Conviction Read online

  “Looks can be deceiving, and, just because I’m a great mom to two kids, doesn’t mean it’ll be that way for three. The days of not sleeping through the night and changing eight million diapers are long past. I am not going back and doing that all over again. That part of my life is over. Finito.” She raised her glass again. “Which is why I am indulging in all these glasses of wine. Oh, and another thing—you can’t tell Nigel.”

  The whole time I’d been nodding along, prepared to support her in whatever decision she came to. But I frowned when she said that about Nigel.

  “Really?” I asked. “You’re going to keep it from him?”

  “I have to, Wren. And I know it makes me sound like a cold heartless bitch, but you don’t know the man the way I do and though Nigel will tell you he’s pro-choice and he’s even donated money to Planned Parenthood before, if it’s his child, well . . . it’s different, then. It’ll turn into this huge awful argument and then he’ll try to stall me or something until it’s too late. Or, I tell him, and tell him in no uncertain terms that there’s not a fucking thing he can do about it, and he gets his heart broken. I know it sounds dramatic, but that’s really how he’s going to take it.”

  “But don’t you think—”

  “No.” She shook her head firmly. “I know. And do you know how? Because Annabel was not planned. She was an oops and I wanted to go ahead and get an abortion then because I didn’t want to start having kids until . . . well, until about now. I always figured I’d be in my early to mid-thirties. But then shit happens, as they say, and I let Nigel talk me into keep it. And yes, of course I’m glad I did and I can’t for a second imagine my life without Annabel. But the fact remains that I let him talk me into something that I still feel regret about. And you’re about the only person I could ever admit this to; anyone else I tried to talk to about it would just get stuck on the fact that it sounded like I regret my children, which I don’t. It’s two different things. But that is why I am not going to tell Nigel.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That makes sense. And I’m here to support you however you want me to. I won’t say a word to him.”

  “She should tell him,” Ollie said. I’d waited until the next day to tell him. We’d finished with my riding lesson and were sitting on lounge chairs underneath a box elder tree, drinking lemonade. The tone of his voice made me look at him in surprise. He clearly felt rather strongly about it, when I had just been expecting to have him listen and tell me, at most, that whatever Allison decided would be the best.

  “Really?” I said. “Even though he’s probably going to insist she keeps it? Wait a second—you’re not pro-life, are you?” That had never occurred to me before, though maybe it should have.

  “Is it a problem if I am?” he asked mildly.

  “No.”

  “That wasn’t very convincing.”

  “Well, I am a firm believer that everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, except when those opinions happen to infringe on the rights of others. And it seems more men than women are pro-life—at least the ones I’ve encountered—which, if you ask me, is kind of fucked up.”

  “Well, I’m not,” he said. “I do happen to think that it’s not any of my business—unless it is.”

  “I don’t see how Allison’s pregnancy could be any of your business. It’s not even my business, really.”

  “I know,” he said, “but I’m not talking about Allison. I’m just saying, no, I don’t think that a guy should be able to choose whether or not a woman is able to get an abortion. But at the same time, the guy in question does have a right to know. So, I think she should tell Nigel. It’s not really fair to him if she just goes and does it.”

  There was something in his voice that told me he was speaking from personal experience. “Did that happen to you?”

  He paused but the nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “With Carolyn. It was kind of different, though, because by the time she found out, I was already in prison. And then she tried to come see me, but I didn’t see anyone while I was inside; I refused to. So, she would have told me if she could have. I guess that whole thing was really my fault.” He took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. “We only slept together that one time, but I guess that’s all it takes.”

  “Do you think she would have done things differently, if she’d been able to tell you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We didn’t really talk about it. Well, she ripped me a new asshole over it, but I deserved that. I didn’t do things right with her at all. Not breaking up with her properly, not seeing her all those times she came down and tried to see me.” He gave me a little smile. “It’s not going to be that way with you, though. I want to do things right.”

  “So far, so good.”

  We finished the rest of our lemonade and he asked if I wanted to go for a little walk before I left. Just being around him made me happy, and I said yes. We walked down past the barn, where Ryan was just heading out with a group of riders. He looked our way but didn’t acknowledge us. We started walking along the fence line of the main pasture when I heard someone begin to shout.

  I turned, thinking that something had happened with one of the people in Ryan’s group. That’s where I looked first, but they were all there, sitting atop their horses, looking at something. The woman shouted again.

  “That horse just escaped!” she yelled, pointing.

  Ollie’s head jerked in the direction, right in time to see Ditto careen past us at breakneck speed, nearly running into a guy and his young son.

  “Shit,” Ollie said, and he took off. For a second, I thought he was going to try to run after Ditto on foot, which would have been foolish, but he instead ran over to the barn, where one of the other employees was halfway through getting a horse ready for a ride. The horse wasn’t saddled or wearing a bridle, just a halter and a leadrope, but, after grabbing a coil of rope by the barn door, Ollie somehow got up on there and took off.

  We could see Ditto running, as though he realized he was free of any gates or corrals trapping him in. He was getting further and further away, but then there was Ollie, catching up to him. A crowd of people had gathered, and we all stood there watching, wondering what was going to happen, though part of me knew exactly what was going to happen: he’d lasso the horse, we’d all clap and cheer, and he’d put him in the corral, where he was supposed to be.

