Summer Games (28 page)

Unable to get enough oxygen to meet the demands of a headlong gallop, the stallion was forced to slow down. He fought it. His neck arched in a rigid bow. His hindquarters stiffened with resentment. His gallop became choppy, brutally hard on his rider.

Cord kept pulling on the lead rope. As he did, he wondered what would happen when Dev calmed down enough to figure out that it wasn’t Raine on his back.

He found out a few seconds later. The stallion screamed once, raw fear and fury, and then he came apart. His black nose plunged down between his front legs. He bucked and twisted and swapped ends, trying with all his huge strength to shake off the hated weight of a man.

Cord’s legs locked down like thick steel bands. He hauled back on the lead rope, trying to bring Dev’s head up so that the stallion couldn’t put his full strength into bucking. Dev didn’t seem to notice. He just kept trying to turn inside out.

Raine and Thorne came running around the stable row and stopped as though they had slammed into a wall. Both of them realized the same thing at the same time: there was nothing they could do but stay out of the way.

Shirtless, barefoot, Cord rode the screaming blood-bay whirlwind. The man’s muscles bunched and shifted and gleamed in the bright moonlight. So did the stallion’s. They were two powerful, supremely conditioned males fighting for dominance.

For the space of several breaths Raine stood motionless, barely breathing, riveted by the primitive battle in front of her. Finally she took a deep gulping breath and prayed that somehow, some way, neither man nor horse would be hurt.

Inch by straining inch Cord dragged up the stallion’s head. His arms knotted with the effort of the fight, but his body remained supple. A nearly still center in the raging equine storm, he balanced against of the stallion’s wrenching, twisting bucks with deceptive ease. And slowly, relentlessly, he forced Dev’s head up. The stallion’s neck became an arch of arrogant rebellion that made each muscle and vein stand out. The horse lashed out futilely with his heels, shredding shadows and moonlight, screaming in frustration.

Elbows tight against his sides, Cord held the lead rope in both hands and pulled until Dev’s nose was nearly at his boot. All the stallion could do to vent his fury was to spin in tight little circles.

Then Cord began to talk to Dev, his shaman’s voice filling the darkness, a murmurous warm river of sound curling around the horse, washing away fear. Gradually Dev’s circles became fewer and less frantic, his body less bunched with fear, his ears less flat against his skull.

Finally the stallion stopped, stood, and snorted. His blood-red hide rippled uneasily. He made a last stiff-legged circle before he paused and sniffed his rider’s leg. Nostrils flared as widely as the special halter allowed, Dev drank Cord’s scent.

He murmured and stroked the stallion’s neck with a gentle hand. “That’s it. Go ahead and smell me. You know me, Dev. I’ve been grooming you for five days, and for five nights your mistress has slept in my arms. I smell like Raine and like me and a little like you after that wild ride you put me through. See? I smell just like the three of us. Nothing to be afraid of, you blood-bay idiot. Just me.”

The voice continued, dark velvet reassurance, words and nonsense, praising and petting. Slowly, slowly, Cord eased the pressure on the lead rope, giving Dev back his freedom an inch at a time.

The stallion pranced and snorted, his ears swiveling every which way in their own nervous release. The man’s arms gave a few more inches, allowing Dev to release the tension of a neck bowed too tightly. The horse stretched gratefully.

After a few moments a black muzzle came back to sniff Cord’s foot tentatively. Nostrils flared widely, fluttered, and blew out a warm stream of air, only to flare again, drinking the mixed scent of Cord and Raine and dust from the stable yard.

The shaman’s voice continued to cast its spell, winding around Dev like a gossamer net, holding him in thrall. The stallion snorted hugely and moved jerkily. He was uneasy with his strange burden, but no longer wild with fear and rage. There was a man on his back, yet no whips or spurs or savage bits cut into tender flesh. There was only a hand stroking his neck and a shaman’s voice flowing caressingly around him.

When Cord gathered the lead rope and turned Dev toward Raine, the stallion’s ears came up. As though walking on eggs, he minced diagonally toward her, dancing through moonlight to the rippling music of a shaman’s voice.

