Leaping Hearts(12)

“Where are you going?” Her father’s voice was panicked as he splayed his hands out wide, as if he were prepared to block and tackle the trailer. He looked absurd, wearing his tailored tweed suit and club tie, standing like that.

Peter was shaking his head, trying to drag her father out of the way. “Garrett, let her go. Better that she cool off somewhere else. She’ll be back in the morning.”

A.J. stuck her head out of the open window. “A change of scenery isn’t going to calm me down.”

With that, she put her foot on the gas and the mammoth trailer lurched forward. She didn’t know what she was going to do if her father didn’t move.

Peter yanked Garrett out of the way.

“You’ll be back!” her stepbrother yelled after her as she left.

Peter was wrong about that but, after driving around aimlessly for some time, A.J. was growing desperate. Feeling overwhelmed, she downshifted and brought the trailer to a rumbling halt in the parking lot of an all-night diner located at the side of a country road. Most of its customers were local farmers and A.J. was well-known as one of the regulars but she didn’t want to go inside, no matter how merry it looked. It would be hard to explain why she was out on her own with the trailer in the dark without letting on about the split with her family.

A.J. sat in the cab, staring into the glow of the dashboard and rubbing her solitaire back and forth. In the back of her mind, she’d been thinking for the past few years that it was time to make a life of her own. She just never figured she’d make a declaration of independence quite so flagrantly, and it was hard not to feel lonely and worried. No matter how constraining she’d found Peter and her father, they offered her protection and security. Now, on her own, the choice she’d made and the responsibility she’d taken on seemed unsupportable.

It was the first time she’d felt that way. She’d always been impulsive and, if things hadn’t turned out exactly as she’d intended, she’d usually been able to string something together at the last minute. Now her well of ideas was dry. Nothing was coming to her as she sat in the driver’s seat with no place to go. The only thing she knew was that turning back wasn’t an option.

A.J. glanced down at the clock again and tried to focus. The other big stables would be closed at this hour but she reviewed the closest ones once more, one by one. It was fruitless. She hadn’t found a solution in the mental list before, and she didn’t now.

Stretching her neck, which was stiff from tension, she caught sight of her baseball cap. Picking it up, she was struck by a crazy idea. Enticing hazel eyes came to mind.

Did she dare?

A moment later, she was back on the road, heading in the direction she’d come from. Driving past Sutherland Stables and not going in felt all wrong, a disturbing combination of anger, guilt and homesickness. She kept going.

Down the road a few miles, on the left, she saw the diminutive sign she was looking for. Unlike the arching expanse that marked the Sutherland compound, this was a simple clapboard on a post. It read MCCLOUD.

A.J. eased the truck onto a dirt road, its surface wide and even, perfectly suited for horse trailers and farm equipment. Driving up the lane, she went through a wooded expanse that soon opened to a stretch of meadows that was intersected by dark rail fences. Moonlight washed over the landscape, giving it an otherworldly glow, like a dream.

Up ahead, buildings appeared. There were two stables, small compared to Sutherland’s, but she guessed they were able to hold at least six horses apiece. A jumping and schooling ring was to the left and there were several dirt paddocks to the right. Beyond, in the distance, she could see a farmhouse with a faint light in one of its windows.

Halting the trailer in front of a stable building, she took a deep breath and stepped out of the cab. Without stopping to let herself think, she went back and checked on Sabbath. To her relief, he seemed content. His head was down and one of his back feet was turned up, resting on the tip of its hoof. He looked like he was asleep. A.J. checked his water, the fastenings on his halter and the lead that was anchored on the front of his stall. She didn’t like the idea of leaving him unattended but she knew she wasn’t going to be gone long. She was going to get one of two answers, and knowing Devlin McCloud, he wasn’t going to waste time letting her know which one it was.

She was about to step out of the side door when she paused, catching her reflection in the floor-length mirror the riders used to dress in front of at competitions. Her auburn hair was a frazzled mess. Her jeans carried dirt and hay on them, as if they’d never seen the inside of a washing machine, and the flannel shirt she wore was an untucked, floppy wreck. Her barn jacket didn’t help, looking like a big tan bag billowing around her.

She looked like a charity case. Something, she supposed, that wasn’t far from the truth.

But she didn’t want Devlin McCloud to see her like this. In all those fantasies she’d whipped up, she’d always looked halfway decent when they’d accidentally run into each other. In her daydreams, he’d had half a chance to see her as a woman, not just a stable hand, and, in her heart, for whatever asinine reason, she wanted him to find her beautiful. To see her as an object of mystery and desire. For her to be someone he wanted to touch and kiss and dive into with his body.

A.J. struck an alluring pose in the mirror, pouting her lips and leaning on one hip.

As if.