Unfortunately, Tom hadn’t seen Lottie for days, and now he had the opportunity, he just wanted to sit and lust over her body and imagine what life would be like if he was ten years younger. And at least he was safe here; Lottie seemed straightforward, uncomplicated and fun – unlike most of the residents in Tippermere. He had a horrible feeling that he was the main source of entertainment, well, secondary to the horses, of course.
It wasn’t that he regretted his tangle in the sheets with Pip; she was clever, funny and sexy, with a guaranteed no-strings-attached label, and she’d been as skilful in bed as he suspected she was in everything. But she seemed determined to stir him up and turn his planned semi-retirement in the country into something completely different.
He sat back on the bench, ankles crossed, as the riding lesson started and, for a moment, forgot all about ogling Lottie. It wasn’t just Lottie, it was this place, here, that had a pull on him. And he wasn’t just safe from Pip here, he felt safe from everything.
‘Hi, mind if I sit down?’
Okay, he was deluded. Amanda was looking at him pensively, and he hadn’t the heart to tell her to go away. She was sweet, pretty and easy company. She was also prime gossip fodder. He shifted nervously then decided he was being stupid. He was a grown man; he could talk to who the hell he wanted.
‘Sure. But my daughter will blow us away if we make a noise.’
‘I just want to watch.’ It was a whisper and she sat down a polite distance away on the bench. ‘They scare me a bit, to be honest.’ It had taken the best part of an hour for Amanda to talk herself into coming down here. She’d used the excuse that it was to chat to the easy-going Tom, but it wasn’t that. She could do that anytime. No, the real reason for being here was far more intimidating, and right now she was starting to feel jittery. She could kill a stiff drink.
Tom smiled. She didn’t need to be honest – it was written all over her face, and the way she flinched every time the horse got within ten yards. ‘Is it the horses that scare you, or Lottie and Tabatha?’
She smiled and relaxed a tiny bit. He was nice, much nicer than Pip had suggested. But then again, Pip was a complex person and the way she’d talked about Tom had suggested she knew him in a far more intimate way than she was admitting to. But Amanda had instantly warmed to him when Pip had invited him along with her new footballer friend. His whispered asides had made her feel included, and he’d been genuinely interested in her and Folly Lake Manor. He’d even been asking about the changes that Marcus had made and, on impulse, she’d asked him back to look through the photographs she’d taken when they’d first bought the place. She didn’t, Amanda thought with a slight pang of regret, fancy him. She just wanted him there, like a comforting old jumper. It was a long time since she’d had anything that remotely resembled a jumper, or old. Apart from Marcus. ‘Both scare me. Do you like horses?’
‘Not really. I’m just the one who pays.’ Lottie had brought Merlin to a stand and was messing about with his tack, her wonderfully toned bottom, covered in a skin-tight layer of material, only a few feet away. It was making it hard for Tom to concentrate when all he could imagine was nakedness.
‘She’s nice, isn’t she?’ Amanda was just trying to sound interested, when in fact she felt more like being sick and doing a runner. And, on closer inspection, the massive horse seemed to be more of a he than a she, but Tom didn’t seem concerned.
‘Very.’
Maybe he was confused as well. Although you would think he’d know the sex of his own horse, unless he was just too polite to correct her. But, right now, the horse seemed intent on displaying more and more evidence of his manliness. She was just mulling over whether to point it out and possibly display her ignorance (or highlight his), or look away, when she was almost catapulted off the bench.
‘Not bad for a kid.’ Amanda gripped the wood, and Tom bounced a couple of inches in the air as Billy plonked his substantial form on the other end of the narrow seat, which was a complete killer for Tom in the fantasising-about-Lottie stakes, and for Amanda in wondering about how to sex a horse. Billy’s ginger curls were directed towards Tab. ‘Could be a half-decent rider if she stuck with it.’
Tom stared at him. ‘Really?’
