The Breaker (Erotic Country #1.) Read Online Free

saddles.
    It was a fantastic old
shed. Along the open timber struts of one wall hung hundreds and hundreds of
rusty, disused horseshoes. She always imagined where those shoes had been and
what cattle they’d chased. Some had caulked heels, others had rolled toes,
extra clips or had been banged out flat. She imagined all the different horses
that had galloped over the granite soils of Stoneleigh over the past hundred years.
    Over another wall, tangles
of ropes and leather and metal hung like messy bundles of spaghetti. There were
disused spurs, rusty iron bits and leather quart pots, plus bridles and limp
woollen blankets folded to the size of a horse’s back. There were battered
helmets and every imaginable thickness of rope – hemp, cotton or nylon – coiled
and strapped into neat bundles or woven into makeshift reins.
    The stock saddles,
which were in constant use, sat in row after row, stacked on short timber posts
jutting from the wall, all leather with big knee rolls and lined with blue or
gold felt. Carved into one of the old timber beams behind one of the saddle
racks was a quote she loved: Love all, trust a few, but always paddle your
own canoe … Ted 2/4/63
    She sometimes fantasised
about who Ted 2/4/63 might have been.
    There were whips: short,
long and every size in between, some cruel, some merely persuasive. Short batons
for jumping, long slender ground-training whips and elegant dressage whips.
There were 12 foot long lunge whips and plaited red hide stock whips. An old
leather bull whip also hung among them.
    Then there were the
hobbles: cuffs of leather, lined with white waxy skin cells chafed from the
horses’ fetlocks and secured with strong steel buckles and lengths of chain.
Some were designed to restrain a horse’s two front feet; some were for the
knees; and some were spider hobbles, made to shackle all four legs. There were
breeding hobbles to stop a mare kicking; and more cruel harnesses that were
used to stretch a horse’s hind leg back until it hurt. For the life of her,
Sophie could see no point in that.
    Most of the hobbles
had hung on the wall gathering dust since the day she took over the
horse-breaking at Stoneleigh. She noticed now that they had been disturbed. From
Brett using the side-lines, she guessed.
    She took the saddles
and gear that she needed and put them in the truck.
    By the time Brett
joined her, the cattle trucks had pulled out of the long dirt driveway with
Mick, Jim, old Sam and the two young cow hands hanging their elbows out of the
windows. The Bangaloo Creek boys stood on the back of the farm ute, clinging to
the roll bar while it fishtailed on the dirt behind them. They blasted the air
horns and Nancy waved out the kitchen window.
    ‘What, am I the
strapper?’ she snapped at him when he sauntered out of the horse shed and began
untying horses to load them. Sophie hit the button on the side of the truck and
an electronic winch whirred, lowering a narrow ramp.
    She snatched the rope
from the horse he held, tossed it over its mane and pointed its nose up the
ramp. It walked straight up the ramp and she went in after it and bolted a
dividing rail alongside it.
    She trotted back down
the ramp and took the next horse from Brett, who gave her a sneer. Prick. By
the time she got to the fourth horse, she heard footsteps behind her.
    She chose to ignore
him. Until she felt his warm body wrap around hers and take her by the wrists. His
arms were huge and strong and they spun her around and wrenched her hands
behind her back.
    She glared up at him.
‘Well, good morning to you too,’ she said. ‘Mind if I have my arms back?’ She wriggled,
but it was futile.
    The corners of his
mouth pulled slightly and something decidedly sinful glinted in his eyes. With
both her hands in one of his, he reached for something behind his back, and she
heard the unmistakeable sound of a chain links rattling together. He leaned into
her and ran his mouth seductively over hers, pulling gently at