by Ava Winters
As Stefan talked, she started to see a side to herself that she didn’t like. She hadn’t realized how she was seen by other people. She had always thought of herself as someone who just wanted to have fun with anyone who was willing to join her. She had thought that people, especially young men, liked her to be that way.
Stefan was talking like he thought she was very self-centered and only thought of herself and never of others. She knew that he believed that she was Luisa. She wondered what he would think if she told him that she was the Amanda who was supposed to be possibly marrying Ian. She knew that it would prove his point about what he thought she was really like.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Luisa,” Stefan said with remorse in his voice. “You work for Miss Amanda as a companion. I guess I shouldn’t be talking like this about your employer.”
“We are more friends than employer and servant,” Amanda answered, and then said slowly, “I am aware of her faults though.”
Much more aware than I ever knew, she thought. She suddenly didn’t want to talk about Ian or … herself anymore.
“Tell me about this yearling you are walking,” Amanda said brightly.
She breathed a sigh of relief as Stefan took her hint and began to tell her the history of the horse. She was actually very impressed by his bloodlines. Evidently, his sire and grandsire were famous racehorses and he had a very good chance of becoming one himself. Amanda asked Stefan a lot of questions which she knew would show her knowledge of Thoroughbred racing.
“I have to say, I’m impressed with your questions. You definitely know a lot about racing,” Stefan said as they started around the track a third time.
“Well, my father is a …horse trainer for Whispering Horse Ranch,” Amanda lied.
“I’m sorry that I jumped all over you about Gladiator. He’s just not very stable. I don’t want anyone to get hurt by him.”
“Tell me his story,” Amanda invited.
She had been wondering why the horse was even on Thunder Valley Ranch. Her father would have never allowed a horse that had problems like Gladiator had on his ranch.
“He is from a famous horse ranch in Kentucky. I won’t tell you the name because you might recognize it. The owner is pretty harsh with his horses. He uses force and hard training to get them to win. Gladiator didn’t respond very well to that type of training. The owner also had him race before he was ready which totally ruined him.”
“So Gladiator won’t ever be a racehorse,” Amanda observed.
Stefan shook his head. “No. He might do well as a stud, but that’s about it.”
“Why is he here on this ranch then?”
“Because Ian basically rescued him. The owner planned to sell him for …” Stefan paused and Amanda knew what he was going to say. Thoroughbreds that wouldn’t race were considered worthless and were usually sold to slaughterhouses.
“Ian didn’t want that to happen to such a good horse. He bought Gladiator for a ridiculous amount of money, but it saved his life.”
Amanda’s opinion of Ian just went up a notch. He must be a good man if he cared that much about a horse that wasn’t even his in order to save his life.
“Mr. McAdams doesn’t know about Gladiator, so if you are ever around him, don’t say anything, please.”
Amanda felt confused. Why wouldn’t Ian tell his father he had rescued Gladiator? Then she instantly knew the answer. Mr. McAdams would likely chastise Ian and then insist that the horse be “taken care of,” a term that her own father used when a horse wasn’t pulling its own weight for racing anymore.
“I won’t say anything. But won’t he find out eventually?” she asked.
“I’m sure he will, but he rarely comes down to the horse barn. It will be a while before he finds out. Ian is hoping that we will be able to work with Gladiator enough so that Mr. McAdams will at least consider keeping him so that he could be used as a stud. He has a great pedigree.”
“That makes sense,” Amanda said. “I promise I haven’t touched him again.” She rubbed her bruise on her wrist.
Stefan glanced at her actions and stopped walking the horse. He reached out and took her wrist and looked at it. He rubbed a finger over it and a tingle went straight up her arm. “You were lucky that this bruise is all he gave you.”
“I just talk to him. I think he likes the sound of my voice. In fact, I’m sure that he enjoys my visits,” Amanda responded.
They began walking again and Amanda grew very quiet. She had learned a lot about Stefan. He was a good, kind, and caring man. She could tell that his entire life was horses.
They continued to talk as they walked around the racetrack one more time. Amanda thoroughly enjoyed her time with Stefan, not counting the first part of their conversation about … her. She realized that something had changed between them and she hoped that he would no longer try to avoid her.
But she also realized that she needed to make some changes. She wasn’t going to chase after him, like she had been trying to, and like she would have with any of the young men in Albertson.
