Coywolf

Jessica Windsor age 22, daughter of Mark Windsor, age 45 and Andrea Windsor, age 45

Jessica is marrying Austin Branson, age 22

Jessica's ex, Chet Barclay. age 22

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Very light on the burn here. No willing cucks. The good guys win in the end.

I recycle names. This story does not have any relation to other stories unless I mention the relationship.

Pikeville Kentucky is part of the poorest part of the state, but the town is doing relatively well compared to the surrounding areas. I've never been there, but I did research and found it accidentally while looking around in Google Street View. It was kind of like a gem in the middle of despair.

Being born at second or third base. An American idiom. Being born at third base means being born to wealth and privilege. Being born at the batter's box means they are entirely self-made from basically little to nothing.

Plus one. Being invited to an event plus one means you can bring a date or significant other.

*******

Coywolf

Our Savior Lutheran Church, Bernards, New Jersey

Jessica was in a room with her best friend, Abby, and her two bridesmaids, Kayla, and Hailey.

Jessica, a very pretty blonde with shoulder length hair and beautiful face sitting as a hairstylist finished her hair. She was physically similar to her mother excepting her mother was a supermodel gorgeous blonde, even in her forties. She was visibly nervous and kept playing with her hands. Standing behind her, her best friend Abby chided her lightly, "Jess. Calm down. It's going to be wonderful."

Jessica nodded, "I know. I just... I wish my mom was going to be here. Even after everything, I wish she could see my wedding."

Abby, a striking brunette with shoulder length hair and equally pretty face shrugged, "I'm sorry it didn't work out. She always was kind of an elitist snob."

She winced at the harshness of her words, "Sorry, that came out wrong."

Jessica sighed then nodded slightly in agreement, "But it's accurate. Yet she married my father and he wasn't from old money like her family."

Abby nodded, "But both your father's parents were professionals and he was a Wall Streeter on his way up when they met."

Jessica said, "But Austin is on his way up."

Abby shook her head, but he started from a trailer in coal country and an engineer is not a Wall Streeter as far as money is concerned. All our mom can see is that he grew up in that trailer."

Jessica sighed, "I don't care that he won't make Wall Street money. I don't like the people on Wall Street, anyway. I just wish she could see what I see in Austin. "

Abby giggled, "Yeah, I saw it when we went skinnydipping in Rolfs Natatorium late one night."

Jessica faux chastised her friend, "ABBY! That penis belongs to me. It's attached to Austin and he's mine!"

Abby waggled her finger, "You were looking at Michael's equipment as much as I was looking at Austin's. Relax. I did not touch... and I won't. Ever."

Jessica stuck her tongue out and said with faux indignation, "Keep away from my man."

Abby gave a faux grimace, "Offering tongue? Only my hubby, Michael, gets to use his tongue on me."

Jessica laughed, "Bitch!"

Abby laughed, "Back at you, bitch!"

They hugged and Jessica they both laughed, "Besties forever!"

There was a tap at the door, "Jess. It's dad. May I come in?"

Jessica's frown disappeared, brightening into a smile, "Yes, Daddy, come in!"

The door opened and Mark Windsor, her father, walked in. He was a striking man in his mid-forties around six foot tall with salt and pepper hair and a C-suite aire about him. His perfect navy blue tailored suit and red tie gave him a classic handsome aire. He came in smiling, taking in the view of his daughter in her wedding dress then hugging her, "I can't believe today is the day. My baby daughter is getting married."

Jessica smiled, "Daddy, I will always be your baby daughter."

He sighed, "Sorry your mom won't be here. I made sure some of her friends, the few that would even talk to me, let her know she was invited and I would not do anything to ruin the day. I even said she could bring a plus one."

Jessica sighed then said with more than a bit of annoyance, "If she cannot deal with reality, then she can stay away."

He nodded, "Still. I wish she could be here for you, even if just for the wedding portion."

Jessica sighed and her face softened, "Yeah, me too."

There was another tap at the door, a man in a pastor's collar came up, "Ten minutes."

Seven minutes later, her father held out his arm and asked, "Ready?"

Jessica smiled, now beaming, "Yes!"

Jessica walked to the aisle from the right side and Mark gave her arm a squeeze and gestured to the right side of the rear row. She paused, smiled, then patted his arm. He then walked her slowly up the aisle of the church, her hand in his arm until they reached her intended and she took her place at the altar. Mark then walked up to stand next to the groom.