‘Not that kids stick with anything these days. Bloody lazy, the lot of them.’ He raised his voice from loud to bellowing. ‘Relax your bloody knees, girl, you’re not trying to squeeze him to death, then maybe you’ll stop bouncing like you’re on a trampoline.’ Tab deepened to a darker shade of crimson beneath her hat, if that was possible. Her face had already been a good colour from her exertions, as the over-fresh Merlin, excited to be in new surroundings, was doing his best to prove he was in charge. Tom bit his tongue or his daughter would disown him, and Amanda stared down at her clasped hands in embarrassment.
‘Stop interfering, Dad.’ Lottie knew that whatever she said it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference. What Billy thought, Billy said.
‘I’m only trying to help, love.’
Lottie had one hand planted firmly on her hip, the other grasped around the handle of a lunge whip, which it looked like she was planning on putting to a new use. Merlin took the opportunity to throw in a sly buck, followed by a scrape along the school wall.
He was, Lottie decided, acting like an escaped convict raiding a retirement home, taking every chance he could, with no thought of the consequences. It would have been nice to join him. She’d had a pony like him, once, years ago. He’d use every low branch, every gable, every fence and hedge as an implement to try and dislodge her, and then he’d use his superior strength to either tank off in a direction he chose, or more likely he’d yank the reins out of her hands and put his head down to graze. And no amount of kicking or tugging would make the slightest difference.
Tab was actually doing a good job, and right now her father, Billy, was being the proverbial pain in the arse. ‘Haven’t you all got something else to do?’
‘Well actually…’
She felt instantly guilty as Amanda stood up awkwardly. Amanda was the least of her worries, though what the hell she was doing there, looking like she was visiting an alien planet, she wasn’t sure.
‘I just wanted to ask you something, Charlotte, but it doesn’t matter if you’re too busy…’
‘No probs.’ Lottie was intrigued; it looked like it did matter to Amanda. This was a strange one. what on earth would the woman want to ask her, Lottie?
‘Well, if you don’t mind, it’s just.’ It had taken her over an hour to build up the confidence; she couldn’t bottle now. The problem was, everything she’d ever faced up to in the past, she’d wanted to. It had been part of her master plan. But this was more important. This was because she wanted to, for someone else. This wasn’t just about her, and her bloody life plan. It mattered.
She took a tentative step towards the barrier, then stepped back as Merlin headed with the determination of a tank in her direction. Lottie, acting like he wasn’t doing anything untoward at all, set off up the school, away from the horse, and the eavesdropping Billy and Tom. ‘It’s just,’ Amanda’s normally reserved tone dropped lower, which was tricky considering she’d had to scurry to keep up with the long athletic stride of Lottie and was now finding it hard to breathe normally, ‘I mean, it’s probably too much trouble, you’re busy.’
‘Go on.’ Lottie leant in closer, intrigued, and Amanda whispered her request haltingly.
‘Well, er, sure.’ It wasn’t what Lottie had been expecting at all. ‘I’ll have a thi—’ But she never did get to think about it, let alone finish the sentence.
‘Mer-lin.’ Tabatha’s cry was half anger and half frustration as Merlin flew past at a speed that belied his size, then threw in an emergency stop and ducked his head between his knees with perfect timing, depositing Tab in a neat ball on the floor in front of him and pretty much slap-bang in front of Lottie and the shocked Amanda. He lifted his head and actually, Amanda thought, looked quite pleased with himself.
Lottie tried not to grin; Tabby kitten fitted her perfectly, a spitting ball that the men would soon be queuing up to cuddle and try and cajole a purr out of. ‘You are just so out of order, you great oaf.’ The great oaf looked around, planning his escape to pastures new and green with grass.
As Lottie turned to help, Amanda scurried off, leaving the men staring speculatively after her. ‘I’ll lunge you.’ She gave Tab a leg up into the saddle.
‘Aren’t you supposed to check she’s okay?’ Tom looked worried and wondered, not for the first time, if this really was a good idea. ‘Tab, are you?’
‘Shut up, Dad’ and ‘Shut up, Tom’ were shouted in perfect unison.
