Authors: Claire Adams
“Yes,”
I said and quick looked away. Sarah broke out into laughter and I couldn’t help
turning to look at her. “It really hurt and he was fast,” I defended myself.
Her
laughter was brilliant and I searched my mind for anything else I could say to
keep her laughing. It dawned on me that this was what it was like to truly like
a woman. Which seemed odd considering I had had plenty of girlfriends over the
years, but many of them seemed to be girls that were good enough for the moment
and not girls I truly wanted to be with.
As
I sat in the truck with Sarah, I realized what a huge difference it was with
her compared to other women. I genuinely had put my life at risk to simply have
some alone time with her. I was searching my brain for jokes that might get her
to smile and laugh and that was all I wanted from her. Sure, I would have loved
for her to tell me she wanted to take me to bed, but I was also all right with
exactly what we had in that moment. Her pure laughter was making me happy too,
and the realization was life changing for me.
Even
if I left the ranch the next day and nothing more ever came of my relationship
with Sarah, I had a life changing view of relationships that had taken me
thirty years to find. The unselfishness of that moment wasn’t something I had
really experienced with a woman before and it felt like a drug to me. I wanted
more of Sarah, I wanted her smiles, her attention, and anything else she would
give me because it gave me a happiness high like no other that I had
experienced.
“Well,
congratulations; I think you are the first person to ever work on the farm and
get beaten up by a pig.”
Her
smile was brilliant as she looked at me and I could tell I had succeeded in
keeping her wall down for a moment. It was a trick I had learned as a CEO; when
you make yourself vulnerable, people tend to make themselves vulnerable as
well. But I had never been as successful outside of the office as I felt at
that moment with Sarah. Her smile, her laughter, it was because of me and I
couldn’t wait to make her laugh again and again.
“You’ve
never been bit by a pig?” I asked as we laughed.
“Um,
no. I’ve never been bit by any animal. I was once thrown off a wild horse when
I was younger, though. I fractured my spine and had to spend months in bed.”
“Wow,
that sounds painful. Why were you on a wild horse?” I asked as our laughter
started to die down.
She
paused for a moment before answering me and I could see she was thinking about
whether or not she wanted to continue our conversation. It was a nice conversation,
but I was vulnerable and so was she. If her parents had told her to stay away
from me, the moment was right then for her to end the talking. I told myself if
she really didn’t like me she would stop the conversation and we would simply
go buy the saddle and head back home. But if she liked me, even just a little
bit, Sarah would tell me why she had been on that wild horse.
“We
should probably get going. I’d like to try and put the saddle on Buckjoy before
nightfall.”
Disappointment
rushed through me and I could have given up at that very moment, but I wasn’t
going to go down without a fight. I wanted to see her laugh again. I needed
Sarah to keep her defenses down and for us to at least be friends. I didn’t
want to go weeks without her talking to me again.
“You’ve
got a thing for wild men,” I teased as we climbed out of the truck and started
toward the store.
It
was a joke that I thought would catch her attention. Enough flirting for her to
really know I was interested, but nothing too crude or vulgar. I was proud of
my joke, up until I saw the wild look in her eyes as we walked toward the
building.
Suddenly
she grabbed me and pushed me against the building. There was fire in her eyes
and for a moment I was afraid I had said something to anger her. She was
powerful for such a little thing and her strength held me against the wall as
she looked up into my eyes.
Her
eyes were like darts to mine and she refused to look away as she started to
talk. It was erotic how much she had taken control of me and pushed me like
that. I hadn’t had a woman be so forceful around me before; it turned me on and
I smiled as she looked seriously at me.
“I
like wild horses, not wild men,” she said sternly. “Now let’s go get this
saddle.”
She
pulled her hand away from my chest and I couldn’t help but smile even more at
the fire that was inside of her. It had been totally out of the blue, I
couldn’t have pretended to be prepared. But oh how I loved the way she pressed
me against that wall and took control of the moment. Sarah didn’t like what I
had said and instead of just smiling and brushing it off, she made sure I
understood. Although, I secretly suspected she also liked wild men, but wasn’t
about to push her into admitting it.
The
problem was I wasn’t a wild man. Sure, I was pretending to be a drifter, but I
couldn’t pretend to be a rough and wild man that I wasn’t; I just didn’t have
those kind of acting skills. I was pretending to be this aloof man who didn’t
have a home and didn’t care where he was going or what he did for work, but
Garrett Reynolds wasn’t who I was.
I
didn’t wear cowboy boots ever in my normal life. I certainly didn’t shovel
horse shit or chase after angry pigs. In the real world, I lived a cushy life
in Los Angeles and flew on my own private jets to grand vacations. I had
beautiful women who threw themselves at me and I often kept them by my side for
the briefest of relationships. I tried to be fair and kind to people but I was
often too caught up in my business and my own life to notice anyone else
outside of my close circle of friends.
The
longer I was away from my old life, the more I worried I hadn’t been that great
of a guy at all. Not only had I put my employees at risk by getting into
business with Frank Gordano, but I had put money ahead of everything else.
Which was stupid; I had more money than I could spend reasonably in a lifetime,
yet I wanted more and more.
Before
getting sent away with the Witness Protection Program, I couldn’t remember a
time in my life where I was ever content with what I had. Whether it was in
business or my personal life; I always wanted something more or something
different. A beautiful woman by my side had never been enough, I wanted a
different one than the one I had at any specific moment. In business, when everything
was going perfectly, I would make changes to add new things that would
inevitably shake up the symbiosis that was going on.
Perfection
wasn’t exactly what I was searching for, but satisfaction was what I wanted.
