CHAPTER 1
Angrily clenching her fingers to a neck-size shape, Jessica Smart was on the brink of strangling her uncouth brother-in-law from the city who was staying with her and Mike for three weeks, and this was only day four. He'd already told her she had lovely tits -- tits mind you, not breasts or in a good mood she'd accept boobs -- not that he should be referring to them, and he'd cuffed her ass twice.
Jessica's friend Susie had just left, snapping that it was amazing gentlemanly Mike had a tosser for a brother. Eyes firing she'd said, "He asked me straight out do I fuck on the first date. I ask you!"
Biting back on the temptation to ask did she, Jessica hugged Susie and said she was sorry to have landed Susie with an unsuccessful introduction for a date. "You're my fourth failure. I give up -- he can go and try one of the heifers on the McCain's Ranch.
Jessica and Susie clasped each other and fell about laughing, only to have Jed enter the room and ask, "Are you two having a lesbian thing?" Susie stormed off and clipped the gatepost in her pickup but then about half the women drivers who visited did that. Jessica had scrapped with Mike over making the gateway wider. He said it was wide enough to drive a bulldozer through and when Jessica said icily her girlfriends and mother didn't drive bulldozers; a row had erupted about Mike making snide remark about women drivers.
Jessica came in behind Jed -- his name was actually Colin but only his mom called him that -- and took up the strangling mode. He was reading a comic taken from the box of stuff she kept for visiting children. That was about his level; the fact he had a PhD in computer science was the family's best-kept secret. It would be too difficult for the family to explain how an apparent moron could distinguish himself.
"A coffee would be great Jess."
Such a moron. Where was the please and why was he using that foul name Jess and why wasn't he waiting hand and foot on his hostess?
Making coffee, feeling like one herself, Jessica winced and remained closed-lipped when he said, "That Susie would be a great fuck wouldn't she -- what's she like when you two get down dirty?"
Jessica looked at the carving knife but thought no, she'd be no use to Mike being in prison for ten or more years thought if she was lucky enough to land an understanding woman judge she might be out in eighteen months. Actually the audacious Jed was growing on her. She thought she could give him access and he might follow her around and do all her housework on the promise of being allowed to bend her over the kitchen chopping block again for a routing or whatever he called it half an hour before Mike was due home. She marveled that she could harbor such idiotic thoughts at times. This was the guy four of her girlfriends had independently dubbed 'foul', 'an asshole', 'insane' and 'Jed the Ripper' and none had spent more than a few minutes talking with him about a possible date.
Handing Jed his hot coffee instead of pouring it into his lap, Jessica took hers outside and stood on the porch. He followed her out and draping an arm down over her waist to grab flesh at the panty line the asshole said, "You're a great kid Jess."
She sighed and admired her martyrdom.
They looked at the new rip in the right hand gatepost.
Jessica said quietly, "That gateway needs to be widened."
"Why, a guy could drive an 18-wheeler through that gap?"
Jessica counted five and promised she'd not row with him. "Not all drivers are men."
To her astonishment Jed laughed and said that was a very delicate way of making the point. "It's one of the most intelligent comments I've heard from you."
She saw red. "When driving instructions were given, men were sitting on their fat asses drinking beer while the females were bent over the oven or cleaning floors."
"Brilliant, you're on the button babe," he said, giving her ass a rousing squeeze.
Because of the craziness of that conversation Jessica suffered a brain misfire. She said recklessly, "You widen that gateway and I'll bend over the chopping block for you."
"And then what?" Jed asked suspiciously.
Jessica gasped, aware she'd blown a cog.
The house and 4-acre paddock behind it was on the edge of town. They watched a black wreck of patched-up pick-up park in the driveway of the decrepit cottage opposite. A young woman got out of the misfiring vehicle, leaving it running, and waved, closing the driver's door. Jessica waved back and shouted welcome home and said that was Douglas McCain's baby daughter Kitty bringing home her six-day-old baby. Jessica touched Jed's arm and whispered, "Illegitimate, she'd been thrown off the ranch. I must go to her."
At that moment there was a violent explosion and the hood of the vehicle went flying into the air and landed on the side of the cottage, setting grass alight. Kitty screamed and ran towards the vehicle with the cab now covered with flaming petrol and was driven back. "My baby, my baby."
"Ohmigod, the baby," cried Jessica, only then aware Jed had jumped the veranda rail and was sprinting across the street. She dashed inside to phone emergency services and then rushed outside to find Kitty holding the baby and holding out her skirt she'd ripped out for Jed to used to douse flames: his trousers were on fire on both thighs. Kitty was screaming at him to put out the flames and Jed, howling in pain collapsed as Jessica reached him and began rolling him on the ground yelling at him incomprehensibly. She was vaguely aware the side of the cottage was alight.
Jessica left in the ambulance with Jed. The doctor attending Kitty and her baby yelled to her they appeared okay.
Mike, a vet, brought the still-shocked Jessica home from the hospital after rushing to see his brother. He had just poured whiskies when three lots of neighbors came in to advise a demolition order had been placed on the cottage but before that the McCain's had arrived to take Kitty and the baby home and Mrs McCain took one look at the baby and said, "It's a McCain" and clasped it to her chest and said well done Kitty.
The women round Jessica whispered it was bullshit to determine family characteristics in a baby that young.
"She was protecting the wee darling from that brute husband of hers. We all know what Douglas McCain is like," Jessica said. "I'm much better, let's party. Mike picked up his phone and called for takeouts to be delivered. This is a day I shall always remember. Fancy my rotten sod of a brother-in-law having the courage to do that."
"The burns are relatively superficial and won't require skin grafts, according to Doc Morris and I would agree. It was lucky Jed was wearing heavy cotton jeans and not artificial fiber material that would have seared to his skin."
"Oh really," said Jessica. "Jed was incredibly brave.
"Perhaps, but who thinks rationally when reacting to a sudden emergency like that," said Tony Browne.
"But it's rate for any guy to react unless it to reach out for a beer or watch an ass walk by," laughed his wife.
Half an hour later a TV news crew arrived and interviewed the Smarts and friends who'd been witnesses.
"My brother-in-law was so brave, absolutely fearless -- I thought he was going to be burnt alive," Jessica said, clasping an arm to her rather attractive chest and the cameraman moved in for a head and shoulders shot. "Our hero doesn't handle women well because he's shy and rather over-reacts. But oh man, did he dig in and reach in to snatch Kitty's wee baby from what to us appeared certain death. Kitty is rather cute and without a husband. I figure something will happen between those two."
Two hours later as soon as the dramatic rescue was featured on TV news, Jessica began taking calls, including from all four friends who'd rejected Jed as a jerk. They were all willing to reconsider. Then came a really big call -- "Shhhh," she said to her fellow revelers. It's Douglas McCain, Mike's biggest client."