  I could see that Ollie was swinging the rope above his head, and in a second or two he’d let it go and it would fall around Ditto’s neck, chase over. All of a sudden, though, Ditto veered sharply to right, as if he knew the rope was coming for him. A few people gasped.

  “Something happened,” one of the guys next to me said.

  How did he know? They were too far away for me to be able to tell anything, but then it seemed like he was right; Ditto was still running, but not in that smooth, fluid way he’d been just a few seconds ago. He was running parallel to us now, not away from us, and though my eyes were seeing it, my brain couldn’t quite seem to compute what was happening.

  “Oh my god,” someone said, and someone else let out a cry.

  Ditto, it seemed, was running on three legs. His right foreleg had snapped and the lower half was dangling grotesquely, hanging on it seemed, by a thread. And then Ollie was right there behind Ditto, and this time he managed to lasso him. He jumped off the back of his horse and I started to run toward them, even though I knew there was nothing I’d be able to do.

  By the time I reached them, Ollie had gotten Ditto onto the ground, his knee pinned on the horse’s neck, holding him there. As I got closer, my stomach turned, but I couldn’t look away. I could see bone and blood, and what looked to be tendons or ligaments, shredded, the lower part of his leg bent away the rest of his leg at an almost ninety-degree angle.

  “You need to go get Garrett,” Ollie said. “And tell him to bring his shotgun.”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling tears well up in my eyes. Ditto lay there, his own eyes wide with fear and pain,
and I could see the sheer amount of agony he was in. I turned and ran as fast as I could, but someone had already gotten Garrett and he must’ve known it would be bad, because he had his rifle.

  He took one look at Ditto’s leg and nodded grimly. I looked back to where the crowd of people were, and I could see Marie and a few of the other ranch hands dispersing the crowd.

  “You might want to go with them,” Garrett said. “I don’t know if you want to see this.”

  I didn’t want to see it either, but even if I looked away, I’d still be able to hear it. I’d heard rifles go off before, but never so close, and my heart flew into my throat when Garrett fired the shot. Tears welled up in my eyes but I blinked them back. Ollie rose slowly, a blank expression on his face. They both stood there for a long time without saying anything. I knew I should probably walk away, but I couldn’t move. My feet felt rooted to the ground.

  “What in hell happened?” Garrett finally said, anger in his voice like nothing I’d ever heard before.

  “I don’t know,” Ollie said. “He got out.”

  Garrett’s eyes blazed. “That much I can see. The whole damn ranch saw that.”

  Ollie looked completely stricken. He started to say something but Garrett cut him off. “I’ve got to go get the tractor and dig a hole. You go get a tarp from the barn and cover this up.” He turned briskly and walked away.

  “Ollie,” I said.

  He shook his head, not meeting my eye. “I’ve got to go get that tarp,” he said. He walked toward the barn, and I knew not to hurry to catch up with him, I knew that what he needed right now was just to be left alone.

  20.

  Ollie

  The dreams that had all but stopped were suddenly back with a force. Except now there was another element added to it, that image of Ditto, his cannon snapped, though in my dreams, all four of his legs were broken, yet he was somehow running on mangled stumps. We were on a beach, except the beach was covered in jagged rocks, and the ground moved, like a treadmill, so it didn’t matter how fast the horse ran, he never got anywhere and just decimated his legs even more.

  All I could do was stand there, trapped amongst the rocks, watching the horse run even though I myself was unable to move, unable to look away, unable to do anything except stand there and know that this whole thing was happening because of me.

  Sleeping became almost too much to bear. I drank copious amounts of coffee and felt wired, my mind sharp, my thoughts careening through my skull at breakneck speed. Wren was a welcome distraction, but I no longer found myself looking forward to sex and then drifting off to sleep together, because the dreams would find me there, too.

  Wren had come over after I’d finished with evening chores, bringing her laptop so we could watch a movie. I thought that might be a good distraction, and it was, but then the movie ended.

  “Should I get going?” she asked.

  “No, you don’t have to. I don’t want you to leave yet.”

  I got up and stretched, went over to the kitchen and got a glass of water.

  “How are you doing?” she asked, watching me. “I mean, with the whole thing with Ditto and everything . . . .”

  “I still feel awful about it. The whole thing is stressing me out. I know Garrett’s pissed. And he has every right to be.”

  She pushed herself up off the couch and came over to me. “It was awful,” she said. “For everyone. You, too.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but I deserve to feel like shit over this. I don’t deserve someone trying to make it better.”

  “You know what you need?” she said, reaching for me. “You need a good fuck. You do deserve that. And I think maybe I can help you in that department.”

  She pushed me back onto the couch, but instead of getting next to me, she stood in front of me and started to gyrate her hips a little. She pulled her shirt off over her head and swung it around on a fingertip before letting it fly across the room. She continued to move, dancing to some song in her head. I let myself fall back into the couch cushions and watch her as she shimmied that hot little ass of hers from her jeans, kicking them to the side. She was well muscled but slender, and those tits of hers were high and firm. She unhooked her bra, let the straps fall forward, and then she danced around a little before letting the bra fall to the floor. I felt my dick starting to get harder. She slid her underwear down her legs and stood there in front of me, not shy at all. Not that she should be—she was perfectly gorgeous, from her head to her toes.

