I froze, then whirled around to look at the clock high up on the end of the hay barn, an oversized decorative thing that hadn’t worked for as long as I’d been there. Truth be told, the whole yard was a bit shabby now, but Chaucer got well cared for, and it had been affordable until this morning.
My gaze dropped slowly, and I saw a familiar figure standing below the clock, looking somewhat lost and most definitely out of place in a pair of dove-grey tailored trousers and a navy-blue sports jacket. What the actual hell?
“What are you doing here?” I managed to utter.
Alaric turned and saw me staring over Chaucer’s door. “I figured somebody should come and save your shoes, and since I was more or less passing…”
Wow, that was… I was about to say gentlemanly, but as I processed his words, I quickly amended it to invasive. Creepy. Slightly alarming. Fear spider-walked up my spine as I realised I was alone at the yard. Pinkey, who ran the place, had passed me in her Land Rover as I trundled down the drive, probably on her way to the feed store, and it was too early for the after-work crowd, too late for the ladies who lunched.
And now Alaric was within touching distance.
“H-h-how did you know I was here?”
He pointed to the phone, still clamped to my ear. “Bad habit, I’m afraid.”
“You…what? You traced my phone?”
“It’s easy when you know the right people.”
“That’s so rude!”
“I was worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.” He glanced down at my feet, smiling. “Nice shoes. If I’d offered to come and help, would you have taken me up on it?”
“Of course not. You’ve got far better things to do with your time, I’m sure.”
“How about you let me be the judge of that? What else do you have to do here?”
“Nothing. Not really.” A pencil skirt and stilettos definitely weren’t suitable for riding, and I hadn’t brought any horsey clothes with me. “I’m not even sure why I came.”
“When times are tough, we turn to the things that comfort us.” He turned away as he spoke, and the sadness in his voice made me wonder whether he spoke from experience.
“What comforts you, Alaric?”
The pause stretched out to the point of discomfort, and I regretted asking the question. The answer was none of my business. I barely knew this man, and hadn’t I just accused him of being invasive?
But he answered, his voice soft. “Freedom. Freedom to think what I like and do what I want. But you can have too much of a good thing. There’s only so much solitude a man can take.” His gaze flickered for a moment as he came back from wherever his head had been, his return no doubt assisted by the crack of thunder overhead. The rain came down again. “Ah, shit.”
I quickly unbolted the stable door and held it open. “Want to join me?”
“Is your horse safe?”
“Chaucer? He’s a sweetheart. Just watch out for his feet because he doesn’t always look where he’s putting them.”
Alaric slipped inside, sticking close to the wall as he eyed up Chaucer. Chaucer, of course, walked straight over and nudged him into a corner. A corner filled with cobwebs.
“Uh…”
“He’s only looking for treats. Chaucer! Get back.” I gave him a prod, and he obliged, grudgingly. “You’re not a horse person?”
“The only other horse I’ve been near is Emmy’s, and he tore the ass out of my pants.”
I started laughing because that was the stuff of cartoons, not real life, but then I made the mistake of picturing the scene. If Alaric’s ass in trousers was any indication, his ass out of them would be very pleasant indeed. My cheeks burned. Dammit, the man was practically a stalker, and I should not have been picturing him naked. I desperately tried to straighten my face.
“Sorry,” I choked out. “So, Emmy has a horse?”
“His name’s Satan, which gives some indication of his charming personality. Mostly it gets shortened to Stan, though.”
“He sounds like the perfect horse for Emmy.” I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Again, I’m sorry.” Alaric and Emmy worked together. They were probably friends. “I really ought to think before I speak.”
“No, you’re right. Emmy would get bored with a regular horse.” He gingerly reached out and patted Chaucer’s neck. “This one seems friendlier. How long have you had him?”
“Eleven years. I got him as a three-year-old and broke him in myself.”
“Eleven years? Long time. Do you jump over stuff with him?”
I shook my head, a lump forming in my throat. “Dressage mainly, but I sneak in a few fences on occasion.”
“You don’t enjoy jumping?”
“I used to love it, but everyone says it’s too dangerous.”
“Everyone?”
“Piers. My parents. Before I got Chaucer, I had a bad fall eventing and broke my ankle. My old horse… It wasn’t his fault, he just spooked at a fox, but my parents sold him while I was in the hospital.” I squashed my hands against my eyes to stop myself from crying, then regretted it when my fingers came away covered in mascara splodges. Goodness only knows what my face looked like. “Polo would be seventeen now. They refused to tell me where he’d gone, and I never managed to find out what happened to him.”
I’d never forgiven my parents either. It was the last bloody straw. The final nail in the coffin. With hindsight, my marriage to Piers had been a rebound relationship, me grieving for the loss of my beloved horse as well as a way to escape from my parents. Out of the frying pan and into the damned fire. Piers had bought me Chaucer as a gift soon after we started dating, although he’d sided with my parents over the risks of jumping. Back then, Piers had been so attentive, so complimentary, I hadn’t seen what an arsehole he truly was.
“Want me to take a look?” Alaric asked.
“A look? For Polo?”
“Yeah.”
I choked up again. How did this man I barely knew make all the emotions I’d spent years keeping locked up for appearance’s sake overflow into a mess of smudged make-up and—oh, hell—snot? I tried to sniffle without sounding like a complete peasant.
“Thank you for the offer, but it’s impossible. It’s been so long, and I’m sure Daddy changed the name on his documents.” Because he’d paid for Polo and put himself down as the registered keeper, he’d been able to make amendments without my permission, and worse, data protection rules meant the people who ran the registry refused to tell me any of the details. “I still look at pictures from all the events I can find just in case I spot him somewhere. Although he’s probably retired now, I keep hoping…”
“Just give me whatever information you have.”
“Why would you help me?”
“Call me a sucker for a pretty face.”
I knew I was pretty—my mother always said it was one of the few things I had going for me. Shame the inside doesn’t match the outside, Bethie. If I had a pound for every time I’d heard her say that, Chaucer’s stable would have central heating and a television. But it still made me smile inside to hear the words come out of Alaric’s mouth.