She had dated him for almost a year and wasn’t surprised when he proposed to her as they had never had a serious disagreement and were very much in sync, especially sexually. She always had fun when she was with him and he appeared to be head over heels in love with her.
Then the other shoe dropped.
About a month before the wedding, Sam had taken off work early unexpectedly when a client canceled their meeting, and decided to put the extra time to good use by packing up some of her fiancee’s things that would be moved to her larger apartment when they married.
He was still at work, but she had a key so that wasn’t a problem. As soon as she unlocked the door and stepped inside his apartment, she heard strange noises coming from the bedroom. They sounded like loud smacks, like a belt or something similar hitting flesh, as though someone were being beaten. Oh no! Her first thought was that her poor fiancee was the victim of a break-in and was being tortured.
Her heart in her throat, badly frightened but determined to try and rescue him, she crept to the bedroom door and flung it open.
Someone was being whipped with a wide leather belt and that someone was her fiancee. But from the look of intense pleasure on his face before he saw her, he seemed to be enjoying it and definitely not an unwilling victim. The woman brandishing the belt and administering the whipping was clad in nothing but thigh high black boots as she stood over the bed where Samantha’s fiancee lay spreadeagled. His wrists and ankles were loosely tied with scarves to each post of the four poster bed.
At her gasp of shock and surprise, he looked flabbergasted. “I … I didn’t expect you this early,” he had stammered.
Obviously.
The woman was a prostitute who specialized in S&M, bondage and that sort of kinky sex. Sam’s fiancee had hastily explained that she meant nothing to him and it was solely a business arrangement. He said this was the only way he truly enjoyed sex and hoped that after they were married Samantha could accommodate his tastes, eliminating the expense of hookers.
Ummm … NO.
She knew that many people found bondage and sadomasochistic sex thrilling. But she wasn’t one of them. No, she hadn’t tried it but nor did she intend to. Everybody that wanted a little spanky-spanky with their hanky-panky was welcome to it. Personally, Sam didn’t want any pain with her pleasure.
In her opinion, someone had hit the nail on the head about the best seller 50 Shades of Gray with the opinion that the only thing that made it erotic was the hero being a billionaire. If he had lived in a trailer park, it would have been a Criminal Minds episode.
So, that was the end of the engagement and she thanked her lucky stars that she found out about her husband-to-be’s passion for pain in time to call off the wedding. If not, their marriage would have really been a case of tying the knot—in more ways than one.
While Samantha didn’t begrudge her ex-intended the right to indulge his sexual preferences, they simply weren’t her cup of tea.
Then there was the boyfriend who, when their relationship progressed to a point where marriage might be the next logical step, informed her that he didn’t want to use any method of birth control. He wanted a large family, he said. A baby every year would be the ideal. For who? Sam had been stunned. Not ideal for her, certainly.
She had no desire to be the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe. She wasn’t even convinced that she wanted to have any children at all, let alone a small army of them. After their mother died, Sam’s policeman father had gone into deep mourning and never come out of it. Never much of a drinker, he had sought solace for his grief in a whiskey bottle, spending most of his spare time at the local bar where other law enforcement officers hung out.
So absorbed in the death of his beloved wife, he hadn’t been able to see what he still had … two daughters that loved and needed him. Who needed him even more since the loss of their mother left such a big hole to be filled. He had ended up driving his car into an embankment while drunk and all who knew him, including the daughters he left behind, wondered if his death was an accident or suicide.
Looking back on it, Samantha knew that her sister Maeve had been the glue that held them together after Mom died and then after their dad was gone, too. Try as she might, Maeve wasn’t able to put the pieces of a happy life back together for their father, but she had been the bond that stabilized a very small but close knit family unit for Samantha. Maeve had been her rock and still was. Sam had the comfort of knowing that she could go to her big sister with any problem, large or small, and find someone ready and willing to listen to her.
