Orchard Flower (Version Bravo)

by Lubrican

Chapter : Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

Chapter Two

the night before had been rough, loud with the kind of lightning that comes so often and so bright that it penetrates even closed eyelids and you can't shut it out to go to sleep. Thunder shook the house and rattled the dishes. There were tornado watches going on all over the place.

That morning Paul had gotten up early and gone out in it, trying to assess how scattered the herd was. He was the tallest thing on the plains and the lightning killed both him and his horse. When he hadn't come back for breakfast, Lynne and Jill had gone looking for him. Jill finished riding her part of the search pattern and found her mother, sitting on the ground, holding her father's lifeless body and rocking as she sobbed.

Her mother wouldn't answer her. Jill was old enough and smart enough to know what her father's open, staring eyes meant, so she went to the only other person she could ask for help from.

Jill had taught me to ride when I took up boarding horses. I had never ridden in a driving rain and the slicker I was wearing was woefully inadequate at keeping me dry, but I didn't think about that. Jill had been crying so hard that she couldn't talk, except to say, "Daddy's dead," which almost incapacitated me. But I found the strength from somewhere to be the adult. I told her to lead me, and followed. Lynne was still there, in a puddle of water, holding her husband, beside a horse that was obviously dead too.

It took me twenty minutes - and Jill's help - to get her to let go of him. I was in good shape, and he wasn't a big man, so I was able to get his body up and over the saddle of my horse. I didn't have anything to fasten him on with, so I walked slowly, leading my horse and looking back most of the time. Jill walked beside her mother, holding her hand. Lynne had stopped crying, and was just plodding forward. We must have made a strange looking group ... three people leading three horses, only one of which had a burden to carry. I knew it would be useless to ask her if she was OK, so I just paid attention to keeping Paul's body on the horse.

I don't know how long it took us to get back to the house. It stopped raining, but the clouds were still thick and black, and I couldn't see the sun. I didn't wear a watch any more, because what time it was really didn't matter much. I worked until the work was done, and then went in the house to eat and read or whatever.

Then, when we finally got to the house, Lynne spoke coherently for the first time. Her voice sounded careful and strained.

"Take him in the house please," she said.

I didn't think that was a good idea, but wasn't willing to argue with her. She took Jill's hand and left the horses where they were.

Once inside, though, she went silent again. I didn't think putting his soaked body on their bed was the right thing to do, and besides, I didn't even know where their bedroom was. So I laid him out on the couch and closed his eyes. I hadn't seen all that many dead people in my life, but he didn't look anything like himself. He looked like a total stranger to me. I could see a bright red streak down the side of his neck, where the electricity had gone. His hat was missing and a circle of hair was burned away too. Without the rain beating down on me I could see that there was a hole in the leg of his jeans, where the lightning had burned through as it went from him into his horse.

Lynne was standing, facing half away from him as if frozen. Jill was trying to talk to her and kept darting glances at her father. I went to the phone first, and called 911, telling them what I thought had happened. I had to ask Jill what the address was and she took the phone from me. While she talked to the 911 operator, I tried to figure out what to do with Lynne.

"You're wet," I said softly. "You need to get dry clothes on."

"He's dead," she whispered, her voice broken."

"You'll get sick if you don't take care of yourself," I said.

"He kissed me goodbye this morning and now he's dead." Her dull voice broke and a wail of pain welled up out of her. All I could do was hold her as she sobbed and screamed.

Jill joined us, trying to hug her mother too, and crying again herself. I let her into the hug and we all just stood there. We were still standing there when I heard the siren and saw the flashing lights through a window. I tried to extricate myself from the tangle, but Lynne held on fiercely. Jill got loose and opened the door for the two paramedics and a deputy who was with them. Their examination of Paul was short. Apparently they'd seen it before.

They were very efficient then. After I told them who I was they tried to talk to Lynne. One of them talked on the radio and prepared a sedative that he shot into her arm. Then we carried her to the bedroom, led by Jill who showed us the way. The female paramedic shooed us out and closed the door.

