My hands went to her hair, and I kissed her before she could take it all away. Then I just looked at her face. I was still amazed. “I meant everything I said,” I told her quickly. “I don’t want anyone but you.” I leaned against her softly, resting my forehead against hers.
I felt her smile, and she stayed still for a moment before finding my eyes again. “And I wanted to tell you something. I feel ashamed, since I freaked out on you for not telling me your romantic past up front. And I never told you mine either.” She looked away. “But there’s really nothing to tell. Like, nothing. It’s really embarrassing. You know I was a virgin, but I had never even gone on a date before you. I had never been kissed.” She dropped her head, covering her face with her hand.
I waited until she looked at me again. “Those other idiots really missed out,” I said.
She laughed, moving onto me. We fell easily out of our clothes, and it was just as wonderful as always, maybe more so because now we had nothing holding us back.
Erica
The door fell closed behind me with a distinct, vibrating slam. I started across the floor, intent on my mission. I noticed my mother’s hasty approach but did not openly acknowledge it.
“I was worried when you didn’t come home last night,” she stated.
I made a vague shrugging motion. “Oh, I was home.”
“Where were you?”
Now I looked right at her. “Lawrence’s bed.”
I started up the stairs, and she followed me slowly, at a distance. She was still trying, still fighting, but she seemed to sense that the horse was out of the barn.
Eventually she caught up to me in my room, where I was already at work. Her eyes flared as she took in the bare walls, the gutted closet, the neat and haphazard piles waiting to be taken away.
My mother stood there for a second, looking smaller than I’d ever seen her. Her eyes were confused and hurt, and it almost made me feel for her. “Didn’t he tell you?” she asked, completely uncertain now.
I nodded. “Oh, yes. He told me.” I reached under my bed, pulling out a flattened cardboard box. “I know all about his past. And yes, there’s some stuff that he’s not proud of, but it’s in the past. And the important thing is how happy we are together now. So I’m choosing to move forward with him.”
My mother’s face shrank back. “I see,” she said. She didn’t say anything after that.
Lawrence
Shoving a cardboard box across my truck bed, Erica strode past me. I stood by the passenger door, looking up at the Rimworks’ house. I hadn’t moved since we’d gotten here.
Erica glanced back at me. “Come on. If you help me load we‘ll get out of here faster,” she said casually.
I watched her as she quickly moved on, jogging back up the drive and the sweeping front steps. She kept going in and out like it was nothing. I felt like I was in danger of being shot just standing in the front yard.
I sighed and started to crunch over the perfect gravel, slowly. My boots thumped against the stone steps, and I was facing the etched-glass door. It was floating, a few inches away from being shut for real. I wondered if I should knock. I should probably knock. It seemed incredibly rash to just walk right in. But if I knock, someone will have to answer the door, and I’ll be standing out here like an idiot and they’ll hate me even more. I quickly shied away from that idea. I’ll just slip in, and act like I’m not there. I just won’t bother them at all. I was following Erica in, after all. I was just a little behind her.
I eased the door open and crept in. Looking around, the layout of the house started to come back to me. The bedrooms were upstairs, I was pretty sure. I made my way up the staircase, hoping to God there wasn’t any shit on my boots.
The second story was a little less ostentatious. The carpeted flooring and enclosed hallways gave it a more homelike feel. I found my way to Erica’s room, where she stood leaning over a nearly full box. She looked up. “Hey. You made it.”
“Yeah.” I glanced around the room. It was pretty much empty. “You need any help packing?”
“No.” She closed the box flaps and stretched some duct tape across them. “This is all that’s left. If you wanna just take that one over there, then we can drive over to the barn and pick up some stuff. We’ll probably have to make at least one more trip to get it all.”
I nodded. “Alright. Sounds good.” I picked up the box she had indicated.
Walking through the hallway, I’d almost stopped feeling twitchy and paranoid. I got down the stairs and was halfway to the door when something appeared in my peripheral vision. My head turned.
Erica’s mother was standing there. Not moving, just staring at me. Her hair was frizzing wildly around her head, even though she had about a dozen bobby pins stuck to her scalp. Mascara had pooled around her red eyes and run down pretty much the length of her entire face. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week and was close to completely unhinging.
I felt Erica brush my right shoulder. “Barn. Now.” She hissed. “Just walk away.”
I did as she told me. I walked out the door and down to my truck, knowing the whole time that I had just officially met Erica’s mother, and the circumstances could not have been much worse. I was stealing her daughter, and now I was openly flaunting it. And, I hadn’t even said one word to her. Fuck.
I drove over to the barn, my head still burning. Erica jumped out of the cab and started roving back and forth, carrying saddles, bridles, longeing equipment and even a tack trunk. I left my truck and wandered down the barn aisle, trying to feel better when I knew I’d failed horribly.
Hearing hooves clip-clopping on the concrete, I turned around. Robert was leading a well built dark bay into the barn. I hesitated before stepping toward him. Reasonably, the girl’s father was often feared, or at least respected. I had a feeling, though, that in this case it was the mother I had to watch out for.
