Affair of the Heart (8 page)

Caroline tightened her right rein and pushed with her leg. The stallion cantered in a circle and she had him back on the rail again.

She had the reins in a strong grip, and, using her body as a brace, she held him to a hand gallop as they moved along the rail. He cut out again before the turn, and once again Caroline circled him and brought him back. He hadn’t bucked on her, and she managed to run him into the fence and stop him.

“Had enough?” one of the men called. They were farther down along the fence, standing now on the outside so as not to startle the horse as he went by. Caroline ignored them and crossed her stirrups over in front of her saddle. “Hey, what the hell you think you’re doing?” someone yelled.

“Getting a better leg grip,” she said, and turned the horse along the rail once more, riding now without irons, her legs tight against the horse’s sides.

She worked the stallion for half an hour, holding him on the rail with her leg, patiently bringing him back when he broke. He was very strong and got away from her a few times, but she always managed to get him back. The last few times he went around the entire field on the rail, extended to a full run, Caroline forward on his neck without, she knew, a hope in hell of stopping him until he got tired. It was glorious, like flying. She was almost sorry when he did begin to slow down a little. She sat back, applying a steady pressure on the bit, and he responded and slowed even more. They went around once more at a canter and then she got him down to a walk. She loosened the reins and said praisingly, “What a guy! What a guy!” all the time patting his neck in approval. They walked over to the fence, and one of the men slipped through to hold the stallion’s reins. Caroline slid to the ground and felt her legs begin to shake. She patted the horse once more and turned away. “God, but he’s strong!” she said and met the glacial dark-blue eyes of her stepbrother.

“What the hell were you doing on that stallion?” he asked.

Caroline couldn’t resist. “Riding him,” she said with biting sweetness.

His mouth thinned and temper flared in his eyes. “That horse is a range stallion, half-broke, not one of your tame, fox-chasing hunters. He might have killed you, for God’s sake!”

“Oh, stop it, Jay.” She turned her back on him and climbed out of the corral.

“You only just got here, Jay,” One of the men put in. “She’s been on him for half an hour.” Caroline looked around, and the cowboy grinned at her. “Jesus, miss, but you can ride.”

Caroline grinned back. “My name is Caroline,” she said.

“And how did
you
manage with Mahogany?” Jay’s voice was hard as he stared at the ranch hand and then beyond him at the others.

They all immediately looked away. “Not as well as Caroline,” Jim admitted. “I couldn’t keep him on the fence. No one could.”

There was an unnerving silence and then Jay said, “Put that saddle back on Dusty.”

“Sure thing, Jay.”

Under his chilly blue gaze one of the men hastened to unbuckle Caroline’s girth and transfer the saddle to the gray. When the horse was ready, Jay turned to Caroline.

“Coming?”

She didn’t answer but went over to Dusty and swung into the saddle.

“I don’t want you to ride that stallion again,” Jay said to her as they moved off.

“He’s your horse,” she replied, her eyes looking straight ahead of her. “I would never have gotten on if I’d thought it would upset you so.”

“Upset me? It scared the hell out of me.”

Her lips tightened. “I didn’t jab at his mouth. I didn’t hurt him in any way at all.”

“It wasn’t you hurting him that worried me,” he said grimly. “It was quite the other way around. That horse is too strong for you, Caroline. You’re a fine rider, but you don’t have the muscle power to control Mahogany.”

Caroline knew he was right. She also felt a flicker of pleasure at his admission of concern for her. She smiled a little. “I know he’s too strong for me, but we were in the field. There wasn’t anywhere he could go.” She turned her head and looked at her stepbrother. “He’s too strong for anyone, really, unless he wants to cooperate.”

Jay pushed his hat back on his head. “I guess so. What happened before I got there?”

“Jim was spurring pretty heavily, and it was only making the stallion angry. I suggested that he stop.”

Jay slanted her a look. “And they suggested that you get on and try?”

She grinned. “They were dying to see the Eastern glamour puss dumped in the dust.”

Jay grunted and didn’t look at her.

“I didn’t just do it as a dare,” she went on. “I actually thought I might have some success with him. For some reason, I have a very soporific effect on horses. It makes it easy for me to get them to mind me.”

