Hot Coco by Cindy McDonald

the horses had provided. Coco’s firehouse calamity had followed him home, and it was burning a hole in his gut. Maybe he would have seen the humor in all this, maybe he would have laughed it off, if he had gotten to see her naked.
    He was lost in the mess, disgust, and less than satisfying dinner date when he noticed Shane with a cock-eyed grin on his face.
    Reading the less-than-dignified message on the woman’s nightshirt that Mike was wearing. Shane’s gleaming eyes met his. His grin transformed into an all-out toothy smile. “Whoa, Coco’s kinda kinky.”
    “Shut-up.”
    Chuckling, Shane followed his father and his sister from the barn to leave him to the task of cleaning up.
    Mike began to sweep the hay along the aisle when he noticed Charlatan stretching his neck under the gate of his stall and slapping his big lips together while trying to chomp a broken bale of hay that was just out of his reach.
    Mike tossed the broom aside. “You’ve had enough hay for one night, don’t you think?”
    He pushed the horse’s head back and kicked the hay aside when he realized that Charlatan was not stretching for the hay. Coco had left the bag of peppermints on the bale. When the horses broke it, the bag must have fallen behind it. The sweet peppermints were scattered amongst the hay.
    Mike picked up the bag.
    Charlatan’s ears perked. His eyes widened. Snorting at the sound of the crinkling bag, the horse stomped his feet.
    Mike’s right brow lifted. His eyes narrowed. Extending his palm with a peppermint, Charlatan gulped it in. He sucked in the flavor with such replete that it was almost like he was having a damned orgasm.
    Amazed at the Thoroughbred’s utter bliss, Mike blinked hard. He shoved a handful of peppermints into his jeans.
    The soot on his face and demeaning T-shirt stretched across his pecks were forgotten. The trashed barn was the furthest thing on his mind when he darted to the tack room and flipped on the light. He yanked an exercise saddle from among the many hanging on the tree, and grabbed a bridle from the tack rack. He hurried back to Charlatan’s stall.
    When he stepped inside the stall, Charlatan almost knocked him down while nuzzling his pocket hard in a feverish search for another peppermint treat. Mike was quick to oblige. While Charlatan was in his nirvanas mint trance, he tossed the saddle on the horse’s back and tightened the girth.
    Success. No fuss, no muss, and more importantly, no flipping. TLC. Maybe Coco was on to something, after all. Who would have guessed?
    He had to find out for sure.
    He shoved the bit in Charlatan’s mouth, led him from his stall, down the aisle, and out the barn door into the cloak of night.
    They walked along the winding path toward the training track. Seeping through the canopy of the trees overhead, the moonlight stalked them to illuminate the wide yawn of the track at the end of the trail.
    The grey gelding was a bulldozer of a horse with a wide chest, big round hips, and good stout legs. Mike was an easy six-foot-two and weighed about one-hundred-and-ninety pounds, but he felt confident that Charlatan could carry him for one moonlit test run.
    He tossed Charlatan another mint, which he caught in mid-air. No one would be around to pick his sorry ass up out of the dirt if the big gelding decided to flip-over, but his gut told him that that’s not how the moonlit experiment would end.
    Mike leapt into the saddle, pressed his feet into the irons, and urged Charlatan onto the track. The big horse snorted and his feet danced in the sand before he galloped into the moonbeams. His neck arched. Mike kept a tight gathered hold on the reins until he pushed his arms forward and let Charlatan have his run.
    Wahoo!

    Part Two
    Feel the Burn

    Six
    A ugust mornings provide a lovely prelude to autumn’s crisp, refreshing air in the Allegheny Mountain region.
    A breeze rustled Eric’s hair while he strolled through the shed rows after leaving the cafeteria with a