I couldn't leave. Jill needed somebody there with her, particularly since her mother was going to be out for a while. The paramedic assumed I'd stay because he gave me instructions on what to do when Lynne woke up. He also gave me some pills I could give her if she woke up too soon.

I almost gave one of those pills to Jill, who had exhibited such amazing strength and control during the whole incident. Once the body was gone, and it was quiet in the house again though, she came unglued. Trying to talk to her didn't make any difference. She was shaking like a leaf, and I didn't know if it was emotional or environmental. We were both still soaked, and I felt chilled myself.

Fourteen seemed like such a young age to me, and Jill she had filled out in that healthy American girl way that clearly said there was plenty of woman in her. I couldn't just strip her down, but she wasn't responding well enough to take care of herself. So I took her to the bathroom and pushed her inside without closing the door. I instructed her to hand me her wet clothes, more to make sure they got off of her than because I was going to do anything with them. Then I told her to wrap a towel around her and get dry.

I told her to wait and went looking for her room. Finding clothes wasn't hard though I didn't think I should be choosing panties and a bra for her, so I just took her jeans and a T shirt. I was about to hand them back in when the door opened, and there she stood, naked.

She was bawling again, and seemed not to realize she was naked. I avoided looking at her by simply giving her a hug. That didn't work once I started getting the clothes on her. There was no way to avoid seeing her young, round breasts, with their small nipples. They were startlingly erect and surrounded by goose bumps. Her whole body was studded with goose bumps. I had to pull her jeans on, at first, and got my first look at a fourteen year old mons (I didn't see a girl naked until I was almost eighteen) which was sparsely covered with flat brown hair above tightly closed vulva.

Her sobs subsided to jerking gasps and sniffles and she helped me get the jeans over her hips, fastening them herself, as if she had just realized how much I'd seen of her. She was now in that place where almost no emotion showed, except hopelessness.

I found a towel and dried her hair as much as I could. There was a hair dryer on the counter and I used it to get her hair fully dry, brushing it with a brush that was also lying on the counter.

I didn't know what to do then. Food is comforting, so I took Jill to the kitchen with me and tried to distract her by asking where things were. I wasn't much of a cook, but I could do hamburger helper. It turned out they didn't have any hamburger helper, so I had to make do with meat and noodles, which I added spices to, hoping they were the right spices, and the right quantities of them. I also put in a couple of cans of tomato paste and a lot of cheese.

At one point I saw that Jill had sat down. She wasn't crying any more. Instead, she was just staring at me, blinking every once in a while.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"I know," she answered. "Me too." Her face scrunched up again and more tears started. I turned the heat down under the pan and went to hold her. I didn't know what to say, so I just started talking about losing Vicky. I ended up sitting down, and Jill ended up sitting on my lap with her head against my chest. When I finally stopped talking I realized she'd fallen into an exhausted sleep.

I was afraid to move, for fear of waking her up, so I just sat there and held her.

An hour and a half later I was stiff and sore when she woke up. She stood up, looked at me for a few seconds, and then left the room. I hadn't turned the heat down enough on the hamburger helper and the bottom was burned, about a quarter inch thick. I scraped the rest of it out of the pan into a bowl and tried some. It wasn't the best I ever had, by a long shot, but it was at least edible.

Jill came back.

"She's still sleeping."

"Good," I said.

She came over and snuggled into my arms, needing a physical bond with someone.

"I'm going to go lie down with her," she said.

"That's probably good too," I said softly. "Call me when she wakes up."

"You're going to stay?" She sounded surprised.

"Of course," I said.

She squeezed me, and then let go, leaving the room again.

I'll leave off with the excruciating detail at this point. Suffice it to say that Lynne woke up, and needed someone there. I stayed for three days, dealing with the funeral home for her and letting Jill teach me to cook food that didn't make them gag. I got the tractor out to drag the horse off to where Lynne wanted it buried. It had already been ravaged by coyotes, but the saddle and tack were salvageable. There was a lot more that happened, but it isn't vital to the telling of this tale. Not in detail anyway.

