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I turn off the lamp by the bed and lay back on my pillow, thinking about how the hell I got to this point.
I’d been living in the city still when news had reached me that old man Fields had finally kicked the can. I still remember the call with my father like it was yesterday.
“Rock,” my dad said, “Jacob Fields is dead. It’s not common knowledge and we need to act carefully. I need you to come home and deal with it.”
I’d protested, telling my dad that my brothers could handle it, that I was busy with our business dealingsandthat I didn’t want to go back to the middle of nowhere for some tiny plot of land.
That’s when my father told me about an incident with my three brothers. How one of them had stalked Darcy and watched her mend fences while the other two went to the house and held Jacob Fields at gunpoint, demanding he sell or they’d kill him and do worse to his daughter.
“When did this happen?” I demanded, incensed at my brothers’ violent behavior. “Does she know? If she knows you did that to her father, then she’ll never sell.”
My dad grunted.
“About a year ago, and no, I don’t think old man Fields ever told his daughter. He was as stubborn as a mule, the old fool. Now that he’s passed, your brothers have offered to go ‘take care’ of the girl. That’s why I’m calling you, Rock. Homicide is unacceptable, you know that.” My father, usually a distant and curt man, sounded downright panicked when telling me this. It took no further convincing from my father that I should be the one to handle the Fields girl and her property.
I clench my fists at the memory. My brothers are savages, full stop, and I had no idea it was this bad. After all, I left home in my teens and have rarely visited since, so my interaction with them are limited. But Darcy needs me help now, and the situation’s a lot more complicated than I’d expected.
She surprises me every day.
As we work side by side or eat together, I sometimes hint at how difficult farm life is, or how the crop may fail, or that the farm could be worth some real money, but all to no avail. The woman is determined to keep the place going, working her fingers to the bone.
She’s a lot tougher than any of us McLaughlins give her credit for, I admit to myself.It’s also, I acknowledge,probably because I haven’t let my brothers interact with her.
Neither had her father. I knew for a fact that the old man never reported the gun incident to the cops. My asshole brothers scared the living daylights out of him and straight into silence. And when word had gotten around that the old man was sick, my family opted to wait it out until he died, figuring the daughter would be more amenable to our offers.
Feeling my blood to start to boil again, I turn my attention elsewhere, to Darcy herself.
So where does this leave us, Rock? I ask myself.
Darcy is beautiful, sweet, and tough as nails.
I… like her.I respect her. I want her to be happy. I rub my face with my hands, my jaw scruffy from a few days without a proper shave.
Happy? What are you, the happiness police?I groan.But she’s young and naïve. She likes you too, that much is obvious. But only because she doesn’t have a clue who you are.
There’s some truth to that sobering fact. If Darcy knew who I am – even if she doesn’t know about every horror her father had experienced at the hands of my family – she’d hate me. We’re trying to take away the one thing she has left.
I sigh.But the farm’snotdoing well.
It’s not Darcy’s fault, not exactly. She’s doing everything she can with absolutely no help and often that’s too much for even the most experienced farmer to handle.
And it’s obvious she’s struggling financially. Over the past few days, I’ve been observing all the little ways she scrimps, saves, and reuses. While she eats well (a thought that makes me lick my lips over her ample figure), Darcy’s clothes are worn out, she doesn’t have a TV, and the stack of bills she’s moved to the kitchen drawer are piled high with months of debt. Many with red lettering on the front.
Money might not be everything, but it’s helpful when running a farm.Tools need repairing, and she’ll need to hire help for the harvest. The land is suffering from her blameless situation.
That’s what I told her, that land is supposed to be tended to.
Heck,sheneeds to be tended to.
The dirty thought pops into my head and I groan again.The girl’s a child, Ranger, with no idea who you really are. Keep it in your pants.
I turn over in bed to go to sleep, intending to forget about Darcy and plots and farming, yet I succeed in only two of those goals.
Darcy.
Every time I close my eyes, the shape of her big bosom comes into my head. Whenever I open my eyes, I hear her gentle panting when she saw the tip of my cock but didn’t recoil. When I turn over, I imagine my leg pressed against her full, creamy breasts, picturing what it’d be like to have a pink nipple in my mouth.
It’s difficult to say how long I thrashed around in bed, agonizing over this unintentionally seductive woman.Fuck it.
