CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tommaso
I expected to feel a rush of guilt after consummating my relationship with Danica. Guilt over having had sex with someone other than my wife. Over having feelings for someone besides Erin.
But I didn’t.
Not in the debilitating way I expected, at least.
I was grateful for the moment of solitude, however, when I left her to get dressed, and made my way out to the kitchen.
Portia had long since finished her snacks from her enrichment toys and was passed out, legs in the air, in her princess bed.
She opened one eye when I entered the room, but closed it a moment later when she realized it was just me.
I grabbed a glass of water and poured one for Danica as well, setting it on the counter for her when she entered. Then I took my drink and stood in front of the sliding glass doors, gazing out into the Sound and at the lapping waves as they ate up the beach on the rising tide.
I hope she didn’t see how nervous I was.
I didn’t want my nerves to spill over into hers.
She needed someone with confidence, compassion, and patience.
And I tried to give her all of that, while maintaining a continuous dialogue, and checking in that she was okay.
The last thing I wanted to do was traumatize her any further about intimacy than she already was.
I took her sharing that part of herself with me as an honor, and one I would not betray.
“Is this for me?” came her soft voice behind me.
I spun around to see her flushed face and bright eyes checking in on me. “Si,” I said with a nod before holding out my hand so she knew to join me.
She finished the water on her way over to me and set the empty glass next to mine on the dining room table. I hauled her in front of me where she fit perfectly, both of us now facing the water, and I wrapped my arms around her.
“How do you feel?”
“Is ‘amazing’ the correct answer? How about fantastic? Wonderful? Superb? Terrific? Awesome? Pick one.”
I smiled and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “No regrets?”
“Is ‘not meeting you until now, even though we’ve both lived on the island for years,’ the correct answer?”
Chuckling, I squeezed her tighter. “I’m not sure I would have been ready any sooner.”
Sighing, she leaned back into me even more, the scent of her hair, sweet and slightly spicy, making me a little light-headed. But in a good way. “I don’t know if I would have been either.”
“Be honest with me though, bella. You feel okay after?”
She spun around to face me, looping her arms around my neck.
The sun beat into the living room at just the right angle to make her eyes glow like two beautiful prehnite.
The dark-hazel striations were extra prominent as she grinned up at me.
“I feel more than okay. That was more than I ever could have hoped for. Thank you.” She rose on her tiptoes and kissed me.
What started out soft and sweet quickly turned into much more. Leaping up onto my hips, she tightened her grip around my neck as I stepped forward, pressing her back against the sliding glass door. My cock was already getting eager again and thickened in my jeans against her hot cleft.
We easily could have taken this to the bedroom for round two, but Portia’s loud, abrupt grunt, followed by her trotters clacking across the hardwood to the dog door, at alarming speed, pulled us out of our romantic fugue.
She burst through the dog door like that giant jug-man in old commercials. I tuned into the sounds of the property only to hear a high-pitched, frightened whinny.
Danica was already off my hips, and the two of us raced for the door. I slid into some loafers, since my Blundstones were still in the bedroom, but she realized she didn’t have shoes at the door and darted back to the bedroom.
I didn’t wait for her and sprinted across the gravel to the barn, where Portia waited at the door, grunting wildly. More frantic whinnies echoed from within, and when I hauled open the door for my pig and me, I knew instantly that it was Raven and Midnight’s stall where the noise had come from.
Most of the other horses were out in the field, but Galahad and Monarch hung their enormous heads over their stall doors as I passed. I didn’t have time to say hello.
I reached Raven and Midnight’s stall just in time for the sound of a child crying to permeate the air and send chills down my spine.
Why was there a child in my barn?
I flung open the stall door to find the young boy from next-door on the ground with a red welt on his forehead, and he was crying.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, stepping inside the barn and positioning myself between the child and Raven, who was blocking Midnight. The foal was in a corner, his legs wobbling a little as he peeked out from under Raven’s legs to see what was going on.
“I came to ride the baby horse, and this monster attacked me,” the kid said, glaring at me. He swept a tear from his face with a dirty hand, leaving a filthy smear on his cheek.
Footsteps outside the stall came to an abrupt stop, and Danica breathed, “Clyde?”
