The Stable Affair

by Jessica Andersen

  With a growl he started to lunge at her, but she stopped him with a wagging finger. “Uh-uh-uh… Not near the horsies! We wouldn’t want to get trampled now, would we?”

  She squealed as he covered the distance between them in two strides with clumps of shavings dangling from his formerly tan slacks. “What’s this ‘we’ stuff? I’m the one that’s dirty again.”

  “Truce for one second.” Sarah held him off for a moment and carefully latched Larth’s door. “Okay, go!” She took off running around the end of the shed row. Three juniors watched curiously to see what Dante would do.

  Was he forgiven? Apparently he was, although it was tough to tell. He’d never seen this side of Sarah before and was more than a bit unsure of his moves. Was this an opening for him to apologize? Hopefully. He followed her at a walk and came around the corner to have a clod of dung hit him in the left knee.

  “Shit fight!” Sarah yelled gleefully and used her now-gloved hand to fire another clump at him.

  Dante looked down at his pants as a matching stain bloomed on his other leg. Was this a horse person’s revenge or some sort of weird mating ritual? He wasn’t positive, but knew it was sure to be hard on his rapidly diminishing wardrobe. “What is this fascination you have for getting me dirty? This is not normal behavior for anyone!”

  Sarah just grinned. He needed a lesson badly and she was happy to be the one to administer it. “You said you wanted to learn the trade. Here are the rules: one, people compete hurt, horses don’t; two, never question a rider’s decisions in public unless that rider is paying you for coaching; and three…” A chunk of wet shavings splattered on the wall next to him. “You can’t be afraid of horse shit!”

  “If you even touch this shirt, I’ll…” Dante got no further as the next volley hit him dead center in the chest. “All right! That’s it, you asked for it!” he bellowed as he grabbed a shovel from a laughing groom and charged after Sarah.

  She shrieked and dove behind the big wooden enclosure that housed soiled bedding. She ran behind the muck ramp and grabbed a pitchfork from the smelly pile as she ducked around one of the long barns.

  Dante dug his shovel into a particularly nasty pile of manure and urine-soaked shavings and hefted it over his shoulder. He saw Sarah slip between two parked trucks and head for the main road. Cutting down an intersecting aisle, he bolted through, balancing his shovelful as he hurdled one tack trunk and two startled Jack Russell terriers. He burst into the next row just as Sarah came into view. After a quick check to make sure he wouldn’t hit anyone or anything important, Dante let fly with a whoop that made him sound like he was ten years old again.

  Sarah’s first instinct was to shield herself by holding her weapon in front of her face to ward off the airborne filth. Now, had she held a shovel this would have been good strategy in any muck fight, but to the great detriment of Sarah’s clothing she found that a pitchfork makes a very poor shield.

  Dante’s volley hit Sarah’s pitchfork square on and the muck dispersed in a fine spray of dung, hay, shavings, and urine, completely covering Sarah in nastiness. Several unidentifiable chunks stuck in her hair and a fine coating of darkly soaked shavings sifted around her until she strongly resembled the victim of a random Shake-n-Bake accident.

  Sarah was shocked.

  Dante was horrified.

  He couldn’t believe he had just thrown horse manure at Sarah Taylor, the woman whose body obsessed him, whose brain fascinated him, and who he was supposed to be using to avenge his sister’s death.

  Her shoulders began to shake. Oh God, he thought, she’s going to cry. He walked over to her and laid a tentative hand on her slimy shoulder, prepared to pay her anything she demanded if she agreed to never mention this incident to anyone.

  Sarah started to giggle. Then to laugh. Then to howl.

  “That was disgusting! I didn’t think you had it in you! Come here, let me share it with you!” She wrapped her arms around him to give him a big hug, still laughing hysterically.

  He was stunned, but not too stunned to notice how nice she felt pressed against him. Her head came to just under his chin and those lovely breasts flattened against his hard chest. His body remembered how it felt to hold her and he thought fleetingly of kissing her here in broad daylight when she couldn’t claim to be asleep or not to know his name.

