The Stable Affair

by Jessica Andersen

  But within the trailer, these sounds were meaningless. The world had contracted to a three-by-five foot space cluttered with saddles and brushes and two bodies straining against each other in the primitive dance that celebrated life.

  A kiss that had started as acknowledgement of a connection soon took on a life of its own as both Dante and Sarah dove into the moment. She fisted her hands in his thick hair and drew his head down to hers, but he soon tired of the awkward angle and lifted her up, bracing them both against the locked dressing room door as she wrapped her saddle-tight thighs around his waist.

  They kissed again and again, tenderly, frantically, and her busy hands worked on the buttons of his soft green shirt, needing to feel the hard pliancy of his flesh against her fingertips.

  She pushed the shirt over his taut shoulders and raked greedy hands across the hard planes of his chest, flicking her nails across the sharp points of his nipples.

  Dante groaned and felt the earth move as he leaned harder against the trailer door and pulled her legs higher, until they clasped firmly at his hips.

  The rasp of stressed aluminum accompanied a bigger shift of the wall behind his back and he realized the earth wasn’t moving after all. It was the door lock giving way under their combined weight.

  He could do no more than shout a warning and wrap his arms around Sarah to protect her before the dressing room door flew open, launching them into the air. They fell the three feet to the ground and hit hard. Dante’s breath whooshed out as Sarah landed on his chest and stomach.

  He gasped like a fish until he was rewarded by a thin trickle of air. He wished Sarah would get off him, but her arms seemed to be trapped in the shirt he still had snagged on his arms. She struggled a moment and freed herself, rolling off Dante’s prone body. His bare chest was suddenly very cold.

  “Oh God,” he heard Sarah groan, followed by a snort of mirth and several titters. He looked up to find that a fascinated group of children, dogs, and ponies had gathered around the fallen pair.

  “Sarah, what’re you doing?” one walk-trotter asked with interest.

  “Why is that man’s shirt off?” asked another, taller girl. Dante glared at her as he continued to pull air into his lungs. She was old enough to know exactly why his shirt was where it was.

  “Why are you both breathing funny? Were you running?”

  “Okay kids! Show’s over. Back to your jobs, we’re pulling out in ten minutes whether you’re packed or not!” Tilda waded in to save the pair, casually dropping a saddle pad in Dante’s lap to camouflage his bulging erection as she shepherded her young charges away. She shot Sarah a withering look over her shoulder. “And you thought Amanda was embarrassing!”

  One of the dogs sniffed at Dante and slunk away when the photographer heaved himself to a sitting position. A red-faced Sarah struggled to her feet and offered him a hand up. His shirt hung damply down his back and when he shrugged it back over his shoulders it felt suspiciously cold.

  “Ooooh no,” he groaned. “Not again!” Looking down at the ground on which he had landed, he was unsurprised to see a flattened pile of horse dung. He glared at Sarah, who looked confused until he spun about to walk away. The back of his unbuttoned shirt was covered with horse manure.

  He didn’t turn around until he heard the trill of her slightly hysterical laughter. “Yeah, go ahead and laugh, babe. This time I’m sending you the dry cleaner’s bill!”

  On the ride home, Sarah was especially grateful that she had made it a rule never to carry human passengers when she drove the rig. She needed the time alone to think.

  “Have I gone mad?” The Truck might have chortled at her, but Sarah wasn’t sure. Had she really given up all thoughts of clearing her name and returning to the lab just because she might or might not be falling in love with a horse show photographer and his niece?

  Not really, she decided. She’d just promised not to use Matt if she pursued the issue. But that decision itself was symbolic of a move away from her old life and toward the new.

  At home later that evening, Sarah found a message on the machine from Matt inviting her to a play that evening. “Well, I guess he was serious about starting something after all.” She had sort of been hoping he’d been kidding.

  She punched in the number he’d left, sent a quick prayer to the powers that be and was rewarded by a recording. It was cowardice, true, but she found it easier to tell Matt’s machine that she wouldn’t be able to see him that night or any other.

