Summer Games (17 page)

Even as she told herself that she was wrong, there wasn’t enough light to identify a man she had seen only twice, she knew it was Cord. Nobody else moved with that combination of strength and male grace. With rising anger she waited for him to walk up to her.

He didn’t even look her way.

Relieved, disappointed, and thoroughly irritated, she stalked to Dev’s stall. She didn’t understand the warring impulses in herself. Her mind was certain that Cord was the wrong man for her. Her instincts were just as certain that he was the right one.

The day went downhill from the instant she spotted Cord. Dev was on a hair trigger and stubborn as a concrete slab. More than once she felt like screaming at the big stallion. She didn’t. She simply settled deeper into the slim little English saddle and rode him for all she was worth.

It didn’t help that Cord was never more than a hundred feet away. Whether she was alone or with another member of the team, listening to instructions from Captain Jon or leading Dev lazily through the linked yards, Cord was nearby. Always. If she went to one of the practice rings, he was already there. Watching her. If she went to the stables, so did he. If she went to the restroom, he did everything but hand her toilet paper.

But not once did he talk to her. He simply circulated through the area like a rumor, always present and impossible to pin down.

By late afternoon her nerves were frayed and she was furious. One moment she was leading a freshly groomed Dev down the stable row. The next instant she vaulted on and rode the stallion bareback right up to Cord. He didn’t turn around at the sound of hoofbeats. It was as though he hadn’t even noticed her.

“Who do you think you’re kidding?” she began hotly. “You’ve been following . . .”

Her voice died when he turned and looked at her. That was all. Just a look. His eyes were pale, impersonal.

“May I help you, Miss Chandler-Smith?”

She tried to speak. Nothing came out, not even a dry rasp. Cord couldn’t have been more distant from her if he had been on the far side of winter.

And that was how he looked. Cold.

After a moment he nodded politely and went back to watching the activity around the stable yard. His assessing eyes missed nothing, not even the smallest shift of wind-ruffled pepper trees.

He didn’t look toward Raine again. There wasn’t any point. No matter how long he had stared at the alien coin that morning, he hadn’t found a way to follow both his desire and his duty. After Barracuda was caught, it would be different. Then Cord would be free. If he survived. Until then, Raine was the queen and he was the soldier hired to protect her.

Period.

Motionless, Raine sat on Dev, unable to believe that Cord had looked at her with such utter lack of feeling, then turned away as though she didn’t exist at all. She should do the same. Turn away. Now.

But she couldn’t.

When he had spoken his brief, polite greeting to her, she saw the flash of white teeth and the sensual gleam of tongue. Suddenly it was the night before, when he gave her a guided tour of the universe and offered her the dazzling lure of real passion. The clean, masculine lines of his mouth brought back memories of being kissed until there was nothing in her universe but him.

She felt again the sensual vise of his teeth holding her lower lip while his tongue teased and soothed, incited and pleasured. Then came searing memories of being held by the man who was so close to her now, the man who was ignoring her as though his hands had never explored her naked breasts, as though he had never dragged her over his aroused flesh, making her moan with sheer desire.

When Cord shifted position to watch a different part of the yard, the flex and play of muscles beneath his faded work shirt drew her eyes. She wanted to bend down and bury her fingers in his thick black hair, to touch him again, to run her hands over his hard body until she was so close to him that she could feel him groan with pleasure and hunger. Then she wanted to peel away his shirt, his jeans, her own clothes, everything that stood between her and the feel of Cord’s silk and steel body.

Heat and a heady kind of weakness coursed through her. Suddenly she understood why people gave in to competition madness. Anything would be better than the violent, twisting need inside her when she looked at him.

She took a slow breath and tried to bring herself under control. Coming this close to him again had been a mistake. A big one. She wasn’t sophisticated enough to play the kiss-and-forget game. Being dismissed by him the morning after a simple necking session made her feel young and stupid, hot and cold, furious and sad enough to wail.

How much worse it would be if they had been lovers.

The breeze stirred, dust glittered, bees rocketed from flower to flower. And Raine watched Cord helplessly, caught in the coils of a kind of passion she hadn’t even known was possible.