The pastor played his part, "Dear Ye beloved..."

Five hours later, after the wedding and the ceremony and the dinner, Mark was called up by the emcee they hired who also was the deejay, "And now, the best man will make his speech."

Jessica's father stood and smiled at the guests, "Life is funny sometimes. I have apologized to Austin a hundred times personally and I am probably short of the number of times he is due until I reach a thousand. Let me say it loud and in front of everyone. I was wrong. I judged Austin on things that do not matter and lived in my own Wall Street finance world, never considering the worth of a man is much more. I let things happen. I should have stopped when I had even the slightest hint."

"I see a young man who overcame being born to humble circumstances in Eastern Kentucky. I wasn't born at third base, but I was born at second base to a production manager and a CPA. Austin was born in the batter's box and he was facing a major league pitcher. He had to make it all the way to get where he is now after beating that pitcher, a graduate of Notre Dame with an engineering degree."

He looked at Austin and nodded in respect, "He is a better man than me in many ways. The first time I apologized to him, he put me further in his debt by simply accepting it without condition or demanding further contrition on my part. I fell further in his debt the next day when he formally asked my daughter's hand in marriage then asked me to be the best man. I can never make up that much ground, no matter how hard I try. I have told him this and he has told me repeatedly, that he calls us even and not to try. I am honored that my daughter has found such a man to share her life."

"Here I am, the best man at my daughter's wedding. I was honored to walk her down the aisle and then walk to the front of the church to stand beside the amazing man she was to marry. She earned her CPA in four years and has proved she could work every bit as hard as those of average station in life. Choosing to prove her worth to the world rather than rest on privilege."

Mark smiled and yes, was misting up quite a bit when he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Mr. and Mrs. Austin and Jessica Branson."

He toasted them both then sat back down.

There were the standard dances as the music played when Mark's cousin, Richard came up to him sitting at a table and asked, "That was one hell of a speech. What the hell happened? I mean the whole story. Her mother wasn't at the wedding. You're divorced. A year ago, shit, I could never imagine this. That and your apology to Austin."

Mark sighed, "Well. It's a long story... and actually her mother was and still is here. She's over in the corner hiding, letting her pride keep her from enjoying her own daughter's wedding day. I quietly let Jessica know that when she started walking down the aisle and I spotted Andrea in the back row."

Richard shook his head and then said, "Give me the short version."

Mark nodded, "Do you know what a coywolf is?"

Richard shook his head, "Some kind of wolf?"

Mark nodded, "Kind of. In the Eastern US, wolves were hunted out for the most part, but a coywolf is about sixty percent coyote and forty percent wolf. Sometimes a bit of dog is mixed in. They are much bigger than coyotes. Many are around thirty to forty pounds, but big ones with more wolf can get into the sixty-pound range. They are considerably smaller than a full-blood wolf, but not exactly small. A sixty-pound male made me see the error of my ways and started a big fight with my ex and it went south from there."

Richard nodded, "So..."

Mark sipped his bourbon and continued, "Well. We first heard about Austin during spring break during her junior year in college at Notre Dame. My ex invited Jessica down to Palm Beach for a mother-daughter week. Jessica politely refused and when her mother pressed her, she found out Jessica had been dating Austin since the previous September. I got an earful of nasty indignation that some hillbilly was dating our daughter. She called him that and worse. Anyway, Jessica informed her mom that they were headed to the Bahamas for spring break together and yes, they were sharing a room."

Richard nodded, "Ah. It's hard to find out your daughter was being intimate with someone."

Mark shrugged, "Not really. People pair up and fuck. My daughter is an adult and I'm not stupid. She had sex with her ex, Chet Baclay while they were together and I knew. Again, people pair up and fuck and it's a human thing. I was the same with me and Andrea when we were dating. We had sex hundreds of times before we got married."

Richard nodded, "Eeesh, my daughter and her boyfriend. NOT subtle."

Mark laughed, "Congratulations, your daughter is completely normal. Having sex is good for you by the way. Your wife is back at your table making eyes at you, by the way. A dance or three and you will probably get lucky."

Richard smiled and they clinked glasses.

Mark continued, "Well, it turns out Andrea had invited Chet to Palm Beach in hopes that Jessica and Chet would get back together."

