rubber he wore made it difficult to feel much of anything, but when she came, her fingernails made sure he knew it.
He wasn’t done yet, but she didn’t put up any objection while he took his turn. She lay there with her eyes closed, a pretty girl if not beautiful, and patiently took it until he came with as little fanfare as possible. Cher had been loud enough for the both of them.
When it was all done, he tossed the rubber while she pulled herself together.
“Best horseback riding lesson I’ve ever had.” She shoved her feet into her boots and Levi helped her onto her feet.
“I aim to please.”
“Same time next week?” she asked, strolling to the ladder that led down to the stalls.
“If your fiancé wants to keep paying for private lessons, I’ll keep giving them to you. Although one of these days he’s gonna want to go riding with you, and he might wonder why you don’t know a horse’s head from its ass.”
“You know why he gave me riding lessons, right?”
“Enlighten me.”
“While I’m up here fucking you, he’s at his office fucking his secretary.”
“Nice system you two worked out.”
“Everybody’s happy.” She started down the ladder steps but stopped and turned toward the window.
“What?” Levi asked as he buckled his belt again. Somewhere around here he had a clean T-shirt. He found it under his copy of the Tao Te Ching and pulled it on.
“I think your five o’clock is here.”
“I don’t have a five o’clock lesson today.”
“Then who’s that?” She pointed out the dingy window that looked down on the gravel parking lot. He’d been too busy with Cher to hear anyone drive up.
Levi walked to the ladder and squatted down to see out the window. First he saw the car, a baby blue Triumph Spitfire, a little girl’s sort of sports car. Then he saw the little girl it belonged to.
“Fuck,” Levi breathed.
“What? Someone you know?”
“Someone I don’t want to know.” Levi shook his head. Goddamn. “Go on. I’ll see you next week.”
She rose up on her toes on the rung and kissed him quick on the mouth before heading down the ladder with ease. Levi didn’t follow at first. He kept staring out the window. What the hell was Tamara Maddox doing here? There was no way this was a coincidence. The girl didn’t need riding lessons. She could outride him, not that he’d ever told her that. Not that he planned on telling her that. He hadn’t planned on telling her anything ever again.
He had to tell her something, though. Out in the parking lot, Tamara leaned back against the hood of her little blue car and shoved her hands deep into her jeans pockets.
She was waiting. Well, she could wait a little longer. Levi took the first few rungs of the ladder, jumped down the rest of the way and landed easy on his feet. The stables had running water and a tiny closet of a bathroom for the little kids who couldn’t hold it long enough to make it to the main building, where the owner of Happy Trails sat in his air-conditioned office talking on the phone all day. Levi splashed cold water on his face, ran wet hands through his hair, made sure he didn’t have hay sticking out of his jeans. He didn’t care if he looked good for Tamara or not, but it gave him sweet satisfaction to keep her waiting.
Levi took his hat off a nail right outside the bathroom door and shoved it on his head before emerging into the bright June sunlight. The second Tamara saw him, she came to attention, standing up straight, no longer leaning on the hood of her car. She pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head and smiled.
“Hey, Levi,” she said.
Levi walked past her and kept walking.
He walked straight to the pile of straw bales stacked behind the woodshed, picked one up by the cords and carried it back to the stables.
Tamara didn’t speak to him again, but she followed him. She’d done that all the time back when he worked for her grandfather, trailed behind him like a duckling, quacking questions at him. Why do you work for Granddaddy? Do you want to go to college? Do you ever want to get married someday? Do you think my black boots or my brown boots are prettier? Can I ride your horse? He ignored half her questions, told her lies to the other half. He worked for her