Simone had only been gone for two days and Jason already couldn’t stop counting the minutes until she came back to him. Watching her drive away yesterday morning had been a bigger punch in the stomach than Demented’s horn in his guts. He’d wanted to follow her to the airport, see her off, kiss her until the final boarding call. But she’d asked him to let her go alone. Otherwise, she’d said, she would cry forever.
And he’d rather face Demented again than give Simone cause to shed a single tear.
Unless she was crying from pleasure or a good hard spanking. Those were the only tears he ever wanted to give her.
Jason spent the days after Simone left practically living with the horses in the hopes of staying occupied enough he didn’t go nuts until his girl came back again. He wasn’t sure if it was working, but he had to try. At least he had Aimee and the girls coming to visit for a few days while Aimee’s husband was out of town on business. They always managed to distract him from whatever was on his mind. And he needed all the distractions he could get if he was going to survive until Simone could visit him again.
Simone hadn’t been able to give him a firm date only because she had several bookings that were still up in the air for May. She took her work seriously, and he admired that about her. He was old-fashioned enough he didn’t mind the idea of his future wife quitting her job so he could support her. Thanks to Mr. Ford and Mr. Levi, Jason had more than enough money in the bank to keep a roof over their heads for the rest of their lives. But he also had nothing but respect for Simone’s career. If she wanted to keep working as a photographer, he’d do whatever he could to help her along.
As for the other career, well, that he would ask her to quit. If anyone was going to be spanking or flogging her, it was going to be him. He didn’t think she’d object to that. She’d already canceled the few appointments she had scheduled in that realm, and without him asking her if she would. It seemed they were thinking along the same lines.
Jason strode into the barn on the fourth morning after Simone had left, smiling to himself at that morning’s text message exchange. He’d woken her up with an eight a.m. text, and his innocent “Good morning, Spanky” quickly turned X-rated when he asked her to tell him what she was wearing in bed and she replied with “nothing.” Photos were sent back and forth and before it was all over both of them had come.
Never ever had he done that sort of thing with any woman. Even when he’d wanted to, he hadn’t had the guts to suggest it, afraid of coming off like a sleaze or a creep. With Simone, he lost all his inhibitions, and he had to say, he didn’t miss them one bit. On the outside he still looked and acted the same.
Alone with Simone, he was a different man entirely. A better man, maybe, than he used to be. He certainly felt like more of a man now that he wasn’t living with a weight of shame hanging around his neck. Simone had taught him that what he liked wasn’t for every woman, but it was for her, and if a girl like Simone—sweet, playful, hard-working, and smart—liked it then it must be all right. And if it was all right then he was all right.
Jason went straight to Cupcake’s stall and laughed when the pony stuck her head out, gave a disappointed pppbbbst and stuck her head back in the stall.
“What am I? Chopped liver?” Jason asked Cupcake. He went in and started brushing her down. “I know. I miss Simone, too. But you got to get over her. You’re getting a girl all your own today. Katie’s coming. Let’s get you looking good for her.”
Cupcake shook her mane but soon settled down and let him finish grooming her and picking her hooves. Katie and her parents were already on the way over with their rented horse trailer. He got Cupcake saddled and fancied up with a big pink bow around the saddle horn. He led her out into the paddock just in time to see a lanky eleven-year-old girl in jeans and boots running awkwardly down the path toward them, her mother and father chasing right behind her.
Jason brought Cupcake to the rails and Katie was there in a flash, standing on the bottom rail and leaning over to reach for Cupcake.
“Cupcake, you remember Katie, don’t you?” Jason asked. “This is your new girl. You want to say ‘hi’ to her.”
Jason always marveled at how quiet a little girl Katie was. His two nieces couldn’t stop talking to save their lives. But just because she didn’t talk much didn’t mean Katie wasn’t speaking volumes right then. Her brown eyes were round as quarters and she grinned a huge gap-toothed smile. And when Cupcake bumped Katie’s outstretched palm with her velvety nose, Katie squealed with utter delight.
“That’s Cupcake saying ‘hi’ to you, Katie girl,” Jason said as her parents came to the rails and watched the show. “That’s how ponies say ‘hi.’ They don’t talk much either. But if you wanted to say ‘hi’ to Cupcake, she’d sure like that.”
Katie blinked a few times and took a few nervous breaths, her little forehead furrowed in concentration.
“Hi, Cuppy,” Katie whispered. Her mother put her hand over her mouth and tears ran down her eyes. Her father tried blinking back tears but they ran down his face. Jason even had to look away long enough to wipe his eyes.
