Chapter 3

Angel Orellio looked down at the pile of sandwiches resentfully. Sandwiches he could get in the city. All the God damned gringo sandwiches he wanted. But who wanted the soggy, bread thick mess? Tortillas and beans would have been better and cheaper, too, if the senor was stingy. Working hombres like he did, they needed a hot meal. Angel looked up to watch Kate Sutherland pouring the iced tea. Her face looked different, as though all the spirit had been drained out of it. Maybe it was her who didn't want to cook. Well, by God, he didn't come here to eat slop!

"You got the tortillas?"

Kate looked startled. "Well, yes... but they're down in the freezer, Angel. I... Ah... I didn't want to heat up the kitchen at lunch time."

Angel shrugged and bit into a thick ham sandwich. Frozen tortillas. Jesu Christo! That was what was wrong with the whole damn country. Wrap it up, store it away, freeze it, mash it, make it instant. No time for anything to make a man comfortable. Even his drunken, almost screaming foster mother took more time and more care. He wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for his mother. It was either this, or working at the damn shoe factory like his parole officer had wanted him to do. Fuck 'em all! He looked up to find Eric frowning and shaking his head at him when Kate's back was turned.

They ate and it was pretty quiet. The grande had not come for lunch today. Only the foreman Frank and Eric and the woman, but no one else. The weather-beaten Frank was going on about how nice it was to have Mr. Sutherland back home again. Angel thought his woman did not think so. She looked tired and her smile was automatic and closed. Angel wondered if she hadn't liked the homecoming fuck the big rancher must have thrown her last night. While he played the guitar by the fish pond Angel had known what was going on upstairs in the bedroom. Later he had gone down to the barn and unloaded his wad in a yearling cow. Dios Mio not even any puta whores in this damned country. But the little school teacher! The one who had eaten there last night... she was soft and white, and old enough so that if he made it look right they couldn't possibly get him for rape. That one he would luck soon and then he could go back to civilization where girls and tortillas were easy to get.

Kate went wearily up the stairs alter they'd gone and took off the fresh dress she'd put on before lunch.

Cole had not even called to lie and say he wouldn't be home at noon. She looked at her naked body in the mirror and wondered if her heated flesh would have led her to really betray her marriage vows if the circumstances had been different. Would she have thrown her naked body into Sandy Gayman the way that woman... Mela Meacham, he'd called her... had done with Cole? Kate shuddered for she knew how close she had come to doing just that in the pain and anguish of seeing her husband fucking old man Meacham's daughter.

With her back to the mirror, she put on a blue swim suit. She couldn't bear to even look at herself, remembering Sandy's big hands and where they'd been on her nakedly quivering flesh.

How could Cole have done it? How could it have happened so quick? Through the years they'd heard now and then that Meacham's daughter was home from Europe for a short vacation but they'd never seen her. The girl had come and gone so quickly that it almost seemed the old man didn't want anybody to see her... even though he spoke of her proudly once in a while. How could her husband, who had never seen her before today, be out there fucking that Meacham girl only a few minutes after he'd met her?

A cold apprehension clutched Kate's heart. Maybe Cole had seen her on her brief visits home. Oh God! Maybe he'd been fucking her when she was home. Maybe that's why no one ever saw her. Kate tried desperately to remember if her husband had ever been away when the Meacham girl had been home, but it was useless. She couldn't even remember the last time the poor old man had mentioned that his daughter was home.

Her thoughts continued to churn as she walked downstairs and went outside. Fifty yards away, Eric looked up, straightening his back. He wiped the sweat from his dripping brow. He set the cement bucket down and stretched, looking out at the shimmering heat that lay like a blanket over the fields. His alert eyes caught the slim figure walking down the gentle slope of lawn from the house. It was the boss' wife going for her afternoon swim. It was too far away to see much, but the long easy stride of her tanned legs and the shockingly tight blue swim suit caused Eric's groin to tighten in desire. Someday, he would have a good woman like that! He was still daydreaming about her when she disappeared behind the trees a few moments later...

