Love Tangle: Riding Bareback

by S. E. Margaux

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Preface

  Chapter One - -

  Chapter Two - -

  Chapter Three - -

  Chapter Four - -

  Chapter Five - -

  Chapter Six - -

  Chapter Seven - -

  Chapter Eight - -

  Chapter Nine - -

  Chapter Ten - -

  Chapter Eleven - -

  Chapter Twelve - -

  Chapter Thirteen - -

  Chapter Fourteen - -

  Chapter Fifteen - -

  Chapter Sixteen - -

  Chapter Seventeen - -

  Chapter Eighteen - -

  Chapter Nineteen - -

  Chapter Twenty - -

  Chapter Twenty-One - -

  Chapter Twenty-Two - -

  Chapter Twenty-Three - -

  Chapter Twenty-Four - -

  Epilogue

  End

  Copyright © 2017 by S. E. Margaux

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the authors.

  To Isabella and Joanna, for sharing their story.

  To my friends, for catching the mistakes I couldn’t see.

  To my family, for providing me with love, support, and tea.

  Writing a novel is hard work, and this one would not exist without all your generous contributions.

  What a tangle love is.

  Alyson Noël

  PREFACE

  Dear Readers,

  There are many grand stories: thrilling epics, heartbreaking classics, stories of conquest and adventure and great heroes, which exist beyond the limitations of human memory. And then there are other stories. Smaller stories, about regular people, with regular lives. Stories which have no grand adventures or heroism, but which nevertheless touch the heart of those who hear them.

  This is such a story. The people in it are not rich or famous or powerful. But they are real, and they laugh and love and live with passion, and what could be more important than that? Regardless of the unsavory light in which it may cast us, this is a story that had to be told, because one cannot avoid the raw and potent power of true love.

  We ask only this of you, the reader: do not judge us for the parts we play in it. If we erred, it was out of passion. Out of love. We were not as wise then as we are now, and if ever there was a fault to be forgiven, it is that of loving too much. And so, with as much pleasure as duty, we share with you our tale. It was merely a summer, and many summers ago, but it is true that, though summers will come and go, a single summer can shape the seasons to come.

  Yours faithfully,

  Joanna May Fairweather & Bella Dubois

  CHAPTER ONE

  -

  Anita jumped down the last two steps of the stairs. The bottom two steps creaked, and she didn’t want to wake the others. There was nothing that needed immediate tending to — the horses wouldn’t need feeding for another couple of hours, and the fields could take care of themselves, at least until after breakfast. Besides, it was Monday, and Anita believed in starting the week right with a nice, relaxed breakfast.

  She peeked through to the living room. Nikki had lately made a habit of falling asleep at the table, head bundled up in her arms, usually with some oversized textbook serving as a pillow, surrounded by scatterings of stationary. But the living room was empty. All the better; she didn’t like eating in the kitchen.

  The tiles were cold against her bare feet, but it was a pleasant cold, a reminder of how warm the air had become. She had missed the warmth over winter and hated the constant downpours in spring, but it looked like summer had finally arrived. Light streamed through the window, and the few tiles not shaded by the kitchen counter had already begun to warm up. Humming to herself, Anita set out a pan, flour, milk, sugar, and…

  No eggs. She closed the fridge and frowned. She could go and collect the fresh eggs, but the chicken coop was further than she was willing to go for pancakes. Instead, she slipped on her soft, worn riding boots and, leaving the door ajar, stepped out into the fresh morning breeze.

  It was already promising to be the most beautiful day of the year so far, and Anita couldn’t help but smile to herself as she made her way down to the guest house. The dirt path, stamped to perfect evenness over the years, was not yet dry enough to be dusty. Dew clung to the grass and wild daisies beside the way.

  Even from here Anita could hear the beehives by the back of the house. The contented humming noise followed her down the dirt track. It was too early for anyone to be awake on a Monday morning. It was Anita’s favorite time of day. The perfect peacefulness of a quiet sunrise filled her with something she couldn’t quite describe — a nostalgia, or affection, for what had been her home for the past five years. She had grown so accustomed to the ranch she could not imagine life away from it.