With her father’s help, Jason got Katie into the saddle. Jason led, and Katie’s father walked alongside with his hand on Katie’s thigh to keep her from falling. Katie was in high heaven, laughing and gasping and calling Cupcake’s name over and over again. And Jason could have sworn Cupcake was holding her head a little higher than usual, as if to say, “See? She loves me already.”
It would have been perfect if Simone had been there. God, Jason wanted her there so bad it hurt. She needed to be here with her camera, catching every second of this big day on film so Katie and her parents could watch it over and over again. His longing to have Simone there with him was a physical ache, a hunger pain like he hadn’t eaten in a week. And he knew she would have loved to have seen all this—Katie’s parents cheering her after she dismounted, Cupcake butting her head again and again into Katie’s hand, and the joyful shriek of Katie’s laughter when Cupcake licked the horse cookie off her palm.
Jason loaded Cupcake up in the horse trailer, knowing as he did that Katie was watching the entire time, inspecting him to make sure he didn’t hurt her new best friend.
“She’s all yours now, sweetheart,” Jason said as he locked the trailer doors. “You take good care of her.”
“What do we say to Mr. Waters, Katie?” her mother said.
Katie nodded her head twice as if trying to push out the words. But they did come. Took a few seconds but they came.
“Thank you,” she said in her tiny little voice.
Jason felt a fist in this throat but he smiled through the pain.
“You’re welcome, Katie,” he said. The trailer drove away and there was Franco, handkerchief out and blowing his nose loudly into it.
“Allergies,” Franco said.
“Yeah,” Jason said. “Same here.”
After Katie and her parents left with Cupcake, Jason felt the longing for Simone hit him twice as hard as before. He did what he always did in times of high emotion, when it was either work it out or scream it out. He saddled up Rusty and took him for a long ride through the woods. The woods weren’t Jason’s. Not all of them, anyway. But his neighbors had a hundred wooded acres that the local horse folk were always welcome to use. Jason and Rusty went over every inch of those hundred acres on that May afternoon, talking it out, thinking it out. By the end of it all, Jason decided there was only one thing to do—admit that he was in love with Simone and stop trying to pretend he wasn’t. It wasn't like it was unheard of for two people to fall in love this fast. His own sister said she knew on her first date she was going to marry her husband. “When you know, you know,” Aimee had said. Back then, Jason had thought Aimee was a little crazy. Now he knew exactly how she felt.
When you know, you know.
Jason knew.
He rode Rusty out of the woods and along the long road that led from the Paris Pike highway to his farm tucked two miles down the lane. As he and Rusty were heading back to the house, a car pulled alongside him and the window rolled down.
“Need a lift?” Aimee asked.
Jason pretended to peer into the car windows.
“Can you fit me and Rusty in there?”
Aimee had rented a small SUV. His two nieces Dani and Cassie now rolled down their windows and both of them stuck their heads and hands out to pet Rusty on his long nose.
“Can we ride with you?” the twins asked.
“You two can ride and I can walk,” he said. “Mom has to drive.”
In no time, Jason had gotten all the hugs one man could ever ask for from his sister and two sweet little nieces who were as starry-eyed about horses as their mother ever had been. He led Rusty home with both girls sitting on the big horse’s back. They did a very good job of behaving themselves. It helped that Aimee was watching them like a hawk.
“They really should have their helmets on,” Aimee said as the car rolled along at a brisk five miles an hour.
“You never wore one when you rode at their age,” Jason reminded her. “Explains a lot, don’t it?”
“Very funny,” she said. “Girls, this is a special occasion. You’re always supposed to wear helmets when riding.”
“We know, Mom,” the girls said without enthusiasm.
“Is that what you say?” Aimee asked.
The girls got the hint quickly. “Yes, ma’am,” they said.
Jason only smiled to himself. Aimee caught him mid-smirk.
“Don’t you smirk at me,” she said. “You gotta teach ‘em manners young, or they’ll never learn.”
“You just sounded so much like Mom it gave me a flashback,” he said.
“We’re doomed,” she said. “You’re gonna be Dad, and I’m gonna be Mom. Soon as you have kids, mark my words.”
“I am not going to be like Dad,” Jason said. “My kids are gonna like me.”
“You know you love Dad,” she said.
“Love and like are two different things,” he said.
Aimee didn’t argue. She knew better.
As soon as they got to the house, the girls just had to meet all the horses right that very second. Jason let them. Horses, like all domestic animals, needed to be socialized around children so they’d behave even when little girls squealed without warning. He put all three of the horses out in the paddock and brought horse cookies to the girls.
Jason hung back with Aimee and watched with pleasure as both girls cooed and oohed over his horses.
