Country Roads (44 page)

He kept coming, over a thousand pounds of muscle and bone she had no way to stop. She held out the puny bit of carrot, feeling like a lunatic. “You want a treat?”

He planted his front feet and skidded to a halt inches away from her outstretched hand. After blowing out a couple of loud
breaths, he lowered his head and delicately lipped the carrot off her palm.

As the adrenaline drained away, her knees nearly buckled under her. She wrapped her arms around his neck as much to hold herself up as to thank him. “I should have trusted you, shouldn’t I?” she crooned in his ear as he went through his usual exploration of her pockets. “You were just playing with me.”

Suddenly, tears were streaming down her cheeks and she buried her face in his neck, letting her weight fall against his chest and shoulder. He was so solid and warm; she felt as though his strength was being transferred to her own body, where it hummed with almost electric energy. She clung to him, soaking up the power and comfort of the huge creature.

“You let me know when you’re ready.” Sharon’s voice came from outside the fence, pitched low and calm so as not to disturb the stallion.

Julia surreptitiously dried her wet cheeks on Darkside’s coat. She unlocked her arms from him and walked around to look him in the eyes before she touched her forehead against his. “I need your help here, buddy. You have to give me the ride of my life today because I’m going to have a very important spectator. You do this for me, and I’ll be staying here to feed you carrots for the rest of your days.” She stepped back and took his head between her hands. “You got that?”

Darkside didn’t do anything as hokey as nodding his head, but she felt the understanding between them.

Between the two of them, the stallion was tacked up in record time. Sharon threw her up on his back and checked the girth and the stirrups twice. “I guess you’re good to go,” she said. “Remember what I told you about using your leg signals. And there’s no shame in grabbing a handful of mane if you need to.”

“I appreciate your letting me do this against your better judgment,” Julia said, sensing Sharon’s reluctance to let her go off on her own.

“Just take it slow.” The other woman gave Darkside a pat on the shoulder and walked back to the gate.

Julia closed her eyes for a moment, letting her weight settle deep into the saddle. Now all that power and muscle was beneath her, controlled by two slender strips of leather and the pressure of her legs. She opened her eyes and squeezed her knees lightly.

In an instant, they were in motion, the horse’s powerful strides eating up the ground as she guided him toward the rail. As he turned obediently onto the path that ran around the perimeter of the paddock, exhilaration fizzed through her veins.

She could ride.

After a couple of circuits, Sharon began calling out helpful suggestions from her perch on the paddock fence. Julia turned Darkside through figure eights and backed him up without any trouble.

“Someone trained that horse right before Earl got hold of him,” Sharon said. “You want to try a trot?”

“Don’t I have to practice posting first?” Julia knew she had to rise and fall with the horse’s gait. Her stepfather appeared to do it effortlessly, but she didn’t fool herself into thinking it was easy.

“Nah. It’ll come natural once he starts moving. Just let his motion push you up, then sit back down.”

Julia tightened the reins and gave Darkside another squeeze with her legs. Suddenly, she was bouncing all over his back, her teeth banging together with every step the horse took. His ears swiveled toward her as though asking what the heck was going on back there.

“Up. Down. Up. Down,” Sharon chanted in time with Darkside’s hoofbeats.

Julia flexed and released her knees, trying to keep up with her instructor’s voice, and then it happened. She found the rhythm. “I’m doing it. I’m posting!”

They trotted around the paddock twice before Sharon told her to drop to a walk. “Otherwise your muscles will start screaming.”

Julia signaled Darkside to slow down and leaned forward to pat him on the shoulder as they approached Sharon. “I never thought I’d be able to trot on a horse.” She nearly bit her tongue as she realized what she’d said. Luckily Sharon didn’t read anything more into it than a beginner’s nervousness.

“That horse has a trot smooth as satin,” Sharon said. “Course it took all I had to keep him from turning it into a flat-out run when I rode him. For you, he’s acting like a school pony.” Julia couldn’t help the proud tilt of her chin. She was riding a horse who gave trouble to a gold-medal equestrian.

