"Yes." He pointed. "I had Remy bring out saddles. Western or English?"
"English."
Garrett snickered. "I grew up in the American West, so I'll just be over here silently judging your English saddle."
I put my hands on my hips. "I'll have you know I am a fairly good rider."
"I thought you said you were an emo girl in high school," he said, lifting a gleaming leather saddle onto the horse.
"Like many a tweenaged girl, I was also obsessed with horses. There's some sort of psychological study about how it's linked to when a girl first start realizing men are awesome and sexy," I said as I saddled the second horse.
"Oh!" I said after a moment. "I don't have boots or an outfit."
Garrett handed me several Hermès shopping bags.
"You really do plan for everything, don’t you?"
58
Garrett
Penny looked smoking hot in the riding outfit. The white pants hugged her curves, the navy-blue jacket pushed up her tits, and the patent leather boots ended just above her knee. She cracked the riding crop against her thigh.
"Ow," she said, rubbing her leg and looking at the crop accusingly. "That hurt more than I thought it would."
"Weren't you the one just asking for sex toys?" I teased her.
"Yes, but fuzzy handcuffs and cat ears, not dangerous ones—though if I'm drunk I like a little bit of a belt!" She winked at me. Then she immediately tripped on the stool I had put out for her. The horses were rather tall.
"Shoot, I really ruined the sexy illusion, didn't I?" she said, kicking the stool aside and putting her foot in the stirrup.
"Not in the least," I said, admiring her ass as she effortlessly swung up into the saddle.
* * *
True to her word,Penny was good at riding.
"This horse is awesome. Midnight, you're such a good boy!" she gushed, patting the horse. Then she kicked her heels and immediately took off down the nearest bridle path.
"Next year," Penny said when I caught up to her, "I want to have a haunted walk back here, you know, have a ton of tiny houses with different haunted themes. We'll light the paths with jack-o’-lanterns. It will be amazing!"
At that point, I was willing to say yes to anything she wanted.
Penny chattered on about her grand Halloween plans as we rode. It was chilly in the woods, but the horses didn't seem to mind. We rode at a more leisurely pace out to the fake ruins that had been installed near the turn of the last century as a feature landscape piece on the estate grounds.
"That'snot spooky," Penny said as we approached what looked like a half-destroyed tower.
"There was a whole ghost story that went along with the ruins," I told her as we dismounted and tied up the horses by a small spring. "The Harrogates hired a semifamous fiction writer to tell the tale of a young woman whose family didn't want her to marry a rival industrial baron's son. According to this story, the family told the son that she had run off with a day laborer, and he believed them and thought she didn't love him. But really they had just locked her in this tower," I said, spreading out a blanket in the clearing by the ruins.
"That's a gruesome story. It doesn't even have a happy ending," Penny said, lying down and stretching out in the last rays of afternoon sun.
"But wait, there's more," I said, taking a bottle of champagne and two glasses out of a case in my saddlebag. "He's so heartbroken that he becomes a mercenary and fights in a war in Europe. Several years later, he's in a bar and happens to meet a traveler from Harrogate. This man tells the patrons a ghost story about how they would hear wailing on foggy nights from this very property. The rival's son is smart, and he has a hunch about what had happened. He sneaks back to the town then steals onto the estate grounds and follows the wailing to this tower. He sees her hair, blowing in the wind from the open window. His love is in the tower waiting for him! He calls to her, scaling the tower. But when he climbs to the top, he realizes that she is already dead of a broken heart. He's distraught. He has all his war gear with him and dynamites the big manor house and this castle. The Harrogates built their new house on the same spot, but the tower remains as a testament to their love."
"That is a creepy and sad ghost story," Penny said, taking a long sip of her champagne.
"Yes, but they're together in death," I said.
"Still…"