“If they’d come this morning,” Jason said, “they could have met a Welsh pony I was training. Hate that they missed her. She went home with her little girl.”
“It’s fine,” Aimee said. “They aren’t picky. If it’s got a mane and four legs, they’re in love.”
Jason only grinned to himself. Unfortunately, Aimee caught him again.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You have a girlfriend.”
He turned and stared at her, wide-eyed.
“Oh my God, you do have a girlfriend.”
“How do you do that?” he asked.
“I know a shit-eating grin when I see it,” she said.
“You said a bad word, Mommy,” Dani said.
“I’m allowed,” Aimee said. “Pet your horses and close your ears. Uncle Jason and I are having grown-up talk.” Aimee faced him. “Tell me everything right now this minute,” Aimee said in a low voice.
“I have a girlfriend,” Jason said and then said nothing more.
“And?”
“And that’s all you need to know.”
“Maybe that’s all I need to know but that’s not all I want to know. What’s her name? How old is she? Where’d you meet her? What’s she like?”
“Simone. My age. At the library. She’s sweet. Good enough?”
“Not even close. Is it serious?”
“Hope so.”
“Got a picture?”
“None you get to see.”
“Jason Thomas Waters, you tell me about your girlfriend and you tell me right now.”
“Uncle Jason has a girlfriend?” Cassie asked. She and Dani looked at each other in excitement bordering on horror. The girls had begged him to get married so they could be flower girls. But they were still young enough to fear new things and new people.
“He does,” Aimee said. “And her name is Simone and she’s very sweet but we’re not allowed to see pictures of her so she must be very, very ugly.”
“I swear to God, I will make you sleep in the barn tonight,” Jason said.
He took his phone out of his pocket and, shielding it with his hand, found a fully clothed photo of Simone. He’d taken a selfie of the two of them with Cupcake after that last ride together. They were both smiling hugely in the photograph. Even Cupcake seemed to be smiling.
Jason showed the photo to Aimee and then the girls.
“She has pink hair,” Dani said in wide-eyed wonder.
“Yes, she does,” Jason said. He started to put his phone back into his pocket when Dani reached for it. He immediately pulled his hand back and held his phone up in the air out of the reach of little innocent girls.
“I want to play with your phone,” she said.
“No way,” Jason said. “Not a chance.”
“You have better games on your phone than Mom,” Dani said, already done with talk of grown-up things like girlfriends.
“My phone is off-limits,” he said. “Go pet the horses.”
With a groan of disappointment the girls returned to the paddock fence.
“You used to let the girls play with your phone,” Aimee said.
“There are things on here they don’t need to see. Or you,” he said, eying her pointedly.
“Trust me, I saw enough last time I was stupid enough to touch your computer.”
“Your own fault for being nosy.”
“Not my fault you were looking at things you shouldn’t be looking at.”
“Grown man, sis.”
“You’re still my baby brother.”
Jason decided to drop the subject but he could tell from the look Aimee gave him the conversation wasn’t over.
Unfortunately, he was dead right about that. After putting the girls to bed that night in the guest room, Aimee came down to the kitchen, grabbed a beer out of his fridge and sat across from him at the table where he’d been browsing horse sales on his laptop.
Aimee stared at him. And stared at him.
And stared at him.
“Say it,” Jason said, closing his laptop.
“Say what?”
“Whatever it is you’ve been storing up all day waiting for a chance to say to me. Get it out so I can get back to work.”
“These belong to you?” She pulled Simone’s pink thong out of her jeans pocket.
“Jesus,” he said, snatching the panties out of her hand.
“Found those in the guest room under the bed when I put the girls’ suitcases in there. Lucky I found them before the girls did.”
“Forgot,” he said. “Sorry.”
“Hope you changed the sheets.”
“Yes, I changed the sheets. Well, Simone did before she left.”
“I guess she likes everything pink.”
“What’s wrong with pink?”
“Just trying to imagine you taking a pink-haired girl with a nose ring home to Mom and Dad.”
“Mom’s got her ears pierced. So do you. And if they care about what color a girl’s hair is, they got too much free time.”
“Where’d you meet her again?”
“I told you. In the library.”
“So she’s from here?”
“No, she lives in New York,” he said. “For now.”
“For now? You two that serious already? How long have you been dating this girl?”
“A couple weeks.”
“Two weeks?” Aimee looked horrified. Jason was not impressed. “That’s it?”
“She spent four straight days and nights here. And we talk every day on the phone for hours. She’s the one.”
“The one? After two weeks? Have you lost your damn mind?”
