Back in the Saddle

by Caitlin Ricci

  One night last year is all they had, but fate has brought them back together for a second chance at love.

  Cameron loves his life as a horse trainer, taking in unwanted horses and getting them ready for new homes. He lives a simple life surrounded by his brothers and cousins.

  For Dion life could be simple too, if he wasn’t always at work. As a nurse aid in an understaffed nursing home he’s stressed, always tired, and barely taking care of himself. On his first day off in nearly a month his roommate invites him to go horseback riding with her and her girlfriend. Dion has never been riding, but he’s desperate for something to do that gets him away from work.

  Cameron remembers Dion but he never got his name. They met the year before, in a crowded bar, but it was one night neither of them can forget. What was simple that night could turn into more, but Dion has no time for a relationship and Cameron has moved past just wanting sex. He’s looking for love, and he wants to be the next person in Hillcrest Farm to find it.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Back in the Saddle

  Copyright © 2020 Caitlin Ricci

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-2939-3

  Cover art by Martine Jardin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

  Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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  Back in the Saddle

  Hillcrest Farm Book 4

  By

  Caitlin Ricci

  Chapter One

  Cameron

  I was momentarily distracted from the filly currently fighting me on the lunge line by the sound of my phone ringing. She was only four months old. I could easily handle her with one hand, so I answered the call. If she’d been an adult, and still bucking and rearing wildly against my control, I would have let it go to voicemail. But the filly was just a baby, so answering the call was easy.

  I briefly checked the name on the call and smiled when I saw that it was Cindy, my ex sister-in-law. That was too formal, though. She was a close friend. “Hey, what’s up?” I asked as I answered her call. I figured she probably wanted to come riding, or to see if Kyle could come riding. My nephew was sixteen. He could call me himself if he wanted to come see the horses, but it was still usually Cindy who did the asking for him.

  “Hey, so I’ve got a strange request... Well, not really that strange. I was wondering if I could come riding. Me, Lyssa, and her roommate, Dion. They don’t know how to ride, but I thought it could be fun. I didn’t know if you had enough easygoing horses for that though.”

  It was a bigger ask than she’d done in a long time, but I didn’t mind. The horses need exercising and I had fifteen at my farm right now. If they could ride a few of the better trained ones for me, it would give me the time to get more training in on the ones who really needed it, like the filly who was currently trying to pull my arm off with her antics.

  “Yeah, I’ve got some horses that could use a few more miles. Do they know the basics of how to steer at least or are we talking completely newbie riders?”

  “Um...”

  Her hesitation really wasn’t a good sign.

  “Probably totally newbies for them. You know my level.”

  I did. She needed confidence but she wasn’t actually that new to riding overall. Thankfully I had a few horses that would be safe, easy rides for them. “I’ve got the horses. Whenever you want to come out, just let me know and I’ll have them ready. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon so I’m really free for whenever, this week or next.”

  “Thank you, Cameron. I mean it. I care about Lyssa, and Dion, he just needs more time away from work. He’s looking really run down lately.”

  And I still hadn’t met Lyssa, though I knew Gavin, her ex, had. Gavin liked her so she had my seal of approval as well. As long as she treated the people who were important to me right, I was good with her coming out to my farm. “Send me a text when you’re all ready to come out.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  They came out a few days later, the three of them loaded up into a small car I didn’t recognize with a woman driving who I didn’t know. It was easy to guess who the unknown people were, though. Cindy held Lyssa’s hand as they walked up to me, and the man walking with them was Dion, only I hadn’t known him as Dion when we met last year. I hadn’t actually known him as anything more than a warm mouth and a tight ass in the bathroom stall of a gay bar in Springfield.

  “Hi,” I told him, being rude and ignoring my friend and her girlfriend.

  He blinked at me, and seemed to stumble over what he wanted to say for a moment, but he recovered well enough. “So you have horses then?”

  Cindy and Lyssa looked between us. I chuckled. It was one night that hadn’t meant anything to either of us. It didn’t have to be a big deal now. I walked up to Lyssa and offered her my hand. “Hey, I’m Cameron. Gavin’s brother.”

  Cindy was watching me intently, and I wasn’t really sure why she was staring at me as I shook hands with Lyssa.

  “So, uh, the horses are back here.” I led them through the first gate and into the barn. There were pastures, but the horses weren’t that close by today. I had them in the back this morning, except for the three that I had tacked up and ready for them.

  There was also a troublesome little pony in the barn that I was training and hoping to get to a home with kids someday, but he kept trying my patience, so that new home was a ways off.

  “You aren’t coming with us?” Lyssa asked me.

