Chapter 19

Lena’s turn:

I certainly hadn’t expected to be walking out of the sheriff’s office at eleven at night. I HAD expected to be curled up naked with Jay, reveling in the little waves and surges of post-coital pleasure.

That’s an ‘aside’, you know. None of those ‘experienced’ girls at school ever said anything about lying next to a mate an hour after the last orgasm, and still feeling the happy quivers coursing through one’s body. Maybe it doesn’t happen to everybody, but I am very glad to say it happens to me.

That’s what was SUPPOSED to be happening just about now. Instead, Jay and I are walking out of the sheriff’s office, each of us toting an M-4 carbine, headed to our truck.

Inside, we keep a couple of SHTF bags. SHTF is an only barely polite way of saying “Shit Hits The Fan“, a sudden onset disaster of indeterminate origin. Mine carries a set of outer clothes, a couple of changes of underwear, socks, toiletries. Short story – we had what we needed to go straight to the hotel up the road.

I let Jay handle the check-in, then we unloaded.

Nope, the weapons didn’t stay in the truck. The carry bags for them, though, are relatively unobtrusive.

Inside the hotel room, Jay’s looking at me.

“Are you okay, princess?”

“Yes, I’m okay. Stop worrying about me. I’m not on the edge of meltdown or anything close.” I knelt on the bed beside where he was sitting, wrapped my arms around him. “We survived. We had a situation. We survived. Okay?”

“I worry,” he told me. “This is not the norm today. Shooting people...”

“Ohhhh,” I said. “Let’s reverse this. Are YOU okay?”

“Yeah, except I let us get in a dangerous situation...”

“What were you supposed to do? Sit there and let those turds roll out of there with OUR home? Honestly, I don’t think that’s my Jay. You did marvelously.” I put my arms around him, nuzzled my face into his neck gently. I could detect traces of a particularly delicious aftershave along with the funk of adrenaline and stress.

He twisted to pull me down as he fell back onto the bed. “You’re my angel and my rock, Lena. Never a day goes by that I don’t thank God for you, and every day you bless me by being with me. I had no idea of what I got when I hauled you away from home.”

Okay, smooth talk gets me. “You silver-tongued devil,” I said. “You’re tryin’ to turn my head.”

“Actually I’m trying to get you into the shower, but the feelings’re always there.”

“I wouldn’t trade you for the world, guy. Let’s try that shower.”

Two of us, all soapy, a spray of hot water, his hands over me, me wishing that one day I’d actually grow, you know, TITS to match my butt. I know better than complain, though. One time I inventoried my lack of assets and ended up with a pair of raw nipples and teeth marks on my ass.

Tonight while he’s shaving with his emergency pack razor, I’m drying my hair because I will gladly risk having a bit of hot air damage in return for knowing that he likes his face buried in my hair when we’re playing around and wet hair slows that fun down.

When we leave the bathroom area I make a show of grabbing a nightshirt.

“You don’t need that,” he said. “Not yet, anyway...”

“What do you have in mind, sir?”

“Celebration of life, Lena.”

I put my arms around his neck. “I want you. I want you because you’re cerebral and you’re manly and you’re my husband with everything that means...”

I stopped talking because my tongue was playing with his. That’s a good sign. The next good sign is pulling the covers down on the bed, leaving us with a playing field of clean white cotton.

Okay, what I did to Jay is probably a bit of compensation for the previous stressful situation. I know that his first one, he’s kind of short on control. No, it’s not a problem. The guy’s an attentive lover, like I have something to compare it to, but he’s never left me wanting, and I know that if we keep playing, there’s another one right there and when he’s hard the second time, this close after the first, Lena gets free play. Bonus. Get Out Of Jail Free. The Golden Ticket.

Poor Jay. I got on top and I rode ‘im hard. My second one. And third. And fourth. And I put ‘im away wet ... dripping from everything that came out of me and everything that came out of him for the second time in an hour.

No, I really didn’t put him away wet. I love Jay’s soft, sticky dick. And he loves what I do, so I got Number Five for my attentions. “Rock my world” is such an over-used expression. But...

We slept in, escaped the room at 0730, were having breakfast at the diner when Jay’s phone went off. He looked at it. “Bill,” he told me as he put the phone to his ear.

“Hey, Bill!” he said. Pause. “Yes, we know about it. Somebody tried to steal our trailer yesterday evening.” Pause. “We caught ‘em coming out the gate with it. Stopped ‘em.” Pause. “One of ‘em shot at me, didn’t know Lena was watching.” Pause. “D’you know Alec and Wayne Something or other? Alec’s the survivor.” Pause. “Yeah, we’re eating breakfast at Jimbo’s right now. We’ll be out there in a bit.” Pause. “Yeah, she’s fine. I’ll tell ‘er.” Pause. “Okay. See you in a bit.” And he set his phone down.

“Bill wanted to know what happened to the gate,” Jay said.

“Oh, I guess he’s checking on his cattle like he said last night.”

“It’s what he said. Got there and the gate was pulled down. Called us.”

“We need to get that gate fixed,” I said. “Let’s see how badly it’s broken.”

The gate was going to live on, a quick investigation revealed. The turds had yanked off its hinges, probably with a rope tied to their truck’s hitch, and in doing so, simply yanked the hinges out of the gatepost. Simple fix, Jay says.

We drove in to our trailer and met Bill.

