The Stable Affair

by Jessica Andersen

  “I was so busy being mad at you that I never got to say good-bye. I remember that you said you didn’t get to go to the memorial and I thought you might like to say good-bye also.” He walked to the water’s edge and let the handful of ashes flutter free.

  Sarah did the same, tears streaming down her face as the blackened bits were swept up in the mad torrent and leapt over the edge into the unknown. Tears of sadness mingled with tears of relief until she was crying in earnest and Dante turned to her in concern.

  His eyes were clear of shadows and burning with love. “Sarah, what’s wrong? I only meant for you have a chance to let Susan go, I didn’t mean to make you this sad.”

  “You said we needed to say good-bye,” she sniffled, starting to get angry. “I thought you meant say good-bye to each other!”

  Dante stared at her in disbelief. “Why on earth would we want to do that?”

  “I don’t know, you idiot!” They stared at each other for a moment until Sarah started to giggle. Dante shook his head at the both of them and wrapped his arms around her.

  “I’m never going to say good-bye to you, don’t you get it? I love you.” He kissed her fiercely. “I love you.”

  Sarah leaned into his embrace and echoed his words from what seemed like an eternity ago, “Thank God.”

  “I brought you out here so we could both say good-bye to Susan and so I could ask you something important.” He fished in his pocket again while he dropped to one knee. Almost Noble stepped out of the forest and stood behind him. “Sarah Taylor, the day I came to your aunt’s farm with deceit in my soul and revenge in my heart was the luckiest day of my life. I love you with every fiber of my being and I want you as my wife and as mother to Ellie and to any children we might be fortunate enough to have together. Will you marry me?”

  Almost Noble nodded enthusiastically and Sarah laughed with joy. “Yes Dante. I will marry you. Susan always said that I’d love her brother, but I’m not sure she realized quite how true her words would be. I don’t know if we would’ve met in the end if she hadn’t died, but I hope she’s looking down at us now and smiling.”

  Epilogue

  “Mommy?”

  “I’m right here Ellie, in the kitchen.” Ponderous in her eighth month of pregnancy, Sarah had been banned from working at the barn and spent most of her time either puttering around the airy farmhouse or spoiling Noble and Lucky the pinto filly, both of whom now lived with Ellie’s pony Finnegan and Dante’s gelding Moose at the small barn adjacent to Pruitt Farm.

  A clatter of feet and a scrabble of claws heralded Ellie’s entrance as the sturdy child and her new puppy flung themselves through the door. “Mom! We’re having show and tell at school tomorrow and I want to take a picture of you and Noble. Can I?”

  “Can you what?” Dante swung through the door after the child and swept her up above his head, much to her delight.

  Ellie squealed and laughed and Dante held her near the herbs hanging from the beams in the kitchen while he greeted his wife with a kiss. “Take a picture of Mom and Noble with me to school. Can I, Daddy?”

  “I don’t see why not, Pumpkin. Which one do you want?” He carried the child into the living room where a gallery of photographs was hung with pride.

  “That one.” Ellie pointed at one from her perch high above the floor. “The one where she’s leaping faith.”

  “What?” Dante put the child down and stared at the picture of his wife and her white horse jumping over a wide ditch with a stout fence on the near side. “What did you call it?”

  Sarah joined them. “That type of jump used to be called a “leap of faith ditch,” because the horse had to trust the rider enough to jump across a ditch he couldn’t see. They had one in the ninety-two Classic.”

  Dante was looking at the picture thoughtfully. “Did you have this picture when you lived in Boston?”

  “Sure. That’s one of the few I’ve carried around over the years. Why?”

  “Remember that letter from Fontaine? You know the piece of it that Daniel found in Seville’s computer? How did it go?”

  Sarah tried hard to remember. “Um. Something about Jay’s knowledge resting behind an Almost Noble leap of faith…” She stuttered to a halt and as one they reached for the photograph.

  Dante pried the back off the frame and revealed a slim envelope. “Bingo,” he breathed and slid it free before handing the photograph to Ellie.

  The envelope contained a single computer disk and nothing else. Dante handed the disk to Sarah. “Fontaine’s notes, I presume.”

  She held the disk tight. So many lives had been lost or irrevocably changed because of the information on this disk. “Probably.” She pressed the disk to her lips and remembered Jay as she hadn’t now for many months.

  She remembered how he had tilted his head in inquiry when she had said something feminine and indecipherable. All he had wanted was to make the world a safer place for its people.

  Dante took the disk back and peered at it as if he could read the contents with his naked eye. “What should we do with it? Give it to Bender? He’d know what to do with it wouldn’t he?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Too much temptation. The contents of this disk will make the holder a multimillionaire overnight, but only so long as the sequences are held in confidence. Gordon said that Jay was killed because he wanted to make the information public.” She plucked the disk from Dante’s fingers and tapped it against her lips. “We could be rich.”

  Dante held Sarah close for a moment and laid one hand on her round stomach. He thought of Ellie’s small college fund, the new baby’s needs, and their mounting grain bills.

  Then he glanced at a photograph nestled amongst the others and looked hard at Susan’s face. He knew what she would have said to do. In a way, she had died for this information. “Well, we don’t need a few million, do we? We’ve got everything we need right here. What do you want to do with it?”

  Sarah’s gaze traveled to the networked computer in the corner of the living room, the one she used to keep the farm accounts and correspond with friends. “Share it with the world.”

  And so they did.

  About the Author

  If you look in Jessica Andersen’s wallet you’ll find a membership card from the American Society for Human Genetics, one from the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, one from the American Horse Show Association, and one from Romance Writers of America, and that pretty much sums it up.

  A lifelong equestrian competitor, from gymkhanas to showjumping and back again, Jessica has worked at barns in some capacity for twenty years, but always insisted that she wasn’t going to be a professional- it was just a hobby.

  Then after receiving her PhD in molecular genetics from Tufts University and spending several years cloning genes for human eye diseases, she discovered a genetic predisposition of her own- for writing romances.

  So it was back to the horse world, this time as a professional trainer, giving her the flexibility to write the stories that fascinate her- larger than life romantic suspenses about people meeting and falling in love, about heroes and villains, and about the healing powers of our animal companions.

  Jessica lives in the Witch City—Salem, Massachusetts, with her own personal hero Brian, and their animal companions: Mackenzie the corgi; Rocky and Spencer the cats; and Kelpie, a fourteen hundred pound lap dog disguised as a spotted horse.