  I shook my head and checked the cinch on the closest horse to me, an old gelding who I knew wouldn’t test them at all. He barely ever went above a walk, and only when I absolutely pushed him to do so. “No, I’ve got a pony to work with this afternoon. But Cindy knows all the trails so you’ll be fine. Cindy, the horses are all in the far pastures. I’ve got all the gates between the empty pastures open so go have fun.” I untied the gelding and brought him over to picnic table that served as a mounting block. “Dion or Lyssa, this is the horse you’ll be riding.”

  Lyssa looked skeptical. “He’s definitely safe, right?”

  I stopped myself from laughing. She was going to be just fine. “Yeah, he won’t try anything stupid.”

  She didn’t look like she was fully sure of herself, but she got up on the picnic table and slid over the saddle anyway. I was glad to see that the three of them had at least worn good shoes for riding in. No sandals or high heels. I hadn’t told Cindy to make sure they had on the right shoes, but I’d known her for so many years that I guess I’d just assumed that she would tell them, and I was glad that I’d been right.

  Once she was up, I led the gelding over to the side and out of the way. “Just hold him still,” I said as I showed her how to hold the reins.
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  She gave me a quick nod and I moved on to the next horse, a small mare that was just as calm as the gelding. She’d be a good mount for Dion. She was a little shorter than the gelding, but Dion was a little shorter than Lyssa was too. He would be a good match for the horse.

  “Are you going to help me up?” Dion asked me. He was flirting, his voice high and light. I tried not to let it get to me.

  “I think you can manage. But I’ll hold her head for you,” I said as I brought her over to him.

  He looked skeptical, and I rubbed her face and her neck while he got in the saddle. He was clumsy and unsure of himself, but she’d treat him right.

  “I’ll see you three later,” I told them.

  Cindy looked between us again, as if she was trying to figure out what the secret was. I rolled my eyes. She could be so nosy.

  Cindy led Lyssa and Dion away from the barn, and I got the lunge line and my bottle of water before getting the pony out of his stall to do a little work. I took the feisty pony into the arena. I had a round pen too, but I preferred the openness of the arena when I was working with a horse who had at least a little training. The pony had just enough that I knew he wouldn’t go ballistic and try to mow me down in the arena. That was his problem, really. He had some training, and he was smart, but the methods used to train him had turned him into a sour, opinionated, twelve-hand high brat instead of the perfect child’s mount that he could have been had he not learned how to get away with crap, then been given a treat to get him to behave again. Of course the pony had developed unwanted behaviors after learning that little trick.

  I much preferred working with horses with very little training because of crap like that. If I’d had him years ago, before these behaviors had started, then I could have really made something of him. He could be a good little jumping pony. He certainly had the build for it. But now he was choosing to toss his head on the lunge line because I wouldn’t give into his demand of treats in exchange for good behavior.

  As much as I tried to focus on working with the pony though, I kept finding my thoughts very squarely focused on Dion. He was a hard man to forget, though I had certainly tried. I’d met Dion when I’d been desperate for a break from a dry spell. Dion had been cute, flirty, and definitely into me. I was sorry to say that it hadn’t taken me more than that, at the time, to want to get a guy alone. The dirty bathroom stall hadn’t been a turn on. But Dion, he’d been all smooth skin and soft moans. I hadn’t been able to get enough of him. When we were done though, he’d simply smiled at me, blown me a kiss, and left me there with my pants still undone.

  I’d tried to find him after, to get his number or something, but the club had been crowded and I hadn’t been able to. I’d felt used, though I knew I had no reason to feel that way, and I’d sworn off casual hook ups that night because of him. Only, that’s all the guys who were into me seemed to want anymore. I wanted a relationship and they just wanted sex, and I’d left plenty of dates in the last year hanging because of that. Which meant that Dion had been my last partner. And that was just too damn depressing.

  I forced myself to focus on the pony. He needed me a lot more than I needed to be thinking about someone I’d barely spent an hour with last year.

  Chapter Two

  Dion

  “So...” Lyssa pointedly said.

  I gave her a little smile. “It’s nothing. Seriously. One night, a year ago, just a hook-up.”

  Cindy looked confused. “I didn’t think Cameron did hook-ups. At least not lately. He’s always been so serious, I guess. I figured he’d be looking for something more than just sex at this point in his life. Though, honestly, it has been a long time since he dated anyone. So maybe he got a little less serious about stuff.”

  I didn’t know anything about all that. “All I can tell you is what I know. And he’s still really cute. All dirty and horsey. Mm.” I licked my lips and Lyssa laughed at me. “I wouldn’t mind another hook-up with him, but if you’re right and he’s wanting something serious then I’m definitely not it. I’ve got exactly zero time for a relationship with all the work I’m doing. My paychecks are good, but damn I need some rest.”

