Tish Cohen's Blog (12)

UNBRIDLED Chapter 1: It's Gelden not Gelding and Chapter 2: Horses, Hounds, and Hearts

Chapter 1 GELDEN Hillary was watching me again. Leering. Oh, she’d never have let on. After all, how would it look? A married lady secretly besotted with the stablehand who sweeps up after her mare? After her husband’s stallion? Offering her my better side, my back side, I spun around and nudged the soiled hay further into the stall—even though I was meant to be pulling it out, piling it into the wheelbarrow and dumping it behind the barn. It would mean skipping my coffee break,… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:57pm — 2 Comments

UNBRIDLED Chapter 3: Horses, Hotels and Hair Loss and Chapter 4: Do I Look Like Tom Cruise?

Chapter 3 Maxim Wearing nothing but white t-shirt and boxers—burgundy silk festooned with paisley, tiny coiled-up commas tinged with acid green, like rancid shrimp—Maxim waggled his fingers at the brunette under the duvet, padded into the loo and headed straight for the mirror. He leaned over the white tiled counter and stared, a lazy smile creasing his face. It had been a good morning. Nah, a great morning. A two-hour private lesson with the fabled Icelandic coach, Gud Eggertso… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:53pm — No Comments

UNBRIDLED Chapter 5: A Hound's Nose Knows and Chapter 6:The Hunt Is On

Bounder If Bounder had thought for a minute, upon being born, that he’d would eventually be found by a lovesick stable girl who would serve his every meal on a disposable tray leftover from a Lean Cuisine meal, he might have crawled back up the birth canal and into his mother’s amniotic sac and hoped for better odds the next time he surfaced. To be served on refuse was undignified, to say the least. One step up from snacking from the dumpster behind the burger joint on Highway 40 with the fo… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:50pm — No Comments

UNBRIDLED Chapter 7: Husbands and Horses and Chapter 8: Jumper Rider Downed by Sniffle

Chapter 7 Maxim Ferns so fresh with spring they nearly glowed iridescent green line the narrow path. If one were to slow long enough to peek beneath the feathery tendrils, he or she would see the delicate white bells of Lily-of-the-Valley and the odd pink Trillium. Trodding through the hard-packed damp earth, Maxim’s rubber Wellie flattened a delicate threesome of crocuses. He paused, raised his hands to his face and thundered out a mighty sneeze. “Damn forest,” he said, pullin… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:47pm — No Comments

UNBRIDLED Chapter 9: Stable Mates and Chapter 10: UNBRIDLED Chapter 10: The German Trainer and his Cavaletti

Chapter 9 Pammie Being teamed up in the forest with Janine Van Fleet had been a disaster of mammoth proportions. Not only had Pammie been forced, as they searched the apple orchard, to listen to a ferocious diatribe about why Highgate Manor should stop using shavings for stall bedding—the coniferous pong brought out Janine’s Christmas tree allergy; but Janine had spun Pammie’s thoughts up into such a tangle that Pammie had actually agreed to change the horses’ turnout schedule s… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:44pm — No Comments

UNBRIDLED Chapter 12: A Dinner Date with Gelden and Chapter 13: Mr. Vladimir and the Missing Mare

Chapter 12 GELDEN On the Gelden family compound, when a sow forms an unhealthy attachment to a Black Angus, for instance, certain steps must be taken to discourage the eventual union. It isn't difficult to imagine that the resulting offspring would be at risk and it has always been my job to prevent such a physically unbalanced coupling. Diversionary tactics can--and do--include anything from rubbing the Angus's hocks in uncooked bacon to placing the amorous and misguided sow in… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:42pm — No Comments

UNBRIDLED - Chapter 14: Hair Loss and the Icelandic Groom and Chapter 15: The Irish Wolfhound and the Double Date

Chapter 14 MAXIM It hadn't been an easy week. Hillary locked him out of the bedroom Monday night and he'd been forced to drag a potato-colored paisley duvet down the long hall and sleep on the pull out sofa. If the bar that ran across the center had dug into his back the day he used the bed with the housekeeper, he couldn't remember. Then again, she had kept him rather...busy. By Friday, with the small of his back paining terribly, he had convinced Hillary that the brassiere bel… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:40pm — No Comments

UNBRIDLED Chapter 16: A Question of DNA and Chapter 17: Tesla Spotted

Chapter 16 Maxim Ritka sat across the table, silently tearing the label from her Pellegrino water and piling the tiny paper coils in a in front of Maxim's dinner plate. Nervous indulgences such as this annoyed him and he ached to swipe the debris onto the floor. Instincts prevented it. He wasn't quite sure what to expect from a twenty something Icelandic groom who claimed to be with child. Her hair fell over her face like limp noodles and her previously flirting eyes darted arou… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:36pm — No Comments

Unbridled – Chapter 18: The Brass Nameplate and Chapter 19: A Man Named Gelden

Chapter 18 Pammie His name is not Gelding or Golden, Pammie thought to herself as she traipsed through the forest trail picking up Bounder’s droppings so Maxim wouldn’t complain his “woods are soiled.” Besides, what kind of psychic had a blinking neon crystal ball in the window of his Monopoly house? And a parrot named Goob? Mr. Vladimir was clearly a scam artist, in spite of his predictions about Uncle Paul and the cleaning woman. She pushed aside the fronds of a Common Hors… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:33pm — No Comments

UNBRIDLED Chapter 20: Wolfhounds & Whippets and Chapter 21: Becoming Tom Cruise

Chapter 20: Bounder It was known to any dog who had ever trod and widdled upon the hallowed sod of Highgate Manor as "the love shack." An abandoned lair--perhaps once inhabited by those uncouth neanderthals humans referred to as wolves. It consisted of little more than a hole in the ground at the edge of a Bambi-esque thicket, but inside that hole--about one foot beneath the earth's surface-- was air so cool it was nearly liquid, and sumptuous bedding made of straw and fallen le… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:30pm — No Comments

UNBRIDLED Chapter 22: Mrs. Tom Cruise

The truck rattled and banged over the pockmarked road that led to the airport stables. It had been a tough winter, the endless pattern of freezing and thawing had left much of the area’s roadways battered and aged. Gelden had chosen not to tell Hillary about Tesla’s whereabouts. Not because he felt she didn’t have the right to know, she did. But if he were wrong, if the note had not been about Tesla, if Maxim’s cryptic T.E.S. had stood for something else entirely (take Echinacea supplements or… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:26pm — No Comments

UNBRIDLED – Chapter 23: Triplets and Redheads and Sentries, Oh My!

SPOILER ALERT!!: This is the final chapter of Unbridled. You can read the entire hay-covered series in the UNBRIDLED Channel on our home page. Hillary placed the phone in its cradle and turned to face Maxim. “Get out of my house,” she said after speaking to Ritka. Apparently Maxim had been having DNA tests. Apparently Maxim had been up to no good with an Icelandic groom. So much “no good” that the rather foul-mouthed Ritka was pregnant. “You bastard,” she said as he peeked out from behind his… Continue

Added by Tish Cohen on February 13, 2009 at 1:24pm — 2 Comments