Every inch of Victoria's 19 year-old body objected to the rough horse ride she was currently enduring, but her pride stung far more than her butt did. In fact, Victoria's absorption with her own unfortunate predicament was so complete that she was paying no mind to the glorious Colorado mountain scenery she was zooming through. Never, in all of her days, did she think she would be forced to cling to back of John Turner, her sworn enemy, after he had the gall to pretend he had saved her from a grizzly bear! Who did he think he was? He had no right to blaze through her life, assume she was a damsel in need of his assistance, shoot and kill the bear she could have certainly averted on her own, and then throw her on his horse and tell her to "Hold on" with that smirk of his that made her want to kick something. She wouldn't endure much more of this.
Victoria had first met John when he had started working for her father's lumber mill when she was eleven. She had just enjoyed a particularly excellent romp through the woods that had resulted in her gown being a bit ripped around the sleeve, several bruises on her right leg and arm from falling out of a tree (and the bruises promised to turn into a very interesting shade of blue) and the bun her mother had put her hair into that morning had long since given up trying to restrain the long blonde hair that had a mind of it's own (just like the girl it resided on). Victoria was wandering about the lumber site, looking for her father when she first saw John Turner amid the chaos of working men, looking lost. He had short brown hair and hazel eyes that held a somber and somewhat cynical light to them. He was sixteen years old. Victoria's eyes grew a bit wide and she took in the boy who struck her as beautiful. She experienced an unusual sensation of shyness, but as usual, curiosity overrode all else, and she stepped up the boy and conjured up all the subtlety she was capable of, and asked him;
"Who are you?"
The boy turned to find the source of the girls' voice, and found a wild child with long blonde hair with bright blue eyes that were gazing at him with an intensity he wasn't comfortable with.
"I'm John Turner."
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm the new wood chip sweeper, I'm looking for my lodging."
"Oh. Well I'm Victoria. My dad is your boss, want me to show you where your bunk is?"
Because John was in a foul mood, he had some unresolved personal issues, he just wasn't a very nice person, and he didn't like being around the all-seeing blue gaze of the girl, he lashed out at her for reasons he wasn't entirely certain of. "I don't need some scraped up, useless girl giving me directions." And he walked towards the woods.
If John and bothered to look back, he would have seen surprise and hurt in Victoria's eyes as she watched him walk in the wrong direction. But within seconds, she replaced hurt with righteous indignation. And with the splendid simplicity and finality of a child's mind, John Turner became the enemy.
Victoria was all grown up now, though. She still had a wild mane of hair, but her body had turned into a woman's somewhere along the way. She had large, firm breasts and hips that made her the object of appreciative attention from men, and an interesting, if not a beautiful face. John had also grown up. He was tall, strong and muscular from years of manual labor. He had lived to regret his impulsive unkindness to Victoria throughout the years, as he watched her grow into the beautiful and interesting woman who now haunted his lustier dreams. More times had he woken up painfully aware of his throbbing desire for her than he cared to admit. But stubborn Victoria still held her grudge closely to her wonderful breast, gracing him with nothing more than scornful glances and speaking to him only when mandated.
He had found Victoria in the woods that afternoon, facing an angry Grizzly, and had done what any man would have done; removed the threat. He wasn't entirely sure why Victoria was so angry at him for doing it, nor did he care. He was going to take her home and wash his hands of the matter. And if feeling her full breasts against his back make him think of stripping her naked and ravaging that delicious body of hers until she gasped his name, then he did his best to ignore it. Victoria was trouble.