Richard shook his head with a look of disdain and said, "Chet is a pompous asshole like his father."

Mark laughed, "The only insult there is to garden variety assholes!"

Richard laughed and they clinked glasses again.

Mark continued, "So Andrea's plan to get them back together was a bust and the school year went on. Well, Jessica was due to come home that summer then announced she would be two weeks late coming home. She and Austin were driving around the country in his car seeing the sights along the East Coast."

Richard laughed, "The daughter of a billionaire being driven around the East Coast for a vacation instead of Cannes or St. Moritz."

Mark laughed, "In a twenty-year-old Honda Accord no less! She loved it and raved for weeks."

They laughed and clinked glasses again.

Mark said, "I was fine with it, well mostly. I wanted her to marry a man of her station, but was content to let things fall where they may. Yeah, I was a bit of a snob, but I had him investigated and found him to be a solid person with no legal concerns. He was salutatorian for his high school class and had a half scholarship ride for Notre Dame."

Richard thought for a second then said, "Let me guess, Andrea had other ideas."

Mark nodded, "And she gave me an earful. Austin is not good enough and Chet is old money. Austin was a hillbilly after our money. Blah blah. Our daughter needed to be part of the summer parties at the Hamptons and the whole elite world of moneyed bullshit. She told me directly that Austin was not good enough. Chet is perfect for her with the proper social connections."

Richard laughed, "Let me guess further. Jessica was having none of it."

Mark laughed, "Ya think? She was and still is madly in love with Austin. You can see it in her eyes the way she lights up when he comes into the room. Well, Austin wanted time with his mom that summer, and Jessica wanted time with us and her local friends, so each went home for the rest of the summer before their senior year."

Richard nodded, "So Andrea was not okay with things."

Mark shook his head, "Not even close. She kept inviting Chet over. Jessica was polite at first, but got tired of Chet showing up and acting like they were together. Andrea invited Chet to fancy dinners at fancy restaurants with Jessica, trying to get them back together. She Invited them to spend time together in Interlochen with her money. Jessica was wise to her plans pretty early and just kept putting her off."

Richard sighed, "So what the hell happened to cause your divorce?"

Mark sighed, "A party. A big fancy party full of rich people at Sterling Pines, our country club in New Jersey. Andrea pretended to accept Austin and wanted a party at our country club and invited Austin to come up and for him to meet our friends. 'Our' friends is a lie. It was her old money friends who tolerated me."

Richard shook his head, "Okay."

Mark said, "Well, to my shame, I wasn't exactly objecting to all the machinations of my ex. I knew something was up but said nothing and did nothing to look into it. That is on me. It turns out the idea was to have a big party with all sorts of elites and other old money and Austin would be a fish out of water and humiliated by not fitting in."

Richard nodded, "And...!"

Mark said, "So here we are at the country club, one hundred or so millionaires and more than a few billionaires, all very rich, and here is Austin. A kid whose mom was living in a trailer in Eastern Kentucky."

Richard asked, "What happened to his dad?"

Mark said, "Dead. Coal mine accident."

Richard said, "To add insult to injury, my ex secretly invited Chet."

Richard shook his head, "Uh oh."

Mark laughed, "Not for very long. So here I am not saying a damn thing while my ex is trying to get Jessica to dance with Chet in front of Austin and constantly reminding him that Chet had been her previous lover."

Richard winced, "Yeah, that is not awkward."

Mark said, "It was embarrassing. It was obvious what she was trying to do and even some of her friends were aghast at it. The thing is, Jessica made it dead clear that she was with Austin the whole time and refused to do anything with Chet but polite conversation and not anywhere private."

Mark sighed, "That was the beginning of the final end for Andrea and I, and it went straight downhill from there. Scratch that. That was when I started to figure out that my entire life with her was bullshit. My wife went over to a table with caviar and called Austin over and explained it in this awful condescending manner then started faux teaching Austin how to eat caviar... as if you needed a lesson and as if everyone wants to eat fish eggs. Well she is giving this fake lesson, trying her best to humiliate Austin then having Chet demonstrate this fake stupid 'skill'"

Mark sighed, "At this point, I grabbed Andrea by the wrist and hauled her to the side and told her to cut it the fuck out."

