Page 3 of Second Chance at Mountain Creek Ranch
It was no secret that I was the only one in the Holloway family that wasn't content with living in Centennial Springs. For me to move back to town, it had to be bad. It wasn't good, but even I don't know the extent of how much trouble I'm in. I won’t find out until I meet when Garrison Traeger on Friday. He’s the town’s only lawyer and the only one willing to take me on as a client. I don't have much to pay him with, so he's working the case pro bono and more as a favor to my father than anything else.
The next morning, the sunlight pouring through my window would typically be a welcoming sight to me, but nothing can brighten my mood. I roll over in bed and cover my head with a pillow. I can hear my brothers outside working. I lift the pillow slightly and listen for Travis’s voice, but I can’t tell who is talking.
He was so distant to me the moment he stepped out of the truck. It's as if he forgot that he was the one that broke my heart all those years ago—dumping me at the end of the summer before my freshman year of college.Despite my trying to convince him to come with me, he didn’t bother applying to college. He said that he would stay and be a rancher like his father and his grandfather before him. His education would be working on my family’s ranch.
"Hey, Trav!” I hear Landon call out, and it catches my attention.
I remove the pillow and turn over towards the window. The temptation to get up and look outside for him is too much. I pull back the blankets and tiptoe over to the window. I don't know why I'm bothering to be quiet. It's not like he can hear me or anything.
I draw back the lace curtain a bit and look for him. He’s helping Landon move some old pieces of wood to the fire pit. I watch as he stops and uses the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead. The unbelievable six-pack that has become more defined over the years ignites a wave of heat that settles low in my belly. I squeeze my thighs together to ease some of the desire building, but there are only a few ways to truly scratch that itch.
I haven't even been home twenty-four hours, and I’m already doing what I told myself I wouldn’t do. What I told myself that I would never do after he broke my heart into a million little pieces.I need to get out of here.Maybe I can take Millie, my mother's horse, out for a ride. I can get my mind off of Travis and the even bigger problems in my life that I don't want to think about.
I shake my head and get dressed in the first clothes I can find in all of the boxes littering my bedroom floor. I don’t bother with my hair, just pulling it up into a messy bun on top of my head. The less attractive I try to make myself look, the more likely I won’t be tempted to tempt Travis.
The house is quiet as I head downstairs to the kitchen. There still some coffee left in the pot, and I decide to finish it off before I go on my ride.
TRAVIS
The hum of the ATV engine is the only thing keeping this moment from being perfect. I love being out on my own out here, only me and the open acres of land surrounding me. My dream is to one day have a piece of land that I can call my own. The Holloways have been good to me, but I want my own ranch, my own herd.
I lost any chance of continuing my family's ranching legacy on Sutter Creek Ranch when my dad passed suddenly from a heart attack. The bank foreclosed on the property shortly after. I vowed to myself that I would one day have my own ranch, so I could pass it down to my kids someday, the way I know my father would have wanted to do for me. When I made that vow so many years ago, it was with Harper in mind that I would have babies and grow old with. But like so many expectations I had when I was younger, the plans changed, and I needed to change with them.
I have a meeting at Centennial Bank and Loan on Friday to talk about getting a loan approved to buy the old Greenway Ranch. It's been on the market for some time, and with good reason, there is a lot of work that needs to be put into it, but I'm ready to do the job. I want to start the next chapter of my life.
The hum of the engine continues to purr beneath me as I nearly finish checking the fence line. After the cows got loose, Nash is insistent that I check the fence for any repairs that need to be made. Jameson wasn’t too happy when he asked me and not him.
Movement from the corner of my eye near the creek has me slowing down. A horse is grazing near the creek that flows down the property line into a river that divides the Holloway's land and Montgomery's land next door.
I approach slowly and recognize Millie. She seems unfazed as I drive closer to her and cut the engine. I get off and walk over to her. Her head pops up and acknowledges my approach before returning to her grazing.
“How did you get out here?” I ask, taking in the saddle on her. Someone must have ridden her out here. Savannah is Millie’s primary caregiver, but she left this morning for a pageant in Grand Junction. I know this because I had to hear her rehearse her speech to Millie for a couple of hours last week as I worked on repairing one of the stall doors in the barn.
I look around and notice some clothes draped across some low hanging branches of the tree nearby. That's when I hear the sound of splashing in the river. It's not the usual hum of the rushing water. I turn and see Harper standing waist-deep in the water, her full bare breasts glistening in the sunlight. She opens her eyes and sees me standing there like a deer caught in her headlights.
“What are you doing?” she screams, crossing her arms in front of her and dips below the surface of the water. It takes a moment for my brain to catch up to what I'm seeing since most of the blood in my body has rushed down to my now rock-hard dick.
“Turn around!” she yells.
I blink a few times before I shake my head and realize what she just said. I turn around, grateful that in all the chaos, she probably didn’t catch the straining bulge in my jeans. I take a few breaths to compose myself.
“Were you spying on me?” she asks.
I roll my eyes, but I don’t get the satisfaction of her seeing it because my back is to her. “No, I wasn’t spying on you. Would I have been standing so close to the water if I didn’t want you to see me?”
“Oh, so you thought this through?”
I start to turn around to defend myself, but she yells at me again. So I'm forced to yell over my shoulder to her. "I was doing a fence line check, and I saw Millie was out, and I stopped to check on her. I don't get what the big deal is. It's not like it isn't anything I haven’t seen before.”
And I’ve seen it all, in my imagination and real life. A couple of years before I lost my virginity to Harper, she was the object of my active teenage imagination. But when I finally got to live out my fantasy with her, she and I couldn’t stay away from each other. The memory of the expression on Harper's face when she comes flashes in my mind, and my dick twitches, eager for relief.
"Well, it's not something you're going to see anytime soon."
“Soon?” I ask. Her words implying that there will be a time I get to see her naked again.
“Ever! You will not be seeing me naked ever again.”
"Well, that's a shame," I whisper to Millie, who ignores me and continues to graze.
