El Rancho del Corazón
2 Ashes
THERE WAS REALLY NOTHING we could do but hang around and wait. Sheriff Donaldson had to leave, but another deputy was assigned to the site in his place. The insurance adjuster showed up about two-thirty. He was not nice.
“So, you decided to just burn it down and start over,” he started off the conversation. It didn’t really sound like a joke.
“I beg your pardon?” Anna said.
“An old, run-down farmhouse wouldn’t be worth much and it would be easier to build new than remodel it. You know your policy doesn’t cover arson.”
“First, who said this was arson?” Anna demanded. “And second, it was old, but not run-down. I bought replacement coverage. In fact, I paid quite a premium for it.”
“It won’t make a difference if you burned down the house to replace it.” Dad and I stepped up on either side of Anna. I’d let Dad handle this one. Gladly.
“Mr…?” Dad started.
“Randall. And you?”
“Frost. Exactly what is your job, Mr. Randall?” Dad demanded.
“To assess the damage and assign a value. That’s what insurance adjusters do,” Randall said.
“I see. So you aren’t a fire investigator. You aren’t a law enforcement officer. And you aren’t, obviously, an insurance sales person. Your job is actually over there assessing the damage and is not harassing your clients. Is that correct?” Dad demanded.
“I’m only stating the coverage of the policy,” Randall replied indignantly.
“Have you read the policy?” Dad asked. Randall shrugged. “I would suggest you do your actual job and get your statement into a written form such that our attorney can use it to sue you. Your job, as you say, is to assess the damage and assign a value. We actually know what the insurance policy covers,” Dad said. His voice was steely. This dude had verbally attacked one of his women. It was awesome to see. Apparently, Randall didn’t get the memo. He glanced over at the ruins.
“Total loss. Value, $50,000. Recommendation, no payout due to arson. I’ll put that in writing and mail it to you. You should have it in a week to ten days. It takes a while to write these things up. Paperwork, you know.” Randall turned on his heel and went back to his car. He actually spun his tires as he pulled out of the drive. Anna started to cry. Dad wrapped her in his arms and comforted her.
“Deputy, there doesn’t seem to be much reason for us to stay onsite now that the insurance company has shown its colors. We’re going to find a place to stay in town for the night. I’ll let Sheriff Donaldson know as soon as we have a location,” Dad said.
“For all five of you? There’s a Hampton Inn just on the edge of town. They have some pretty big suites.”
“Thanks. That’s where we’ll try first. We need to make some phone calls and get our lawyer working on this whole fuck-up. Please let the inspector know where we’ll be if he manages a report today.”
“For what it’s worth, Mr. Frost, I am a legal witness to your conversation. I will type up a statement for your use.” The deputy wasn’t the same guy who tried to arrest us all a few weeks ago. I was thankful for that.
Dad was pissed. He asked for my keys. The girls and I got in the back seat while Dad and Anna took the front. We got into the edge of town and could see the Hampton Inn. Dad pulled up and got us a roomy suite. There was no question about the assignments. He and Anna went into the master bedroom and closed the door. The girls and I took the second. It was the first chance we’d had to be alone and talk all day. We kicked off our shoes and cuddled on the bed.
“Where are we going to live?” Jennifer sobbed. “My poor mommy. It’s her whole savings.”
“Shh, baby,” Rose comforted her. “Can’t you see how mad Papa Hayden is? He’s not going to let us be homeless, and he sure isn’t going to let Anna Mom go without anything. If we all have to stay up north and go to school at IUSB for another year, we can do that.”
“I don’t think we’ll have to do that,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “There’s six perfectly good bedrooms in the barn and the horses will only have three of them.” Both girls looked at me through their teary eyes and then Jennifer snorted. Rose laughed right out loud, but I’m not sure if it was because of what I said, or because Jennifer’s snort shot snot out of her nose.
“That’s a great idea,” Rose laughed. She grabbed a tissue and wiped up Jennifer’s face and the goobers. “And there’s that big water tank right outside, too. A bathtub we could all fit into.”
“Maybe I could fix a heater for it and Brenda would get her hot tub,” I laughed.
“I am not going to poop in the pasture,” Jennifer said. The jokes were cutting through her despair and the three of us cuddled together.
“We need to call the rest of our family, too,” I said. I held each of the girls in my arms cuddled up against me as we lay on the bed. “We’ll have to wait for Dad to quit making calls, though.” We just lay there for a few minutes and before we could get up the energy to get off the bed, we dozed off for a badly-needed nap.
What are we going to do?
“Brian!” Dad called. It took me a second to figure out where I was and why Rose, Jennifer, and I were sound asleep with all our clothes on.
“On my way, Dad!” I called out. Rose and Jennifer rubbed sleep from their eyes as I crawled out from between them and opened the bedroom door. “I guess we needed a nap.”
