Love Tangle: Riding Bareback

by S. E. Margaux

  “Evita…”

  “Anita. You’re not very good at names, are you?”

  He smiled apologetically.

  “How long do I have to whisk this for?”

  Anita looked at the frothy mixture.

  “That’s about right.”

  There was a steady click of footsteps in the hall.

  “Mornin’. Ooh. Morning.”

  They both turned around. Nikki was standing in the door to the kitchen, looking inquisitive. Tall, poised, and in an outfit that could have cut diamonds, she finished pinning up her sleek, coppery hair with help of a hairpin she had been holding between her teeth, then raised an eyebrow at Anita in silent question as she adjusted her collar.

  “Tristan,” Tristan said. “Becca?”

  “Bella,” Anita corrected him.

  “Nikki,” Nikki corrected her. “Pleasure. Why… never mind, we’re late. Have you seen Bella?”

  “No, I thought you were both asleep,” Anita said. She couldn’t imagine why either of them would be up before ten on their only day off. “Why are you up?”

  “We’re going into town. Weattie wants to see us,” Nikki said wearily. She felt tired just thinking about the man. But there wasn’t any time to be tired. “Save me a pancake?”

  “Maybe even two.”

  “Thanks. If you see Bella, tell her I’ll be in the car and gone in five. Nice meeting you, Tristan.” She smiled hastily, but her eyes lingered as she left.

  “You too,” Tristan said. “She seems nice.”

  “Yes, though she’s been real stressed, lately. I think it’s Weattie.”

  “Who’s Weattie?”

  “Who’s nosy? I’m joking, I’m joking.” Anita turned on the stove. “He owns the ranch, he employs us all. It’s been a good long while since Nikki looked that stressed, though. Maybe Weattie got a big complaint from a customer or something. You know, they think we don’t feed their horse the right stuff, or we feed it too much, or too little, or we don’t give them enough time in the pastures, or too much, or too little, or all sorts of things.”

  “Hey. Who’re you? Who hired the chef?” Bella walked into the kitchen and looked into the mixing bowl. “Pancakes. Save me a couple, will you? I’m off to see Weattie. Who’re you?” She repeated.

  “Tristan. Becky. No. Bella. Bella?”

  “That’s me. What are you doing here, Tristan?”

  Tristan picked up the mixing bowl.

  “Making pancakes. Are you looking for Vicky?”

  “No. Who’s Vicky?” Bella turned questioningly to Anita.

  “Nikki,” Anita said.

  “Oh. Yeah, her I am looking for. You seen her?”

  “She came by looking for you. She’s probably in the car by now.”

  “Guess I’m in the car too, then. Nice meeting you. Enjoy the pancakes.”

  “You too.”

  And she was gone.

  “You were right,” Tristan said, handing Anita the bowl, “it is lively here.”

  They set the table for five, but Raoul, who usually spent his free day with friends in town, was nowhere in sight. Jo arrived on her own. The table in the living room was warm with sunlight, and Anita tied up her hair to better enjoy the warmth of the light against her neck. They ate amidst playful conversation, and Anita felt like it had been like this forever. It was strange, how naturally Tristan seemed to fit in, the casual ease with which he sat at the table as if it had been his chair all along.

  “So your friend, Sa…”

  “Sally,” Anita said before he could get another one wrong.

  “She’s asleep?”

  “Yeah,” Jo said, all but pouring the jam out of the jar and onto her small stack of pancakes. “Must’ve been bad. They’d been going out for nearly six months. She didn’t say much last night, it was mostly crying. Pass the powdered sugar.”

  “On jam?”

  “Are you judging your hosts?” Jo asked sweetly.

  “No, no. You do you.” He passed the sugar. “Actually,” he set down his fork. “I was wondering what I owe you.”

  “What?” Anita asked.

  “What?” Jo repeated.

  “I mean, for driving me, and taking me in, and making me breakfast. I’m not a freeloader.”

  “Well you technically made the breakfast yourself,” Anita pointed out.

  “And you made it for the rest of us, too,” Jo added.

  “With your ingredients. Come on. Please. I insist.”

