Breaking the Reins

by Juliana Haygert

  “But—”

  “What?”

  “You can’t be serious.” I snorted. “Shit, that’s it, right? Is this some kind of Brazilian joke or something? To come after a girl and pretend you’re interested. Let me tell you, it’s not funny.”

  “What?” He laughed, but it wasn’t an amused tone. “First, no, it’s not a joke, not a Brazilian one. Where I come from, men take pride in being masculine, strong, and honest. Well, perhaps there are a few who play with girls, but those exist in any culture. I’m not that kind of guy, though.”

  “But … I don’t get it.” I walked around him, intent on finding Argus. “This is ridiculous,” I whispered.

  I was asking this guy why he was here, or better implying if he was here because of me, and, at the same time, I hoped he said no. My heart fluttered when I imagined him saying yes. Ridiculous and impossible. Besides, I could be totally wrong. He could be here because of his previous horse, like he said. Or because he was bored, maybe? Anyway, I wasn’t going to put myself out there more than I already had.

  As I leaned to spy inside a stall, Leo came to stand in front of me. “Apparently you need to have it spelled out. Why am I here? Because of you.” He stared at me, his eyes serious and his powerful body looming over mine. “Yes, it’s also because of my late horse, but it’s mostly because I’m attracted to you. Is that a good enough reason?”

  I gasped and retreated a couple of steps. His confession both thrilled me and frightened me. “This is wrong. You do know I have a boyfriend, and I’m not the kind of girl who cheats. Sorry if I gave you that impression.” I gulped. “If all you’re looking for is a good lay, you know where the town is. Usually, there are parties every night somewhere on the university campus, and I’m sure you’ll find several girls to suit your needs.”

  Shut up, shut up, shut up! I was making everything worse.

  He shook his head. “Nope. No other girls right now. I’m sure I’m pretty attracted to you.”

  I gaped. “But … why?” He raised a brow, and I felt the heat over my face again. “I mean, aren’t people in relationships off-limits? I mean, when I was single, the guys dating were off radar. I never, ever looked at them.”

  He looked away, his jaw clenched. When his eyes returned to me, it was with a pained expression. “I can’t help it. Believe me, I tried.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  He advanced three feet. “Since that first day out in the rain, you flipped a switch I thought was broken. You intrigue me way too much. A beautiful girl standing up to her father, standing up to some jerk who insists on buying her property, taking care of a broken horse, not afraid of living alone at this ranch—”

  “I never said I’m not afraid of living here alone.”

  Leo took a sharp inhale. His jaw ticked, and I fought a sudden, unwelcome urge to lick it. “You can’t say stuff like that to me.”

  “Like what?”

  He took another step in my direction, and I retreated, my back hitting a stall’s door. “Like you’re afraid of being here alone.”

  “Why?” My voice came out raspy, low.

  “Because it makes it harder to stay in control.” He advanced, grabbing the low door behind me, his palms over the wood, inches from my waist. His body hovered over me, his compelling eyes on mine, something dangerous gleaming in them, something that made me feel like it was one hundred and fifty degrees in here. “I’m not a good guy, Hannah. In fact, I’m a bad guy trying to act like a good one for once. However, my good side is losing right now.”

  I gulped. On their own, my eyes flicked to his mouth.

  He groaned and closed the distance between us. His body crushed mine with a force that made all the air escape my lugs. His lips brushed against mine, gentle and tentative. A shiver raked through me, and as I opened my mouth to him, a loud neigh and stomping hooves froze me. Froze us.

  Argus exited the tack room and trotted in our direction. Leo caught my good hand and was about to pull me out of the way, when Argus turned around, neighed again, then proceeded to an empty stall on his own.

  Returning to my senses, I quickly pulled my hand out of Leo’s and walked to Argus. Shame consumed me, but I tried to keep it under control as I locked the stall the horse was in. To hell if this one wasn’t reinforced. I wasn’t about to move him now.

  Shaking, I walked past Leo and reached for the entrance gate. I unlocked the gate and pushed the leafs open, thinking of what to say to him, of how to tell him he should go.