I looked in on them every day for long enough that it just became a habit. Lynne's sister came to visit from somewhere, and some other relatives were there for the funeral. Jill actually fled from them because they made her feel sadder than just dealing with things herself. Of course she came to my place to get away from them.

Lynne sold off the cattle and rented out the pasture to another rancher. Paul's life insurance, which they had only been able to afford to keep paying because his parents bought the policy for him when he was a baby, was more than enough to take care of the funeral expenses and gave them enough to fall back on for a while.

Lynne and I spent hours sharing our grief. It was good for both of us. Jill spent even more time shadowing me, and time passed.

A year later they hit a financial snag. Lynne mentioned it in the same casual way she might have said that there were two weeks left before apples would blossom. We knew each other pretty well by then. In many ways I knew both Lynne and Jill better, and was closer to them than I had been to Vicky, and it bothered me sometimes. I had loved Vicky, and what I felt for both Lynne and Jill was very different than what I'd felt for Vicky, but the closeness we did have was something I hadn't had time to make with Vicky.

For that reason I was completely comfortable around either of them, while feeling tense and anxious at the same time.

Part of that was because both Lynne and her daughter were handsome women. At fifteen there was nothing gawky about Jill any more. Lynne was a well built woman, and her daughter had inherited those physical characteristics. Plenty of exercise and good food had brought Jill's physical maturity on early.

Both women had the same brown hair that looked blond sometimes. Both women had freckles scattered from one high cheekbone across the bridge of the nose to the other cheek. Both women had slim, but muscled legs leading to wide hips below a narrow waist that flowed into firm, healthy breasts that nicely filled whatever they were wearing.

Of course Lynne had looked like that all along. It was impossible for a man to miss, and that was part of what made me so stumble tongued around her in the beginning. She was sunburned and windblown and still managed to make me stare whenever I was around her.

What it amounted to was that I was finally able to appreciate a woman for being a woman, without feeling like I was cheating on Vicky.

So, when Lynne mentioned that they'd have to tighten their belts I didn't feel like I was prying to ask a few questions. It turned out that there had been a bunch of repairs needed that she hadn't told me about. The water heater had rusted out, and the annual inspection of the furnace had revealed a crack in the combustion chamber. Then the truck had to have tires. It all hit her about the same time and in the space of just a few months she'd had to spend over three thousand dollars. That meant she'd had to dip into the money from Paul's insurance that had been set aside for Jill's college education and she wasn't happy about that. That fund had sat there, gathering a little interest, but tuition kept going up and she was worried that it wasn't going to be enough when the time came.

"How much do you need?" I asked.

She shot me a look. "You know better than to think I'm asking you for money," she said darkly.

"True," I said calmly. "So how much do you need?"

"I'm not asking for a loan either," she said impatiently. "We'll just have to go without some things for a while until I can pay her college fund back. There's some time left before she'll have to have it. It won't kill us, Bob."

I thought about it. If anybody deserved to go to college it was Jill. I had lots of money and didn't ever use it. But there was Lynne's sense of decorum to deal with. Where the idea came from I don't know, but I was glad it popped into my mind.

"I've always wanted to be part owner in an apple orchard," I said. "Of course apple orchards aren't all that common around here. You wouldn't know of anybody who might be interested in selling shares of one ... would you?"

She gave me a level stare, but I saw appreciation in her eyes.

"You don't have to do that," she said softly.

"I know. I happen to have the money and I'm not using it for anything."

"We don't make a profit on the apples," she said slowly. "We break even for the most part, or at least I've always thought that. To be honest I don't even keep good records on where the money from the sales of apples goes."

"Maybe that will change some day," I said. "If there ever is a profit, I'll take my share. Until then, it's just an investment."

