A Roll in the Hay, стр. 36

“If you think of anything, put it in my calendar? We have more important things to crack on with than my love life.”

“How could anything be more important? You’re ready to get back in the saddle, and I don’t mean the one on Billie Jean. This is a big day. We should definitely get donuts with lunch.”

“Last week you said that ordering new Post-its was a good enough reason to get donuts,” Susannah said. “But okay, we’ll think about it.”

“Don’t worry, we certainly will.”

It didn’t take Finn long. It took them exactly one day, three hours, and seventeen minutes, unless Susannah’s watch was slightly out of time.

“I’ve got it!”

Susannah half expected them to tack on a “Eureka!” for good measure. “Got what?”

“The perfect night for you. There’s a queer ladies’ night at the Kilted Coo. You know it, right? Just a couple of towns over that way.”

“And that’s big enough to host…what? If you say speed dating—”

“Speed dating went out with frosted tips and Hannah Montana, Suze. Honestly, you’re like the before part of a rom-com sometimes.”

Susannah winced at the accuracy of that one. Maybe she should be staying in with a bowl of popcorn and Love, Actually, getting annoyed all over again that the lesbian storyline got cut. “And this place is okay?”

“It’s really nice. Not for nothing, but it has some things about it that might be ideas for The Spiky Thistle. If the day should ever come where you want to tart it up a bit.”

“Just give me the details, please.”

“Already on your calendar. There’s a website if you want to see some pictures from previous nights. It’s all very classy, no forced rituals and no cheesy games. Just people meeting people and seeing what they might have in common.”

“Thank you, Finn. I might be a little embarrassed about all this, but you’ve been a gem.”

“No problem. You off for a ride?”

Susannah looked down at her obvious riding clothes, including the boots, and waved the riding crop in her hand. “That or a costume party where the theme is the Derby, yes.”

“You better brush up on your jokes before inflicting them on some unsuspecting woman, Boss. Maybe just lead with how you’re rich and have horses. Play to your strengths.”

“Thanks for that.”

It wasn’t often Susannah brought the horses down towards the village. They didn’t mind the cobbled streets, not with their solid hooves and sturdy legs, but it meant coming closer to cars and idiotic pedestrians, something she tried to avoid for them whenever possible.

Still, it was important to keep the horses stimulated, and it was as far as she could take Billie Jean from the limited routes she had been following as part of her recuperation. Very successful that had been too since the horse was trotting along like she had never so much as stubbed a toe.

The quickest way back home was down behind the pub and up through the fields, a chance to really work up to a gallop. Susannah idly thought of one of the smaller properties in her portfolio, just down that way. A charming little two-bed with ivy around the door. That one shouldn’t even be hers. Jimmy had sworn off buying any more village property after the pub. Then the family who’d been living there had lost their son in some terrible accident, and they wanted to sell up quickly and move somewhere less haunted by memories. Ever the compassionate one, Jimmy had paid them over the odds for it and arranged the movers too, to spare them the cost.

As she bumped along the uneven road, Susannah considered whether she could live up to that example. All the money and decisions on how to spend it were down to her now. Would she help out a neighbour that way, now she could afford to? A straw poll of the villagers would probably not go in her favour, especially lately.

She was almost past the house, with its quaint courtyard and the neighbouring properties that overlooked it, when the front door flew open and Waffles came bounding out. Susannah knew that dog anywhere now, and his owner was becoming just as familiar.

Sure enough, Tess followed the dog out, calling him to heel as soon as she heard the horse’s hooves. Then she noticed Susannah was the rider and did that rarest of things in these parts: she actually smiled.

“Coming to check I haven’t wrecked the place?” Tess asked.

“Sorry?” Susannah wasn’t sure if she should dismount. It seemed a little imperious to be talking down from such a fine, tall horse. Tess wasn’t exactly towering; she was barely five-foot-nothing if she was an inch.

“I saw the paperwork. You’re my landlady. Suppose it’s just as well we made friends, eh?”

“Well, I am glad about that, yes.”

“Not as glad as I am. Don’t want to be jobless and homeless in one fell swoop. Had enough of that kind of upheaval to last me a lifetime, thank you.”

“Ah. That was your ex. Caroline, wasn’t it?”

Tess seemed taken aback that Susannah would remember.

“It was only last night, you know. Not such a strain on the memory cells.”

“Right, I suppose so.”

“Anyway, I seem to remember you taking great offence yesterday to someone thinking you’d be anything less than completely scrupulous. Or did I imagine that shouting match?”

The scrunch of Tess’s nose suggested she knew what point was being made. It was really very pretty, the way she did it. Her whole face, actually; it was damned near magnetic in pulling Susannah’s attention back to it.

“You’re saying you’d expect the same benefit of the doubt be given to you as my landlord, eh?” Tess scuffed a boot against the ground. “That’s only fair. I’ll stop talking about you like something out of Dickens.”

“Never did like Dickens—always reminded me of school,” Susannah said. “Of course, I would say that. In Dickens, someone like me is usually the villain. Still, give me Wilkie Collins any day.”

“You’re quite