Page 120 of Bucked Hard

GARRETT

We make it back to dinner in a few minutes, then I step over to Harriet while Mary Beth chats and takes notes with some of the other guests for her article. Jessie corrals the two city-slickers into the back of the van, I see them glaring my way, but I let it slide this time. If necessary, I’m ready and raring to go if they push it, but I’m not going to make a scene unless one’s needed.

“Got a little over the top there, big boy.” Harriet kids, brushing some crumbs off my shirt.

“Maybe.” I glance over my shoulder, watching Mary Beth interact. Buck is there, sitting with the small group. Mary Beth smiles and asks my nearly mute friend a direct question, forcing him to talk.

He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he starts to talk like he’s been saving up words for just the right moment. He’s talking with his hands, running down some history of the ranch and the town.

I turn back to my sister, who’s fussing with her turquoise earring. I look at Mary Beth then back at Harriet, shaking my head. “She’s something different.”

“Yup.” Harriet laughs, running her hands down the front of her apron. “All kinds of different. I ain’t seen you square up like that since the time William Percy made a ‘your mamma’ joke when you took me to the fair that summer. God, since then I don’t remember you so much as raising your voice, let alone your fists.” She raises her eyebrows, and I narrow my eyes in response.

“You got things covered for the rest of the night?” We usually meet up for coffee after dinner and talk about the next day’s plans, but tonight I’m impatient and have other things on my mind.

“Sure, brother.” She wrinkles her nose and tugs on her ponytail. “Just don’t go raging on any more guests. I don’t want this to be the Big Sky Dude Ranch and Rumble resort.”

“They got what was coming to them.”

“Uh huh. I reckon someone else got something comin’ to ‘em.”

“I like her. Can’t lie.”

Harriet’s closer to Mary Beth’s age than mine. She’s my blood cousin, to tell the truth. My parents adopted her when her mom got pregnant and decided being a mom wasn’t in her deck. They loved her like she was their own, so it was easy for me to do the same. Far as I’m concerned, she’s my sister in every way that counts.

She has a small house on the east side of the ranch, and it’s nice to have her close, but we still enjoy our separate lives. She’s always been a cook and a gardener as well. I’ve taken to the gardening with her in the last few years, developing my own green thumb and a nice hobby.

Every fall I can pickles, green beans and whatever else we can put up from the harvest. She even posted a picture on the dude ranch website of me in the kitchen, wearing one of her orange polka dot aprons, surrounded by a hundred Ball glass jars filled with beats and beans.

“Sounds like you’ve got plans.” She smacks my chest. “I’m happy for you both.”

She has long curly red hair and freckles everywhere. Looks nothing like me and never seems to have a bad day. But there’s also a no-nonsense attitude, and she’s not afraid to check me when it’s needed, without reservation.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” I take a deep breath, knowing it’s me who needs to rein it in.

She snaps her tongue in her cheek with an incredulous smirk. “I’ve tried to set you up with every prospect I could find for how many years? Half the reason I wanted to start this dude ranch thing was thinking you’d loosen up and have some fun. I’m not complaining if that’s what’s happening here.”

Harriet has softly pushed me toward a lot of the women that have come to the ranch, but I’ve rebuffed her attempts every time. Never felt right. No one felt right.

Until Mary Beth.

Now everything feels right.

I look over and see some of the guests leaving the picnic table and Mary Beth writing in her notebook, so I wander over near her and run my hand down the back of her hair, tugging at it playfully until she looks up at me standing over her.

“Yassssss?”

“Come on.” I jerk my head toward the house.

“Well, where on earth are we going?” She uses her best Scarlett O’Hara eyelash flutter and southern drawl, and I hear Buck chuckle, then excuse himself and walk toward Harriett.

“You’re about to find out, Filly.”

I nod and tip my hat to the other guests as I guide her from the tables and back up toward the house. My dick is already planning all the obscene ways he’s going to make her mine.

ChapterEight

Garrett

---