haze, seemed a far better bet than the comfort of the hotel that the horse’s owner had booked for him half a mile up the road.
‘And Flashy needs a good half hour work-in unless you want to exit over the judge’s car like she did last time.’
‘Well you better shift your arse hadn’t you gorgeous?’ He gave the bum he quite fancied fondling a shove with his foot. ‘I can’t exit anywhere with you in the way.’
Three minutes later the horsebox door was open and Rory Steel stood in nothing more than breeches and boots, surveying the showground. There was an early morning spring nip in the air that did nothing to clear his head, nor did the sight of already gleaming horses being walked out.
His two least favourite aspects of the world of eventing he competed in were dressage and small events like this. Unfortunately, Flash didn’t approve of dressage either, so he’d been forced to take the sensible route and bring her to a smaller dressage competition. The other competitors would hate him, because they knew who he was, and considered it jolly bad form to compete at a lower level. And he’d hate every minute because there was a good chance the stroppy little mare would play up like the prima donna she was and make him look a prize dick.
Hot Flash had been named well, though as far as he was concerned it was more Hot Flush, she was as temperamental as a menopausal woman. Not that he’d known that many, but the image of his mum at fifty stuck in his mind. She’d developed a temper worse than his dad’s had ever been. Which was going some.
‘Are you going to just stand there showing the world your abs, or let me get past so I can get her ready?’
‘I’d rather have just lain there actually.’ He ran his fingers through his hair and could swear his head was literally throbbing. ‘Christ, was that whiskey you were plying me with last night bootleggers’ stuff?’
‘Probably. You know me, anything to get you into bed.’ She grinned, which made her even more shaggable, and he couldn’t resist kissing those full lips, sliding his hand round onto her firm bum so he could pull her closer.
Lottie wriggled her way past him. ‘Are you going to ride dressed like that? Try distraction techniques so no one notices what a crap test you’ve done? I can see the headlines now,’ she waved her hands in the air ‘Rory Steel, the fearless eventer, beaten by a bunch of Cheshire WAGs.’
‘Piss off.’ His foot missed her bum by inches as she jumped down the steps laughing. It beat him how she managed to get up so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when they’d spent the evening getting slaughtered and the night getting shagged.
***
It wasn’t until Lottie was grooming the laid-back Flash that she remembered the phone call. If Pip had been calling first thing in the morning, it wouldn’t have seemed strange, Pip had been shadowing Rory’s every move lately. But it was Amanda. And that was just weird. Pip did horses, didn’t think anything of getting up before the birds had started tweeting to get a horse ready for a show. But Amanda was a lady of leisure, well at least that’s how the rest of Tippermere saw her. Marcus made the millions, and his beautiful wife spent them. His extravagance had been to buy Folly Lake Equestrian Centre and sponsor one or two of the riders who frequented it, but his lovely wife had zero interest in the centre, the horses or even the riders. Which was a constant source of amazement to Lottie. If she’d been married to the slightly portly and very bossy Marcus, she’d have felt entitled to eye up every single fit horseman at close quarters as a consolation prize, but the only time she’d ever spotted Amanda down at the stables was when she’d been searching out her errant husband – who had no qualms about mentally undressing every groom and female rider on the yard. Lottie reckoned he was totally shameless; he’d have shagged anything with a pulse. Even the podgy dishevelled Tiggy, or the bad-tempered Fliss.
Maybe Amanda was frigid? But she didn’t seem like that; she’d been a bit of a laugh at the parties they’d held in Folly Lake Manor, or Follyfoot funny farm as Rory and his mates often referred to it. To them it was a majestic home for misfits, to others, like Billy, her father, it was a necessary evil in the village.
Either way, Marcus and Amanda were regarded with amused suspicion by some, and as generous benefactors by others. But everyone agreed they threw a bloody good party.
Maybe, Lottie thought, Amanda had married Marcus for his money, and he’d married her for her looks and that was it. A shiver ran down her spine as Flash nibbled at her collar.
‘Now you are going to behave for Rory, aren’t you?’ She knew how much he hated events like this, but Flash desperately needed some smaller venues to persuade her that dressage arenas weren’t inhabited by lions. The mare was a dream in the stable, and had a jump as big and brave as her heart on the cross-country course, with flicking heels that respected the flimsy show jumps, but in the vast emptiness of the dressage arena she was like a firecracker about to go off. Lottie knew how she felt. It was like being dropped on a fashion runway in uncomfortable shoes and being told not to trip up, not that she knew much about fashion shows, but she imagined it was the same. Hushed silence, everyone watching and an acre of space poised to make a fool of you.
But in the few three-day events Rory had entered her, the cricket score of the dressage section had meant any hope of being on the leader board was doomed. Even when the fiery, fearless chestnut jumped out of her skin in the other two phases of the competition.
Lottie dropped the white pad and elegant black saddle onto the mare’s iridescent back just as an out of tune whistle announced Rory’s arrival.
‘Some of those plaits look like a poodle’s topknot.’
‘You’re very lucky you didn’t have to do them yourself, mate.’ She bent down to tighten the girth and took the time to admire his toned thighs on her way back up. ‘I’m only here because there wasn’t anything else to do, and if I’d stayed on dad’s yard for another five minutes I’d have screamed and hightailed it back to Barcelona.’
‘Why go all the way to Spain, when I’m here?’ His lazy gaze drifted over her body as the soft drawl made its way straight between her thighs. Charlotte loved Rory for many reasons, his sense of humour, easy-going nature, fit toned body, but most of all because he didn’t mean a word he said. No expectations. Just fun. Which was exactly what, she’d decided, she needed after leaving her shit of a boyfriend on a Spanish beach and heading reluctantly back to Cheshire, because she had nowhere else to go. When Lottie had left Tippermere, one of the reasons (and there had been several) had been Rory and his complete inability to take anything, including relationships, seriously. But now she was back she’d concluded that it was actually a bonus.
‘Because it’s sunny there and no one gives a damn about Billy bloody Brinkley, and,’ she paused in her list of some of the other reasons as she got to the crux of the matter, ‘there aren’t any horses.’ Which was, she told herself, why she’d run first of all to Australia, then somehow ended up in Barcelona after hooking up with an adventurer who had itchier feet than she had. Todd.
It was slightly ironic that in the search for a soul mate who didn’t want to be tied down, or committed to anyone or anything, she’d managed to end up with a serial adulterer who also happened to be a bigamist. Spreading it around was bad enough, but the arrival of a platoon of police armed to the teeth, on the beach of all places, had been the ultimate in humiliation. It wasn’t like she’d even had her best bikini on. Todd the hunter could, as far as she was concerned, go screw himself. Which might be the only option left if he got deported from Spain and stuck in the slammer.
‘How boring.’ Rory grinned and ran a large, capable hand through his messy curls
