Hunter Derby: (Show Circuit Series -- Book 3) Read online

  And she couldn’t have handled telling Morgan about Brayden.

  They had already established the first time they’d slept together that she was on birth control. Morgan had been clear to ask. Probably he didn’t want any mongrel claims to his wealth. He ditched his boxers and put himself in her. It hurt a little at first and she took another quick breath. That seemed to excite him because he pumped harder and said, “You like it.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  He grinded away at her for what seemed like a little too long for her liking. It got boring and while it didn’t feel bad, it didn’t exactly feel good, either. But a lot of the sex she had had didn’t feel good. She hated to admit it but she’d only had a few lovers who really cared about giving her pleasure. She guessed that said a fair amount about her poor taste in men.

  She absent-mindedly wondered what sex with Matt Hargraves would have been like. She imagined his tattooed forearms holding himself up over her. Probably he wouldn’t have cared about anything but his own dick either.

  After a few minutes, maybe sensing that she wasn’t enthralled, Morgan grabbed her hair. She looked at him in surprise.

  “That kind of hurts.”

  “I know,” he said, pulling harder.

  This was where she knew she was supposed to tell him to stop, or even push him away. But she didn’t. It didn’t seem like the same kind of thing as when Donnie had hit her. That never came during sex. Actually, during sex Donnie was gentle, and he had been one of the few to care about making her climax. It was at the barn that Donnie would put her down and then end up physically hurting her.

  This didn’t feel like abuse, really.

  Yet, it didn’t feel quite right either.

  But it was Morgan Cleary fucking her and she felt she couldn’t forget that. If word got around that they were a thing, wouldn’t that prove she was worthy?

  So she let him pull her hair. She closed her eyes and tried moaning to get him to come. It seemed to be working. He moved faster and she fake-moaned a few more times, all the while with a clump of her hair in his fist, and finally, he came.

  The next morning Zoe woke before Morgan and walked room to room in the apartment, seeing how the other half lived. It wasn’t like it was the first time she’d ever been in an obscenely rich person’s house, but the novelty hadn’t worn off yet for her.

  She quietly admired the floor to ceiling windows in the living room and the ornate carved pool table in the corner of the room. Crystal bar glasses and bottles of scotch were lined up on the corner bar. She ran her hand over the back of a leather couch and wondered what it would be like to call a place like this home. If she were married to Morgan, she’d hire designers to help her decorate to make it less of a bachelor pad. She let herself indulge in the fantasy for a few minutes. She could have a string of top hunters and her own barn and she could fly to Europe all the time to pick out new prospects. She’d be one of the filthy rich people at the shows who talked about how hard it is to manage their housekeepers, gardeners, and other staff.

  She turned when Morgan said, “We better get going.” He was showered and dressed, his hair combed back to cover his developing bald spot. “I have a meeting.”

  “Oh, okay.” She took one last look out the windows on the city—it was a view she might not get to see again soon. Now she understood where the phrase, on the top of the world, came from.

  She only had the same clothes she had worn the night before including her torn shirt that now instead of resting on the edges of her shoulders, dropped perilously low on one side.

  She’d go home, shower and change, then head over to Narrow Lane. If she was a few minutes late, Kirsten would just have to deal.

  He didn’t offer to make coffee or for them to eat anything before they left. Zoe didn’t mind, though. Maybe it was just the horse show life—she was used to getting food on the go, eating most meals with one hand and the other hand on the steering wheel of either a car or a golf cart.

  He was wearing a suit without a tie and he looked good in it. The suit was probably custom and cost thousands so it fit well. His loafers were Gucci. Zoe kept herself from asking when she’d see him next. She was determined to play this cool. Too many times she’d tried to badger guys into a relationship. That had never worked. Maybe it was because she always picked the wrong guys, but nevertheless, this time she was going to keep it casual.

  She didn’t need a relationship now anyway, she reminded herself. She didn’t need anyone to distract her from her end goal—landing a job riding good horses. Getting back in the major leagues. If Morgan called her again, cool. If they ended up seeing each other, great. If not, she’d live.

  Morgan’s meeting was in Bridgeport, where the Mets were considering moving a minor league affiliate, and he’d drop her in Danbury on the way. She thanked him although she had just assumed he would give her a ride back, or order her a car.

  A few times in the car ride back to Westchester, she flashed back to the sex they’d had and felt her face heat up. It wasn’t burning because it had been hot porno-sex, but because of how rough he’d been with her.

  Had he been rough with her the first two times they’d slept together? She didn’t think so, but honestly both those times she was bombed out of her mind on booze and drugs. He probably could have tied her up and she wouldn’t have remembered.

  Morgan kept checking his phone as he drove, often typing out texts, and Zoe prayed they wouldn’t have an accident. She was grateful when traffic slowed them down a few miles from Danbury.

  When they came to a standstill Morgan banged the steering wheel. “Fuck!”

  “Accident two miles ahead,” said his navigation system.

  “Shit,” he said. “I’m late already. We’re meeting with the city to talk about a lease on the park.”

  Zoe couldn’t understand why he hadn’t acted more in rush back at his apartment.