She hugged me. I hadn't gotten a hug from a woman in a long, long time, and when those firm, warm, disturbing breasts pressed into my chest I felt guilty for reacting like a male. It was one of those quick hugs, though, and when she stepped back, smiling, I could see the relief on her face. It didn't help that my prick was still getting harder, and I wasn't proud of myself at all.

That was nothing, though, compared to what I felt when Jill put a hand on my arm and spun me around to hug me as well.

"You're so good to us," she said into my chest. "I'll have to make you double the pies from now on."

Pies were the last thing on my mind right then, though, because now it was Jill's hard, hot breasts pressing into my solar plexus. Her hair smelled so delicious. I hadn't smelled a woman's hair for a long time either.

I had to shove my butt backwards, to avoid letting my almost fully erect cock press against this fresh, young girl. The last thing she needed was some horny old goat ruining her innocence. I tried to concentrate on pies and cakes. I'd had to go on an exercise program already because of all those desserts, but right then I didn't care if I'd have to work even harder.

"I can live with that," I sighed.

Her arms squeezed me, and I realized her hug had lingered long past what her mother's quick thanks had been. Other than feeling like my butt must be sticking out a mile, though, I didn't care about that either.

Man! Her hair smelled so good!

Lynne took a couple of days to think about it and then asked for five thousand as a buy-in. I told her to give me a few days and called Phil and asked him to do some research for me. He needed some information, which I got from Jill. It turned out Lynne's parents, whether they knew it or not, had done a lot more than plant a bunch of trees. They'd improved the value of the land a great deal. Based on the age of the trees, and the estimated output, that eighty acre orchard was easily worth half a million dollars. I went back to her with my checkbook in hand.

"I want to buy forty percent," I said as I sat down at the kitchen table.

"I don't know how much that is," she said, frowning.

"I do," I said.

I wrote the check and handed it to her. She looked at it and blinked. It was a two, followed by five zeros and I watched her count those zeros twice. She looked at me and back at the check.

"This is too much," she said weakly.

"That's what my analyst says forty percent is worth," I said. "That's assuming output goes up a bit. You don't use pesticide or fertilize and according to Phil, that makes the apples eligible to be marketed as organically grown. He says you'll have to ship them further, but you'll be able to get more for them if you do."

"This is two hundred thousand dollars, Bob!" she panted.

"Forty percent," I said calmly.

"Do I have to have sex with you if I take this?" she asked weakly as she sat down.

My mouth dropped open and then snapped shut. My mind shot off in twelve directions at the same time. It was the last thing I'd expected her to say and I wasn't prepared to respond. I gulped and she must have heard it. She looked up at me and smiled weakly. "I was kidding," she said. She looked back at the check and then back at me. "At least I think I was."

"No!" I finally got out in a gasp. She blinked and I realized it had sounded awfully harsh. I tried to undo any damage, because the last thing I wanted to do was offend her. I should have just kept my mouth shut, because what came out was: "I mean I'd be an idiot to turn down an offer like that, but it's not part of the deal."

I sat down then, and put my head in my hands. "I know you didn't offer. That's not what I meant," I mumbled.

"Jill made a pie last night. Would you like some pie, Bob?" she asked.

I ventured a peek and saw she'd gotten up. The check was still lying on the table. She was opening a cupboard and getting down a plate. I saw the pie was Key lime with whipped cream on it as she put a huge piece onto a plate. Then she opened the freezer and got out ice cream to go with it. When she served it to me she picked up the check and left the room.

I think she was just giving me time to collect myself, because she stayed gone long enough that when she came back in I was just cleaning up the plate. She took it and put it in the sink and sat down across from me.

"Forty percent," she said firmly. "It's a deal. That's enough that I can buy some new equipment to pick with. If we hire some seasonal help - high school kids most likely - we can pick double or triple what I've picked in the past. I always picked what I could get rid of and left the rest to go back to nature. I won't do that from now on. And if you have time, you'll have to help harvest. Deal?"

All I could think about was that she hadn't mentioned the sex. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad about that. I decided it was all for the best if we just forgot my gaffe, and nodded.

