fuonlyknew

He believes his
luck has turned when he learns that a beautiful and talented stallion is
available in Germany, just in time to compete in the next World Cup
competition. The horse’s name is Tempest.

Jessica Warren is
an up-and-coming American dressage prodigy with a brilliant future. Orphaned at
the age of 21, when her parents were tragically killed in a car accident, and
the legal guardian of her younger sister, Jessica has lost her competition mount
to injury and needs a new horse if she wants to compete in next year’s World
Cup.

She learns of a
spectacular horse available in Germany named Tempest, but when Jessica arrives
in Germany with her trainer, she discovers she will have to compete with the
extremely handsome and talented Michael Stafford for the right to ride Tempest.

Jessica has
nothing but respect for Michael, but sparks fly when they’re thrown together in
a competition that both must win.

Who will win
Tempest? Will Michael be able to trust another woman with his heart? Will
Jessica allow herself to be loved, or will her personal demons keep them apart?

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Chapter One

A loud, rhythmic banging noise shattered the glorious dream of his past Olympic glory, and Michael slowly woke and made the agonizing transition from perfect bliss to cold, stark reality. An earsplitting voice invaded his foggy, alcohol-dazed state “Oy! Mike! I know you’re in there, man. Open up!”

“Bloody hell!” Michael groaned, as his head throbbed in pain. “Stop that pounding, I’m coming, I’m coming.” Michael pulled himself up off the overstuffed leather sofa upon which he had apparently crashed sometime in the early morning hours after finishing off his last bottle of scotch. His mouth felt like it was lined with cotton, and his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. His head was pounding in time with the beat of his heart, and his walk was unsteady as he took the first few steps toward the door.

The clock on the wall showed it was ten o’clock. Even the slow, steady ticking away of the seconds was painful to his head this morning. He gradually made his way to the door as he tried to mentally bring himself into the present. Now, a year later, Michael was living in the refurbished manor house on the farm in Surrey that he had purchased with the money he had earned as a result of his Olympic success. He had turned the small farm into a dressage training yard and boarding stable and christened it Stafford Oaks Farm. It was what he and Emma had dreamed of that night, the best night of his life. So much had happened since then.

As he moved toward the door, Michael scanned the compact living area that had once been the family parlor and noticed piles of dirty clothes and dishes strewn about the room. He hastily tried to move some of the worst of it out of the way. He gingerly opened the curtains of the window closest to his front door and squinted into the late morning sun to see who had so rudely awakened him. Lionel Hayes, his best friend for nearly twenty years and a fellow dressage rider, stood outside and peered back, motioning to the door. “Do you mind?”

Michael opened the door. “Lionel, you sod, what the hell are doing here?”

Lionel pushed his way into the room. He was a bit taller than Michael, but much thinner, almost gaunt in appearance. His blond hair and blue eyes were stereotypically British as was his long, thin nose, and prominent square chin. “I tried to call you on your cell phone an hour ago and you didn’t call me back. I got worried. What in God’s name have you been doing?” Lionel grimaced as he looked around at what had once been a neat and tastefully decorated manor. He wrinkled his nose “This is disgusting.” Then Lionel noticed the empty bottle of Scotch on Michael’s coffee table. “Now I know what you’ve been up to, trying to drown your sorrows in drink yet again. Well, my friend, it’s not going to work, and I’m here to make sure you don’t end up in the hospital with liver failure.”

Lionel walked around Michael’s home, opening curtains and cranking open several windows to allow a cool morning breeze to circulate through what had been a hot, stuffy home filled with dirty laundry and dishes and smelled like a cross between a men’s locker room and a garbage dump.

