Lola Stark - Destry

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I fumed at him, glaring from under the wide brim of my hat. I clenched my hands by my side trying to calm my shit down. “You could have killed her, you idiot.” Austin pushed off from his bike and took a step toward me. I knew this was a sore point, yet I did it anyway. Austin had more than a few ghosts in his past and our relationship was one where we constantly provoked each other.

“Don’t push me,” Austin growled, his eyes going stone cold and deathly serious.

“Okay, what are we doing out here? Am I supposed to stand around while you two measure your dicks, or are we working?” My eyes bugged out as I turned toward little miss prim and proper. Pushing away from the four-wheeler, her hands placed on her hips, her tits strained against the thin fabric of her white tank. Did she really just say that?

“C’mon, Amelia. I’ll show you how things work while these two zip their pants back up.” Braxton offered her an arm. She hooked her arm around his and they walked off toward the small cluster of cows.

“The fuck is your problem, D?” Austin drew my attention back from watching her walking away from me yet again.

“Nothin’,” I grumbled, rubbing my forehead in frustration.

“Yeah, right. You’ve had a boot up your ass since you first saw her.” Had it been that obvious?

“She annoys me. She’s just a pain in my ass is all.” The loud bark of laughter he let out was enough to tell me he believed jack shit of my explanation. With a slap on my back, he jogged off to start work, leaving me standing there getting more and more agitated by the second. How the hell was I supposed to work with a chick flouncing around my pastures with hardly a scrap of clothing on her tight little body? As it was, I’d had a hard-on from hell since she came into the kitchen that morning.

“Gotta get laid,” I mumbled to myself while I pulled my tools out of the storage compartment. I had a feeling it was going to be a very long day.

X X X

“Lunch!” Austin called out, dropping his tools. I pulled my hat off and ripped my cotton shirt over my head, tucking it into the back pocket of my jeans. The sun was beating down hard and hot, making me sweat like a whore in church.

“How you holdin’ up?” I asked Amelia as we walked toward the big, shady oak tree. I was used to the heat working in the sun all day; I doubted she was.

“It’s hotter than Hades out here,” she puffed. I did a double take when I noticed her thin tank was not only drenched in sweat but see-through. I directed my eyes straight ahead and walked a little faster, willing myself not to gawk while mentally planning a night out at the local bar. I needed a cold beer and some company. It’d been too long since I’d had any of that kind of companionship and my dick was reminding me of the fact almost constantly.

A squeal had me jumping out of my skin and snapping my attention from my internal thoughts.

“Gahh, that was cold.” Amelia laughed and splashed a cup of water back at a laughing Austin. I glared daggers at Austin messing around with her like they were great friends.

“Take it down a notch, D.” Braxton’s low whisper had my head whipping to the side. I grunted in response. He continued, “This girl’s gotten under your skin, huh?”

“No,” I sighed. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow and in disbelief. “Maybe a little. She’s not what I expected,” I admitted. Braxton and I had a different relationship to what I had with Austin. While Austin and I were like fuel and fire, Brax and I had a more gentle relationship; he saw through my bullshit.

“Figures.” He smiled, looking down at the dirt he was kicking with the toe of his boot.

“Out with it then,” I sighed, knowing there was no use ignoring him; he’d bug me until he put his two cents worth in.

“I’m just saying it figures the chick who turns you inside out, lands right in your lap.” Brax nodded his head to Amelia, who was sitting cross-legged in the shade eating an apple. Her blonde hair that had been tied up at the base of her head was now blowing out in the light breeze. “I think you need to stop thinking things are so cut and dry, D. Just because it walks like a duck and looks like a duck doesn’t mean it’s just a duck.”

I barked out a laugh at his bad analogy. “Ducks? Really?” I shook my head and cracked the bottle of water he handed me, gulping it down. The cool water that ran down my chin and onto my chest was welcomed in the heat of the day. “She’s only passing through. Don’t go getting ideas in your head,” I reminded him. I wasn’t sure if the two weeks were going to be the slowest, most painful of my life or if they’d fly right by.

“Hmm, maybe she could be convinced to stay,” he mused, with an innocent expression on his face. One I knew better than to buy into.

“I’m warning you, Brax. Leave the girl be; she doesn’t belong in these parts.”

“Ducks, D. Not just ducks.” He looked over at her again. Then I did something I’d never done in my life. I snapped at him.

“You don't have a fucking clue what you are talking about. Finish up here. I'm done.” I jumped on my quad and sped off toward the house. Not only had I just taken Braxton’s head off, but I’d skipped out on my responsibilities too.

Once home, I traded my quad for my truck, stopping just long enough to grab a clean shirt, and flew out of the driveway heading toward the local bar. Once there, I pulled in and crushed the brake pedal to the floor, slamming my door as I jumped out. I stomped inside and threw myself into a bar stool slapping my hand down twice to get Rach, the bartender’s, attention. She took one look at me and slid a beer down the worn wooden counter top. I downed it in a few long pulls and nodded at her as she finished up with her customer and wandered down to me with another two bottles in her hand.

“Rough day, D?” she asked uncapping both bottles and sliding one to me before tipping her own back.

“Rough goddamn week,” I grumbled and chugged down my second drink.

“Out with it then.” Rach nodded putting her drink down and leaned forward onto her elbows. I’d known Rach practically my whole life. She’d grown up round here and went to the same school as us, kicked around the same circles and generally been a good friend.