She knew that Stefan was different, and she found that she liked that.
If she didn’t chase him, would he like her better? Was this a different way to winning a man’s attention? Then she reminded herself that he thought she was Luisa … what would happen when he found out she was someone else?
Chapter 15
After dinner with the other servants of Thunder Valley Ranch that evening (Stefan again was a no show), Amanda retired to the room that she shared with Luisa earlier than usual. She was glad that Luisa wasn’t in the room. She had some things she needed to think about, and she wanted to be alone.
She was beginning to feel guilty since her talk with Stefan. She suddenly realized how selfish she had been throughout most of her life. She was especially being selfish about this potential marriage with Ian.
She had only been thinking of things from her point of view and failed to even take into consideration how difficult this probably also was for Ian. It was selfish of her to expect Luisa to fall into her scheme to switch places.
There were many other things she could have tried to get out of marrying Ian. She should have stood up to her father and refused to come for a visit to Thunder Valley Ranch in the first place.
She could have come to the ranch as herself and been honest with Ian about how she didn’t want to marry him. Maybe he would have felt the same way and would have been relieved by her honesty. Or she could have kept her promise to her father and given a potential marriage with Ian a chance.
In the few times she had been around Ian since she arrived, she could tell that he had changed. He had stood up for Luisa in front of his father, as she played her part to be Amanda.
It was because of him that she hadn’t been sent back to Whispering Horse Ranch when Mr. McAdams first discovered that she had brought a companion. She had noticed that he had done his best to steer the conversation away from business during meals.
Ian wasn’t the same young man he had been four years ago when she had first met him. But she knew that she still would have refused to marry him.
She knew that if Ian or Stefan were aware of what she had been doing, could she really blame them for not trusting her? And she had put Luisa in the spot of also not being trustworthy. What kind of friend was she?
She had seen an entire side to Stefan that she hadn’t expected today. He was close with Ian and he was just looking out for him.
She knew enough to recognize that the friendship Stefan had with Ian was nothing like what she had with Luisa. She could see now that much of her friendship with Luisa was one-sided. Luisa was always around and always did what Amanda wanted to do. She just expected her friend to always be there.
She hadn’t asked if Luisa actually wanted to come with her to Thunder Valley Ranch. She hadn’t even asked if Luisa wanted to switch places.
She’d just presented the idea to her in a way that Luisa really couldn’t refuse. She could think of man
y other instances where she had basically used Luisa’s friendship to get what she wanted.
She wanted to cry when she thought of the countless times Luisa had rescued her when she got herself into a scrape, not caring what it could have done to her friend.
She found herself comparing her friendship with Luisa and Ian’s friendship with Stefan. They both came from a well-to-do family and had a good friend who was essentially a servant, but they didn’t think of them as such.
She discovered that she liked that idea. She had never been very comfortable with the way some well-to-do people treated the people who worked for them.
It was one of the reasons why she had greatly disliked her months at the finishing school her father had sent her to back East. Many of the lessons they had tried to teach her dealt with how to put servants in their place as employees.
Since it didn’t look like Luisa was going to be arriving any time soon, Amanda took off her dress and slipped into her nightgown. She got into bed and rolled onto her side and decided that she needed to get some sleep. But she promised herself that she would make some changes in the way she treated Luisa, starting tomorrow.
***
Amanda spent the next week enjoying the beauty of Thunder Valley Ranch. She still spent time watching Stefan as he worked. She especially loved watching as he trained horses. He had his hand in all the steps of training horses, from making sure the foals were used to being around humans and comfortable with them, to the final steps of racing.
But she stopped following him all over the place. When she couldn’t immediately find him, she kept herself busy interacting with Gladiator, although she still refrained from touching him. She also spent quite a bit of time … alone.
Being alone wasn’t something she was used to.
On her ranch, she was almost constantly surrounded by people, whether it was her father, Luisa, her maid, Hannah or all the men who took care of their horses, as well as their other servants who took care of the house and kitchen. She actually didn’t enjoy being alone and made an effort to always at least be close to where other people were.
At Thunder Valley Ranch, that wasn’t an option. It took her a few days to come to the conclusion that she would need to be okay with being alone sometimes, even though she didn’t like it.
She still ate with the other servants and sometimes Stefan even showed up. He was kind to her, but he didn’t act like he wanted her to follow him when he was done, so she refrained.
