be choosers. And that was the sole reason for her being there: employment. She was destitute, and she'd beg if she had to.

She felt lucky today, though. She needed employment quick and when she saw the advertisement in the Postal Plus shop, she grabbed it with both hands. She was running dangerously low on funds and needed to replenish her resources posthaste.

She finally came to the wide opened gates of the drive that led toward the big white house. An oversized mailbox was perched on a heavy post, and she peered at the name in bold black lettering engraved on a large brass plate: Barrington Ranch.

Smiling, she steered the Rover through the gates and up the wide brick drive toward the white house. The closer she got, the larger it grew. A few ranch hands heard her coming and they paused in their work, peering curiously at the dusty Rover driving by as she made her way to the front of the main house.

One ranch hand smiled at a fellow worker. "Trouble," he chuckled from beneath his cowboy hat. "Must be one o' those boys' angry girlfriends."

"Don't know, Bob. Never seen her before. But she sure is pretty."

"Yea," Bob said, chuckling as he shook his head. "Like I said ... trouble."

And that she was—the "trouble" part, not the girlfriend part. She was a stranger in those parts and she didn't know any of the Barringtons. Up until that visit to the Postal Plus, she never knew the Barringtons even existed. Had she known them, she would've been wise to stay far away from their spread. Her presence alone could stir trouble and light the wick that would have the Barrington men at each other's throats in no time flat. In fact, her timing couldn't have been more off.

Ignorant of those facts, she slowed her Rover before she brought it to a stop in the curve of the drive in front of the great house. She shut-off the engine and looked curiously at the giant white house with the deep verandah, not seeing the curious looks cast her way by the small army of ranch hands walking around the property.

"Well, cross your fingers, Isabella," she said, speaking courage to herself. She took a deep breath and then pushed the door open and climbed out.

The ranch hands stopped to stare at the pretty young woman exiting the fancy jeep. From the look of her clothes, they knew she couldn't be from around those parts. In fact, none of the stunned ranch hands ever saw a woman more elegantly dressed than that raven-haired beauty standing by her dusty, foreign-made jeep.

She wore a snug-fit ivory pencil dress with pretty flowers that fit her slender frame. It was definitely much too elegant for rugged Bellville. The dress seemed to follow her curves perfectly before it ended just below her knees. A pink fine-knit sweater tied by the sleeves around her graceful shoulders completed the ensemble. She wore heeled dusty pink strap-sandals on her slender feet and moved naturally in them as if she'd worn nothing else all her life. In fact, her entire body moved that way, despite the restrictions that her pencil dress should have had on her.

Her long raven curls had a blue glimmer in the sun. They were bound low with a pretty pink ribbon in a bow, and a single and long curly tail tumbled down one shoulder. Except for body lotion and lip gloss against the dry weather in Texas, she was devoid of any makeup.

Although she knew she was a little over-dressed for the occasion, this was her most simple cut dress. She vowed that the moment she had made a little money, she'd pay a local fashion shop a visit to find daywear more suitable for Bellville. But right now, this was the best she could toss together that she believed wouldn't make her stand out all too badly. One look around her told her she'd failed in the endeavor.

"Oh my," she said with a sigh when she'd noticed the dusty ranch hands walking around her and looking curiously at her. She gave them a tentative smile and a brief nod, and felt so out-of-place. They smiled as they touched their hats to her in return. She tugged uncomfortably on the hem of her skirt a few times, as if she could stretch the skirt's hem right down to her ankles. She felt so awkward.

"Well," she whispered to herself. "No sense in crying over spilled milk." And with that, she swept a large off-white macramé bag over her shoulder before she double-checked the crumpled yellow piece of paper between her slender fingers and closed the Rover's door with a hip. "Yes," she said softly to herself. "This is the place."

As she looked up from the piece of paper, a lazy and deep voice called out to her.

"Can I help ya, Miss?"

She quickly turned her head and looked for the source of that voice. "Oh, good afternoon—" she paused as the sun hit her in the eyes and she squinted against the sting, "—sir," she finished, hesitantly, before shading her eyes with her hand.

When her sight adjusted, she saw the silhouette of a tall man with broad shoulders on the verandah. He was wearing a cowboy hat and was leaning down, gloved hands braced on the railing of an outcrop. The mid-afternoon sun stood at his back giving him the advantage while she was in full view, and she could barely make him out, but she could see he was wearing a denim shirt and pants. His hair was untied and long, reaching just passed his broad shoulders. His face, unfortunately, was hidden from view in the shadows of his wide-brimmed cowboy hat.

She suspected he had chosen that spot on purpose to give himself the advantage.

"Miss?"

"Yes? Oh! I mean, yes!" She smiled. "Yes, you may help me. I'm here to speak with Mr. John Barrington. Is he in?" she asked politely, still squinting. She should have bought those sunglasses at the gas station when she had the chance but money was tight for unnecessary purchases. Too late, she realized that sun glasses weren't unnecessary in those parts. Then she realized he hadn't responded so she repeated, "If it's not too much trouble, sir, I'd like to speak with Mr. John Barrington if he's in?"

"What do you want to speak with him for?"

"Am I speaking to Mr. John Barrington?" she asked a little taken aback, but undeterred. She wasn't sure how things were done in that part of the country; how men behaved toward women, so she couldn't decide if he was being rude or if he was just behaving the way men in those parts behaved—which was pretty impolite, in her opinion.

"You sure you're supposed to be here? Cuz you look lost."

"Um, no, I'm not lost, and yes, I'm quite sure this is the place I was looking for, if the directions in the advertisement are to be believed." She smiled, trying friendliness. "This is the Barrington ranch, isn't it?"

"That's what it says on the mailbox."

"Good. Then I'm where I'm supposed to be," she said with friendly laughter, but she still didn't get a reaction. She bit her lower lip a little anxiously. She really didn't need any quarrels right now. It had been one very long, very warm day. With this in mind, she tried polite friendliness and flashed her best smile, but it quickly became apparent that this stoic and uncouth ranch hand wasn't even trying to be accommodating.

"Um, to clarify my presence, I'm here for the position of housekeeper and cook. Are you Mr. John Barrington?" She forced herself to keep that smile on her lips as she walked over to him. Much like the house she drove up to, the cowboy got bigger as she got closer.

"Housekeeper? You?" His tone sounded almost disdainful. Scratch that. It was disdainful.