“Damn city girls coming in and screwing shit up.” I hadn’t intended to say much of anything, but the thing with Rach was once she got you to talk, the flood gates seemed to open and there was no stopping it.

“Oh, shit.” Rach rubbed a hand over her face and grimaced “Is she back? “

I cringed and shook my head knowing exactly who she was. She had a name I’d never mention again in my God given natural born life. She had been a city girl too. I slipped back into the memory of my seventeen-year-old self.

“You sure about this, buddy?” Darren, my best friend all through school, had asked quietly while we sat on the grandstands watching all the students walk past.

“Never been more sure of anything in my life.” I shook my head and smiled. “She’s it, bud. She’s the one. I’m gonna marry that girl.” I looked down at the huddle of people on the field and spotted my girl. Long brunette hair, long legs and a magnetic personality. She threw her head back and laughed loudly, everyone around her joining in. Nobody could be near her and not be happy. She was just that kind of person. “Yeah, I’m gonna marry her.”

I snapped out of my memory when I heard glass smashing. I looked further down the bar to see Rach with a guy almost twice her size in her face. I didn’t even think of moving seeing as I knew exactly what would happen next. I watched from out the corner of my eye as Rach grabbed a handful of his shirt when the guy pulled his hand back, and without a second thought, she reared her fist back and planted it square on his face causing blood to flow from the obviously broken nose she’d just served him. She let go of his shirt, pushing him back and he tumbled over his bar stool, cussing her out the whole time. “You bitch!” he yelled at her.

She reached behind the bar, pulled out her baseball bat, and then told him, “Get your stupid ass out of my bar. Don’t let me catch you here again, needledick.” With that, the dumbass got up and scurried to the door just about pissin’ his pants on the way. Rach was a tough one and everyone in town knew not to fuck with her or her bar.

“You good?” I asked when she came back down my way with another cold bottle for me.

“Yeah. No sweat.” She winked and wiped the remaining blood off her hand.

I flinched and pulled my hand into a fist at the next wave of memories that hit me.

“You’re only twenty years old, boy. You sure you don’t wanna wait a bit longer? Gramps had told me that afternoon.

“Nah, I’m going to get my city girl. I’m taking her to the drive in and I’m gonna ask her. I got the ring today. I’ve got it all set up. I pick her up in an hour. I’ve got the picnic dinner all ready to go; her favorite flick’s playing tonight. The stars are out and it’s gonna be something I’ll never forget, Gramps.”

She’d moved in to town a few years back from the city, and from the first moment I’d laid eyes on her, I knew I wanted that girl. She might have been city, but she was my city, and I was gonna have her for the rest of my life.

“Best be hurrying then. Don’t waste any time. Girls like that, they don’t hang around waiting.” Gramps had been spot on, and apparently so had I. It turned out to be a night I wouldn’t ever forget.

“She ain’t her,” Rach said, taking my empties away. I’d been lost in thought for so long I hadn’t realized I’d knocked back half a dozen beers already.

“Come again?” I raised my eyebrows at her while I slid my next drink from one hand to the other.

“You heard me.” She wiped down the counter in front of me with the rag in her hand. “Not all of ‘em are gonna do a runner like she did.”

“And what makes you think that?” I scrunched my brow up at her.

Rach shook her head and looked to the roof before bringing her gaze back to me. “Because why would you be sitting in my bar on a Thursday afternoon when you should be working, drowning your sorrows over a girl you say isn't important? You're the smartest guy I know, Destry. You wouldn't be letting her get to you if you didn't already know she was different.”

I grumbled into my beer as Rach walked off to serve more customers. I had to concede; I had made my mind up early in regards to Amelia being just like that girl who’d broken a piece of me. Maybe, Rach was right. Maybe, I needed to look at her with more of an open mind. Maybe, she wasn’t the spoilt little princess I’d assumed she was. Maybe, I already knew all of that to be true.

The rest of the week flew by in a blur of sweaty, shirtless guys, who were too hot for their own damn good. I hadn’t yet regretted my decision to insist on helping out around the place, and now their gran and pops were staying with family; it seemed like they needed the extra help.

To say I was more than a little surprised at how well the boys could cook, clean and generally take care of themselves was an understatement. Clearly, they’d been taught from an early age how to take care of things. It was refreshing, considering the men who’d been in my life couldn’t even manage to get their own clothing out of the closet on their own. Their clothing had to be laid out for them, lined up for their convenience in the order that they dressed, pressed to perfection, and presented like some kind of twisted fashion show. Much like the women in their lives.

One would think a week wasn’t long to reflect on your life situations, but I’d come to realize very quickly that the life I had been living wasn’t for me. It was a series of acts and curtain calls, ones that were destroying who I really was, who I wanted to be. I was done with it; I was ready to live my own life, for nobody other than myself. I’d already started. Instead of acting the way I had been taught a lady should behave, I’d been myself—my real self—the entire time I’d been here. It was liberating, not having to worry about makeup and pearls, sitting with my ankles crossed and not speaking unless spoken to. I’d rather spend every day of my life working in the beauty of a ranch than stuffed into the most expensive dresses with huge diamonds on my hand.

“Hot damn!” Austin’s low gravelly voice filtered through my thoughts as I stepped out the back door onto the veranda. I turned and found him looking at me with a sexy smirk.