To Break a Filly Ch. 01

"You need to reexamine you're standards."

"I..." But Lindsay had nothing to say to that effect. She knew she had lost simply because of the last man she had chosen for herself. Derek had been an absolute fairytale from day one, the way he had appeared on her doorstep with flowers, opened every door for her, kissed her once at the end of the night and never pressed her for anything. Nevermind all that, Lindsay was not about to get back up on a horse that smelled like a dying cow.

Marie started up again, "Besides, it's not like you're getting any younger. You're about to be twenty-eleven and I mean, have you seen yourself lately? I'm not saying that you're shot to hell in the looks department but you're definitely starting down a slippery slope."

Lindsay had never been challenged when it came to maintaining her youthful good looks. She was one of those few fortunate women who could eat whatever she wanted and still be an average size. She was five and a half feet tall with collarbone-length, thick red hair and big emerald eyes. She had the small, slightly upturned nose that you usually find on cheerleaders and her lips were just a few degrees smaller than Angelina Jolie's. One might say that she had been blessed. Not that she had ever done anything with it. She was a jeans and tank- top kind of girl who, when she wasn't at work, wouldn't be caught dead with her hair and make-up done. Most women had always envied this about her. In grade school, it meant that she could be friends with all of the boys without them ever really seeing her as one of them. She had been a habitual heart-breaker. In the adult-world, her laissez-faire attitude toward style hadn't lent much success toward her career which meant that she had had to become very good at what she did to be noticed. Marie was right, though. Lindsay had taken "casual" to a whole new level. Her hair that always hung stick straight down around her face had been pulled into a messy bun for weeks. As she looked down, she saw that the tank-top she had slipped on after work was the same one she had used for a pizza plate last night and had a few other unidentifiable stains on it. Her jeans had a big rip down the side from a mishap while shredding Derek's old khakis and her nails had been chewed down to near-bleeding. What had she let happen to herself? This wasn't Lindsay. Lindsay was tough, unaffected, and stubborn to a tee. Had she really let this incident change her? She found this truth unacceptable.

"Point taken." Lindsay told her sister who looked confused.

"About what?"

"I look like something the cat-dragged in."

"Oh sweetie, we moved on from that five minutes ago. I was just telling you about how Stacie and Margo are thinking about opening up their own parlor in the burbs a few blocks down from you. Weren't you listening?"

***

The night air was like warm bathwater and she let her hair down on the drive home. She loved the feel of the wind when she had the top off of her Jeep. In the summer, when most people avoid the hundred and five degree weather by hiding in their air-conditioned homes, Lindsay would hop in the Jeep and drive for hours just letting the breeze it made cool her. These trips usually didn't end well for her pearl-white and pink skin but she liked the freckles the sun gave her. When she had been given the old green and tan Wrangler by her father, she had been so excited that she didn't even wait for her license to take it out for a spin. She was pulled over three blocks from home and fined the equivalent of an entire summer's work. At the time, it had been worth it. Lindsay pulled into her driveway at around 10:00 at night. The bed was still there but the dog was gone, thankfully.

She killed the engine, grabbed the bag with her work clothes in it and shuffled up to the house, bubbling from the wine and way past ready for bed. She stuck her key in the door, heard the lock tumble, and was blasted by the heat flooding out when she opened the door. One of the downsides to owning an older home: bad ventilation. It had been a particularly rough scorcher and the weather had turned her house into an oven. She set down her things and methodically went around opening windows and turning on fans. When she finally collapsed on her bed, she was out before her head hit the pillow.

She dreamed that she was being chased by the big ugly dog through an abandoned gym. The threatening stench of the place stifled any hope of catching her breath and those black eyes were gaining on her. She couldn't find an escape and just as the dog took its leap for the death blow, she was able to open her eyes.

Light was just starting to creep into her bedroom and the sky outside was pink. Her alarm clock hadn't gone off yet and she realized that it wasn't going to because it was Saturday. She had nothing pressing on her agenda and her head throbbed from last night's wine. She rolled over, carefully keeping her eyes shut, hoping to get just one more hour of sleep. When she did, however, she caught a mouthful of something wiry and a little wet. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into the face of the ugly dog. Screaming, she fell backwards off the edge of her bed. Lindsay scrambled up and reached for the baseball bat she kept in the corner. The dog tilted its head with a definite quizzical look and perked his ears up. She held the bat in a stance that her daddy would have been proud of.

