I do not own Inuyasha
Ch. 2
The woman in question woke up at four o'clock the next morning. Her routine simple. She got dressed in jeans, a white tank top with a flannel button up over that. She put her hair in a ponytail, grabbed her boots and went downstairs only taking a slight detour to check on her guest.
She opened up the door to see that he dan't moved an inch since he laid down. She shut the door and went to the kitchen to make coffee.
*creak*
She turned to the sound of her screen door open and chose with a smack to see a man walk into her kitchen.
"Good morning Rin," he said.
"Good morning Kohaku," she said pouring herself herself a cup of coffee.
Kohaku followed suit.
"So what is on the agenda today?" he questioned.
She tilted her head back thinking of her daily chores for the day.
"Just the usual today. I do need to prepare to round up the wild horses for the yearly count. Other than that but…," she turned her head towards her guest bedroom.
"But what?" Kohaku questioned.
"Last night I picked up a stranger pulled off the side of the road," she said, whispering, acting if she said it any louder she would get into trouble.
Kohaku narrowed his eyes.
"Rin I understand your caring heart but what if this stranger is a murderer ready to kill us all without a moments notice," Kohaku said saying the worst case scenario.
That just made Rin smile.
"Why are you smiling?"
"I am smiling because the person I picked up was none other than Sesshomaru Takahashi," Rin said, but only got a blank look from Kohaku.
"Who?"
Rin rolled her eyes.
"Don't you ever read the newspaper?"
"Rin only you read the newspaper," Kohaku commented.
Rin sighed and picked up yesterday's paper and turned to the business section. On the front was Sesshomaru.
"That's who I picked up," Rin declared.
Kohaku perused the page for a moment. Rin sipped on her cup of coffee then went to the fridge to grab some eggs.
"He is a long way from home," Kohaku commented, closing the paper.
"Yes he is but from what I have read he is on his way to Chicago," Rin said cracking her eggs into a pan to let them cook.
"How do you know that?" Kohaku asked a little incredulous.
Rin sighed again, took the paper and flipped back to the business section and showed him a picture of a very tall building.
"That is what his company has built in Chicago. It is the only explanation I can think of," Rin said, plating her eggs, refilled her coffee and sat down at her kitchen table to enjoy the rest of her morning in peace.
Once finished she set her dish in the sink. Kohaku was still looking at the paper, a look of pure concentration on his face. He shook his head and threw the paper back onto the counter.
"Well aside from your…guest, what do you want to do first?"
"I would like to first go get our guests car then feed horses, feed chickens, etcetera, etcetera you know the drill."
With that Rin went out, grabbing her guests car keys and went to her truck and got in, Kohaku following.
After they parked Sesshomaru's car in front of the house they went to work.
Rin was the owner of ten thousand acres by default of course. Her mother died when she was little due to a horse riding accident. Her father died of lung cancer when she was eighteen. Her brothers entered the army and marines respectively so it fell to Rin to take care of the ranch.
She went to veterinary school and received a degree in horticulture.
With all of this she has five horses, then chickens, a herd of one thousand head of cattle, and a small herd of wild horses that the government helped to protect. Once a year Rin has had the privilege of rounding them up to count them and to check their health.
This is what she was preparing for for the days ahead, but the next two days were her usual chores.
On the third day since she brought Sesshomaru home, she prepped her gelding Big Brother for the day.
"Hey bud, ready to round up the herd?" Rin said kindly. He nickered back, enjoying the brush down he was getting. Next Rin put on his blanket and saddle, the his harness.
She took him out of her barn and led him to the front of her house and tied him loosely to the railing there.
"Be right back bud," she said, going up her steps, making her way to the kitchen.
"Got your stuff ready Rin," Kohaku said handing her her saddle bags' walkie talkie, camelback, and her whip.
"Thanks Kohaku. I am hoping to be back around noon, if not I'll let you know," she said, hefting the saddle bags onto her shoulder.
"Sounds good Rin. Till then safe riding," he responded, both going back outside, Rin hopping onto Big Brother who was a whopping eighteen hands high.
"See ya later," Rin said, tipping her had, grabbing the reins and lead her horse through the fields till Kohaku could no longer see her.
Kohaku then turned and went about his business, till it was time to open the gate to the corral.
Meanwhile inside the house, Sesshomaru was rousing himself from his sleep.
XOXO
Sesshomaru opened his eyes slowly. Sunlight flowed into the bedroom he was in making his eyes hurt. He immediately shut them and groaned out loud.
He sat up, opened his eyes again, expected a silk blanket to fall off his chest, instead he found…a quilt? He blinked his eyes slowly not registering the blanket was not his.
He looked around.
This room was not his.
Where the hell was he?
He took a deep breath and the smells of a farm filled his senses. He immediately shut them out taking offense to them.
Sesshomaru stood up from the bed he was in and peered out the window. It was a bright day.
He turned from the window and scanned the room again. The room a beige color. It had a night stand, a dresser, and a small desk. The bed was full size. He was surprised that he even fit in it.
On the night stand he spotted his phone and he immediately went to it. It was turned off so he turned it back on.
It began to flood with messages. His father, stepmother, mother, Inuyasha, even Kagome, he brothers' mate.
