Stable Mates. Zara Stoneley

right. Well. It’s not that I’m not saying Tabatha isn’t a good rider, well I don’t know, but, well, even if she was really good… Well, the thing is, Dad won’t let anyone on his horses unless he’s seen them ride, and I’ve only got the one horse and she’s very green.’

      Tom held a hand up. ‘It’s fine. Honestly. We’ve arranged to get a horse on loan for the summer, from the stables that Tab used to go to. It’s arriving tomorrow. Actually, I was wondering if you had a spare stable.’ He glanced around, there seemed lots of empty stables.

      ‘It’s not a bleeding livery stables.’ The gruff tone announced Billy’s arrival and dispersed that last lingering of Tom’s erotic musings.

      Tom had heard, on good authority, well, from Pip, that Billy was as easy-going as they came. ‘He’s a right laugh, everyone loves Billy’ had been her exact words, he remembered. Either, they’d caught the man on an off day, or his idea of a right laugh and Pip’s were on different planets. And he had thought, or hoped, he could trust Pip’s judgement.

      ‘She is, like, totally amazing.’ Tab was staring at the horse that Billy was perched on, and for a moment Tom thought he saw a softening of the man’s features.

      ‘She needs taking in hand, like a lot of females.’ There was a hint of a crooked smile, which Tom wasn’t that keen on. ‘So, you’re not here to put in an offer then?’ The question came out abruptly.

      ‘Sorry?’

      Billy took that as a no. ‘Well, that’s okay then. Lottie be a darling and get her untacked, Tiggy seems to have gone AWOL.’

      ‘Dad, I need—’ But he’d jumped off the horse and strode off, tapping his crop against his boot. Lottie grabbed the horse’s reins, just as she started to wander after Billy, which was an annoying habit most of his horses developed. The need to follow him.

      She needed to talk to Tom, then she needed to get home and changed so that she could get to the pub before Rory, Pip and Mick were too drunk to miss her. The last thing she wanted to do was run round after her dad just because the vague and unreliable Tiggy had wandered off again. Why her father had employed the woman, Lottie really didn’t know.

      ‘You have got spare stables though?’ Tom found that the further away the man was, the more relaxed he became.

      ‘I err.’ Lottie stared at him. If she didn’t get rid of them soon she wouldn’t have time for a shower before she headed to the pub, and all of a sudden she didn’t want to be smelly.

      ‘Great, I knew it. How about we just try it for a week or two? I’m happy to pay the going rate, I mean you’ve got everything here.’ He named an amount that made Lottie’s stomach jolt. Was that monthly or weekly? ‘Then, how about a lesson next week so you can assess Tab?’ She felt her head nodding, which it really wasn’t supposed to be doing. Amazing what the need to get rid of someone could do to your common sense.

      ‘Brilliant, see you tomorrow. Come on Tabby, I can see Lottie’s busy.’

      He winked, put a fatherly arm around his daughter and was heading for the eyesore of a car before Lottie got the chance to ask what was supposed to be happening tomorrow.

      ***

      Amanda James stood, a picture of restrained elegance, and stared out of the window at the vast expanse of immaculate lawn and felt a sudden pang for a vision of concrete. It wasn’t that she didn’t like it here, she loved it. But everything was so raw, animal-like. Even Lady Stanthorpe was as sharp, assessing and brusque as they come. These ladies might play golf and have afternoon tea, but their homes were freezing and their furniture passed on down so many years each piece had its own ten generation pedigree.

      And an Aga was fine, when it bloody worked. That was the trouble, everything was such damned hard work. Even the talking, unless you had a degree in equine studies. God, how she hated horses sometimes, they were impossible to escape. Totally impossible.

      It hadn’t bothered Marcus, he had a totally unshakeable self-belief that carried him through life untouched by the scathing comments and put-downs. He had loved being a part of the ‘country set’, as he termed his neighbours. And he didn’t care that he’d just bought his way in. That he was as much a part of it as a palm tree in a park. He had been there, and that was all that mattered.

      Amanda missed him. She missed his confidence, missed the way he bellowed for more sugar in his tea, despite the fact that the sugar bowl had been a matter of inches from his cup, missed the fact that he looked after her in his loud, brash way, like a father.

      She was being stupid.

      Amanda just sometimes longed for convenience, for a meaningless chat about the latest fashion. She didn’t understand most of the people here, apart from Pippa. She picked up her mobile, paused for a moment with the contact list open. A flash of yellow down by the yard caught her eye, and the tall slim figure caught her attention even more firmly. Whoever had been visiting Billy Brinkley was far different to the normal, scruffy, bow-legged characters, and the car was enough to make her feel her prayers had been answered. She hadn’t realised until now just how much she’d started to loathe the sight of 4X4s and long for leather and sleek. She needed a distraction, and she needed one now. Before she made the biggest mistake of her life.

      She pressed the call button. Forget fashion, Pippa knew everything. Pippa would know just who the visitor was. And Pippa would know exactly how to fix the nightmare that the funeral was just about to turn into.

       Chapter 6

      ‘You can’t go like that.’

      Rory shrugged, the boyish grin spreading over his features. ‘Why not? It’s my best jacket.’ Infectious, but oh so wrong.

      ‘It’s a hunting jacket, and we’re going to a funeral. Remember?’ Lottie, who had been under strict instructions (via her invite, if you called it an invite where funerals where concerned) not to wear black, and had been on the verge of rebelling out of a sense of decorum, had found it hard enough to find something suitable for herself. But Rory was going too far. And they were running out of time. And she was about to start giggling, which was so wrong. ‘It’s a bit disrespectful, I know the invite said not to wear black, but…’ She bit down on her lip, to stop the smile that Rory was doing his best to draw out of her.

      ‘It’s what he wanted, look.’ Rory dug his own card out from the pile of papers on the table and waved it roughly in her direction.

      ‘I don’t want to look. I know what it says, but it feels wrong.’ One of the dogs, which had taken Rory’s dig through the paperwork as an invite to jump on the table, put her paws up on Lottie’s chest and grinned a terrier grin, tongue lolling. ‘Don’t you dare lick me.’ It sank down on its haunches, paws leaving a snagged trail down her best satin shirt as sharp nails dragged from her boobs down to her stomach. ‘Oh, Christ.’ She already felt a mess. The dog yapped and she was very tempted to pick it up, sit on the sofa and bury herself, not Marcus, for the rest of the day. She rubbed absentmindedly at the scratch mark instead, hoping it would go away. ‘I don’t get it.’

      ‘Maybe he’s having a last laugh at the country yokels. Well, it will be a laugh with your dad as pall-bearer at one end of his bloody coffin, and me and Dom at the other. He’ll be sliding from one end of the other coffin to the other.’ The grin had broadened. ‘Knock some bloody sense into him.’

      Lottie shut her eyes against the image of the lopsided coffin and bit the inside of her cheek harder, to stop the hysteria bubbling out. It was true. Rory and Dom had to be at least eight inches taller apiece than Billy. ‘Maybe it was a joke, I mean he didn’t expect to drop dead did he? He must have written it when he was drunk and meant to change it when he was expecting—’

      ‘To die? He must have been well pissed, well it’s his own bloody fault then. And if