Without warning he turned back to her. His pupils dilated when he saw the hunger in her wide, haunted eyes and soft mouth. Sexual heat poured through him, hardening him in a single savage instant. His uncontrollable response made him furious.

“I’m still wearing a gun.”

His words were a whip of ice cutting across Raine’s hot, unguarded emotions. She wheeled Dev and set off with a speed that sent dirt spattering over Cord’s feet.

But she couldn’t leave the truth behind.

You’re surrounded by well-trained lapdogs. You have been since you were old enough to have a period. But not one of those polite, soothing men has touched the fire inside you.

Cord had.

And he was the wrong man.

Raine tested Dev’s cinch, checked her watch, and led the stallion to the mounting block. The U.S. team’s turn in the practice jumping ring would begin in half an hour. Time in the various rings was carefully divided among the competing countries. She didn’t want to waste a minute by being late. By the stroke of nine, she should have Dev warmed up and ready for the jumps.

While she settled into the smooth, nearly flat English saddle, she took a quick, furtive look around the yard. Cord was there, leaning against one of the green stable walls, watching everyone who came and went among the tree-shaded rows of stalls. Though he never spoke to her after that one time, for the past several days he had been nearby whenever she moved from stall to practice ring, parking lot to stable, or wherever else her mood or duties took her.

Hastily she looked away from him. She didn’t want to be caught watching him. She didn’t want to feel the slicing, irrational pain that came each time he treated her like he had never held her, never kissed her, never tasted her hunger.

He didn’t want her.

She shouldn’t want him.

I’m still wearing a gun.

The words had echoed in her head for days, warning her, haunting her. She couldn’t forget Cord’s sensuality, her own unexpected response, the heady spiral of passion wrapping around them in a kind of kiss she hadn’t even dreamed existed. But worse than that, worse than the passion and the pain, was the terrible feeling that she had stumbled over the other half of herself.

And then she had thrown it away.

Competition madness, she told herself bleakly. That’s all. Just competition madness.

She wanted to believe it. Needed to. Even more, she needed to look over her shoulder and catch Cord watching her right now. She was certain he was. She felt his attention as surely as she felt the heat rising out of the stable yard.

Yet she knew that no matter how suddenly she turned, she wouldn’t catch him looking at her.

He’s too quick. Too damned quick. I’m always off balance with him, always searching for a center point that keeps sliding away, out of my reach. Like him.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to shake the uncanny feeling of always being the center of his focus, a permanent reflection in his ice-blue eyes. If he wanted her, he would approach her.

He hadn’t.

Yet still she looked for him, sensed him, remembered the heat and hunger of his kiss.

“It’s just competition madness, you little fool,” she muttered to herself. “Get over it.”

Dev’s left ear flicked back, then forward.

“Competition madness,” she said firmly.

She repeated those two words all the way to the jump ring. It was her own private litany designed to exorcise the man who wore a gun and spoke with a shaman’s midnight-and-silver voice.

As Dev strode forward, bees in the potted flowers along the paths and fences hummed in counterpoint to Raine’s whispered words. Competition madness. The stallion’s ears flicked occasionally as he registered the erratic flight of insects or a shift in the tone of his rider’s voice.

She took off her riding helmet, wiped her forehead, and replaced the hard hat, checking that the chin strap was secure. Today her hair was ruthlessly jammed beneath the tough plastic hat. Only a few wisps had escaped to tickle her hot cheeks.

It was barely eight-thirty A.M., but the temperature was almost eighty degrees. The rising heat of the day was reflected back on Santa Anita by acres of blacktop parking lots and the massive, stony rise of the San Gabriel Mountains just beyond the track. Despite constant attention from water trucks, the grounds were dry. Dust hung in the air, bright gold in the morning sun.

She held Dev’s reins loosely, letting the stallion pick his own pace. He shambled along with deceptive laziness, as calm as a rental nag. He barely flicked his ears at the background noise of voices calling and horses whinnying across the parallel stable yards. Men came and went around them, hauling in feed and hauling out yesterday’s straw. Laughter and jokes and stablegirls giggling around the tack house hid the fierce tension that coiled just beneath the serenity.

