Paul Grimshaw - Uncle Ned

"Hmmm? Oh, nothing," Ken lied. "I was just admiring the beauty," he said, sweeping one arm in a wide arc. "Your uncle's a very lucky man. So much beautiful land. Unspoiled. Quiet… and beautiful."

"Like Barbara Ross?" Laurie asked, irritability now turned to jealous anger.

"Barbara?" the young ranch-hand asked questioningly, the mock surprise in his voice somehow ringing untrue even to his own ears.

"Yes, Barbara!" the beautiful teenager spat contemptuously. "You can't keep your eyes off her!"

"Jesus, Laurie. Don't act so childish."

"Childish! Childish!" Laurie shouted vehemently. "I suppose I was being childish in your cabin the other day. I suppose that now that you've taken what you wanted…"

"Sssssh," the handsome blond-haired hand said as he turned in his saddle and glanced toward the approaching figure of Will Ross. "Do you want Will to hear you?"

"I don't care if he does," the enticing young girl said, swishing her long, roan-red tresses in a contemptuous manner up and over her rigidly-held shoulders. "You're the one who taught me how to be a woman, remember? You're the one who told me I was a woman!"

"Well, you're sure as hell not acting like one," Ken hissed, challenging the defiance in her anger-sparked dark eyes. "You're acting like a spoiled brat."

There were several moments of silence between them then, several moments of will-infusing stares. Finally, the young ranch-hand and aspiring writer cleared his throat and said (forcing unaccustomed sternness into his voice): "Get on down the trail, Laurie. We'll talk about it later."

For a moment Laurie said nothing, then, straightening in her saddle until her back was ramrod stiff, her chin held high, she said: "Maybe we will, Mr. Chester. Maybe we will." Then, nudging her mount, Sniffy, gently with the toe of her boot, she guided him toward the twisting, descending trail. "Just remember," she called back without turning, "two can play your little game."

Ken sat motionless on his mount, watching the stiffbacked departure of the girl whose virginity he had taken only two days before, and wondered how he let himself get embroiled in this situation. Didn't he have enough problems already without getting involved with his boss' fourteen year old niece? And a minor to boot! If it hadn't been for his damn loneliness… for the tequila that always made him… Oh, well, it was over and done with. He HAD taken her cherry… yet, she really was a luscious piece for one so young… but, but damnit! Everybody and his brother was finding out about it! First the ranch foreman, and now he was sure Barbara knew, and that probably meant Will would know… Shit! If Ned finds out, my ass is going to be mud!

"What's the matter, boy?" a deep voice, loud and quite close, suddenly asked.

"Huh?" Ken mumbled, startled out of his musings.

"Looks like you got woman troubles," the voice of Will Ross boomed amusingly from the trail.

"Me? Hell no, Will," Ken replied, trying to sound convincing. "I was just thinking about that stallion."

"Why you sittin' up here lookin' like you just lost your last friend then?" Will asked, his grey eyes twinkling with mirth.

"Oh… I was just waiting for you to catch up. Thought I'd take the pack animals for a spell, if you want."

The older man's element-weathered face split in a wide grin and he reached his hand up and tipped his sweat-stained gray cowboy hat back on his hand. "Sure, boy. Glad to be rid of them rheumy critters. 'Sides, I got no objection to gettin' a close-up of Miss Laurie's sweet little bouncin' ass. 'Nough to make the old blood boil, don't you think?"

"Yeah, sure," Ken answered vaguely as he accepted the lead rope of the pack animals.

"See you at the bottom," the weathered ranch owner said with a wry grin, then spurred his horse unceremoniously and hurried down the trail in pursuit of his best friend's niece.

Damn! I knew it! Ken thought as he urged his own mount and the equipment-laden pack animals slowly forward. Everybody knows it!

In the meantime, Laurie's hands fell slack on Sniffy's reins as she let him pick his own way among the steep trail's loose shale. Her mind was a boiling cauldron of remembered thoughts memories that spanned only a few short days but were so graphically etched on her memory that she doubted if she would ever forget them. It seemed hardly possible that it all could have begun such a short time ago… that it could have begun at all! Yet, it seemed like only yesterday that she had arrived at her uncle's ranch to begin a summer vacation of leisurely horseback rides and refreshing dips in the spring fed pool…

… But then she had met Ken, had submitted to him in the seclusion of his cabin, had felt her deflowering turn into pleasure-awakening fires of latent desire, had even relished in a second and depraved assault by her uncle's foreman while her lover watched. Then later, in retrospect, when she had finally admitted to herself that within her veins beat the fiery blood of wantonness, when she realized that there was no turning back from her sexual appetite, there was still amazement. Nevertheless, she had known that she would not shy from any excuse to steal away and meet her lover. Then had come her uncle's decision to recapture a runaway black stallion, and it had given her just such an excuse, an excuse to be with her lover – with Ken.

But now, everything was going wrong! All because of Barbara Ross. That slut! She had turned Ken's head with her sultry glances and open promises. Hadn't she seen it with her own eyes? Watched it all day on the trail? And Ken had fallen for it! Her lover! The man who had freed her from her juvenile self, helped her take the first big step toward becoming a mature female – a real woman! She could still taste the poignancy of his lips, still feel his throbbing hardness buried to the hilt up in her belly. Her whole being was filled, consumed with warmth, with love, with the wanting of him. But his eyes had spent all day devouring that slut Barbara! Damn her! Damn him! There had to be a way to make him see what she was. There had to be…

Behind Laurie, Will Ross tightened the pressure on his horses' reins, bringing the colt beneath him to a less dangerous pace as he closed the distance between the young girl and himself. He was close enough now that he could see her clearly without her being aware of him – unless she turned and looked back. Maintaining this pace, he followed her down the trail, his eyes glued to her youthfully developed body, its perfect proportion's, the large, firmly bouncing breasts that threatened to burst out of her blouse, the breath-taking contours of her hips, the wispy waist, and the sensually rounded little bottom that clung provocatively to her skin-tight jeans.

All morning long he had been observing her from a distance and fantasizing, but now, close-up, his lust-stimulated brain began to plan and scheme. If it was the last thing he ever did, he was going to slip it to that delicious morsel of sweet young meat.

For several years he had watched her blossoming, but what he had observed at the ranch last night and what he was observing now, told him that she was at last ripe for the plucking. But it must be planned carefully, for he wasn't prepared to take on the wrath of Ned Dow. It would have to be done carefully…

For a moment Will thought he would laugh out loud at the incredulity of the whole situation. All day his observations from the rear of the pack train had filled him with amusement and wonder. They were certainly an odd assortment of human beings, he mused. Like a circular maze of hungry mice he had once seen, each chasing the tail of another, round and round and round. And like those mice, they were all hungry sexually hungry, each chasing one another's tail; Ned hot for Barbara, Barbara and Laurie vying for Ken, Ken drooling over Barbara, and he, he Will Ross, a man old enough to be her father – and then some, lusting after Laurie. Hell, maybe even Ned wanted his own niece; who could tell? It was all mixed up. But I'll bet it won't be long before the fireworks begin. No siree! Not long at all, he thought as he followed Laurie out onto Coldwater Meadow…