The Stable Affair

by Jessica Andersen

  He and Sarah returned to the Trail and followed it to Quincy Market, where they shopped casually amongst the pushcart vendors and specialty shops.

  “Whaddya think?” She pulled a pair of foam moose antlers over her head and waggled them at him.

  “Bullwinkle has nothing to fear from you.” He dodged when she aimed a jingling jester’s hat at him.

  “Spoilsport.” She bought the antlers, thinking she would attach them to Marshmallow’s bridle when he pulled the sleigh they used to deliver donated presents to a local women and children’s shelter at Christmastime.

  Dante ducked into a nearby gemologist’s shop and she followed to ooh and aah at the glittering displays of geodes and colored stones. One display case was filled with gold and silver jewelry and she mooned briefly over a pair of earrings made of smoky gray swirls of stone set in teardrops of white gold. The proprietor removed something from another case.

  “She’ll take it, and the earrings, too.”

  “I’ll what?” Sarah turned to see Dante approaching her. He reached up to fasten a pendant around her neck then loosened her hair from beneath the white gold chain. She lifted the stone to see a flattened oval of the same smoky stone with a winged horse etched on it.

  “Reminded me of your Noble horse.” Dante seemed uncomfortable, like he didn’t give gifts often. He pressed the earrings into her hand. “You can put these on, I’d just draw blood.”

  “Dante.” She could say nothing more, but pressed her lips to his much to the delight of the shopkeeper. She threaded the delicate posts through her pierced ears and fastened the bobs securely.

  The winged horse dangled just below her broken collarbone. The stone was cool against her skin, warming as it touched her. She took Dante’s hand and pressed her lips to the rough skin of his knuckles. “Thank you.” He nodded once and signed the slip the proprietor slid across the counter to him.

  Dante drew Sarah out into the bricked area between the North Market and Faneuil Hall where trees pushed through the ground to shade wrought iron benches and pigeons picked at fallen popcorn. He pulled her against him and held her close in the warm sunlight, lips pressed against her temple.

  “You’re welcome. I love you.” They stood for a long moment while the flow of human traffic eddied about them and their bodies said for them what words could not yet speak. Dante had to close his eyes and will the emotion back. He would promise nothing he could not guarantee.

  Sarah pulled away reluctantly. “How about that lunch?”

  They shopped a bit more and Sarah picked up a silly rainbow-colored scarf for her aunt. Dante bought a stuffed bunny for Ellie and they both laughed about the fact that they lived an hour from the city and rarely made the trip in.

  “It’s so easy to just live at the farm and go to the shows, forgetting that there’s any other way of life. That’s why I left initially, I thought it was too artificial, too unreal.”

  Dante sipped at his second coffee of the day. “And now?”

  “Well. I found that reality is how you perceive it. Horse people are no more or less real than anyone else, it just depends on how you use your time.”

  “How do you want to use yours?”

  “If I decide to stay at the farm I’d like to institute a program for therapeutic riding. I’d also like to think about fostering a few older kids at the farm, if Tilda agreed to it.” Sarah had never considered herself a motherly person before, but recently her attitude had begun to change.

  She hummed a note, blinking up into the hot July sun. “You tired? We could take the train if you’re sick of walking. Or else we could head back to the hotel through the Commons, maybe feed the ducks or watch the swan boats before we take off.”

  “Plan B. Let’s walk.” He cocked an elbow, holding her moose antlers in the other hand as they strolled back through town, past Park Street Station to the Boston Commons.

  “Didja know its still legal to graze your cows here? It’s one of the ‘blue laws’, left over from the early days of the city.”

  “Yeah? What are some of the others?”

  She smirked and he got the feeling she had wanted him to ask. “Well, there’s the one about it being illegal to sell alcohol on Sundays, and the one making fellatio against the law.”

  His step faltered. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. Oral sex is illegal in this town.” She slid a sly glance toward him. “Wanna go break the law?”

