Bella had disappeared into the attic over half an hour ago and hadn’t been seen since.
“Here you go.” Tristan came in, carrying three mugs of tea. He placed one on the table, and carried the other two to the couch, watching Anita’s grateful nod of acknowledgment, the way she clasped the mug in two hands and met his eyes across the room.
There was a dull thump upstairs and a muffled curse. Everyone looked up briefly, as if expecting Bella to drop through the ceiling, then went back to their quiet contemplation.Tristan held out a mug of tea to Sally.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Hey, if you need to talk…”
“...Then we’re all right here for you,” Jo finished. She sat down on Sally’s other side and put her arm around Sally’s shoulder. She glared at Tristan, and he cleared his throat.
"Yeah. That's right. I..."
Interruption arrived just in time with Bella's entrance.
"Right, y'all," she said, clapping her hands together in a highly unmournful manner, "I've got all the extra things. And we have nothing."
"What?" Nikki looked up, perplexed, followed by the others.
"Well," Bella said, moving a loose strand from her ponytail behind an ear, "You three," she looked at Sally and Jo, and then at Tristan, "need a place to sleep. The guesthouse is gone and you're welcome to sleep in the barn or the stables if you like, but I wouldn't recommend it. So we're gonna put you up here."
"Here?" Nikki asked, looking around.
"Well, no. Upstairs, in the bedrooms." She waited for someone to disagree with her, but no one did. The general agreement that nobody wanted to be left alone was felt throughout the room.
"I'm going to get some tea, then we can sort out who's sleeping where," Bella said, with another business-like clap. She turned curtly on her heel and disappeared into the hall and through to the kitchen. Keen not to have to spend more time in the tense atmosphere in the living room, Tristan followed her. He found her in the kitchen, clasping the edge of the counter. Her hands were trembling.
"Are you okay?" He asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. She jumped, stood up straight, composed, and gave him an insincere grimace.
"Yeah. Peachy. Had a great night. And you?"
"No, I mean... You're acting strange," Tristan said. He leaned back against the fridge and watched Bella take out a mug and a teabag, then leave them on the counter.
"Grab me a beer, will you?"
Tristan obliged, and handed her the beer. She leaned back against the counter, looking stubbornly anywhere but at Tristan.
"Need to talk?" he asked, crossing his arms. "Cause you know, you can. With me. If you like."
He saw something pass across her eyes, something like consideration, but then her lips narrowed and she shook her head.
"No, I'm just... I'm just upset."
"I didn't know you and Connor were close," Tristan said.
"No," Bella said curtly. "But that doesn't mean I wanted him to die. How heartless do you think I am?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I just meant... I didn't mean to insult you," he said sincerely, "please don't think that. I just think that it probably won't do you much good to get all tense and solitary. The best way to go through grief is with help. Trust me, I had the option and didn't take it, and I wish I had."
Bella fell for the bait, and Tristan saw her shoulders relax a bit.
"Really? I'm sorry. Do you want to talk about it?" she asked mockingly.
He looked at her. She was smiling feebly.
"Poor joke," he commented casually, "but sure. My father... we never had a very good relationship. He wanted me to do things with my life that just weren't me, you know?"
Bella shrugged.
"I always got along with my family. Well, with my grandparents. Parents can be difficult."
"Yes," Tristan agreed, "they really can. I never really thought much of it, you know, a lot of people don't get along with their fathers. I think it's a father-son thing. I moved to New York, which made Dallas look like a village, really, and I got a job and everything and I was happy there. Then my father got sick."
"I'm so sorry," Bella said. She was looking at him now, not exactly with pity, but certainly in sympathy. Better than that stone-faced facade she'd been wearing all night, Tristan thought and continued.
"It's alright. I had time to make amends..."
"Did you?"
"Yes. Of course."
"And?"
"And," Tristan sighed, "he died. We thought he might get better for a while, but he didn't. And that's how it goes. I was upset, you know, but we'd never been close, and I didn't feel like I had the right to mourn like my brother and mother did. Afterwards, I went to the funeral, and the will was read out, and I was to take up my father's law firm, move back to Dallas, take over the family business, you know. But I didn't want to. I couldn't. And there was just so much pressure, from my family, and from... friends, and I couldn't deal with it. So I shut myself off. From everyone. For a long time."
"And then?" Bella asked.
"And then I came here."
Bella snorted.
"What?"
"Well, you're telling me to be open and speak to people and share and all that. But you didn't do that, and now you're here. Are you happy here?"
Tristan thought of the girls, and he thought of Anita, and then the image of Anita and Raoul, pressed up against each other in the stable...
"I guess," he said, but even he knew it felt faint-hearted now. Still, he couldn't write off the place because of one moment. He'd learned so much here, and had been treated with almost nothing but appreciation and respect. "I do," he said more forcefully.
"Then what kind of an argument is that? Looks like if I want to be happy, I should stop talking to people and then disappear in a few months, or years, or whatever."
Tristan waved his hands up in surrender.
"Fine. As you wish. I'm just saying, I would have felt a lot better if I'd had friends like yours to talk to."
