Play It Safe

Chapter Twenty-Nine Green Acres

Three days later…

“Gray –”

“Ivey.”

“Gray!”

“Ivey.”

We were having our first fight. Our first fight ever.

Three days I was in Mustang living with Gray and we were fighting.

This sucked and it sucked mostly because Gray was being proud and stubborn and wouldn’t listen to me.

I learned a lot about Gray in the last three days mainly that I didn’t pay much attention to Gray in the two and a half months I had him before. I was so engrossed in starting my new life I didn’t pay any mind to his.

And there was a reason he started his day at six thirty. In actuality, he got up at five thirty which was pure hell and totally insane. But he was so used to it “sleeping in” (which he did on Sunday) meant he rolled us (yes, I said us) out of bed at seven and this was after we made love.

And the reason Gray started his day so early was that, apparently, being a macho man rancher cowboy that had a huge amount of land, horses and peach trees was a lot of work.

For instance, the horses needed to be fed, watered and exercised and their stalls mucked out. This would be a lot, actually too much, for the twelve horses he had when I knew him seven years ago. But in an attempt to cover the loan which he got to cover Grandma Miriam’s stay in a swanky retirement home, he adopted more horses three years running.

Now he had twenty.

That was a lot of horses.

Mostly they just stood there blinking but they did require water and sustenance to survive and didn’t have the means to feed themselves and no one deserved to hang out in a space covered in excrement so they also required a lot of work.

And so did the land.

I would come to understand that peach trees didn’t just bear fruit you picked come peach season and a big old ranch couldn’t just sit there and look pretty. All of this took maintenance.

The grasses had to be mowed and this wasn’t just the patch of lawn around the house, this included the area by the lane running up to the house (which was a long way); the area by the road to Mustang (which was a long way); the area around the peach trees and outbuildings (which were big areas); then, of course, there was the patch of lawn around the house.

Then there were fences that needed to be run to make sure they were in good repair seeing as Jeb Sharp owned livestock and, although he had fences too, Gray told me, “Shit happens and it’s happened.” Gray didn’t want any of Jeb’s cattle on his land so both tended their own fences. Not to mention, Gray rode the land and inspected the trees often in order to exercise the horses, make sure there were no poachers or squatters and that the peach trees were doing whatever they had to do.

Then the outbuildings needed to be kept in good repair, so did the tractors and mowers.

Then you had to go into town and buy and haul back feed and hay for the horses, stuff for the trees, shit like that.

Some of this he told me, some of it I saw him do. Although it was a lot of work, one could not say that watching Gray on a horse or driving the ginormous tractor with the thingie on the back that cut grass, the back of his tee stained with sweat, a tattered baseball cap on his head and his tanned-brown arms glistening in the sun was not engrossing.

It was.

Very.

As I knew years ago I would never get used to his beauty I knew then I would never get tired of watching Gray work his land.

Ever.

That said, it was clearly a lot of work.

So much Gray worked part of the day Saturday but he took off Sunday then worked all day Monday from six thirty to quitting at five.

Flat out (except for lunch).

Ten hours.

Jeez.

Even before I knew this, we talked on Saturday morning as I’d broached the subject that I was there, unemployed and I could help. Unfortunately, I had suitcases and boxes full of designer clothes and high-heeled shoes and you couldn’t muck out a horse stall in Christian Louboutins. Or you could but you’d be an idiot. So I missed helping out on Saturday seeing as I didn’t have the proper gear. Though Gray did teach me how to feed and water the horses which wasn’t very taxing except you had to remember which horse was which since he had eight mares in foal and they needed different food than the others.

But you still couldn’t do it in high heels.

Therefore we took a trip to Hayes department store in town on Saturday afternoon so I could stock up on durable western wear. Then we moved onto a big, somewhat frightening and rickety tin building on the outskirts of Mustang so Gray could stock up on horse food.

Then Monday morning, wearing my new duds, I gamely followed Gray to the barn, mucked out one stall and decided it was definitely not for me. Serious visions of Green Acres except Gray was never an attorney who gave up the big city to force me into a life of torture on the farm.

Luckily, Gray thought this was funny and I knew this when he roared with laughter like I was hilarious before his gloved hand hooked me around the neck and he tugged me to him for a hard kiss which was still hard even though he laughed through it. Then he let me off the hook. His roar of laughter had some to do with me clearly not wishing to spend my days shoveling horseshit but it had more to do with me faking being taken over by the spirit of Eva Gabor.

So I went into the house, cleaned it, did laundry, unpacked the rest of my stuff and made sure he had a good lunch and dinner, activities which took most of the day.

Lash took over my cooking lessons so now I had a full repertoire though Lash didn’t make casseroles and I wasn’t sure how Gray would feel about me making lobster thermidor. But I could do a sandwich and I did, a big, grilled, delicious one at that. After lunch, Gray went out to do macho man rancher cowboy things and I did a quick inspection of the cupboards then took a not-so-quick trip into town to buy groceries and I made him my fabulous, homemade beef stroganoff for dinner.

