Leaping Hearts(6)

Standing in front of the woman who’d captivated him, Devlin shifted his weight and changed the position of his cane. He saw her eyes flash downward again as she tracked the movement, and hated that his physical weakness was so obvious to her.

Seeing her up close, he realized that he recognized her after all. She was the daughter of Garrett Sutherland, the incredibly wealthy engineer, and a newcomer on the professional circuit. In her middle twenties, she was just cutting her teeth in the big leagues but showed some real promise as a competitor. The guy with her had to be Peter Conrad, the one who ran the stables.

Ignoring Peter, Devlin kept looking at the woman and decided she was damn beautiful. Her features were strong, her chin determined, and her startling blue eyes met his head-on. He liked all of that. She also had the glow of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors and carried herself with the physical poise that comes from being an athlete. The fact that she filled out her jeans like they were a test she had all the right answers to didn’t hurt, either. He found himself wondering what she looked like with that auburn hair free around her shoulders.

“I have faith in him,” she was saying, “and I’m going to start by riding him in the Qualifier.”

“You’ll be the laughingstock of the circuit,” her stepbrother countered.

“Or maybe he and I will win.”

In two months, the best jumpers in the country would be competing for spots on a team destined to face the top riders in Europe. At the end of the competition, whoever won the most points got to be the captain of the team headed across the ocean and, because the whole sport was looking forward to the Olympics in another year, that rider would be considered the heir apparent to lead the American contenders for a shot at gold. The Qualifier was a prestigious event, held at the incomparable Borealis Hunt and Polo Club, and the open roster meant that anyone could compete even if they didn’t have a ranking.

It was a competition Devlin knew well. He’d won it many times. It was also the very event that had cost him his career.

“You can’t do this.” Peter was shifting back and forth in his Italian loafers, a nervous metronome. “You simply can’t. You’re going to make a fool out of us.”

“Thanks for all the support,” she replied dryly, and then looked into Devlin’s eyes.

Meeting her gaze, Devlin caught on to the insecurity she tried to hide.

She’s right to worry, he thought. The stallion was going to need a lot of work and, even then, there’d be no telling what would come of the investment. Time and her inexperience were likewise working against her. Two months would be a stretch for any rider and new mount to forge a relationship, even if the rider was working with a compliant horse and had years of competing under her belt.

“I’m warning you,” Peter said to her before turning to go. “Don’t try to bring that horse into my stables.”

“Our stables,” she corrected.

But the man had already started walking away, delicately sidestepping a pile of hay in front of another stall and then yelping as a curious muzzle reached out to him.

“Damn animals,” he muttered.

A.J. turned to Devlin and, as her eyes traveled across his wide shoulders, she momentarily forgot her frustration. She noted that his hair just brushed the top of his collar, the silky waves breaking against the flannel, and she wondered what it would feel like. Her fingers curled the baseball cap into a ball and her heart began to pound with a crazy anticipation.

Aware her cheeks were flushing, she cleared her throat and said, “Don’t you think it can be done?”

Devlin regarded the hope in her face with nostalgia. Thinking back, he could dimly recall the emotion in himself. He was less than ten years older than she but felt ancient looking into the crystal blue of her eyes.

What color is that? he wondered. Sky blue?

He felt a stirring in the boiler room of his body and had to look away from her face to somewhere safer. Watching her fiddle with the hat, he caught a glimpse of the logo and frowned.

Devlin had always had an aversion to the kind of moneyed, restless people who were sometimes attracted to the horse world. Although all of the wealthy elites weren’t bad, he couldn’t abide the ones who played at the sport just because they thought it was glamorous. That was the way horses got mistreated or injured.

And, however unassuming the woman in front of him looked in her blue jeans and barn jacket, he knew more about the wealth of her family than about her riding skills. Watching that logo twist and turn in her hands, he was more than tempted to brush her off and walk away. Her father’s greenbacks aside, the last thing he wanted was to comment on the hopes and dreams of another rider. He’d had a bad enough year trying to deal with losing his own.

In the end, Devlin got caught again in her eyes and couldn’t deny her an answer. Looking into that blue, he found that something inexplicable happened to him. He felt cleansed, somehow. Less cynical, less tired of life. It made him want to get closer to her.

“I don’t know you or the horse well enough to say,” he answered cautiously. “Hard work and training will probably get you both over the fences, assuming he doesn’t throw you just for the fun of it. But winning? That takes teamwork and you can’t teach it. In horses or people.”

Her face registered trepidation but then switched to optimism.

“I need a trainer,” she declared.