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“I’ll take the horses to the paddock,” Emily said, her heart beating so violently in her chest and for what reason? She just had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be good.

In the barn the sheriff’s deputies explained their presence.

“About an hour ago, Dr. Faith was over at the Mounted Unit stables, and she said she’d been assaulted here today, by you.”

Incredulous, Paul bit the inside of his mouth, formulating how he should respond. “What does that mean? I know what it means, but what did she mean?”

“Assault in Californiais defined as an attempt to physically injure another, or a menacing or threatening act or statement that causes the other person to believe they are about to be attacked.”

“She was here for about a minute. Her excuse was to see the horses, and I followed her to the barn. Once we were in the barn, she tried to kiss me. I grabbed her wrists and pushed her away. I held on to her wrists until she calmed down. That’s all that happened.”

“She had red marks on her wrists.”

“She may well have. It took a lot of strength to hold her off. I was trying to maintain her dignity, believe it or not. My girlfriend was right inside.”

“I was looking out the window,” Emily said with a shaking voice as she joined them, her cheeks red. “I saw her follow Paul into the barn. It was less than a minute, and they were walking back out. Ask Robin. She usually has her binoculars trained on us. I’m willing to bet she’ll know how long they were in the barn.”

“I never meant to hurt her. I was trying to protect myself.”

The sheriff nodded, putting his pen back and folding closed the pad of paper. “Okay, thanks. We’ll follow up on any complaints. You’ll hear from the sheriff’s office if we need to talk to you further about this.”

They didn’t reply, but Paul walked over to Emily and slid his arm about her waist. Watching the men get into their vehicles and drive off, not stopping at Robin and Sam’s, Emily shook her head.

“I’m so pissed off right now I’m having trouble staying calm. I want to scream.”

“Yeah, I gotcha,” he said. “I’m sorry about it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that she’d come on to you?”

“I didn’t want it to ruin our day,” he admitted. “It did anyway, but I didn’t want to be the one to do it.”

“It didn’t ruin our day, not yet, anyway. Oh shit, don’t look now, but guess who just peeked her head out of their door?”

Facing Robin’s fence, they waited for her to say something, but she wasn’t as outgoing as usual, pausing when she saw their scowling faces.

“May I approach?” she called out, hesitating.

“You might as well,” Paul replied.

“You know I snoop, so I’m not going to beat around the bush, but I know you weren’t in the barn a minute, and I could see what was going on, sort of. Sam just called the sheriff’s office and I told them. Hopefully, Faith won’t find out it was me, and I hope this will pass over for your sakes. I’m really sorry.”

“Why are you sorry, Robin? You didn’t do anything,” Paul said.

He turned to Emily and muttered, “We’d better rethink buying this place.”

“To hell with that,” she snapped, grabbing his hand and stomping to the fence. “Robin, we’re getting married, and we want to live here. But you’re making it really difficult. I appreciate you defending Paul. But you need to stop training your spyglasses on us. If it’s too difficult, maybe we can put up a tall privacy fence.”

“I’m so sorry, and you’re correct, it’s wrong. Sam is after me to stop. Maybe a tall fence is a good idea. And congratulations on your wedding,” she exclaimed, changing the subject. “When is it?”

“We just got engaged,” Emily answered. “We haven’t set a date yet. Now that Faith has tried to ruin our day—”

“We’ll get over it,” Paul said, reaching for her arm. “Come on, let’s start over.”

“I’m sorry again,” Robin called out, and Paul waved his arm without looking at her.

“What do we do now?” Paul asked. “I don’t handle this kind of BS well.”

“You don’t have to handle it,” Emily said, leading him into the house. “Have a seat and I’ll make us lunch. You’ve been taking care of me all weekend. Now it’s your turn to be pampered before you have to go back to work.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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