Page 68 of Coming Home Country
I stifled a groan. There was no way this wasn’t getting back to my mother. Though the count was still out on whether she would hear it from Betsy directly or from one of the many people Betsy was bound to tell.
When Betsy and Daisy both stared at me expectantly, I grudgingly answered, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” Betsy nodded.
Daisy granted me mercy. “Aspen’s upstairs with Penny. Would you like some coffee before you head up?”
“No, thank you.” I shook my head, needing to escape this uncomfortable situation before it escalated any further.
“All right, then.” She offered me a kind smile. “Off you go.”
I hustled up those steps like my ass was on fire before bursting into Aspen’s bedroom.
The two women fussing with the dress hung over the closet door turned instantly, identical knowing smiles lighting up their faces.
Aspen’s gaze raked over my borrowed clothing, but before she could get out a single word, I jerked my head in the direction of the attached bathroom. “I’m gonna take a shower.”
“Oh no,” she said on huffed laugh. “You don’t get to come in here looking like that”—she pointed up and down the length of my body from across the room—“and get to run off before you spill what went down last night.”
I knew she wouldn’t let me off the hook that easily, but a girl could dream.
Sighing, I dropped onto her bed. “Nothing happened.” Aspen snorted, so I corrected my statement. “Okay,somethinghappened, but it’s not what you think.”
She arched an eyebrow, tapping her foot impatiently. “I’m waiting.”
Falling back on the mattress, I slung an arm over my eyes, unwilling to look at her face when I said this next part. “We, um, might’ve christened the barn last night.”
“Aw, Bex. It’s adorable that you think you’re the first couple to fuck in that barn.”
My nose wrinkled when the idea of her parents fooling around out there came to mind. “I’m gonna pretend that you and Mac were the first.”
“Pretend all you want. Won’t make it true.”
A squeaking sound that came from Penny had me sitting up instantly. Her pale cheeks turned bright red as Aspen and I gawked at her extremely telling reaction.
Aspen managed to pick her jaw up off the floor first. “Penny Atkins, are you sayingyou’vegotten down and dirty in that barn?”
The poor girl’s eyes darted around the room, looking for a way out, but I knew my best friend well enough to know there was no escape for Penny. Not until she spilled the beans about her quite literal romp in the hay, and more particularly, with whom, since there was absolutely no way it was Tripp. That boy would have had her in front of a preacher the next day if that were the case.
Penny sagged against the wall. “It was a couple years ago with a ranch hand who doesn’t work here anymore, okay?”
Aspen’s lips twisted to the side. “I have a follow-up question, and then I’ll let this drop because you’re a grown woman who can do whatever—or whomever—she pleases.”
Blowing out a heavy breath, Penny said, “You can ask, but no promises as to whether I’ll answer.”
“Fair.” Aspen nodded. “Now, does this ranch hand no longer work here because he moved on or because my brother found out and had him fired?”
“What? No!” The high pitch of her screeched words had me wincing. “Tripp doesn’t know.” Her green eyes widened in horror. “And you can’t tell him!”
“Might light a fire under his damn ass,” Aspen muttered under her breath.
While I might be in agreement, I respected Penny’s right to privacy, especially concerning her sex life. So, to take some of the heat off her, I sacrificed that same right for myself.
“Tucker and I didn’t have sex in the barn!” Yeah, that came a little louder than I would have hoped.
“The moans that floated across the yard would suggest otherwise,” Aspen shot back.
My eyes about damn near bulged out of my head. “You all heard?!”