“I can see where they just kicked the blocks and raised the jacks,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jay answered. “I’m glad they turned the water off and unscrewed the hose connection, and unplugged the power cord.”

Bill shook his head. “Those two ... they had sense enough to know that fixing those things takes too much effort and cut the value...”

We let Bill go about caring for his cattle while Jay and I re-leveled the trailer and put the few things back in place that had fallen when it was towed. Our home was back in order quite soon.

Next conversation was about fences. Ours were adequate for keeping cattle in but obviously the gate wasn’t up to keeping animals out.

“That’s what I said,” Bill told us. “Enough to keep honest people honest. My opinion?”

“Sure,” I said.

“If they’d’ve had more trouble trying to get the gate out of the way, they’d’ve gone on to something easier. Those two weren’t particularly ambitious. Low-hanging fruit was more their style.”

“Kinda what I figure,” Jay offered. “So we want a GOOD gate. Maybe a chain link fence along the road. Won’t be Fort Knox but it’ll be more of a deterrent.”

“Gonna be pricey,” Bill said.

“Who do we get to do that?” I asked.

“Lemme do some looking. I’ll see what I can find. Pricey, though.”

I don’t have the heart to tell him that we’re not worrying about money right now.

By that afternoon Jay and I had the gate re-hung. It’s not perfect, but then we don’t expect it to be permanent. Bill came up with the names of a couple of fence contractors and we’re going to have them visit us tomorrow.

The afternoon was punctuated by a trip back into the parish seat to sign some papers at the sheriff’s office. We walked across the street afterward, meeting with the district attorney.

“I’m not coming up with any charges on this one, folks,” he said. “Notorious criminals caught red-handed. One of them pulled a gun. Clear self defense. And the survivor copped to the whole scheme to steal your trailer.”

He looked at me. “Mizz Harris, you don’t shoot skeet, do you?”

“No, sir,” I said. “Never tried it.”

“Good!” he smirked. “I heard about your rifle work. I’d hate to think you’d beat me at skeet.”

“Jayy?” I said, “can we try skeet sometime?”

“See?!?” Jay laughed, “that’s how things get started.”

He shook our hands when we left.

“I think I’m gonna like calling this place ‘home’,” I told Jay.

“It is nice.”

There are downsides, though. Small-town America. The best selection of books to be found? You have a choice – the parish library or Wal-Mart. We introduced ourselves at the library, received a couple of library cards, hit the architecture section and walked out with a few books of home plans.

When we got back home the gate was still open, meaning that Bill was still there. His new cattle shelter is mostly finished. It’s a frame and a roof, walled in on three sides, sited on the south side of our hill where it will take advantage of the low winter sunlight angles and also will be sheltered by the hilltop from the worst of the winter winds.

Bill is adding some internal features that allow one end to be used as a stall in the event that one or two cattle need to be kept in restriction for medication or observation. Naturally his working in the shed is a subject of curiosity. I find it amusing. The cattle are used to people, but the only one of the bunch who gets close enough to touch is the bull. He likes to come up to the fence and get his head scratched. It’s hilarious having twelve hundred pounds of Black Angus bull following you down the fenceline hoping you’ll pay attention to him.

Jay, on the other hand, knows I’ll pay attention to him. After we get the trailer leveled, I meet him and Bill at the new shed, taking sandwich orders for lunch, as in “if you want a sandwich, I’ll fix lunch. If you want something else, you’re on your own.”

We sat at our outdoor picnic table and had lunch, talking about house plans with Bill, who had a bit of sense about the area.

“When’re you gonna take the tractor back?” he asked Jay.

“I think we’re gonna buy it. Seems an awfully handy thing to have around the place,” Jay said.

“Well, you can always park it in the shed and I’ll watch it,” Bill returned.

“Well, that’s a great offer, but we’re looking at house plans. We decided to get on with building here.”

“And still travel for work?”

“We may alter those plans. Maybe short jobs. None of those multi-year projects. We feel a lot more secure with you coming out here to take care of your cows,” I said.

“There is that,” Bill opined. “I’ll take care of the place while you’re gone.”

“See!” I said to Jay. “Problem solved.” Actually, we’re – Jay and I –continuing to develop that whole life plan. Money’s not a problem. Might not work at all. Might just travel. I dunno. An electronic fund transfer hit our bank account from the second bucket of coins and we’re waaaay past flush now.

Lounging back against Jay’s chest that evening...

“Gentleman farmers, baby,” I said.

“Huh?”

“We could be gentleman farmers. Like that guy Bill talked about, you know, raise some kind of exotic livestock, just for a hobby. Live here on our little hilltop, maybe clear off some of that woodland on the back side of the property ... More pasture...”

“Wouldn’t want to evict Bill,” Jay said. “He’s a good guy...”

“Handy to have around,” I said. If we clear more pasture, we’ll have plenty of room for his cattle and ours...”

“Assuming you want cattle.”

“And goats. Those four we have now, they’re interesting...” We’d bought four goats from a livestock auction. They joined the cattle on our acreage. They’re more active and curious. I think they’re more intelligent.

“You amaze me, little girl,” Jay said. “From city girl to country girl in a year...”

Two weeks later we’re sitting in the office of a local architect, talking about our new house. Architect’s fee for our set of plans? Jay wrote a check on the spot. We already had a general contractor, a local guy Bill recommended, in on our discussions. We’ve relocated our trailer off the hilltop to make room for the new house construction.