Free Love and Lies (Sunshine & Shadow Book 4) by Alie Williamson

Chapter 1
     
     
     
    Three weeks had gone by,
and early January was taking its toll on April. She was used to cold weather,
not the luke-warm air that rushed through the Hollywood hills. There was also
no snow. It didn’t seem like winter.
    April’s work on the movie
lot hadn’t changed much; she brushed horses, tacked them up for Damian,
supervised shooting and discussed training tactics with actors. But she did her
utmost to avoid bumping into Lex. She wouldn’t have known what to say to him. Seeing
him from a distance, moving around the lot, was hard enough, and he always seemed
to be where she needed to go. It was impossible to steer clear of him.
    April chose to spend her
free time watching Prime Time work. The only downside was seeing how little Violet
knew about horses and Prime Time’s patience gradually, but steadily, decreasing
every time she mounted.
    She tried to spend as
much time as possible in the studio because she hated the looks she got from
the grooms as she went about her business in the barn. They followed Violet
around like puppies, worshipping her, and to them, April was the enemy.
    Even Damian seemed angry.
Nothing she did was good enough; grooming the horses, mucking the stalls,
cleaning the tack. Damian looked at her work with a blank expression and moved
on. She was beginning to think leaving had just made everything harder. Not
only had she ruined her relationship with Kip, she had destroyed all respect
she had gained from her co-workers in L.A.
    She wondered how long it
would be before everything went back to the way it was before.
    The movie had put her up
in a hotel across town for the first few nights. Then claustrophobia set it.
Re-learning how to function in L.A was hard enough; with the constant noise and
flashing lights at her windows, April’s sleep was suffering. After only a week
in the hotel, she found a small cottage to rent on the outskirts of the city, on
farm land. She didn’t know how a one acre lot that bordered three others was
considered rural, but it was better than the dark hotel room.
    Her new home was small,
but functioning, with an open-concept kitchen/dining room and a spacious
en-suite bathroom. The only problem was the loneliness she felt whenever she
was there. She didn’t know more than a handful of people in this strange and
intimidating city, and most of them hated her.
    Entering the barn on the
lot was still her favorite part of the day, as the horses seemed to be happy to
see her in the mornings. She went from stall to stall, feeding them mints from
her pockets and scratching each one behind the ears. She purposefully steered
clear of Prime Time, as she didn’t want to give Violet even the smallest reason
to think she had interfered with the horse.
    He nickered softly as she
passed, remembering her scent as that of a friend, and she bit her lip. It was
difficult to ignore him, but she knew it must be done, if she had any chance of
keeping her job.
    “Good morning, Damian,”
April said, grabbing a mug from the shelf in the staff lounge and filling it
with coffee.
    “Morning,” Damian
replied. His face was somber, as usual.
    “What do you want me to
do today?” April wanted to get started, so she didn’t have to be around
Damian’s irritable attitude for long.
    “Lex needs a hand with
his escape scene. The horse is giving him problems.”
    “Benny is giving him
trouble?” Benny was one of the easiest going horses in the barn. Nothing seemed
to faze him.
    “No, he’s been on Trinity
for a week now. The little grey mare in stall sixteen.”
    Ah, April thought, the firecracker mare.
    “What happened to Benny?”
she asked.
    “Nothing. Campbell thinks
a lighter colored horse looks better with the dark clothes Lex wears.” Damian
looked at his watch. “Lex is coming in early. He’ll be here in ten minutes. If
I were you, I’d go tack up and be ready by the time he gets here.”
    “Is Violet…?”
    “She’ll be here at 2:00 pm,
as