  “I can’t stop in Danbury now,” he said.

  “Well, what am I supposed to do? You’re just going to drop me on the side of the highway?”

  He changed lanes and headed to the next exit.

  “No, I’m getting off and I’ll drop you somewhere, and then take the back roads around the accident, and get back on the highway north of Danbury.”

  “There’s a deli up the road,” she said. “Can you at least drop me there?”

  “How far up the road?”

  “Not far,” she said.

  He couldn’t even go five more minutes out of his way. He would probably have just left her at the nearest gas station. Zoe closed her eyes briefly. She should have borrowed a shirt from him.

  Maybe he sensed her annoyance because he reached out and rubbed behind her neck. “Last night was hot.”

  “Yeah,” she said absentmindedly.

  “I’m sorry about your shirt.”

  But not sorry enough to drive me home, she thought to herself.

  The Village Deli always looked closed from the outside, something to do with the darkness of the windows. But people were coming in and out, clutching coffee and the morning paper.

  “Bye,” Zoe said. She wasn’t going to kiss him, which was unlike her. Usually she tried to give a guy a sexy last taste—something to make him want her all over again just as she was leaving. She’d read about doing that a few years ago in some women’s magazine and had taken it to heart.

  She climbed out of the car. Morgan sped away and Zoe walked into the deli, getting a judgmental look from a mother with a baby and a toddler, probably because her shorts were so short and her T-shirt was torn, and she basically looked kind of like hell.

  Zoe didn’t shy away from the woman—she stared straight back at her. She wasn’t going to shrink away in shame. The fact of the matter was she knew the woman was probably jealous that her days of staying out all night were over. Zoe’s torn shirt only proved that she had a crazy night. It didn’t look like it was torn on purpose—nope, it was clear it had been a casualty of a long, wild nig
ht.

  Zoe was feeling better about herself, even if Morgan had just nearly ditched her on the side of the road. Her torn shirt almost felt like some sort of badge of achievement.

  That was until she saw John Bradstreet at the counter, getting his coffee.

  Then it started to feel like a black mark.

  Her first impulse was to run as quickly as possible to the bathroom and not come out until he was gone. But, of course, he had just been handed his coffee and he turned and saw her.

  “Whoa, what happened to you?”

  “Nothing,” she said, trying to adjust her shirt so it didn’t slip further.

  “Um, your shirt’s torn . . .” he pointed to the neck with his coffee.

  “I know.” She said it ambiguously, leaving room for him to think maybe she’d torn it on purpose—that it was a fashion statement. He was still looking at her with a confused expression.

  “I’m, I just . . . I need to go back home and change.” She noticed how tall he was—definitely well over six-feet. Too tall for a rider, really.

  “You just needed your coffee so bad you had to come out and get it before you put on a not-torn shirt?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I know, right?”

  Maybe she looked a little unstable, a little close to tears.

  “Is everything okay?” John asked carefully.

  At least he was being nice to her. Whatever had made him recoil at Narrow Lane seemed to matter less now.

  “I actually need a ride back to my apartment. I don’t have my car here. Would you have time to drop me?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Really? I guess I could call an Uber.” She didn’t have money for an Uber, though. Or the time to wait for it.

  “Of course not. I’ll drive you.”

  In his truck they were officially introduced.

  “I’m Zoe Tramell,” she said.

  “I know who you are,” he said as he started the engine. The radio blasted Luke Bryan. Zoe smiled at his choice of music. He reached to turn it down.

  “Oh, right, from Kirsten,” she said.

  “I’ll admit, at first I couldn’t believe it when she told me you were going to be working at Narrow Lane. She didn’t even know who you were.”

  Which meant he did. Well, of course he did. Everyone knew her—she had been one of the top junior riders. Even if he didn’t show at the top shows, he still had read about her or watched her on the live streams.

  But did that mean he knew everything else about her too?

  He knew the apartment complex where she lived.

  “So the ripped shirt—” He took a sip of his coffee and stationed it back in the cup holder. “Dare I ask?”

  “You just did ask,” Zoe said.

  “Okay, true, so do I want to hear the answer?”

  “Let’s just say I went out last night in the city and things got a little out of hand.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Fair enough. So you’re working for Linda and volunteering at Narrow Lane?”

  “Yup, that’s the state of things.”

  “Kind of a change for you, right?”

  Zoe shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said, even though it really wasn’t. But what was she going to say? She wasn’t sure if he knew she was forced to be there doing community service and that no one but Linda would hire her. If he didn’t know that, she wasn’t going to point it out to him.

  She decided to turn the conversation to him. “What about your business . . . Linda said you have a bunch of sales horses?”

  “You were asking her about me?” he said, a tiny smile forming on his freckled lips.

  “It’s pretty boring in this town. I saw a good rider on a cute horse and I wondered what the deal was.”

  “You just saw me hacking around,” he pointed out. “How could you tell I was good?”

  “Well, I don’t know how good you are. But you looked like you could ride a little.”

  “Not as well as you can.”

  “I can ride a little,” Zoe said, allowing herself a little vanity. “What kind of horses do you have?”