  Then he got a good whiff of her and backed away, hands held up beseechingly. “Please, no more. How am I going to spend the rest of the day like this? Yuck!”

  “Yeah, point. Come on, we can shower off in the jockey’s quarters as long as nobody sees us.” She paused and added sternly, “In separate showers, of course. You’ve got clean clothes in your car I hope?”

  “I can see that I’m going to have to start carrying extra shirts whenever you’re around just as a matter of course.”

  Sarah strode back to the stabling area after returning her pitchfork to the manure pile. She turned back when she noticed that Dante wasn’t following her. “Are you coming?”

  “In a minute. I wanted to apologize first. I’m sorry I was a jerk the other day.” He spoke carefully, needing to reestablish some sort of contact with her. “I was way out of line and my only excuse is that I hadn’t slept very well the night before. Can we be friends again?”

  Sarah blushed slightly when she remembered why he hadn’t slept well that night, then cocked her head to one side, considering. Friends? Was that what they were? The man kisses her almost senseless in her own bed so that she can barely lie there at night without thinking of him alone in the next room and he asks if they’re still friends?

  “Yeah sure. Friends.”

  “She’s got a new boyfriend.” The tinny voice was boastful and The Doctor’s lips tightened. It was so tiresome having to deal with little people to get things done. “Doctor? Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you, Rumney. Sarah Taylor is dating some guy. Did she see you?” The Doctor was only half listening as he read the memo on his desk, but he knew from his lackey’s hesitation that Sarah had recognized her tail.

  “Uh, maybe. I’m not sure. Maybe not. I searched her room like you said, but she didn’t have anything from the lab. It was all clothes and horsey stuff. I searched the boyfriend’s room too, but I didn’t find anything beside a few pictures.”

  “What were you looking for in his room?” The Doctor’s voice was dangerously mild; he didn’t like his underlings to show initiative. The silence on the other end of the line let him know that the rebuke had been effective, so he let it pass. “Is the boyfriend somebody that should concern me?”

  “He’s nobody really, some photographer for an unimportant little horse magazine. His name is weird… Hold on, I know I’ve got it written down somewhere. Devries? Deevers? Something like that. His first name started with a ‘D’ too, like a porn star’s name.”

  The manicured fingers that had been fiddling with an expensive charcoal pencil suddenly snapped the writing implement in half. “Devers? Was it Dante Devers?”

  There was a pause. “Geez, Doc. You’re some kind of spooky, you know that? That’s exactly who it was. Should I keep following them?” The bald man didn’t think now was a good time to tell The Doctor about his little target practice with Sarah Taylor’s horse.

  “Are they still in New York?”

  “No, they left this morning. Want me to push her off the road again?” Rumney’s thick lips curved in memory of a foggy afternoon more than a year ago, a narrow road and a two-horse trailer.

  “Watch your tongue or I’ll have it removed. No, just come home. I have other plans for you and for them.” The Doctor disconnected without further word and summoned up the mental image of a dark-haired man in a dark suit holding a blonde girl child in the rain as they stared down at the newly turned earth of a fresh grave.

  Elegant fingers punched in a new series of numbers, an internal extension at BoGen. “Matthew? When your experiments permit, I would like you to come see me in my office. I have a little errand for y
ou. No, no. No rush, you can finish what you’re doing first. What were the results from that last preparation? Did it work? No? A shame. We really need to find Fontaine’s old notebooks.”

  Chapter Six

  A few days later, Sarah bumped the door to Tilly’s office open with her hip, her hands occupied with cups of coffee. The tension in the room froze her in her tracks. Bob and Tilda were squared off on opposite sides of the desk like a pair of prizefighters and their anger hummed in the air.

  Sarah noticed that they stopped speaking as she entered and got the distinct impression that she was the cause of their battle. “Um, I’m sorry for interrupting. Here’s your coffee Aunt Tilly.” She set the cup on her aunt’s desk while the combatants stared at her. “I’ll just check who I’m teaching next and be on my way.” She looked at the spiral bound notebook, saw that she was to teach that cute Ellie child on Marshmallow and bolted from the office.

