Faded Cotton (Erotic Romance) (12 page)

In early stages of shock, the mare rolled
trying to relieve the pain, then staggered up to slam against the
stall wall in pain. Finally, stumbling, she crashed to the floor.
It was the last time she would lay down. She tried in vain to
regain her legs and flopped, nearly screaming in pain, blood still
pouring from her.

Too dangerous to step inside, Laurel watched
in horror as the mare thrashed, slamming against the stall walls
over and over. She was reduced to twitching and groaning, as she
died, blood pouring from her torn uterus. Tears streamed down
Laurel’s face as she watched in horror as Jilly took her last
breath. There hadn’t even been time for Laurel to get her
pistol.

The new foal’s first attempt at a nicker
brought Laurel’s eyes to Derrick. He was still standing in the
aisle-way, watching the events unfold. Derrick stood covered in
blood and soaked in sweat from holding the huge foal in his arms
the whole time. His muscles were quivering, tears in his eyes, the
wet foal resting against his straining body.

“Oh God, the baby.” Laurel spun around and
went to a nearby stall that was clean, and prepared for
foaling.

Derrick followed her, straining to walk, his
arms, legs, and back tired. Sweat pouring from him, he walked into
the stall and slid down the wall, foal in arms. The foal struggled
as they landed. Realizing his position, he slid gently from
underneath the baby. He stood, shaking out his arms.

Laurel had disappeared only to reappear with
clean, old towels to dry the foal. “Here, I’ve got phone calls to
make.” Her voice was dull, her face expressionless. “I’ve got to
milk that mare, too, if this baby is gonna live.” Derrick shuddered
at the thought of Laurel having to handle the dead mare.

By late morning, the vet had reassured Laurel
that she couldn’t have done anything differently or better than he
could have. Doc Ramsey had been all over the foal pronouncing him
“healthy as a horse” in an attempt to cheer Laurel up. The foal had
been aptly nicknamed “Big” and the little wobbly brown beast was
full of his own mother’s colostrum, nursed from a rubber lamb’s
nipple, attached to an old soda bottle.

Derrick had been amazed with each step the
new baby had taken. He didn’t leave the stall until the foal had
eaten and finally plopped down to rest.

Looking haggard from lack of sleep and the
loss of the mare, Laurel inhaled deeply. “Derrick, I can’t thank
you enough for stepping in to help me. I couldn’t have asked for
anything more from Ja--, anybody...” her voice trailed off and she
looked at the aisle floor. “The hard part isn’t over. It’s going be
a challenge to save the little,” she chuckled softly, “uh, big
guy.”

By mid-afternoon, sharing watch and feedings
between other chores, both were exhausted and sat in the aisle way,
leaning against a stall. An extra tall trailer rattled into the
drive.

Derrick looked at Laurel, eyebrows
raised.

“Wet nurse.”

The steps into the barn were accompanied by
gentle nickers, “Laurel, I brought you Betty Jean.”

“Did you?” She grinned at the name.

“Yeah, she’s low to the ground and a good
milker.”

Ty Laird had the area’s largest supply of
nurse mares. Mostly Clydesdale and draft horse mixes. Off the
trailer stepped a sweet-faced bay mare with long white socks but no
blaze on her face.

“Thank you for coming so fast, Ty. This baby
is huge and we got colostrum in him, but he needs a mama.” Ty
assured her that the unusually short, but stout, Clyde would work.
She seemed to love all of her adopted children.

Ty tried to get Laurel to laugh. “Or, you
could always try a goat.”

“I hate goats.” She said flatly, and they all
three shared a laugh. Ty had watched her get head-butted hard by a
goat when they were on a high school agriculture field trip.

Away from Jilly’s stall, they placed the mare
with the laid-back attitude, and worked to introduce the foal to
her, smearing her udder with the dead mare’s milk. Big reached the
mare easily and it was love at first nicker for the odd pair. Had
it not been for, his refined head and the absence of long
feathering hairs on the back of the colt’s legs, Big might have
been mistaken as actually being the nurse mare’s foal.

When evening finally came, a neighbor arrived
with a backhoe to bury the dead mare. Laurel stared in anguish,
watching Derrick and the other man open up the barn to drag the
mare’s limp body to her final resting place. Derrick had designated
a place well away from the house. As the backhoe went to the task
of digging the deep grave, he went to check on Laurel.