“A soporific effect?”

“Yes. As soon as I get on, they relax. I’ve never understood why.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen Dusty this calm,” he said after a minute.

She shrugged. “You see?”

“It’s a handy gift to have.”

“I suppose. It’s helpful on the hunting field and for trail riding, but it’s made me a disaster in the show ring.”

“Why is that?”

“A show horse should be collected, alert,
alive.
The really top show riders like Cecelia Archer just have to get on a horse and the horse looks fabulous. I get on and it looks as if he’s gone to sleep.”

He smiled a little, as he was meant to, but his eyes remained grave. “Well, you won’t put Mahogany to sleep,” he said. He stopped his horse, and Caroline, surprised, pulled Dusty up as well and looked at him.

“Mahogany is a magnificent animal,” he said to her, “and I know it must be a temptation to a rider of your caliber to get on him, but he’s not trustworthy, Caroline. Promise me you won’t ride him again.”

He wasn’t angry now, but he was deadly serious. She looked back into his eyes. “I promise,” she said softly.

He nodded gravely and began to move forward again.

“What is this race the men were talking about?” she asked after a minute.

“It’s at Owen Macdonald’s place down in Utah.” His face took on a faintly sardonic look. “He raises horses—has a racetrack and everything. Every year he has what he calls the Rocky Mountain Stakes Race.” His voice was heavy with irony. “It’s for local horses only. It’s become kind of a big deal to win—gives you bragging rights and all that. Anyway, the boys have been after me to enter Mahogany. He hasn’t been ridden, though, since I broke him four years ago.”

“Mahogany belongs to you, not to your father?”

“Yes.” He grinned. “Dad told me that if I could break him I could have him. It was quite an incentive.”

“I didn’t know you had your own stud here,” Caroline said after a minute. “I must say, I’ve been terribly impressed by the ranch horses and I wondered where you got them from. Mahogany’s a thoroughbred, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. Dad bought him from Kentucky. We breed our own horses because it’s the best way to be sure of a constant supply of good ones. We have to provide every hand with three or four mounts, you see.”

“How many mares do you have?”

“About twenty. The horses we don’t want to keep, we sell.”

They had reached the barn by now, and Caroline gave Dusty a pat. “Well, this guy is grand. I’ve enjoyed him a lot.”

“You must have horses of your own,” Jay said a little gruffly.

“I have a hunter, of course, but he’s down in Virginia and I only get to ride him on weekends. There’s a local girl who exercises him for me the rest of the week. I’m afraid he’s really more her horse than mine,” Caroline said a little sadly. “I haven’t had a real horse of my own, one to ride every day, since I was at school.”

“That’s too bad,” he said noncommittally.

“Yes.” She sighed. “It is.”

They stripped and groomed the horses and put them in their stalls in a silence that was surprisingly companionable. Then Jay said, “Have you seen the new kittens?”

“No!” Caroline’s face lit up. “Did Manny have her babies?”

“She did. They’re up in the loft. Want to see?”

“Oh yes.”

“This way then.” He went over to the ladder that led to the loft where the hay was kept. Caroline followed close behind him. The kittens were all curled up in the hay next to their mother; she had made a nest for them.

“Oh,” said Caroline softly. “Aren’t they darling.”

They watched the mother as she nuzzled and licked and groomed them. Then Caroline lifted her face to Jay. “There’s something about babies— all babies—that just melts you inside,” she said in her low husky voice.

For a minute he looked back at her, his eyes almost black in the dimness of the loft. Then— “Caroline,” he groaned and reached for her.

She tried to resist, remembering last night, her hands braced against his chest to push him away. But though his mouth was hard on hers, it was the urgency of passion and not of anger. His hands were on her back, pulling her toward him, and after a minute her arms slid up to circle his neck and her lips opened under the pressure of his. The scent of the hay and the masculine smell of his flesh and hair were in her nostrils. The length of her body was pressed against his, and she could feel his kisses all the way down in her stomach.

His mouth withdrew, and she stared up into his face, into narrowed, slitted eyes of midnight blue. He put his hands on her waist and gently pulled her down with him to the hay.

Caroline went. She was a little afraid of what she had seen in his face, but her will to deny him seemed to have evaporated. He began to unbutton her shirt.