Somehow I wanted to feel like what I had was enough. The problem was, I never
could get to that point no matter how much I switched girlfriends and no matter
how many things I changed in the company.
The
weird thing was, I felt happy, or at least I thought I was happy. I went to
work every day with a smile on my face and a bit of a jump in my step. Running
a small airline was a fun bit of work, but I wasn’t satisfied and therefore
didn’t ever truly feel happiness.
The
simplicity of life on the ranch had me feeling happier than I had felt in a
very long time. Sure, I liked to think of Sarah and even flirt with her when I
had the chance, but just being on the ranch and working hard was changing my
mindset. There were days when nothing seemed out of place and I was happy to
finish my jobs before nighttime and get a warm shower in. I didn’t yearn for
more. I didn’t long to have a different amount of money in my pocket or a
different fancy bed; I was happy with what I had.
I
was happy with three good meals a day and a safe place to sleep. They were
things I had taken for granted most of my adult life, yet they were so
essential to living. I vowed to myself that I would do better in my life when I
returned to it. I would do better at being less self centered. My eyes were
certainly being opened by my time at the ranch and in the witness protection
program.
The
drive back to the ranch was silent again, but I didn’t feel like pushing Sarah
any more. My thoughts were wrapped up in my past and what I hoped would be my
future. When the Gordano trial was over, I was going to make changes in my
life. I wasn’t sure what they were or how it would happen, but my old life
could never be the same after my time at the Miller ranch.
As
we pulled into the driveway, Sid Miller was standing there waiting for us. The
look on his face seemed full of relief when we first pulled in, but then it
quickly turned to anger. I had seen a similar look on the faces of fathers over
the years when I had returned their daughters home from a date later than I was
supposed to.
“Uh
oh,” Sarah said under her breath. “He’s looks angry.”
I
suspected Sid was angrier with me than he was at Sarah, but I couldn’t give
that information out. Instead, I went along were her notion that her father was
actually upset with her. Although, I wasn’t sure why she would think he was
angry with her just for driving into tow.
Sarah
climbed out of the truck and I grabbed the saddle out of the back and started
to bring it into the barn. I didn’t want to make waves if Sid was angry with
his daughter; I was going to stay out of it. If he was angry with me, I wanted
to get out of sight as quickly as possible to avoid any sort of altercation of
words when he explained how wrong I was for leaving.
“Garrett,
I need a word with you,” Sid said loudly.
“I’ll
take that,” one of the other ranch hands said as he grabbed the saddle.
“Sure.”
“In
my office, please,” Sid said as he walked to the small building off to the side
of his house.
My
eyes caught Sarah’s and she shrugged her shoulders at me. I was clearly the one
in trouble and not her, and I knew it was because I had left the ranch. There
was no excuse and I shouldn’t have gone. Luckily nothing had happened. We
simply went into the supply store and shopped around for a little bit and then
bought the saddle and left. There had only been two people in the store that I
had seen and neither of them seemed even the slightest interested in what I was
doing. But I knew I was wrong and that was all that mattered, I took ownership
when I made mistakes and this was certainly all my fault.
“I’m
sorry, Sid,” I said quickly as I entered his office.
Sid
picked up the telephone and dialed a number. He held his hand up for me not to
talk while he punched in a couple numbers on the touchpad telephone. His lips
were pressed tightly together and he was angry. Before that moment, I had
almost believed that Sid never got angry. But I could see it in his face and
even in how he was sitting in his chair, Sid Miller was not happy with me at
all.
“Do
you know what I’m doing right now?” he asked me sternly, but didn’t wait for me
to reply. “I’m calling off the massive search for you that was ordered when I
had to report that you and my daughter were both missing.”
Shit.
I hadn’t thought about what it would look like if I was gone with his daughter.
I felt bad at the mention of people out looking for me and instantly wished I
hadn’t gone with Sarah into town. There was genuine concern coming from Sid and
I realized that he wasn’t angry: he was scared. Sid had been scared that the
people who were after me had found me and had decided to take Sarah with as
they kidnapped me.
My
gut twisted at the ideas that must have been going through Sid’s mind when he
realized we were both gone. At first he probably thought we were riding horses
or something else, but soon he realized we had both left the ranch and we
hadn’t told anyone where we were going. The fear that started slowly had
probably spread quickly the longer we were gone until he decided to report us
missing.
“I’m
sorry.”
“Oh,
you’re sorry that for the last hour I thought that a dangerous killer had taken
my daughter and the stranger who I had agreed to protect? You’re sorry?”
My
words seemed of little consolation, but I didn’t really know what else I could
say. I was sorry. I wouldn’t do it again and I certainly appreciated all that
he had risked to have me at his home and keep me safe while I waited to testify
at the trial. My eyes looked down at the grown to avoid the deep gaze of Sid. I
knew I had disappointed him and it felt just as bad as when I had disappointed
my own father when I was younger.
“Sid,
I don’t know what else to say. Sarah invited me to go with her to get a saddle
and I said yes. I wasn’t thinking.”
I
decided to leave out the part where I wanted to kiss her. I also didn’t mention
that I totally knew I shouldn’t have been leaving the ranch and I just wanted
more alone time with Sarah. The idea had seemed very harmless and our trip had
been totally uneventful, I hoped that Sid would be able to forgive me.
“No,
you weren’t thinking and you just put yourself and my daughter at risk. I don’t
know who it is that you are testifying against, but they certainly could have
followed you to Montana. You don’t think that the FBI is all that careful in
their planning and dropping off of witnesses, do you? The only thing that was
keeping you safe was that no one else in the state of Montana had seen your
face because you were here on my ranch. Now you have risked your own safety and
put my family at risk. I don’t think I’ll be able to keep you here any longer.”