Her sister didn’t always approve of Samantha’s lifestyle and often expressed her wish that marriage and a family figured more prominently in her younger sister’s plans. But she never lectured or tried to influence Sam in any way. Maeve knew that while Samantha might enjoy being footloose and fancy free, she wasn’t into anything as drastic as recreational drugs, excessive drinking or outright promiscuity.
Also, having been the recipient of her little sister’s tales of failed relationships and perfect men that turned out to be anything but … Maeve understood what had made Samantha the skeptic she had become regarding love and happily ever after.
Samantha supposed that a shrink might say she had relationship issues with men because her father had basically bailed on them and this had undermined her ability to trust the opposite sex or form a lasting commitment. And maybe there was more than a little truth to that theory. Still, for whatever reason, she had come to believe more and more that true love and a happy ending just wasn’t in the cards for her.
Believing that, she had decided to make the best of it and enjoy her unmarried status to the max. After all, if she was destined to be always a bridesmaid and never a bride, she ought to wring as much enjoyment from it as possible.
Right now, it seemed that enjoying her spinsterhood meant having a brief but passionate affair with Ben Connors!
Samantha stood in front of the antique full length cheval mirror in what was once Marielle’s grandmother’s bedroom and surveyed herself critically.
She had dressed for her horseback riding lesson this afternoon with Ben in snug fitting designer jeans that displayed her lush curves to their best advantage. A long sleeved flannel shirt, leather belt that accentuated her nipped-in waist and a stylish cowboy/cowgirl hat completed her ensemble. Makeup had been judiciously applied, but not too much. Just a light dusting of face powder, a brush of mascara and a smudge of lip gloss was all she figured was appropriate for the occasion.
Besides, she smiled at her reflection in the mirror, just thinking about that sexy Ben had put a sparkle in her eyes and color in her cheeks. She looked forward to the riding lesson with eager anticipation, excited to be spending time with him again today.
Hearing a vehicle pull up in front of the house, she hurried to the window and seeing it was Ben, slipped into her down jacket and glanced at her watch. Right on time! Chalk up another point in his favor, she thought. He was punctual, something a lot of guys she had dated were not. Some of them seemed to think nothing of keeping her waiting for hours or even standing her up completely. But she’d bet that would never be a problem with Ben.
Of course, she reminded herself hastily, they weren’t dating. This wasn’t a date, strictly speaking. Merely a lesson to teach her some equestrian skills. But Samantha was determined to bring a touch of romance into the lesson and make Ben aware of her as a woman and not just a visitor to the area he was being kind to.
“Ready for your first riding lesson?” Ben called to her as she went out onto the front porch.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied, laughing. “I hope you aren’t expecting much from this pupil. I have to warn you that I have no affinity with animals at all. It isn’t that I don’t like animals,” she went on, “but I’m not really comfortable around them because I’ve never been around them much.”
“No pets?” Ben asked. “Not even when you were a kid?”
“Nope. My mom wa
s allergic to dogs and cats so we couldn’t have either one and after she died, we just sort of maintained the status quo of being a household without a pet. As far as anything bigger than dogs or cats, we don’t have wild animals running loose in the city the way you do up here.”
Samantha shrugged. “So you can see why I’m a tad uncomfortable around animals ans believe me, the feeling is mutual. They don’t usually warm up to me, either.”
Ben chuckled. “Animals can sense when a person is afraid of them or uncomfortable around them, so they’re just reacting to your feelings for them. When you get used to your horse … or rather, Marielle’s horse that you’ll be riding … and overcome your feelings of fear and mistrust, you may form a bond with him and learn to love him and other animals.”
“Maybe so,” Samantha agreed. Privately, she had grave doubts about it but no sense in sharing that with Ben when he was trying to help her by teaching her to ride a horse.
“Come on,” he told her, starting toward the barn. “Let’s get the horses in from the pasture with a little bit of feed and we’ll get started. Your first lesson will be learning how to tack up.”
