Lindsay fed Zelda half a carrot, then crossed over to give Daisy the other half. She leaned on the gate, trying to see if Daisy was still favoring her back foot as she’d done during their training earlier in the week. When she couldn’t get a good look at it in the late afternoon gloom, she went inside, patting Daisy down and grabbing her leg so she could examine it closely.
She must have spent more time in there than she realized, hanging out with her animals, talking to them, feeding them bits of carrot. When she emerged, blinking and confused, she realized it must be past suppertime. Cursing under her breath, she ran up the hill to the kitchen entrance, mentally concocting excuses for her tardiness. But the dining room was dark and empty. A delicious-smelling casserole dish covered in tinfoil sat on top of the stove. A pot of coffee, a fresh pitcher of iced tea, and a platter of sliced cucumbers and tomatoes were also at the ready.
After figuring her parents had gone to the club and her brothers were out doing God knows what, she made a plate and sat, eating the comforting combination of chicken and rice smothered in creamy mushroom soup. She coated the cukes and tomatoes with salt and ate some of those too, washing it all down with a huge glass of sweet, minty iced tea.
Patting her full stomach, she sat for a few minutes, pondering the silence in the house. Wondering if anyone had bothered to tell anyone else where they were going or what they were doing, she dumped her dirty plate in the sink, splashed cool water on her face, and realized she still was restless, when by rights she should be exhausted.
The frogs were setting up their usual racket in the pond, and the sound, combined with singing crickets, floated in through the open window over the huge porcelain sink. A breeze lifted her hair, caressing her neck. Lindsay shivered, letting the wind cool her overheated face.
A vision rose in her mind. Anton Love, dark eyes shining, full lips so near hers she could already taste him. His strong arms surrounded her, lifting her up, carrying her … where? To a bed? Then what? She frowned and balled her hands into fists. She hated the tingly, illicit anticipation of the unknown and the somehow desired.
Without a second’s thought, she walked to the door, opened it, and stepped out onto the large screened-in porch. A fire danced in the pit in front of the staff house. She heard laughter, music from a radio, and the rumble of masculine voices.
As if in a trance, she stepped onto the grass … dimly aware of her own sweaty, disheveled state, but she was on a mission. If only to catch sight of him, of Anton, when he wasn’t aware of her watching him.
She tiptoed behind the dormitory, getting closer to the dancing firelight and the voices. Two of them spoke in what she assumed was Italian, switching over to English and laughter at the last minute. Then she heard a distinct, giggly and stupid-sounding female voice, punctuating the conversation. Frowning, she eased along the side of the building, praying no one would glance over and catch her shadow.
“Now that is what I call a shiner,” Lorenzo said.
“Fuck off,” Anton growled, making her have to shut her eyes a split second. “Ow. No, honey, I’m not … hey, cut it out.”
The girl giggled. Sloppy kissing noises reached her, and Lindsay’s face got so hot she was afraid she might explode. The noises stopped. Someone opened a beer. The fire crackled and snapped.
On a whim, Lindsay darted to the corner, hoping everyone was facing away from the front door, the way they usually did. She slipped inside the staff house.
Something in her shifted while she made her way through the kitchen and dining room, then past the large bathroom, and to the four separate sleeping rooms with single beds or a few bunks.
Her lightly dancing anticipation morphed into something real, something living and breathing and needy.
She spotted Anton’s beat-up cowboy hat resting on a chest of drawers in the smallest room. It was set up for one person, as was the room next to it. The other two accommodated the stable boys, three to a sleeping space. Trembling, scared, and strangely damp between her legs, she took off her clothes, all of them, folding them in neat little piles on the floor between the bed and chest, hidden from sight.
For the first time, Lindsay was completely naked outside the safety of her own frilly suite of rooms, and she got her first real taste of fear-tinged freedom. Hands shaking, teeth chattering, she lifted the smooth bed cover—a quilt with an elaborate entwined ring pattern she didn’t recognize—and slid between the cool sheets. Trying to remain still and out of sight, she pressed herself against the wall, listening for anyone making their way down the hall. After a few minutes, she lost her nerve. Cursing herself, she crawled out from under the quilt and tried to grab her clothes.
“Hey, Tony,” a voice echoed. Lindsay jumped, and hit her head on the bedside table edge.
“Whatever it is it can wait ‘til morning. I’m beat.”
“You’re beat-up, you mean.” Laughter floated down the hall. Lindsay stood, dragging the quilt off the bed and high-tailing it for the small closet. She jammed herself behind a row of jeans and Halloran Farm branded work shirts and tried to shut the door, but the quilt was caught on something. Just when Tony’s voice was so loud she figured he must be right outside his bedroom, she yanked the quilt in and shut the door.
As she watched through the slats, he stripped out of his jeans and shirt. Then he slumped onto the bed, head in his hands for a few seconds, before apparently remembering his injured face. “Fuckin’ A,” he muttered, shaking his head and standing up to stretch.
Lindsay blinked fast at the sight of his almost perfect body dressed only in bright white underwear and a sleeveless white T-shirt. She swallowed hard, willing him not to do it, but did not look away when he tugged the shirt off and the shorts down, tossing them both into a laundry basket before grabbing a towel on a nearby rack and wrapping it around his waist.
Lindsay’s legs shook and her pulse raced in her ears, but she had no idea how to get the heck out of this mess. He took off his necklace, kissed the gold cross, and hung it on a photo she couldn’t see clearly from her ill-conceived hidey-hole.
She wiped the sweat trickling down her temples, unable to dispel the brief but clear glimpse of his penis. When he approached the closet door, she tried to press herself into a far corner, praying as hard as she could that he wouldn’t open it and find her gawking at his dangly bits, his broad shoulders and firm, lightly hairy torso. She curled her fingers into fists and pressed them to her eyes, some primitive instinct promising her that maybe if she didn’t see him, he wouldn’t see her.
The closet doorknob rattled. Lindsay covered her mouth.
“Tony,” somebody hollered. He turned, tucking one corner of the towel in around his waist. Lindsay exhaled when he wandered out to the hall, presumably to take a shower. Once she figured he’d stay gone long enough for her to snag her clothes and sneak out, she opened the closet door and pushed the bedroom door the rest of the way shut.
Moving as fast as her shaking fingers would allow, she stepped into her panties and hooked her bra, listening to the deep, masculine voices coming from the large communal bathroom. By the time she was fully re-dressed and sitting on the bed, gnawing her bottom lip, trying like hell to figure out how to get past everyone and get out, a couple of the young men started wandering down the hall to their rooms.
“Shitshitshitshit,” she muttered under her breath.
Lorenzo and Anton were still in the bathroom, she presumed, based on the sounds of their voices. Once the younger guys were in their rooms, she stepped into the hall, heart pounding in her ears, wishing for a split second of invisibility to get past the open bathroom door to the safety of the outdoors, where she could pretend she had come to see her horses. She’d gotten away with that ploy plenty of times before.