Robert backed his horse into the grooming stall, leaving him in the cross ties. Then he walked up to me, glancing behind him before he started talking.
“I am aware of Meredith’s opinion of you,” Robert said. “And she’s not taking this well, as you can see. But I know my daughter, and Erica is not stupid. She’s made nothing but good decisions in her life, and I figure she knows what she needs. If she’s happy with you, then I support the relationship.” He looked furtively over his shoulder once again. “I know you’ve had some challenges in your life, but you’ve made something of yourself, and I find that impressive. So as far as I’m concerned, you’ve done alright.”
Quickly, gratefully I shook his hand. “Thank you for the vote of confidence, sir,” I said sincerely. “I intend to treat your daughter right. I hope you know that.”
He nodded. “Meredith will come around. Or maybe she won’t.” He paused. “My mother was never fond of Meredith. She wasn’t what she would have chosen for me, and my mother never quite got over that.” Robert took a step back. “I’d better get back to work. And we never had this conversation.”
Erica
Boxes sat there, leaning on each other, filling up most of the available space. There was only a narrow, winding pathway to walk through. I stepped back, eyeballing the extensive pile. My stuff hadn’t seemed very substantial when I was still at my parents’ house. Compared to my mother, with her jammed walk-in closets and full luggage sets, I liked to think I packed light. In Lawrence’s house my stuff had suddenly expanded, in freakish excess. Huh. I guess I need to get rid of some things. Oh well, it’s fine for now. I shrugged, picking my way through the mess.
I was all moved in now. All my tack and equipment had a place in the tack room. I’d shuffled Lawrence’s stuff around to make room for it, but he didn’t seem to mind. And most importantly, D.M. was out front, happily grazing in the turnout paddock Lawrence had set aside for him. He had a stall in the barn and I’d unscrewed his nameplate from his former stall door. That was what had really done my mother in. When I moved my horse out, she knew with abs
olute certainty that this was not some stupid, short-lived rebellion. This was serious.
I’d brought Assault, too. He was my purchase, and my project. I knew if I left him my dad would sell him at a dismal profit just so he wouldn’t have to deal. I wasn’t finished with Assault. I hadn’t worked him in a week or so, what with all the packing and moving that had been going on. I wasn’t focused enough to ride him. So for now he was standing around in a newly reinforced paddock, occasionally charging the fence and making threats toward the other horses. Harry had fed off the contentious atmosphere way too much, so he and Vegas were now out back, and Assault shared a fence line with the equally crabby Maude.
Lawrence hadn’t come in from the barn yet, so I attempted to make my way into the kitchen area, but I kept having to dodge boxes. I quickly grew tired of not having a walkway. “There’s gotta be a space-saving way of doing this,” I muttered to myself as I slid the boxes around. I quickly uncovered more boxes that were Lawrence’s, lost in my considerable mess. Most of his stuff was unboxed, though. I sifted through it, looking for a more efficient piling method.
Slid in beneath a chest of drawers, carrying a patina of dust, I found a stack of coolers, each hand-stitched, with the names of various tournaments on them. The dates ran all the way up to earlier this year. I turned one over carefully. Best Playing Pony. I looked underneath that dresser again, and I kept finding more. I knew they had to be awards of some sort. I had won a few coolers myself. But I had never seen this many stashed away.
Lawrence came through the door, and I looked over at him. “What are all these?”
He hovered at the door, glancing down briefly at all the coolers. “Those are Elle’s. She won them.”
“Oh. Wow.” I smoothed the uppermost one with my hand. “I had no idea. I was just moving stuff around, trying to fit it in better, and I found them. That’s so cool.”
Lawrence nodded. He was looking off in the distance. “I just…can’t throw them away, you know?”
“Of course. I think I still have every ribbon I’ve ever won.” I laughed at myself a little.
Lawrence moved off into the kitchen, deftly reaching for the Cookies ‘n Cream Crunch. Carefully I refolded the coolers and slid them back underneath the dresser. Abandoning my resorting efforts, I went to join him. We shared the cereal, right down to the crumbs and sugar dust.
After that, we moved to the couch, and I settled into his shoulder, content to just lie there with him, at least for the moment. I breathed in, and I fully realized that I was really here. I had been so intensely focused on the flurry of packing and moving and rearranging my life that I hadn’t really absorbed the change. I did that now.
I felt a ripple of movement from Lawrence. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he said soft and low, into my hair.
“Yes.” I smiled around the word, buoyantly, energetically happy enough to run laps around the place, and absolutely content, feeling no need to move from where I was.
Lawrence
Eloise trudged along the rail, looking out at the skyline, the trees. Anything but the goddamned track she’d walked way too many times. Elle was weary of this endless rehab, tired of going around in a box. I kept putting her in boxes, locking her up and holding her to a strict pattern, and she didn’t understand why. Eloise had excelled in a sport that most people couldn’t follow to save their asses. She was a thinker and a doer, and her brain was just rotting now. I didn’t know what to do with her. I was afraid of doing too much. So I kept her in the arena, on the same perfectly groomed and level footing, covering distance but never getting anywhere.
