Wicked Burn(73)

He’d left the kitchen early that night, surprising Meg when he turned down a serving of her homemade strawberry shortcake.

Niall watched a few seconds later through the window over the sink as Vic backed out of the driveway. She’d tried not to think of where he might be going, but she was about as successful at that as she was at torturing herself by imagining what he was doing with Eileen Moore on those nights when he stayed in Chicago.

About two weeks after Niall’s arrival, Donny had innocently forced Vic to acknowledge her while they were eating dinner. It was a sunny, comfortably warm summer evening. The fact that it was a Friday night and that Vic was home from Chicago gave a festive air to dinner that night. Niall had spent a good part of the afternoon, after she’d returned from class, cleaning the enormous barbecue in the backyard, which Meg admitted hadn’t been used once since they’d moved into the farmhouse. When Niall’d finally cleaned the monstrous iron contraption to her satisfaction, she’d put it to good use by preparing some juicy steaks, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes on it. They were in the midst of enjoying their summertime feast when Donny suddenly sprung his unexpected question to Niall.

“Want me to teach you how to ride this summer, Ms. Chandler?”

Niall glanced up in surprise, noticing how Vic’s angular jaw paused in the motion of chewing his steak.

“Uh . . . I don’t know about that, Donny,” she equivocated with a nervous laugh. The idea of riding one of those beautiful animals fast and free undoubtedly appealed to her. But that was like saying that the thought of flying in a plane sounded exciting and wonderful when one was scared stiff of takeoff. It didn’t matter how great step two seemed if one was terrified of step one.

“Don’t you think she could learn on Velvet . . . or maybe Aster?” Donny asked Vic pointedly.

Niall waited in growing discomfort as Vic took his time chewing and swallowing. When he finally transferred his gaze to her, it made her feel hot and flustered.

“You’ve never ridden before, have you?”

She shook her head slowly. He’d asked her if she’d ever ridden once while they were dating in Chicago last year and Niall had told him that she hadn’t, then neatly changed the subject.

“I was enrolled for riding lessons when I was seven. On the day that I showed up, the horse they had picked out for me bolted as the instructor was helping me mount. I sort of . . . refused to go back after that, much to my mother’s dismay,” Niall added under her breath.

In fact, Alexis had been at her wits’ end trying to understand how her daughter had been so terrified by the rearing horse. She couldn’t comprehend Niall’s solemn and eventually fierce refusals to return to her lessons. Alexis had been an accomplished equestrian from an early age, and it was beyond her how her own flesh and blood could abhor what she so loved.

“What do you think, Vic?” Donny prompted when Vic just looked down at his plate and speared a piece of steak with his fork.

“It doesn’t matter how much you want her to do it. She’s got to want to do it herself,” Vic stated laconically before he ate the meat.

“But those horses are gentle! Aster wouldn’t . . .”

“Aster would . . . if someone made her nervous enough,” Vic told Donny with a pointed glance from beneath his lowered brow. “I haven’t got a horse in my stables that doesn’t have some spirit. None of them are appropriate for a gun-shy first timer . . . except maybe for Traveler,” he added under his breath.

“Traveler?” Meg sputtered. “You’ve got to be kidding. You can’t be thinking of putting little Niall up on that mammoth!”

Vic set his fork down with a clanking sound. “I didn’t say that I was thinking of doing anything.”

Niall shifted in her chair uncomfortably in the tension that followed. Vic must have realized that everyone had paused in their eating and glanced at him, because he slowly inhaled and picked up his fork again.

“I just meant that Traveler is the best trained of the lot. He’d hold steady with a freight train barreling at him.”

“If you were on his back telling him to,” Donny conceded after a thoughtful moment. “But only until the last second before impact. He’d never let Vic get hurt,” the boy added as an aside to Niall.

Niall had caught a glimpse of Vic on Traveler on several occasions, and she had to agree. She’d never seen a man and a beast look so natural and graceful together. She smiled at Donny warmly. They’d been forming a close friendship, and Niall got the impression that the teenager wanted to share something that he knew about and enjoyed with her, just as she’d begun to do by opening up the world of art to him.

“I appreciate you thinking about me, Donny. I do,” she said. “But as much as I have to admit there is a certain appeal to the idea, I somehow don’t think God meant for me ever to get on the back of a horse.”

She felt Vic’s eyes on her as Donny opened his mouth to protest.

“But I think you’d get along great with Velvet. Maybe if—”

“Donny, just let it go,” Vic muttered with exasperation. There was just enough of an edge in his voice to silence Donny for the time being.

The following Friday Vic never showed up at the farm. Niall tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter—which was ridiculous, because it clearly did. A panic rose in her chest every time she considered that her stay on the farm was nearly half over and Vic still hadn’t spoken a dozen words to her since her second day there. And she had a sinking suspicion that he was spending time in another woman’s bed. What if he continued to shut her out, as he’d done to Jennifer Atwood so successfully? Was it past time for her to start accepting that their affair was a finished chapter, at least in Vic’s opinion?