  She knew every corner of the property by memory and could have found her way around it on a moonless night. The main house, with its creaky floorboards and shaded terrace; the garden, an explosion of color and perfume, filled with carefully tended flowers and the beehives. They were Bella’s pride and joy, but Anita had never gone too close. Though her fear of being stung kept her away from the hives, she enjoyed the rich honey Bella collected regularly.

  The barn and stables, a short walk from the farmhouse, were just out of sight behind the familiar apple and pear trees. The breeze was just strong enough to carry the delicate scent of apple blossoms, and Anita smiled at the thought of fall and fresh apple pies, the single thing that would make the end of summer bearable. Beyond the stables and enclosures began the rolling hills that made up the largest part of the ranch’s pastures and grazing land, the edge of which bordered the woods which led down to the lake.

  A neighing horse pulled Anita out of her daydream — Artemis, Anita guessed. Artemis was always the first one up. She’d go and say hello, but breakfast first. She sprinted the last fifty yards of the path and arrived at the door to the guest house feeling exhilarated. Hair in tangles from the run and the breeze, intoxicated from the new day’s summer air pumping through her veins, she opened the door and made to go to the kitchen.

  The guest house wasn’t a guest house — it hadn’t been in a long time. Jo had arrived three years ago, Sally only six months later, and the two were now as much a part of the ranch as Anita, Nikki, and Bella. It was a smaller building, a bungalow with two bedrooms, a storage room, and a small corner kitchen. There wasn’t even an entrance: the main door opened directly onto the cozy living room, with its south facing windows and worn, warm carpet. Jo and Sally had most of their meals at the farmhouse, but Anita knew Sally liked to keep the fridge stocked.

  Both bedroom doors were closed, and Anita snuck through the living room. It was a mess, as usual, blankets and coats thrown haphazardly over the couch, a half-full glass of water on the coffee table, Jo’s tools and Sally’s riding equipment piled up in a corner. Anita rolled her eyes, went to the kitchen, and opened the fridge.

  Twelve of yesterday’s eggs sat on the top shelf of the door. Anita took five, closed the fridge, and was about to leave when she decided she might as well leave a note. The girls were bound to wake up soon, and if she was going to steal their eggs, she could at least invite them for pancakes. She found a scrap of paper on the kitchen counter and started looking around for a pen. Had this been her house, it would have been overflowing with stationary. Nikki seemed to drop pens and pencils wherever she
walked. They were scattered about the entire house, in cups on tables and counters, lying on shelves, stuck on the fridge or beside the stove or squeezed between the cushions of the couch, and then forgotten there. But Jo and Sally either didn’t write, or Nikki had stolen all their pens because there was none in sight. Eggs balanced in one hand, paper pressed between her lips, she made to check beneath the pile of blankets and jackets on the couch. As she reached her free hand to move them away, the pile moved.

  Her lips, unwilling to part with the scrap of paper, stifled her scream into a squeak, and she took a few hasty steps backward, promptly tripping over a kink in the rug. Next thing she knew, she was sitting up, rubbing the back of her head with the hand that wasn’t covered in smashed egg. A shadow passed over her.

  “I’m so sorry, are you alright? You must be Sally. I didn’t mean to startle you, are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” Anita said. She looked at the mess of egg in her hand.

  “Yeah, imagine if you’d been those eggs.”

  Annoyed at the stranger for startling her and making her look like a fool, and annoyed at herself for the broken eggs, she looked up, ready with a retort, but was stopped dead in her tracks.

  In the morning’s shade, the eyes she met were a deep, intense blue. It was like looking at an azure ocean in a summer storm, and all thought of a rebuke fled Anita’s mind. She felt suddenly small, small and lost in that gaze which seemed to see through her own and into her very soul.

  The stranger blinked.

  “Are you alright? Did you hit your head? Should I get some ice?”

  Anita snapped out of it and shook her head.

  “Just as well,” the stranger said, “I don’t know where the ice is.”

