Leaping Hearts(3)
Author: J.R. Ward

“It’s going to be a long way to the ground if you throw me,” she said softly. “Fortunately, I tend to bounce.”

Sabbath let out another ferocious roar. Her smile deepened.

“So do I take that as a yes? Are you ready to try a little tap dancing?”

Suspiciously, the horse moved his head forward, putting his black muzzle up to her face. He took in a huge lungful of air, drawing her scent through his nose. Then he blew it back at her, sending her baseball cap flying.

A.J. shook her head. “If you want to impress me, you’re going to have to do more than play bowling ball to a crowd of people and knock off my hat.”

Sabbath reared again, his mane streaking through the air, hooves pawing the space between them. Then, looking bored, he abruptly dropped his neck, lowering his head.

After a moment, A.J. cautiously reached forward and took his lead in her slender hand. When the stallion tolerated it with only a flick of his ears, she moved to the side and went forward. Together, they started to walk out of the arena.

One of the stable hands approached tentatively. Without words, he pointed out where the stallion had been housed and then scurried away. Left to handle the horse alone, A.J. led the way into the stable area and approached the stall Sabbath had been in.

“You don’t know this yet,” she whispered, leading him inside, “but you and I are going to make a great team.”

Still watching him closely, she took off his halter and then shut the half door, leaning on it.

As he bent down and nipped at some hay in the corner, A.J. sighed. “We’re just going to have to teach you some manners first.”

From the fringes of the crowd, Devlin McCloud watched the scene unravel with cynical eyes. He’d known exactly when the horse was going to bolt. The stallion’s massive haunches had tensed hard before the animal sprang forward and he picked the perfect time to make his move. At that exact moment, the groom holding the lead had let his attention lapse, looking in the opposite direction and laughing at someone behind him. Like a flash, the horse took off and, courtesy of his distraction, the young hand had been dragged through the dirt and almost trampled. By the time the kid let go of the lead, he looked like a breaded cutlet.

All around, people started scrambling to get out of the way, but Devlin, with his bad leg, wasn’t able to move as fast as the rest of the crowd. Relying on his cane, he made his way to the edge of the ring in the awkward gait he despised, all the while keeping his eye on the horse.

He didn’t stare just because he wanted to avoid getting run over. He was captivated. The stallion moved with a grace and force Devlin hadn’t seen in a long time. It reminded him of—

He blocked the thought of Mercy. It had been almost a year since the accident, nearly a year since he’d had to put her down, but the pain was still unbearable. Once more, he wondered how long it was going to take to get over his grief, and feared the ache in his chest, like the one in his leg, was never going to go away.

When he finally reached the rail, he ducked out of the ring and then watched as order disintegrated. The crowd was still milling about like lemmings looking for water and he watched with amusement as several men tried to corral the horse.

The stallion’s too smart for that trick, he thought, not at all surprised when the animal bolted at the men.

Devlin shook his head.

If someone could get a handle on that horse and channel all that energy, they’d have a hot ticket on their hands, he decided. It’d be like harnessing nuclear fission but the potential locked in the beast might just make the risk of getting burned worth it.

The stallion flashed by him, head held high, tail cocked and billowing in his wake.

Devlin thought about the horse’s new owners. He hoped Sutherland Stables knew what they’d signed on for but doubted they were up to the task. The stable had a lot of money, great-looking tack and a swimming pool to play in, but he knew more about their toys than their feats of training. He had a feeling the stallion was going to put them to the test.

With an echo of remembered passion for his career, he thought how much he wished he could tackle the beast. As envy burned in his veins, he looked down at his leg with disgust. He was used to being in the ring, not at ringside. The distance between the two was vast and, after a year, he was still an uneasy traveler of the stretch of emptiness that separated where he’d been and where he was.

His gaze shifted back to the chaos and then sharpened as he watched a young woman step into the ring and approach the horse. She was tall and thin but her body was strong and he forgot all about the stallion. He couldn’t see her face so he moved to try to get a better look. He wondered who she was. A groom? One of the auction’s hands? He knew if he’d seen her before, he’d remember. There was something about the way she moved that was unforgettable.

Devlin watched as she walked toward the stallion with confidence, her hips swaying, her long legs carrying her across the ring. He felt like he’d been kneed in the gut as a strange ache settled into his body. He couldn’t look away from the woman and his hand gripped his cane as she stopped in front of the stallion. Unlike the stable hand, her focus on the animal was unwavering and she was calm as she put her hands in her pockets.

Atta girl, Devlin thought with approval. Nice and slow. No big movements.

He watched the horse and the woman size each other up. The contrast between the two was striking. The animal, dark and fierce. The woman, slender and steady. Still, as she talked to the great black beast, it was immediately apparent there was something special happening between them. And then the stallion blew off her hat, clearly fishing for some sort of reaction, and, when he got none, dropped his head. It wasn’t a surrender, more like an accommodation that was freely revocable. The instant her hand took the lead, Devlin, like the rest of the crowd, let out a sigh of relief.

He was really impressed. Like all daredevil feats, it had taken courage and stupidity for her to get that close to the stallion. Granted, she’d been smart in the way she did it, showing the kind of sense a person gets only after they spend a lifetime around unpredictable animals. The danger had been there all along, however, and Devlin was glad she hadn’t been hurt.

And then the real miracle happened.

The stallion let her lead him. Feigning boredom, so he didn’t appear to be giving in, the giant horse had let her take him from the ring. It was a small pledge of trust.

As the crowd dispersed, Devlin limped out to the center of the ring. Bending down, he picked up the woman’s hat. The stately logo of Sutherland Stables, two Ss intertwined with ivy, was embroidered on the front.