Possessor (Doms of Mountain Bend Book 5) Read online

  More than that, she would miss hanging around the ranch so much after school started. Steven and both Mr. and Mrs. Daniels already offered to come get her on the weekends, and she hadn’t hesitated to accept. The three of them were the adults she wished she went home to, and she tried hard not to envy Randy his good fortune or wish for what could never happen.

  Wishing never got Mickie anything or anywhere. It was up to her to make her dreams come true.

  Randy joined her at the corral, leaning his big arms on the fence next to her much thinner ones. “What are you looking so serious about, kid?”

  Looking up at him, she experienced that funny catch in her throat she sometimes got when he was near. She lumped it in with all the other things about him that irritated her but she kept quiet about so he would still want her around.

  “School. I wish it could stay summer.”

  He tugged on her braid, one of his habits she liked. “Between my mom, dad, and Steven, you can still spend weekend afternoons here. You can’t stay gone for long. Black Jack would miss you.” He reached out and stroked the colt’s nose. “I gotta tell you, I didn’t put his chances of survival very high. You did good, Mickie.”

  Her heart swelled with pride. Another thing she liked about him was his praises. No one had ever complimented her before, except teachers on her work. But they said the same thing to all the kids. Randy’s words were just for her.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, unused to feeling self-conscious or grateful.

  “I gotta run. If I’m not back in time to take you home, Steven will drive you.”

  “Where are you off to?” And why did she care?

  He winked at her. “I’ve got a date with Patti.”

  Mickie rolled her eyes. “You’re going to break her heart when you leave for college. Why do you bother? You’re leaving.” She didn’t understand why he wanted to go out all the time when he could be here, having so much fun on his ranch.

  “You wouldn’t understand. In a few years, you’ll know why I bother.”

  “I doubt it. From what I’ve seen, no good comes of it. You’ll see when a girl breaks your heart and you’re unhappy, like my mom.” Her mother often threw nasty remarks at her dad, blaming him for everything.

  “One, no girl will break my heart because I don’t get serious them. Two, don’t compare everyone to your folks. You’ve seen how happy my parents are. A lot of couples have good relationships.” Compassion shone in his eyes, a look she didn’t care for. She didn’t want to be pitied. “I’m sorry yours don’t. They haven’t been fair to you.”

  Mickie shrugged. No sense crying over what couldn’t be changed. “I get by.”

  Four years later

  Bending low over Black Jack’s sleek neck, Mickie laughed as they raced across the pasture, the warm wind whipping against her face as the ground below whizzed by under the stallion’s pounding hooves. She loved the way his muscles bunched against her legs, his heavy breathing matching hers. The first thing she’d done on the last day of school for the fourth year in a row was stay on the bus until it stopped up the road from the Daniels’ ranch to let out the neighbor’s kids. Steven always greeted her with a smile, and in the last two years, ever since Black Jack was old enough to ride, the foreman had him saddled and ready for her.

  Life just didn’t get any better than this, she mused, reining him in as they neared the stable. She loved listening to the cattle lowing in the pasture, the sight of the bright red barns and stables trimmed in white, Mrs. Daniels’ lemonade and cookies, and Mr. Daniels’ gruff but friendly “How ya doin’, kid?” They welcomed her inside their big house that always smelled of home cooking and was filled with bright sunlight. Mrs. Daniels had insisted she come in out of the rain one day, and she spent the cloudy, gloomy afternoon letting Mickie help put together a meatloaf and potato casserole. Since then, her cooking skills had improved, along with her knowledge of ranching.

  The Daniels ranch wasn’t large, not compared to some Idaho spreads, but Mickie loved riding their two-thousand-acre rangeland, traversing the wooded areas, and letting Black Jack splash through the creek and pond. Randy and Steven would greet her return with lectures on going too far and staying gone too long, which she ignored. She even enjoyed mucking out stalls, keeping the tack oiled, and the aisle swept, but her favorite chore was grooming the horses.

