"Chasing after You"
Chapter 4
It was a sunny Friday afternoon and Beth sat at the bar of the Deer Falls Country Club, smoking a cigarette and sipping a beer. The posh lounge had a few other guests, most of whom had been playing golf or tennis, based on their attire; there was soft piano music playing in the background. Beth tapped her foot impatiently as she took a drag from the cigarette- she hated to be kept waiting. In the reflection of the mirror behind the bar, Beth saw an official looking man in a suit come into the room. He looked toward Beth, consulted with the bar attendant briefly, then started across the room toward her.
"Pardon me, ma'am," the manager began.
"Ma'am?" she scoffed.
"Miss," he corrected himself with an eye roll.
Beth scoffed again, "Miss, should really only be applied to a younger woman, one nearing marrying age, which in the era that this bullshit became common vernacular, would've been around thirteen. Since I am clearly beyond that mile marker, and I am clearly also not married," she held up her left hand showing no wedding ring, "the proper term for me would be maiden. But if you call me maiden," she looked at his name tag, "Alfred, I will stab you in the eye with this fucking fork." She stared at him blankly, waiting for her threat to sink in.
Alfred abandoned the formality, "We have a no smoking policy."
Beth looked around the room- there was a candle beside her on the bar, catering burners were keeping hors d'oeuvres warm, and flames were dancing in the fireplace. "Really? Well, it looks to me that the whole place is smoking, Alfred. Unless the policy is just against me smoking, which I find hard to believe, because I've never been here before." She took a long drag from her cigarette, as if proving a point.
"What do you want?" Alfred clearly realized he was in a losing battle.
"To make a scene. You ready to watch that happen?"
Beth saw Alfred mentally weighing his options and noticed his tie was slightly crooked. "Very well. I'll get Mr. Jenkins for you."
"I appreciate it," Beth replied. She turned back to the bar attendant, Charlie. "Hey tattle tale," she hissed, "I'll have another." She extinguished her cigarette in the candle and continued to wait.
A few minutes passed before Dan Jenkins entered the bar. Dan, a capital developer from California, was becoming a major player in the Paradise Valley expansion project. Beth's goal was to show him exactly what he was getting himself into in Montana and to send him back home.
"What are you doing?" he asked, putting pleasantries aside.
Beth smiled sweetly, "You came up to me, remember?"
"My family lives here," Dan replied.
"Mmh," Beth took a drag from her cigarette and turned on the barstool to face him. "Well, I guess we should go somewhere else. Look, I uh... I know I caught you off guard, so if you wanna, slip around a corner and pop a Viagra. I know a great bar we can go to wait for it to kick in."
Dan rolled his eyes at her, but Beth Dutton at his home simply wouldn't do; he agreed to meet her out front. Dan caught the bartender's eye and indicated that he would take care of Beth's bill then turned to leave.
Beth downed her drink and tossed a hundred dollar bill on the counter before getting up. "Mr. Jenkins is taking care of your tab," said Charlie quickly.
"I wouldn't let that cocksucker pay for my funeral," she replied.
This is going to be fun, Beth thought to herself as she whipped her car into a parking spot at the bar. Jenkins pulled in next to her and got out of his Land Rover, clearly skeptical of the honkytonk she'd selected.
Beth paid their cover charge and ordered a bucket of beer. "C'mon," she said to Dan, taking his hand and leading him through the crowd. Dan was definitely out of his element, the only tie and loafers to be seen. With a little luck, Beth knew she'd be one step closer to wrecking the man beside her before the night was over.
As Beth and Dan talked, she met eyes with a handsome man across the bar. She subtly raised her eyebrows to him, an invitation to come over. The stranger approached, then reached over Dan and helped himself to a beer. "I sure could take you on a ride around the arena," he commented to Beth.
"Yea? You think you could stay on?" she replied.
"Fist fulla that hair and I could," murmured the cowboy.
"Hey!" Dan cut in. "You can't talk to her like that!" Before he knew what happened, Dan was on the floor, clutching his throat where the man had punched him.