Dirty plates still on the table and us sitting around it finishing our beers, Gray complimented me on the culinary strides I’d made since he last ate my food and then I decided we needed to get down to the nitty gritty of life.

So we started talking about money.

This was a bad idea. Very, very bad.

Not, surprisingly, when I told Gray that I was living with him and I wanted to kick in, not only finding something that didn’t involve horseshit to help out but also financially. I didn’t entirely wipe out my savings (though it was vastly depleted) and I had a healthy checking account so I wasn’t destitute. I could help and I could also find a job. Gray easily agreed to me being responsible for getting and paying for food and household items. I agreed he’d pay household bills. And the ranch account would pay for things for the ranch (like horse food).

That part was easy.

No, what got us into a sticky situation was Gray being honest about his finances in so far as telling me when he recently was looking to raise money to keep afloat, he sold four horses (that meant he’d had twenty-four!) but that was not what riled me.

He told me he also sold some furniture from the house and was looking to sell more.

Now that…

That semi-riled me.

And it got worse because somehow we veered from talking about him selling stuff in the house to his uncles and they…

Well, they would rile anyone.

It was just that they really riled me.

It went like this.

“You sold stuff from the house?”

That was me sounding horrified and mentally inventorying my memory of the place from seven years ago to see if I could figure out what might be missing.

“Yeah.”

That was Gray, nonchalant like everything in his house wasn’t a treasure which it was.

“Why did you do that?” I asked gently and his head tipped slightly to the side.

“Uh… because I was flat broke, losing my land and my Gran was being moved to a state-funded nursing home.”

These were all good reasons that in my horror at learning this news I didn’t consider.

But still.

“Gray, this house it’s like, like… a museum of Cody history,” I told him quietly and carefully.

“Ivey, this house was on the verge of not being Cody anything.”

Another good point.

Gray kept going.

“I had a foreclosure notice. I was goin’ down. If I sold the horses, all of them, I’d significantly decrease my ability to make money should I save the land. But it didn’t look like I was going to be able to save the land and I still needed money to survive, to eat, to put a roof over my head while I figured out what I was gonna do with the rest of my life so shit had to go. This place is full of junk. I sold three pieces, they made me seven grand. Three fuckin’ pieces and I got seven grand. And I never liked the look of ‘em anyway. Those pieces and those four horses, with you paying the loan current and beyond for a year and lookin’ after Gran, I’m liquid again. Money in the bank and I can build on our future. So, when you were back in Vegas, I had the guys at the auction house take a walk through and they think they can find private buyers for five more pieces.”

Oh dear Lord.

My eyes got big. “Five?”

“Yeah,” Gray replied, entirely unaffected about selling off Cody history. “And they think they can take other shit off my hands. They say the private sales could be fifteen or twenty K and if they auction the stuff they’re eyeballin’, I could get another three to five more.”

Oh God.

If he kept going, the house would be barren and not charming anymore.

On that thought, I muttered, “Maybe I should take that job with Janie.”

“No,” Gray returned firmly. “Maybe you should do what you said you were gonna do. Settle. Get used to a new life and take your time to land where you wanna land.”

“I liked working there,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, seven years ago before you became a Vegas showgirl then ended up the fake girlfriend of a millionaire,” he reminded me. “Ivey, honey, three days ago, you didn’t even own a pair of tennis shoes. Now you’re sayin’ you’re gonna shuffle drinks for below minimum wage and small town tips?”

Yet another good point which I was beginning to find annoying.

I decided to be calm, rational and slightly emotionally manipulative.

“Honey,” I said softly, “I like the house the way it is.”

“Baby,” Gray said softly back, “I’m glad but that shit’s gonna go and, trust me, you won’t miss it.”

There you go, emotional manipulation didn’t work with a cowboy.

“Do you need money that badly?” I asked cautiously.

“We’re good for awhile but there’s nothin’ more comin’ in until the crop comes in and those mares drop their foals and they can be sold, which is near to a year away. So, yeah. I sell seventeen thousand dollars worth of crap, no. I do that, we breathe easy.”

This was where the conversation veered to his uncles and yes, it was me who veered it that way.

And I did this by deciding, “Then you need to talk to your uncles.”

Gray sat back in his chair. “Say again?”

“You need money; they need to give it to you.”

“Ivey, that’s not gonna happen.”

“Why, because they’re assholes?”

“That and I wouldn’t take a dime from any of them.”

“Gray –”

“Seriously, Ivey, don’t go there.”

It seemed I was not treading as cautiously as I thought and it hit me then, this was really none of my business.

