Secrets by Linda Chapman

Author:Linda Chapman
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Ten

WHEN ELLIE WOKE UP the next morning, the evening before came flashing back. Feeling nervous, she pulled on her clothes and went to the stables.

Luke was tacking up Troy to work him in for the first working hunter class.

“Hi,” Ellie said, her lips feeling suddenly dry.

“Hi.” He gave her a brief smile and then busied himself with the saddle.

Ellie hesitated by the stall door, wanting to say something about the night before, but not knowing where to start. The silence stretched between them.

Luke broke it. “I’ve got to bring Troy out now. Can you start on Rosie? And then when Helen comes she can do Henry. His class is after Rosie’s, at about nine o’clock.”

“Sure,” Ellie said, half relieved by the normality of what he was saying, but also feeling slightly let down. Something had happened last night; something that had left her feeling the world wasn’t quite the same.

She told herself to just get on with things. It was easy enough to do. All their horses entered that day had morning classes and the other horses who’d arrived the day before, like Lucifer and Gabriel, needed attention.

Anna arrived from her hotel just in time to see Luke jumping in the lightweight working hunter class with Troy. Luke was back to his best, his face utterly focused as he galloped the big bay around the course, producing a thundering clear. When he came out after doing an impressive individual show, he jumped off. Before Ellie could go over and congratulate him, Anna was at his side, putting her arms around him and kissing him. Ellie caught Luke’s eye over Anna’s shoulder. Emotion stabbed down inside her. She wasn’t sure if it was guilt for what she’d done the night before, or jealousy or a mixture of both.

She hastily left the working hunter ring and returned to the stables. Helen was there mucking out. She didn’t need much persuading to take Ellie’s place at the ringside. Ellie busied herself in the stalls, but as she forked straw into the wheelbarrow she couldn’t stop picturing Anna kissing Luke.

She knew she should never have kissed him the night before. He was going out with someone else. OK, he was the one who had been unfaithful, but she shouldn’t have gone along with it.

And yet even as she thought that, a bit of her wondered if maybe he would finish with Anna and ask her out instead. What would she say? Yes! The answer leaped inside her before she could stop it.

A little while later, Luke appeared. “I was wondering where you’d got to,” he said as he put Troy away.

“I thought I’d give Helen a break from the mucking out. How did you do in the class in the end?”

Luke bolted Troy’s door and came to the doorway, showing her a red rosette. “Second.”

“That’s brilliant!” Ellie exclaimed, stepping forward automatically to hug him but then stopping herself. She paused, the night before looming between them.

Luke saw her hesitation and took a breath. “Um, Ellie … last night …”

“Yes?” Even she could hear the eagerness in her voice.

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