"Thank you, Bob," she said softly. Her eyes looked liquid and I was afraid she was going to cry or something. If she did that I knew I would too and I already felt pretty foolish, so I stood up.

"OK!" I said a little too loudly. "Just let me know what I need to do whenever I need to do it."

I turned to leave and, as I went out the back door, I heard her voice say "Deal!"

I was weeding my carrots a few hours later when Jill showed up on Prancer, her horse. She got off, pulled me up to stand, put her arms around my neck and kissed me right on the lips.

Twice in the same day the Simmons women had left me flummoxed.

"Thank you," she said after she stopped kissing me. I tried to stop thinking about her firm warm breasts pressing against my chest, not to mention lips that tasted faintly like strawberries. My cock started moving in my pants again.

"You're welcome," I said weakly.

There's an old saying about getting back on the horse you rode in on and leaving. It's supposed to mean the person isn't welcome. As she got back on the horse she rode in on I thought of that saying.

I decided it's a pretty stupid saying.

A week later, I found a colt that was only two weeks old had been injured. It's leg had been torn open. It wasn't a valuable animal, but I was upset that any animal in my care had been hurt. I had a good relationship with the local vet and called him. He came out and pronounced that coyotes had done this thing.

"How do I get rid of them?" I asked.

"Poison," he said, "though that will kill a lot more than the coyotes. You can hunt them, or hire people to hunt. Some folks will do it for fun, but sometimes they get a little out of control. My recommendation is to hunt them yourself. You know where your animals are, and which direction to shoot or not shoot and all that kind of thing."

I didn't even own a gun.

Naturally I called Lynne to find out what to do. Paul must have had coyote problems with the cattle, after all. Jill answered. Her mother had gone to town, but she said she'd be right over.

If you own guns, this will seem silly to you, but for those of you who don't own one, particularly if you never have, imagine yourself standing in the sporting goods section of your local Wal-Mart, holding a rifle that feels like it weighs fifty pounds while you get a lecture about "varmint guns" from a sun-darkened fifteen-year-old girl wearing short shorts and a blouse that's tied off under her breasts.

"Weird" doesn't even come close to the feeling. Now add in holding ... almost fondling ... long, thin bullets that have a distinctly phallic appearance.

"You want something that shoots flat and hot," explained Jill, who had been shooting since she was six or seven. She showed me a bullet as if I could see how it would shoot. "That way you have both good knock-down power and the flat trajectory helps keep the bullet from going farther than you want it to."

I looked at the store clerk, who had his arms folded across his chest and was nodding. Why do your job when a teenage girl is going to do it for you? I might have glared at him. Holding a gun made me feel like I killed baby seals for sport. I pointed at another rifle behind him. It looked a lot smaller and easier to handle.

"What about that one?" I asked. He glanced at it, and then to Jill, pausing long enough to let her answer the question for him.

"That's a twenty-two," said Jill patiently. "You might be able to hit a coyote with one, but probably not, and even then it might not kill it. To get a good shot with that you'd have to get a lot closer, which is the hard part. I'm telling you, Bob, you want a two-twenty-three for this. With a scope, even a blind man could hit a coyote from three hundred yards, which is about as close as you can hope to come. They're not stupid, Bob. They know people are bad news."

I'd never felt like "bad news" before. It was a strange way to think of myself.

"So I just look through the scope thing and pull the trigger and the coyote dies?"

The man behind the counter rolled his eyes at Jill, who sighed. They seemed to be communicating without words.

"I'll teach you how to shoot," she said.

"So I guess I want this one," I said, holding the heavy rifle out to the man gingerly. "And a carton of bullets too I guess," I added.

Jill translated for me.

"We'll take the Savage Lo Pro with the one-to-seven rate of twist, and the Bushnell six-power scope with the firefly reticule. And we'll need five boxes of sixty-two grain ball for practice. Just one box of the fifty-five grain hollow point for when he's ready for the real deal."

"Got it," said the clerk. "Are you going to fill out the paperwork or is he?"

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