Hurt - Part One

Her back hurt. Her legs hurt. Pain swarmed her body like a sea of locusts, and for the millionth time that day she wished Claude hadn’t left so early, or hell, that Jim had never left at all. Even better. She carefully set down the rake she was holding, scooting aside the dead pile of leaves and hay she’d just made. There she sat down, holding what looked like a basketball shoved under the feminine green top. She did really look pregnant-her mother had commented once that she’d balloon lately. Sighing heavily, she lay back on the soft grass, wincing as her skin tightened and stretched around the foreign object.

She thought forlornly about her husband, Jim Dalison. Damn, she thought, correcting herself mentally. That's Sergeant Dalison to you, babe. He’d joked with her, telling he’d be back before she knew it, and now look at where she was. Lying ass-down in the middle of a vanishing farm with dire horses and failing tractors. She’d put her whole entity into this place, and since it was getting harder to move and bend and breathe, she’d had to hire help, which had sucked her dry. The only reason Claude was still around was because she let him live on the land, down at the Far East end of the 300-acre ranch.

Sitting up, she looked around dismally. There was a large main pasture-close to ten acres, she believed-and a smaller connecting one to the right, about five. The main one held three mares and two geldings, all of which she bought at auctions because they looked sad and forlorn, and maybe they did have a spark or two of talent. Two of the mares-Cali and Cindy-were brood mares for the cause, both pregnant. The other was her personal favorite, Sassy, who she rode often. The geldings-Ducky and Joe-were just there to burn hay and be cute.

Standing, she found the pain from her lower back and limbs released, and she sighed. She began to walk slowly to the stable, thinking of holding her husband, and she missed him all the more. She wanted him home badly, couldn’t bear the thought of having his child without him. And he wasn’t due home for months. The baby’d be here within weeks, or days, or-a sharp pain laced her skull-minutes.
Entering the tack room, she began to busy herself with mixing the grain and piling hay. While she worked, she thought of the last time she’d saw her husband, eight months prior.

***

“Why can’t you at least tell me the country your in? Is it really that hard? That 'confidental'? I am your wife.” Still dazed from the mind-blowing sex and the phone call, she lay naked in their bed, eyes out raged with fury while Jim dressed hurriedly to leave for Houston, where he’d fly off to some other continent without her. “And what about your three month leave? It’s been two days! What the hell do they think you are, Superman?” She reached over the bed-ah, she could still move without the bindings of the basketball-and snatched at her robe. Slipping it on, she stood, glaring at the strong, silent broad back. “Why won’t you say something?” she cried, suddenly feeling rage surrender to terror.

“Because I don’t want to leave you like this.” He turned, and she gasped at the sight of the pain searing through his reddened eyes. In a moment she went to him, wrapping herself in his arms. Tears fell from her eyes, and she felt water land on her silky black hair. “I love you, Kara. If I didn’t think it was important I wouldn’t go. But they need me.” He paused, tilting her head up to meet his own searing blue eyes. “I’ll come back soon. I swear.”

Still, the last call from him had come four weeks ago, saying he was stuck for another year. She’d been afraid, pissed, and outraged, all at once. The only thing she could do was saddle up Sassy and scream down the road to Neverland...


Part Two is here!!

Hurt - Part Two  (13+) The joyous reunion! #1041900 by New York Gretta