Efrem (8 page)

Bob and Ben shifted uncomfortably. Dan puffed out his chest.

“It’s not robbery when it’s what the ol’ man wanted. He just didn’t have time to make the changes official.”

“Granddad didn’t want this,” Lisa said. “He left the ranch to me and me alone.”

“Not true, missy.”

Hightower stepped around his desk. “I will pass these statements along to the judge, along with Lisa’s. Dan, you’ll be notified when the hearing is set.”

“See that I am,” he sneered. All three of her adversaries left the room.

Uncle Stanley closed his office door behind them and sighed heavily. He put a comforting arm around Lisa and led her to the sofa.

“Don’t you give up hope. It’s their word against yours, and the will is solid.”

She laid her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose control of the ranch. The horses deserve better than Dan.”

“They’ll still have you. Even Dan says your grandfather only promised him half.”

She shuddered. “I can’t work with Dan every day. One of us would end up dead, and it wouldn’t be me because I’d kill him just for the way he treats horses. Why does he want the ranch? I don’t get it. Why did he wait until now to bring this up?”

“That is one question I intend to put to Judge Rhine. He’s a good man.”

“I’m glad of that.”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Come.”

Even though he had followed her to the lawyer’s office, indicating she needed help to handle Dan, Bob, and Ben, her heart still stuttered in delight at the sight of Efrem’s handsome face poking into the office.

“Am I interrupting something?” he asked with a grin as he watched her lift her head from Uncle Stanley’s shoulder.

“Not at all, and you know it.” She got to her feet and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “You just missed the three mental dwarfs.”

“No, I didn’t. I had the displeasure of running into all three of them outside. Funny thing was, when I got past them, I heard the two strangers ask Dan who I was.”

“Really?”

“And he said I was nothing.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say nothing.”

He laughed.

“Maybe Bob and Ben weren’t aware of Efrem’s presence in your life.”

She turned to face the older man. “Why would they be? And what difference does it make?”

Uncle Stanley and Efrem shared a glance.

“Oh, nothing,” Uncle Stanley said.

“See? Even he thinks I’m nothing,” a chagrinned Efrem said.

Even without understanding the shared look, she laughed. “You’re far from nothing, Efrem.”

He grinned. “Glad someone thinks so.”

* * * *

Running late due to his stop at the lawyer’s office, Efrem trotted down the hall toward his office.

“Ef! You’re late. We need you on the mainframe.”

“Efrem. I know. Why?”

“I’m just the messenger.”

He turned around and headed for the mainframe. He pushed open the door to chaos.

“What’s the problem?”

“Thank God you’re here.”

“This router is running hot.”

“That’s not the source of the problem. We need to move the rack away from the corner.”

The chatter continued, differing opinions flew across the room, differing solutions crowded the conversations.

Inside his head, Efrem smiled. Electronic chaos was a way of life. His way of life. And he loved it. Almost as much as he loved Lisa.

Whoa!
The thought struck him between the eyes. Glancing around the room, at the two engineers and three technicians throwing around theories and solutions, he saw his whole adult life. He’d been so buried in his work he hadn’t had a real life. But Lisa changed all that. His life had been full, but now was overflowing. He’d never seen a horse, never mind ridden one, until Lisa. Now he was a champion of the little black foal of Raven’s. He could tell when a horse had a sore foot. Or fetlock. Something like that. He knew how to feed the pregnant mares—excuse me, breeding mares.

But he was still at home here, in a ridiculously cold room with no windows, filled with equipment whirring and blinking and flashing every change and exchange of data. He loved it. Every last bit of it.

And he’d give it all up in a heartbeat for her.

“Hey, Efrem. You with us, man?”

He shook his head. “Yeah, I’m here. Did you check the fan on that router?”

* * * *

Jerry Price stood in front of her desk, hat in hand.

“How could the water be fouled?” she asked rhetorically. “It’s a closed system.”

“Not sure, ma’am. But it is. There’s a faint smell of petroleum or fuel.”

“Is there a fuel line leaking somewhere?”