“Look, Lionel, I think I’m entitled to an occasional drinking binge considering everything that’s happened to me in the past year.” Michael’s mind immediately flashed back over the year that had passed since he had experienced the best day of his life: winning a gold medal at the Olympic Games held in his home country. Since that day, his life had been nothing but a series of setbacks and disappointment. First, the owners of Romeo, the gifted stallion he rode to a gold medal in the Olympics, decided to take the horse out of competition immediately after the Games to make a tidy profit breeding him. Without Romeo, Michael wasn’t able to continue to compete internationally, and was having a great deal of trouble finding another horse as talented to ride in Romeo’s stead. Without the public exposure competition gleaned for him, his Olympic fame began to fade. His fiancée, Emma, who had enjoyed the glitter and attention he drew immediately following the Olympic Games, became bored with their lives after Michael moved out of the spotlight. It wasn’t long before she began acting suspicious of his relationships with other women, accusing him of being unfaithful to her. Nothing could have been further from the truth, and he had tried to explain to Emma that he had to travel to teach clinics and market his skills as a trainer, but all she seemed to be able to see were the many women who clamored to meet him and get close to him. Her suspicions baffled him, because he took great pains never to be alone with any of the women he met through his clinics and loved Emma too much to cheat on her with any other woman.

Michael still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened between them, but everything seemed to fall apart right after the Olympic Games. Before the Games, he and Emma were on top of the world, looking forward to a life together living on his training yard in the country outside London, where he would raise and train horses for himself and others in dressage, and she would continue working in the city for a prestigious law firm. He was certain they loved each other unconditionally, although he must admit in hindsight that their relationship wasn’t perfect. Still, he felt betrayed, and had vowed to himself never to give his heart so foolishly ever again.

Michael picked up the tabloid from his coffee table and showed it to Lionel. On the cover was a picture of Emma with a one of Britain’s most famous footballers. She was laughing and looking at him adoringly, and he seemed to enjoy her attention, smiling down and holding her close, with his arm around her waist. “I can’t go anywhere without some reminder of Emma. While standing in line at the grocery store buying food for the week, I saw this in a rack next to the checkout line.” He pointed to the photo on the cover. “It seems she has a penchant for rich and famous men,” he said bitterly. “She used to look at me like that,” Michael fumed. “Just wait until you get injured or retire, friend” he told the man in the photos, “she’ll drop you like a rock.” Unfortunately, although his head told him he had escaped a bad situation and should be grateful, his heart was still engaged, and he had tried last night to dull the pain with Scotch.

“Look, man.” Lionel threw the tabloid back on the table. “You’ve got to let her go and get on with your life. You can’t let her be your ruin.”

Michael knew Lionel was right. His career and his life had gone seriously downhill since Emma left. While he had once been scrupulous about his preparation for public appearances and had always been punctual for clinics and lessons, he was now either late or, even worse, a last-minute cancel or no-show for fully booked weekend clinics for which he had already been paid half up front. He had also started to be chronically late for lesson clients, and one of his two working students had left him in frustration. As a result, the invitations to do clinics stopped coming, and many of his lesson clients moved on to other trainers. The agent he hired after the Olympic Games eventually dropped him. He had barely any income except for some horse boarding clients at his stable, and a couple of training clients who were also good friends and understood why he was acting out of character. Even those clients, though, were losing patience. As a result, he was becoming alarmingly close to financial ruin. He was barely able to make the monthly mortgage payments on his farm, and had been forced to live a very austere existence, the occasional drinking binge notwithstanding.

As Lionel moved a pile of clothes out of the way so he could sit down on the sofa, Michael’s phone started ringing.

“Good God!” Michael groaned, as his head throbbed in pain. “What now?”

He picked up the phone. “Yes, what is it?” Michael growled into the receiver.

“Mr. Michael Stafford?” The clipped, and very formal male voice on the other line responded.

“Yes. This is Michael Stafford. Who is this?”

“This is Constable Eric Madden of the Surrey police. We have your brother Ian Stafford in custody here at the station.”

Michael’s heart sank, and he raked his fingers through his hair. “What has my brother done, Constable Madden? Why is he in custody?”

“Last night, your brother started a fight, and stabbed one of the patrons of the Rusty Nail Pub in Woking. The pub owner called us for assistance, and when two constables arrived in response to the Pub owner’s call, he resisted arrest. He punched one of our officers before we were able to subdue him. He also had been drinking excessively according to witnesses at the scene. We have him in custody. Unfortunately, the man your brother stabbed died at the hospital two hours later, so Mr. Stafford has officially been charged with manslaughter.”