  “Some of this, some of that. I’ve got a pretty nice jumper prospect, a jumper that I think would make a better eq horse. I actually need to show that one to Linda and see what she thinks. I also have a super mare that I think would make a great derby horse.”

  Zoe straightened in her seat. “Have you shown her much?”

  “I did the performance workings on her a few times last summer. She’s got an amazing jump.”

  Zoe’s head felt hazy. She needed coffee to think straight but she hadn’t gotten any at the deli because she’d been so flustered. She looked longingly at his coffee in the cup holder. “Is there any way I can have a sip?”

  “Of my coffee?”

  “I’m dying. I need caffeine.”

  “You were just in a coffee shop.”

  “I know, just, can I, please?”

  “Go ahead. It’s black.”

  “I don’t care if it’s mud. As long as it’s caffeinated mud.” She took the warm cup in her hand. She hadn’t even drank any yet and she already felt better. It was strong. She liked hers with cream and sugar but it didn’t matter. Two sips and her head was clearer. Back to the derby horse . . .

  “So are you going to show that mare in the derbies this summer?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not really a hunter rider.”

  “I am,” Zoe said. “I’m a really good hunter rider and I happen to be right in your backyard.”

  Zoe saw no reason not to come straight at this. There wasn’t time to waste. She needed horses to show.

  “Well, maybe you should come over and sit on her sometime. Tell me what you think.”

  Zoe took another sip of his coffee. “Great. How about this afternoon?”

  “Wow, that’s . . . soon.”

  “No time like the present,” Zoe chirped.

  They had pulled up to her apartment complex. The sign outside read MANOR ESTATES. Why did crappy apartments always have fancy names? It just made it worse.

  “Are you sure you’re up for it after your night out?” He glanced at her torn shirt.

  “I’m fine. Believe me, I’m so totally fine.”

  “Okay, come over after you’re done at Linda’s. I’ll be around and I won’t ride her this morning.”

  “Great,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Wait,” he told her, holding out the coffee. “I think you need this more than me.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  John’s barn was small and sweet. He explained to Zoe when she showed up at three-o’clock that he leased the property from a couple who lived in Manhattan. They had bought the farm for their daughter but her interest in horses had waned and now they only came to the farm infrequently. There was a charming brick house covered in swaths of ivy that sat empty most of the year. He got a break on the lease fee for mowing the lawns and doing general upkeep around the farm and house, essentially acting as the de facto caretaker.

  An old dog that looked sort of like a basset hound lay on a dog bed in the aisle.

  “That’s Harry,” John said. “He doesn’t move much. You don’t have a dog?”

  “No,” Zoe said as she walked down the aisle.

  Sprinklings of shavings and hay dusted the floor. A grooming box cluttered with brushes sat up against the wall. The whole place smelled a little musty and damp but it was kind of a nice smell, like when rain hits asphalt on a hot day.

  “I thought all horse people have dogs.”

  “Most of them do,” Zoe said.

  “But you don’t like dogs?”

  “Oh, I love dogs.”

  It was the one sane choice Zoe had made so far in life—to not get a dog. Not a Jack Russell or a Corgi, or a Danny & Ron’s dog. Not even a tiny Chihuahua that could fit in her purse. She knew she wasn’t responsible enough to have a dog. Maybe someday she would be able to take care of a dog, but for now she knew she could barely take care of hers
elf.

  Zoe walked through the barn, stopping at each horse’s stall as John told her about each one, where they had come from, and what he was doing with them. Zoe noticed manure in a few of the stalls. They’d clearly been cleaned—just not continuously picked out.

  There was Cruz, the six year-old jumper John thought might end up being an eq horse; Oakley, a five year-old prospect he thought showed the potential to be a high junior/amateur jumper, maybe even a grand prix horse; and Dibs, a five-year-old hunter.

  He did most of his business with a dealer in Holland. John didn’t go there but instead watched videos and had horses sent over.

  The last stall was the mare. A flysheet hung a little lopsided on her stall door, an errant strap dangling toward the floor. Chunky pink bell boots for turnout (or so Zoe hoped) were velcroed to the blanket hook. The whole barn seemed a little 4-H, but Zoe willed herself not to care.

  She went to lean over the stall door, eager to have a look, nearly giddy with excitement, and John pulled her back. “Careful,” he said.

  “Does she bite?”

  “Yes, sometimes.”

  “Seriously?” she said.

  “No, but she’s not exactly America’s sweetheart. Mostly she bites other horses if they come too close but so far she hasn’t bitten any humans.”

  “And you bought her why?”

  “The price was right and she’s fine once you’re on her. She’s just nasty in the stall. That’s partly why I thought she’d make a good derby horse. Some rich owner can watch her win, enjoy her from a distance.”

  “And never even come to the barn to pat her?”

  “You can pat her, she just doesn’t really like it. Let me get her out of her stall. She’s beautiful to look at.”

  Zoe looked back at the grooming stall. A broom and shovel leaned against the wall—they didn’t hang neatly from wall-mounted hooks like at most of the barns Zoe was used to. “Where are your grooms, or groom anyway?”