  He clamped down hard on the surge of heat. “Down girl. There’s the pond, and lots of little children. No way I’m ducking into the bushes with you here.” Even though his body could picture it all too well.

  Sarah quacked at him like a duck and laughed. “I was kidding. I think.” They walked along a path that took them between a stone maintenance building and one of the wrought iron gates. A silver Cadillac cruised by them and seemed to slow, causing Sarah to stiffen.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. That’s the kind of car The Doctor drives, but it wasn’t him.”

  Dante swiveled to watch the sedan glide into traffic and away. “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure,” Sarah assured him. They continued to walk, but the false gaiety Sarah and Dante had sustained for the day oozed away from them both until Sarah finally turned to him. “Let’s head on home. We should probably make some plans. I don’t want my family, you, or Ellie to be hurt if Seville is going to come after me. It’s about time to think about going after him now, wouldn’t you say?”

  They arrived back at the farm near dusk and Dante made it clear that he was staying with Sarah until further notice and they made some excuse to Tilda, who was no fool. Ellie was already installed in the little guest room, so they put Dante in the big guest room next to Sarah’s.

  “How convenient,” he commented as Sarah bustled about making the bed with little Ellie’s help.

  “Not on your life, buster,” Sarah muttered, and then turned to Ellie. “So how was the ride back?”

  The child bounced on the freshly made bed. “It was very fun. I rode with Nicole and Amanda and we stopped off for milkshakes and French fries and I ate so much I almost got sick.” She pantomimed gagging and Sarah laughed.

  “You get used to fast food pretty quick when you do the horse shows, kiddo. Were you happy with Finnegan?”

  Ellie nodded solemnly. “He behaved very well, and I tried to practice my diagonals all the time. When can I jump?”

  Dante’s heart lurched at the thought and he was grateful for Sarah’s calm answer. “Not until you can walk, trot, and canter all by yourself. Maybe next summer if you keep working very hard and you ride all winter, even when it’s really cold out.”

  “But that’s like forever away!”

  The three bantered back and forth like a family as they went down for dinner, and when the dishes were cleared away and it was time for Ellie to go to bed, she insisted that both Sarah and Dante tuck her in and tell her a story.

  Later that night, when the farm was quietly slumbering, Sarah slipped into the big guest room where Dante welcomed her into his arms with hushed, gentle love. They rocked together with the thunderously quiet passion that would be needed to sustain them through the harsh days ahead, and when they reached that slippery pinnacle together and fell as one in weightless ecstasy, Sarah knew in her heart that nothing would ever be the same for her.

  She awoke in her own bed, having crawled there in the wee hours of the morning as a sop to Tilda’s sensibilities and Ellie’s youth. Ellie herself knocked at Sarah’s door just after dawn and let herself in when Sarah grunted in reply.

  “Hi. I wanted to see your room. Aunt Tilda said I shouldn’t go in unless you invited me, so you just invited me, right?”

  Sarah rubbed her sleepy eyes and mumbled again. “Sure. Whatever. What time is it?”

  Ellie shrugged, unconcerned. “I can’t tell time yet. Pretty early I think—the horses aren’t fed yet. Can I look at your pictures?”

  “Uh-huh.” Sarah waved a hand
at the framed photos that competed for space atop the nightstand and dresser. She was pleased to discover that she’d managed to put a nightgown on before getting into bed. Fumbling through her closet, she found a robe and shrugged into it. She’d had that weird dream again—not the awful one with Jay and Gordon, but the erotic one in which she was on a white horse galloping at Dante and the horse reared at the last moment.

  “Hey, here’s Noble! He’s so pretty. And this is you and Tilda and Bob.” Ellie rambled as she examined the pictures, careful not to drop them. She picked up one frame and squeaked in pleasure. “You have a picture of me! Did Uncle Danny give it to you? This is me and him and my mommy.”