She walked forward a few steps, then stood motionless, entranced by the sight of a shaman riding bareback on a dancing stallion. Moments later Dev’s black velvet muzzle searched lightly over her face, drinking her scent. Automatically her hand came up in a familiar caress, rubbing Dev’s ears.

But her eyes were only for the man who rode her dangerous stallion. She touched Cord’s leg as though she couldn’t quite believe he was real.

Only then did she admit to herself how terrified she had been that her lover would be killed by Dev’s unruly rage. With a shuddering sigh she put her cheek against Cord’s thigh. Dev lipped at Raine’s hair and minced sideways, trying to see her.

Cord’s hand tightened on the rope, stilling the horse’s restive movements.

“Come up here with me,” he said. His voice was still low and reassuring, still velvet magic. He held out his left hand and locked his left foot into a rigid platform for her to use to mount. “When you’re barefoot around this blood-bay lummox, the best place for your toes to be is out of reach.”

Raine took Cord’s hand and used his foot like a stirrup. He swung her easily into place behind him. Dev pranced a little at the strange weight, but settled down quickly when he smelled Raine’s familiar scent and heard her voice floating down from his back. He snorted, flicked his ears, and danced in place, waiting for a command from his riders.

With a rush of emotion that was too complex to sort out, Raine put her arms around Cord’s waist and pressed her lips against his naked back. Even sitting behind him, holding him, she couldn’t believe that Cord had ridden Dev, was riding him now. And both man and horse were alive, unhurt, radiating the heat of their brief battle into her.

Startled by the sound of the walkie-talkie that Thorne carried, Dev shied suddenly. Both she and Cord kept their seat as though they were a part of the stallion. A brief mutter of voices came from the walkie-talkie.

Thorne listened, then called out to Cord in a calm, low voice. “It was a smoke bomb. Some bastard’s idea of a giggle. He’s probably out there somewhere, busting a gut laughing.”

The steel buried in Thorne’s voice told anyone who was listening that he would enjoy getting his hands on the man who had set off the smoke bomb, then called in a bomb threat just to watch the fun that followed.

“We’ll keep Dev out here until all the stables are checked and everyone is out of the yard,” Cord said. “I don’t want anything to spook him again.”

“Did you see Captain Jon?” Raine asked. “Is he all right?”

“My hands are sore,” Captain Jon said, walking up behind Thorne, “but otherwise I’m intact.”

“You should have waited for me,” she said bluntly. “Dev could have killed you.”

“I didn’t know if Cord would let you come to the stable.” Captain Jon’s voice was matter-of-fact. “It would be a fine snare, you running in all upset and all of us dashing around turning loose horses. Then the smoke started. I assumed that fire wasn’t far behind. I decided it was better to try to lead Dev out than to leave him in his stall to roast like a Christmas goose.”

Raine didn’t say a word. She was still absorbing the fact that Captain Jon knew she was a target and Cord was her keeper. She started to ask how long the captain had known. Before she could frame the question, he was talking again, walking toward them slowly.

“Bloody amazing,” Captain Jon said, looking at Cord sitting easily on Dev’s back. “Bloody, bloody amazing.”

Dev shied and turned effortlessly, making sure that he always faced the captain. The stallion’s riders stuck with him like his own red hide.

“I used to ride a lot,” Cord offered dryly.

Captain Jon said something beneath his breath.

“Bloody rodeo king” was all that Raine caught. She laughed softly, remembering what Cord had told her about his childhood.

“I shipped out before I won the silver buckle for bareback bronc riding,” he admitted, smiling slightly. “The old reflexes are still there, but I’m going to be stiff and whining like a pup tomorrow.”

Captain Jon laughed shortly, shook his head, and strode back to the stables. He would be lucky to sleep again tonight. There were too many things to check before the equestrian team went into the dressage ring tomorrow.

Wind breathed softly over the stables. The last of the smoke thinned and lifted into the starry sky. With a long sigh, Raine stirred enough to loosen her arms from their tight grip around Cord’s body. But she didn’t let go of him. She couldn’t. She kept thinking about what would have happened if he hadn’t been strong enough, skilled enough, and patient enough to ride out her horse’s panic.

“We should walk Dev to make sure he doesn’t stiffen up,” she said. “He has to be supple for the dressage test tomorrow.”