  When the answering machine on his desk beeped harshly to indicate that Sarah had hung up, The Doctor steepled his fingers against his lips in contemplation. He did not like being worried like this and cursed their continued inability to reproduce Fontaine’s results.

  His delicate fingers picked up the receiver and tapped out a familiar number. “This is The Doctor calling. She didn’t go for it. If you can’t find the lab notes this time, you know what to do.”

  Chapter Eight

  The little gray aristocrat tripped daintily down the ramp of the trailer and surveyed his new domain with scorn. His delicately pointed ears pricked and his triangular muzzle twitched as he sniffed the early summer balm.

  “God save me from little white ponies,” prayed Tilda, rolling her eyes to the heavens. “They’re such dilettantes.”

  Sarah stepped forward to accept the leather lead shank from the uniformed driver, who proffered a thick packet enclosed in a shiny green folder. “His papers, Ma’am. Vet certificate, registrations, and instructions on his care and feeding.”

  She took the packet, knowing they’d probably disregard most of its contents and treat the little prince like any other pony at the farm. “Thanks, we’ll get back to you in a week if we’re going to keep him.”

  Clucking to the little fellow, she led him to a clean loose box and shut him in. As she coiled the expensive leadline, she noticed that just like his halter, the lead bore a brass nameplate that read “Macomber’s Finnegan.”

  Like the Farnley and Glenmore ponies, the Macomber ponies were royalty amongst the masses, bred for generations for their dainty, flowing step and their tiny, elfin heads. Unfortunately, the prettier they were, the more evil they tended to be. That was the way of little white ponies.

  “Awful pretty, isn’t he?” Tilda didn’t seem happy about that. Finnegan minced around his new home, snorting at the shavings as if he expected them to jump up and grab his ankles.

  “Yeah, but we won’t hold that against him quite yet. Ellie’s ready for more than old Marshmallow anyway, a little bit of pony attitude shouldn’t scare her. He’s small enough that she won’t have far to fall.”

  “Is he here? Is he here? Where is he?” A little blonde rocket ricocheted around the corner and scrambled to a halt, quivering with excitement.

  “Whoa there, Ellie, settle down! Yes he’s here, but don’t go falling in love with him right away, he’s just here on trial for a week. If we all agree that it’s a good match, then you can fall in love with him. Okay?”

  Ellie bounced on the balls of her feet. “Yeah, sure. Okay.”

  Sarah was pretty sure the girl hadn’t heard a word of that caution, but she remembered the arrival of her own first pony as if it were yesterday, and Ellie was about due for some good news in her life.

  Heavier footsteps heralded Dante’s approach, and Sarah ducked her head, blushing. She hadn’t seen him since their little encounter in the trailer, but she’d dreamed about him—hot, aching dreams that for some reason also included her big gray horse.

  She turned away and peered intently at Finnegan as the photographer approached. Dante stood silently at her shoulder and she could feel the heat from his body warming hers as they watched Ellie fuss over the white pony.

  “Sure is a cute little fella, isn’t he?”

  Sarah grunted. “Unfortunately.”

  “Excuse me?” Dante was puzzled by her unenthusiastic response.

  “Sorry. Yeah, he’s cute all right. We’ll just wait and s
ee how he is for Ellie to ride, right Pumpkin?” Ellie nodded absently, already deeply absorbed in the one-way conversation she was conducting with the pony.

  Seeing that Ellie would be preoccupied with Finnegan for some time, Dante touched Sarah’s arm and drew her further down the aisle so they could talk with some sort of privacy. “I take it from the fact that you’re not looking at me that our little adventure in the trailer did not go over well with your aunt?”

  He said it so dryly that Sarah had to laugh. “That’s putting it mildly. You’d think she’d never caught me necking in the hayloft before.” A reminiscent smile touched her lips.

  “Oh really? Anything you want to tell me about?”