  Anita looked at Jo, who shrugged.

  “How much would you pay at a motel? Fifty bucks?”

  “Jo!” Anita said sharply.

  “Alright, alright. If you won’t stay for free, why don’t you help out on the farm for a bit?”

  “Unless you have somewhere to be,” Anita interjected.

  “I don’t,” Tristan said quickly. “Nowhere to be at all. I’m all yours.”

  “Very sweet,” Jo said dryly. She powdered her pancake and cut a bit off. “Actually, that’s great, though. I have a feeling Connor may not be making a return anytime soon, so we could use the help.”

  “Who would’ve thought,” said Tristan. “But yes. I’d love to help. Never worked on a ranch before, though. I may be more trouble than I’m worth.”

  “I’m sure you almost definitely will be,” Jo said, patting his arm. “We can set you up at ours, there’s a spare room. It’s tiny and filled with junk, but there’s a bed frame, and if you don’t need too much space…”

  “Sounds better than a couch,” Tristan said with a smile.

  “Great.” Jo finished off her pancakes and got up. “I’m going to take some over to Sally,” she said. “You good on your own for a bit?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Anita said, “I’ve got help now, don’t I?”

  “Yep. But don’t go replacing me with the new boy,” she teased, tousling Anita’s hair before going towards the kitchen.

  “I’d never,” Anita said, trying to fix her mussed up bun. “Tell Sally to take it easy,” she shouted, as the front door slammed shut.

  “You too,” came a shout back from outside.

  Tristan raised an eyebrow quizzically.

  “She’s a bit strange,” Anita said with a shrug. “Come on, dishes, then horses.”

  “I’m excited already,” Tristan said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  -

  It was Monday, which meant feeding the horses. Tuesday also meant feeding the horses, as did every other day. Because horses eat every day. This is what Anita explained to Tristan as they crossed the yard.

  “So in the morning, you feed the horses, evening you muck out?”

  “Well, mornings we muck out too. And horses don’t just eat in the morning, you know.”

  “You muck out twice a day?”

  “Horses are… messy,” Anita laughed. They took a shortcut to the back of the red-roofed barn, a large, weathered building. “Here grab this.” Anita handed Tristan a bucket of grain.

  “I thought horses ate apples and sugar lumps?”

  “Oh my,” Anita laughed, shaking her head. “We have a lot of work to do. Follow me.”

  Anita led Tristan around the barn and to the adjacent stable. Tristan noted she was carrying two much fuller buckets of grain than himself, but he said nothing. Sliding the rusty red door open with her foot, Anita nodded inside.

  “So where are you going?”

  “I’m following you,” Tristan said, raising a strong, dark eyebrow.

  “No, last night. Where were you going?”

  “Oh. I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know where you’re going?” Anita stopped in her tracks. “Put that down there. What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I left New York six weeks ago and… I don’t know. I’m heading west. Have you never just set out without a plan? Let the chips fall where they may?”

  Anita thought back on her life, considered seriously for a moment her childhood spent on a farm not dissimilar to this, and the
friendly recommendation that had brought her to this ranch five years ago. She had driven for six hours, alone apart from the road atlas in the passenger seat. She had known exactly where she was going. “Yeah, sure. So you’re from the city?”

  “Yeah.”

  Anita opened the first horse box and walked in. “Morning, Artemis,” she cooed, stroking the silver Thoroughbred. The horse impatiently stamped her hooves, shaking her black mane. “Alright, I’m getting to it.” Anita turned around. “Tristan?”

  Tristan was lingering at the stall entrance, warily eyeing the nickering horse. “I’m good here,” he said.

  Anita went to the stall entrance and grabbed his hand. “Come on.” She led him up to the giant animal, who stood still, staring at the stranger. “Artemis, Tristan. Tristan, Artemis. Artemis is Bella’s horse. Hold out your hand, Tristan, Artemis would like to say hello.” Tristan raised his eyebrows. “Come on, we don’t have all day.” Letting go of Anita’s hand, he slowly raised his palm to the horse. His eyes never left its bright, silver-white face. Holding his hand about eight inches from the horse’s face, he was surprised when Artemis gently pushed her muzzle against his palm. The soft, velvety fur of her nose tickled his skin. He smiled.