When the ride was over I let Elle graze for a few minutes, like stuffing her face in rich clover was going to make up for everything. It did make me feel better, though. Then I took her to her paddock and turned her out. She let the halter slip off her face with a sigh and then slowly turned to go do nothing again.
I walked into the house, glad to have gotten that done. Erica was on her knees sorting, still determined to create more space. The stack of boxes was leaning in such a way that it looked like it might kill someone one of these days.
Her head swiveled, her face brightened and she got up to meet me at the door. “Hey.” She kissed me briefly, then pulled back, grinning hopefully. “I think I really saved some space this time. What do you think?”
I smiled, glancing at the deadly-looking pile, then back to her eager face. “It looks great, Erica.”
“Awesome.” She grinned happily, pivoting and eyeing her box stack in satisfaction. I watched her for a moment, feeling good again.
Erica quickly turned to face me. “Oh. I wanted to talk to you about something. I’m here now, and I want to contribute to the household and all that. I was hoping we could split the rent, but I might be a little short, depending on how much it is. So I just wanted to know how much I need to try and come up with.”
I was silent for a second, trying to figure out how to handle this. “Uh, don’t worry about it.” I said vaguely. “It’s covered.” I didn’t really want to go into the details of my rental agreement.
Erica wasn’t swayed. “I really want to help out, though. I want to contribute. How much do you need per month?”
I shifted awkwardly in place. “Just do whatever you can afford. That’s what Sandra told me.”
Erica beamed. “She is such a generous lady.” She seemed to be figuring something in her head. “Realistically, I should be able to do three hundred a month. I know it’s not much. Once I have a better clientele, I can do more.” She was looking almost apologetic.
I just stared at her. Three hundred. It had been months since I’d sent Sandra even close to that amount. Sandra’s gonna think I’m stealing it. I sort of felt like I was.
I tried not to focus on it. “Erica. That’s more than fine. It’s excellent, okay?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Come here.” I held her against me, both of us slightly swaying. She sighed, closing her eyes and relaxing into my body.
All of a sudden, the earsplitting rattle of the Harley jolted us apart. Seconds later Amber stomped up the front steps, boldly entering without knocking. Her eyes scanned the house, narrowing with disapproval. “Wow. What a mess.”
“Hi, Amber,” I said satirically. “It’s nice to see you, too.”
“Hey, Amber,” Erica said, moving back into my arms and smiling. My hand quickly maneuvered into the vicinity of her ass.
Amber was still looking around, calculating something. “Since when do you live here?” She said to Erica, socially uncooperative as ever.
Erica considered that for a second. “Since…uh, Thursday?”
“Huh.” Amber’s eyes swept back to me. “Congratulations. No one told me.”
“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” I protested. Her eyes rolled.
“Yeah, it wasn’t like, a big transition or anything,” Erica added helpfully. “It was just natural. A continuation.”
“Right.” I inclined my head away from Amber, meeting Erica’s eyes, and I stayed there a while.
When I refocused on Amber, she was looking ill. “Well, I just came to ride Maude,” she said bluntly. She veered off toward the door, then stopped, finally grasping for some politeness. I could see a clear effort in her face and even the way she stood.
Amber looked up from her boots, allowing me some slightly wavering eye contact. “This is so great!” She said in a slightly higher pitch. “I’m so happy for you guys. I am. I just can’t be around you right now! Too much….” Amber pawed at the air with her hands as if searching for the right word, shaking her head. “Too much…happy. It’s stifling in here. I just…” She was still for a second, taking stock of our faces. Then she seemed to make her decision. “Yup. Can’t do it. I’m out.” She made a grab for the door handle, breaking out into the open air.
We stood there a second, listening to the clattering of her footsteps. Erica looked at me in confusion. “We’re not one of those couples, are we?”
She asked, her eyes widening. “We are. We’re those people now, aren’t we?” She almost shuddered, seeming to shrink away from the very idea.
I shook my head. “Amber has a very low tolerance for happiness. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“That’s a relief,” Erica said, shaking her head. “I always hated those people.”
“Everyone does, unless they are them.” I dropped my face into the curve of her neck, inhaling deeply.
Erica
D.M. stood watching me, fully tacked up and ready. His ears swiveled to follow my motions as I lugged standards and poles into the arena. The sun was in full bloom and I was sweating as I hefted the components of my course, moving them from the ungraceful heap by the side of the barn.
Lawrence came into view on Vegas, halting him beside a small pile of balls, mallet attached to his right arm. They stood there a minute, both watching my efforts with some interest.
Lawrence caught my eye, glancing pointedly at my sprawling collection of disassembled jumps, and then back to the stash of balls at Vegas’ feet. He raised an eyebrow, obviously amused.
I pulled a face. “At least I don’t need a whole fleet of horses,” I pointed out.
He grinned. “Very true.” Vegas flowed into a collected canter, imperceptibly under Lawrence’s direction. Lawrence scooped up a ball with his mallet. His control over it was so complete that it didn’t touch the ground for several strides. They moved back and forth, shooting the ball around with easy, almost intimidating precision. I let the end of my pole thunk to the ground and watched them, sweat dripping down my back.
Training Harry Page 58