As she left Sharon behind, Julia relaxed into the now-familiar motion of Darkside’s athletic stride. She couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to experience the surge and power of those muscles at a full gallop. He was a racehorse, after all, bred for the thrill of competition. He must miss it. She patted him again. “You’re going to have to wait awhile for that, buddy.”

They came around the corner of the path to head back toward Sharon’s perch, and Julia glanced up to find another figure beside her, one whose tall, lean silhouette she recognized instantly. Her breath caught in her throat and she stiffened, making Darkside pick up his pace. “Easy, boy,” she said absently.

In her excitement about trotting, she’d forgotten the real purpose of this riding lesson. She tried to slow down Darkside to give herself time to think, but the big horse wasn’t amenable to shortening his stride. Giving up on that, she scanned the man standing beside Sharon, trying to read his mood from his posture before she could see his face.

He was wearing a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, pale-gray slacks, and black loafers, so it looked like he’d come straight from the office. He stood outside the fence, his forearms crossed on the top rail, while one toe was slotted between two lower rails. He seemed to be looking directly at her, so she straightened her back, tucked in her elbows, and pushed down her heels. Not that she thought Paul cared about her form on horseback. His concern had always been for her safety.

As she got closer, he turned his head to say something to Sharon, but she couldn’t distinguish the words above the thud of hooves and creak of saddle leather. The deep timbre of his voice sent a shudder of awareness through her. Sharon replied, and Paul turned back to watch her approach.

She pulled Darkside to a halt in front of her audience. “Thanks for coming, Paul,” she said, her voice squeaking slightly. She cleared her throat. “I wanted you to see how well Darkside and I are getting along.”

His silver gaze was shuttered, giving away nothing. “You and he look good together.” A flicker of hope warmed her before Paul continued. “Maybe you can talk Sharon into selling him, so you can take him home with you.”

She flinched and her reaction set Darkside sidling sideways. Somehow she focused her attention on the horse enough to bring him to a stop again. It gave her time to absorb the very deliberate blow Paul had dealt her.

Maybe he was angry because she’d dragged him out to the stables without an explanation. Or because she was on Darkside’s back. Or both. But it was unlike him to lash out. Even Sharon was eyeing him with surprise.

“I don’t think Sharon wants to give him up.” The prospect of losing both Paul and her whisper horse was what had kept her awake and painting the night before. She decided to give herself time to think. “I just learned to post.”

Signaling Darkside to move, she urged him into a trot and began posting. Sharon called out something about diagonals, but Julia was too lost in the misery of Paul’s comment to pay attention.

Why had she thought it was a good idea to force him to watch her ride a horse he thought was dangerous?

Sharon’s words about Darkside behaving like a school pony for her drifted into her memory. A spine-steeling rush of confidence snapped her out of her funk. Even if it made him mad, Paul needed to see her in control of something powerful, something risky. She needed him to see her that way.

Out of nowhere, a deer sailed gracefully over the fence and landed in the paddock. Darkside shied hard right, and Julia pitched out of the saddle to the left, her back scraping against the fence before she walloped into the ground, knocking the air out of her with an “oof.” She lay staring up at the sky, trying to suck oxygen into her deprived lungs. A string of curses and the pounding of hooves sounded distantly in her ears before Paul’s face appeared in her vision.

“Julia! Julia, are you all right? Can you see me? What hurts?”

She felt the frantic but featherlight brush of his fingers down her body as she opened and closed her mouth like a beached fish. No words came out, just a few ragged gasps.

“Jesus!” He fumbled in his back pocket. “I’m calling nine-one-one.”

