Home on the Range

I really appreciate LocoHerb for editing this chapter of "Home On The Range"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

**PLEASE NOTE:

**Author's Note: Home On The Range is a continuing story where each chapter builds on previous chapters. If this is your first encounter with Home On The Range, I'd like to suggest you read the previous chapters prior to reading this one. Please enjoy!

** Home On The Range story is one of fiction based on the activities of a real-life. The plot of this story is to follow along as a family interact with the different situations they face in life.

**Before you read this chapter, be advised that it contains very graphic depictions of raw sex between two or more consenting people. IF such depictions upset you or make you lose sleep, PLEASE don't read any further. It's a different-strokes-for-different-folks kind of story.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For the record: All characters engaging in any sexual activities - are of legal age!

****************************

FROM CHAPTER 7

"Britt, I can't believe how far we've come since you've been here. You have changed my life dramatically and as I've said before, I still love your grandmother, but I think you are pulling up even with the love I share with you. In my wildest dreams I never would have imagined I could fall in love with another woman like I did with Maggie. But here we are, together and I have to tell you Britt, I am head over heels in love with you. You have brightened my life after such a crisis. You are so much like your grandmother, I'm ... I'm ... aww ... I don't know how to describe it."

"Grandpa, I might be young, but I have to tell you, my feelings for you are so strong, your love has taken me by storm. I know there is a drastic difference in our ages, but it doesn't matter to me. I will never find a "boy" my age who could ever hold a candle to the love I have for you. As you have referenced grandma as being your number one girl for life, grandpa, you are my number one guy for life, and I mean that with all my heart."

Grandpa and I hugged and kissed each other, and it wasn't long before we fell asleep in each other's arms.

****************************

Chapter 8

Grandpa stirred at the regular time he'd been getting up for years. I hugged him and whispered, "Not this morning love."

"I know, do you realize how hard this is going to be on me?" he whispered back to me.

"I know my dear, but this is where we end all those early mornings. We have ranch hands now so we can stay right here and cuddle for a little while longer."

"Tell me, since you were the person who negotiated what it's going to cost us, how much are we going to pay Steve a week?"

"Well, when I asked him for a number he may have had in mind for a week, bi-weekly or a month he responded with a thousand dollars."

"A month?"

"No, he said a week."

"Are you kidding me? What did you tell him?"

"First I laughed at him and followed that up with he wasn't even close to giving me a realistic number."

"I said to him, I'll be willing to give you two hundred and fifty dollars and I'll pay his horse's feed bill which will include only the grain and hay."

"Then we got to the part about the references. He listed some on the pad of paper I handed him, and he told me he was willing to wait for me to call his references, so I did. Each rancher I called gave Steve a very good reference."

"When I walked back out on the porch after making the calls, I sat down in the swing and looked him straight in the eye and said, the people you listed gave you a very good reference.

Therefore, I'm not gonna beat around the bush which I'm positive you'll appreciate. I'll up my offer and give you two hundred seventy-five a week, minus your income taxes of course. I told him he would have to fill out a W-4 form for us."

"He had a large smile on his face as he asked about seeing the horse stalls and the bunk house. Snake and I walked down to both buildings with him, and on the way back to the house, Steve accepted the job and asked when he could bring in his horse and start to work."

"I said to him, there is one final thing that might change your mind. Well, I guess it would all depend on how you were raised. I want you to know we seem to have adopted the nudist kind of lifestyle around here. It all started with me not being able to stand this heat after moving here from Cleveland. Because of the heat, I started doing my barn chores while nude. The other couple we just hired have also adapted to being nude. As we speak, Spike, the co-owner of this ranch is giving them a tour around the ranch, and all of them are nude."

To get a final answer from Steve I said, if you think you can handle being around nude people without causing a hassle or harassing anyone, then you can consider yourself hired. If not, please forget what I've said, and you can be on your way."

Grandpa laid beside me without saying anything for a couple of minutes. Finally, he said, "I guess I need to get a few W-4 forms out of the filing cabinet for Steve, Nicole and Mark this morning."

