Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess (7 page)

He looked down at himself, at the runnels of water that collected at his feet to form a puddle. Then he looked at Jess, who still regarded him with her set-jaw stubbornness. He rested his hands on his bulky equipment belt, his mouth quirked in skeptical indecision. Jaime fervently, silently, hoped that he would back down, for she too had seen the look on Jess' face, and she easily read it for what it was: bullheaded challenge. She would go nowhere with this man, not without a fight.

When the man spoke again, his voice was more composed. "I'm not one of those guys who'll toss his weight around just because he's got it," he conceded. "Although I'm too damned wet to be letting you off easy. What about it, Jess? You understand to stay out of that fountain? You understand that you've got to pay attention to what security police tell you to do?"

"No kicking," Jess said reluctantly. "I broke the rule."

Jaime let out her breath. Somehow, she wasn't quite sure that Jess was agreeing with the man's exact meaning, but it seemed to be the capitulation he was looking for, and she wasn't going to clue him in if he didn't see it for himself. Defiance, that's what lingered in Jess' gaze. Whoever Carey was, he was the only one with unequivocal Words for Jess.

Checking on the groggy lesson horse was anticlimactic compared to the adventure at Mirror Lake. Jaime left her trailer there, made arrangements to pick the horse up in a few days, and drove Jess back to The Dancing.

The afternoon had opened her eyes to just how unusual her new barn hand was. She was far from amused when she realized that something in her subconscious mind had seen subtleties of equine behavior in Jess' actions for, in the unthinking moments during that debacle with campus security, she'd reacted as if Jess was indeed a horse.

But there were no conclusions to be drawn, for nothing in this situation remotely resembled the realities in Jaime's life. It was just . . . wait and see. Wait and watch. And while she was willing to give Jess a little more time to find herself and possibly to explain herself, it would be best if she didn't attract undue attention before then.

There was little Jaime could do about Jess' exotic appearance. A pair of scissors and five minutes trimmed most of the ragged edges from her wild hair, but couldn't hide the naturally dark streak that ran from forehead to nape—though it led to the discovery that there was nothing Jess liked more than a good grooming—or, rather, that she would sit still forever as long as Jaime was brushing her hair. She also discovered that she could hand Jess a set of brushes, point her at a horse, and count on her to groom until the object of her attentions virtually glowed—unless it was one of the two older mares, neither of whom Jess would deal with in any manner.

Her younger brother, Mark, accepted Jess with the patience of a young man who had already dealt with every manner of horse-crazy girl to grace Jaime's doorstep, and Jess was delighted if he had the time to join her in the spacious backyard for a little one-on-one soccer, which she invariably won by virtue of her speed and agility. It was Mark who kept score; Jess, Jaime noticed, played for the sheer pleasure of the effort. It was Mark, too, who took the woman on careful forays away from the farm—mostly to the busy Dairy Queen that graced the edge of the nearby one-street minitown, and to the quiet bar that boasted of near-infamous hot bologna sandwiches.

Jess never seemed to fully trust Dayna, and after each of Dayna's visits, with or without Eric, she would follow Jaime around and solicit reassurance. She was standing at Jaime's elbow in the middle of a lesson when it suddenly hit Jaime what the problem was.

"You still think Dayna might send you away, don't you? Think about those corners, Sandy," she reminded the woman under instruction. "He's falling out behind. Outside leg. Start a serpentine at A—let's see if we can't get him bending a little better."

The non sequitur didn't seem to bother Jess, whose understanding increased in leaps and bounds. "Yes," she answered. She waved an arm to indicate the world beyond the farm. "All strange. No Carey—no Jaime. Dayna—" and, when words failed her, she stood very straight, scrunched her shoulders slightly, and arranged her features into a hard, implacable expression that immediately drew to Jaime's mind one of Dayna's inflexible moments. She couldn't help but laugh, though she sobered quickly.

"Dayna's a good person, Jess. It's just sometimes . . . well, how does the thought of facing that strange world out there," she waved her arm in an imitation of Jess' gesture, "make you feel?"

"Afraid," Jess said without hesitation.