She sat on the deck, not enjoying the breeze
that brought the drone of the backhoe to the house. Laurel was numb
from the pain of losing Jilly and the lack of sleep. Derrick
trotted up to the house in a tired lumber. He pulled up a chair
facing hers. He looked at her with sorry eyes, not knowing what to
do or say. Piercing the silence with its somber roar, the backhoe
droned on, laboring in the heavy dirt. Laurel began to cry, and
then sob uncontrollably. He pulled her into his arms.

They sat, knee between knees in sad embrace,
Laurel’s tears mixing with the sweat, blood, and dirt on Derrick’s
arm. Neither had the strength to care. Her sobs eventually quieted,
he held her gently, and the noise of the backhoe came to the
forefront as it finished its dreary task.

__________________________

Darra Thomas came that evening with her
daughter, Ellie, to spell the two. Ellie made a pot of coffee in
the tack room, sharing duties with her mother, taking turns on
watch. The women kept a knowledgeable eye on Big and his new mom.
They finally gave up trying to switch off. As soft giggles filled
the air, they caught up on life as only a mother and daughter
could.

With nothing else to do, they talked the
night away offering constant background noise for the barn until
the nurse-mare came up behind them, at the front of the stall,
snorted, and shook her head. Her little watch was snoring softly in
the fresh straw and that was the nurse-mare’s signal to the two
women to pipe down.

Realizing they had just been given “what for”
by a horse, they burst into stifled laughter. Darra covering her
mouth with one hand and Ellie with two. Speaking softly though the
rest of the night, they drank coffee and attended to barn chores
with plenty of girl talk in between.

Ty came back about six the next morning to
relieve them and check on the newly paired mare and foal. Derrick
was already up working over the ruined foaling stall, ridding it of
the blood-soaked bedding, sanitizing, doing whatever he could to
rid it of the previous night’s horrific ordeal.

Repairs would come later in the day when a
hammer wouldn’t wake Laurel. Sleep be damned for him, he wasn’t
going to let this woman endure anything else right now. She’d done
nothing to deserve the pain and nothing to deserve dealing with him
being an ass. His shoulders slumped at the thought and he decided,
from that moment on, to show her the real Derrick. She deserved
him
.

__________________________

May turned into June. The hay field that
Laurel loved to watch so much from the kitchen was topping out. The
orchard grass and timothy were thick, moving in undulating waves on
the breeze in gentle hues of green with hints of blue. It was a
Thursday morning when Laurel told Derrick that the hay crew would
be there that evening to cut.

“Derrick...," she dropped off in thought,
“these boys are not used to anyone who is different, in any way,
from them.

“I’m betting that one of them will say
something we won’t like. They usually do.” She studied his
reaction. He winced a little, but remained quiet. Laurel knew they
could be a challenge of character for anyone; the Smythe boys and
crew were rough, crude, belligerent, and—racist.

That afternoon, Gerald Smythe and his crew
arrived, big black diesel pickups rattling, with custom trailers
hauling big new tractors, a haybine, mowers, rakes, and bailers.
The mowers, having massive span, had sides that folded in.

Gerry wasn’t the most congenial person. He
chewed while he worked, and his leathery face sported lips always
stained with tobacco juice. Gerry and his crew ran a streamlined
custom hay operation that could make short work of the largest hay
field.

“Cut it, boys!” He swooped the air in a
circle with his hand. Two tall young men she knew to be around
Derrick’s age were already unloading the machinery. When Gerry saw
Laurel step off the porch and head toward him in the drive, he
grinned.
She’s a sight for sore eyes.

Laurel watched Smythe’s face change. He
scowled when he saw Derrick, “What the hell is this?” He spat out a
wad of thick brown juice on the ground.

“You mean
who
is this?” Laurel
retorted with a disgusted tone.

“This is Derrick Jones.” Derrick nodded to
Gerry from his position on the porch.

He turned, “Watch yourself, Laurel.” His
bow-legged saunter took him toward his equipment.

She shook her head, waved off Derrick, and
took off after Gerry, prairie skirt billowing in the breeze.
Derrick watched her carefully.

