Lacy leaned over the hay bales, reaching for the hay net she had thrown too far earlier, in a rush to get on with some other work. It wasn’t that the hay bales were too high to clamber on to, it was just – well she could reach if she stretched.
A hand snaked around her waist and lifted her up high enough to reach the hay net. She caught hold of it and tugged.
Damn! It was caught on something. She tugged again and it came free but the arm around her didn’t set her back down on the floor – and she could feel something hard pressing into the cleft of her buttocks. That was the trouble with jodhpurs; they left nothing to the imagination. Flesh-coloured, skin-tight leggings, tucked in to knee-high boots, no wonder they were such a turn-on.
She sighed in expectation as the other hand reached around to cup her breast. A warm breath on her neck had her leaning back into his chest, closing her eyes, just waiting for him to unfasten the clasp on the offending jodhpurs.
When she was just sixteen, Lacy landed her dream job. She had always been horse-crazy and had hung around at the local stables since she was twelve and she was allowed to go there alone.
The job was little more than slavery, minimum wage, early start, late finish and often weekend work too but Lacy knew that and she was thrilled she’d been offered the job first – because she was trusted.
She’d not worked there long officially when the owners died in a horrific accident. There was a lot of worry and speculation about what would happen with the stables and the horses but after a lot of wrangling with lawyers and advisors, it was decided that the eldest son, the sole heir to his parents’ fortune and businesses would keep the house and stables as an ongoing concern in memoriam to his mother who adored horses.
Time went on and Lacy celebrated her 17th birthday - at the stables of course. Then one day, not long after her birthday, commotion as she biked down the driveway caught her curiosity. A large van turned right at the end of the driveway and made its way towards the house rather than the stables.
I bet he’ll be turning round soon enough! Lacy thought as she banked left and leaned her bike into the corner with practiced ease. When she came to a stop, she put it against the barn wall in its usual place.
The big house across the yard had more activity than usual and Lacy was interested. ‘Across the yard’ was a quarter of a mile away and the house was a beautiful turn of the century manor house.
“The new owner, Nathaniel is coming,” the yard manager said when Lacy asked.
That would explain the van this morning. Lacy thought.
Nathaniel, the owners’ son and heir, at the grand old age of twenty one, was coming back to his childhood home to settle down - more than a year since his parents died.
Lacy didn’t think she wanted to meet him, according to the yard manager, he sounded like a stuck-up, spoiled brat.
Nathaniel arrived long after midnight, slept late to recover from jet-lag and before he had eaten his breakfast, the yard manager declared that she was quitting the stables and moving on.
She left before lunch, leaving Lacy as the only full-time employee on the yard.
Lacy continued her work and was in the barn, filling the hay nets when Nathaniel emerged from the house. He wandered around the stable yard, inspecting empty stables and then he wandered to the barn. Lacy almost collided with him as she carried three nets out.
“Ohh, sorry, I didn’t see you there, I wasn’t expecting anyone in the yard,” she said. Her habit of wiping strands of dark hair and hay off her face caught his attention and he smiled at her.
Nathaniel didn’t say a word, he nodded that he accepted her apology and went past her to pick up three more nets.
Lacy thought he was a little odd, handsome but odd. Nevertheless, she appreciated the help.
Over the following weeks and months, Nathaniel came into his own on the stable yard. He picked up the routine and accepted Lacy’s advice. He didn’t employ another manager; he figured that between them, he, Lacy and the part-time help could manage very well.
Lacy and Nathaniel began a friendship that neither would have predicted. They got on well from the start; she was practical and so un-girly that Nathaniel immediately took to her. She was strong ‘for a girl’ as he insisted on reminding her and he wasn’t too bad at manual labour for a ‘privileged twit’.
