Page 16

CHAPTER 16

On Thursday morning, Lorissa pulled into Erin’s Way, made her way to the main barn where she knew Duane’s office was, and parked beside his car. As she climbed out of her truck, she paused and waited for Tom to park his. With her travel mug of coffee in her hand, she followed Tom to the office. They only walked about ten steps before they were called to stop. Together they turned to watch as Erin strode toward them. Lorissa had a secret thought that she wanted to be like Erin when she grew up, but realized she was only a year older than the other woman. She paused and waited, and felt ten-foot tall when Erin told her she could listen to the conversation.

“What’s up?”

“I wanted to let you know that over the next four hours, I have four mares coming in to be bred. I know you don’t need to be here, but I thought I’d give you the heads up. Reid here is going to head it up, but you’re more than welcome to be on hand.”

“I think I will. I hope you don’t mind that I invited Lorissa here today because I was going to show her how I filled the orders for Riceman Stallions.”

“How long can you stick around today?”

“Unless I get an emergency call, I’m free all day. Why?”

“I try to keep a tally on my computer, but we need to do a physical inventory of the specimens. Don’t quote me, but we might be running low on some.” She held up her stump and shook her head. “Not on the old ones, but on the ones where we have the stallions here, in house.”

“Okay, I’ll take an inventory after I sent out the samples.”

“Good, and you know to get me the updated list?”

“Yes.”

“Good again.” She turned to Lorissa and nodded. “I’m not saying what I’m about to say as being a bitch, or controlling. As it stands, the only person allowed into the lab right now is Tom. I don’t even go in there. I’m not saying it would happen, but I feel the less people in there, the better. If Tom wants you there, that’s on him. Again, I don’t have a problem with it, just please, follow his instructions. You’re talking about a lot of money I could potentially lose if something happens.”

“I totally understand,” Lorissa said with a nod of her head. “I will listen to Tom and follow his instructions. If I feel I can’t handle it, I won’t even enter the lab.”

“Thank you.” She then turned to Tom. “Let me know when you need to enter.” She left and the two of them headed toward the office in the barn.

On the way, Tom explained, “Erin and I are the only ones with keys. It’s like trying to get into Fort Knox. Not only do we have to turn our keys at the same time, but we are given limited time to scan our prints.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of security.”

“It is,” Reid spoke for the first time. “Have you seen the website?”

“I have, and I also noted the prices of just one sample. I’m impressed by the security Erin has in place.”

“That was my idea,” Tom said. “It took some convincing for Erin to go along with it, but when we had a break-in years ago and lost a couple of samples, she agreed to it. Luckily, the people didn’t get anything and were arrested. It was also a lucky break that the samples we lost were from the stallions that were to remain here on the ranch.”

Lorissa didn’t know what to say, so she stayed silent and followed them into the office. Reid immediately handed Tom the file folder he held and explained which mare was supposed to arrive at which time. By the time he was done explaining everything, the first mare had arrived.

Tom looked at Lorissa with a grin. “You ready to go to the sex barn?”

“Excuse me?”

Tom laughed. “That’s what Reid called it after observing his first time. It was a busy time then, we had mares coming in, and collecting samples from other stallions when the mares weren’t here. Erin had all the men work there when they first arrived, to get them the feel of some of what we do. I don’t know whether it was because they were former SEALs or if it was their personalities, but they dubbed the barn we use for the mares and collections as the sex barn.”

Lorissa withheld her comments until she saw the setup and agreed on how everything was run. For the first mare, she stood behind the glass to observe how they operated, and by the time the second mare arrived and was put in place, she stood at its head calming her with soothing words. It turned out that this would be this mare’s first time being mounted. It made Lorissa happy that the rancher had picked a stallion that produced great horseflesh, it wasn’t overly large that the mare wouldn’t be able to birth it.

By two o’clock that afternoon, all the mares were gone, Reid cleaned up the barn, and since Duane had brought sandwiches for everyone, the only thing left to do was grab the paperwork for the mail orders from Tom’s desk. They arrived at the lab to find Erin waiting there for them. The keys were inserted, turned, and fingerprints taken. It all happened in under two minutes, as soon as the door clicked, and a green light came on, Erin dismissed herself and Tom opened the door.