"Right. Anticipate the change of rein at the center line, Sandy—prepare him! Well, Dayna's had some hard times. When she runs up against something that's really unfamiliar—really strange—it frightens her. And she protects herself. Sometimes that makes it seem like she's uncaring, but deep down she cares very much. And you know—sometimes even caring can be frightening." She let Jess think about it while she watched the team in the ring, frowning over the gelding's unusually crooked position and his refusal to bend around his rider's inside leg. "What's going on with you two? This isn't like you at all."

"I don't know," Sandy said in frustration as she brought her horse down to a walk. The horse, too, wore an expression of frustration and irritation.

Without a word, Jess walked into the ring, across the thick footing of well-mixed dirt and sand, and up to the horse, whom Sandy had halted. Jess took the time to greet the horse, gave it a pat, and then carefully but firmly took Sandy's whip out of her hand. "Ride now," she instructed.

Jaime saw an immediate difference in the animal's attitude. It chewed the bit a few times and gave a thoughtful sigh, by which time its entire body relaxed. She looked at Jess standing with whip in hand and frowned. The gelding had never shown any concern over the whip. Nine times out of ten, the lesson went by without a single flick of the thing. But this time . . .

"Sandy, is that a new whip?" she asked abruptly, as Sandy started another serpentine with her newly willing horse.

"The other one was too short," Sandy replied distantly, concentrating on her ride. "You know how I sometimes bumped him in the mouth when I used it."

Jess was back; she stood next to Jaime and tickled her arm with the small fuzzy tassel at the end of the whip, removed it, and tickled again, just barely touching her skin.

In a flash Jaime understood. It hadn't been visible to her, this whisper of tassel against horseflesh. "How did you know?" she asked Jess in astonishment.

Jess seemed equally amazed that Jaime should have to ask. "He shouted it."

He had, too, Jaime mused, taking the whip from Jess and contemplating the offending tassel. In every way but words, the horse had communicated his dilemma, and Jess had been the only one able to clearly read him, despite Jaime's vast experience. She looked up at Jess who, oblivious, was watching the much happier pair in the ring. It was just another clue to who and what Jess was, and Jaime was beginning to wonder where those clues would lead her.

For a while, they led her no further. In addition, there was no mention of Carey, Jess, or gold from any news source, and Jaime became relaxed in the belief that she and Eric had made the right decision in keeping the gold hidden from Dayna, and in keeping Jess out of a system that might have done her more harm than good. Busy with training and instructing, not to mention the business of preparing her two competition horses for the approaching season, Jaime only wondered about Jess and her mysteries in the odd moment.

It was on the tail end of a busy day, two weeks into Jess' stay, that Jaime was forced to realize those mysteries could not be so easily ignored. She'd gotten used to the fact that Jess rarely said more than yes or no, that she was easily startled but that when she chose to trust, she gave her complete and utter confidence. It was only when she found Jess asleep in the hay storage, her head pillowed on Carey's saddlebags and dirty tear-smears dried on her face, that Jaime faced truths she'd still been trying to avoid. Jess didn't belong here. Someone out there was missing her as much as she missed him.

Jaime worried at those truths as she cut the twine on a fresh bale of hay and counted out the flakes for afternoon snack time. The horses, alerted by the rustling, immediately set up a clamor, each demanding to be fed first. Jess lifted her head and blinked sleepily.

"I'll get them," Jaime said, trying to erase the confused and uncertain look on Jess' face. "Give yourself a few minutes, and then check the water buckets, okay?" Jess blinked again and looked at her hands, opening and closing them like she'd never seen them before. Then, as Jaime stacked the flakes of hay into a wheelbarrow and looked back at her, Jess nodded. She traced a wistful finger along the top flap of a saddlebag and followed Jaime out of the airy shed behind the barn and through the big double doors at the end of the barn aisle.

As Jaime stopped to parcel out hay, Jess passed her, then halted, her head raised in what Jaime had come to recognize as the reaction to an out-of-place noise. Without thinking, Jaime stopped what she was doing to listen as well, only belatedly realizing how she had come to trust Jess' reactions. As usual, the trust was well placed, for it was only the space of a breath before a man's voice called out from the entrance of the tack room.

"Anyone here?"