  “In the freezer, usually,” Anita muttered. She tried to push herself up off the ground, forgetting the broken eggs. Her hand slipped out from beneath her and she felt herself falling again, but a strong hand caught her and pulled her to her feet. She was acutely aware that it was not her hand which now loosely held her wrist. She became aware, too, of how she must look, with her long, dark hair a tangled mess from the run and the fall, wearing a tattered apron which she hadn’t thought to take off before leaving the house.

  Kiss the Cook, the apron said. And now it was covered in broken egg remains. Great.

  “Your eyes are closed,” the stranger’s voice said.

  If I open them, the embarrassment becomes real, she thought, but she couldn’t just keep her eyes shut forever. She’d need them, at the very least, to get out of the house without tripping over another bit of rug. And to wash the yolk off her hands. And apron. And possibly hair. So she opened her eyes.

  Turned now, with her back against the window, she got her first glimpse of the stranger’s face in the sunlight. A shock of disheveled hair, brown strands tinted golden in the early sunlight, stuck up at haphazard angles. Anita ran a hand through her own tangled mane, trying to pry loose some of the knots. He was tall, taller than her by a good deal, and Anita became keenly conscious of the fact that he was not wearing a shirt.

  Greek gods would have wept.

  Hoping the shade might hide her blush, she quickly focused her gaze back towards his face.

  “Cerulean.”

  “What?” The stranger furrowed his eyebrows.

  “What?” Realising she had been speaking, Anita began to stammer an excuse. “The, uh, I mean…”

  “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?”

  “No! I mean yes. I mean no, I didn’t and yes, I’m sure. I just meant…” She gave up. If this was how she was to start her day, so be it. “Your eyes,” she said weakly. “They looked really dark before, but now they’re more cerulean. I just… noticed.”

  “They change color with my mood,” the stranger said, seriously.

  “Really?”

  “No, of course not.” He chuckled. “It’s just the direct sunlight. I’m sorry about your apron.”

  Anita looked down. The apron looked distinctly eggy.

  “It’s fine, it’s an apron, it’s meant to get dirty… I’m sorry, who are you?”

  “Right, of course, sorry. I’m Tristan. Your friend, Flo-”

  “Jo.”

  “Right. She picked me up last night.”

  Anita raised an eyebrow.

  “That seems... unlikely.”

  “I needed a ride,” Tristan explained, “so she offered to drive me, I asked her to take me into town, she said the motel would be closed and offered to let me crash on the couch instead. She wasn’t sure if you were home last night, but I thought she meant you might come in during the night, not six in the morning. With eggs. And an apron.”

  Anita stopped. Why would she be coming home in the middle of the… oh.

  “I’m not Sally. I’m Anita.”

  “Oh. Wait. You don’t live here?”

  “I live in the farmhouse. I needed eggs, and I didn’t want to go all the way to the chicken coop, and... why am I explaining myself to you? You don’t live here either.”

  Tristan laughed, and Anita felt a warmth that was definitely not sunlight.

  “Well, nice to meet you.” Tristan held out his hand. Anita looked at it, and then at her own egg-covered one.

  “I need to wash my hands.”

  “Yes. Sorry about that.”

  “What’s with all the darn noise?”

  Anita looked up. Tristan turned around. Still in pajamas, with hair that looked like it was actively trying to escape from her head, Jo was leaning out of her door, looking disgruntled.

  “Morning,” Anita said. “I just met Tristan.”

  “Okay. Tristan, Anita, Anita, Tristan. Keep it down, guys, Sally’s still asleep.”

  “So she’s back?” Anita asked.

  “I thought I heard something during the night,” Tristan muttered.

  “Yes. She went to the wrong bed.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Tristan commented.

  Jo frowned.

  “She broke up with Connor,” she said, directing her gaze at Anita. “It was bad. I think we should let her sleep off the hangover. Are those our eggs?”

  “They were,” Tristan said.

  “Shut up,” Anita muttered.

  “Glad you’re friends. I’m getting in the shower. You making breakfast?”