The water was soupy and warm on the surface from the sun, but it was cold and clean underneath. Kate swam and dove and drove herself back and forth across the pond until she was exhausted. But even underneath the cold green water she could see those nakedly writhing bodies before her eyes. Oh dear heaven, what did you do when you found your husband fucking another woman! How did you ever ease the pain?

At last she climbed wearily up on the little pier where they moored the row boat. She lay panting for long minutes while her body dried. At last, she made her way through the bushes to her secret sunning spot that was hidden from the driveway, the house, and even the barns. Her geese were still swimming lazily around, happily pulling the lettuce leaves from the banks where she'd scattered them earlier.

"Here, Goosey... here, babies... here Goosey..." But they ignored her and went blithely floating away from her. They were still babies and ordinarily followed her everywhere; over in the pond, however, they became independent little devils. She always had a terrible time getting them out and back up to the house.

Kate picked up the old leather bound book and tried to memorize the poem she was planning to read to the poetry group. Cole had laughed about that, too. "Now how the hell do you think you're going to get a bunch of ranchers and their wives interested in poetry?" he'd snorted. But she had to do all the things she did. The loneliness of this country would drive you mad if you were a woman and didn't have the hard physical labor of the men at their work. The gallery in town, the theater group, and the poetry group had saved her sanity many a time. Her husband didn't need any hobbies, she thought bitterly... he had his women! It wasn't the baby she wanted that had turned him off these past two years. It was other women. For all she knew he might have a whole bevy of them scattered around the countryside.

The book fell from her hands and Kate lay back on the towel in her bower of bushes and reeds and trees. A little wind fluttered the pages, hiding Browning's poem, My Last Duchess... Kate couldn't erase the memory of the character portrait and wondered about the vivid Duke and his dead Duchess. Was she, herself, like that poor young woman in the poem... "She had a heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad... t'was not her husband's presence only, called that spot of joy into the Duchess' cheek... she liked whate'er she looked on and her looks went everywhere..." Kate turned and rested her chin on her hands. Was it really her fault that Cole had gone off with another woman... had she failed him inadvertently as that poor young woman had or rather as her husband thought she had? Was Cole really trying to tell her something important when he objected to her projects and groups and activities. Was he really saying that she didn't pay enough attention to him... that he was jealous of her time spent on other things and other people? Oh God, she didn't know! If only she hadn't seen him naked with that girl... if only she could erase the awful memory from her brain. Kate's hands gripped her skull that was aching; her face came down against the towel and her tears slid silently down into the colorfully printed terrycloth.

The events of the morning had badly shaken her composure. Really, how could she blame her husband for what he had done when she, herself, had come so close to doing exactly the same thing with Sandy Gayman. The handsome foreman would never know the monumental self-control that had been required to get into her station wagon and drive away from him, while all the time her loins and hotly seeping, shamelessly aroused vagina had been pleading that she remain. Even now, over three hours later, she still could feel those strange hands familiarly caressing her heatedly straining breasts and buttocks. Well, she thought dully, I'll get over it... and so will Sandy. At least he has the ranch chores to keep his mind off it.

Kate, however, had no way of knowing that instead of cooling off, the sandy-haired foreman had found that his anger and need to fuck her in revenge was growing more painfully intense with each passing second. Christ, he still had the goddamned hard-on! Then everything blew up all at once when he came out of the horse barn and saw the red convertible racing down the road toward town and Mela's long bright hair streaming behind her. That son of a bitch, Cole Sutherland, was driving! Five minutes later, his face dark with rage, Sandy crunched up to the Sutherland's sprawling ranch house. He knocked and called "Kate," several times without success. The wagon was there... she must be around somewhere. Finally, he opened the door to the kitchen and stepped in. "Kate? Hey, anybody home?" By God, if she was upstairs taking a nap, he'd fuck her right there and not give a shit how much she yelled.