“I don’t blame you. Anna crashed for half an hour, too. Why don’t you run out and get us some food. Maybe Chinese.” He handed me fifty dollars. I could about feed the whole casa on that.
“Is it that late already? We should call home,” I said. The girls came up behind me and handed me my shoes. They leaned against me while they put on their own.
“I’m waiting for another call from Rex,” Dad said. “You can call after you get back with food. We might be on and off the phone all night.”
“Any word?”
“No. Jim called to let me know the inspector was leaving and he’d be back in the morning. They’ve posted a security guard out there for the night,” Dad said. “He warned us not to go out to the farm before eight tomorrow morning.”
“Ranch,” Rose said firmly. “El Rancho del Corazón.” Dad smiled at her.
“I’ll remind Jim of that,” he chuckled.
The hotel was near the campus, so there were lots of food places nearby. Summer session was already in full swing and there were a few students around. Not so many as there would be in the fall, but it gave us a little bit of a feeling for what it would be like when we started classes this fall. While we waited in the restaurant for our takeout order, Rose went to the payphone and started dialing numbers. She was looking at a card in her hand.
“What’s that?” Jennifer asked.
“A calling card. Dad insists that we have one at all times in case we need to call home and don’t have change,” Rose said. We crowded up next to her and she held the phone a little away from her ear so we could hear.
“Frost residence. This is Courtney Price. How may I direct your call?”
“Courtney! You sound so professional!” Rose laughed.
“Rose! Are you all okay? Is Jennifer with you?”
“I’m here, sweetheart. We’re all fine,” Jennifer said over Rose’s shoulder.
“What’s happening? We’ve all been so worried.”
“Courtney, you are now the official news courier,” Rose said. “I’ll give you the status update and then you can tell everyone else. Then we’ll call back to talk to everyone after a while, so you have a chance to pass the word on. That way, we don’t have to repeat the same thing over and over.”
“I have a pen and paper,” Courtney said. “You wouldn’t believe how many calls there have been today.”
“Okay, then, here’s the scoop.” Rose rattled on about what we’d seen and heard today to the accompaniment of Courtney’s exclamations of dismay, horror, and anger. By the time she was finished, our food was ready, too. We all chimed in with I love you and Rose hung up.
Dad was on the phone most of the way through dinner, so we didn’t talk too much. Most of the time he was talking to Rex Davis, Rose’s dad. He also talked to Arthur Pratt, Jennifer’s father. He was a litigation specialist. Dad was preparing for war. When he hung up, we thought we’d get a chance to make our call, but Dad shoved another bite of food in his mouth while he dialed again. Well, we couldn’t blame him for this call. It was obvious that he was talking to Mom and when he was finished, Anna talked to her for another fifteen minutes. Man, we were sure running up the long distance phone bill.
Anna turned and handed the phone to me.
“I think there are a few people at the house that want to talk to you three,” she laughed. “It was all we could do to get Marilyn alone!”
“I love you, Brian,” a voice said softly into the phone.
“Hannah? I love you, too. How are you holding up today?”
“I’m really, really tired. Producer school is a lot harder than high school. But I learned so much! I’m just so tired that I’m about to collapse,” she said.
“Oh, honey, I understand,” I said. “This has been a tough day for all of us and I don’t think anyone is going to be awake for more than an hour. It’s just getting dark and we’re all sitting around yawning.”
“Well, you’ll have two girls who love you to cuddle up with.”
“Yes, I will. But you know I still miss you.”
“I know. Actually, I have two girls who love me to cuddle up with, too. They might have sex, though. I’m sure you won’t have to put up with anything like that,” she giggled. Two girls? What? Who?
“Um… who?” I asked. “I’m not objecting; I’m just curious.”
“Well, who do you think, silly? My assistant producer and our administrative assistant. I suppose that’s against some kind of law to sleep with the hired help.” We laughed.
“I didn’t know you’d hired help,” I said. “I think that as long as sleeping with you isn’t figured as part of their job responsibilities or compensation, you won’t have to worry.”
“I love you, Brian, but I really am tired and I want to get ready for bed now. ’Night!” There was a shuffle and Samantha was on the phone.
“Hi, cutie,” I said.
“I am so freaking turned on, I’m leaking,” Samantha said. “You could slide in so effortlessly.”
“What has your engines running so hot?”
“Our novia. She’s been teasing me all day. I probably stunk the whole studio up.”
“You didn’t do anything that would embarrass us or make them not want to work with us, did you?” I asked. I was a little alarmed. Harvey and Miss Polly and the whole television station were important to our success.