Britt, I would congratulate you, but I'd wear out the word. You have come here with little or no experience and yesterday, you sat down with a future employee of a multi-million-dollar operation. Short of knowing what experience he needed, you did one hell of a job negotiating the terms of his employment. The best part is he accepted the position. I'm so damn proud of you.

"Grandpa, I was scared and so was snake, but we settled in pretty quick and each of us did a part to get the interview done."

We hugged some more and then I said, "Let's go take a shower before we go down and make some coffee."

We rolled out of bed and made it to the bathroom and after taking care of our personal business, we got into the shower and we washed each other. When we were dry, we walked down the stairs completely naked. Grandpa pulled the larger coffee maker out of the bottom cupboard and set it up on the counter. The pot made fifteen cups of coffee, so we didn't have to brew a second pot. I washed the pot while grandpa moved the smaller coffee maker out of the way and eventually stored it in the cupboard. I set it up and grandpa added the coffee for the first time so I would know how much to put in.

There was a knock and a walk in when snake arrived saying, "I see y'all are dressed appropriately, good morning Ms. Britt and you too Frank."

We returned snake's greetings as he said, "I saw the light on up here and old habits are hard to break. Before I saw the light come on, I tried to occupy myself with something but that didn't work. I laughed to myself when I saw the light come on, so I came up."

The coffee took a little longer to perk but when it was done, I fixed up three cups of coffee and took them over and placed one in front of my two guys and one for me. I sat down and spike said, "I heard you had an interesting interview yesterday and both of you did an excellent job. I want to thank both of you."

"Frank, you do know you left us in a lurch, yesterday don't you?"

"It was nothing you couldn't handle and I'm so glad you got to have the experience. Listen, both of you. With Maggie passing so quickly, I want to make sure my ranch has people in place to keep it running. I'm not saying, anything is going to happen to either of us, but the realization that something could happen has been the topic in my brain since Maggie passed. I knew exactly what I was doing yesterday and in twenty-twenty hindsight, everything turned out perfect."

"Frank did Ms. Britt tell you how she almost ended up as a boy?"

"What?" grandpa questioned.

"Yeah Frank, you daughter, Brenda almost had a son. Well according to the story Ms. Britt told Steve yesterday."

I had already started laughing and coughing while grandpa was trying to get the story out of snake. But after a while I was able to calm myself down enough and said in a giggling voice, Steve told me, wow, I've never had a woman talk to me like that before."

Grandpa sat up a little straighter in his seat with his attention fully focused on what I had just said. But I told grandpa, "Don't get upset, there's more and it's funny."

I added, "When snake started snickering, he almost ruined my story."

I continued with giggles in between talking, "I told Steve when I was born, I used to be a boy ..."

Steve got all excited and asked me, "What did you say!"

With a straight face I continued my story for Steve when I said, "YES STEVE, I was born a boy, but when the doctor pulled me out of my mother, I wasn't breathing so the doc held me upside down and slapped my ass so hard ... he knocked my dick and balls right off me. Knowing that my mother wanted to have a son the doctor was worried what she'd say. The doc was in a fix, he couldn't put them back on me. When my mother asked if I was a girl or a boy, the doctor said to my mother, oops ... Oh, I'm so ... so very sorry ... I slapped it's ass so hard I cracked it right down the middle, you ended up with a girl."

It took my grandfather a second to process the story through his brain and when he did, he roared with laughter right along with snake and me. I mean we had tears running down our cheeks, all three of us. Telling the story made it funnier the second time around.

All three of us were wiping our eyes with the back of our hands trying to calm down a little. We were still going at a pretty good rate when there was a knock on the door and between laughing and crying good tears, I said, "Come in and good morning."

Steve, Nicole and Mark were looking at us as if we'd totally lost it. Finally, I said, "Nicole, you know where the cups are go ahead and fill them up."

She did and one by one they came and sat down at the table and Nicole asked what was so funny. I had to once again re-live that moment with Steve and this time, Steve was even laughing. However, it was Nicole and Mark who were laughing the hardest. We calmed down a bit and then I said, "Nicole, I guess we have to get the feed bag ready."