“Jay,” she said, huskily, uncertainly.

“You’re so beautiful, Cara,” he muttered. “Christ, you’re so beautiful.” He leaned over her, silencing her mouth with his own. His hard body crushed hers down into the hay.

Caroline lost all sense of place and time. He was kissing her bared breasts, and she felt the rising throb of desire growing in her. She wanted him, she wanted to take off her clothes for him, wanted to please him. Her hands slid up under his shirt, feeling the hard muscles of his bare back under her palms.

“Jay!” The loud voice right below them shocked them both. After a minute Jay released her and sat back on his heels. He raised a shaking hand to push the hair off his forehead.

“Jay! You in here?” The voice was coming closer to the ladder.

“Yeah, I’m here!” Jay called. “I was just showing Caroline the kittens. What do you want, Hank?”

Caroline was acutely aware of the picture she presented, her long hair filled with straw, her shirt opened, her bra unhooked. She sat up and started to reassemble herself.

Jay had tucked in his shirt and gone to stand at the top of the ladder. Caroline could hear the two men’s voices, but for some reason the words made no sense to her. She was trembling convulsively. She had never felt desire like that in her life.

There was the sound of spurs as Hank Rogers strode away, and Jay came back across the loft to meet her. She jumped to her feet and backed up a little as he approached.

“He won’t come back,” he said.

But Caroline shook her head. “No more, Jay. Please.” She slipped past him and hurried to the ladder. He made no attempt to stop her, nor did he say anything more. Caroline almost ran all the way to the house.

* * * *

Dinner that evening was a strained occasion. Jay scarcely spoke, and Caroline had to struggle to keep from looking at him, at the absurdly shiny thick hair that hung long to the collar of his shirt and had a habit of falling across his forehead; at the sinewy brown hands whose caresses she remembered all too vividly; at the beautiful mouth.... “So, Joe,” she said heartily, “I saw your stallion today.”

“What did you think of him?” the rancher asked, and for the remainder of the meal Caroline recounted the story of her ride. It lasted until dessert. Then Jay pushed back his chair.

“I don’t want any cake, Ellen, thank you,” he said. “I’ve got to drive down to see Hank about something.”

“Not want any cake!” Ellen said in astonishment.

“You saw Hank only an hour ago,” Joe expostulated.

“See you later,” said his son and left.

He came back at ten o’clock, and as he walked in the living room Caroline rose. “Well, I’m for bed. All of this healthy air is utterly exhausting.”

Joe chuckled. “It’s good for you. You’ve got roses in your cheeks.”

Caroline smiled, kissed the older man, said, “Goodnight, Jay,” and beat a hasty retreat up the stairs. She read for a while and then turned out her light. But sleep wouldn’t come.

The afternoon’s scene between herself and Jay kept replaying itself over and over in her mind. The more she tried to banish it from her memory the more intrusive it became. It was not an episode she was particularly proud of. She knew that if Hank hadn’t interrupted them when he did, she would have let Jay take her—right there on the floor of the hayloft. It was humiliating but true. The reaction she had to her stepbrother was something that seemed to be beyond her own control.

It was something that had never happened to her before, this intense physical attraction to a man. It worried her and upset her. She didn’t even approve of Jay Hamilton, she thought in confusion. And he most certainly did not approve of her.

He wanted her, though. He was as physically aware of her as she was of him. He might not like her, but he would like very much to get her into bed with him. Caroline would like it too, but, unfortunately, she did not believe in sex without commitment. And she just couldn’t fool herself into thinking that there was anything between herself and her stepbrother but sex. Caroline’s morals, though certainly not orthodox, were deeply ingrained. She could not go to bed with Jay simply to get him out of her system.

“Damn,” she said aloud. She was finding it impossible to go to sleep and decided to try some hot milk.

She went down the stairs quietly in the dark and was surprised to see a light coming from the  kitchen. Was Ellen up? She walked in the kitchen door and saw Jay. He was leaning against the sink, a glass of milk in his hands. He was still wearing the jeans and shirt he had had on at dinner. He looked as surprised to see her as she was to see him. “What’s the matter?” Caroline asked innocently. “Couldn’t you sleep?”