Lorissa walked into an area that held gowns, booties for their feet, boxes of gloves, and hair nets. She looked at him with a grin. “I know it was horses, but you’ll have to give me a second or two. Watching all that activity got my motor running. I’m going to have to go home and take a cold shower.” She had laughed and joked the entire time, not looking at Tom, but when she did, she saw something in his eyes that had her juices flowing. She launched herself at him, and sighed against his lips when he wrapped his arms around her and devoured her.

Minutes later, she raised her head. “We need to stop.”

“I know,” he agreed, but kissed her again. The next thing she realized, she was lying on the floor and had her shirt off, her jeans were undone, and his hands were all over her. She also noted that her hands were on his bare chest, and his jeans were undone. She stared up at him, and whispered. “Do you have protection?”

“I do.”

“Get it,” she said as she gently pushed him to the side, sat up, removed only one boot, then took her pants off that leg, and pushed them down to the ankle of the other leg. She lay back down and stared at him as he shoved his jeans and boxers to his thighs, donned the condom, and settled between her legs.

While moving her hair from her face, he kissed her forehead and stared into her eyes. “This isn’t how I envisioned our first time together.”

“Me either, but for now, it’s this or extreme frustration.”

“I’ll settle for this,” he said, and slowly entered her. He didn’t stop until he reached as far as he could, and he paused to catch his breath. “You’re so tight.”

“Thank you, I think, it’s been a few years.” She reached up and put her hand on the side of his face. “I don’t believe in talking about past lovers, because it’s in the past, but you are my second lover.”

Tom grinned and started to move. As he moved his lower body in and out of her wet core, he kissed her. When she wrapped her arms around him, he moved faster, then reached beneath her to cup her ass and bring her closer to him. As soon as he hit her at a different angle, it took everything in her not to scream in delight as he hit the right spot inside her. Three strokes later she screamed into his shoulder as she came, and it was quickly followed by him burying his face in her neck when he had his own release.

They held each other for several long minutes before Tom reached between them to hold the condom as he disengaged himself from her. He cleaned up at the sink in the corner while Lorissa put herself back together, and by the time they were ready to enter the lab, they looked at each other with a grin.

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” he laughed. “Let me know when you might want to go at it again. I’ll make sure my schedule is clear.”

They shared a laugh as he explained about the personal care protection they had to put on and why he wanted it done. Once dressed in the protective gear, she looked at him with a frown.

“No glasses or goggles?”

“They’re inside the lab.”

“Oh.” She stood back as he opened the door, and stared in sheer shock at what she saw. Everything was white, there were tables holding microscopes, and in a small room on the other side of the main room there were some filing cabinets. Along one wall was a cabinet with glass doors where she saw boxes and other packing material.

“Okay, I’m going to tell you step-by-step what I do, and why I do it. I’m not expecting you to help, I’m just letting you know what I do. You’re already seen the website, you’ve seen the paperwork Jake and Duane do, and you’ve seen the sex barn. The only thing you haven’t experienced up to this point is where I collect the sperm sample. ”

“I can imagine, and I wouldn’t mind seeing that happen. I know I let my emotions get carried away with me earlier, and if you’re not offended, I’m not sorry for what we did.”

“Neither am I, offended or sorry.” He leaned in and gave her a quick kiss before he changed his voice into an instructive manner. “Okay, this is what I consider the tail end of the process, so we will be on this side of the room.”

“What’s on that side? What’s the differences of the sides?” She pointed to where the tables with the microscopes and other equipment were.

“That’s the beginning of the process. After I collect the samples, I take them to that side and run the tests. I test for any genetic abnormalities, or possible birth defects. I also make sure there are plenty of swimmers before I Cyro-freeze it. That’s also where I get the DNA profile to keep on file. I do that in case a rancher comes back to me and says we sold them inferior product. That’s why we do the background checks on the rancher and the vet.” He pointed to the round metal tube in the middle of the floor, dividing the two areas. “See, I do the testing on that side, when everything is good, I freeze it. It stays in the freezers until I take it out, box it up and ship it. It might seem like it’s redundant on my packaging, but there is a method to my madness. I promise. I haven’t had a sample arrive damaged yet, and we’ve been doing this for a little over four years. We’ve been collecting for five years, but shipping for only four.”