  The thing that endeared the Daniels and Steven to her the most, though, was when they started paying her last year, on her thirteenth birthday, after surprising her with a birthday cake and new saddle for Black Jack. Annoying tears pricked her eyes as she rode up to the stable yard, thinking about that day, and her good fortune. She had no use for tears, not even happy ones. The money she earned here she kept hoarded and secret from her parents, planning on using it for more education after high school.

  She dismounted, patting Black Jack’s soft, ebony neck, wishing she could just jump ahead through the next four years. Life would be perfect once she was grown up. But for now, she mused with a smile, hearing a truck rumbling up the drive, life wasn’t too bad.

  Randy was finally home from college for good instead of a few days or weeks during breaks.

  Mickie swung the saddle off the stallion, listening as the truck door slammed shut, the funny tickle in her stomach when she heard Randy’s deep voice unexpected. She was used to happy giddiness assailing her at seeing him again, but that sensation was new, and weird.

  “There you are. Think you can take a minute away from that guy to greet me?”

  She turned, her heart skipping a beat seeing him towering over her, his chocolate eyes twinkling, his mahogany-brown hair curling around his tanned neck, his scruffy whiskers giving him a rakish look. He was the same yet different, and she didn’t understand why or how.

  “Only a minute,” she teased. “Some of us have work to do.”

  “Smart ass.” He reached out and tugged her braid, and that funny sensation in her tummy returned. “Admit it, kid, you missed me.”

  “Maybe, depends on if you get bossy and nosy all the time again.” She stroked her fingers through Black Jack’s mane when he nudged her for attention, mostly to keep from touching Randy.

  “Someone has to look out for you. Why don’t you finish with Black Jack and come up to the house? All of the hands are joining us on the patio for a barbeque.”

  That was the first time he’d lumped her in with the five ranch hands in their employ, the pang of hurt feelings it gave her unexpected and unwelcome. “Sure,” she said, turning around. “I’ll be done shortly.”

  His large, heavy hand landed on her shoulder. “Everything okay, Mickie?”

  “Just fine, Randy. I’m glad you’re home.”

  Mickie was glad, maybe too happy. She sensed things were about to change between them, and she didn’t like that.

  Chapter Two

  Four Years Later

  “The girl rides like the wind.”

  Randy didn’t take his eyes off Mickie when he answered his dad. “Yeah, she does. Black Jack will miss her.”

  His dad smiled. “I will, too, as well as you.”

  “Well, duh, Dad.” Shifting the straw blade in his mouth from the left to the right, Randy cast a quick glance at him, relieved to see him looking so good after suffering a mild heart attack less than a month ago. Not much could keep his dad down for long. “She’s been a fixture around here for eight years. It’s going to seem strange with her so far away for so long.”

  Mickie had been thrilled when she was accepted into a veterinary assistant program in Colorado. He could only imagine her parents’ shock when she announced she was leaving. He was damn proud of the kid, the way she saved the money they had paid her these past few years and strove to keep her grades up, both a means to this end she’d craved ever since she started hanging around the ranch.

  Watching her now, riding that stallion bareback, laughing as they galloped into the stable yard, he shook his head in bemusement. Her grit and determination never faile
d to amaze him, and he didn’t know why. He should be used to how she wouldn’t let anything get in the way of her goals. Hadn’t she proved that the first winter after they met and an overnight snowstorm had kept him from picking her up the next day? He’d read her the riot act when one of the hands spotted her hitchhiking her way over here wearing a threadbare coat, her worn sneakers soaked through from trudging through snow.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d butted heads with her stubbornness and prickly attitude toward anyone who attempted to tell her what to do, but given her home life, he couldn’t blame her. She wasn’t used to anyone caring about her and didn’t know how to handle it when he, or anyone else on the ranch tried to protect her from herself and from potential harm.

  “You’re going to have to drag her up to the house,” Ron said, pushing away from the fence. “Your mother is ready to celebrate by feeding everyone. She won’t stop trying to put some meat on the girl’s bones.”