She instinctively realized that if she continued to make herself available to him and show up where he happened to be working, he would never want to spend time with her, of his own choice. He seemed to be that kind of man. She needed to be patient and let him take the first step in getting to know each other better.
She tried not to think of what she should do if he never took that first step.
One day after breakfast, Amanda made her twice-daily trip to the horse barn to see Gladiator. This time as she talked to him, she heard footsteps come up behind her.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Hearing Stefan’s voice made her heart skip a beat and she had to take a deep breath, to keep her face from looking delighted that he had finally talked to her, before turning around.
“I enjoy my talks with him. He’s a great listener,” Amanda answered, glad that her voice sounded calm.
A stable hand suddenly appeared. “The horses are ready, Stefan.”
“Great, thanks,” Stefan answered before turning to her. “How would you like to take a ride into the hills?”
“Really?” Amanda asked. This time she wasn’t able to keep her delight out of her voice. “I would love to.” Then she frowned. “What about your job?”
“I can take a few hours off,” Stefan said.
“When do we leave?”
Stefan looked at her dress. “Do you have access to some appropriate riding clothing?”
Amanda looked down at Luisa’s dress. She knew that this dress and her shoes were not appropriate for a woman to ride a horse in. If she sat in the saddle, her ankles and lower legs would definitely be showing. The dress that she was wearing wasn’t full enough to cover her legs.
“I’m sure that … Amanda would allow me to borrow her riding clothes.”
“Great. Why don’t you go change and meet me back here in say, thirty minutes?”
“Okay,” Amanda agreed. She twirled around and headed to the open barn door. She thought that she heard Stefan laugh, but when she turned around, his focus was on Gladiator. She paused as he patted the horse on the side of his neck.
“Sure, Gladiator doesn’t mind if Stefan touches him,” she muttered as she left the barn.
She hurried to the house and to the room she shared with Luisa. It was empty, but she could tell that the maid had already cleaned it for the day. Their clothing had been taken care of and the comfortable bed was made. Fresh cool water sat in the bowl on the bureau with clean towels beside it.
She quickly took off Luisa’s dress and found the riding outfit that she had packed in the two trunks she had brought with her from home. She really hadn’t thought that she’d be able to have a chance to use it and she had almost left it behind. She was glad that her new maid at home had urged her into packing it.
Her riding outfit actually consisted of a split skirt made out of brown fabric with a comfortable lightweight and ivory-colored blouse. The split skirt was made like men’s pants, but looked like a dress with a full skirt.
She quickly did up the buttons and tucked the blouse into the skirt. She put on her riding boots and her light-weight hat, making sure that it was tied securely under her chin with the thin ribbon.
She made it back to the horse barn within the thirty-minute time frame. Two horses stood next to each other, their reins tied loosely to a fence. Stefan was nearby and he smiled when he saw her coming.
“Are these the horses we will be riding?” Amanda asked.
“Yep.” He gestured towards one of them. “You’ll be riding Lady.”
Amanda could immediately tell that Lady wasn’t a Thoroughbred, but she still probably had a long pedigree. She was almost pure white with splotches of brown on her face and legs. Amanda immediately introduced herself to Lady. She noticed that Stefan relaxed as he watched her with Lady.
“I assume that you are comfortable riding with a western saddle,” Stefan said.
“Of course,” Amanda answered. She actually hated riding in English saddles, but she decided to not voice that opinion.
“Shall we go?” Stefan asked.
When Amanda nodded, he moved close to her side. He cupped his hands together, indicating that she put her booted foot into it. She was surprised that he helped her into her saddle. She was perfectly capable of mounting Lady on her own. It was one of the first things her father had insisted she learn when he was teaching her how to ride, but she allowed Stefan to help.
Once she was on Lady, she confidently gathered the reins and waited while Stefan mounted his own horse. It only took a few minutes to ride past the horse barn and various paddocks, fields and the racing track.
Lady followed Stefan’s horse willingly as they headed towards the nearby hills, but Amanda could tell that Lady was a spirited horse that needed expert handling. How had Stefan known that she could handle a horse like Lady?
“What is your gelding’s name?” Amanda asked.
“He has a fancy racing name, but I call him Buster.”
Amanda smiled at the name. “So he used to race?”
