Zara Stoneley - Stable Mates

Lady Elizabeth Stanthorpe – owner of Tipping House estate, lover of strong G&T’s. Meddler and mischief maker. Lottie’s gran, Dominic’s mother.

Bertie & Holmes – Elizabeth’s black Labradors.

Dominic Stanthorpe - dressage rider extraordinaire. Uncle to Lottie, son of Elizabeth, slightly bemused and frustrated by both.

Tom Strachan - sexy ex-underwear model. Divorced, devastated but amazingly dishy. Recently made his ‘escape to the country’ with his goth daughter.

Tabatha Strachan – teenage daughter of Tom. Horse mad, but suitably unimpressed by most other things.

*

David Simcock - England goalkeeper, resident of the neighbouring Kitterly Heath.

Sam – partner of David. Lover of dogs, diamonds and designer delights.

Anthony Simcock – property developer father of David.

*

The horses – too numerous to list

‘I think he’s dead.’

Rory Steel had been enjoying, in his semi-conscious state, a particularly gratifying dream where he was just about to clear the last cross-country hurdle that stood between him and the gallop down the home straight, when his mobile had started to buzz like an irritated hornet inches from his ear. He’d picked it up automatically, horse suspended mid leap.

‘Shit, you’re kidding.’ The horse dissolved, along with his dream of a perfect round, as he sat bolt upright. Something he instantly regretted as a sledgehammer came into contact with his skull and church bells started ringing in his ears. ‘Fucking hell.’ As he sank back on to a soft pillow, clutching his throbbing head, Rory briefly wondered if the caller had been making a pronouncement of his own demise, then decided that was rubbish. It hurt too much.

And he could see faint outlines in the dark that surrounded him, and surely death was a total blackout? He prodded his temples experimentally and decided his head probably wasn’t about to disintegrate in a bloody mess. But, where the hell was he?

From somewhere in the general direction of his feet came an indignant disembodied voice, which meant he hadn’t flung the phone far. Now all he had to do was find it, without causing himself grievous bodily harm.

Rory put an exploratory hand out. And came into contact with skin; soft, warm skin that definitely wasn’t his own. And it all came flooding back with clarity. He was in a horsebox, crammed into the bulkhead bed, with a tin roof only a foot or so above him. Which explained the ringing in his ears. And he was with Lottie.

‘Bugger off.’ She pushed his hand away, her voice groggy with sleep.

‘I was trying to find the light switch.’

‘Not heard it called that before.’

The phone was squawking, more desperate by the second, from its mystery location.

‘What’s that funny noise?’ The words came out on a yawn as Lottie stretched, groaning as her foot came into contact with the wall.

‘My mobile.’

‘Well bloody answer it.’ She rolled over and buried her head under the pillow, and his hand shifted to the dip in her waist. Drifted down to her hip. He liked Lottie’s hips.

‘Proper child-bearing hips these.’ His fingers tightened, in sympathy with other parts of his body.

‘Huh, you mean big.’ She didn’t sound as drowsy now, as she swatted at his hand again and shifted onto her back. ‘And don’t you dare go back to playing with my boobs. Answer the phone.’

‘I can’t find the bloody thing in the dark, can I?’ He groped further down her body, which earned him a slap, and finally his fingers closed around the lump of hard plastic. Just as Lottie flicked the light on. She was shaking her head at him.

‘You’re hopeless.’

‘And you’re just so fuckable.’ He blew her a kiss and stared openly at her naked body. He’d missed a lot of things about Lottie while she’d been gone, but that glorious body had been his first thought when he’d heard she was heading back.

In fact, Lottie’s uninhibited nakedness had probably been what he had fallen in love with in the first place. Sometimes he found it hard to believe that he’d found someone even more disorganised than he was, and he’d found her need to flee the country even more incomprehensible. But when it came to bed, and her body, her complete lack of hang-ups made her irresistible.

‘Who is that? Who’s there?’ The voice in his ear had moved on from hysterics to a mix of suspicion and brittle annoyance and he half wished he’d prolonged his ‘find the phone’ game, who knew what it might have led to?

‘It’s me of course, who the hell do you think it is? Who’s that?’

‘There is a chance, darling…’ Lottie straddled him, which was no mean feat given the headspace, and his cock hardened in anticipation. He could ditch the phone right now, straight out of the window. She reached forward, those perfect breasts bobbing against him; he could already taste her kiss. Except he couldn’t. She’d grabbed the phone and was waggling it in front of his face.

‘Hang on, that isn’t my bloody phone.’

‘Exactly.’ She giggled and fell sideways.

‘Hello? Hello? You’re not—’

‘Pip.’ Rory stared at the bright pink phone in disgust. ‘Hell, I forgotten I’d ended up with bloody Pip’s phone again, why the fuck does she keep walking off with my mobile?’ Pip was lovely, Pip was totally, one hundred per cent organised when it came to work, and a shambling mess when it came to everything else. And this was the third time in a week she’d picked up his mobile by mistake and walked off with it. Which left him with hers.

‘Why don’t you keep it in your pocket, like everyone else?’ Lottie was regarding him through big green eyes, her head cradled in her hand. Mussed up hair in a tangle round her face. A very kissable face, and he just knew that mouth would taste of sex. He leaned forward, just as she put a hand out to his chest. ‘Rory, you’re on the phone remember?’

He sighed. ‘I’d rather be on you.’

‘Shush,’ she giggled, ‘she can hear you.’ He made a move to chuck the phone back down the bed, but she grabbed it from him before he had chance.

‘Hello?’

He trailed a finger over her slightly rounded stomach and was rewarded with a slap. ‘Stop it.’

‘I can’t. You’re irresistible, especially when you’re cross.’

‘You’re not Pip, either.’ He could hear the voice, sharp, on the other end of the line.

‘Nope. It’s Lottie. Pip has got Rory’s mobile, her number—’

‘I know what the number is, thank you.’

‘Hey, is that Amanda? Hello? Amanda?’ Lottie dropped the phone on his chest and flopped back. ‘Well thanks to you too. She’s bloody hung up on me.’

‘I’m hung up on you.’ He stroked a finger down one of the forbidden breasts, over the peak of a nipple. ‘So, fancy a bit of mounting practice?’

‘What time is it?’

Rory sighed and held his wrist up so she could see his watch. ‘I really don’t know why you haven’t got a watch.’

‘I lose them, or drop them in water buckets. And they leave tan lines.’ She stretched perfectly bronzed, unmarked arms out in front of her and squinted again at his watch. ‘You do know your class starts in an hour?’

Oh yeah, that was what he was doing shacked up in the crummiest horsebox that Billy Brinkley owned. With the man’s daughter. They’d got to the showground and hit the whiskey and an uncomfortable, cramped bed with the long-legged shapely Charlotte had, in his drunken 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.