Michael’s heart sank. “My God!” he exclaimed, “That’s simply not possible. Ian would never purposely hurt anyone unless he was defending himself. “Something must be seriously wrong if Ian had gotten himself into this kind of trouble. “How is he, Constable?”

“He has a few bruises from the fight, and he has a pretty powerful hangover, but otherwise, he seems to be physically all right, and no one else was seriously injured,” the constable replied. “He’s asked me to contact you. He wants to see you.”

“Certainly, Constable Madden. I’ll be right there.”

“Mr. Stafford, if I may, your brother has refused to speak with us about exactly what happened last night, and he has also not requested a solicitor to assist with his defense. I suggest you engage a solicitor to represent him at your earliest convenience. These charges are serious, and he may be facing life in prison if found guilty.”

“Thank you, Constable. That’s good advice. I’ll get on it right away.” Michael hung up the phone and looked at Lionel.

“I’m sorry Li, I have to go to the police station. It appears my brother Ian has gotten himself arrested, and could be in some serious trouble.”

“Do you want me to come along? It might be nice to have some moral support.”

“No, but thanks for the offer. This is family business, and I don’t want you to get entangled in this mess. At least not until I get to the bottom of this.”

“At least let me fix you something to eat while you shower and change. There’s no way you want to go to the police station looking like you do right now.” Lionel opened the refrigerator and searched for something he might be able to cook. “Do you have any eggs or milk?”

Michael shuddered at the thought of solid food hitting his much-abused stomach, but he knew Lionel was right. He needed nourishment, and scrambled eggs would work as well as anything.

“I do. If you look a bit, there should be both in there. Thanks, man.” With Lionel now occupied in the kitchen, Michael turned and went into the bathroom. After Michael left the room, Lionel could no longer suppress the malicious grin he had been hiding since he arrived at Michael’s home. His plan was working. He was, slowly and surely, ruining Michael Stafford’s life.

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Racing Toward Love

Horses Heal Hearts Book 2

Ian Stafford is a
former British Special Forces soldier and Afghanistan war veteran who still has
nightmares after watching his best friend cut down by a sniper in a remote
village in Afghanistan. When he sees a woman in a local pub being harassed and
threatened, he intervenes. During the ensuing brawl, the woman escapes, but Ian
accidentally stabs one of his attackers, who later dies. Ian is charged with
manslaughter, and the woman who can exonerate him has disappeared.

Megan Brady and
her father Daniel never imagined that the thoroughbred colt they raised from
birth would grow up to be a contender for the British Triple Crown. Seabiscuit
II is the last horse you might imagine as a champion if judged by looks alone.
Like his namesake, Seabiscuit II is not much to look at, but has a heart as big
as all outdoors, and refuses to be beaten.

Unfortunately,
the Irish mob has also taken notice, and has approached Megan’s brother Stephen
with an offer of a bribe to purposely lose the most important race of his
career. Stephen refused, and Megan has taken it upon herself to thwart the mob,
but their brutal tactics nearly see her raped until Ian steps in to save her.
Megan knows she must come out of hiding to exonerate Ian. But she also knows
that if she does, the mob will be there, too.

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Chapter One

Megan Brady’s stomach fluttered as she parked her car in front of the Rusty Nail Pub just outside of Woking and near Guildford. There were no other buildings nearby and very few cars in the lot. She had to admit that the location was ideal for a clandestine meeting, but the atmosphere clearly favored the men she was supposed to be meeting. The pub was practically deserted, so there wouldn’t be anyone to help her should the encounter go badly.

Megan gripped the steering wheel of her father’s car as she debated whether she should even go in. This wouldn’t be easy, primarily because the party she was there to meet was expecting her brother Stephen and would not be happy she had come in his place.

“OK, Megs,” she whispered under her breath. “You’re here now. There’s no going back. Let’s do this.”

She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and opened the car door.

Megan entered the pub and was immediately assailed with the stench of stale beer and cigarette smoke. Although smoking had been banned in bars in the U.K. for years, it appeared this establishment didn’t abide by government rules. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, drab interior. Getting her bearings, she slowly walked to the bar. She was somewhat surprised to see she was the first to arrive. No one resembling the party she was supposed to be meeting was in the pub. There were only a couple of other patrons in the place, none of whom took any notice of her. She walked over to the bar and sat down.

