Chapter 38

At eleven-thirty, Fred shut his equipment down and told Mullins that it was time for lunch. A few minutes later, he stopped his ATV in the hay field and waved to the women. When Carla stuck her head out of the cab, he yelled, "Come on. We've got something to do."

Frowning as she got out of the tractor cab, Carla asked, "What's going on, Fred? I'm going to eat my lunch rolling. The more I get..."

"Hush, woman," he teased. "You know that I wouldn't stop unless it was important. Come on. Get on behind me. I'll carry you to your ride, then we'll get Jessica."

As she got on behind him, she continued, "Well, what's going on? I don't understand... Why didn't you just call me on the radio? We could have talked about it..."

Yeah, Fred thought. Exactly. And I don't want to talk about it with you. I want you to go with me to the house.

Jessica had already figured out that something was going on and was headed their way. Fred dropped Carla off at her ATV, then both of them headed toward Jessica. "Get on," Fred said as he pulled alongside her tractor. "You can ride with me. We've got something to do."

She had more questions than Carla, but Fred ignored her. He deliberately drove at an angle toward the house so the trees and the house would block their view as they drove up. He managed to get within a hundred yards of the house before he heard Jessica's, "Oh, shit." Then, "That's Molly!"

He figured that Carla had seen the horses tied to the rail by the picnic tables at the same time that Jessica did, for her ATV suddenly roared as she opened the throttle. Fred sped up, but didn't even make an attempt to keep up. He wondered if she were going to scare the horses to death, but she slowed down before she pulled into the yard.

Jessica must have asked ten times, over and over, "Where did our horses come from? Where did our horses come from..." as they drove into the yard. Jessica stumbled and almost fell as she jumped off the four-wheeler before Fred was completely stopped.

The horses whinnied when they saw the women, and tried to pull free of the hitching rail. Both made a chuffing sound when they couldn't get loose, then nickered as Carla and Jessica ran up and threw their arms around Abby and Molly, the women almost sobbing with joy and not even realizing it.

Ray and Allison Hodkin walked up, not noticed by the mother and daughter. "I am so thankful that we managed to keep those horses and didn't have to sell them," Ray told Fred as the three of them stood watching the reunion.

Finally, things wound down a little and Carla looked around. Seeing Fred standing beside Ray and Allison, she put it together. "Jessica," she said, nodding toward the three. When Jessica looked, she quickly glanced back at her mother, then both women ducked under the hitching rail and started running the thirty feet or so toward Fred.

"Uh oh," he said, a look of panic crossing his face as he realized what was going to happen, just before they arrived.

Both of them hit him with bear hugs at the same time. Staggering back a couple of steps from the impact, he enveloped them in his arms as the Hodkins laughed at the women's antics. Before Fred was fully stable again, Carla put a hand behind his neck, pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him. It wasn't a little peck on the lips; it was a soul kiss. There was nothing bashful about it with a full frontal hug, and Carla's tongue that was happily exploring for his.

His dick responded with a mind of its own, thumping her in the stomach. — the first erection he had since Brenda died. He instantly felt guilty, but as soon as Carla let him go, Jessica tried to outdo her. She's got to feel my dick pressing against her, Fred thought with some small portion of his mind — the rest of it was locked on Jessica's wonderful mouth and breasts as she tried to press them through him while chasing his tongue with hers.

When Jessica finally pulled away from him, she was nice enough to stand in front of him for a moment while he rearranged things, before she took her turn hugging the Hodkins, but the grin she had on her face wasn't all because she had just gotten her horse back.

"I'm sorry I couldn't keep all of them," Ray said. "We managed to keep your two cutting horses, and ten of the other mares, but I just couldn't..."

"Oh, Ray, what you two did is so wonderful. We hadn't seen any of the horses for a while, and we thought you had sold them."

"Oh, no. I just had to move them to the other pasture. That one was pretty much eaten down."

"About the others, I'll talk to Mr. Matthews. He said that his corporation..."

Ray put his hands on Carla's shoulders to stop her, then looked her in the eyes. "Carla, this fellow has already bought all twelve of them. They're in your name. We've got the bill of sale for all of them right here," he said, motioning to a manila folder that Allison carried. "We cashed his check this morning. We'll bring the rest of them over when you're ready for them."

Both women spun around to look at Fred again. "Oh, my God," Carla said, and grabbed Fred a second time. "Fred, you can't do this," she said, looking up into his face. "It's too much money. Just our horses would have been too much money, but all the rest... You hardly know us."