“Uh, it’s electric as far as I know.”

She rubbed her forehead. First the downed fences, now fuel in the electric water system in the brood mare barn. What next?

“We’ll have to drain the system and flush it out. When we fill it back up we’ll see if the fuel smell returns.”

“That will take hours.”

“Yeah, it will.” She pulled herself out of her granddad’s chair. “So let’s get started.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Lisa, Jerry. Just Lisa.”

“Yes, ma—Lisa.”

She smiled and led the way to the brood mare barn. Jerry was an old-fashioned gentleman. Like Efrem.

Efrem had incorporated good manners into his being. He opened doors for her without thinking, held her chair, took a stubborn jar of peanut butter from her, twisted open the lid she’d been struggling with, and handed it back to her, without blinking an eye.

For heaven’s sake, the man wouldn’t come until she did! And come she did. Several times almost every time they were together. His body was magnificent. His looks were devastating, but he was so much more than a good
-
looking man. He wanted to support her. Not with money but love. He wanted to take care of her, help her with the ranch, and yet he wasn’t going to take over her life. He wanted to share it.

Trey had wanted to take it over. Of course she hadn’t known that from the beginning.
Oh, no. I thought he wanted me for me. How stupid is that?

And what the hell am I going to do about Dan?

And Efrem. What was she going to do about him? “Huh,” she muttered as she entered the brood mare barn and beelined to the water sink in the first stall. She leaned over and sniffed.

“Definitely fuel. Gasoline?”

Jerry leaned in for a whiff. “Yup.”

She slapped her hands on her hips. “Let’s get started.” Together, they approached the circulating pump. She knocked on the housing. Jerry toed the base.

“What first?”

“I was hoping you’d know,” she said with chagrin.

“Did it come with directions or paperwork?”

“Yeah. In the tack room.”

Four hours later, Lisa sat on the floor next to the circulating pump holding the housing in the air. Jerry grimaced as he fumbled inside the guts of the pump.

“Didja find it?” she asked. Her arms were trembling with the effort required to keep the solid metal casing in the air. It was, for some ungodly reason, attached to the pump itself by a short wire.

“What are you doing?”

Lisa jumped and almost dropped the housing on Jerry’s wrist.

“Watch it!” she shouted. Miraculously, all the weight was lifted from her hands. For a moment she thought the housing was floating in the air. But it was held there by Efrem.

“When did you get here?”

“Just now,” he said as he shifted around her. Reaching inside the housing
,
he wiggled his fingers and the wire came free, leaving the housing free and removable.

“Did you break that wire?”

He gave her a funny look. “I disconnected the ground wire.”

“It’s not broken?”

He laughed. One look at Jerry convinced him it wasn’t a joke. “You two don’t have the faintest idea what you’re doing, do you?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Not a bit.”

The last was from Jerry who earned himself a glare from his boss.

“I’ll go feed the horses,” he said and beat a quick retreat.

“What was he doing?”

“We dropped a nut inside while we were putting it back together.”

Staring at the exposed pump, he grunted and nodded. “We?”

“Okay, okay.
I
dropped the nut.”

“I knew that.”

“You didn’t know that. You guessed.”

He swung his head around to look at her. “No. I knew. Because no man worth his salt would drop his nut.”

It took a moment but she did laugh. “Cut it out. And while you’re here, can you put it back together?”

“Why did you take it apart?”

“There was fuel in the water.”

He glanced at the wire snaking toward the outlet in the wall. “You had electricity in the water?”

Laughing again, she gave him a playful shove. He grabbed her shirt and pulled her in for a deep, slow kiss. Moaning, she pulled his head back down when he broke the kiss. He did it again but traced a line down her jaw to her neck.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” she said
,
tipping her head back to give him more access. He took the hint.

“I’ve thought about you kissing me, hugging me.”

“Fucking me,” he said.

Her laugh choked off when he palmed her breast and massaged the nipple until it came to attention. “Yes, I’ve thought a lot about you…fucking me.”

This time he grabbed her ass and held her tight against him while he ground his erection into her. A horse snorted, another whinnied.