He shuddered, "I saw it then. Just. Evil. Andrea's face twisted into a snarl... just evil. She told me that Austin was not good enough and Chet was. She would do anything to prevent Austin from staying with Jessica, even hire an escort to seduce Austin if needed."

That one shocked me, Andrea was willing to break the law to break Austin and Jessica up. If Chet was not Jessica's choice, she would find someone else, 'of the proper station in life'."

Richard sighed, "Wow."

Mark nodded, "Wow is right. Well, Andrea pulled her hand away from me and stalked off to find Chet when fate intervened. I was on the far side of the clubhouse pool. Andrea was walking toward Chet. Andrea went up to Chet and whispered in his ear then Chet started walking toward Jessica and Austin. Fate intervened and fate was a sixty-pound coywolf."

Richard said, "An actual coywolf?"

Mark nodded, "Sixty pounds of growling angry coywolf. They are usually fairly shy, but not this one. Well, we all heard the coywolf growl and we all looked up and froze. The coywolf was closest to Jessica and second closest was Chet as he approached her. From that side, Austin was the third closest but kind of behind her in relation to the coywolf. Well, two things happened at once. Chet stopped on a dime and damn near ran backward away. Austin grabbed Jessica and spun her behind himself then stared at the coywolf which advanced on them. It seemed more interested in Jessica, but Austin kept himself between the coywolf and Jessica. There was no thinking, he just acted. Austin was protecting his mate. Period end of story. As it moved, he moved, protecting my little girl and putting himself in harm's way."

Richard said, "No shit!"

Mark nodded, "Yep. A security guy arrived maybe thirty seconds later and shot the coywolf. Needless to say, pretty much everyone at the party suddenly loved Austin, myself included. Twenty-two years ago, I held this tiny baby girl and wished she would find a man who would put her first. Austin proved to be that man in very concrete terms."

Richard chuckled, "Except for your ex and Chet."

Mark laughed, "I haven't seen Chet since. Andrea started fighting me hard. I finally remembered I had balls and needed to use them. I made sure Chet did not show up again and kept close tabs on Andrea until the party ended. She was on her phone quite a bit, but looked very angry. I think she was calling Chet, but I'm not dead sure of it."

Mark sighed, "The rest of the party sucked as I was now on guard against any other shit from Andrea. Everyone was patting Austin on the back, telling him he was a badass. He had billionaire Wall Streeters paying him compliments and Jessica was looking at him like he was a superhero. Around eight that night, the party broke up and we went home. We started fighting on the way home and it was brutal. It was bad, very VERY bad. She kept going on and on and fucking ON! Austin was poor. Austin was a hillbilly. Austin was not from the right family. Austin was this or that or other bad thing. I reminded her I was not from an elite family. She said that I needed to man up and get rid of Austin because I was letting some hillbilly loser seduce our daughter."

Mark rolled his eyes and took a sip of his bourbon, "Then it got worse when we got home. With what was basically a demonic smile that was more grimace than anything she told me that I wasn't good enough for her when we met, but she saw my potential to be good enough and she 'worked on me' to make me acceptable."

Richard winced, "BITCH!"

Mark shook it off and said tensely, "Yeah. The love goggles were gone completely then and I saw her for the selfish person she was. She sneered and talked about how I was her personal lifetime project. My success was only due to her even though my results at work were consistently in the top ten percent. We went home and slept on opposite sides of the bed, facing away from each other."

Mark sighed and calmed slightly, "That was the night I almost lost my daughter. She was spending the night in a hotel with Austin and called me the next morning. She asked me to meet her at Vanderbilt Park at the bandstand. So I drove into New Jersey and met her in Summit at Vanderbilt Park. I realized what an asshole I was. What I did not realize was that was when Jessica figured out what an asshole I was."

Richard asked, "What happened at the park?"

Mark laughed, "I accidentally changed her plans. She was going to tell us both that she did not want to see us for a while. She was livid and was even considering cutting us off completely."

Richard looked shocked, "Wow."

Mark sighed, "Well, I got out of my car and saw them by the bandstand so I walked toward them and Jessica's face held no love for me. She asked with quite a bit of hostility, 'Where is mom? When I said I wanted to meet you here, I meant both of you.' I told her that her mom and I had a huge fight then I quite accidentally saved my relationship with Jessica. I felt like a piece of shit and without her asking I looked at Austin and apologized. I gave them the high level view of what happened and apologized for not putting an end to it right from the start."