We stood up and right away spike said, "Hey Britt, would you be so kind to spread your legs for me, I want to see what the doc did to you."

Laughing, I spread my feet apart and squatted a little and said, "See, no cock, no balls. Just a crack down the middle, like the man said."

That spurred another round of laughter which took a while to settle down. Nicole and I made breakfast and put it on the table. Spike said the prayer and we all dug in and ate a hearty breakfast. While we ate, spike laid out the plan for all of us to pitch in and get the morning chores done. He said, "Britt, you and Nicole can fix up some sandwiches while we go down to the barn to do the chores because with the four of us working, we can have them done long before noon. By the time we get dressed and the horses saddled, we can be on our way. We'll stop somewhere along the trail and eat before we start moving some beef."

We finished up breakfast and the guys left to put on their boots while Nicole and I did up the dishes and made some sandwiches for lunch. I pulled out the canvas bag I had used for the picnics and put the sandwiches and some chips in the bag. I told Nicole I folded her colored clothes and they were on the washer. She thanked me for folding them up for her and said she'd take them to the bunk house when she went.

I looked at the clock and said, "The guys will be finished shortly so I might as well go and get dressed. Oh, Nicole, I think I'll start out with my shirt in the lunch bag, I'm not going to put one on unless I have to. You can do the same if you want."

"I love that idea Britt. I'll toss my shirt in there too. I'm going down to the bunk house and start getting dressed. See ya in a bit, Britt." Both of us laughed and I went upstairs while Nicole headed for the bunk house.

As much as I hated to do it, I was almost finished dressing by the time grandpa came upstairs to get dressed. I told him I was going to take a shirt but not wear it and he told me that was ok as long as I had one with me if I needed to keep the sun off my shoulders. I told him Nicole wasn't going to wear a shirt either. He smiled at me and said, "Britt, I don't know what to say other than, thank you ... thank you for all you have done in such a short time."

We got dressed and I said, "Grandpa will you cinch my saddle up tight. I'll put it on, but I'll need you to tighten it until I get used to doing it myself."

He looked at me lovingly and said, "You know I will honey. But just be careful with that grandpa stuff, I don't want these new hands to know about us."

"I've been careful to only call you that when we are together. When I think someone else might be around, I'll call you spike. But grandpa, I only want to show you my love and respect with acknowledging you as my grandfather. You have become the man of my dreams and there won't be any man who walks this earth going to replace you as my number one guy. Sorta like you are with grandma. I love you that much."

The last thing I put on was my new hat, well that is, before we got to the barn and I strapped on my chaps and fastened them down each leg. Nicole came over to me and opened the bag with my shirt and the sandwiches and deposited her shirt. Spike fixed up a canteen for both of us and when I had my saddle on my horse, he hung the canteen on the saddle horn and cinched my saddle strap all at the same time. We walked our horses outside, and I noticed that both snake and spike had their rifles in their scabbard.

Spike came over to me and without anyone really noticing, he hoisted my ass up into the saddle and then went back to his horse and popped up into his saddle. We started off with spike and snake leading the way, Nicole and me next in line followed up by Mark and Steve. We were only out a little ways when spike held up and snake got down and fixed some gates. He closed a couple and opened one. Spike said, "This is the lot where we are going to run a couple hundred head into. I want to get them closer so if the beef market is up, I'll have some ready to sell."

We rode for more than an hour until spike called a halt beside a stream. We got off our horses and spike said, "Might as well eat here cause we'll start moving the cattle in another little bit. I don't want to stop and eat once we start them moving."

I got down the bag of sandwiches and with our canteen of water along with some chips, we munched out while our horses drank water from the stream. Nicole said, "Spike, I want to thank you for the opportunity to ride without my shirt on. The breeze feels so much cooler."

Spike said, "Thank Britt not me, she's the one who started all this nude stuff. I used to sit on the porch in the evening, in the nude but this is a first for me too, working in the barn while I'm nude."