Jessica grabbed both her mom and Fred, laughing, tears still streaming. "He already did, Mom," she laughed, "He already did."

A few minutes later, Carla and Jessica hugged the Hodkins again, then Carla said, "Have you two eaten? Come on inside, it will only take a moment to get something going..."

Allison interrupted her, "Don't you dare," she laughed. "We'll gladly eat with you later. Right now you need to go for a ride and get reacquainted with your horses."

"Oh, we can't do that," Carla said, looking wistfully at Abby. "We'll ride them after we're done in the fields today. Come on in. At least have a cup of coffee with us. We want to tell you how much we appreciate what you two have done."

"Carla, we made it without the money. We both wish we could have kept the others. And, oh, yeah, we bred eight of the mares. Ol' Dan will probably take care of the other two in a few weeks. And before you even start, we would never charge you a stud fee. Now go ride your horses and we'll see you in a few days."

With Carla and Jessica protesting, the Hodkins got in their pickup and left pulling the empty horse trailer.

It had been a hectic week for Captain Bill Madison. He could hardly believe his wife was doing this to him. He had never imagined that he would be getting a divorce — he had gotten married for life. He and Jill had been happily married, as far as he was concerned — at least until the last year or so. What had happened?

He finally managed to change lanes in the stalled lunch-hour traffic as they made their way to the airport. Linda looked over at him and grinned when they got to the airport turnoff. He had been to more meetings with lawyers in this one week than he had in his life, he guessed — not to say anything about the juvenile judge. Jill had really stuck her foot in her mouth with her comments about getting rid of the kid, not to say anything about being gone for two days without making any arrangements for Linda.

When Linda had called him saying her mother was gone and she (Linda) didn't know where she was, Madison cancelled the trip and came home, leaving three of Wainwright's people stranded in Seattle — with Tingle's permission. The vice-president told him to not even think about it, let alone worry about it. He would get them on a flight back when they needed to come. Jill came back home two days later, but wouldn't even talk to him about where she had been. Thank God for Frank Wainwright. He had called Tingle over the weekend and told him that his (Bill's) private life would take precedence over any flying for any reason, until further notice.

Bill had gone back over his credit card statements and found that Jill had been paying their insurance copay to a doctor's office about every two months. Odd (yeah, right) that she hadn't mentioned anything about being sick, but there had been six payments to the doctor over the last year — the same doctor that she had been seeing. Boy, did the lawyers' eyes light up with that revelation. They had served Jill with divorce papers.

Wainwright's lawyers had set up a meeting on Monday with Bill's divorce lawyer, and suddenly his case was top priority with her. The meeting with the juvenile judge happened after Bill had told his lawyer about Jill leaving while he was away on a flight, not making any arrangements for their daughter.

Madison had called Wainwright three times, as instructed, keeping him posted. Bill had offered to get another pilot to fill in for him until he could get something settled about his divorce and his daughter, but each time he had mentioned it, Frank had broken in before he could even finish. "Nobody sits in that captain's seat but you. Tell Kathy to relax, go shopping, and enjoy herself while you get your problems fixed. She's worked far too much with all the training and the extra flying, anyway. My people can fly commercial. Hell, I'm flying them first class; it's not as if they're hurting. When you don't have appointments, let Tingle know and you can make whatever trips fit in. Don't worry about it. And besides, you have way more vacation accumulated than you will ever use. This way you can burn some of it."

Then Bill started having problems with Linda. He had expected it. Her world was coming apart, and of course, some idiot just had to redistrict the schools this year. And naturally, Linda hated her new school. She knew practically nobody; she missed her friends; her mother was acting like a slut; and "nobody" wanted her.

At home one afternoon, he held her while they sat side by side on the couch as she cried, telling her he felt about the same way. She finally sniffed and sat back as he continued assuring her that he would never stop loving her.

"I'm sorry Dad. I know that you love me. I just can't get over Mom acting this way." She sniffed again, wiped her eyes and blew her nose on an already soaked paper towel.

"Baby, I love you more than life itself. I always have, and I always will. I love your Mom the same way. I know that she has, uh..."

"... Screwed around on you," Linda said for him.

"Uh, yeah. But, even so, I guess I still love her. It makes me sick, and I mean that literally, to think about her with another man. And those conversations that you taped... They... tear me up inside, but there is still a little love left, even after all those things she said, and... did, I guess."