Clyde.
Right.
“So, you snuck onto my property and into my barn?” I asked, my anger building as I pieced together everything that had happened out here before I arrived.
Somehow, this delinquent managed to get into my barn.
Then, with his two brain cells competing for third place, thought it was a good idea to climb into a horse stall and attempt to ride a newborn foal.
Clyde stood up, still glaring at me, then at Danica. “This big horse is stupid. She should be shot. She nearly killed me.”
Danica shook her head. “She was defending her foal. Any parent would do it if their child was threatened.” It was probably lost on Clyde, but it wasn’t lost on me the way she enunciated every word, particularly emphasizing “their child was threatened.”
“I wasn’t threatening it. I want to ride it.”
“You don’t ride foals,” I growled out.
Why was I arguing with this turd of a child?
“Clyde, who told you about the foal?” Danica asked, her voice cracking just a touch, but it was noticeable to me. This was Sam’s bully, so she probably wanted to do what Raven did and protect her young by kicking this kid in the head. I couldn’t blame her. I wanted to do the same.
Clyde sneered. “My nan. Said you’re going to let people come ride the horses now. I want to be the first.”
I was going to have an aneurysm at any moment. I just knew it. Speaking to this child was causing me to lose brain cells.
“I’m sorry, Clyde, but there’s been a misunderstanding,” Danica said gently.
“The horses are not going to be ridden by the public. They can be visited and petted. Maybe even fed, but not ridden. These horses and other animals are here for peace. They’ve had very traumatic lives, and Tom has this place for them to feel safe. ”
“Not the baby horse though,” Clyde argued. “Nan said he was born here.”
“You don’t ride foals!” I exclaimed, the burn of rage making my arms and belly hot.
“I’m telling my mom and grandpa about this,” Clyde threatened, stepping past me toward the door. “They’re going to shut you down.”
“Shut me down from what?”
Danica shook her head at me as if to say, “Do not engage.”
The insolent child stopped just outside the stall, and his mouth turned up into probably the evilest smile I’d ever seen on any person. “Sam’s such a freak. She needs to go to one of those looney bins. That’s what my grandpa says anyway.”
Danica’s eyes widened, and she bunched her hands into tight fists at her sides, enough to make her knuckles glow white. “Best get home now, Clyde. I’m sure your parents and grandparents really miss you.”
Clyde rolled his eyes, gave another smirk and spun on his heel, heading down past all the stalls. Monarch and Galahad watched him, and I could have sworn they sneered at him. He used the barn door, which I rarely locked. But now I would make a point of it.
San Camanez Island was known as a relatively safe place.
Nobody locked their doors or cars, and theft was among the lowest in the country.
It also just made coming and going from the barn easier for me.
And just because a person leaves their door unlocked does not give a stranger permission to enter, damage, steal, or attempt to mount their infant horse.
Danica followed him and stayed outside for at least five minutes, probably watching the miscreant cross the field and disappear into the trees. She returned absolutely fuming.
“That kid is a monster,” she said, wrapping her arms around my waist as I did the same to her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. She glanced up at me. “Have you ever met anybody so inherently cruel?”
I shook my head. “Can’t say I have, bella. It is honestly scary.”
“That’s the kind of kid you worry about bringing a freaking gun to school, or putting kittens in a sack and tossing them into the river. He gets a thrill out of hurting others. And right now, Sam is his target.”
I sucked in a sharp breath through my nose. “The security cameras should arrive today, and I will make a point of locking the barns from now on.”
“I just hate to think what he could have done … how he might have hurt Midnight.” She trembled a little in my arms. “He’s been through enough.”
Nodding, I released her and together we went into Raven and Midnight’s stall. Surrogate and foal seemed to be okay, all things considered, and the little black colt was nursing happily.
“You guys ready to head outside for a bit?” I asked them. Raven swung her head my way, eyeing me with curiosity. I scratched her neck, which she seemed to like, because she gently head-butted my chest, asking for more when I stopped.
“I’m going to go find Mouse,” Danica said, heading back out of the stall.
“I think I saw her outside earlier. Close to the barn, but outside, which is a big deal for that girl.”