“Oh, wow, now I’m curious.” She watched as he talked as he worked. He removed something like a test tube, but it was slightly larger, then a small Styrofoam container, with one slightly larger, then finally a cardboard box. After he had his supplies stacked up, he turned to the paperwork.

“Okay, this is the number I refer to for the sample.” He pointed to the paperwork, and as he donned the goggles, he also donned a pair of heavy-duty gloves. “These are because the samples are in dry ice.”

“Got it, and that’s what that container is?” She pointed to the container he’d put on the table before donning the gloves and goggles.

“Yes. Instead of explaining this part, just watch.” He went to the second metal container, opened it, lifted several layers that she found swung out, extracted what he was looking for, put everything back and resealed the container. It all took less than two minutes. At the work station, he double checked the number, dropped the sample in the tube, added a little dry ice, put that tube into a Styrofoam container that had the size already punched out, so it nestled safely inside. Added more dry ice. Sealed it. Put that into the larger white container, more dry ice between the two. Closed and sealed the larger container, then slipped that inside the brown box. Because he had printed the label before donning the gloves and goggles, he was able to put that on the box, and moved that box off to the side.

She watched him for the next two hours and when she saw he had five left, he removed both sets of gloves, sent a text message, then replaced the gloves that touched his skin, and donned the heavier gloves.

“Who did you just text?”

“The shipping company to come pick them up. Because this is like a monthly ordeal, we’ve set it up that I would text them when I was about an hour away of being done, and they would send a special truck out to pick the packages up.”

“How special?”

“Special in the fact that it’s not a regular route driver. It’s someone in the office that grabs a truck and comes out.”

“Oh.” She watched as he completed the orders, and by the time they stepped outside, the package truck was just backing up to the doors. She helped load up the thirty boxes and watched as Tom signed the paperwork, then got the receipt which he clipped to the paperwork. After the truck left, they headed to Erin’s house, but Lorissa stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“What’s wrong?”

“You forgot to take inventory.”

“Shit, you’re right. Let me drop this off to Erin and see if she has time to unlock the lab again.” They went around the back of the house and directly to the office. After handing in the paperwork, he explained the situation about not taking inventory. Erin stood, and Lorissa’s phone went off. She looked at the number, frowned, but answered anyway.

“Gibson,” she answered in her no-nonsense way. She listened and nodded as she heard the man on the other end talk. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She hung up and looked at the other two. “That was Jared Coleman, there’s a problem with the horse I worked on, and he has another one with the same problem.” She looked at Tom with concern.

“What?”

“How receptive would Jared be to suggestions?”

“What type of suggestions?”

“If this is the second horse that is having the same problem, then there might be something in the pasture he’s keeping them in. I wonder if he would reject me telling him to move his horses to a different location until he can find what they’re walking on to tear their feet up like they currently are.”

“If he doesn’t like your suggestion, I’ll tell him what to do.” Erin interjected. “I know Jared, I don’t think he’s the type not to take direction from a woman, but you could always say that he’s throwing away good money on your services if he won’t investigate what they’re walking on.”

“There is that.” She nodded and Erin left them. “ Damn, I was going to ask if you wanted to come to my place for dinner tonight? I stuck a roast with veggies in the crockpot this morning.”

“If you don’t mind me being in your house by myself, I can go there when I’m done here. I’m anticipating at least four hours of inventory. Maybe more.”

“Will you feed Rose and Baby?”

“I can do that.”

“Thanks,” she said and started to lean in and kiss him, but stopped halfway and laughed when he grabbed her and brought her the rest of the way to him.

“Until later,” he whispered against her lips and let her go.

Lorissa hurried to her truck, then swore when she realized she’d have to run home, grab her tools, then head out to Jared’s ranch. She nodded as she got into work mode and did what she had to do. On the way to her house, she made a mental note to make sure she had a medical bag in her truck at all times.