Beth covered her mouth to stifle a giggle but then said, "He's right. You can't talk to me like that."
The man's nostrils flared. "You better have a big pistol in that purse to back you up," he threatened.
Beth didn't miss a beat: "I do. It's called my name- Beth Dutton. What's yours?"
The stranger's bravado faded immediately and he disappeared back into the crowd without another word. At least it comes in handy sometimes, Beth thought in regard to her last name.
"What're we doing here? This place will eat us alive!" Dan exclaimed, still massaging his throat.
"Maybe you," Beth replied, "but not me. I just want you to know that, despite whatever illusions you might have, the West isn't won. Watch this." She stuck her leg out and blocked the path of a tall cowboy who was passing. "Hey," she said to him, "this guy said he doesn't like the way you're lookin' at me." She jabbed her thumb toward Dan.
"What'd you say?" the man straightened up, ready for a fight.
"Nothing! I said nothing!" Dan defended.
"Pussy," the cowboy spat back.
"What did you call me?" Dan stood to meet the man face to face, but quickly found himself on the floor again, this time clutching his eye where he'd just been decked. "Let's go," Dan said to Beth.
"Nah, I'll make my own way, thanks."
"Fine. Stay with your people," he said. Without another word, Dan left.
Beth turned back to the crowd on the dancefloor. Dutton 1, Jenkins 0, she thought with a satisfied smile.
By the time Jenkins left the bar, it was full of cowboys looking to drink away their paychecks and girls in short skirts looking for a dance. At the moment, Beth was five beers into the bucket she'd bought at the door and the guy to her right was attempting to make small talk; she wasn't being intentionally rude, she just had other things on her mind.
Beth was staring at her phone, deep in thought, when a voice from behind her caught her attention. "You're in my seat. Get outta here." It was Rip, towering over the wannabe suitor. The guy- she'd forgotten his name- nearly tripped over himself trying to get out of Rip's way. Rip slid onto the barstool beside Beth and smiled. "You look good in neon," he commented.
She smiled back, perhaps the first genuine smile she'd had all day, "Who doesn't?" She opened a beer for him and rested her hand on his. "How was your day?"
"Fucking Fred," he began, shaking his head, "Jimmy picked a fight, one thing led to another…" Rip downed his beer and reached for another. Beth didn't have to ask Fred's fate- she might not have had the physical brand like Rip and some of the others, but she certainly knew what it meant to show disrespect on the Yellowstone.
"What have you been up to?" Rip asked and Beth recounted her afternoon with Dan Jenkins- emotional warfare was her forte, as Rip well knew.
A comfortable silence fell between them, until the band came back on stage from a short break. Without a word, Rip took Beth's hand and led her onto the dancefloor. He spun her once and then she settled into his arms; they swayed gently to the music, as if no one else was there. When the song was over, Rip kissed her softly. "You wanna get outta here?" he asked.
Beth led the way back to the Yellowstone with Rip following closely behind- always her protector. As she drove, her mind drifted to over fifteen years prior. It was a night not unlike that one when Beth had climbed out of her bedroom window to meet Rip. With a stolen bottle of whiskey in hand, she joined him in the Yellowstone's oldest pickup and they went for a midnight drive. Rip had surprised her when he turned off the main road and down a dirt trail. Parked under a blanket of stars, the young couple made love in the bed of the truck and then, somehow, Beth convinced Rip to go skinny dipping with her in the creek that ran nearby. It would've been the perfect night, had her father not caught them sneaking back onto the ranch at three AM.
Thinking back on that night as an adult, Beth saw things from a different perspective than she did as a teenager. John was simply concerned for his only daughter's safety. Rip had suffered the brunt of his anger- he'd been ordered to clean the stalls, alone, for an indefinite amount of time. Beth chuckled to herself and wondered if her father ever knew that she'd helped Rip with his chores for the next month.
A few more minutes passed and they pulled onto the Dutton property. Beth parked her car in its usual spot, but turned to go down the hill to Rip's cabin rather than up to the main house. Tonight, she planned to be with Rip again and she didn't give a damn if John found out.