  “Huh?” Sarah took the picture that Ellie offered her. Maybe Dante had left her a picture as a present. She looked at the photo through sleep-blurred eyes and felt her fingers grow numb.

  “That’s my mommy. Isn’t she pretty? Uncle Danny says she’s my guardian angel now, because she’s up in heaven. Is she your guardian angel, too? Is that why you have a picture of her?”

  Susan. It was a picture of Susan, with her arms around… Dante. Seeing them together, Sarah felt very foolish for not having noticed the resemblance before. They must be brother and sister.

  “Sarah?” Dante leaned casually against the doorframe, shirt open across his lightly furred chest. He took one look at her face and straightened abruptly. “What’s wrong? What happened?” He crossed to her and she jolted back, slamming into the window seat and almost falling in an attempt to avoid his touch. The picture fell to the floor and the glass broke, cracking across the middle to separate the images of Dante and Susan as they grinned at each other.

  He stooped to retrieve the photo then realized what it was. He straightened slowly, “Oh God.” Terror clawed at his throat and he frantically sought an explanation. Where had the photograph come from? The last place he’d seen it was… Susan’s apartment.

  “Sarah. I’m sorry—I was going to tell you today but Bender must’ve planted this when he was here. I’ll bet Seville knew all along.” He saw that she wasn’t listening. She was plastered against the wall looking at him as if he was some revolting insect.

  “Then he knows way more than I do. Who the hell are you?” She tried to edge around him, headed for the door, but he blocked her path with a shift of his body.

  “I’m exactly who you think I am. My name is Dante Devers, and I’m a photographer.”

  “You’re her brother. The one she was always trying to set me up with.”

  “Yeah. Although I didn’t know until the other day that I had a blind date when I got back from Africa.” Dante spoke slowly, not sure how to proceed. Ellie had fled the room when the picture broke, but Dante figured she was listening from the hall. He just hoped that Tilda wasn’t up yet; he could do without family solidarity right now. “I must say that Susie always had great taste.”

  Sarah flinched at that as if he’d struck her. “Don’t,” she pleaded.

  “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I meant to, but I was too much of a coward. I was afraid you’d react like this.”

  “Like what?” Sarah’s voice was getting louder now. “How exactly am I supposed to react? Am I supposed to say ‘that’s nice Honey, I’m glad you finally got around to telling me that you’re the brother of the woman who’s death changed my entire life’? What are you doing here anyway? Why are you pretending to be a photographer?”

  “I am a photographer, and I do work for Horseman’s although I had to call in a favor to get the job.”

  “Why?” She looked devastated, and her very pallor was a knife through his heart. He hated hurting her this way.

  “Because I needed to meet you. The hospital said you killed Susie and I had to know what happened.”

  She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “What happened? We still don’t know what happened, do we? Oh God. You’re Susan’s brother.” She said it as if it were just beginning to sink in. “You lied to me about everything, didn’t you? Did you enjoy it? Did you laugh every time something bad happened? Did you make some of those things happen? The fire? Was that you? Do you hate me that much? Of course you must, you think I killed your sister.” They both heard a gasping sob from outside the room, then the patter of little feet running away.

  “Sarah.” Dante was beginning to feel the first twinges of desperation. She wasn’t taking this well at all. “I don’t hate you. Maybe I tried to at first, but I just couldn’t. For a while I hated myself for wanting you, but that passed, too. Even before you told Daniel and me about what had happened at the lab, I was looking for reasons to forgive you for Susan.” He held out his hands pleadingly. “I can’t hate you. I love you too much. Please forgive me. I love you.”

  Sarah shook her head frantically. “You can’t love me. I don’t know you.” She started for the door and he blocked her. “Get out of my way,” she hissed. “You have no right to me any more.” He stood aside and she rushed down the stairs, bathrobe and nightgown fluttering around her bare legs.

  “Sarah, wait!” Dante followed her to the top of the stairs and watched helplessly as she ran down the gravel path to the rebuilt shed row.