The silence of the empty house echoed in his own ears.

It was the tall blonde kid with the eastern accent, Eric, he said his name was, who told Sandy that Kate was swimming. The big man didn't even mutter "thanks" as he spun on his heel and made for the pond. By the time he found her, his anger was cooling, but his painfully throbbing erection had grown to monstrous proportions.

Kate sensed someone's eyes on her even before she heard the rustling sound in the bushes. She looked up and saw Sandy Gayman standing there with his hat in his hands just staring hotly down at her. Kate could feel the tension immediately growing like a live thing between them again as he stood staring into her eyes.

At last he spoke, dropping down beside her on the towel. "You've been crying some more?" He plucked a spear of grass and chewed the end of it as Kate nodded dumbly.

"Don't think I'd waste my tears if I was you." Sandy lay back in the grass, one hand pillowing his head. "I been thinking... I don't rightly see how... what we saw could have happened so fast... I mean I didn't think they even knowed each other before. But now... I think they must have. I don't know when or where... but they knew each other before today. I'd bet my life on it."

"But where? How? When?" Kate whispered, sitting up.

"It wasn't here at the ranch. I been here for years... ever since Mela was first sent to school in Switzerland. I been here when she come home now and then. Never was here more'n a week. No, I think they must have met up when Cole went over to get that bull... in France."

"Of course!" she said eagerly. "I think you're right. That would explain it."

"Fact is," the big foreman continued, "I was figuring on marrying Mela myself when she got this running around out of her system... I watched her since she was a kid."

"Oh, Sandy..." Kate's hand went out in quick sympathy to Sandy's arm. "I didn't know... I didn't know that you were hurting inside as much as I was... back there... I'm so sorry for what my... my husband did."

Sandy, lying flat on his back, looked up into Kate's sympathetic face. The loose chestnut hair was still damp around her shoulders, the tanned fleshy swells of her breasts were almost spilling out of the deeply plunging blue swimsuit, and her blue eyes still had tears trembling on the edge of the thick lashes. Grabbing her hand he pulled her down across his chest and caught her wetly trembling mouth, murmuring against it before he kissed her, "No use being sorry..."

Kate squirmed and fought against the hard arms that had caught her by surprise and held her captive. He'd seemed so kind and sympathetic, but he only wanted to continue that madness they had indulged in when they were hurting so this morning. No! It was all wrong! They'd only be perpetrating the horrible example they'd seen.

Holding her easily with his greater strength, Sandy kissed her 'til her' soft, warm lips finally opened slack under his and her breath was whistling out her mouth in unintelligible little moans. Just like taming a reluctant mare, he thought, and sat up with Kate in his arms, holding her across his chest and lap. She was so limp be thought she was going to faint.

It took all of her will power for Kate to tear her mouth from Sandy's and all of her strength to fight her way out of his arms. Then she tried to scramble away from him, but he easily reached out and caught her again by grabbing the breast band of her swim suit. "Come back here, woman. Don't you think we got a right after this morning?" he whispered fiercely. Kate felt the big man pull her down against his chest again, then his arms were holding and cradling her and he was rocking her back and forth as though she were a child.

Sandy smoothed her hair with his free hand and whispered to her, gentling her as he would a calf or a frightened horse. There was a lot of woman here and he held her close against him, crooning hypnotically and murmuring as his lips brushed her hair, temples, eyelids, cheeks, and ear lobes.

The big hands were soothing and surprisingly gentle as Kate felt them tracing down the tight fullness of her breast and thigh and then back up again. Sandy's fiery lips burned her even though they brushed lightly, and the rancher's wife could feel her trembling body, denied relief for so long, responding immediately. The shivers started on her skin and swept through her in swift jagged little streaks, and she could hear his words echo in her head over and over again, "Don't you think we got a right? Don't you think we got a right?" Only unlike an echo that fades, these words grew louder and louder until they were a deafening drumbeat in her mind.

