Jillian Hart - The Horseman

“Hold out your hand.”

She did as he asked and he dropped another candy into her palm. Dillon’s arm slipped around her back to rest on the space between her shoulder blades. His closeness a comfort, warming her like a summer’s wind, from the outside in, as the magnificent stallion slowed, swiveling his ears, considering the softly speaking man and the enticing scent of peppermint. His intelligent eyes studied both humans, as if considering.

What was Dillon saying? She’d love to know. She didn’t want to interrupt the magic to ask as the stallion reached forward with his big head, stretching his neck long, nostrils flaring. He was at the far end of the paddock, distant but considering.

Dillon kept talking conversationally and if Katelyn made her heart still, she could understand what he was saying. Dillon was telling the animal that he was safe, that he wouldn’t be hurt, that they would be friends.

She didn’t know one word of his grandfather’s language, but she could feel Dillon like the emotions inside her. She was mad to think she could feel his heart with hers. She’d never heard of such a thing, but then how could she explain it? Maybe because she’d heard him say those same words in English, and yet there was something of the heart in that unfamiliar cadence.

Something she could sense, and it was Dillon. It was his infinite respect for the stallion, his honorable sincerity and his affection. A caring that reached as deep as the earth and as high the stars and as boundless as heaven. It was a brilliance that filled her as Dillon’s kiss brushed her brow.

A spark like a shock in the air flashed from his kiss to the depths of her.

“Look at that.” Dillon’s whisper was like a tide that moved through her. “He’s decided he wants the treat. Stand real still now.”

The tide crested inside her, swelling like the top curl of the wave rolling in to break on the shore of her heart. As if myth, the spotted stallion approached, noble and regal and so big he blocked the veiled rays of daylight from the sky. But he was not what moved her, what changed her.

Dillon’s whisper swept through her again, a sweeping current washing through her until she felt submerged in it. Drowning in it. His love. His commitment. His tender words as he spoke to the stallion. Or was it to her?

Still he spoke, drawing the stallion closer. Drawing her closer. Her heart felt as if it were lifting, opening as the tide of his heart swept against hers. A warm, sweet surge that eroded the hard, icy protection and laid open the deepest part of her, leaving her too vulnerable, too open. She tried to step back, but Dillon’s hand stopped her. His touch reassured her.

The stallion was quick. She felt the whisper of his satin lips against her palm and the tickle of his delicate whiskers and then he was gone, retreating to a safe distance to crunch the treat. His attention remained on Dillon, watching him, assessing him.

“He’s a smart one, but what a spirit he has.” Dillon’s touch grazed up her spine to nestle against her nape. “It’s going to be a pleasure to get to know him, don’t you think?”

“I do.”

“Do you want to help me gentle him?”

“I don’t know anything about training a horse.”

“I do.” His confidence was as reassuring as the wind on her shoulders. As his touch was as loving on her neck. “I’ve tamed a few cayuses over the years.”

Katelyn remembered the pintos and Appaloosas in the back field. She knew why wild horses came to love him, why they clamored close to him, and not only for the peppermint he offered. How could anyone not come to believe in him?

“C’mon, let’s get you inside. I’ve got supper to put in the oven and you’ve got a nap to take.”

“You’re too good to me, Dillon.”

“Sweet lady, I’m not nearly good enough.” He offered her his arm, gallant as a knight in flawless shining armor.

She slipped her arm in his and they walked to their house together.

Tiny, perfect snowflakes filled the air, as crisp and as light as spun sugar. Sifting like grace over the land, over Dillon.

Over her.

“Did you get enough to eat?” Dillon asked as he grabbed the tea tray, leaving the full cup of sweetened tea on the bedside table. She’d eaten all but a few crumbs of the snack he’d brought up with a pot of chamomile tea. “I can run down and get you another slice of cake. Or some tea. I’ll brew up a pot for you.”

“No, I’m fine.” Katelyn smiled at him from the bed, where a pile of plump feather pillows braced her as she sat up, her book open in her lap. A colorful afghan covered her and kept her warm.

“Do you need something else before you settle down for the night? Are you hungry? I could make you a sandwich.”