  Stones cut her bare feet as she fled, but Sarah could hardly feel the pain. The sharp sting seemed so insignificant when compared to the agony caused by the gaping hole in her chest where her heart used to be. She heard Dante call her name again but had no intention of responding. She never wanted to speak to him again, never wanted to see him again, never wanted to even know that he had once existed in her life.

  Noble whickered when she opened his door. She had thought to curl up in the corner of his stall and weep for a while, but the anger that pulsed through her white-hot wouldn’t let her be still. Blood streaked her ankles from where she’d run through a small rose bush and the bodice of her nightgown was damp from the brief spate of tears she’d allowed herself on the way to the barn.

  When she heard Dante’s rough-honey voice again, counterpointed by Ellie’s higher piping, Sarah knew she couldn’t stay at the farm. She had to leave, to run, to escape.

  Catching the emotions of his mistress, Almost Noble gave tongue to a whistling bellow of rage and half-rose on his hind legs in the confines of his box stall. Sarah grabbed a double handful of his thick gray mane and swung aboard as he descended and touched the ground only long enough to catapult himself out of his stall and into the narrow aisle.

  Dante ran from the farmhouse, unwilling to let her leave like this. “Sarah, wait! We need to talk about this. I never meant to hurt you, I was going to tell you about it today!”

  He reached the door to the shed row just as Tilda and Bob arrived from the other direction. “What happened?”

  “Sarah found out about something and now she’s furious with me.” Yeah, like that wasn’t the understatement of the week.

  Tilda nodded, obviously reserving her judgment. “Then she’ll be in Noble’s stall, that’s where she goes when she’s upset.”

  Sarah’s aunt started into the shed row, but was jerked back when Bob yanked her out of the way just as Sarah and Noble galloped through the door at full speed. Sarah’s robe slashed around her as she rode, its flowered silk mingling with Noble’s streaming mane until she looked like an avenging centaur come to life.

  Dante ran several steps behind her. “Sarah! Please wait, we have to talk!” He staggered to a halt when it became obvious that he could never outrun the horse.

  Sarah heard him though, and saw his figure through a red haze of fury. She spun Noble and galloped back the way she had come, bearing down on the motionless photographer intending to trample him down as punishment for his betrayal.

  Dante stood fast and at the last possible moment the great white horse slithered to a halt and rose on his hind legs, clawing at the sky as if he meant to take flight. The animal’s ears were flat back on his skull and his eyes were rimmed with the white of terror and rage. He whistled again, a battle cry that was taken up by the inhabitant
s of the stallion barn.

  Sarah clung to her mount, her pale arms and legs seeming invisible against her horse’s gray hide except for the streaks of red blood that ran from her legs to his gleaming coat. Her eyes were huge in her white face, and her reddish hair and the pink roses on her robe were the only splashes of color. Noble descended to the earth only to fling himself into the air again with his rider clinging to his neck like a burr.

  It was Dante’s dream, gone horribly, horribly wrong.

  As the horse reared a third time with an unearthly keening noise, Sarah pointed down at Dante from her perch high atop the plunging animal’s withers. “You have nothing to say to me. Nothing, do you understand? You lied to me and to my family. You lied about who you are, what you are, and why you’re here. I’m not sure who I fell in love with, but it certainly wasn’t you, Dante Devers.”

  Noble dropped to the ground a final time, his aluminum-shod hooves sinking deep into the spongy ground. “Noble, hah!” Sarah’s yell galvanized the overwrought animal and sent him to a full gallop within a stride while she clung to his neck for dear life.

  She had no bridle because she didn’t care where they went and never wanted to come back. She had no saddle because she truly wouldn’t mind if she fell to the rocks below and ended it all in one final leap of faith.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dante stood rooted to the spot as horse and rider flung themselves over the four-foot high stonewall that flanked the driveway and they fled across an open field into the woods. He was dimly aware that Bob and Tilda stood at his shoulder and that Ellie had come up beside him and taken his hand.