Linda suddenly grabbed him around the neck, hugging him hard. "Get me out of that awful school. There are some real... shits in the hallways. I'm really scared Dad. I've talked to two of the teachers, but they say they can't do anything for people just looking at me. The teachers just ignore what I say. Those, uh, people in the halls are calling me names because I've aced all those easy tests, and I don't even study much. They stand around me at my locker and tell me all the horrible things they're going to do to me."

Linda started crying again, this time harder. "I can't stand all of this together," she said in a voice that was scaring Bill.

Fuck it. We're going back to the lawyer's office in the morning. She said to check with her before I did anything. Well, my kid is going to stay with me, somehow, someway, until this is over. What the fuck is the matter with schools that we have to have police officers in them? Whatever happened to discipline? Teachers who won't even try to do something when a fifteen-year-old girl says she scared? This is ridiculous.

Now Friday was finally here and it was twelve-thirty. They were almost to the airport, and they were going to have a weekend with the Matthews. Crap, I still haven't talked to Linda about the Matthews' marriage. On top of everything that's going on, now she going to see something that's... different. Hell, if I didn't like these people, I would go screaming in the opposite direction, but all of them have been so nice to Kathy and me, that I know this will work out.

The girls aren't much older than Linda. We went to Atlanta to pick up Arlene's friends only a couple of months ago, when she turned sixteen. Of course, now those three friends are Arlene's (what did they call each other?) sister-wives. How am I supposed to tell my daughter about this? "Hey guess what, Linda. Jeff is fucking all seven of them." Yeah, that would really do it. But no matter how I word it, that's what is probably going to come across to her.

After we've reached altitude, I'll sit Linda down and tell her. Oh, shit, I dread this flight. Maybe I can get Kathy to tell her. Yeah, that would go over really well. Then she would think that her dad was too chickenshit to tell her himself. Well, I guess that's right. I am. But, I'm going to do it anyway.

As they got their bags out of the trunk, Bill tried to pick up Linda's as well. "How many are you going to carry, Dad? I'm a big girl now, in case you haven't noticed," she teased, standing up straight and pushing her chest out. Her chest didn't need any help.

"Linda, I can..." he started, embarrassed as his eyes unavoidably focused on her breasts in her tight top as his daughter teased him.

"Oh, Daddy. I'm almost sixteen. I've had boobs for three years now. Guys look at boobs. Even Daddy guys," she said, laughing for one of the few times this week.

"Yeah, I guess they do, sometimes, Kitten. But I embarrass myself when I do. I'm not..." he started, then remembered that Arlene was one of Jeff's wives.

"... A pervert? Is that what you were going to say? If you are, you're a sexy pervert," she giggled, pulling hers bags out and slamming the trunk down with an elbow.

Dumbfounded, he said, "Linda, that's not..."

"Oh, lighten up, Daddy. You said we were going to have a great weekend. I'm anxious to meet all these people you've told me about."

"I've told you about them?" Madison asked.

"Sure," she said as they started for the plane, looking over at him strangely, "You told me about picking up three of them and bringing them to Mr. Matthew's daughter's sixteenth birthday, remember? Then you told me about carrying everybody to Atlanta. You said there were four girls about my age or a little older."

"Oh, yeah. I did," Madison answered stupidly. Oh, crap where's my head? As soon as we're up, I'm going to talk to her. I've got to get this over with.

When they reached altitude, Bill looked over at Kathy. "Uh, how about taking the controls. I'm going back and talk with my daughter about the Matthews', uh, marriage arrangements."

Kathy sputtered, "You haven't told her?"

"Uh, I guess I've been putting it off," he said, refusing to look her in the eye.

Kathy started giggling. "I can see that this is going to be a fun trip for you," she said clucking like a chicken. "Put it off a little while, didn't you?"

Bill stared at his copilot. She was having entirely too much fun out of this. He raised his voice a little and said, "Well, what am I supposed to do? Just walk up and say, 'Oh, by the way, Linda, this Jeff Matthews that we're going to visit for the weekend, has seven wives.'"

"What?" Linda said, her eyes round, having just stuck her head in the cockpit as Bill let out with his little joke.

"Oh, shit," Madison said, as Kathy gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth, then suddenly became deeply involved in studying the flight instruments.

"Let me come back there," Madison said, as he extracted himself from his seat, "and we'll discuss this."