  “Not particularly.” Sarah found that she could look at him now. He was acting so casually about the whole silly thing that she found it hard to keep feeling awkward. “Actually, she was pretty okay about it, considering that we landed in the middle of a gaggle of walk-trot kids. I just had to promise that the next time I had the urge to get you naked, I’d do it somewhere with a better lock.”

  Dante laughed, dimples winking in the dim light. “I second that motion and eagerly await such a time and place. Now, let’s take a look at this pony you’re trying to convince me to lease for Ellie-belly.”

  The three adults sat around the kitchen table later that afternoon, sipping at iced teas and discussing Finnegan the wonder pony.

  “Well, from a timing standpoint it couldn’t be better. They’re willing to lease him out until fall, at which point you can buy him or return him.” Tilda flipped through the paperwork while Dante looked uncertain.

  “I still don’t see why she can’t just lease Marshmallow, she loves him and they seem to get along great.”

  “Well, for one he’s not fancy enough to be competitive at the bigger shows that you want Ellie to ride in. He’s fine for the local one-days, but not the away shows. It’s also not fair at his age to keep him at the show for four or five days when he’d rather be at home in his own bed.”

  Sarah broke in with a note of practicality, “Furthermore, you can’t afford him. We make so much lesson money teaching beginners on him that his lease rate would be much higher than Finnegan’s.”

  Dante held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, I get it. We’ve already agreed that Ellie has some natural talent and that she wants to work for what she gets, so I’m willing to try this. If you guys think that Finnegan’s appropriate for her, let’s do it.”

  Sarah shifted and put her glass down. “I do have some reservations about that. Finnegan is a lot more pony than she’s used to, but I think with supervision they’ll be fine. She’ll start showing in the leadlines at Capeside and maybe move up to the walk-trots by the end of the season. We won’t push it.”

  He was content with that, knowing that Sarah would never put Ellie in danger. “Okay. I’ll pay for the lease, the insurance, and the showing. Ellie will work off some of it by helping you guys out as much as she can here at the farm and at the shows when she’s not riding, right?”

  “Right, we’ve got enough barn rats here that they can make sure she doesn’t overdo it or put herself in danger. She can scrub water buckets and help tack up.” Tilda flipped the folder shut, considering the deal done. “I’m going to see how Bob’s doing with Sweetie. She should be close to foaling by now.”

  When she was gone, the kitchen seemed very small with just Sarah and Dante sitting at the little table in silence. The quiet stretched very thin between them and Dante could tell she was trying to work up to saying something.

  “What?”

  Sarah looked at him in feigned surprise. “Excuse me?”

  “I have the feeling you want to ask me something.” For the most part, he and Sarah had gotten to know each other in situations where there was always something to do, someone else to talk to or a horse to handle. It was odd for them to be alone together and to Dante it felt strange. Not bad, not good, just different. He could tell that she felt it too.

  Sarah scuffed her finger across a smudge on the kitchen table, not quite sure how to begin. Lately he’d been around the barn so much that it seemed he was always there and she’d gotten used to him, but alone with him in her aunt’s kitchen, it was hard for Sarah to escape the sheer impact of his presence.

  Sure, Dante had caused quite a stir amongst the females at the horse show—it was rare for a new heterosexual male to appear on the scene and he’d earned more than a few whispers and appraising glances. At the time, it hadn’t reminded Sarah that Dante was a certifiable hunk—it had just pissed her off that other women were looking at him like that. But now, alone with him in the farmhouse kitchen, Sarah was struck anew by the strength of his features and it just made her feel more awkward and clumsy. “I guess I do want to ask you something, but it’s kind of personal.”

  Dante leaned back in the kitchen chair. “Personal, huh? Okay.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “I’ve got all my own teeth and hair, no important diseases, and I don’t beat women, children, or dogs. I have one small tattoo that I’ll show you some other time, I’ve never been married, and I don’t have any… oh. Children. You want to know about Ellie, don’t you?”

  Sarah nodded. “If you don’t mind. I don’t want to open old wounds, but it might help me to teach her if I knew more about what happened.” And it might help her to understand the shadows that she still saw in Dante’s eyes now and then.

