Farmer's Daughter
Chapter 1
Her long, blond hair - bleached nealy white from spending every summer day working outside on the family farm - danced around her face to the music of a warm, late afternoon breeze. Her skin was tanned a deep golden brown; and, the contract between her hair, her flawless-complected skin (save for a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose), and her sapphire blue eyes made for a striking combination.
"Free!" she thought to herself, gleefully astride Jet, her Quarter Horse that was such a deep black - if there could be varying degrees of the color - he shone blue in the sun.
She rode him bareback, the reins in her teeth, as she flung her arms out wide to allow the sun, the breeze and the multitude of country smells to assault her senses, delighting in Nature's warm and welcoming embrace.
Jet took her through the wheat fields, on the edge of her family's land, tall and proud in their bounty, the slight sting of the sheaves against her well-worn brown leather boots feeling more like a playful tickle.
Slowing her stead to a canter, she took these precious moments of solitude to reflect upon her life and her lot. She was considered the pick of the county: good, hard-working Christian family, with a 2,000+ acre farm; intelligent - having finished high school at the top of her class; strikingly beautiful, yet humble; well-mannered in social graces; a real-live country peach at the ripe young age of 19.
She realized that all of these things that others decided made her the pick of the county amounted to nothing more than the provderbial hill of beans as the male population in the area were either too old, too young, married, going steady with someone else, or plain old too terrified to call on her.
Her Daddy was renowned in those parts for his "protectiveness"; and, after a few years of callers being - literally - chased away by her Daddy ... and his Remington .22-caliber rifle ... well, they just stopped coming.
******
"Amanda Grace, he's just not good enough for my little girl!" her father would say afterwards.
"But, Daddy -" she would begin to protest.
"But nothing, Princess. Only the best for you and I'll hear no more about it."
"Yes, Daddy."
"Now, g'on and help your Momma and Donna Jo with supper."
"Yes, Daddy."
******
Het almost unseated her, stopping short and shying away from something lying in the field, directly in their path. There were near the road then; and, at first, she thought that someone must've thrown some old clothes out the window as they drove past. It was hard to tell as Jet was prancing and neighing in protestation at having to be made to get so close to "the thing."
She dismounted, taking the reins in one hand, her other reaching up to sooth her mount. She approached slowly and realized that this was more than someone's cast off. "The thing" was a man, either unconscious or dead.
From what she could tell, the man was young, probably not too much older than herself, his muscular arms - one bearing a beautiful tattoo of a shark - showed through the ripped arms of his tattered shirt, which was dirty and caked with a mix of blood and mud. She couldn't see his face as he was lying face down; although, the steady rise and fall of his beathing reassured her that he was only unconscious.
She startled as the man groaned and struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. The man's body shuddered involuntarily as Jet snorted in displeasure at "the thing" moving.
"Easy, Boy. Easy." she soothed; and, she gently placed her hand on the man's back to also assure him that he would come to no further harm.
"Boy?" the man garbled, his voice weak and gravelly.
"Not you." she grinned "My horse. You may not want to move too quickly. You look pretty banged up." The man nodded in understanding and was trying to slowly turn himself over.
"Here. Let me help you." She put her arm around him, lending support. Their eyes met; and, in that moment, Amande Grace gazed into the most beautiful blue eyes she'd ever seen and her heart was hopelessly lost to this man.
Amanda Grace felt something else in that moment. Something she'd never before experienced; and, as such, could not name or define ... Desire.
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