“Tack up?” Samantha echoed. “What’s that?”
“It’s putting the bridle, saddle and other equipment on the horse to prepare for riding,” Ben replied. “It’s an important step and needs to be done right, so we’ll work on that today.”
Samantha heaved an inward sigh of relief. Thank goodness she wasn’t going to have to get up there and sit on the horse today! It looked like a long way up there to her and she was more than a little apprehensive about how well she’d fare perched on the back of such a large animal. She hoped it didn’t react to her the way her friend’s dog did when she tried to pet it a while back, by baring its teeth and snarling at her.
Okay, she conceded, the horse probably couldn’t snarl at her. But it could bare its teeth at her and what big teeth they were!
Ben had brought a bucket with some horse feed in it and the horses, grazing quietly in the pasture, had shot toward him in a flash when they looked up and saw it; galloping to get to the fence. They obviously knew that buckets meant food, Sam decided. Ben gave each of the horses a bit of food from his hand and then slipped a halter around the big gelding of Marielle’s, talking to him affectionately and patting the animal’s neck.
Then he turned and repeated this procedure with the black horse that he told her was one of Trey’s.
“Both of these boys are geldings,” he informed Samantha, who was standing a little distance back from the fence in case one of the horses decided to eat her.
“Geldings?” Sam’s face showed her bewilderment.
Ben smiled at her and she was treated to the dimples again. “Geldings are male horses that have been castrated,” he said.
Samantha winced. “Why do that?”
“Because a gelding doesn’t have the hormones that make a stallion act up, so they’re generally gentler, calmer and better behaved than a stud horse, which means a horse used for breeding.”
Hmmm…. Samantha pondered this information in silence for a moment. “So, these horses are better for a beginner like me, then?”
“Definitely,” Ben assured her. “Both of these horses are docile and well mannered. They’re perfect for you to learn to ride on. The is Marielle’s. His name is Taffy.”
Taffy, huh? Samantha hoped the horse’s disposition matched the sweetness of his name. But as they weren’t going to be riding today, she began to relax and soon found, as the lesson in tacking up the horses went on, that she was honestly enjoying making friends with these beautiful animals.
“What marvelous eyes they have,” she exclaimed. “Big and melty-brown with long eyelashes. Taffy here especially … his eyes look kind.”
Ben responded with a broad smile. “You catch on quick, Samantha. Taffy really does have what some horse lovers call “soft” eyes; usually means the horse is gentle with an even temperament.”
Samantha brushed Taffy as Ben directed, starting at the head and onto the neck, working on down to the horse’s broad back and sides. The big gelding stood calmly as she groomed him and she discovered that the action of brushing him was relaxing. She liked his horsey scent, too. It was unique but clean and Samantha found it pleasant. She had never smelled a horse before today.
This trip was introducing her to quite a few firsts. She was broadening her horizons every day; discovering new, unfamiliar things and learning more about herself in the process.
“Ben,” she wondered out loud, “I’ve seen in movies where horses are groomed after riding, but why do you brush your horse before riding?”
“Just in case there should be something tangled in the hair that would hurt or irritate the horse when saddled and tacked up. Sometimes if a person is in a big hurry, they might do what’s called a “cowboy brushing” which is really not even brushing since you just run your hand over the horse’s back and down under the belly where the cinch will go.”
Ben apparently saw the confusion in Samantha’s blue eyes.
“Not to worry. I’ll explain what the cinch is in just a few minutes when we start saddling up,” he told her, smiling.
Samantha was struck anew at the powerful appeal of Ben’s smile. Some people had perfected a great smile but their eyes didn’t follow suit. She had met a few of these types who smiled at you full force while their eyes remained cold.
Not Ben. He smiled with his eyes, too. Those unique eyes lit up with genuine warmth to match his smile. As Samantha absorbed the full effect of both she felt slightly dazzled, even a little short of breath, while her heart seemed to literally skip a beat. Good grief! This man’s attraction was unreal!