  In a way, Dante was prepared for this question. When Ellie and Sarah had met and Ellie started taking lessons at Pruitt Farm, he had rehearsed the story he planned to tell Sarah—enough truth to appease her without exposing his deception. But he wasn’t prepared for his own almost overwhelming desire to tell her the whole truth.

  He wanted to tell her about Susan, about how Ellie cried out for her mother in the night. He longed to share his own pain and confusion over his sister’s suicide. Sarah would understand that—she had lost loved ones too. He wanted to ask her if it had been his fault, if he could have stopped what happened. He needed her to tell him that he couldn’t have changed a thing and hold him in her arms as he cried for the loss.

  But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t tell her. What if he was wrong and she had been involved in the cover-up he was sure followed Susan’s death? What if she and Bender and others had even killed Susan? It was an idea Dante had toyed with before. He’d never believed that his sister would take her own life. Sure, that could have happened without Sarah’s knowledge. She could be an innocent pawn in this game, but what if she wasn’t? He’d be a fool to break his cover now.

  Sarah watched the play of emotion across Dante’s mobile face and her heart ached to see the torture there. He seemed to be struggling mightily to find the words to talk about Ellie’s parents. It must have been a great personal tragedy—it was obviously very painful for him to discuss.

  “Never mind, pretend I didn’t ask. I didn’t mean to upset you like this.” Sarah started to rise from the table, thinking that they should go back outside and see whether Ellie was riding Finnegan yet.

  “No, it’s not that. I’m sorry, please stay.” Dante held out a hand in mute appeal. “Sit back down and I’ll tell you. You’re right, it might help you deal with Ellie if you knew.” He shifted in his chair and smiled slightly when he heard a familiar squeal of laughter from outside. “She seems pretty happy now, doesn’t she?”

  Thinking that Dante was asking for reassurance, Sarah nodded. “She is happy. She seems to be a happy, bright, very polite child. Whatever you’ve done with her seems to be working just fine.”

  “Thank you, that means a lot now. For the first few months I had her I wasn’t so sure either of us was going to make it the rest of the year, never mind until her twenties.” Dante cringed as he remembered the midnight screams, the tantrums, and the almost daily visits to the child psychologist.

  “From what I’ve seen that’s the way most parents feel at one time or another, and those are people who’ve already worked their way through
babyhood. You were given the joy of instant fatherhood, weren’t you?”

  Dante nodded. “Yep, that’s pretty much what happened. One day I’m in a nice quiet rainforest photographing the biggest, ugliest spiders you’d ever want to see, then the next I’m on a plane back home, rushing to make it to my sister’s funeral.” He kept the tone light but he desperately wanted to hit something, anything. In the months since Susan’s death, the rage hadn’t diminished—it had just been refocused.

  Sarah laid a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m very sorry. There’s nothing I can say to make that hurt go away. Trust me, after Jay was killed, plenty of people tried to tell me everything was okay, but I knew they were lying. Were you and your sister close?”

  “Yes and no. We were very close as children, as close as two kids can really be at that age. Our father was sick for a long time before he died and my mother had to care for him, so we pretty much raised each other until I left home. After that we didn’t see each other often enough. She went off to school, got married partway through, and I was always waltzing from one shoot to another. I’d see her when I was in the States, but not as often as I should have.” If he’d spent more time with her, he might have a better idea whether or not she could have taken her own life.

  “You can’t blame yourself for that. Growing up and making your own way is part of life, not something to be ashamed of.”

  “Yeah, well. Anyway, the guy she got herself married to wasn’t much of a prize in the opinion of the rest of the family, but I was out of the house and my sister was left alone with my parents. I think she married John just to get out of the house.”

  “So it’s your fault she married this guy too, huh?” Sarah thought it ironic that she could clearly see in others faults that therapists had constantly accused her of having.

  Dante just grunted. “John was a schmuck, but at least he gave her Ellie. She’s a great kid.”