“Really, I’m fine.” Her eyes danced at him. She was trying not to laugh at him again.

He didn’t blame her. He was new at being a husband. It was harder than he’d thought. It would take some learning, that was for sure.

He found refuge in the hallway out of her sight. He took the steps two at a time, the ring of his boots echoing all around him, but the house didn’t feel empty with her here. He didn’t mind the dark corners and shadows where no light reached in the parlor and the kitchen where the table waited in darkness.

There was a peace in the house now, because of her, the mercy she’d brought with her in her smile, with her presence, with the way she smelled like springtime and everything good in the world. Everything beautiful.

You’re a lucky man, Hennessey. She’d chosen him, not because she had no choice but because she wanted to be with him. Right here, in a humble log cabin with horses, with him, just the way he was.

He might not be a fine enough man for her, able to offer her a luxurious life. But he’d give her something more. He would give her everything he had, everything he was, everything he would be.

He would treat her well, with all his good intentions. He’d never hurt her, never make her sad or unhappy. He’d take the sadness from her heart and chase away the shadows from her eyes, from her soul. As he’d done in the paddock today, when the wild stallion had eaten from the palm of her hand. She’d seemed lighter, as if she’d let go of something that had been weighing her down.

Maybe she was beginning to heal. That was a good thing.

He heard the squeak of a loose board and the pad of her step in the necessary room overhead. Brushing her teeth, he figured, getting ready for the night ahead. He thought only of her as he rinsed the tea things and set them in the wash basin for morning. He climbed the stairs, following the faint glow of her bedside lamp that grew brighter and brighter, drawing him close until he was passing through the threshold.

She sure improved the room by being in it. He swore that he would forever remember her like this, with the subdued golden lamplight burnishing her with a celestial glow, like an angel on high.

He burned into his memory the way she turned the page at the upper corner with a graceful turn of her wrist, her brow furrowed, her concentration sharp as she read. The soft movement of her mouth as she sipped at her tea. The way her hand cupped the mug as if to draw in all its warmth.

He loved how she lit up from the inside when she saw him.

“Enjoying your book?”

“I’m riveted.” Katelyn’s left hand rested against the page, holding her place, but her attention, all of it, was on him. “I should be asleep by now. I’m exhausted. I just can’t seem to stop reading.”

“Me, either. I’ve got my book downstairs. I’ll pick it up tonight, meaning only to read a chapter, and the next time I’ll look up, it’ll be midnight. You watch. That happens to me all the time.”

“Me, too.” She tried to stifle a yawn, but she couldn’t. Her hand flew to her mouth. Tears brimmed her eyes, and she chuckled. “I’m not sleepy. Really. I can read one more chapter.”

“Darlin’, you can say it, but that doesn’t mean it will be true.”

“I know.” She set her cup aside.

He watched, spellbound, as she raised both arms. The fleecy soft flannel nightgown she wore strained over the generous curve of her breasts.

She plucked the hairpins from the knot in the back of her head and his blood thundered in his veins. Lustrous locks of her hair tumbled down like a shower of rare, perfect gold and nearly dropped him to his knees.

He could still see her in the tub, with the water pearled on her skin, bare and enticing. He fisted his hands when he wanted to reach out and touch her. Strip the flannel from her breasts and caress her the way the light did. Reverently and thoroughly until she wanted him, wanted more. Until she opened up to him like a flower to sun and, oh, the pleasure he’d give her-

If you follow that thought to its natural conclusion, your heart’s going to explode, man. Like a keg of gunpowder. Dillon pulled back on the reins. He wanted her with a force that would put a tornado to shame and outblow every blizzard that had ever hit the Montana plains.

But he was a patient man. He believed in self-control. “Let me help you with that.”

“Oh?” She looked surprised, even startled, and it was something, when he thought about it, how little she expected. As if she wasn’t used to anyone caring for her.

I care for you. A wave of tenderness left him speechless. He took the brush from her fingers settled beside her on the bed. The ropes groaned with his weight, and it was different being alone in the bedroom with her this time.

This was his bed she was sitting in. The bed where he’d always slept alone and never thought there would be a woman to sleep beside. And never such a lovely, gentle-hearted woman to hold in his arms. To cherish forever.