"Get out of my bed before I..." What was she going to do, hit him with it? "...before I make you." The dog huffed once at her and shook his head before flopping back down onto the pillow and sighing. "I mean it!" Lindsay smashed the bat down onto the bed to emphasize her point. The dog picked his head up a fraction of an inch, repositioned himself and then closed his eyes. Is he really calling my bluff right now? She snatched up her pillow in her free hand and went to throw it at him but before she could finish the thought, the dog saw her move, leapt off the bed and skittered out into the hall and down the stairs. Lindsay ran after him, pleased with her success thus far, and hit the bottom of the stairs in time to see his tail disappear out one of her living room windows. She exhaled and dropped the pillow and the bat, making a mental note not to leave the windows open overnight. She was about to go back upstairs when she noticed that her pizza box's remnants were gone. "Damn dog," she muttered. It's not as though she had planned to eat the leftovers but it was the principle of the matter than she took issue with.

The rest of the morning was spent cleaning her house. Most of the people that Lindsay knew thought of cleaning as a chore. For her, it was therapy. Washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, dusting the furniture, weeding the yard, it all had a rhythmically calming effect on her. Besides, she loved her home. She'd inherited the house from her mother's father when he died in her early twenties and it held in it the only memories she'd had of family. Marie, Lindsay, and Daddy were all very close but there had never been a sense of "gathering" with just the three of them. Excepting the days when they went to Grandpa's. Lindsay suspected that it had been hard for Daddy to visit the house without her mother, which is probably why their trips were so scarce even though they lived not twenty minutes apart. Her mother had died from cancer when Lindsay was only seven years old and so she had very few memories of the woman. Marie, who was three at the time, had no memories but had been told enough stories to at least feel like she knew her mom. Their grandfather and Daddy had never gotten along well, but after their mom passed away there was an unspoken agreement to be pleasant for the sake of the girls.

When Grandpa had passed, he left the house to both Marie and Lindsay, but Marie wasn't up for the responsibility and really was never much for life in the 'burbs' anyway. So, Lindsay took the house and never once regretted it. She loved everything from the brick and lattice front, to the cobblestone path leading up to the front door. She loved the hardwood floors with all of their little scratches and dings. She loved the arched doorways and the crown moldings, the built-in bookshelves and big bay windows. That love poured out of her every weekend when she set to polishing up the old bones of the building. She was proud of her home and made sure that it was always taken care of in the way she thought it deserved.

By mid-afternoon, the yard was buckling under the heat from the sun. Lindsay filled up the sun tea jar and set out to the backyard to harvest her vegetable garden. As she approached the garden it was obvious that something was amiss. Her tomato plants were lying on their sides and it looked as though her onions had been uprooted in a furious whirlwind. Trying to imagine what sort of monstrous creature would have done this to her precious garden, she was shocked off her feet when the giant mutt leapt out of the bushes in front of her, sprinted past and into the house. Lindsay shrieked and jumped up, reaching out for the dog and missing by a mile. She ran after him but he managed to knock the door with his tail on the way in, slamming it behind him. Lindsay ran face first into the now shut door and crashed back down onto the patio as fast as she had come. After the stars had cleared from her vision, Lindsay peered up to see the grinning, tongue-out face of the dog in the window. HER window.

Furious, she stood up and marched back to the door and tried the handle. The dog threw himself against the backdoor, successfully blocking her point of entry. This is seriously not happening to me. She went to the window but, of course, she had locked it after her little doggie mishap this morning. Great. She scrambled through the bramble on the side of her house and made her way to the front door and debated knocking. If the dog was smart enough to lock her out of the house, maybe he'd be smart enough to let her in, right? Seriously? She slowly turned the handle and quietly pushed the door open. She had a clear line of sight to the back door and there he was, staring her down like some cheesy western movie. In keeping with that theme, Lindsay mocked a gun draw and murmered, "This house ain't big enough for the both of us, mutt." Did he just smile at me? Lindsay let out her biggest war-cry and charged the dog who slipped past her in some masterful escape artist's fashion and bolted out open door behind her. "Geezey Creezey, what is with this dog?" She made her way back to the front door and looked out at the dog who was now grinning at her from the bed. She closed the door and locked it for good measure.