"Yeah..." Bella's eyes seemed to darken again. She shook her head. "What made you such a sharing guy, anyway? Aren't men supposed to be stoic and unemotional?"
"I'm not like other men," Tristan said, simply.
"Aha. Well, I'm going to sort out living situations."
She pushed Tristan aside and grabbed another two beers from the fridge.
"Bella..." Tristan asked as she left, "do you think I could just sleep on the sofa?"
"Nikki will flip, it's where she does all her work. And it's a communal space. I mean, fine by me, but Anita and Nikki might not want it invaded, you know? Anita is very particular about these kinds of things."
"Right," Tristan said. He wondered how cold the barn would get at night. He could always grab a blanket.
Back in the living room, Bella set one of the beers on the table and took a sip from the other one.
"Right," she said. She didn't sit down. Everyone turned to look at her, vaguely confused and, in Nikki's case, nearly scandalized at Bella's matter-of-fact tone. "Look," Bella continued, slightly more somberly, "I know it's been a rough day, and I think we should all get some sleep. It's not doing anyone any good sitting up all night feeling sorry for themselves."
"Connor just died, Bella, have some respect," Jo said quietly. Sally let out a sob and ran out of the room. Jo glared at Bella as Nikki followed Sally to the kitchen.
"I'm sorry," Bella said, more tersely now, "but this is just not helping. Just because something terrible happened doesn't mean we all forget about ourselves.”
“I need some air,” Anita said, suddenly feeling nauseous. She crossed the room as Bella called after her in exasperation.
Anita let the screen door slam and leaned against the veranda rail, listening to the murmur of voices inside. Bella was probably still desperately, hopeless trying to control the situation, as always. Anita wished she would just stop; for once, this wasn’t a problem that could be solved with logic.
It had been raining for hours, and the hot, muggy air had broken into a fresh, wet breeze. Water pooled on the gravel drive like liquid silver.
The door creaked behind her, and she turned around. Tristan gently closed the door.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Are you ok?”
She smiled instinctively, but suddenly remembered the argument, remembered the letters, remembered his cold words in the barn. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” he said, stepping towards her. “And you’re shivering.” He reached out a hand to warm her bare arm, but she pulled away.
“Why are you acting like nothing happened?” she asked angrily.
Tristan suddenly remembered the barn, remembered Raoul. His hand dropped. “You really want to talk about this now?”
“I--I don’t get you, I can’t do this hot and cold thing,” she said exasperatedly.
“Me with the hot and cold?”
“You’re fooling around with someone else, and yet you’re acting like I’ve screwed you over,” Anita yelled.
Tristan bit his lip, wondering how she’d found out about the moment with Sally. “It doesn’t even mean anything.”
“How can you say that?” Anita cried. The words of the letters were burned into her memory. “You know what, I don’t know what we’re arguing about. We weren’t ever anything to each other anyway, and it’s probably best that it stays like that.”
Tristan started to reply, but she stormed off the veranda into the rain. He cursed, chasing after her.
“You know that’s not true,” he yelled through the downpour. “I don’t know what’s going on with you and Raoul, and I don’t really know where I fit into any of this or if I’m the other guy, or if he is. But you know that there’s more happening here than two people who just work together.”
She halted in her tracks. Rain was streaming down her cheeks like tears when she turned to face him.
“I don’t care, Tristan,” she shouted, her eyes burning with anger.
“You do care,” he whispered. His hair was soaked, the wayward strands sending droplets down his cheeks.
“I--,” she said, her voice breaking. “Not caring about you is killing me. Not caring about us is killing me. I’m fighting every instinct because I do care, I care so much, but--Tristan, I don’t want to.”
“Stop fighting,” he murmured softly. He laced his fingers through her damp hair, cupping her chin and lifting her mouth to his.
His lips met hers, pressing urgently and softly. It sent tingles down her spine, as the rain poured around them, running in streaming rivers down her bare arms, plastering his t-shirt to his strong chest.
Anita didn’t realize she’d stopped breathing until Tristan pulled away. For a moment there was no rain and no cold, there was no up or down, there was only this single moment. There was only him and nothing else mattered.
But she remembered Sally, or had it been Nikki, and Callie, whoever she was, and she shook her head. Anita disentangled herself from Tristan, shaking his warm hands from her. “You can’t just kiss me and make me forget everything. You can’t just come in demanding I care, you have to earn it.”
“Is this because of Raoul?” Tristan asked sharply. “Are you with him?”
“Raoul has nothing to do with this, it’s you! You can’t just charm your way into my life, you can’t mess people around and then sweep them off their feet when it suits you. I never know where I stand with you because one minute your Romeo and the next it’s Casanova.”
“All due respect, but I wasn’t the one screwing the stable boy in the barn,” Tristan snapped.
Anita bit back tears. “Well, I wasn’t the one getting off with your friend in the bathroom. I’m done.”
She stormed back to the house. The rain dripped off her as she shook at the doormat. Sally and Jo sat together on the sofa, Jo’s arm protectively around her shoulder. Nikki raised an eyebrow. “Everything ok?”
“Just great,” she said, sinking into a chair. Tristan re-entered a moment later too, but no one said anything.