The problem was that when Lottie clipped the lunge rein and went to pick up the whip, the clever Merlin knew exactly what was coming. He also knew she was concentrating more on what Amanda had just said to her than she was on him. He took off, at a headlong gallop, straining against the lunge rope with Lottie hanging on at one end in the centre and swearing. Tab hung on for dear life during her wall-of-death ride, trying desperately to gather back the reins that he’d yanked out of her hands. Tom would have liked to have been able to shut his eyes, but he couldn’t.
‘I’m getting dizzy.’ The wail drifted behind Tab, and Tom could sympathise with his daughter wholeheartedly for once. He was getting bloody dizzy too. Merlin kept his head down, arched his back and put in a buck as he debated whether to charge Lottie or change direction.
‘Bloody amateurs. Come on, let’s leave them to it.’ Billy shook his head sadly as he motioned to Tom to follow him, totally unfazed by the goings-on, and Tom was torn. Was he better staying and supporting his daughter, or was it wiser to be ignorant of the whole situation? Given that he was the only one that seemed shocked, ignorance might well be bliss.
‘She’s a bit of alright that Amanda, isn’t she? Her husband was a tosser.’ Billy kept to himself the thought that Amanda had made her way down to the yard to eye up Tom. After all, why else would she be here? In the past, she’d only ever set foot down here when she’d been looking for Marcus. She had, in a roundabout way, asked him about riding lessons after the funeral, and at first he’d not been sure if she was being coy and it was some kind of obtuse chat-up line. And then he’d realised she meant it. But if she wanted someone to act as chaperone while she wheedled her way into Tom’s life, then she was asking the wrong man.
Billy watched the rapidly retreating figure. She was fanciable in a posh, perfect kind of way, but he preferred his women more down-to-earth. Which, he suspected, Marcus had as well, given the rumours that had been flying about. And the giggling from the tack room. The good thing about grooms, as opposed to women like Amanda, as far as he was concerned, was that they were like cushions. Comfy, plump and forgiving. All you had to do after a pummelling was cuddle them back into shape. And they usually did have a shape, and a heart. Alexa had been different to the rest of them. She’d had it all. The breeding and the manners, but also the body, the brain and the warmth and wickedness of a real woman. Unlike, he suspected, Amanda. That girl seemed as brittle and likely to break as one of the antiques that had been artistically arranged around her home. Look but don’t touch. He shot a glance at the immaculate Tom. Now a woman like Amanda would appeal to him, he reckoned.
Tom just shrugged and didn’t comment.
‘So you’re not saying you don’t fancy her?’
‘She seems lovely, but I’m really not here to get involved with anyone.’
‘Ha. That’s what my Lottie said when she came back, but she can’t keep away from Rory. Met him, have you?’ He watched with interest as the other man shifted uncomfortably. ‘Can’t keep their hands off each other, not that I’m one to talk, but I’ve got my eye on him. I look after my own, and if he hurts her… well, I’m sure that’s how you feel about your own daughter, isn’t it? Right, enough standing about yakking,’ Tom wasn’t sure he had been yakking, ‘some of us have got work to do. You could do worse than her,’ he nodded in the direction Amanda had gone, ‘and this place, you know.’
Elizabeth had been right when she’d cornered Billy unexpectedly in the pub, Folly Lake Manor could do a lot worse than get landed with a man like Tom, and if they could encourage him in his pursuit of the lovely widow, then why not? It was a damned sight better than getting some premiership footballer and his wife in the place. They’d be installing Jacuzzis and football pitches before he’d had a chance to move the bloody horses. That photograph in the local rag had been the last straw. Safe pair of hands my arse. ‘Dread to think what your goalie friend would do if he got in there first. Seeing him again is she?’ Matchmaking really wasn’t his thing; in his world, if you wanted something or someone, you just got on with it. But right now, if he could stop Amanda James selling up and bolting, then it was worth a try.
Tom had paled. ‘I haven’t got a clue, I really don’t know what she’s arranged.’
‘Course you don’t.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Say no more. She seems interested in you, though.’ Tom was now looking confused and deciding that he could well be doing more harm than good. He would have the full wrath of darling Elizabeth bearing down on him if he wasn’t careful. Billy settled for a knowing wink, tapped the ever-present whip against his boot and headed off to the safety of horses and willing women.