"I know, but they wouldn't take it back." Lindsay said for the sixth time. Marie had called over an hour ago to tell Lindsay that Mrs. Roberts across the street had phoned Mrs. Jones, who'd phoned Daddy, who of course had called Marie, to say that there was a bed on my lawn. "I am waiting for a truck to pick it up to take it to charity." Not a bad idea; maybe I'd actually do it.

"I think that's nice, Linds, but in the meantime, you've got to get it off your lawn! The neighbors are starting to talk." Impossible. They'd have had to stop talking at some point in order to start again.

"Alright, Marie. I'll figure something out. Thank you for the heads up."

"Okay good. Oh by the way, did you get a dog?"

Lindsay put the phone back on its receiver and sighed. This was not supposed to be her life. She was supposed to be married. She was supposed to... Well that wasn't going to do her any good now, was it? She rifled through her fridge. Cheese, Chocolate, and Chicken. The holy trinity. Every woman had to have these three items in their kitchen but unfortunately, they never went together.

She paced for a while, deciding what next to do with her day. It was cooler out than it had been yesterday and for a San Antonio summer that meant low nineties. She snatched up her purse and decided to walk down to the farmers market. Every Sunday afternoon, the farmers rolled in and set themselves up in the 'burbs'. Lindsay had been walking to this market since she was a child and she knew the streets by heart. Up Oak, down Ash, right on Vine, left on Chestnut. No one seemed to be out today, normally her walk would have met children running through sprinklers, mothers hanging clothes out on the line, and fathers mowing the lawns. Today everyone was absent, probably at church. She lived in one of the classic white-picket neighborhoods: families with two parents, a boy and girl child, a family dog, and a house cat. All of the yards were perfectly manicured, the flower beds always in bloom. Lindsay loved the domesticity of the place. She arrived in the school parking lot where the market took shop much sooner than she had expected. A few people perused and haggled prices, farmers kicked back chewing on straw or sucking their teeth, and the younger ranch hands hauled out boxes of crops and goods to set out on the display tables.

Lindsay weaved her way between the stands, picking out various vegetables and fruits, not taking any notice of her surroundings. As was bound to happen, she walked herself straight into a brick wall, or at least that's what he felt like. She stumbled back trying to catch herself when she felt a pair of iron grips take hold of her shoulders and set her straight. Lindsay shook her head and look up at her assailant. He was tall. So much so, in fact, that Lindsay was only eye level with his chest. He had on a white button-up shirt and dark-wash blue jeans, leather boots and a light tan cowboy hat. His medium-length hair curled just slightly around his face, accenting is high cheek-bones and strong jaw. He had what was just past a five-o-clock shadow and his eyebrows were thick and dark. Their blackness and the tan of his skin played in perfect harmony with his molten chocolate eyes. Lindsay stared dumb-struck into those eyes trying to comprehend what god had chiseled this man and set him down in her path today.

"Y'alright ma'am?" His voice was like warm caramel and when he spoke, his full lips parted over gleaming white teeth. His breath smelled like the sweet chill of mint. Lindsay mentally tasted the mint for herself when he let go of her shoulders. He didn't draw back but he simply put her down to stand on her own. She blinked a few times and looked quickly away so that her knees didn't buckle beneath her.

"Ma'am?" the man repeated.

"Yeah... uh... I'm fine. Thanks." Lindsay set her eyes on the ground and walked quickly away. She heard footsteps coming after her.

"I'm sorry I ran into you like that, miss. I know I shoulda been paying more attention to where I was walking."

"It's fine," Linday said, still walking away and not daring to look back up at him.

"Now look here ma'am, I'm tryin' to apologize to you. Don't you have the decency to hear a man out?"