Her voice broke as the realization hit her. The culmination of a lifetime effort was thundering toward her like a runaway horse.

Within twelve hours, she would be riding in the Olympics.

Unconsciously her arms tightened around Cord. Tension swept over her like another kind of night. She didn’t know if she was ready, if she was good enough, if—

Dev shied at nothing, distracting her.

“Think about something besides tomorrow,” Cord murmured to Raine. “Dev reads you real well.”

Her curt laugh said a lot about the tension coiling inside her. She pressed her cheek against Cord’s naked back and tried to think about something else besides the Olympics. Anything else. The moment that Cord would slide into bed, into her arms, into her, seemed like a good start.

Cord’s head turned toward Thorne, who had stepped back until he was little more than a tall shadow beneath the eaves of a nearby stable. “We’re going to walk Dev around the yard.”

“Yes suh.”

That was all either man said, but Raine knew that Thorne would follow them, a shadow watching shadows for movement that shouldn’t be there.

Cord turned Dev toward a deserted part of the stable yard. The path he chose avoided the men and horses who were returning to the area they had so recently abandoned. There was no point in testing Dev’s good nature by mixing with horses that were still neighing and kicking and shying nervously.

“Do you think that the smoke bomb was more than a sick prank?” she asked after a few minutes.

“It could have been, but I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Too dicey with so many people running around. If someone just wanted to kill you, the smoke bomb might have worked. But what they really want is to use you to get to your father. For that, you have to be alive.”

She flinched at the blunt assessment but didn’t argue the point. “What about the rest of my family?”

“They’re well guarded against kidnapping.”

What he didn’t say, what he had no intention of saying, was that there was no foolproof way to guard against assassination. Anybody could be killed, as long as the assassin didn’t mind dying, too.

So far, Barracuda had been more interested in surviving to strut on the international stage than in dying a martyr to a blood-drenched cause. Barracuda had had a long, violent run as a terrorist.

But it would be over. Soon.

In the quiet hours while Raine had slept in his arms, Cord had planned how he would fish Barracuda out of troubled international waters. It would be his parting gift to Justin Chandler-Smith. Blue was one of the few men on earth Cord truly respected.

It would also be Cord’s gift from the cold violence of the past to a newer, warmer future. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, watching for a nameless man who was narrow between the eyes.

Watching for the assassin who would kill Cord’s wife, his children, his soul.

“Don’t worry about your family,” he said quietly, bringing one of Raine’s hand up from his waist to his lips. “I’ll take care of it.”

“How?” she whispered.

He didn’t answer.

She didn’t ask again.

Together they rode Dev until he was cool and calm, ears pricked alertly, nostrils sniffing the night air. All the other horses were back in their stalls. Except for a few curious people—the ones who couldn’t believe that a man had ridden Devlin’s Waterloo bareback and lived to tell about it—Cord hadn’t seen anyone in half an hour. He knew Kentucky was still out there, watching, but he was invisible. Cord smiled in cool satisfaction. Kentucky was a good man. One of the best.

With a growing feeling of contentment, Cord absorbed the feel of a fine horse between his knees and Raine’s soft, trusting weight lying warmly against his back.

“Back to the stall,” she said finally, reluctantly stirring against him.

“Afraid that carrying my weight will wear him out?”

She snickered. “He could carry two of you for five miles at a hard run.”

“I like this better. Slow and lazy.” But he could feel the tension returning to her. “Back to the stables it is.”

The soft sound of hoofbeats going down the deserted stable aisle brought a few curious whickers from other horses. Otherwise it was quiet. The smell of hay and dust and horses was slowly overcoming the bitter aftermath of the smoke bomb.

Together Cord and Raine groomed the big stallion. Dev ignored both of them, except for a nudge with his muzzle from time to time if he felt someone wasn’t working hard enough.

“You’re so spoiled it’s a wonder you don’t rot where you stand,” Cord said, stroking the black muzzle.

Dev blew softly against the man’s chest, utterly content. Peace slid through the stable like a special kind of moonlight. Cord petted the stallion for a little while longer, but he was watching Raine. He could see the tension in her.

It was still there as they walked back to the motor home. Her movements were quick, restless. Her eyes were wide and clear. She wasn’t ready to go back to sleep.