The bartender looked at Megan curiously. Apparently, few people other than locals frequented the Rusty Nail. He approached cautiously and asked, “What can I get for you?”

Megan knew she needed all of her wits about her if she was going to survive a confrontation with the organization that was threatening her family, so she ordered a soda.

The bartender cast her an even more curious stare and dispensed the soda, placing the glass in front of her.

Just as the bartender served Megan her drink, the pub door opened, and Megan quickly turned. A tall, good-looking, well-built young man with sandy blond hair cut in a distinctive military style entered the pub. Megan watched with interest as his gaze scanned the interior of the pub as if to memorize every detail of the place and its inhabitants. Once he had completed his sweep of the room, he made his way to a table. The bartender walked over to take his order, and Megan overheard the man order a steak and potato pie and a beer. The bartender served him the beer right away.

She surreptitiously watched the man as he sipped his beer and waited for his food. This wasn’t the person she was there to meet. For one thing, he wasn’t looking for anyone; he just went about his business. It appeared he was reading a booklet of some sort, but he occasionally looked in her direction. Obviously, he was just as curious about her as she was about him. Did he live nearby? Or was he just passing through? She wasn’t very familiar with this area, but she was fairly certain there weren’t any military bases in the vicinity.

A door slammed in the back of the pub, drawing her attention. Four large, burly men emerged from the shadows. They scanned the room but quickly focused on her. As one, they moved toward her. The apparent leader, the largest of the four with a jagged scar down one side of his face, sauntered up to Megan and leered at her.

“I’m surprised to see you here, Miss Brady,” the man said insolently. Megan noticed immediately that he spoke with a distinctly Irish accent. “We have business with your brother. Where might he be?”

Megan hoped the men couldn’t see how fast her heart was beating as she dug deep and found the courage to respond in a clear, firm voice. “Stephen sent me in his place.” She squared her shoulders and looked at the leader defiantly. “My father asked me to give you a message. Neither Stephen nor my father will accept your bribes. Seabiscuit II will run his race at the Epsom Derby. We will not agree to lose intentionally as your boss has requested. We ask that you accept our decision and leave us alone.”

Megan watched as the man’s expression slowly changed from lascivious to enraged. In truth, her father didn’t even know she was there, and he probably would have tied her up and locked her in her room if he had known she had talked Stephen into allowing her to take his place for this meeting. However, when Stephen had approached her and told her that members of the O’Reilly crime family had tried to bribe him to throw the Epsom Derby, one of the richest races in Britain and the second race in the British Triple Crown, she easily fell back into her familiar role of big sister and protector and persuaded him to allow her to take care of things.

She was now seriously regretting that rash decision. Feigning a bravado she didn’t feel, Megan looked toward the pub entrance. “Now that I have delivered my father’s message, if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I have to go.” Megan left some cash on the bar to pay for her drink and started toward the door.

The leader, who unbeknownst to Megan was the O’Reilly family patriarch’s nephew and chief enforcer, Colin Fitzpatrick, grabbed Megan’s arm and hauled her back toward him with enough strength that she lost her balance and fell into him. She shoved both arms against his massive chest, trying to push herself away from his brutal embrace, but he only laughed at her ineffective struggles.

“My friends and I came a long way to make a deal with your brother, darlin’,” he said with a sneer. “Now that you’ve taken that away, I think you owe us. Boys, let’s take her to the back of the pub and collect our payment before we go back to the boss. This way we’ll at least get something for our trouble.”

The other three men grinned their approval and raked her with their eyes, lingering on her breasts. She shuddered with revulsion, and her heart raced as the full implication of what she had gotten herself into hit her. She glanced at the bartender to see if he would help her, but he was purposely ignoring the situation. No help there. She scanned the pub to see if anyone else was paying attention and noticed that the blond military man was watching and appeared concerned. Would he help her? She had to try.

“No,” she said in a loud, clear voice. “I don’t want to go with you. Leave me alone, or I’ll call the police.”