While we were sitting, I noticed spike had his shirt open but both Mark and Steve took their shirts off. Before we got back on our horses, both spike and snake took off their shirt and tied them behind their saddle where I tied the canvas bag. Again, spike nonchalantly boosted my ass up into my saddle without any fanfare and no one else seemed to notice.

On our way again all of us rode closer to spike so he could tell everyone what he wanted us to do. He designated snake and Steve to do all the cutting of the beef. He told Steve to follow snake's lead because he was familiar with the size of the beef, he would want to bring in.

He told Mark to take the left side of the herd and he would take the right side and they needed to get the beef headed in the direction we had come. He told Nicole to handle the left front of the herd and for me to ride the right front of the herd. It was our job to keep the beef in line and to head them back to the open gate.

Snake and Steve started cutting out the beef and both Mark and spike stayed to either side of them. The cattle started moving forward with Mark and spike maneuvering their horses back and forth to keep them in a line. They pushed any strays back into the herd. It was no easy task especially at first but once we got them moving, there were always a few strays that had to be pushed back to the main herd. Obviously, it took us longer to get back to the open gate than it took us to ride out where the beef were pastured.

I realized quick enough that Nicole and I had the easier job to move the herd ahead but not too far until snake and Steve finished cutting out the beef they wanted, and we all worked together to keep them in line.

We did what I considered an excellent job with the six of us working together. Since I'd never done a round up before, I was impressed. My horse (Dustin) had been trained so I let him do what he was supposed to do, and he made me look good. For any strays on my side, I pointed Dustin towards the stray, and he moved them right back in line. I followed spike's advice and used the reins very little but kept my knees in towards Dustin and my heels outward unless needed. We had the cattle moving forward and Nicole gave me the thumbs up and I returned it to her.

I looked beside me and behind me and saw we had a hell of a lot of cattle moving in the same direction and I swelled up with pride then thought back to my mom saying, "You don't want to be out on that dusty old ranch."

It made me wonder how many times did she sit on a powerful horse and see the cattle moving beside and behind her. Spike caught up to me and asked how I was doing, and I looked at him and said, "I am feeling fucking marvelous. I'm going to fuck you tonight until you can't walk."

He laughed and pulled his horse and headed back behind me somewhere. I looked over at Nicole and she was smiling and gave me the thumbs up again, which I returned. We rode on and a few times Dustin moved one way or the other to keep a beef in check, but I thought it was a fairly decent ride. A couple hours later I saw the gate that snake had opened coming up, so I looked around to see where everyone was, but Nicole was the only one I saw.

The gate was open and when I got near the fence, I turned Dustin and headed him back so we could watch the herd move forward. Nicole on the other side had to catch a couple of beef to keep them moving forward but we did alright getting them through the gate. I saw spike coming along and then in all the dust I saw snake and Steve and realized this was the end of my first round up. We worked together with the remaining beef moving through the gate before snake got off his horse and closed the gate. The beef were happy because the grass in the fenced area was tall and there was plenty of water for them.

We came together by the gate and spike said, I want three of you to ride the fence that way and three ride the fence this way over here. If you see any major holes, we'll have to come out and fix it unless you can patch it together for tonight. I looked at spike and said, "If you don't mind, I'll stick with you."

Snake said, "Nicole you and Mark ride with me and Steve can ride with spike."

Spike took the longer side of the fence and we parted ways. We rode the fence and found a couple of places that needed fixing right away. Spike said, "Steve you and me can fix that, Britt, stay on your horse."

I watched them fix the fence by grabbing a hold of the barbed wire and twisting it. It was a good thing we all had leather gloves on. As we rode on, we found a few more small places that needed fixing but each time it was spike and Steve who did the fixing. I saw the barn off in the distance, but we had run out of fence to look at. About a few hundred yards from the barn, spike said, "Let's walk them to the barn and give them a chance to cool down."

I didn't know what he meant until I saw both of them get off their horse and I immediately did the same. Spike took the reins of his horse and led him towards the barn. We walked the rest of the way to the barn and saw snake, Mark and Nicole were already at the barn.