  Anita nodded, satisfied with the introduction. “Now you’ve met Artemis, the others should be a breeze.” She began scooping grain from the bucket into the horse’s trough. “What’s the city like?”

  Tristan looked through the open stable door at the lush green mountainside and feathery clusters of evergreen pines. Distant dark rock faces and sheer cliffs provided a dramatic backdrop to the rolling grassy hills of the ranch. “It’s, uh, different.”

  “How? Tell me how.”

  Tristan copied her, scooping grain from the bucket. “Haven’t you ever been to a city?”

  “Not really,” she said, thinking. She unlatched the door of the next horse box. “Does West Birkham count?” she asked.

  “Where?” exclaimed Tristan from the next stall.

  “I guess not.” She patted Willow as she left the stall. “That’s Willow, the buckskin.”

  “Buckskin?”

  “It’s the color. Willow’s sweet, wouldn’t hurt a fly. Go on.” She nudged Tristan towards Willow, and he tentatively patted her neck.

  “And that’s Midnight, he’s Jo’s.” She filled up Midnight’s trough too and asked Tristan to tell her more about the city.

  “It’s not so green. It’s not so fresh. Fewer horses, for sure.” Tristan followed her into the next stall. “Who’s this?”

  “Adagio. Nikki’s horse.”

  “She’s beautiful.”

  “He’s beautiful,” she corrected. The Arabian Palomino always drew attention, with his golden mane and unusually silky sandy coat. “And I get that it’s not the same, but tell me what it’s like.”

  Tristan sighed, leaning against the wooden beam of the stall door. “It’s gray. The tallest thing isn’t mountains, it’s skyscrapers — glass and concrete and steel. They’re the backbone of the city. That, and tarmac. You have roads over roads over roads. You’ve got highways and freeways and junctions and crossings, all zigzagging over each other like some messed up game of noughts and crosses. There are buildings that take up entire blocks, they stretch a mile long and go up nearly as high. And the people — you can’t cross the street sometimes for the people coming the other way, all busy and important with their tailored suits and golden Rolexes, briefcase in hand. Well,” he mused, stroking Adagio’s nose, “it’s not all like that, not really. You have your business districts and shopping streets and theatres, but you also have the underbelly. The seedy side. The alleyways that wind past dripping gutters, hidden doorways under neon lights. Below the yellow taxis and blaring horns you have the fluorescence of the subway, people crammed like sardines in the underground. You have benches tucked beneath underpasses, with tramps sleeping rough. A city is a coin of two sides, and you have to flip it to see which side you are on.”

  “And you were in the underbelly?” Anita asked, imagining his piercing cobalt eyes as the only burst of color in a sea of grizzled concrete.

  “No,” he laughed. “Wait, do I look like a came from the underbelly?” he asked seriously, furrowing his brow. He ran his hand self-consciously through his gold-flecked hair.

  She grinned at him mischievously. “I don’t know, you were pretty disheveled this morning. No shirt, hair unbrushed, you were a regular mess.”

  He laughed. “At least I escaped the eggs.”

  She bit her lip, blushing. “True.” She closed Adagio’s stall, walked to the next one. “Are you helping, or just watching?”

  “Sorry,” he said, handing her a fresh bucket of grain. “And no, I wasn’t in the underbelly. I was a city golden boy.”

  “So why did you leave?”

  “You know. Sometimes it can be a bit stifling to always be in the same place. Have you never just felt that something was missing? That maybe there is more out there for you, somewhere?”

  Anita looked around her at the stable rich with equestrian life. The glossy chestnut thoroughbreds, the gold and silver palominos, the dappled gray ponies, each stall bursting with velvet fur and silky manes, dark eyes cast inquisitively towards the new arrival. Through the back of the stable, she glimpsed the abundant green overgrowth, the leafy verdure, the mossy hillsides… a soft summer breeze wafted the fruity fragrance of the apple orchard through the stable, dissipating the smell of manure and the heady scent of straw. She was lucky, she supposed, that she was already in the place she had dreamt of as a kid.

