Calamity Gene

Chapter 4

She sorted through her bras, pulled out the one in matching pink lace, and looked at her boobs doubtfully.

Her boobs had been bounced every which way on that horse yesterday, and she didn't think the pink lace bra was going to do anything to keep the bounce in check during a full day in the saddle. The only solution that occurred to her was to don two bras—which was perhaps not all that sexy. But if she made the second bra the one in the darker pink satin that offered a little stronger support...? Might it not look like a style, should they get to whatever base it was that involved breast action? Especially if, say, she wore her hot pink Western shirt, with the matching kerchief knotted with insouciance around her neck. Couldn't she—and he!—regard it in the light of deliberate color coding?

It seemed reasonable, so Gene went for it.

She examined a profile view of her clothed self in the mirror. The two bras gave her a flatter-than-usual appearance. Le sigh. There really was nothing to be done about that; she was going to need her breasts for longer than this fling would last so protecting their pertness was paramount. On the bright side, when Trace finally unwrapped her he'd get a nice surprise to find them more apple than pancake—a thought that put a spring in her step as she headed to the lodge for breakfast.

The spring was still there after breakfast, despite the absence of her quarry at any of the tables, because the countdown to seeing Trace was now well and truly on.

At least it would have been on if she hadn't had to stop her cabin en route to the barn to collect the hat and gloves she'd forgotten earlier in her pink-thinking haze. Problem was, that delay meant that by the time Gene and Llew rocked up to Horselandia, the other dudes were already tacking up—and they were all dauntingly, scarily good at it.

YouTube, Gene reminded herself. She'd picked up some good tips last night, and if she got started quickly any tiny mistakes could be corrected before Trace appeared.

She looked around trying to identify the replacement horse Emmett had chosen for her, but the only newbie horse she could see had already been claimed by Jim V—who didn't deserve a new one after spending the whole of yesterday's ride calling his poor horse 'buzzard-bait.'

"Llew, look," she said, as the implication sank in. "There's your horse," she said, pointing. "Julie, Rina, the others—they're all saddled up and out of the corral. There's a horse for everyone except me. I..." She stopped, swallowed hard. "I must have been really bad yesterday, because I don't think they're giving me a horse today."

Llew's eyes narrowed as he looked from horse to horse. "If they can find a new horse for that dickwad Jim V, they can find one for you. They can give you his cast-off—Pepper, or whatever its name is. You'll get a horse or I'll be demanding to know why."

Gene cringed. She didn't want to have to demand a horse. She'd didn't want to be a Jim V-style pain in anyone's ass. Didn't want to start today with a scene.

"It's okay," she assured Llew. "I could do with a rest, actually. My backside's sore from all that bouncing yesterday. And...and I'm chafed, too, because the inside seam of my jeans rubbed so hard." She forced out a laugh. "Now that's one thing that will get me to open my thighs—aloe vera. So I guess... I guess I'll read today. I brought a few books with me. Literary ones. I made a start on one on the plane. Crime and Punishment. It's...good."

Llew turned her to face him, hands on her shoulders. "One," he said, very talk-to-the-crazy-person. "You will get a horse. Two—you're babbling. Three—we both know your inner thighs are interested in more than aloe vera. And four—are you talking about Dostoyevsky or a romance involving BSDM?"