“You’re right. It’s none of my business. It’s your house, your land, your money. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

I said it in a conciliatory manner, clearly backing down but, again, it was the wrong thing to say and I knew it instantly when Gray’s eyes narrowed and the room filled with his pissed off vibe.

“My house, my land, my money?” he asked quietly but not his soft, sweet quietly. A different quietly. I ticked off quietly.

I didn’t get it.

“Well, yeah.”

“You sleep in this house?” he asked.

“Well, yeah,” I repeated.

“Go to the grocery store and come back home, a home that’s on this land?”

I saw where he was going.

“Yes, Gray, but –”

“Turn on the burner to the stove that’s gas, gas paid for by my money?”

I leaned toward him. “Gray –”

“You’re here, Ivey, you’re my girl, this is where you’re gonna stay. This is your home, your land, what’s mine is yours, all of it, including my money, what there is of it. You’re sittin’ at this table after eatin’ dinner here for the third night in a row but your ass should have been sittin’ right there every night for seven years. Unfortunately, that shit starts now and didn’t start then. You’ll find your way in Mustang whatever that way’s gonna be. You don’t wanna muck out stalls, you don’t have to. Like I said, you’ll find what suits you in Mustang but also here, in this house, on this land… with me.”

“Okay,” I said softly.

“Okay,” he replied, still ticked off and I partially got it because I should have been sitting at that table with him for seven years and I felt that loss as acutely as he did.

But I didn’t get all of it.

So, tentatively, I started to ask, “So, uh… what you’re saying is I have a place here –”

Gray, still pissed, cut me off, “Yeah. That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“I wasn’t done, honey.”

He stared at me.

Something new, Gray could get grouchy after a day of working hard as a rancher cowboy.

I tried again. “What I was saying is that you obviously want me to feel comfortable here… with you, so why can’t I go there with your uncles?”

It was then I could tell that I had a point this time and Gray, too, found it annoying.

“They should help protect their legacy,” I told him.

“It’s no longer their legacy. They carry the Cody name but they are not part of this land. They made that point sittin’ on their hands watching me drown. They drew that line. I’m not drownin’ anymore; they still stay to their side.”

“Right, I get that but what about Mrs. Cody?”

His brows drew together. “What?”

“Your Gran, Gray. How long has she been in that home?”

“Four and a half years.”

“Then, say you take responsibility for your share, which obviously you’d want to do, at three quarters of her home fees for as long as she’s been in there, they owe you two hundred and seventy K which means each one of them owes you ninety.”

“No they don’t.”

“Gray, yes they do.”

“They don’t have anything to do with that either,” Gray stated.

“How’s that?”

“They made that choice too.”

“Gray, they don’t get a choice with that. She’s their mother.”

“Yeah, a mother when I asked him to kick in that Frank reminded me about half a dozen times in the last four and a half years was a mother who held a grudge and didn’t speak to him since that shit went down after Dad died. His Mom ignored him for years, he didn’t feel like ponying up to keep her in a clean place she likes that has good food and staff who like to work there and the residents get the benefit of that. The other two agreed.”

“My point is still valid, he doesn’t get that choice.”

“Funny since he took it.”

Now I was getting mad.

“Sorry but them trying to horn in on your inheritance, land they hadn’t worked since they were eighteen, and Mrs. Cody being justifiably pissed about that is not grounds for them to turn their back on their mother in her final years,” I snapped.

“Ivey, honey, they don’t see it that way.”

“Well then someone has to make them see it that way and if you aren’t going to do it, that someone is going to be me.”

“Ivey –”

“No,” I shook my head, leaning in, now definitely mad, “no, Gray no. All my life I wanted two things, just two, a home and a family. They were fortunate to be born in a good one of both and they’ve shit on both and that is not right. That shit does not play. And I’m going to The Alibi and explaining these things.”

His ticked off vibe disintegrated and his face was near to tender when he said softly, “I get you, dollface, but you aren’t gonna get anywhere and I don’t want you to get anywhere. We’re solid. Fuck them.”

“No, they aren’t going to get away with that shit.”

“You’re not going there, Ivey.”

“I am, Gray.”

“You aren’t, Ivey.”

“I am, Gray!” I snapped. “They sat back and watched you drown. That is not cool in and of itself, family legacy or not, you’re just plain family and they should look out for you. But the fact is, you were drowning because you were taking care of their mother and that is absolutely, one hundred percent not right. They owe you ninety grand each and I’m gonna get it.”

“You won’t go to The Alibi because it’s a waste of time. I won’t take their money,” he returned.

“That’s okay because I will.”

His ticked off vibe came back before he said, “You won’t, Ivey. Shit’s fine now. I’m taken care of and so is Gran, you’ve seen to that. You’ve done enough. I don’t need them.”

