Diamond S Ranch

17- Operation OB

Elle made it through the Thanksgiving Holiday without getting into to much trouble. It seems that it had been really important to Cappy for her to have a real traditional Thanksgiving feast. So, he had ordered up all the fixins' as he called it. From turkey and dressing to corn pudding, from collards, which she did not like, to pumpkin pie and everything else in between. It had been great. Sitting at the long table with her brothers and the ranch hands, it had a such a feeling of family. Something she had never really experienced before. It felt good.

Afterwards they hung around watching some football, playing horse shoes, they even had tag football game that afternoon. They split the twins up and made them captains, and then they picked their teams. Garrett put Elle on his team as co-captain. These guys were serious about this game. Flag football her foot, she thought, it was more like tackle they way they all played. One time, she had the ball and Zach, being on the opposite team, picked her up, ran with her over his shoulder to his goal and said it was a touchdown for his team. Of course a lot of arguing followed, a lot of teasing and challenging each other but in the end, they all seemed to have a good time. She knew she did.

They finished the day with a fire down at the fire pit where Jordan and Ben played their guitars. Elle was impressed Jordan was really good. Jake always said ranch life doesn't have a day off but today they all had tended the basic duties you can't ignore and then, barring any emergencies, they all just enjoyed the rest of the day. By the end of the day, sitting by the warmth of the fire exhausted, Elle could hardly keep her eyes opened. Jake finally carried her up to bed. As he headed back towards the house she heard, several awww's and 'oh,how sweet' and 'why don't you ever carry me up to bed' comments, no doubt the last one from Gage and Garrett, Jake ignored them all. He helped her into her pajamas and tucked her into bed.

"Good night Jake," She said sleepily.

"Good night love," He said, leaning down and planting a kiss on her forehead then reaching over and turning off her lamp.

Elle snuggled down into her pillow tucking Mr. Marshmallow under her arm and drifted off to sleep, it truly had been a wonderful day. If only all days could be like that this. However, in the world of Elle, a very independent minded little human, as Kaison likes to call her, it is just about impossible.

They were prepping for their tests for the end of the semester. Elle really did not like this part. She hated the extra studying. She was caught up with her class however, because it was time for this semester to end, so she was back to doing extra studying again...ugh. Times like these when she missed just winging it through school something Jake would not allow, well, shoot, none of her older brothers would allow it.

Not only that but everyone at the lunch table had been watching this Netflix show, the Outer Banks, and bugging Elle to watch it. She really wanted to but she was going to have to ask Jake and she was pretty sure she knew how that was going to go.

She tried to wait till he was in a good mood, or least appeared to be in a good mood, she picked late one afternoon. He was leaning on the outside of one of the corral fences watching Zach working with his new horse Knight. She climbed up onto the fence sitting next to where he was standing. She was getting better at balancing herself on the fence and wasn't so scared she would fall off anymore. She watched for a few minutes as Zach led Knight around the corral with a just a saddle on his back.

"Why isn't he riding him?" She asked, finding it odd that he would just be trotting Knight around and around with just a saddle and no rider.

"Because he is prepping him to ride." He could tell by her confused look she didn't understand. "You have to train a horse to take on rider, they don't do that naturally."