“You said you knew on your first date you were going to marry Brian, and I thought you’d lost your damn mind. Was I wrong?”
“That’s different.”
“How you figure?” Jason asked.
“Brian doesn’t have pink hair for starters.”
“He should,” Jason said. “It would look real good on him.”
Aimee took a slow breath. She sounded like a leaking tire.
Jason waved his hand at her. “Go on. Lay it on me. I know you don’t approve. Might as well get it all out.”
“I’m just not sure about this girl,” Aimee said. “I just am not at all sure about her.”
“Guess what? You don’t have to be, because you’re not the one dating her.”
“Look, I’m not picking on her because she’s got pink hair and a nose ring. I couldn’t care less about that. I would give you the third degree about any girl you date. Especially if I don’t know a thing about her.”
“You know everything you need to know and everything you need to know is…she’s my girlfriend. The end.”
“You’re not taking me seriously,” she said.
“No, I’m not.”
“You used to take me seriously. Is this girl trying to get you to forget you have a family?”
“This girl is named Simone, and she hasn’t said a word about my family except to say the girls are cute, and Mom and Dad must be very proud of us. Real crazy stuff like that.”
“She tell all her friends she’s dating you?”
“She told one friend about us.”
“So she’s already bragging?” Aimee asked. She seemed determined to twist every innocent thing about Simone into something ugly and mean. Jason was not going to let her get to him. He was not.
“Hope so,” Jason said. “A man likes being bragged about by his girlfriend.”
“Jason.”
“Her friends are not followers of the PBR circuit, Aimee,” Jason said, trying not to talk down to her though the temptation was mighty. “They live in New York City. The only bull they ever seen is that big fake one on Wall Street. So if you think she’s some kind of groupie, think again. I showed her a clip of my run-in with Demented, and she burst into tears. Safe to say my rodeo career is not the attraction here.”
“Then what is, can I ask? Your money?”
“She lives in New York City. She probably makes more money than I do to pay those kind of rents.”
“What’s she do for a living?”
“Photographer. And some odd jobs.” Jason thought that was a fair thing to say. Being a professional submissive was about as odd a job as riding bulls for a living. “And a little modeling.”
“Oh, she’s a model. Now everything is clear.”
He glared at her. “Your brother likes a pretty girl. Are you really shocked by that? Come on, Aimee. Use your brain. I’ve modeled, remember?”
“What kind of modeling does she do? Catalogs and stuff?”
“If you must know, she’s a corset model.”
“She’s an underwear model?”
“Sort of. If you consider corsets underwear.”
“Sweet Lord, you are trying to kill Mom and Dad, aren’t you? This girl is a double heart attack waiting to happen.”
“They won’t have heart attacks if they don’t look at the pictures,” Jason said. “And if they go looking for them, it’s their own fault if they find them.”
“Is she into…whatever?” Aimee gestured at his laptop.
“That is none of your business.”
“So that’s a ‘yes’?”
“It’s a ‘that’s none of your business.’”
“Well, it’s about the only thing you two have in common, isn’t it?” Aimee asked.
“That’s also none of your business.”
“If you marry this girl it’s going to be my business,” she said.
“And why is that?”
“You think I’m going to let my girls stay in the same house where that goes on?”
“I don’t know if you know what ‘that’ is,” Jason said.
“I know enough to know I want no part of it, and you shouldn’t either. I thought Dad taught you better than that.”
“He taught me to be scared to death of my own father, is what he taught me.”
“Do I have to remind you about all the kids who look up to you? Including your own nieces? You’re a hero to lots of kids who’d be heartbroken to find out you weren’t what they thought you were.”
“I’m retired,” Jason said. “They can look up to Justin McBride and Adrian Gonzales now. And I’m done talking about this with you.”
“Fine, be like that,” Aimee said, standing up. “You have all the fun with this girl you want. But that’s your thing. I don’t want that stuff happening anywhere near my girls.” She paused and then shook her head. In a much softer voice she said, “I love you more than life itself, baby brother. When you were in the hospital, and they thought you might lose a kidney, I said, ‘Give him one of mine.’ You didn’t need it, but I would have given you a kidney, a lung, a liver, every drop of blood in my veins to save you…You know this is coming from a place of love, right?”
“Right. I know.” He did know. He really did.
“It’s just…you used to date such sweet girls.”
“Simone is a sweet girl.”
Aimee looked at him with nothing but love in her eyes. “I just don’t want to see you getting hurt when she decides she’d rather keep living her wild life in New York than settle down with you in the middle of nowhere.” She patted his shoulder and walked away.
Jason stared at nothing for a good long time.