“Efrem. Efrem,” she repeated while pushing lightly at his shoulders. “Someone’s coming.”

He stepped back and put both hands on his knees. “It’s not me.”

She laughed again, took a deep breath, and greeted the two wranglers who sauntered through the barn toward their trucks parked outside. When she turned back, Efrem stood straight holding a nut in one hand. While he put it back where it belonged, she filled him in on the trouble with the water. While he tightened the bolts on the housing—after reconnecting the ground wire—she told him about the downed fences.

“You’ve discovered downed fences for the last week and now have gasoline poured into your water system.”

“I didn’t say gas was poured into the water…”

How else would gasoline get into a closed, electric water system?

“Hmm.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Hmm.”

“You think Dan did it? The fences and the water?”

“I don’t know who did it, or if anyone did anything. But it does seem convenient for you to start having problems you’ve never experienced before as he’s challenging your grandfather’s will.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“Not if I have anything to do with it. Come on.” He took her hand and headed for the house.

“Wait. Where are we going?”

“To finish what you started.”

Laughing, she shook her head. “Don’t you want dinner?”

He swung her around until she was in front of him. “I am hungry, but no steak will satisfy me right now.”

The tingles raced along her nerve endings. “Not even if it’s…raw?”

“That does it.” He took off again.

Her giggles were unsophisticated, but she was having too much fun to worry about it. “Just what did I start?”

“If you’re worried about me eating, ahem, consider the barn an appetizer.”

They were on the stairs heading for her bedroom. He hustled her up the last couple of steps, down the hall, and through her door. Before it clicked shut he stripped her pants down, pulled one leg out, placed her on the bed, and feasted.

* * * *

Her scent filled his nose while his tongue circled the tight bundle of nerves hidden between her labia. The entrance to her pussy was slick and smooth, and wet. He fingered her, sucked her, tongued her, ate her up. She squirmed and wiggled, moaned and sighed, then exploded with a deep, devastating orgasm.

He opened his jeans, pulled his cock out, and stuck it deep and hard inside her. He pushed her legs up and open so he could see where they joined, became one. Her flesh was wet and red, pulsing with pleasure. His dick was hard, an angry red, as it sought its home up by her womb. He jerked his hips
,
slapping her with his body. His nuts—the ones he never dropped—swung back and forth with the action of his hips. At one point he thought he felt her butt cheeks squeeze them as they swung forward. It drove him further into the void created by their lovemaking.

He pulled out abruptly. Lisa moaned and looked at him, then down to where his cock pulsed in the cool air. His gaze followed hers. The ridge around its head was purple with lust and desire. She reached out to touch him but he would have gone off like a kid if she made contact.

He flipped her over, pulled her up on her knees, and spread her open. His cock knew what it wanted and aimed straight for her. As it slipped inside, he was distracted by her anus. It quivered and clenched. He wet a finger with her juices and circled it playfully. He forgot to pump his hips while he played with his new toy. He pressed and let his finger slip inside just a tiny bit. Lisa went still. He stopped with the tip of his finger inside her ass. She gripped his finger with her anus and released. He groaned and slid his dick in, then out. Then he pushed his finger in a bit deeper, pulled it almost all the way out, but her anus grabbed him again.

In tandem, he pushed his finger and his dick in. He backed off, then pressed them both deep inside her. She whimpered and clenched every appendage of his she had control of. He shuddered. Both went in, both came out. He picked up speed, lost his rhythm, caught it again, and picked up more speed. His own climax was approaching. Distracted now by the pressure building in his lower body—and his heart—he relinquished his hold on her butt, grabbed her hips, and lost the rhythm again as he jerked with the force of his climax. Just before finishing, he stuck his still wet finger deep into her rectum, reached around her with the other hand and pressed hard on her clit. He felt the waves of her release with his dick and both hands. Breathing hard, he dropped onto the bed next to her. He was still almost completely dressed. Lisa’s ass still stuck in the air. Slowly, she tilted and collapsed on her side next to him. He wrapped an arm around her waist and held her close.