  Eyeing Mickie’s long, denim-covered legs and toned arms as she slid off the horse’s back, Randy thought she looked a lot healthier at eighteen than ten. If she would eat more and slow down once in a while, she might even put on some curves. He frowned, picturing the horny college boys he wouldn’t be around to warn her against. She wasn’t a kid anymore but still young and naïve when it came to guys.

  “She might be better off staying skinny until she’s done with school. You know how guys are at that age,” Randy replied.

  His dad chuckled and slapped him on the back. “I remember how you were back then, before and during college. Maybe it’s a good thing she’s leaving, so you won’t be tempted.”

  Randy sent him an incredulous look, unable to believe his dad would even hint he would go there with Mickie. “She’s too young for me, Dad.”

  “Look again, Son, but not too hard. Remember, it’s her turn to head off to college. Go get her. This party’s for her, and we can’t start without her.”

  Shaking his head, watching his dad stroll away, Randy wondered what had gotten into the old man. He would always look at Mickie as the cute, neglected kid he and everyone else around here had taken under their wing, and regard her as family. He could no more consider any other relationship with her than he could fly to the moon. His astonishment changed to humor as he imagined Mickie’s attitude toward the BDSM lifestyle he’d been exploring the past few years. No, he couldn’t even go there long enough to picture her scathing expression at such an idea.

  He'd never imagined the satisfaction he could get from seeing to a woman’s needs, whether they were emotional, sexual, or a combination of both. It wasn’t about sex, or rarely, yet he reaped as much pleasure from a scene without intercourse as he did when he took it that far. Now, he only went out on an occasional date with someone not in the lifestyle, and more often than not, ended the evening at their door.

  With summer winding down, there was no end to chores and preparations for fall, but they always made time for special occasions. Mickie’s eighteenth birthday and acceptance into college were two big ones, and Randy refused to let her get away with balking at socializing when they were getting together for her. It was bad enough she’d shunned his dad’s big sixtieth bash last month, joining the party of about thirty people only long enough to give Ron a hug and grab a piece of cake.

  He rounded the barn in time to hear her mutter, “Fudge!” and grinned at her continued bastardization of the curse word.

  “Tsk, tsk,” he teased. “Such language.”

  “Oh, bite me,” Mickie replied with a wide smile, never pausing in running the brush down the stallion’s neck. “Don’t you have work to do?”

  “Nope, and neither do you for the next hour. Come on, Mom’s waiting for you.” He knew what to say, never hesitating to use her fondness for his parents, especially his mother, as bait.

  Mickie sighed, rolling her eyes. “You people and your celebrations. Hold on, I’m almost done.”

  Walking forward, Randy patted Black Jack’s flank, admiring the healthy, beautiful stallion Mickie had a hand in rearing. “You’ve done good by him, kid. You’d never know this was the same foal you rescued from certain death.”

  Her gray eyes held a wicked gleam as she gazed at him over the horse’s back. “You weren’t so sure back then, of him or me.”

  “Newsflash, Mickie. I’m still not sure of you, like why you’re putting off attending your own party. It’s just us and the ranch hands today.” Their smaller herd required fewer cowboys to attend it, and they only employed five extra hands besides him, Steven, and his dad, adding up to ten when they did roundups for auction.

  “Fine.” She huffed and turned to open the corral gate. After closing it behind the stallion, she shrugged. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

  Randy couldn’t resist tugging her braid, the flush stealing over her cheeks a new reaction to something he’d done countless times over the years. Ignoring it and the way she averted her face, he admonished, “You can pretend to enjoy yourself. Mom made your favorite chocolate cake.”

  That got a spark of pleasure out of her. “Dark chocolate with fudge icing?”

  “Of course.”

  Her face softened. “That was nice of her, and I always enjoy myself around your family. You know how limited my time is, and how I hate to spend it on frivolous stuff.”

  They strolled across the green lawn between the ranch buildings and the house, past the older small truck they’d given her two years ago when she’d gotten her license. “I don’t consider eighteenth birthdays and heading off to college frivolous. I’m proud of you, Mickie. I’ll miss you, though. We all will.”