  “Come here,” I said.

  She slinked over and then knelt down in front of me, unbuttoning my jeans, sliding them off. I pulled my shirt off and tossed it to the side.

  “Lie down,” she said.

  I stretched out on the couch, expecting her to get on top of me again, like she had before. Instead, though, she turned away from me and then got onto the couch, sliding back so her face was right above my cock, her pussy right above my face. I grabbed her ass cheeks and squeezed, felt her start running the tip of her tongue on me.

  I’d gone down on Carolyn exactly once, but not because I didn’t want to. She’d been squeamish about it and, I think, a little embarrassed. Not Wren, though. She spread her legs further apart and moved her hips over my face, while she bobbed her head up and down on my dick. I was glad she was on top; I enjoyed the feeling of being trapped underneath her.

  I licked her slowly, running my tongue over her clit and then down to her pussy, then back up again, over and over. She groaned, the back of her throat vibrating against the head of my dick, and I groaned too. I used the tip of my tongue and traced circles around her clit, slid my index and middle finger into her, worked them around, felt how wet she was. Her mouth was silky velvet and it felt like she had me halfway down her throat. She squeezed my balls, pulling them down gently, taking the edge off just a little.

  And then, just like that, she stopped.

  “Sit up now,” she said, sliding off of me. I sat up, my whole body buzzing, my head feeling like it was stuffed with cotton. I leaned back against the couch cushions and she sat on my lap, facing away, so I could run my fingers down her spine, watch the way she arched her back. My cock slid in easily, and I clenched my jaw, squeezed her hips, tried to get her to hold still for a minute so I could acclimate. I wanted to draw this out for as long as possible, and if she started bouncing up and down right now, it would be over in a few seconds.

  I took long, deep breaths, slowly relaxed my jaw, loosened my grip on her hips a little, and guided her movements. She went slowly, swiveling her hips, circles, serpentines, figure 8’s. Damn, she was good. The sensations rolled over me like waves, one after the other, each one a little more intense, a little better feeling, than the previous one.

  I could tell by the sounds she was making she was about to come, could feel the way her muscles contracted around my dick, and I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped her hips and thrust harder. It felt like all my senses were getting squeezed into the tiniest of fragments and then all of a sudden they exploded, and even though my eyes were closed a rainbow of fireworks bloomed across my vision. My lap felt like it was covered in warm fluid.

  My eyes flew open. “What’s that?” I asked.

  She was still rocking on me, but slower now, her breathing still ragged. “Oh, shit,” she said. “Don’t worry—it’s not pee. I swear, I didn’t just pee on you. It’s, um . . . happy juice?”

  I laughed. “Oh, is that what it is?”

  “Errr, yeah. That’s the first time that’s ever happened . . . that much of it, anyway. Do you have a towel?”

  “Yeah. Should be one you can grab in the bathroom. I’ll just hop in the shower, though.”

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “I was hoping you’d ask.”

  As we walked the short distance to the bathroom, I could hear the sound of distant laughter, and knew that there was another bonfire happening. It wasn’t mandatory that employees attend these things,
but I knew Garrett liked it when we did, and were able to mingle with the guests without having to be concerned with work. I felt a big yawn coming on though, as I adjusted the water temperature. I just couldn’t go out there right now, even after the sex, even after a shower. For the first time in a while, crawling into bed and falling asleep sounded downright appealing.

  Wren slipped into the shower behind me, and we took turns standing under the warm water. Then she grabbed the bar of soap and lathered herself up, had me get her back, my hands running easily over her slippery, slick skin. She turned so she was facing me and I soaped up her breasts, her belly, watched as the rivulets of water washed the suds away. My cock started to get hard again, and she stepped right against me, so the entire lengths of our bodies were touching. She turned so her back was against the side of the shower, the water flowing down on her right side, my left side. I took a wider stance and planted my feet, hoping the soap and water and slickness of the tile wouldn’t make me fall. She put her palm down on the soap ledge and used it for leverage so she could get first one leg, then the other, wrapped around my hips, and I reached around under ass, holding her up. She shifted around a little until the head of my cock was right there, though the water was washing away any of her own wetness, so for a second it almost felt as though our skin was sticking together. But then she thrust her hips forward and I slid in, and inside, where the water wasn’t, she was warm and wet and tight. She clenched those muscles of hers and raked her fingers down my back and bit my earlobe, and with the water cascading down on us, I just closed my eyes and felt like I was in heaven.

  Afterward, we got out, and she laughed and said now she felt like she needed a shower after her shower.

  “I’m just kidding,” she said. “I feel amazing. So amazing, in fact, all I want to do is crawl into you bed next to you and go to sleep for a very long time.”

  That was about all I wanted to do, too, but I wasn’t sure how Garrett would feel about it.

  “I’ll be up early to go into the restaurant,” she said. “I know you’ve got to be up early, too.”