Catching her face with his free hand Sandy looked deep into Kate's eyes so close below his. "The only comfort in the world for what ails us is this," he whispered, and his hot wet mouth came down hard again on her helplessly trembling lips. He could feel her shiver in his arms as though she had a chill. Christ! It was good to hold a woman like this. If he couldn't have Mela for his, then he'd have that bastard Cole Sutherland's woman, by God!

Kate could feel her helpless shivering becoming uncontrollable, and a deep sob that couldn't come out sent a terrible ache through her rapidly heaving chest. Now Sandy's mouth became as brutal as his hands had been gentle; she could feel the hotly probing tongue working deeper and deeper into her mouth, and she was letting him. Mad! She had to be as mad as Cole to let this happen with a man who wasn't her husband. Why hadn't she sent the big foreman away when he first came? Because she liked it! Oh God, maybe she'd secretly wanted this to happen all along... that's why she hadn't sent him away! Perhaps she'd known that he would try to strip her naked again. Oh God, she was as bad as her own husband!

The scent in Sandy's nostrils was of sweet grass and sweet clean woman, faintly damp and breathing life and hope into him. Goddamn, but she tasted good, and the long swelling curves of her fit into him so well. In his mind's eye he could see the way the skimpy swim suit clung to her like a second skin, cut so low in front in a deep "V" that her full fleshy tits were more than half out, so low in the back that the lower beginning curves of her moon-shaped ass cheeks showed. His wildly throbbing cock was beating painfully in his jeans, and by God this time he was going to finish what he started!

Lying on her side, cradled in his arms, Kate couldn't help but be aware of the fiercely pounding rod that throbbed like a second heart against her side. Everything about the neighboring ranch foreman felt hard and male and oh so good. The all-watching monitor in her brain was screaming warnings to her, but her traitorous flesh was ignoring it by sending out tiny building ripples of hot implacable lust all through her. Suddenly, her arm moved up of its own volition under his shirt to caress his broad hard back; and her other arm wrapped itself around his neck, urging him down to her. It was so good to be in a man's arms who wanted her... really wanted her for no other reason but that he wanted her!

The breath was rasping in great shudders out Sandy's widely flared nostrils as his hot wet mouth moved hungrily down Kate's throat. His big band slid off one shoulder strap, and he kissed the warm nakedness of her shoulder as he eased the top of the swim suit down even further until the white, heavily ripened breast was freed. The naked fleshy tit hung there for the plucking like a mouth watering fruit that had fully matured. His hand came up to weigh it and cup its warm firmness; his thumb grazed the timidly cringing nipple until it burst out involuntarily like a quickly sprouting seed.

"Oh God, Kate..." She heard him groan and his breath seared her like fire as his hotly voracious mouth bent to suck in her eagerly erect little nipple. The flame of his tongue licked out and struck lightning flashes through her flesh!

"Noooo, Sandy... noooo..." she whispered, pushing feebly against his brawny shoulders with her hands, and all the time her betraying breast seemed to swell under his mouth with the hungrily searching nipple peaked into a concentrated point of blissful sensation! Jagged streaks of needle sharp pleasure radiated from his warmly wet lips and tongue, an overpowering sensation that spread rapidly through her breast to heat up her whole body. It was then that Cole's wife knew she was close to losing a battle that never should have begun.

"Mmm... mmmmmmmm," Sandy gurgled as he took the whole tip of her softly quivering tit into his ravenously working mouth and sucked with such fierce pressure that Kate began trembling helplessly in his arms! His hand held the warm silken heaviness up to his hungrily searching mouth, and he tasted the clean woman sweet flesh; it fed him, swelling his impatiently pounding prick to a monstrous size that his tight, heavily strained Levi's could never accommodate.