  “Then you’ll know how I felt when you took off.”

  He laughed, drawing heads toward them as they went around to the back patio. “You were happy to have me gone for a while because you thought you could go back to having no one to answer to.”

  “True, but I still missed you.” She paused where they were, remaining out of earshot of the others. Placing her hand on his arm, she looked up at him with an expression he couldn’t read. “You’ll wait for me, won’t you, Randy?”

  Wondering at her earnest expression, he sought to soothe whatever uncertainties were going through her head. She’d never been away from Mountain Bend. “Sure. You should know by now I’ll always be here for you. Come on, I’m hungry.”

  Mickie’s heart went haywire as she stood in the shade of one of the towering pines the Daniels’ had built their house around without removing any, unsure whether the sudden heat enveloping her was due to the warm afternoon temperature or Randy. The change in her body’s reaction to his nearness or light touch had started about a year ago, and she still struggled with what to make of it. But even standing there in indecision, she couldn’t help the elation sweeping through her at his promise. Knowing he would wait for her to return to pick up and forge ahead on a new path with their relationship filled her with indescribable joy.

  Until she started looking at him as a man instead of the big brother she never wanted or the person who had befriended her and given her a whole new lease on life, she’d never been interested in boys or men. While she’d harbored fantasies of her and Randy doing things she couldn’t fathom with anyone else these past months, she refused to let those newfound cravings derail her from her goal of an education that would get her away from the trailer park for good. She would never rely on anyone, not even Randy, to obtain and keep hold of that dream for her.

  Randy’s mother, Caroline, waved her over to the picnic table strewn with food, the grill behind her billowing smoke as Ron lifted the cover. The homey scene brought a lump to Mickie’s throat as she started forward. The Daniels had welcomed her into their home eight years ago and every day since, giving her a safe haven to run to when she couldn’t stand listening to her mother’s bitter tirades against her father, blaming him for everything that was wrong with their lives. Watching him drown his own bitterness in alcohol more and more didn’t help the tense situation.
r />   Her parents hadn’t acknowledged her birthday in years, but that was okay, she thought, eyeing the abundance of food then catching Randy’s wink. She had all she needed here, and her dream of getting out of the trailer park was in the works.

  “Mrs. Daniels, I told you not to go to so much trouble.” Mickie braced for her hug then relaxed as she inhaled her familiar perfume mixed with the sweet scent of chocolate.

  “Nonsense, Mickie,” Caroline replied, releasing her. “You’ve been such a joy and bright pick-me-up around here, not to mention I needed a girl to cater to after dealing with these guys for so long.”

  Randy sent them both a derisive look over his shoulder as he took over at the grill. “She wasn’t always a joy. More like a pain in the butt every time she took off and I had to leave off my chores to find her.”

  Mickie rolled her eyes. “And I told you on day one I could take care of myself.”

  Cord, one of the hired cowboys, chuckled. “She’s got you there, Randy. We’ve never had to rescue her from any harm.”

  Randy frowned. “You guys always stuck up for her, which only encouraged her to take risks.”

  “Nah,” Mickie drawled, smiling at Cord. “I’ve never liked restraints put on me, is all.”

  A funny expression crossed Randy’s face, one she couldn’t decipher for a change, before it cleared as he handed a platter stacked with burgers to his dad.

  “That’s because you were raised without them,” Ron said, his gruff tone underlined with affection. “Now, sit your scrawny butt down and eat, girl.”

  Mickie beamed at the older man. “Hey, I’m not scrawny anymore, not after all this time eating Mrs. Daniels’ cooking.”

  She took a seat at the table, glad when Cord sat on one side of her, and Tim, his best friend, slid in on the other. Randy’s nearness was proving too distracting in new and, she admitted, exciting ways, and she couldn’t afford to let them sidetrack her from her goals. It was enough he promised to wait for her. His vow would see her through the lonely weeks ahead of missing him, the ranch, and everyone on it.