“Now we’ll move on to tacking up,” Ben told her.
Sam watched as he deftly slipped the bridle onto his horse and the bit into its mouth. Next, he added a saddle pad and followed that with a brown leather saddle complete with stirrups and a wide belt across the bottom.
“What’s the belt for?” she asked.
“That’s the girth. It’s what keeps the saddle on the horse. You have to be sure and cinch it tightly. Otherwise, it may be too loose and the saddle will slide off and you’ll be hanging on sideways.”
Samantha grimaced. That didn’t sound good at all. The only thing she could think of that might be scarier than perching in the saddle up on the horse’s back was hanging precariously from its side or worse yet … down under its belly.
She watched as Ben finished tacking up the horse and cinched its girth, giving it a little extra tug when finished.
“Some horses are tricksters,” he said, smiling. “They hold their breath while the cinch is being tightened and then let it out afterward, making the whole contraption loose. You don’t want the cinch to be too tight and cut the horse in two, just tight enough to keep the saddle securely in place.”
He took his time getting the horse tacked, explaining each step as he went along. Samantha felt some of her nervous tension dissipate as she realized that Ben sensed her uneasiness and would be patient with her.
“Now it’s your turn,” Ben told her, handing her Taffy’s bridle. The horse was tied but didn’t make any sudden moves, which helped her feelings considerably as she hesitantly began the process of tacking up per Ben’s instructions.
After the bridle and saddle pad were in place, Ben lifted the saddle onto the horse and reminded her to lay the right-hand stirrup over the saddle horn and the cinch on the gelding’s back until she got the saddle properly placed. Then, she tackled the cinch and after a couple of tugs, had it snug. Ben demonstrated again how to feed the cinch through the upper and front rings, tucking it under where it crossed itself.
Sam stood back and felt a glow of satisfaction at her accomplishment.
“I did it!” she announced, smiling. “I actually saddled a horse! You’re a good teacher, Ben Connors.”
Ben faced her, returning her smile with his own. “You’re a good pupil, Samantha O’Brien. Brains
and beauty, that’s an unbeatable combination.”
Samantha felt a rush of happiness at his lighthearted praise. It felt good earning Ben’s approval and she basked in the warmth of it, feeling herself flush a little under his admiring gaze. He really was such a nice guy! Something about that thought caused Samantha to feel faintly uncomfortable when she recalled her plans for him.
Ben broke into her thoughts, saying “I think this is enough for today, Samantha. Are you up for another lesson tomorrow afternoon? We’ll move on to Lesson Two and ride Taffy around the corral a few times if that works for you.”
“Sounds good to me,” she assured him. “I’m looking forward to it.” To her amazement, she really was looking forward to it. Not just because it gave her another opportunity to spend time with this drop dead gorgeous guy, but because she genuinely enjoyed being around the horses. They were magnificent and these two at least were gentle giants. She could chalk up another first today. She had tacked up a horse and discovered that she liked these magnificent animals. Already, she felt her fear of riding begin to lessen.
“How about a cup of coffee, Ben?”
“I never turn down down an offer of coffee,” he replied, grinning. “Do you have that fancy stuff like Marielle drinks?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Samantha replied. “Mari and I both are self-confessed coffee snobs. We love our java and indulge ourselves by getting the good stuff.”
While they had been talking, Ben had been busy un-tacking the horses and now gave each one another little munch of the sweet horse feed before turning them back out into the pasture.
“Come on into the house,” Samantha said. “You’re in for a treat.”
“It’s a treat just being with you,” Ben replied. “But enjoying a cup of great coffee with you makes it even even better!”
Samantha strained to catch even the slightest inflection of insincerity in his voice and heard none. He seemed completely genuine. Free of deceit or pretense. Could that really be so? Could a man really say such things and mean them?
The Color of Forever: Book Two: Forever Cowboys Series Page 4