  “Morena,” he whispered. For a fraction of a second, I cursed myself for not looking up what that word meant, but decided it didn’t matter right now. I started walking out, but he caught up with me. “I’m sor … you know what? I’m not sorry. I am sorry you have a boyfriend. I’m sorry I can’t seem to respect your relationship. I’m sorry you apparently don’t have the same feelings I have for you, but I’m not sorry for wanting you. Because, droga, I really want you.”

  I turned to him and he stopped, watching me with his mesmerizing blue-green eyes. Crap, I didn’t need this.

  “Thank you for the help you’ve given me with Argus, and with me.” I raised my arm and gestured toward the splint. “But I can’t have you helping me anymore. Please, if you care about me as you think you do, then don’t come back here.”

  I ran to the main house with my tears brimming in my eyes, and my heart splitting in two.

  Chapter Thirteen

  One of my mother’s maids opened the front door for me, and pointed to the sunroom at the back of the house. In there, my mother was seated on a regal armchair, reading a magazine and enjoying the warm sunlight trickling in through the thin shades. As usual, Hilary was nowhere to be seen. She would probably emerge from her room when Rosa called for lunch, and then grumble about being bored throughout the meal, like she always did whenever my parents scheduled these Sunday gatherings.

  “Good morning,” I said, sitting down on the love seat across the coffee table.

  “Good morning,” my mother answered without taking her eyes from the magazine. “How are you?”

  “Good,” I lied. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Outside.” She beckoned to the door leading to the outside porch. My father paced on the porch, yelling into the phone. “He’s been arguing with Mr. O’Neill for over forty minutes.”

  “Mr. O’Neill? Isn’t he the man who came to one of your dinner parties a few weeks ago?”

  “Exactly. Their business together is falling through, and Mr. O’Neill has been upset about it. Yesterday, he called, threatening to bring your father’s company down somehow.”

  What was with everyone and threatening? Couldn’t people actually talk and solve their problems? I thought of Mr. Nash and me. No. No talking there. I wanted to get a shovel and hit his head.

  “How is Eric?” she asked.

  “Good. He is up to the championship match this afternoon.”

  “That’s good,” she said, sounding disinterested.

  “Hannah,” my father said, entering the sunroom. He had the phone tight in his hands. “How are you?”

  How was I? Honestly, I wasn’t sure. Two weeks had passed since I told Leo to stay away from me, and he’d done like I told him. However, deep inside I hoped part of that was because he was still in Florida. To make things worse, I researched what morena meant. Apparently, it was a sweet nickname for a loved one, and it certainly didn’t help my cause. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and how I wanted him to ignore what I’d said. But I knew, oh, how I knew, that this was for the best. He had to stay away from me, and I had to find a way to forget him too. I felt so lost.

  I was also feeling alone, as if I were fighting a huge war by myself with no ray of hope. Argus and I made no progress. In fact, I was pretty sure we had gone back to zero. The stupid horse didn’t want to eat much, he wouldn’t let me get close anymore, and when I released him into the arena, he just stood there, watching the fence as if it would disappear under his gaze. The vet said
his physical health was a little better. He needed to gain more weight; there were a few scars that would never completely heal. Still, I was losing hope.

  Since he freaked out in my kitchen, Eric had been nice and loving, extremely careful with his words and actions. Even now, while in Florida, he called me at least four times a day and asked me what I was up to, how I was feeling, and told me he loved me. It was all nice in theory, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that things weren’t the same as before. Our relationship hadn’t been the same since my grandmother died, and there was nothing I could do to change it.

  “Good,” I lied, followed by an automatic smile.

  He sat in an armchair beside my mother. “Good.” He gestured to my arm. “What happened?”

  “Just … a horse. He hurt me without meaning to, but I’m good.” Jimmy took me to the hospital two days ago. The doctor said I couldn’t take off the splint yet, because the bone wasn’t one hundred percent. He told me to come back in a week. My father frowned. “I should take this thing off soon. And how are things around here?”

