Leaping Hearts(10)

Margaret took the check. “Don’t look so worried. The pit you feel in your belly’s just buyer’s remorse. A couple of deep breaths will get you through it—they will.”

A.J. tried to swallow her shock. There’d always been money around and there’d be more of it, she told herself. And, if Sabbath turned out to be a champion, she could probably sell some of her interest in him to the stables and recoup the cash while still having him as her horse.

By the time she returned to Sabbath’s stall, she was feeling a little better. The fact that the stallion seemed happy to see her helped. As soon as he caught her scent, he nickered and reached forward, letting her stroke the velvet of his muzzle.

“Well, it’s legal now. We’re in this together,” she told him. “So whaddya say, you want to blow this Popsicle stand?”

It took her a half hour to get him ready to travel the hundred miles back to Sutherland Stables. She wrapped his legs, put a blanket across his sleek back and then went outside and brought around the eighteen-wheeler that was one of Sutherland’s fleet of horse trailers. When she led the stallion onto the ramp, she was vigilant in case he decided to bolt, but he didn’t seem interested in acting up.

When there’s no stage, there’s no performance, she thought, as she loaded him into one of the tight stalls. Satisfied the stallion was safe, she shut the rear doors and climbed into the cab, starting the mammoth diesel engine with the twist of a tiny key. As she left the grounds, she found herself thrilled by all the possibilities ahead of them.

While the highway miles passed and night started to fall, her mind drifted back to Devlin McCloud. She could recall the gravel sound of his voice, the way his handsome face had looked up close, every flash of those hazel eyes. Her body responded as if he were sitting beside her, the images making her feel like she’d been put under a heat lamp.

What was so intoxicating about him? There was something in his confidence and intelligence, in those hooded eyes, in that powerful way he carried himself, that body….

“You can stop now,” she said out loud. “He’s a man, not a fantasy.”

But A.J. let herself dream on. In the netherland between the auction house and the stables, she fantasized about ways to run into him again. They were hard to conjure up considering his reclusive nature but her favorite, and the only one that was a remote probability, was the daydream where she had a flat tire on the stretch of road, right in front of his driveway. He would come by with the truck; they would talk as he loosened lug nuts, maybe agree to have dinner. And a movie. Then he’d take her home and kiss her in the dark….

Of course, it was all a complete and utter fabrication. She wasn’t the kind of woman men asked out on dates, and she’d have found it hard to pull off the whole save-me-you-big-man thing. And anyway, Devlin McCloud didn’t strike her as the kind who’d waste time on movies.

So what would he do with a woman, she wondered. Was he a cook-in-and-stay-home type? She didn’t think he’d go for Monster Truck rallies. Formal dining at a five-star restaurant? Picnic on a mountain? Riding through wooded trails with lingering glances passing back and forth? It was the afterward she was especially interested in. How would he be as a lover? Soft and slow or with a raging lust? She thought it probably depended on whom he was with and how much he wanted her.

She frowned, disturbed by her train of thought. Her preoccupations typically ran toward the practical, not the romantic. And certainly not the erotic. She was more accustomed to getting lost in dreams of finding the perfect blacksmith or a vet that would come cheerfully to a cold stable at two a.m. Then again, she’d never met anyone like him before and she couldn’t decide whether she was dying to see him or grateful that she wasn’t likely to. He’d had a profound effect on her and, as thrilling as it had been to be in his orbit, she felt like she was on dangerous footing.

The reality check, and the fact that she’d arrived at Sutherland’s, made her think of the stallion. As she pulled between the majestic white pillars that marked the drive to the stables’ compound, she wondered how Sabbath was going to like his new home.

As it turned out, his hooves didn’t even get a chance to touch the ground.

When she halted the eighteen-wheeler in front of the clapboard expanse of a stable building, Peter and her father emerged from the office. Their expressions told her she was in for it. Peter was looking serious and her father wore the pained grimace he always did when he was going to deny her something.

Without stopping to greet them, A.J. got down from the cab and wrenched open the side door to the trailer so she could check on the stallion. They followed her inside.

“That horse has got to go,” Peter said. “Your father agrees with me.”

“Arlington, darling,” Garrett urged, “please be sensible.”

A.J. let out an exasperated breath. “Look, I don’t have the time to argue with both of you. My first priority is getting this poor horse out of the shoe box he’s been in for the last hour and a half.”

“You’re not bringing that stallion into the stables,” Peter said.

“Doesn’t look like you have much choice, does it?”

“You’re the one who’s out of choices. I’ve found a buyer for him.”

“What!” She wheeled around. “You’ve no right to sell any of our horses without my permission!”