“No! We would never do that. It was all so subtle. Mostly looks. Occasionally, a touch that was completely innocent, but still made me tingle. And then a little kissing while we were still in the parking lot,” Sam said. “I love you, Brian, and I wish you were here, but I need to get ready for bed now because… well, Hannah.”
“I love you, Sam. Hannah’s still not sure what she wants to do, so don’t rush her too much.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got a relief valve. Speaking of which, better get Jennifer on the line.” I handed the phone to Jennifer.
“Hi. I love you, baby.— What kind of games?— Really?— Are you wet?— Well, I am now!— Sure. Here she is. I love you.” Jennifer handed the phone to Rose and jumped into my lap. She laid a kiss on me that made Dad and Anna leave the table and head for their bedroom.
“What was that all about?” I asked, trying to catch my breath.
“Those girls are playing very naughty games. I feel so sorry for your mom being in the house without Mom or Papa Hayden with her. She’ll eat them up when we get home.”
“I never even found out who all was there.”
“Well, the two slippery ones are Samantha and Courtney. I guess they’ll be with Hannah, but you are right and they know she is just teasing them. Your room is occupied by Whitney, Liz, Nikki, Doug, Doreen, and Rhiannon. Cassie, Josh, and Mary are in our room,” Jennifer said. “Sora and Sarah have gone to Sora’s house to get ready for tomorrow.”
“Oh, God! I should have thought of that. Thank you, sweetheart,” Rose said into the phone. “Okay. I’ve got it. I better talk to Rhiannon.— Love you, too, dear.”
“Love you, Courtesan!” I called toward the phone.
“Hi, Rhiannon. You guys are still going to make it?— Well, we don’t have clearance yet, but we’ll work on it first thing tomorrow. If worse comes to worst, we’ll just all bunk here until they clear us.— We really don’t know anything yet.— Okay. About noon should be fine. If we can’t camp at the ranch, we’ll find a campground. It’s so beautiful out here. Can I talk to Whitney?”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Everybody is still planning to come down tomorrow. Everybody who was going to. So Casa del Agua will be here. Sora and Sarah are pulling her family’s travel trailer down, so we’ll have a place to stay out at the ranch while we watch things. We’re going to have just a quick hello with the rest of the casa now,” Rose said. “You heard?” she spoke into the phone. “Yes, we love you, Whitney. I’m feeling more and more like we need your training.— Okay, but next week.” She handed the phone to me.
“Hey, Whit.”
“I love you, Brian. Thank you for getting a message to us today. We were getting pretty worried.”
“Not having a phone out there really sucks,” I said. “We had to wait until we got into town and then Dad had to use the hotel phone, so we had to find a pay phone in order to call. Are you all holding together?”
“As well as we can. We’re all worried about what we’ll do. I have stuff I have to do this week, though, and can’t come down tomorrow.”
“We’ll figure something out. I love you, sweetheart.”
The next two conversations went pretty much the same. Nikki and Liz were both worried about us and said that if we were still in Bloomington on Friday, they were coming down on the bikes. Cassie, Josh, and Mary all leaned into the phone at once to wish us well. Finally, we had to say goodnight and hang up.
“We need to call our contractor,” Rose said. “He called the house this afternoon, but there was no way to reach us. He’s anxious about what to do since the cement delivery for the slab is supposed to arrive tomorrow.” She dialed but just got an answering machine. She left our phone number and told him that if we didn’t connect by phone, we would be at the ranch by nine, and no one was allowed there before eight. I sure hoped we’d keep that part of the process on schedule. It would at least give some of us a place to stay.
It was still early, but we were just as tired as everyone else and headed for our shower and bed. We did a lot of touching as we washed and a lot of kissing as we dried. The three of us stumbled into bed and I thought we’d have a little gentle loving, but we were still too keyed up to relax into love making.
“Brian, the whole clan needs you to be strong though this,” Rose whispered in my ear. “We’ll support you and encourage you, but everyone is worried about the living situation down here now and they need you.”
“Don’t worry. Dad’s going to take care of everything. You heard Anna say she had replacement value insurance. They have to replace the house. I’ll do my best for the clan, though, Matrón.”
“I love that word,” Jennifer said as she began moving her pussy against my leg. “And it couldn’t apply to anyone but Rose. You are like a special mother to all of us.”
“Hmph,” Rose breathed. “You think of me as an old matron. Well, at least I know that your own mother is a fox, so I shouldn’t feel too bad.”
“I have an idea, Rose,” Jennifer said. “Why don’t you have Brian make love to you and when you’re done, and he’s filled you with his sperm, I’ll… um… clean you up.” Jennifer licked her lips and Rose moaned a little. It didn’t take long, though, until Rose was riding my cock and Jennifer was riding my mouth. And then I pumped into Jennifer from behind while she ‘cleaned up’ Rose and both girls got their cookies again. Soon after, we were asleep.
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