She rolled her head from side to side, trying to stop him. “I…I’m…” she gasped again, “fine…no…air…”

He ignored her as he pushed the buttons on his cell phone and held it to his ear. After a few seconds, he pulled it away and looked down at it with a scowl. “Goddamn it, there’s no reception here.” He turned his head and shouted, “Sharon, can you get someone to call an ambulance from your office?”

The spasm in her diaphragm eased and she managed to draw a shallow breath. “Don’t call. Just got the wind knocked out of
me.” She wasn’t actually sure of that, since her focus had been on breathing and preventing his phone call. Now she tried to test her arms and legs with subtle movements so he wouldn’t notice. Much to her relief, no sharp jabs of pain resulted from her efforts. She struggled up onto her elbows.

“Don’t move,” he snapped. “You might be injured and not realize it.” His voice was rough but he cradled her head and shoulders gently, easing her back onto the ground.

She stayed down but grabbed his wrist and shook it. “No ambulance. I’m not hurt. Don’t embarrass me.”

“Embarrassing you is the least of my concerns,” he said.

Sharon’s face appeared opposite Paul’s. “Where does it hurt, hon?”

“In my pride,” Julia said, her voice still wispy.

The worry left Sharon’s eyes as she sat back on her heels. “You’ve got grit.”

“But no sense,” Paul said. “I want you to move one limb at a time. Slowly and carefully.”

Deciding she’d offered him enough provocation already, Julia obeyed. Satisfied, he slid his arm under her shoulders and helped her sit up, removing her riding helmet and probing her scalp for lumps.

“I shouldn’t have worried about your skull because it’s so damned thick,” he muttered.

A giggle escaped her, and she heard Sharon choke. No answering smile lightened Paul’s stormy expression as he pushed off the ground and rose to tower over her. “I have to go. Sharon, I’m counting on you to make sure she has no lasting damage.”

With that he turned and walked away, his gait stiff and angry.

“Guess that backfired,” Julia said, clasping the hand Sharon offered her and standing up.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Sharon watched Paul slam the gate shut, making Darkside dance away and yank at the reins tying him to the fence. “You got a pretty strong reaction out of him.”

“Yeah.” Julia sighed. “But it was the wrong one. He’s right back to thinking I don’t know what’s good for me.”

“Maybe he says that, but it’s not what he’s thinking.”

Julia gingerly explored the sore spots in her back. “What do you mean?”

“He couldn’t take his eyes off you while you rode Darkside. It was like you were some kind of goddess, come down from Mount Olympus. That’s how he looked at you.”

Julia smiled sadly as she remembered Paul calling her a wood sprite. “Then I went and fell off my pedestal.”

Her ploy had been a mistake right from the beginning. Instead of seeing her as strong and independent, Paul saw her as foolhardy and willful. Riding Darkside worked with Carlos because he didn’t know the horse’s history. Paul understood the size of the risk she was taking. Which should make him realize she was willing to take the risk of loving him. He accused her of having a thick skull, but his stubbornness equaled hers and then some.

Julia picked up her helmet and fitted it back on her head. “There’s one thing I know about falling off a horse.”

“What’s that?”

“You have to get right back on.”

Paul wrenched the wheel of the Corvette hard right, sending the car skidding onto the gravel shoulder. He shoved the gearshift into park and bolted out of the car. It was close but he reached the weedy verge before he bent over and threw up.

“Goddamned fish sandwich,” he muttered, his hands braced on his knees as he waited for the surge of nausea to subside.

But that wasn’t the culprit. It was terror, pure and simple. The terror of watching the huge black stallion toss Julia against the
fence like a rag doll before he tore off around the field bucking and kicking, the metal shoes on his hooves flashing in the sun. All Paul could think of as he raced across the paddock toward Julia’s motionless body was Darkside’s previous owner in a wheelchair.

He heaved again, although nothing came up.

If he thought about it rationally, he knew Darkside had behaved like any normal horse when startled. The stallion had jerked sideways, and Julia, being an inexperienced rider, hadn’t been prepared. She had simply fallen off and the fence had been in the way.