  “Same old, same old.” My father clasped his hands together and stared at me. “Don’t change the subject, Hannah,” he said. His cold tone told me everything.

  I closed my eyes for a second. “Father, please, let’s not talk business today. Please.”

  “But we have to,” he said. “You have been so busy with the ranch that we barely see you anymore. And now you tell me a horse hurt you. You know how dangerous they can be.” He shook his head. “We need to talk.”

  I sighed. I couldn’t win this. “Okay. Talk.”

  He sat up straighter and smoothed his polo shirt. “Eric has been talking about marriage since you two began dating. Last week, before he left for Florida, he came to ask my permission to marry you.”

  “What?” Wait. I thought I was going to get a lecture on the ranch and Argus, and why I should sell it right now.

  “I don’t think he plans on asking you soon, but I think he’s getting everything ready.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I want you to think about it. Your mother and I are afraid that you might say no because Eric’s plans don’t always match yours.”

  “Like dropping college and becoming his trophy wife?” I slapped my hand over my mouth. The weight of my mother’s gaze fell over me, and I found the pattern of the ceramic floor interesting.

  “Eric wouldn’t want you for a trophy wife. You’re too smart for that,” my father said, oblivious to my mother’s hurt expression. “I told him you shouldn’t quit college because I want you to run my business, but he insisted he can do it.”

  “And?”

  “I know he can do it. Even though I consider Eric family, this is our business. I would like a Taylor running it, even if a Bennett helps out. I want you in charge.”

  “I want that too,” I whispered.

  “That’s good to hear. Eric is a good man, Hannah. He’ll see reason and understand your wishes with time. Don’t say no and waste the great future you two can have together because of his stubbornness.”

  If my father had told me that about a month ago, I would have agreed. Though, if Eric asked too soon, I still wouldn’t accept his proposal. We were too young, and I couldn’t see myself getting married before I was twenty-five. Maybe even twenty-eight. Still, I should be glad he loved me that much; I should be glad he was serious about our future together. Now … now I wasn’t sure about anything.

  “I think the big problem between us right now is the ranch,” I confessed.

  “All right. You’re quite adamant about keeping the ranch. I want to know why and how you plan on running it, keep up with college, and learn the family business.”

  Finally, he would listen to me! I just hoped he would also understand. “I don’t really know how else to say it other than the ranch is part of me, Dad. I grew up there as much as I grew up here. Grandma was more than a grandma. She raised me too. Her scent is forever imprinted in that place. My horse was born and raised there. He also died there. I learned how to jump there.” Though I’d thought about it a lot, I’d never said it out loud, and that made all the difference. A sense of pride filled me as I said, “The ranch is my home.”

  “I see.” He nodded. “But it’s not a safe place, Hannah. Even if I can’t convince you to sell it, I’m not okay with you living there alone.”

  “Jimmy’s house is close, and the Thompsons are just across the main road.”

  “Well, that didn’t stop some crazy bastard from setting the stable on fire, did it?”

  I flinched. God, how I hated when people talked about that night as if it was something that happened eons ago.

  “I’m okay, Dad. Jimmy is always checking on me, and there are always people around. Paul, Dr. Bohm, and the students.”

  “That’s how it was with my mother too, and look what hap—”

  “Can we please change subjects?” my mother asked, her tone clipped. “This is supposed to be a fun family get-together, for God’s sake.”

  Fun? When did she learn what fun was?

  Hilary must have read Mother’s mind, because she entered the sunroom, her bored mien in place. “Is lunch ready yet?”

  “Hello to you too,” I said, standing up to greet her.

  She hugged me back, the same way she would hug a contagious gorilla or something. “Where’s your man? I thought he didn’t let you go anywhere without him.”

  I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes at her. “He’s my boyfriend, not my owner.”

  “It doesn’t always look like it.”

  “What?”

  Rosa saved Hilary from losing her tongue when she stepped into the sunroom and announced lunch was served in the dining room.

  “Come on, girls,” my father said, ushering us through the door. “Let’s have a nice time as a family.”

