Hearthstone Entertainment
54 Good Neighbors
“I DON’T KNOW what to do with her, Rose,” I whispered. Rose sat wedged into the chair, partially on me and partially beside me. Curled up on top of us was Danielle, asleep on my shoulder. I’d laid aside my reading for Radical Thinking and held Danielle as I continued to run my hand over her tummy. Rose petted the leg that was thrown over her.
“I can see now how you tell them apart,” Rose said. “Danielle is different. Of course, we can all tell her from the other two now, just by the way her eyes light up when she sees you.”
“You might not have seen her sisters’ eyes light up, too,” I sighed.
“They light up with lust. But, Brian… I don’t think you should fuck them.”
“I didn’t intend to. I have to admit they turn me on. I think it’s just the response to women in heat, though,” I said.
“Oh? Are all of us who turn you on just women in heat?” she laughed.
“No, Rose. You turn me on because you are wonderful and sexy and I love you. Even when you have PMS,” I said.
“I don’t have! Usually. You’re right, though. Their pussies get all pink and rosy when they see you. I think any guy would get an erection. But I think it would hurt Danielle if you fucked them.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way. I guess it’s against the rules of whatever we have.”
“Does it have rules?” Rose asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it against the rules for you to make love to her?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never really considered it.”
“Exactly. I don’t think there are rules the way you have always thought of them before. Do you love her, Brian?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s so sweet. Look at her, Rose. She crawls up in my lap and goes straight to sleep. I love to touch her. I love her softness and her shape. I love her weight in my lap. I love the silkiness of her hair and the little kisses she gives me on my neck before she goes to sleep.” I realized I was going on and shut up.
“Still, you don’t make out with her. No passionate kisses. You touch her breasts, but you don’t play with her nipples or suck on them. You cup her pubic mound in your hand, but you don’t probe with your fingers or try to get between her legs. And even as we talk about it, you aren’t hard,” she said.
“She’s like a child. The thing is, she isn’t childlike. I mean, she acts maturely. She studies hard. She’s responsible. More and more, I’ve heard her reprimand her sisters when they were being foolish. Not that they don’t do the same thing. I think they all help each other. But aside from cuddling up with me a couple times a week and going to sleep, she doesn’t act childishly.”
“No. And yes. Maybe there is a little part of all of us that wants a few minutes now and then to be held like a child. For now though, you should take her to bed.”
“What’s available tonight? I hate to walk back to the girls’ dormitory. She didn’t complain, but I don’t think she really liked it there last week.”
“Brian, just bring her to bed. You know that’s where she’s going to end up. We might as well get used to it.”
“I love you, Rose.”
“Brian, if only you knew how much I love you,” she whispered. We kissed.
“Now that got me hard,” I said.
“Good. Let’s find a place to stow Dani and you can make love to me.”
Thursday afternoon, I decided to take a ride on Jingo. It was in the mid-fifties after having been below twenty when we got up that morning. I needed some fresh air. Jingo was surprised, but after dancing around a little, he decided it was okay to get a saddle on when the caked mud had been brushed off.
Instead of going out through the woods, I rode through the pasture and into the extended pasture we were renting from Mr. Jacobs. Larry was managing where they were grazing and the condition of the pastures. It wasn’t his full-time job. He drove into Indianapolis to go to work each day. Fortunately, his job was on the south side of town, but it was still an hour commute up IN-37. I knew how Elaine hated it during rush hour.
Thinking about Mr. Jacobs, I decided to ride down to his house around the edge of the fields. He plowed and reseeded hay last fall. Larry had spent an afternoon with him, helping. It was still pretty cold and the fresh shoots hadn’t emerged yet. The house was quiet, but I tied Jingo to the porch railing and knocked on the door. It took a few minutes, but Mrs. Jacobs answered. She looked a lot older than the last time I saw her. She’d done one of my shows with me last summer and shown me how to cook a real farm breakfast.
“Well, Brian Frost. How nice to see you. Come in,” she said softly. “Marshall and I were just having a cup of coffee. Can I pour you one?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Jacobs.” She led me to the living room where Mr. Jacobs sat, sort of staring out the window.
“Hello, Mr. Jacobs,” I said.
“Saw you ride up on that big horse. He’s getting old,” he said.
“Yes, but he still likes a nice ride. We don’t push it. Especially not when it’s cold like this.”
“You have a good ranch manager. That was smart. He picks up hay every two weeks. You need more horses. We have lots of hay.”
“How are you doing this winter, Mr. Jacobs? I haven’t seen you out at all,” I said.
“You don’t know, do you?” he said. “I thought you were just coming late to offer your sympathy.” He turned to look at me for the first time. His eyes looked sunken.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Jacobs. Are you okay?” I don’t know what made me do it, but I went and knelt by his chair and reached for his hand. His grip was like a vise.
“I’m sixty-nine years old, Brian. My son would have been forty-seven today.” Would have been? “He died suddenly the week after New Year’s. Was driving here and had a heart attack. Just died at the wheel.”
I listened for an hour as Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs talked about their son and how he planned to finally come back to the farm now that he was divorced. He was going to take over this spring and now Mr. Jacobs didn’t know if he could get up the energy to even cut hay when it grew.
“We’ll handle the cutting and the baling, Mr. Jacobs. There are fifty-two of us in the clan now and most will be at the ranch this summer. We have people capable of baling hay,” I said. “Is there anything else you need? We’re your neighbors. We’ll do whatever we can to help.”
“Why don’t you take over the farm? I could help you, but it would be yours.” What emerged over the next twenty minutes was a plan for us to acquire the Jacobs farm. It was obvious that Mr. Jacobs had thought about this before and was just letting it come out of his mouth. His son was not coming to take over the farm. He had no other direct heirs. A sister and her children might be the next logical ones to inherit, but they lived in California and had no interest in farming. They hadn’t visited in over ten years.
“I have to talk to our families, sir,” I said. “I want you to know right now that everyone will want to do it. The question will be if we can do it. We won’t commit to something we have to back out of or renege on.”
“You are good, hard-working people. I might be able to help some.”
“Those poor people,” Liz said when I told the casa what I’d found out that night.
“We can’t let them be all alone like that,” Cassie said. “We need to organize help for them, however they need it. We could take them some meals. Maybe even go help Mrs. Jacobs with cleaning.”
“I’ll talk to Larry about what we’d need to do to take over the farming,” Josh said. “Larry helped him last fall. He’ll know what we need to do.”
“I think we need to call my dad,” Rose said. “He represents the real estate aspects of the clan and arranged the subdivision of our property. We’ll need a clan meeting. Brian, we need to buy their farm and add it to our village. This could be very important.”
It was the only response I expected from my casa.
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