Maggie allowed her heart to yearn for a moment—but just a moment. “And when it’s over?” Her voice was toneless.
His hands tightened on her shoulders, and he laughed in a curiously self-mocking way. Something reckless stirred in his eyes. “You misunderstand, Maggie love. I’m asking you to be my wife.”
She stared at him, her heart thudding violently against her ribs. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined he’d want to marry her, and for an eternal moment she was utterly speechless. Then she stepped away from him with barely controlled violence, and his hands dropped. “That isn’t funny!” she said fiercely.
“No,” he agreed. He was smiling faintly, the crooked, reckless smile she had come to mistrust because it always seemed to herald some devilish move on his part. “Not funny. I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
“Stop it!” She could feel panic sweep over her, emotions tangling until she couldn’t think.
“I won’t stop.” The recklessness in his black eyes was joined by that other emotion she’d seen before, that not quite tame emotion. “I’ll do whatever it takes to win you, Maggie. If it takes water dropping on a stone to wear away your resistance, then that’s what I’ll be. If it takes the rest of my life to get you to the altar, I’ll consider it time well spent.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she choked out.
“I know exactly what I’m saying.”
She tried to think, but could only feel. The panic she felt came from years of being solitary, from the inner knowledge that her dream was attainable only if she fought for it alone and won it alone. Then the foundations of her life swayed and crumbled, battered by a new and devastating knowledge.
He saw her ambition so clearly, placing it unerringly at the very root of what she was. He knew her goal. And he was holding her goal in his hands, offering it to her. And that was why she could never marry him.
Because he would never be certain he was more important to her than the goal she’d attain by becoming his wife.
King Cophetua and the beggar-maid.
Maggie could feel her shoulders slump, and stiffened them with her last core of determination. “I’ll stay until you find another trainer,” she said dully. “It shouldn’t take long.”
The crooked smile remained, but the expression in Rafe’s eyes was grim. “That’s your answer? Running away?”
She was too emotionally shell-shocked to be baited. In a childlike gesture of weariness she brushed the back of one hand over her forehead. “Sometimes it’s the only answer. This time.”
“No, Maggie. Not this time. You can’t run far enough or fast enough to get away from me.”
He seemed to be having trouble keeping his voice level, she thought vaguely, wondering at the jerky sound of it. She shook her head almost helplessly, staring up at him. “I told you. I won’t play the beggar-maid. Leave it there, please, Rafe.”
“Where’s the woman who told me she was as good as any trainer twice her size? Where’s the woman who proved that? You’re no coward, Maggie! Why are you behaving like one?”
For the first time in her life Maggie could find none of the strength and pride that had brought her this far. She was defeated by something more powerful than anything she’d ever faced before, and it was within herself. “It looks like I am a coward,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Maybe that’s why it doesn’t hurt to be called one.”
“Maggie…” He framed her face with unsteady hands. “Doesn’t it matter that I love you?”
Her heart stopped, then pounded painfully against her ribs. She looked at the man who would never again be a rake in her eyes, and she wanted to hold on to him with every muscle she possessed. But she stood still and silent, dragging the desperate longing into hiding somewhere deep within herself. She believed he loved her, although she couldn’t believe it was a forever kind of love. There was nothing special about her, she was sure, to command that kind of affection.
He was special, and he did command that very special and lasting kind of emotion. She would love him until she died.
“Dammit, say something!” he ordered roughly. His instincts told him to kiss her still face and hold her tightly because she’d slipped away from him somehow, but a surer instinct warned that it would avail him nothing. They were both too near the ragged edge of their emotions, and he’d already discovered the danger of reckless impatience.
She stepped back from him carefully. “I’ll go and start dinner.” Her voice was calm and remote.
He clenched his jaw against the cry of protest rising in him, and his own voice was tight and strained. “All right.” He waited until she reached the doorway, then spoke again. “Maggie?” She halted, but didn’t turn. “You won’t leave until I get another trainer?”
Her shoulders squared visibly. “No. No, I won’t leave until you find someone else.”
He stared at the doorway for a long time after she’d disappeared, then raked shaking fingers through his hair. “Damn,” he said softly. “Damn…damn…damn!”
Moments later he was striding down the lane toward the barns, only vaguely aware of the deepening twilight and of the sounds of his employees closing up and calling it a night. Barns seven and eight were dark and still when he passed between them, the big, electrically powered doors closing off the halls and training rings and the security system turned on for the night. Main lights were going off in all the barns, and he reached number two just in time to prevent his foreman from closing it up.
“I’m taking Saladin out, Tom,” he said, hearing the harsh rasp of his own voice. “I’ll close up two when I get back.”
After a single sharp glance that Rafe hardly noticed, Tom followed him into the still-lighted hall and watched his boss lead the chestnut from his stable. Tom studied Rafe’s hands, which were steady and sure as Rafe groomed the stallion. Then Tom’s gaze lifted and fixed on the face of the man he’d known for more than thirty years, and he felt something inside of him tighten.
He had thought he’d seen Rafe Delaney in every possible mood his volatile personality could boast. He had seen Rafe furious, reckless, grieving, proud, delighted, compassionate, brooding. He had seen him wade happily into various brawls, had seen him after a night or two spent in jail for “disturbing the peace.” He had seen him shattered and silent after the deaths of his parents, and awed after the birth of a foal. He had watched Rafe struggle over the years to persuade his oldest brother to slow the hectic pace of his work, and to persuade his middle brother to remain close to home.