  “I know what you mean. So you just packed up your bags, and left?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Is no one missing you?”

  “Maybe. I’m not missing them.” He laughed. “I’m joking,” he added when Anita looked concerned.

  “Where were you before this?” They reached the final two stalls: an elegant dark brown bay Quarter Horse, and a tall chestnut Clydesdale.

  “The side of a highway thumbing lifts. Who is this?” Tristan asked, holding his hand tentatively out to the dark bay.

  Anita grinned. “This is Wildfire. She’s my horse. I’ve had her since I moved here. I taught her everything she knows.” She affectionately scratched the horse’s chin. “And that,” she said, pointing to the Clydesdale in the opposite stall, “will be your horse. Chestnut.”

  “Woah, you’re giving me a horse?”

  “No, while you’re on the ranch you’re borrowing a horse. His owner moved away last year, he visits once a year, pays for upkeep. But Chestnut always needs a rider.” She grabbed Tristan’s hand again, led him over to the stall. “He’s big, but he doesn’t bite. A gentle giant.” She moved his hand to pat the giant horse’s strong, muscled flank. Suddenly she was very aware she had her hand laced in Tristan's. She dropped it and quickly resumed feeding Wildfire in the opposite stall. Tristan was silent with Chestnut for a while. When Anita glanced over, he had moved up to the horse’s neck and was gently talking in his ear. He had a natural charisma that seemed to work on people and animals alike. It was difficult to not trust his easy charm and friendly demeanor. In spite of herself, Anita felt completely at peace with this perfect stranger. Wildfire gently nudged her shoulder as she stared over at the Adonis in the opposite box. “I know,” she giggled to her horse. “I know.”

  Stepping out of the stall, she latched the door shut and Tristan did the same. They walked down the stable together, passing the freshly fed happy horses, empty buckets in hand.

  “You still haven’t told me where you were before this,” Anita said, closing the barn door. The sun was now high in the azure sky, streaming hot on her bare arms.

  Tristan sighed, running his free hand through his hair, swinging the empty bucket in the other. “I don’t know. I left the city on a train, I got a lift for fifty miles or so in a truck. I stopped at a fruit farm for a while, helping out with maintenance. It was nice to be out of the city, but I could still see the smoke of
the factories. It wasn’t far enough so I kept heading west.”

  “And then where?” She opened the storage shed and stacked the buckets inside each other on the shelf.

  “You want a blow by blow account?” he asked.

  “What’s the point of traveling if you’re not going to tell people about it later?” she joked.

  He laughed. “That’s true. Ok, well I camped out a few nights by Lake Michigan. And being a total hapless city boy, I caught a cold.” Anita snorted. “A couple picked me up at the roadside, and they took me to see a doctor.”

  “For a cold? You princess!”

  “They were a bit overzealous,” Tristan admitted. “Anyway, I then spent a few days getting out of the city. I spent a while on the roads, trying to catch a ride out of town. I did a few days in a lumber yard, but it’s so unbelievably loud. And there’s something totally horrifying about seeing those trees come down. So then I moved on. I just moved from town to town for a while. You know — spend an evening at a bar, find someone to take you home.”

  “Oh, right,” said Anita, rolling her eyes. She started pulling tools out of the shed.

  “No, not like that!” Tristan protested, playfully pushing her shoulder. “No, it was mostly older men. They take me home to their trailer and put me up on the couch — all they want is for someone to tell their story to. Or you know, they take me back to the home with the wife, they want someone to lighten the mood at the dinner table, or distract their family for a moment from whatever mistake they last made. Sometimes it’s women — but not like that.”

  Anita smiled to herself. The wave of jealousy that had swelled within her faded. “Ok, I believe you’re not sleeping your way around the country,” she said lightly. “Are you ready for the next job?”

  “What’s next?” he grinned eagerly.

  She handed him a shovel. “Mucking out.”

  Tristan grimaced. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. Don’t you have a stable hand for this?”