Innocence Lost (Lone Mountain Ranch Book 1)

Chapter 16

After a restful night's sleep, Kylie woke up to the sound of her alarm to see the sun peeking in through the window. Her muscles were still tender from yesterday's horseback ride with Jax. She stretched her naked body under the plush covers. She moved her arms up and over her head and flexed her feet to help alleviate the tightness. She felt great and did not want to get up. She did not have a care in the world at that moment. Well-rested, satiated, and happy was the way she always wanted to feel.

Kylie reflected on yesterday, Who cares if I embarrassed myself trying to kiss Jax and Chase? Today is a new day, and I am a new Kylie! Plus, the resulting fantasy of the two men together gave her lots of material to masturbate to last night. She would definitely be using it again for the many lonely nights ahead. She laughed out loud of the thought of the two men fucking her at the same time. That would be incredible, but I could never do something as naughty as that, Kylie thought, her lips moving into a naughty smile. Kylie was still an innocent Idaho girl deep down inside. It was certainly fun to fantasize about though.

Kylie pulled off the covers and got out of bed. She dressed quickly, so she would be on time for the jingling of the horses. She applied a light layer of makeup, mainly to cover the dark circles which had diminished slightly below her eyes and added her new favorite lipstick color to her lips. She pulled on a white lace bra and bikini cut panties with multicolor pastel flowers embroidered on them. She put on a pair of white jeans, a baby pink button down with tiny roses on it with her hat, belt, and boots. She was liking this country girl uniform. It certainly made getting dressed easy. Remembering that Chase was going to reach out to her after he was done with work, she grabbed her phone and put it in her back pocket.

Kylie walked out of her room towards the barn. She remembered the jingling of the horses from her childhood. She saw the wranglers do it when she was at the stables before sunrise in the winters to clean and feed Aurora before school. Usually it was the newest wrangler at the barn, who mounted up to gather the horses that were grazing in the fields. Jax was the newest wrangler at Lone Mountain, even though he had worked there for over a year now. As Matt, the bartender, mentioned, it was like a family at the ranch, so wranglers rarely left.

As with the other ranches Jax worked at, part of the induction of the newbie was to be in charge of the jingling of the horses. Jax did not mind. It was his favorite part of the day. Everything was so quiet before the guests started to stir. He could really think and enjoy his time riding at that hour.

The jingling of the horses was a tradition which started back in the day with real cowboys who roamed the range, instead of working at a fenced in ranch. It was said that no man could eat breakfast at camp until the horses were back. It was typically the task of the new person to ride out early in the morning to round up the horses. Each horse wore a little bell so you could find them easily in the dark hours of the early morning. If you were the guy rounding them up, you were assigned "to jingle" the horses back to camp. The one horse kept back for jingling duty was called the jingle horse.

Kylie walked quickly to the barn, which was already busy with the rest of the wranglers preparing for the arrival of the horses by laying out fresh straw in the stalls and filling the feed buckets. Kylie walked up to the barn in search of Jax. She did not see him anywhere. She went around to the side but could not find him. She asked another one of the wranglers if he was around. He mentioned Jax was already out on the range.

Kylie could not wait and went to get a spot along the fence. She loved seeing the majestic beasts running around the field so free in their element. Kylie wanted to get a few pictures and videos to show Olivia and her parents. She took her phone out of her back pocket and turned it on. Her thoughts were still on Jax. He was so hot, and she loved his devilish smile. She could not ignore her feeling of jealousy when he was chatting with Mrs. Warren at the hoedown. She must really like him to have such an intense reaction to someone she just met. There was something about him, a softness under the rough exterior, which she found appealing.