April, Dani - Raven's Ranch (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme) (19 page)

Inside her trailer she made herself a cup of strong, black coffee, surprising herself that she would forgo her usual cream and sugar, but the memory of the strong coffee she’d shared with Bran the morning before was still fresh in her mind. The strong coffee flavor was actually starting to grow on her, and woke her up to the point where she could concentrate on the day ahead.

She dressed in a pair of her nicest jeans, her boots, of course, and a blouse that fit low on her shoulders.

She called Tyler on her cell. He didn’t pick up until the fourth ring.

“It’s your day off,” she greeted him.

He didn’t sound too happy to hear her voice. “Oh, hello, Raven.”

“Do you want to hang out with me today?”

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“At least let me come over and see you?”

“If you want. I’ll be in my trailer all day.”

“I’m already dressed. How about I come over in a few minutes? I’d like to talk.”

“All right.” He hung up.

Raven frowned. He was really a sad case. She put her hat on and headed out the door. Tyler’s trailer was not far from hers. When she got there, the door was closed and locked. She knocked. Tyler answered, but not right away. He looked like he’d had a rough night.

“Can I come in?”

He opened the door for her. She was surprised that his trailer was actually bigger than hers and had all the comforts of home.

“I’m sorry. I might not be a very good host,” he told her once she was inside.

“Can I sit down?”

“Help yourself.” He motioned her to a comfortable chair by the window.

She sat in silence for a moment and really didn’t know what to say to him. She really wanted to help him, but now that she was sitting here in front of him, she didn’t think she was capable.

“That’s a nice hat,” he commented, taking the seat across from hers. “A wicked pair of boots, too.”

“Thanks,” she looked down at her boots and felt the leather. “I got these when I went into Masterson to shop with Chip. And the hat…Bran gave it to me yesterday as a present.”

“You look like quite the cowgirl now.” He smiled, but without warmth.

“I’m trying,” she said, “but I still have a ways to go before I know my way around this ranch.”

“How do you feel?”

She was caught off guard by his question. “I feel fine,” she answered after a pause.

“Do you feel like a whore?” he asked, almost casually.

“Excuse me, Tyler?” Raven didn’t know if she had heard right.

“Feel like a slut, a tramp, or just used?”

She felt like he had slapped her, and started to get up. He stuck out his hand and motioned her back down. Reluctantly, she complied.

“I don’t mean to disrespect you, but don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“What the fuck
are
you talking about, Tyler?” She was starting to see Tyler in a new light, and she didn’t like him very well.

“Honestly, can you say you haven’t had those same thoughts about yourself ever since you came up with this harebrained proposition for the guys?”

Raven got up and turned her back on him. She crossed to the other side of the trailer to look out the window at the weeds of the trailer yard.

“Is it really worth the loss of your dignity just to save this old ranch? Even in good times it doesn’t have that high of revenue, you know?”

“I haven’t lost my dignity.” There was anger in her voice, but tears welled in her eyes. “What I’m doing has nothing to do with money.”

“My God, Raven, you’re having sex with four men at once.” He got up and paced into the kitchen.

“Three, actually. I haven’t slept with Roy yet.”

“These men are tough, uneducated ranch hands. I know all about ranch hands. I’m one of them.”

“So do you think I’m a prostitute?” She silently asked herself if there was any truth to his words.

He didn’t answer.

“When we sell this herd, I’m going to give all of you your back pay. I even doubled your pay. Would a prostitute do that?” Her tone was laced with anger. She wanted to turn all that rage outward at Tyler, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to hate him. That left only herself as a target for her own negative feelings.

“I think you just promised to give us more pay to make yourself feel less guilty,” he said, not letting up on her.

She wiped a tear away that was rolling down her cheek and turned to face him. “I didn’t have a family until I moved out here. Back in the city I had no one. Nobody cared if I lived or died. I didn’t have anyone to go to eat breakfast with at four in the morning, or to go shopping with, or go swimming with. I didn’t have anyone to laugh with or share the joy of living with.”

He cleared his throat and began washing dishes in the sink, his back to her.

“When Connor came into my life I was confused. I thought I might love him someday, but I hadn’t ever really loved anyone like that before. It was all new to me. Then when I came out here and met the rest of you, I really got confused.”

“Are you really happy now, Raven?” he asked, still tidying up his kitchen area.

She thought about this for a minute. “I think I am, but I’m also very scared. In fact I’ve never been so scared in my life. I never had anything to lose before, and now I’ve got everything to lose. Odds are we’re still going to lose this place in a couple of months, and after that none of us will probably ever see each other again.”

He leaned against the kitchen counter and turned around to face her. “You know all those guys out there are like my brothers. They are gritty old ranch hands, but I love them all. I don’t want to see them get used.”