Sesshomaru deleted everything, they all said the same thing. He also knew that if he did not call back, he'd get a million more.
He hit the send button to call his father.
Two tones…
"SESSHOMARU!"
Sesshomaru pulled the pone away from his ear.
"What the happened?! Where are you?! How are you?!-"
"Father are you done?" Sesshomaru asked cutting him off.
"What the fuck no I am not done. We were worried sick-"
"Your worry is unwarranted. I fell asleep."
"Oh is that what happened," InuTaisho let out a huge sigh of relief knowing exactly what Sesshomaru meant.
"Well where are you then?"
Sesshomaru looked outside again, now seeing a truck pull into the drive. His car was parked in front too.
"I don't know, I lost track of where after Montana. All I know is that a woman picked me up and took me to her home which is a ranch from the looks of it," Sesshomaru said, filling in his father.
"Well make sure to thank her before you leave and give her my thanks too," InuTaisho said in return.
"Talk to you later," and with that Sesshomaru hung up.
He tossed his phone on the bed, located his shoes and decided to venture out of the room he has stayed in.
He walked slowly along the hall, glancing at pictures that adorned the hall. The wallpaper; flowers in a pattern, flower, space, flower, space, so on and so forth. A wooden wanes-coating adorned the lower half of the wall. What he saw so far was…quaint.
Sesshomaru entered into the living room, family room, he wasn't sure.
Staring ahead was another hallway and what looked to be stairs to the second floor. To his right the dining room and what he assumed was the kitchen.
He moved to the left towards the front door. He opened it slowly and was greeted with sunshine and a porch that spanned the whole front. To his right was a porch swing. To his left a grill that could do with a good cleaning.
Down the steps was a large gravel driveway where stood the truck that pulled in, his rental, and an even more beat up truck. A nineteen seventies chevy from the looks of it.
But his attention wasn't really on any of these things.
His sensitive hearing was picking up a light cracking noise coming from the distance. For some reason, unknown to him, he was intrigued by the sound.
He ignored everything else, not the male approaching from the barn, nor the horsed whining, chickens clucking.
"Oh hello, you must be Sesshomaru Takahashi. You've been asleep for three days. Rin was starting to get worried," the male said, standing at the bottom of the steps.
Sesshomaru didn't respond. He just walked further along the porch, ignoring the other male completely. Safe to say Kohaku was a little miffed. Instead he tried to figure out what in the world he was looking at.
"What are you looking at?" Kohaku finally questioned outlaid.
Sesshomaru, finally showing the slightest bit of irritation, growled.
Kohaku went wide-eyed.
"Did you just-" Kohaku was about to move up the steps, but was interrupted by a cracking sound made in the distance.
Kohaku pulled up his walkie-talkie.
"Rin come in over."
*white noise*
Kohaku tried again.
"Rin are you on your way in over."
*white noise*
On Kohaku's third try he was cut off by a voice on the other end.
*OPEN THE GATE!* click *Coming in hot!*
For some reason, again unknown to him, that voice sent a shiver down Sesshomaru's spine.
Then he started to feel a small vibration coming through the ground. And then he started to see the dust cloud.
As in slow motion, as he watched, a herd of horses crested the hill and following very closely behind was a woman on her own horse, driving them on.
The man had already taken off to open a gate to a corral.
It was mesmerizing to watch. As he watched he now understood what was making the cracking sound. The woman had a whip in her hand.
She handled it so efficiently, never hitting the horses.
Sesshomaru was entranced. With his eyesight, he say every detail of her face, her muscles in her neck, tensed, ready for any change of pace. So concentrated she was in her task to get those horses into that corral.
Sesshomaru started to feel funny. Something, he knew not what, was growing in the pit of his stomach.
It was foreign to him, this feeling.
For the first time in his life…he was scared.
He stayed on the porch long enough to watch the woman put the horses into the corral, see her horse rear up and her crack her whip one more time.
Then, like a ghost, darted back into the house, as if he wasn't even there.
XOXO
"Hey Rin, how fast did you manage to get them this time?" Kohaku asked while closing the gate and Rin dismounting her horse.
"I found them pretty quick, but the leader kept on trying to turn them around," Rin sighed giving her horse a pat. Big Brother was huffing and puffing, his muscles quivering from exertion.
"I got the better of you! Didn't I?!" Rin yelled toward the direction of a pure black stallion. His ears flattened against his head in defiance.
"Isn't he the one that knocked up Lily?" Kohaku questioned.
"The very one. How is the little hussy by the way?" Rin commented leading Big Brother towards the barn.
"It looks like she dropped. Could be any day now," Kohaku said walking beside Rin. "Hey let me take Big Brother and brush him down. Go take a shower and cool down yourself."
"Thanks Kohaku. I think I will enjoy that greatly," Rin sighed in gratefulness and handed the reigns to Kohaku. Rin didn't walk ten paces before Kohaku called out to her again.
"Oh by the way Rin, your guest is awake."
That made Rin turn around to look at him and nod her head in understanding. She turned back toward her house and paused to look at it.
It didn't look any different, but she did see a curtain sway slightly on the far left of the first story as if someone was just looking out of it.
Rin took a deep breath and continued her walk towards the house and for a much needed shower.
XOXO