Colin only chuckled. “No one here is going to help you, sweetheart. This pub is owned by the same people who pay my salary, and, as for the police, well, let’s just say I’m not too worried about them either. Come along quietly, now, and we’ll try to make this easy on you. If you fight us, you’ll only get hurt.” His gaze swept her body hungrily.

Regardless of the man’s assurances, Megan knew that if she surrendered to these men, she would suffer unbearably. Her only option was to resist. She refused to go quietly and allow these men to rape her without a fight. “Please just leave me alone,” she pleaded. When the man continued to drag her, she planted her feet, forcing Colin to stop. “Let me go!” she shouted. When the man didn’t respond, she lashed out with her open hand and slapped him. “I said, let me go!”

Megan was shocked at her own audacity and watched in horror as Colin drew his fist back to strike her. He could easily break her jaw.

Suddenly, a very strong and very large hand grabbed the man’s fist and held it. “You heard the woman. Let her go.” The resonant and commanding voice came from just behind Megan, and she turned around to see the man she had decided was a soldier standing right behind her, appearing big, strong, and determined. Megan noted with some relief that the man was over six feet tall, had a muscular, athletic build, and exuded strength and confidence.

Ian Stafford had been watching the scene unfold before him, and, seeing no one in the pub willing to help the woman who was clearly in danger, made the split-second decision to come to her defense.

“Mind your own business, laddie,” Colin replied. “This is none of your affair.” He loosened his fist, though, and Ian released his grip on the man’s wrist. Little did the thug know how close he had come to having his wrist broken.

“I’m making it my affair since the woman clearly doesn’t want to go with you. Do yourself and your friends a favor, and let her go.”

Colin snickered and glanced over at his friends, who were also laughing. He responded, “I don’t know how you’re going to stop us. You’re only one man against four.” He turned toward the back of the pub, dragging Megan with him. Megan realized there was nothing she could do to stop the inevitable, thankful that her rescuer had at least tried to help her. Then, before she realized what had happened, the thug was lying on his back on the pub floor with his nose broken and blood streaming down his face. The impact of the stranger’s fist to his face had caused him to let go of Megan, who moved out of harm’s way toward the pub entrance. Unfortunately, after she escaped his grasp, the man’s friends surrounded the stranger, who even Megan knew was no match for four trained mob enforcers.

Ian knew he was in trouble, but at least he had gotten the woman out of immediate danger. Now, he could deal with the four thugs who had tried to rape her. He’d broken the leader’s nose, but the brute wasn’t entirely out of commission, and Ian could tell that the other three were experienced brawlers. They wouldn’t be easy for one man, even one man with Special Forces training, to subdue.

To survive this fight, he would need his knife, tucked conveniently in his boot. It was the one habit he had brought home from Afghanistan that had been difficult to break. Since his last tour in country, he didn’t feel safe without a weapon of some kind on his person at all times. Ian reached down quickly and unsheathed the knife. With it, he was able to fend off the men for a time, but despite Ian’s best efforts, it wasn’t long before two of the thugs pinned his arms, and a third tried to wrest his knife out of his hand.

Ian knew from the nature of the men he was fighting that if he lost his knife, his life would be forfeited, so he dug deep and used all his remaining strength to wrest his right arm away from one of the thugs. The knife he still held went straight into the belly of the man directly in front of him. The man collapsed immediately, and Ian was shoved to the ground as two of the thugs carried their comrade away—presumably to a hospital.

Colin looked at the bartender and barked, “You, I know you work for my uncle, tie this man to a chair and call the police.”

At first, the man looked confused, but the leader spoke to him sharply. “Look, man, we know where you live, and we can reach your family easily. Do what you’re told, or they’ll pay the price.”

The man paled, and then rushed to comply. His hands trembled as he tied Ian to a chair.

The leader further instructed the bartender, “When the police come, you will tell them this man started the fight and attacked us without provocation. We acted in self-defense, but he stabbed our friend. Do you understand?”

The bartender nodded again, and, apparently satisfied with the response, the leader left the pub, presumably to join his friends at the hospital.

When the police arrived, the bartender did as he was told, and despite his protests, Ian was arrested for criminal assault with a deadly weapon. The woman he saved had disappeared.

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