You Belong With Me - Jamie Dutton
Pairing: Jamie Dutton x OC (Ava North)
Summary: Ava only wanted one thing: to be a horse tamer. And when she had the chance, she took it. Ava became the new horse tamer of Yellowstone, a totally different ranch from the others she met, either because of its immensity or because of family problems. Ava thought her problems were big, but when she met the Dutton family that thought dies. However, there is a Dutton who is a point out of the curve, a lawyer mistreated by the problems and by his own family. Meeting Jamie Dutton may not have been the work of chance, after all one broken understands the other.
Warnings: Subtle sexual innuendos, brief language, alcohol consumption, angst, smut, fluffy.
Part I
A woman among rustic men
"Guys, this is Ava North. She will stay with us from now on. Treat her like one of you." Rip announced to the cowboys at dawn.
Ava watched every look of the cowboys carefully. They stared at her in a mixture of discredit, confusion and horniness. She did not expect anything different from what she received, after all, she was the only woman among those rustic men who probably had no time or willingness to leave the barn in search of some adventure in the city. Rip could order them to treat her like a man, they could try to treat her like a man, she wanted them to see her like that, but Ava would never pass herself off as a man.
Ava had inherited her mother's long dark hair, as well as slightly tanned skin and small, black eyes. They said that her nose and mouth looked a lot like her father's, but she couldn't say it since she never saw him. The slender and curvilinear body may have been inherited by genetics, although the years of training for competitions have physically prepared her for something beyond rodeo. The fact was that, even under a hat, wide and thick clothes, heavy boots and dust, Ava did not go unnoticed by anyone, especially for those men.
Rip did not give enough time for the cowboys to whisper or approach Ava, sending them to perform the daily tasks. One of them, Lloyd, a man who looked more than fifty years old, but with a cervix as hard as hers, guided her with a respectful smile to one of the horses in the barn. It was big, black and shiny.
"How gorgeous you are." Ava exclaimed walking her hands through the robust mane and it snealed loudly at her. "Hey, calm down, boy."
"This stallion has given us a lot of work." Lloyd explained in his hoarse voice. "Rip told about your old job. Do you think you can do your magic with this one?"
"I can try." She caressed the strong shoulders of that horse as a woman would caress the man she loved. "The secret is in trust. Probably whoever rode him was more afraid of him than he was of the tamer. He can feel everything, even a miserable fly in the hull, and he certainly feels our fear."
"He seems to like you." Lloyd smiled under his thick mustache as he contemplated the calm of the stallion under Ava's hands. "Let's test it."
Lloyd opened the gate and guided the stallion through the partitions until he reached the huge fence about a hundred meters away. He prepared the cell and the stirrups, so he invited her to assemble. As much as Ava had practiced that for long years, it had been a long time since she rode a horse for the last time. And taming one ha longer than that. She didn't want to tell Rip about it or she wouldn't convince him to accept her there. But the fact was that Ava was a bit nervous to ride again,
She noticed that Lloyd was watching her carefully, trying to find some reason for her to be there in the middle of those rough men who barely knew how to read. Maybe he thought why she had left the competitions or how she had convinced Rip to let her work there. Whatever his thought, Ava should demonstrate with actions that she deserved to be there, that she really had a talent and loved what she did.
So, she leaned on the cell and rode the horse. Immediately, the stallion was surprised by her presence there and began to jump and rabble, wanting to expel her from there. However, years could have passed, but the muscular memory was as alive as before. Ava grabbed the cell tightly and tied her other hand to the stirrup, slightly forcing the horse's snout. He still moved under her mount, making her run through the white sand a few times. That horse was very fierce, but Ava wouldn't be defeated.
She lightly pressed the stallion's ribs with her boots, also trying to calm her own being. Once again relaxed, Ava finally got the animal to stop jumping and start running. The strong breeze of the morning hit her face without merce, taking her hat away, but she didn't care. The smile of satisfaction covered her dusty face and she only noticed that there was an audience when the horse ceased its movements.
Lloyd clapped his hands on the other side of the fence, proud of what he had just seen. However, her attention was fixed on the man next to him. He exhaled power in his bluish look and calm expression. No one needed to report that that was Mr. John Dutton, the most influential landowner in Montana. He stared at her with a mini smile that she interpreted as something not very common to him, a smile that he released only when he was satisfied with something. Not bad for the first day, she thought.
John Dutton didn't have time to say anything about her performance — if he was going to say anything — because his attention was stolen by someone else. Ava observed a tall man, so white that he shone in the sunlight, and navy blue suit very aligned to visit a ranch. He walked in a hurry, touching the buttons of the suit in the meantime and aiming at nothing more than John's back. The rest of the world didn't seem to exist for him. Ava didn't seem to exist for him.
The man who looked like a businessman or perhaps a lawyer called John, who did not seem so happy with his arrival and walked away from the fence. The two began a quick conversation that ended in expressions that transited between worry and boredom. So, John Dutton walks away from the stables with the man in a suit. He didn't even look at Lloyd, or anything around him. His focus was just John Dutton and that intrigued Ava more than it should.
"Who was him?" She asked as soon as she got off the horse.
"He was John Dutton. Yours and our boss." Lloyd responded by collecting the stallion's stirrups.
Ava shook her head. "I know. I mean the other one, the one with the suit and tie."
"Oh! That's Jamie Dutton, John's son."
"He doesn't seem to be the son of a landowner."
Lloyd laughed as if he knew something else. "That boy always behaved as if he were more, and became more. He is the family lawyer, he graduated from Harvard and blah, blah, blah, these nonsense that you or me don't even understand."
"He really seems to be more...or want to be more." Ava thought out loud and decided to leave that subject behind, since the life of the bosses was none of her business.
But her mind wouldn't stop searching that scene and that man. Jamie Dutton. It was not a good name for a lawyer, certainly not a good one for a landowner. Still, it was a name that echoed in her mind all that day.