“Ok, now that we’re all finally here, let’s sort this out,” said Bella firmly. “Right now what's most important is that we all get some sleep so we don't collapse tomorrow. I'll make some calls to cancel the lessons, and we can deal with... with everything. But for now, we need to take care of ourselves. I mean look at us, we're all exhausted."
There was a moment of silence, then Jo and Nikki nodded. Sally said nothing, but tears continued to stream silently down her face.
"You're right," Anita said flatly. "We should go to bed. What have we got?"
"What?" Bella asked.
"You know, mattresses and all that," Anita asked.
"Nothing," Bella said. "The only extra mattress we had was in Tristan's room, and that's, well... gone. We have a few extra blankets in case people get cold, but I think we'll be alright."
Tristan started wondering where he would lay out his blanket in the barn. The loft would be the most comfortable but might get cold with the rain and the wind. He could always snuggle up to Chestnut or one of the other horses.
"Oh," Anita said, "I thought we had an extra mattress upstairs?"
"Eaten by moths, and also really, really moldy," Bella said, shaking her head. "I tried taking it downstairs but I couldn't get it out of the attic. We'll have to throw it out later."
"Is that what that noise was?" Nikki asked.
"Yep."
"Okay," Jo said, "where am I sleeping, then?"
"Well, I thought Tristan could sleep in Raoul's room..." Bella began.
"No," Tristan said. He didn't even realize he'd said it until everyone turned to look at him. He met Anita's eye, but she directed her gaze back towards the window.
Everyone else turned to look at him. Bella raised a questioning eyebrow. Jo cocked her head inquisitively to one side. Even Sally looked up from where she was sat on the sofa, eyes wide at the sudden rise in volume.
“I mean…” He started, but was interrupted by Nikki.
"You can stay in my room if you like. I have an old yoga mat. It won’t be super comfy, but it should work."
Tristan nodded. Anita scoffed, but he didn’t look at her.
"Alright. Thanks."
"Right, and Sally, I thought you could stay with Anita, so..."
"No," Anita said. Now everyone turned to look at her. She couldn’t bear the thought of sharing a closed space with Sally, not when it might have been her with Tristan, in the bathroom. "I mean," she stammered, "it makes more sense for me to share with Jo, right? We do all the same jobs, so we'll be getting up at the same time. It makes more sense."
Tristan saw Jo squirm in her seat.
Bella sighed. She bit her lip, and Tristan saw that same expression she'd worn in the kitchen, not sadness, exactly or anger... But it passed before he could pinpoint it.
"Guess that means me and you," Sally said between tears, with a weak smile at Bella.
"Yeah," Bella said, forcing a smile herself.
Nikki stood up and stretched.
"Well, I'm beat," she said, glancing at Tristan. "I think I'm going to bed."
Anita nodded.
"Me too. Jo?"
"Yeah, I'll be right up."
Bella's shoulders sagged.
"Okay. Good night, guys."
There was a murmur of “Good night,” and everyone headed upstairs. Bella set down the empty beer bottle and grabbed the second.
It wasn't until he was getting ready for bed that Tristan realized what the expression on Bella's face had been.
Guilt.
It had been guilt.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
-
Tristan was still contemplating Bella’s expression as he climbed the stairs. Nikki stood at the end of the hall, watching his dark brow knitted in concentration. She had gone ahead, turning on the bedside light, throwing her worn, untidy clothes from the bed to the chair. She now stood, holding the door open.
“Welcome
,” she said, gesturing inside. Tristan’s bare arm brushed against hers as he entered. She froze, the warmth of him flashing through her. She wondered briefly how to spend a night alone with him. She swallowed, trying to quell the lustful desires he aroused in her.
He felt it too, a spark that became a flame. The simple brush of her smooth, marble skin kindled in him a passion that had been burning for someone else. He had noticed, of course, that Nikki’s eyes endlessly traced the fine square of his jaw, the bulge of his biceps, the line of his form. He had felt the tension in her words, in her looks. And he, in his turn, had admired her too: the cherry red of her lips, the warm auburn of her hair, the flawless porcelain skin and deep, thinking green eyes. But as Anita’s friend, he had never considered it. But Anita--
The door clicked closed. Nikki paused, holding the cold metal knob in her hand. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as she turned around to face Tristan.
She expected him to be sitting on the chair in the corner of the room; perhaps unfolding the camping mat from the closet; maybe even sitting on her bed, flicking through the Financial Times on her bedside table. But when Nikki turned around, he was standing in the middle of the room, facing her.
When terrible things happen, people either withdraw or come together in solidarity. Tristan and Nikki had both felt it — the consuming isolation seeping into every social space in the house. In a room of friends and loved ones, Nikki had never felt more alone than today. She didn’t want to be alone.
She leaned against the door. She turned the lock as he walked toward her slowly.
Reaching out his hand, he gently tucked a flyaway strand of her red hair behind her ear. His hand lingered on her jaw, his fingers trailing down her cheek until they reached her red, wet lips. He softly stroked her bottom lip with his thumb.
Love Tangle: Riding Bareback Page 11