Derrick had grown protective of Laurel. He
wasn’t sure why, but he wasn’t going to let some drooling redneck
get handsy with her or push her around, he knew that much. He
stared intently at the man she was giving hell to.

Derrick’s big stride had taken about two
steps to reach the porch swing. He saw Gerry Smythe looking over
Laurel’s shoulder and motioning toward the porch. Derrick stood his
full height, squared his shoulders, and walked to the edge. Leaning
on a post, he propped his left leg over the rail, tilted his dusty
cap back, and pulled out his knife to clean his nails. It was a
show of bravado as much as a necessity.

The knife and cap had been gifts from Laurel
after a rare day of shopping that Derrick had tolerated easily.
They’d shared a quiet laugh when she’d stood on tiptoes to put a
flat-billed hat on him sideways and he’d removed it to replace it
with his rolled bill hat from the feed store, squaring it over his
brow. The exchange fueled a bond of trust and understanding. She
told him of the knife, “Every man should have one.”

There was something about her that stirred
Derrick, and he couldn’t quite place it. She was much older, but
the difference seemed lost between them. Laurel was naturally
beautiful in the jeans, t-shirt, and ponytail, which she felt at
home in. She felt so right—at least he imagined she would feel so
right against him.

Getting on very well, they had worked every
day side-by-side, laughing at each other’s jokes, bouncing off each
other when they didn’t have a good day. The give and take had
become comfortable—easy. At least until he would catch her bent
over in the barn aisle, then he’d have to excuse himself to calm
down. That problem was showing up more frequently.

He’d analyzed the hell out of it. Was he just
hot and bothered in general, or was it her that he truly desired?
Each time he’d come back to just wanting her. Not wanting to break
her confidence, he wasn’t going to act on it until the time was
right. He’d be a gentleman if it killed him in the process.

“Gerry, you’ll keep your boys in hand, or so
help me, I’ll find someone else to bale my hay.” Laurel warned
Smythe.

“What, Laurel, is he more to you than a hired
hand?” He smacked snidely.

Quietly, removing her hands from her hips,
she said, “He’s just a man who needed a different place to be. You
know about that Gerry, or have you forgotten?”

Gerry’s had been a similar story when they
were in high school. He was the son of a woman with a dark past,
and he’d been in a lot of trouble before moving to Summerville.

It was a town you didn’t move into easily.
Taking him at face value, Laurel had been one of his best friends
in high school, at least until he’d tried to kiss her one night
after a football game. She’d resisted his advances, and it burned
him. He’d never forgiven her and was still jealous of any man that
could get her attention. Gerry had eventually married old money. If
he hadn’t, Laurel figured with his attitude, he’d still be standing
on the outside looking in.

Gerry had turned away from her to unchain
equipment.

“Yeah,” she said looking back over her
shoulder as she walked back toward the house, “…he is more to me
than a hired hand, and he’s more of a gentleman that you will ever
be.”

He didn’t look at her, but was loud so she
could hear him. “We’ll have you done and in the barn by the end of
the weekend, Laurel. That is, as long as you keep
him
away
from things.”

Laurel tossed her hands in the air signaling
surrender. She was disgusted.
Some never learn.
She trotted
back toward the porch to stop Derrick from advancing. “Let’s go out
for dinner.”

“Why?” Derrick growled. “What did he say to
you?”

Laurel noticed his hands balled into fists
and his jaw clinched. She glanced over her shoulder, then back. “It
doesn’t matter—I was planning on going out anyway.”

She caught him by the arm as he started past
her.

“Derrick, please. Don’t. For me? Look, there
are times when you need to avoid trouble instead of walking right
into it. You wouldn’t walk into quicksand if you knew it was there,
would you?” He stared at her for a moment, and she could see the
inferno behind his eyes begin to cool.

__________________________

They hit the highway as she turned right and
took the on-ramp to head west. He looked at her with raised brows.
“I want to show you a few things,” she said.

Derrick had noticed she looked a little
different that evening. Her lips looked a little fuller, her eyes
sparkled their hazel green a little brighter from under thick, dark
lashes. Her high cheekbones were accented with a hint of blush and
her usual flyaway ponytail had been replaced with gentle waves.
Silver crosses dangled from tender lobes.