  “Which is why I insisted that you come out with us today,” Lyssa said. I knew she didn’t approve of all the hours I spent at work, and I loved that she cared that much about me, but what was I supposed to do? I worked in a busy nursing home and we were short-staffed.

  “So what happened? Why wasn’t there ever a second time between you two?” Cindy prodded me.

  I shrugged and wished that Cameron had done something super offensive that I could point to as being the thing that had made me leave that night. But I didn’t have anything like that. “He was fine. Everything was fine. I ran because...” I didn’t really have a reason. “At that time in my life it was just what I did. I was only interested in hook-ups. It’s all I had time for. It still is. Relationships take work, and energy, and I don’t have any to spare. Ever. Work has always come first for me.”

  “You must really love working at the nursing home,” Cindy said. She sounded sympathetic though, like she might have felt sorry for me.

  Lyssa caught my eye. She knew the truth. I actually didn’t love my job. Not really, anyway. I loved the residents, but that was completely it. The long hours, the nurses who refused to do anything to help us, and the barely making over minimum wage was all shit. I could be out at work, though. The director of nursing for the facility was gay too, and he refused to let anyone be bullied or mistreated in any way for any reason, sexuality or otherwise. I was supposed to get that kind of treatment anywhere I worked, but I didn’t know if that would actually happen or not. We lived in the Bible Belt. I counted myself lucky being able to be out at work at all. That worry was one of the things that had kept me working in the same place for the last several years.

  “Maybe you should ask him out or something,” Cindy tried to prod me.

  But it wouldn’t work. “I still have exactly no time to go out on dates. And he lives forty minutes away. That’s too long of a drive when I’ve only got eight hours between sixteen hour shifts and I’m expected to eat, sleep, and shower in that span too.”

  Cindy cringed. Lyssa looked at me and said, “Do you see why I keep telling you to find a new job? Sure the money is nice, since you’re in overtime every single week, but if you don’t even have time to go on a date with a cute guy like that then what’s the point of it all anyway?”

  She was making sense, but I wished that she really wasn’t. It was much easier to ignore my lack of a social life when there was no one there to point it out to me, as often as she did. “You don’t even know if he would be interested in me again, especially not for anything more than sex. We didn’t exactly part under the best terms ever.”

  “There are worse ways of leaving someone than right after sex,” Cindy pointed out.

  She was probably right, though I couldn’t come up with any examples to argue against her with right then. “Please just drop right, both of you? I know, my life sucks right now, but pretty soon the nursing home will hire some new people who will actually stay around and work for more than their training week and then I’ll get some regularly scheduled days off. And then maybe I’ll go on a date with someone. Not saying Cameron, just someone.”

  Lyssa nodded. “Sure, we’ll drop it. At least you came out with us today.”

  Yes, at least there was that. I was very glad that I’d chosen to take Cindy up on her offer to come riding with her and Lyssa on my day off rather than crash in my bed and not move for twelve hours or so, which had been my original plan.

  I wasn’t upset about the change though. My first time being on a horse was going well. In my mind, anyway. I was still on the horse so that had to be something. Riding was kind of relaxing, actually, it was all in the slow plop-plop of the horse’s hooves as we went along. And the farm was really nice. I’d never been anywhere that had this much open space. Even the city parks I�
��d been to as a kid had never been this big. We couldn’t even see the barn anymore.

  “How much land does Cameron actually have, anyway?” I asked Cindy.

  “They each got fifty acres when they inherited the farm from their grandfather,” she said.

  I had no frame of reference for an area of land that size. I honestly didn’t even know how big an acre really was, much less fifty of them. “Is that a lot? It sounds huge.”

  Cindy laughed. “I always thought it was, but out here there are people with cattle on hundreds of acres, so it really just depends I guess. I know I’d be happy with two acres. Or even just an acre, especially if all around me was just open pastures like out here.”

  I kind of agreed with her. I’d grown up in cities. I knew them, and appreciated how easily I could go out to dinner, or a movie, or go to a club. But there was also the traffic, and the noise, and sometimes I just felt on edge in a city.

  I enjoyed the peace out in the pasture. The ride was quiet and I felt really relaxed. But we’d only been out there a little over an hour before storm clouds started rolling in and we had to turn the horses around and head back. I didn’t think that it was supposed to have rained that afternoon, but by the time we got back to the barn my hair was a mess and my shirt was soaked. We would have been back sooner, and we would have been dryer because of it, but Lyssa and I couldn’t ride any faster than a walk, especially with a wet saddle to slip around on.

  When we got back to the barn Cameron waved us inside and Cindy got off her horse. She held Lyssa’s horse by the reins while Lyssa slid down and Cameron helped me. I was clumsy and nearly stepped on him while trying to look good getting out of the saddle. I felt marginally better being back on my own feet again, but I had started shivering.