  As she pulled the door shut, she heard her aunt say, “I know you don’t approve, but she’ll have to face it some time.” Bob’s reply was muffled and Sarah didn’t dare reopen the door. She’d tried that trick before, without much success.

  She pondered Tilda and Bob’s exchange as she readied Marshmallow and Noble for the trail ride she had decided to take with Ellie. She didn’t think she’d done anything recently that should worry her aunt, at least nothing that Tilda knew about, being unaware of Sarah’s late night computer use. So far her inquiries had turned up a big fat nothing, although if that really had been the same bald man in New York, it suggested she was making somebody nervous.

  But who? If she had to guess, she’d pick Dr. Gordon Seville just because she never liked him, even when Jay had been alive. His unfortunate resemblance to a cross between a lizard and a vulture aside, Sarah had always thought that Seville was bad news. It was after his recruitment that the lab had changed. Jay had changed.

  Maybe she should confide in Dante, ask for his help in figuring out who switched Susan’s test results. Sarah sure as hell knew it hadn’t been her, but somebody must’ve done something fishy, since all the records were now gone. It would mean telling the photographer everything about her past, but Dante said they were friends, right? That’s what friends are for. And if your friend was of a mind to kiss you now and again, what could be better?

  Granted, he hadn’t made a move to kiss her since that one little encounter in her hotel room, but a girl could hope, couldn’t she? After all, he did seem to be hanging around an awful lot these days, asking questions about the horses and signing Ellie up for daily lessons. That was a good sign, right?

  The tread of heavy footsteps outside had Sarah craning her neck to look out the doorway in the hopes that Dante would appear in response to her thoughts, but it was a smaller, slighter shape that obscured the sun for a moment.

  Ellie paused in the backlit doorway and waved, “Thanks, Uncle Danny! I’ll see you in a bit, okay? Bye!” And she skipped into the barn. “Hi Sarah! What’re we doing today? Am I riding Noble?” The child’s eyes widened as she looked up and up and up at the horse’s broad back.

  “Not today sweetie. You’re on Marshmallow again, but I thought we could go on a trail ride if you wanted.” The little girl cheered and scurried to ready her pony while Sarah cursed her own overactive imagination and tried to convince herself that she didn’t have a humongous case of lust for “Uncle Danny.”

  Ellie chirped excitedly and twisted her helmet this way and that, trying to absorb all the sights, sounds, and smells at once as they guided the horses across the road and onto the trails. Sarah was pleased to see that the child was always careful to sit in the center of the tiny school saddle and keep a good grip on both reins.

  “What’s up there?” Ellie pointed to a well-used path as they passed by.

  “Some of the jumps the foxhunters use in the fall. They keep the paths pretty well trimmed all year.” Sarah urged Noble down a rockier path and he and the pony picked their ways daintily.

  “Foxhunters?” Ellie was horrified. “I saw a fox once with Uncle Danny. They don’t hurt the foxes, do they?”

  “Not anymore… push your heels down further, Honey, and lean back a bit as we go downhill. In the olden days they killed the foxes. Dogs called foxhounds bred specially to sniff out and chase them would find the scent of a fox and follow it, with a bunch of men and women galloping after. Nowadays, before the hunt a couple of people drag a bag of fox urine along the track the hounds are supposed to take and the dogs follow that.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, it’s easier on the foxes, and it keeps the horses from galloping through some poor woman’s vegetable garden.” Sarah eyed Ellie, impressed with her ability to carry on a focused conversation. She didn’t have much experience with kids outside of lessons, but got the impression that this one was pretty advanced. “Can’t you just picture it if the hounds got lost and led all the horses right through some rich lady’s flower garden and into her pool?” Sarah was rewarded by a giggle from Ellie.

  “Can horses swim?”

  “Sure they can, but it’s hard for them to get out of a swimming pool. The ladders aren’t really built for hooves.” Ellie giggled again at that image. “We usually take them either to a pond or to the beach if we want to go swimming with them.” It’d been way too long since Sarah had ridden on the beach, felt the wind in her hair and the play of the salt water on her bare legs as Noble leapt from wave to wave. “Maybe we can go this summer, you and me, if I can find a weekend between horse shows.”