"You've said that you're sorry, I accepted, now good day, sir." Lindsay sped up her pace a bit more and she heard the footsteps quicken behind her as well. She was about to break into a run when she felt a tug on her arm. He spun her around to face him with one hand and lifted her chin up so she could meet his eyes again.

"Alrighty then, well what about your apology?" His voice was irrationally smooth.

"M-my apology?"

"Yeah, the one you owe me. See, the way I figure it, I wasn't the only one who did the bumpin' back there. Takes two."

Silence followed as Lindsay tried to string together her thoughts into a cohesive response. She had to look away or she was never going to be able to say anything, but this stranger still had her chin cradled in his hand. "

Un. Hand. Me." Lindsay forced out through clenched teeth.

"Unhand you?" he chortled.

"Yes" Lindsay breathed.

He hesitated, let go of her chin, and then leaned in and kissed her. Hard. He kissed her hard. Lindsay didn't close her eyes and it happened so quickly that she didn't know how to react. She stayed perfectly still and his warm lips pressed against her and his hands clenched down on her arms. She could feel his tension and his desire, the heat of them was unreal to her. And then it was over. He pulled away and Lindsay stared at his chest, eyes wide in a look of complete astonishment. He laughed again and whispered, "Now we're even, no apology necessary. But you're more than welcome to thank me if you want."

That did it. Lindsay snapped again, "How the hell are we even? You boys are unbelievable, walkin' 'round here kissin' complete strangers. I oughta call the police." And to punctuate the matter she punched him square in the center of his chest. He didn't even flinch but she felt better all the same. Lindsay turned on her heel and stormed off again towards home, thinking very much of abandoning fresh vegetables for eternity. All the good they did her.

It was lunchtime when Lindsay made it back home. She'd spent her return trip trying to comprehend the significant emotional event that had just occurred. What on earth could have compelled him to kiss her? Granted, he was beautiful and very good at it, but why? When had it become socially acceptable for men to just kiss complete strangers? Had she really been out of the game for that long? She supposed the answer to that was "yes". Derek had been her steady boyfriend for the last seven years. The only other times she'd ever been kissed were in high school and they weren't very memorable. She found that she had, for the first time in weeks, a sudden awareness of how lonely she was. Her only interactions of late had been with Chessie at work and Marie on the phone. Time to get out. She grabbed her keys and headed out to the Jeep and on to her sister's. Half an hour later, she pulled into the shady parking garage. She exited on the street level and crossed to her sister's building. She shouted out for someone to hold the elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor. She dropped her keys into her purse and exhaled.

"Visiting your sister again?"

Lindsay half jumped out of her skin in surprise. She looked around and saw that her riding companion was the stinky man from earlier in the week. Only this time, he didn't smell and he certainly hadn't been working out. He was, by her best guess, just under six feet tall. He had short blonde hair that was fashionably mussed and azure eyes He was an average man. Nothing about him screamed glamorous but nothing was unattractive either. Had she been walking past him on the street, Lindsay thought that he probably would have just blended in with the background. Except for that suit! He was wearing a Fioravanti Super 220 merino wool, solid blue, one button masterpiece. That was a ten thousand dollar suit and boy did she know it. Lindsay may not have cared much about women's fashion but she knew everything there was to know about a suit and she could tell everything she needed to know about a man by the one he chose to wear. This suit said, 'I'm gay'. No straight man in his right mind would have to confidence to pull that suit off.

Lindsay visibly relaxed, "Yes I sure am. Sorry if I was rude the other day, I was in a hurry. I assume you live here?"

He smiled with the faintest hint of confusion, "Uh, not exactly. I-".

The elevator dinged for the fourth floor and Lindsay gave him an apologetic expression. "See you around, maybe" she called cheerily over her shoulder and just barely caught the skeptical look on his face and she set off down the hallway.

"So what you're telling me is that you got kissed by a man that can only be described as a demi-god and you didn't even get his name?" Lindsay had recounted the story of the market to Marie over an hour ago and while she felt the topic was worn out, Marie didn't seem ready to move on.