“I’m not using them, Tyler!” she protested. “I care about them, too! That’s why the thought of losing them makes me want to die.”

“I know what it’s like to lose a family,” he told her, emotion flooding his voice now.

“I know you do, Tyler.” She felt sorry for him once again as she saw the hurt written on his face. “And since you know more about losing your family than anyone, you should understand why I’m fighting so hard for my family now. If I’d had more time, things would have been different. I would have taken time to get to know each of the guys…and then since none of them are jealous of each other, we probably would have ended up in the same situation anyway. It would have just taken us longer to get there. But the bank didn’t give me that time. I had to let the guys know how I felt. They couldn’t read my mind.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel bad, Raven,” he said, finally relenting. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Well you’ve got a hell of a way of showing it.” She opened the screen door of the trailer, preparing to leave.

“I’m sorry, Raven. I already lost my family. I don’t have anything more left to give.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she told him as she was leaving. “Suddenly I don’t feel very much like going on a date today.”

Connor was lifting a baby calf onto a big scale to weigh it before giving it back to its mother. Raven drove into the corral on her motorbike. She had just come from Tyler’s and was still feeling down.

Connor was happy to see her. She came up and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. He could immediately tell something was wrong.

“What happened?” he asked. “Did Roy or one of the others do something inappropriate?”

Raven smiled as she petted the baby calf and tried to force herself to feel better. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. “It was Tyler. I saw him this morning. I was supposed to have a date with him today. That shows how crazy I am. No woman could ever be with that guy.”

Connor wrote down the weight of the calf and then lifted it back off the scale. Its legs were wobbly as he set it back on the ground. “Tyler’s a broken man. I don’t think anyone can get through to him, not even you.”

“He thinks I’m a prostitute because I’m having sex with all of you guys.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it!” Connor gave the calf a pat on the rear end and then stood up. He seemed angry at what she had just told him. “Goddamn him for saying that to you. I should go back to his trailer and rearrange his face for him.” He was pounding his fist into his palm.

Raven put her hand on his shoulder to calm him down. “It’s all right,” she told him. “He only said about me what I’ve thought about myself a million times since I made that proposal to the guys.”

“Don’t you dare think anything like that,” he told her, wrapping his arms around her.

She gladly accepted his embrace. “Come on, I can see where he’s coming from. I mean after all, I have spread my legs so many times the last few days I feel almost like I’m a…”

“Hey, don’t say that,” he said, holding her tightly. “Or else I’m going to have to rearrange your face. It isn’t true, and you know it.”

“But I’m using my body to try and save the ranch,” she protested, but even as she fumed in anger, she felt the calming influence of being held tightly in his arms.

“You’re trying to save the ranch so we’ll all have a place to be together. Since we are rather unconventional, if we lost the ranch we’d most likely lose each other. We’re a family. You’re trying to save us. Tyler hates the very idea of family because of what happened to his own.”

“Why do you always know what to say to make me feel better?” she asked him, burying her face in the open front of his shirt.

“Because of the way I feel about you,” he told her simply.

She reached up and kissed him. “Yeah, I have a few feelings for you too, cowboy,” she told him.

“So you’re not going out with Tyler today?”

“Not today or tomorrow, or ever,” she said firmly, but still felt like she was going to cry.

“You caught me at a good time. My work here is finished and I was about to take off an hour for lunch,” he explained. Putting his arm around her he walked her back to her bike, his truck parked at its side.

Raven smiled and wiped the tears out of her eyes. These cowboys made her so happy. “You want to come back to my trailer?” she asked him. “I’ll make us some lunch.”

He took her face in his hand and brought her up for a passionate kiss on the lips. “Let’s go back to your trailer,” he told her. “But I’ve only got an hour. We might not have time for lunch.”

She laughed and returned his kiss with equal strength. “Let’s go, cowboy.”

They lay under the covers in Raven’s bunk bed, cuddled against one another. They had just finished making love. Her orgasm had been warm and delicious, and now she felt like falling asleep in his strong arms.

Connor brushed some of her flyaway hair off her face. “Promise me you’re not going to spend all day worrying about what Tyler said to you.”

“I’m not worried about what he said.” Her voice was groggy in the afterglow. “But I am worried about him. I feel so sorry for him. He has so much pain and anger in him. He’s letting his life waste away, and it’s a shame no one can help him.”

“You’re such a good person, Raven. But you can’t help everyone.”

“I was going to ask him if he had any ideas about our problems with the cattle. Unfortunately, the conversation never got around to it.”

“That’s too bad. Tyler knows more than the rest of us put together when he’s got his head on straight.”