  Ellie’s eyes gleamed at the prospect and Sarah was surprised at herself. She didn’t usually take to children, and only rarely offered to extend her time with them past the half—or three-quarter hour lesson their parents paid for. She must be getting soft in her old age. That or she was subconsciously sucking up to the kid to get closer to Dante. How revolting.

  When they got back to the farm, Sarah supervised Ellie as she untacked Marshmallow, brushed the saddle mark from his back and meticulously picked the pony’s feet free of the rocks and mud he had acquired on the trail. Ellie’s uncle hadn’t arrived to pick her up, so Sarah sent the girl off with the dogs to play fetch in an empty paddock.

  Sarah was currying Noble with big round motions that left him grunting in ecstasy when she heard a step behind her. She turned, expecting to see Bob or one of the stable hands and was surprised to see a vaguely familiar form silhouetted against the setting sun. “Can I help you?”

  “Sure you can, I’ve come to see you.” The man stepped into the light and grinned endearingly at her. “Hey Sarah!”

  “Matt!” Sarah stepped forward to embrace her friend, unaware that Dante had paused just outside the door. “What are you doing here? Oh,” she answered her own question, “You said you came to see me. How sweet of you to drive all this way just to visit!” She hugged Matt again and didn’t notice Dante grinding his teeth in annoyance.

  Matt ducked his sandy head in the abashed way that never failed to attract women. “Actually I came all the way out here to take you to dinner and make sure you really are okay with this new job and all. I haven’t heard from you and I was worried.”

  “Oh, how sweet you are,” Sarah repeated and Dante thought he might vomit from all the sweetness in the air, but he schooled his expression to one of polite neutrality when Sarah turned and finally noticed him.

  “Dante! Hi, I’m sorry I didn’t see you right away. Ellie’s in the back paddock playing with the dogs.”

  If she thought she was getting rid of him that easily, she was wrong. Dante stayed put and stared at the other man until Sarah was forced to introduce them.

  “Dante this is Matthew Bender, an old friend of mine from the lab. Matt, this is Dante Devers. He’s a photographer for one of the horse magazines, and I teach his niece, and…” She trailed off, feeling that she hadn’t described her relationship with Dante adequately. But what could she really say about the two of them? They had never gone out on an official date, nor had they
ever kissed when fully awake. They hadn’t ever even really held hands. “We’re friends,” she finished lamely.

  The men shook hands then stood there as if they were waiting for her to do something monumental like choose between them. But there wasn’t a choice, was there? One had asked her to dinner and the other hadn’t.

  “Well, anyway,” she said inanely. “Let me just put Noble away and change and we can go. Okay Matt?”

  “Sure, Sunshine.” Matt grinned insultingly at Dante when Sarah turned her back. “Take as much time as you need, I’ll be here.”

  “So how are you, really?”

  Sarah slouched back in her chair, enjoying the atmosphere of the dingy little bar and remembering the many after-work hours she and Matt had spent elbow to elbow in a similar place near Boston General. “I’m really, totally and completely fine, Matt. I wish it’d happened differently, but you and I both know things just weren’t the same for me the last year or so. Maybe it was time for me to leave the lab anyway. After Jay died, it was really tough for me to get back into the swing of things. There were just too many memories.”

  “We still miss you there, you know.” Matt gazed soulfully into Sarah’s eyes, but she wasn’t buying it.

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll bet you missed me just long enough for Gordon to hire that jazzy redhead I saw when I was cleaning my desk out. What’s her name, Sherri? Merri? Something like that.”

  Matt mumbled something and flushed into his beer, which Sarah took to mean that he’d tried to start something with the new counselor and had failed miserably.

  “What was that, Matthew? It sounded like the cry of a wounded grizzly. What’s the matter, you a little lonely these days? Your bed getting a little bit cold?” Sarah had fallen almost instantly back into their old pattern of teasing friendship, so she was a bit startled by Matt’s next words.