The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters #6) - Lucinda Riley Page 0,120

mouthful fast, hoping I wouldn’t end up back in here in a few months’ time with a food addiction like Lizzie.

‘Manuel, this is the most delightful place I think I’ve ever seen,’ Lizzie said. ‘How did you find it?’

‘It was my father’s ranch, and his father’s before him. He died two years ago and I inherit it. My father, he had sold off much land by the time he died, and what’s left is not enough to run as a business. My wife, Sammi, and I decide we should put in all our savings and renovate it as a private home for someone who want to keep a few horses. But so far, no luck.’

‘It’s for sale?’ I asked him.

‘Sí, señorita. Sammi and I live in the city – she has the interior design business and I work in construction,’ he explained. ‘Okay, you ready for a ride now?’

‘Yes,’ I said, standing up eagerly and hoping I wouldn’t decide to canter off straight back to the liquor store we’d passed in Tucson, because the craving for alcohol was now something else.

‘Goodness me,’ said Lizzie, as we followed Manuel off the veranda in the direction of a newly built stable block. ‘This place is just magical, isn’t it? I could so live here, couldn’t you?’

The answer was an enormous yes, but I could only nod as a bottle of Grey Goose came into view in my imagination.

‘You okay?’ Lizzie looked at me.

‘Yeah, I will be.’

She grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘One day at a time. The first trip out is the hardest of all. You’re doing so, so well,’ she whispered as we reached the stable and Manuel handed us boots and riding hats.

‘So you don’t run this as a proper stable?’ I asked.

‘No, but at weekends I like to leave the city and come here to ride out.’

‘You won’t have that option when it’s sold, though, will you?’ said Lizzie pragmatically.

‘Oh, we will keep enough land back for a small paddock and we will renovate the shack just behind it.’ Manuel pointed across the flat red plain to a tumbledown wooden building some hundred yards beyond the stables. ‘We wait for the sale of the big house to give us the cash to do it,’ he shrugged as he put on his own hat. ‘Now, when Hank call me to ask if I will take you out, he say you are both strong riders.’

‘That might be an exaggeration for me,’ Lizzie said, rolling her eyes. ‘I haven’t been on a horse for almost thirty years.’

‘Then I will give you Jenny. She is very gentle. And you, Electra?’

‘The same as Lizzie, but it hasn’t quite been that long for me.’

‘Charmed, I’m sure.’ Lizzie stuck her tongue out at me as Manuel led Jenny out of the stables and handed her the reins.

‘How about Hector?’ Manuel beckoned me over to a huge black horse who was moving restlessly around his box.

‘I’ll give him a go,’ I said.

‘He’s fine once he know who is boss. And you look like a boss girl to me.’

‘Do I?’

‘Sí, like my Sammi is the boss girl,’ Manuel clarified as he grabbed the reins and drew Hector out of the stable. ‘Now, you climb on, okay?’

As we clopped out of the courtyard behind him, Hector did a lot of whinnying and tossing of his head, while I tried to find my seat on top of him.

‘Okay, so we go slowly at first, and then we see,’ Manuel suggested as he pulled up next to us.

I watched Lizzie move ahead of us and thought how elegant she looked on horseback.

‘She is English, your friend?’

‘She is.’

‘Hah! I can tell from the way she sits on the horse.’

‘Whereas I’m a mess, I know,’ I said as Hector threw his head back impatiently.

‘He will calm down once we are on the move. He just like to go fast.’

It took a good fifteen minutes before I got the hang of Hector, and when I did, Manuel signalled to me.

‘So, now we can go.’

Manuel and I arrived back a couple of hours later, filthy from the red dust, which I could taste on my lips. But wow, I felt euphoric. After setting off at a polite trot, I’d begun to feel the thrum of Hector’s engine revving up beneath me. I’d glanced at Manuel, who’d nodded, obviously confident in my riding skills, and let Hector take the lead. We’d flown across this magnificent plain, and I thought I couldn’t remember feeling