Competition madness reigned.

Dev had been at Santa Anita long enough for the background noises to become familiar. And the climate. The dry heat barely raised a sheen of sweat beneath his gleaming leather tack.

Raine noted the stallion’s calm acceptance of his surroundings and smiled with satisfaction. It had been worth coming out to California early so that Dev could get accustomed to Santa Anita before the Summer Games began. Some of the other horses she saw being led around were still snorting and shying at shadows, anxious in the midst of unfamiliar scents and sounds.

As she approached the practice rings, she collected Dev beneath her, tightening her contact with him until he was up on the bit and looking around alertly. Though he had never showed a tendency to be combative with other horses, Devlin’s Waterloo was nonetheless a stallion. When he was close to the other animals, Raine was never careless.

“First one, as usual,” Captain Jon said, walking slowly toward the stallion.

Dev’s ears came fully forward. He watched the man with dark, somewhat wary eyes.

“Never let up, do you, old boy?” murmured the captain. His hand came up slowly, firmly. He gripped the reins just below the bit.

Dev snorted, then stood quietly.

“Nothing fancy today,” Captain Jon said, looking up at Raine. “Give him fifteen minutes of light dressage. Concentrate on the counter-canter for the last five. If he’s not behaving, keep after it. I’ll start Mason in the other ring and leave you here if Dev isn’t working well.”

She didn’t object, even though she knew it would be more of a workout for her than the stallion. Dev didn’t like the counter-canter, but it was a necessary skill for dressage, endurance, and show jumping. He had to be ready to switch leads instantly on his rider’s cue. In the show ring it made for pretty jumping. On the endurance course, it could be the difference between a clean jump and a dangerous crash.

“I’m not setting up any jumps higher than a meter in the ring,” the captain continued. “Watch that triple combination. I’ve placed it so that you have a full stride, a half stride, then four and a half strides.”

She sighed. Diabolical, as usual. A jump approach of four and a half strides was just long enough to allow you to lose control of the horse, particularly if you were on an animal that liked rushing fences. Fortunately, Dev usually didn’t.

But today might not be usual. She was on edge. He was humming with health. Beneath his shambling act lurked a great, powerful stallion eager to fly over miles of hills and rivers and tricky jumps. In six days he would get to do just that. Until then she would have to stay deep in the saddle and firm on the reins or he would be scattering bars from show jumps like straws in the wind.

With an expressionless face and sure hands, she rode Dev into the first practice ring. Other horses worked around the big ring, polishing whatever skills needed attention. Some practiced the absolutely immobile standing required by dressage. Others practiced changing leads at all paces. Still others flowed across the ring in the elegant diagonals of dressage.

Keeping to the outer circumference of the ring, Raine positioned Dev to begin the workout. Unlike most riders, she rode without a whip of any kind. Dev wouldn’t tolerate one. Whatever displeasure she felt with her mount’s performance would be expressed with her heels and voice.

She worked quietly, talking to Dev through lips that didn’t move, using a voice that went no further than the stallion’s sensitive ears. He worked willingly for her. Too willingly. The least shift of her weight was greeted with an eager bunching of muscles that fairly screamed the horse’s desire for fifteen miles of violent exercise.

Dev had been carefully, thoroughly trained for galloping over rough country and rougher obstacles. He loved it with a fervor that made him a great event horse. It also made him temperamentally unsuited for the mincing niceties of dressage.

“Listen to me, you great red ox,” Raine muttered through clenched teeth as Dev tugged hard on the bit and danced sideways. “You’ll get all the run you want in a few days. Until then, settle down.”

Gradually the stallion accepted his rider’s unyielding demand for a restrained walk, trot, extended trot, and all the rest of the highly controlled dressage movements. The counter-canter was different. He flatly refused Raine’s first instruction. After a brief, almost invisible struggle between rider and mount, Dev gave in. At least the counter-canter’s pace was more to his liking, though still far too slow.