Lottie and Tab had, in the meantime, decided that enough was enough for one day. Tab was surprisingly efficient in the saddle, despite the scathing comments from Billy, although Lottie knew he meant well. It was just his way. Blunt.
Giving her lessons could actually be fun, and it might mean she had someone to help with her own horse. As long as they could persuade Tom to stay away.
She leaned on the stable door, watching Tab untack her horse, and sighed, if Tom and Amanda wanted to have a fling, then fine. But why not just get on with it? Why the hell did they have to rope her into the equation? And why, when the woman had obviously come down to the yard to ogle the model, did she say she wanted riding lessons? She was obviously scared shitless of horses. And, come to that, what the fuck was she going to teach her on?
‘Tab? You wouldn’t mind lending me Merlin would you?’
‘Is that a good idea?’ The girl was giving her headstrong horse a loving cuddle, all forgiven.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Oh dear, she was back to being her normal scathing self. ‘The papers are already giving Dad hell over that picture of him and Amanda, if she’s seen on my horse…’
‘Who’s been seen on your horse?’
They both turned at the sound of Pip’s voice and Tab rolled her eyes. ‘See.’ She turned her attention back to her horse. For some reason she didn’t like that woman, and it wasn’t just because she’d been intent on shagging her dad’s brains out. God, why did grown women have to make those stupid noises? It was just so demeaning. And stupid. And yuk. When she got a bit older and got herself a man like Rory, she wouldn’t act like that.
‘You’re getting more and more like Elizabeth, creeping up on me, Pip. You made me jump.’
Tab glanced under her eyelashes from Lottie to Pip. It was weird that they were friends, because Lottie seemed okay. Apart from the fact that she had Rory, which just wasn’t fair. He was the type of guy just made for her. Rory had everything.
‘You’re paranoid.’ Pip grinned. ‘Oh my God,’ she looked from Lottie to Tab and back again, ‘you’re talking about Amanda, aren’t you?’
‘What’s this about Amanda?’ Tom had wandered back towards the stables unnoticed, keen to get his daughter to pack up so that they could go home.
Lottie went bright red and stared at Pip, who didn’t seem to give a monkey’s either way. ‘Great, now everyone knows, and it was supposed to be a secret.’
‘But she hates horses.’ Pip was frowning, then glanced at Tom and a small, and he thought sneaky, smile spread across the perfect features, which immediately put him on edge. She might be sexy, but sh
e was damned good at making him feel like she was up to something. And he was part of it. Her ‘ahh’ just consolidated the fear into a hard lump in his chest.
‘What are you all talking about?’ They ignored him, which wasn’t something he liked.
‘One condition.’ Tab teased an imaginary knot out of her horse’s mane. ‘You get me a job helping out at Rory’s yard, it’s boring here.’
‘Will someone tell me what the fuck you are going on about? And just for the record, madam, don’t even think you can go and work for Rory.’ Tab gave him a killer look, and Lottie and Pip just stared. They’d not heard Tom raise his voice before. But Billy’s comments had wound him up. The comments about Amanda, which meant that the whole village obviously thought he had the hots for her, and the comments about Rory. If Billy was worried about the indestructible Lottie, then Tom was going to make damned sure that the man didn’t get within touching distance of Tab.
‘That is just so unfair.’ Tab was definitely spitting. She’d folded her arms and was practically stamping her foot as she stomped out, catching the stable door he was holding open for her with one steel-toed boot.
‘It isn’t.’
‘You are so busy shagging everything that moves.’ There was stunned silence as Tab gave Pip her most condescending look then turned her concentration back on Tom. ‘And even when I say your latest tart can ride my horse, you won’t even let me go and work on a decent yard.’ She did stamp her foot then, clanking the stable door shut behind her. ‘With a real man. And,’ Tom just knew from the look on her face that it was about to get worse, ‘I’m going to ask Mum what she thinks.’
The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights Page 112