  “Yep. Pancakes?”

  “Sounds good.” Jo closed her bedroom door and reappeared a moment later, fluffy pink bathrobe slung over one arm.

  “Um, I’ll just…” Tristan looked around uncomfortably.

  “Want to help me with breakfast?” Anita asked.

  “Yes. Sure. Eggs?”

  “In the fridge. Hang on, Jo, I need to wash my hands.”

  They stepped outside a moment later, Tristan now sporting a snug white t-shirt, laden with six eggs and Sally’s favorite blackberry jam.

  “So, you and Sally and Jo… Anyone else I should know about? I assume you don’t live there by yourself,” Tristan said, nodding up at the farmhouse.

  “Bella and Nikki, and the summer ranch hands share the spare bunk room. Connor arrived at the start of the year. Raoul’s new, he’s been here a couple of weeks.”

  “Sounds like a crowd.”

  “It’s lively. And there are the animals.”

  “Chickens, right?” Tristan held up the eggs he was carrying.

  “Horses, mostly. We have a couple of cows, too. And bees.”

  “Very idyllic.”

  “Very hard work,” Anita replied.

  “What, feeding horses and riding through the fields all day?”

  “Yeah, sure that’s all there is. Feeding, and cleaning, and mucking stalls, and checking food and drink supplies and quantities, and training the horses, and riding lessons, and keeping on top of the vet and the farrier and the suppliers, and that’s for thirty-five horses, mind you, and then there’s the cow, we got a calf needs looking after, and the chickens, facilities need cleaning, you have riders complaining about every darn detail day in day
out, the garden needs tending, and the orchard, and the bees, and…”

  “I get it, I get it. Wow.” Tristan sounded genuinely impressed. “You do all that?”

  “Well,” Anita admitted, “we divide up tasks, really. Jo and I do most of the stable work. And Raoul. The summer season is always busier. Sally does riding lessons, I sometimes help out there, too. Jo does quick mechanical stuff, I think she worked in mechanics somewhere before she came here, but Connor is in charge of all the heavy-duty stuff.”

  “Jo’s not from here?”

  “Nobody really is. Well, Bella and Nikki have been here a lifetime. Or you know, a while, at least. I think Nikki moved out here when she finished school, needed a summer job and just stayed on. I got here five years ago. Mind the threshold.”

  “What? Shoot.” Tristan stumbled over the front door but didn’t fall.

  “I said, mind the threshold. Jo and Sally arrived nearly at the same time. Sally’s a professional teacher, I broke my wrist and she took over for a bit, and we decided to keep her on. Jo came from the city, she didn’t really like it there I don’t think.”

  “Aren’t you jealous?” Tristan asked, following Anita into the kitchen.

  “Jealous? Of Jo? Why would I be?”

  “No, of Sally. She took your job, didn’t she?”

  Anita smiled. “Not at all. Made my life heaps easier. I much prefer being around the horses on their own rather than being around whining children who’ve never ridden a horse before.”

  “You don’t like children, but you used to be a riding teacher?” Tristan asked.

  “No. Kids are great, but I don’t want eight of them kicking some poor animals just because they don’t understand them.”

  “Children are like that, you just have to teach them not to use force.”

  “Mine won’t be. Okay, pass me that bowl.” She pointed at a shelf in one of the cabinets. She had told Nikki not to put the bowls up so high, but Nikki always, always forgot. Tristan, however, easily lifted the bowl off the shelf. His eyes lingered on the cabinet.

  “How would you have reached that if I hadn’t been here?”

  “I would have used a chair,” Anita said, trying to sound nonchalant, but thankfully her hair had fallen over her blushing cheeks as she checked the fridge for milk. “Or asked Raoul, if he was around. Here, whisk this up with the eggs.” She poured out the milk in a smaller bowl from the drying rack and passed it to Tristan. They worked in amicable silence for a few minutes, and Anita wondered if Tristan felt as comfortable in it as she did. Perhaps he didn’t, since, two minutes into the amicable silence, he broke it.