“It’ll be a lot more fine when you have two hundred and seventy K in the bank. So fine, I bet you can use that money to pay off the note in full and get out from under that weight. And, by the way,” I added, “if, God willing, Mrs. Cody lives past her tenure that I paid for at that home, they’re doing their part then too.”

“They’re out of it.”

“It’s impossible to be out of it!” I cried. “They’re family.”

“Ivey, you are not goin’ to The Alibi.”

“I most certainly am.”

“You definitely are not.”

“Gray –”

“Ivey.”

“Gray!”

“Ivey.”

And there we were.

It must be said, I was Lash’s fake girlfriend for years and I never fought with him.

And I thought at that juncture Gray should know that.

“You know, I was Lash’s fake girlfriend for years and I never fought with him. Three days into living with you, we’re at it.”

Gray snapped his mouth shut, his jaw flexed, his eyes flashed then a muscle jumped in his cheek. Watching it I realized what I just said and that, even though Lash was gay, he’d had me for nearly the entire seven years Gray did not including four years of that in his bed.

And I knew Gray felt that, deeply.

Therefore, I was a total idiot.

Shit.

My mind was working through ways to make things right and/or apologize when Gray surged out of his seat, rounded the corner of the table and pulled me out of mine into his arms.

I was bracing, considering I thought this odd and had no clue where it was going when I felt his body shaking and I was tipping my head back to look up at him when he burst out laughing.

I blinked.

Still laughing, he dipped his chin and looked at me.

“Glad to hear you got on so well with your fake boyfriend.”

He wasn’t mad.

Still.

“That was a shit thing to say, Gray, and I shouldn’t have said it,” I said quietly.

“It true?” he asked.

“Well, yeah,” I answered.

“Were you pissed?”

“Well, uh… yeah.”

“Ivey, honey, I could let myself go down the path of envy about the time that guy had with you and let that shit fester in my gut until it becomes bitter and leaks out to you. Instead, I’ve decided to be pleased as fuck you found a decent man to look out for you when I wasn’t around to do it. You guys got along, way I see it, it’s like gettin’ along with your best girlfriend. I know he’s a guy and, lookin’ at him, first instinct is to stake my claim. But he’s not about that and I gotta learn that because with you comes him.”

Now I remembered why I loved Gray.

He wasn’t done.

“Furthermore, if you actually were fuckin’ him, you’d argue. No doubt about it. Since you’re fuckin’ me, dollface, get ready because we can’t have what we have in bed without some of that passion leaking out into life. You have opinions, I will too, they clash, we’ll battle our corners. Just as long as we go to bed in the same bed every night and eventually find a way to sort our shit, we’ll be good.”

“But, we didn’t fight before, Gray,” I whispered.

His face softened with understanding before his equally soft voice replied, “First, seven years ago, you were findin’ your way to you. Now you’ve found you. The badass showgirl is out.” He grinned and gave me a squeeze. “And second, we lucked out. You had so much other shit goin’ on, that took focus so we didn’t have anything to fight about. My uncles were assholes back then and if we didn’t see eye-to-eye about how to deal with them, I hope you were or eventually would be in a place to tell me what was on your mind even if I didn’t agree with it and it ended with us having words.”

Yeah, I remembered why I loved Gray.

“Okay,” I said softly and his face dipped closer, turning serious.

“You’re home, Ivey. You’re safe here to do what you want, eat what you want to eat, be who you wanna be and you’re safe with me. Always. To do all that, you gotta just be you and feel free to speak your mind.”

Yep, totally remembered why I loved Gray.

“So, are you cool with me going to The Alibi?” I asked.

He grinned and I got another squeeze.

But he answered, “No.”

I was relaxing into him but at his word, I tensed.

He kept talking.

“But I can’t tie you to the fencepost so you do what you gotta do. Now, I say that knowin’ that they are no way in hell gonna give you ninety K, not a one of them. So it’s a waste of your time but you don’t mind wastin’ it, it’s your time, not for me to say.”

“What if I get them to give me the money?” I asked.

“They won’t.”

“Do they have it?”

“Those miserly bastards?” he asked.

“Uh… yeah,” I answered uncertainly because I didn’t know if they were miserly or not.

“They have it.”

“So…?” I trailed off.

“They won’t give you the money.”

“And if they do?”

Gray studied me.

Then he muttered, “We’ll see.”

Truly, I didn’t know if that was a win, loss or stalemate in the fight stakes. I was going to do what I wanted to do and Gray was convinced it was a fruitless effort.

So, I guessed we would see.

And thus endeth our first fight.

It wasn’t that bad and the best part about it, just like when he had an out-and-out with Grandma Miriam years ago, after it was done, it was done. We stretched out, cuddling on the couch in front of the TV. Then we stretched out not cuddling but doing other things in bed. Then after we were done with those things, we lay in bed cuddling and whispering about our days and what the next day would bring.

Then we slept and we did that cuddling too.