"Come on in," Jaime answered, her reply barely audible above the indignant protests of the horses, who'd suddenly realized the wheelbarrow was no longer progressing down the aisle. "One flake each, remember?" Jaime said, which was all the prompting Jess needed to pick up the job. Jaime brushed ineffectively at the persistent bits of hay clinging to her breeches and met the man in the doorway between the tack room and the aisle.

"Can I help you?" she asked, even as she noticed this wasn't a typical visitor—not a mother with a horse-crazy daughter in tow, or a young professional who had the money but not quite the time to spend on his or her horse. This man was full of visual conflicts, with spiffy new jeans that were topped by what looked very much like a handwoven shirt, well-worn, and not very clean. The man's dark hair was carefully cut but not much cleaner than the shirt, and his teeth, when he smiled meaninglessly at her, were barely in better shape than the aged farm dog's. She kept a polite distance between them, having no desire to see if his breath was on par with the dog's as well.

"I'm looking for a horse," he said, eyeing the aisle and the few curious horses that bothered to peer at him in between snatches of hay.

"We have several for sale right now," she said. "What kind of horse were you looking for?"

He shook his head. "Not to buy. I lost one a couple weeks back. Looking for her and her gear."

"You lost her tacked up?" Jaime said curiously, wondering about the man's unplaceable accent. "Take a fall?"

"Someone did," he said shortly. "I wondered if I could take a look around."

She had a sudden urge to show him the door, but squelched it, trying to imagine herself in his shoes. "I'd be glad to show you around, but we haven't taken in any strays. There're several private barns in the area, though—have you checked with them?"

"Not yet," he grunted, bringing his attention back inside the tack room, eyeing the gear draped over saddle racks and festooned from wall hooks.

Inexplicably, Jaime felt her own eye drawn to the rack which held the wool coolers, checking to see if any of Jess' saddle was visible from beneath. "I wish I could help you," she said politely, glancing down the aisle to see that Jess had finished distributing the snack, that she was coming back with the empty wheelbarrow. Three stalls away, Jess looked up, got her first good look at the visitor, and froze. She stood very tall, the wheelbarrow forgotten, one leg trembling with the indecision of
run
or
stay
.

The clatter of metal drew Jaime's attention, and she found that the man had invited himself to paw through the tack room; he let her show bridle fall back to the wall with a thunk of the double bit and reached to lift a boarder's saddle off of the older saddle that sat beneath.

"Excuse me," she said loudly, striding in to push the saddle back where it belonged. "Your gear isn't here. I'd like you to leave now."

He stood back from her, obviously reluctant, a stubborn look on his face; for a moment she thought he might push the issue, and rebuked herself for not teaching Jess about the 911 emergency number. Reluctantly, she said, "Tell me what the horse looks like and let me know where to get in touch with you, and I'll let you know if I hear anything."

The offer seemed to be enough. "Ask for Derrick at the LK Hotel," he said. "The gear is a little unusual, looks like a cross between one of your saddles and a western saddle. The horse is a six-year-old dun mare, dark points all around."

Jaime pointedly opened the door for him. "I'll let you know if I hear anything," she said, and ushered him out, leaning on the door after she'd closed it.
Dun mare.

Jess peeked hesitantly around the edge of the doorway, her expression scared but determined.

She's been out there since I saw her. She was going to fight for me,
Jaime thought in astonishment. And the sudden realization:
She's seen him before.

The sound of a car engine and the crunch of tires on gravel told of Derrick's passage as he pulled out of the U-shaped driveway. Jess relaxed a little and came into the room, looking questioningly at Jaime, giving her head an odd little toss.
Dun mare
. Her dark sand hair fell back around her face, and the blended black swath of her bangs had never seemed so obvious as it fell over her forehead.
Black points.

Adding up coincidences, Dayna decided, could drive you mad. It was enough to make you realize that the course of your life was as strange and random as any
Ripley's Believe It Or Not
. There was Eric, whom she'd met through his position as Highbanks Park Volunteer. Though they'd become good friends, they'd certainly never spent this much time together before. And then there was Jaime, whom she'd met through Mark, whom she'd met at work. And of course, Jess—whom she'd met at the park because of Eric, and who was living here with Jaime because she'd met Mark—she finally stopped herself. The point was, they were all sitting here eating a cookout dinner. It didn't matter how it'd all come about.