Sitting tall in her saddle, Zoe Martin cast a restless gaze over the surrounding terrain. She hadn't been in these parts for years, not since her early teens when she'd frequently gone riding with her older sister in the semi-forested terrain beyond the family ranch. She was surprised at how much things had apparently changed, and it didn't that she'd ridden off in a great hurry, desperate to clear her mind of the immense frustration that her father had again refused to pay for the upcoming and much-anticipated round-the-world trip she had keenly planned with a group of close friends. The father had strongly disagreed with her decision to put off college for a leisurely sabbatical, and had been increasingly unwilling to sponsor the comfortable, some would say luxurious, lifestyle that Zoe had come to take for granted. When one of many rows on the matter had yet again descended into shouting, she had left in a huff, found her riding gear and, without another word, set off into the brush on a brown mare taken from the stables.
And now, after a good half hour of angered and absent-minded riding, Zoe was lost. She cursed under her breath. She had ridden off to calm herself, but in truth she was still seethingly angry at her father. A successful businessman and congressman running for re-election, the money she needed for the trip was nothing to him, and she loathed the fact that he used her legitimate needs to punish her when she'd gone against his wishes. Not only rich but a fiercely independent young woman, Zoe did not like being under anyone's control, yet she was far too intelligent to be able to ignore her apparent dependency on the family patriarch. And so she sat on her animal, deep in the woods, frustrated and lost. The mare stirred suddenly under her, prompting Zoe to yank angrily at the reins.
"Where do you think you're going?" she demanded venomously of the horse.
Again surveying the trees to her left side, and the long brush-covered hill that extended away in a curve on her right, she decided to follow the latter, hoping it would lead her to more familiar ground. Kicking her heels into the horse's sides, she urged it up along the hilltop, and when she found it was possible to ride along the height for some distance, she picked up speed. Zoe liked riding fast, and if she was going the wrong way, she'd rather find out sooner than later. The hilltop curved to the left, its path winding between young trees and green bushes, and Zoe pressed on, nearly at a gallop, until suddenly the path was no more. The hill had come to a sudden end, prompting Zoe to pull desperately at the reins, but she'd gone much too fast, and it was too late to stop. Going over the hilltop, the horse neighed loudly as it crashed down a steep slope and then suddenly over a fence that had come out of nowhere. Rattled, it was all Zoe could do to hang on, but as the horse came to a sudden halt she eventually lost hold, slid out of the saddle, and with a thud and a grunt, found herself on the ground all the same.
Bruised, with the wind thoroughly knocked out of her, Zoe remained on the forest floor for a moment, before pushing herself up from the young tree plant she had crushed when the horse threw her. Furious, she threw herself at the horse, screaming in its face.
"You fucking beast! You nearly killed me!"
Shocked and scared, realizing full well that on a less lucky day she might have ended up seriously hurt, the teenager was livid. She snatched up the riding crop she'd kept strapped to the saddle. With an indistinct shout of blind anger, she hit it hard across the animal's side, first once, then again. The horse whinnied and tried to pull away, but Zoe took hold of the reins with her left hand as she again raised the other to strike the beast once more, only to find the riding crop yanked suddenly out of her hand from behind.
"What the fuck are you doing?" she screamed, turning around to face the broad, bulky man she'd had no idea was there until he'd snatched away her whip. "I should ask you that, miss," the man, perhaps twice her age, snapped back. "I saw you come thundering along the hilltop like a fool. You clearly rode far beyond your ability to handle the horse. You're at fault, not the animal, and you're a coward for shifting the blame."
Zoe stared in disbelief at the man, whose age she'd put between forty and fifty. He wasn't very tall, around her own height, with short, brown hair and blue eyes, chin and cheeks covered with several days worth of stubble. And he'd dared reproach her! No one talked to Zoe like that, not even her father.
"Listen you prick, when I want the opinion of a filthy redneck, I will ask for it," she snarled at the man, eyes dripping with contempt. "Now give me my crop, and go crawl back into whatever hovel you came from!"
The man's eyes flared up in return at the insults.
"You need a lesson in manners, girl," he replied, spitting out the final word. "Not to mention in reading a map. You've been trespassing on my property for the past ten minutes, and now you've also ruined my fence and several newly planted trees. Yet you stand here spouting off, like you own the world. Well, you don't own anything here! You're nothing but a stupid, spoiled brat."
Zoe had a short temper at the best of times, but few things made her so furious as being called spoiled. Rattled by her accident with the horse, she found herself now entirely unable to control herself, and without conscious thought she sent the palm of her hand flying across the man's cheek with a loud clap. For a brief second, the man only stared at her, clutching his face where he'd been struck. Then, he grabbed the young woman's wrist and yanked her violently towards him.