  ***

  The rain castigated the ranch during the night. The wind whistled outside the windows, and thunder flashed bright and loud.

  And Argus cried the entire time.

  I tried ignoring it, putting my pillow over my head and pretending I didn’t hear him or the other horses that had started complaining with him, but at three in the morning, he won. With my pillow under one arm, a blanket under the other, and a raincoat over my head, I ran to the stable. Who cared if my splint got wet? Argus certainly didn’t.

  As soon as I stepped in and turned on the tack room light, Argus stopped. He stood still until I faced him over his stall’s door. “Happy now?”

  He didn’t do anything other than look at me with huge eyes.

  I placed the blanket on the floor and the pillow against the wall, and slid down, doing my best to pull the edges of the blanket tight around me. It was summer, but rainy nights spent in the stable could be chilly.

  He lay down close to the door, and I saw one of his eyes through the cracks between the wooden boards. He stared at me, and that made me feel as if I could reach to him again. Not now, I would probably scare him more, but another day. I could do it, and he would let me.

  Moments later, I was shaken awake. “Hannah, dear.”

  My eyes shot open, and the first thing I registered was my father, in dress slacks and shirt, kneeling beside me. The second thing was the weak sunlight fighting to come out from behind the clouds. It was morning already. The third was that my whole body hurt.

  “Dad.” I ran my good hand over my messy hair, and reached for my cell phone. It was freaking seven in the morning! “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” He gestured around us.

  “Well,” I began, trying to think of a lie. Ugh, why lie? “Argus has many problems, and one of them is rain and thunder. He was going nuts last night, so I came down to try and calm him. I didn’t think it would work. The funny thing is, it did.” He looked at me with such a foreign expression and a small smile on his lips. “What?”

  “I never thought you were this devoted to the place.�
��

  I stood up. “I thought I made that clear, many times.”

  “Yes, well, until now I’d thought it was an exaggeration.” He walked to Argus’s stall and watched as the horse slept. “What happened to him?”

  “His previous owner was a bastard. He hit Argus, made him pull heavy stuff, much heavier than he should be able to, and he put his dogs on Argus when he thought the horse was misbehaving. They bit him, Dad. They almost killed him once, and that’s when animal control found him.”

  “And they brought him here, of course. My mother could heal any horse.”

  “They brought him in not long ago, actually.”

  He squinted at me. “You’re the one healing him?”

  “Not really. I’m trying, but … I don’t know. I can’t seem to reach him.” And I wasn’t sure how to break through my own walls to do so.

  “Are you a horse whisperer too?”

  I laughed. “No, I’ll never be like grandma. I think animal control brought him here, because they had no place else. Or perhaps they thought I had inherited grandma’s talent? But so far it’s been hard. He’s barely eaten.”

  “He did that?” He pointed to my hand.

  I nodded. “It was my fault. I was stressed and angry, and tried to reach him even so.”

  “Horses are intuitive animals. They feel what we feel.” His gaze went back to Argus. “He’s a beautiful animal. Under the wounds, I mean. He does need a few pounds, but it’s easy to see how beautiful he can be.”

  I leaned over the door and stared at the sleeping horse too. His white coat was shiny and smooth, but he was still too thin. “Yes, he’s beautiful.” Silence filled the air until I gathered courage to ask him, “Dad, what are you doing here? And so early?”

  He took a deep breath. “The things you said about the ranch yesterday, about growing up here, about seeing your horse being born and learning to jump here. All of that happened to me too, many years ago. I loved this place so much. Until we moved to a bigger house, and I learned to love that place more. I don’t know. Maybe because I was young and easily impressed back then. The new house was not only bigger, it was fancier. I forgot this place so easily after we moved, and I never understood why your grandma insisted on keeping it. After they divorced, she sold the other house to come back here. I thought she was crazy. Who wanted to live and take care of such a hole when you could have a mansion?” He looked around, to the bridles and blankets and boots along the walls, to the stalls and the horses. “You made me remember why yesterday.”