Oh God, Kate thought, what was happening to her? She'd frozen with pain at the sight of her husband with another woman, but here she was a few hours later, her nakedly eager breast in another man's voraciously sucking mouth and the animal lust stirring in her flesh like an evil phoenix rising from the ashes of her lost union with Cole. She'd never wanted another man... not ever since she'd been married, and here she was moaning and writhing uncontrollably as the neighboring ranch foreman teasingly sucked her, his hot hands all over her and his man's words echoing in her head like the gospel, when she knew all along they were only words of the moment, expedient words to achieve his purpose. Suddenly she stiffened for one condemning word exploded like a flash bulb in her head. Adultery! My God, she was very close to committing adultery!

Suddenly, Sandy felt Cole's wife go rigid in his arms. The next second she'd sprung to her feet and looked wildly down at him, her long hair in disarray and the large white rounded spheres of her naked breasts quivering in anguish. The only thing that kept her from being completely naked was that dangling strip of nylon clinging to the ripely flaring curves of her hips.

Quickly, before she could run, he reached up and jerked the suit down her thighs. He gasped as his hungry eyes saw the softly curling strands of chestnut cunt hair triangling down between her legs. Christ! Sandy realized for the first time that she was tanned all over... even her tits and buttocks... a smoothly tanned, hot-blooded woman. She stared at him in horror, her eyes as wild as her hair. For a split second she gained down at his hand, holding the blue nylon cloth around her knees, and then she turned to run, frantically trying to twist free of his grasp.

"Let me go... let me go... leave me alone... oh, please," Kate panted, trying to run from this man who would make her an adulteress. Sandy, however, hung on, and when she tripped, he simply pulled her back onto the blanket, then yanked the flimsy swim suit panties off her feet as though he were peeling a ripe luscious banana. She rolled away as he sought to return her to his arms and, breathing heavily, regained her feet and ran.

Jumping up, he tried to catch her but she plunged away, sobbing and whimpering as she ran straight for the water. His arms flailing, the big foreman beat his way after her. He had already started to grab when she dove into the pond. Suddenly, he was murderously angry! God damn prick tease! Twice in one day was too goddamn much! He jerked his clothes off, cursing when he struggled with his boots, but finally he was free and as naked as Kate, and he plunged into the cool green water after her.

The breath was pumping laboriously through her lungs as Kate swam in long smooth strokes. Behind her, she could hear Sandy cursing on the shore but she didn't look back. Get away! Just get away somewhere before the ruggedly handsome man caused her to sink to Cole's degraded level and become the same kind of wantonly writhing animal as that girl today!

Cleaving the water expertly Sandy came relentlessly after her, he wasn't letting Cole's wife get by with this crap! By God, he was going to fuck her silly if it was the last thing he did!

The geese came swimming toward Kate, making little clucking gurgling noises of recognition. "No, Goosey... no..." Kate gasped, trying to shoo them away and losing her momentum as a result. Almost at once her foot was grasped and her arms flailed frantically as she realized that Sandy had caught her. Oh God, what now? She struggled to free her leg but it was no use. It simply gave him an anchor to pull himself up to her. Screaming was no use. The barns were a long way off, and even if by chance someone heard her how could she ever explain being naked in the pond with Sandy Gayman? Kate felt his arms slide around her nakedness and her heart almost stopped!

"No, Sandy... it's wrong... it's terribly wrong... please!"

Sandy was panting and blowing, his chest heaving from the chill water and the sudden exertion and the anger. His feet scissored the water to keep them both afloat. "No... it's only fair... Cole fucked my woman... I'm going to fuck his," he growled, trying to hold Kate and keep them both afloat. His groin tightened like a knife twisting as she held her nakedly cool flesh against his own throbbingly hard nakedness under water. "Besides..." he jerked her even closer, mashing her full, wetly streaming breasts against his chest, "you want it as much as I do. Stop being a hypocrite! I'm going to fuck your teasing little cunt, baby... whether you like it or not!"