Dark Witch (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #1)(46)

As Fin strode off, Iona glanced down at Boyle, watched him shift his weight. “So?”

“I’ll see Winnie’s saddled.”

When he turned toward the stables, Alastar butted Boyle hard with his head.

“Alastar! Sorry,” she said immediately, and bit down hard on the gurgle of laughter that wanted to escape. “Don’t be rude,” she told the horse, and leaning over to his ear added, “even if it’s funny.”

She dismounted, looped the reins around the fence. “Wait here. Can I see your Darling?” she asked Boyle.

“My what?”

“The horse, Darling. The one you got from that asshole.”

“Ah.” He scowled a moment, then shrugged. “She’s inside.”

“You can just point the way. I should take a look at Winnie, to see what I’m working with.”

“All right then.”

He strode off, and after rolling her eyes at Alastar, she followed. With her mouth firmly shut.

He didn’t introduce her to the stable hands, or the black-and-white mutt with the wagging tail, so she introduced herself. And, ignoring Boyle’s obvious impatience, she shook hands with Kevin and Mooney, and scratched Bugs (because he ate them) between the ears.

She judged the operation to be at least half again the size of the other stable, but the smells, the sounds, the look felt the same.

He paused outside a stall and the good-looking bay mare. “This is Winnie.”

“She’s clever, isn’t she? You’re a smart girl, aren’t you, Winnie?” Compact, Iona judged as she stroked Winnie’s cheek. A good size for a young girl, and the steady look in her eyes boded well for a novice on the jump course.

“I can saddle her for the lesson if you show me the tack room.”

“Kevin will handle it. Kevin! We’ve young Sarah coming in for her first jumps. It’s Winnie for her.”

“I’ll get her ready then.”

Iona turned. And saw the white filly.

“Oh my God, look at you.”

Nearly pure white, sleek, regal—young, Iona thought as she approached—the filly watched her with eyes of gilded brown.

“That’s—”

“Aine,” Iona finished. “Fin’s faerie queen. Still a princess yet, but one day.” When Iona lifted a hand, Aine bent her head as if granting a great favor.

“She’s astonishingly beautiful, and knows it very well. She’s proud, and only waiting for her time to come. And it will.”

“We’ll wait, another year, I think, before breeding her.”

Not that time to come, Iona thought, but only nodded.

You’ll fly, she thought. And you’ll love.

“Fin knows his horses,” Iona commented as she stepped back.

“He does.”

She paused to greet other horses on the walk down the sloped concrete. Good, healthy animals, she judged, and some real beauties—though none reached the level of Alastar and Aine—housed in clean, roomy stalls. Then she came to the roan mare with the big, poignant eyes, the long white blaze down her nose, and knew without being told.

“You’re Darling, and that’s just what you are.”

Even before Boyle stepped up beside her, the mare turned her head, big eyes warming, body quivering. Not in fear, Iona thought, but simple delight.

She’d smelled him, sensed him, before he came into view. And it was love twined with utter devotion that had the mare stretching her neck so her head could bump his shoulder, light as a kiss.

“That’s the girl.” He all but crooned it, and Darling whickered, turned her head for his hand.

He opened the stall door, eased in. “I’ll just check the foreleg while I’m here.”

“It’s better,” Iona said. “But she remembers how much it hurt. She remembers being hungry. Being afraid. Until you.”

Saying nothing, he crouched to run his hands up the foreleg, down again as Darling nibbled playfully at his hair.

“Do you have an apple in your coat pocket? She’s pretty sure you do.”

It was . . . disconcerting, to have his horse’s thoughts translated to him, but he rose again, slid his hands along Darling’s flank.

Iona thought if a horse could purr, she would have.

While Aine had astonished her, so much beauty and grace, Darling tugged her heart with her simple, unabashed devotion.

They knew, she and Darling, what it was to yearn for love, or at least genuine understanding and acceptance. To wish so hard and deep for a place, for a purpose.

It seemed they’d both gotten that wish.

Then Boyle reached in his pocket for the apple, into another for his pocketknife. Iona felt Darling’s pleasure in the treat, and more, that it would be offered.

“You’re filling out well, my girl, but what’s a bit of an apple, after all?” She took it neatly, eyed the second half as she ate.

“This one’s for Winnie, if she behaves with her student.”

“You saved her.” Iona waited while he stepped out, closed the stall door. “She’ll never be anything but yours.”

Iona reached up to stroke; Darling stretched out her neck again.

“She’s not skittish with you,” Boyle noted. “That’s progress. She’s still a bit nervy with strangers.”