But Tom had never seen Rafe in this mood. He had never seen that face so still or those dark eyes so bleak. And he had never heard Rafe’s voice as he’d heard it tonight.
Watching his employer and friend saddle the horse, Tom wished he could offer comfort, but knew better than to try. Since the deaths of his parents, Rafe had withdrawn from all but his brothers. He shut out no one intentionally, Tom knew, and his charm was such that no one who had not known him for thirty years would have felt the difference. But Tom did.
For all his charm Rafe Delaney was very much a loner. Being one third of a dynasty was more a burden than a blessing, and it kept him apart from most other men whether he willed it or not.
Tom wanted to stride up to the house and shake some sense into Maggie. He wanted to tell her things Rafe would never tell her, because Rafe was not self-centered enough to talk of such things. He wanted to tell her that some men would always be alone in a crowd, even if that crowd adored him. That some men could share almost all with much loved brothers…but only all with the woman they loved. That some men would walk through hell when they loved, and fight the devil for what they loved.
“I’ll be back later,” Rafe said.
Tom nodded and followed horse and rider from the wide hall. He watched until both disappeared up the lane and into the darkening night. He glanced toward the distant house, then stepped over to sit down on the narrow bench just inside the barn.
“
Damn,” he muttered.
—
Rafe allowed his horse time to loosen up at an easy pace, then they were racing over a narrow path at a gallop. Racing the wind. Daring the rising moon. Chasing the demons of the night.
Given his head and Rafe’s hoarse encouragement, Saladin ran as his noble ancestors had run, head low and nostrils flaring, his delicate hooves flying over the ground in a mile-eating race.
Rafe didn’t think. He let the horse run until he slowed of his own volition, far from the compound, then guided Saladin to a high knoll and halted him. Then he simply waited. Waited for his heart to stop thudding. Waited for the stars to come close enough to drop into an open pocket. Waited for the raw beauty of the night to surround him. Waited for peace.
It came more slowly than ever before, but it did come.
He was able to think after a while, the unfamiliar blind despair seeping away slowly. And after a while, he stopped cursing his own recklessness in having pushed Maggie.
That was done and couldn’t be undone.
He thought he knew why she had refused him. Instinct told him that she cared for him, was perhaps even beginning to love him. And his timing couldn’t have been worse, he reflected. In trying to convince her he was no rake, he had incautiously become just the opposite, giving Maggie no time at all to adjust her perception of him.
And her confusion could have found voice in no other way. Of course, she refused to play the beggar-maid. Raw truth had echoed in her voice when she’d said, “What you own I couldn’t earn in a lifetime.” What she wanted most was his, and that was a wall between them. Maggie wouldn’t marry to attain her goal.
Rafe watched the moon rise ever higher and thought long and hard. Defeat was not familiar to him, and he refused to admit himself beaten. He was, he knew, perfectly willing to do whatever it took to win Maggie’s love; he simply could not envision a life without her. And, like Maggie, he had a strong tendency to focus on a goal and let nothing stand in his way.
He sat still in the saddle for a long time before turning Saladin back toward the compound. He spoke cheerfully to his foreman as he unsaddled and groomed the horse, then helped close up the barn and turn on the security system for the night. Then he strode toward the house.
Tom watched him walk up the lane and shook his head. Rafe’s mercurial changes in mood were no puzzle to him after all these years, and he smothered a laugh as he headed toward his own cottage. Shamrock’s newest trainer, Tom thought, had better watch her flanks, because the boss of Shamrock had decided on his strategy.
—
Rafe was not surprised to find the kitchen empty once he glanced at the clock and realized he’d been gone for hours. Maggie had left his dinner in the oven and had apparently retreated to her room. He enjoyed the meal and cleaned up after himself before going to his own room.
The next morning he found that she’d been up before him even though it was barely dawn, again leaving a meal ready for him. When he walked down the lane to the barns, the ranch’s day had begun and his people were already busy. He went straight to barn four, halting just as he reached it to observe a large van driving up the lane from the main road.
He was surprised they’d arrived so early, and when the van stopped, he had a brief word with the driver. Then he went into Maggie’s barn.
She was at the far end of the hall, leaning against the gate to the training ring and watching three young Saddlebreds being worked. As he neared her Rafe saw that she was pale and looked tired, and he fought the instincts urging him to take her in his arms. Instead, he moved silently behind her and dropped a quick kiss on the nape of her neck left bare by her two ponytails. He was smiling easily when she swung around to face him.
“Good morning,” he said. “We’ve got a new horse outside. How about helping me unload him?”
There was color in Maggie’s face now, and she seemed confused. “Oh—of course,” she murmured. She started down the hall. “Another horse for me—for this barn?” she corrected herself hurriedly.
“Another horse for you.” He ignored the glance she shot him.
“Rafe, I’m—”
“This is a special horse,” he interrupted calmly, “and I’m expecting great things of him. He came highly recommended.” Rafe chuckled quietly as they came out into the brightening day. “He’s the only horse on Shamrock insured through Lloyd’s of London.”
She looked at him, bewildered, then shrugged and headed for the side door of the dark-colored van. She saw no logo or other identifying mark on the vehicle, and wondered where this horse had been purchased. The driver was standing to one side talking quietly to Rafe, so she let down the ramp herself and entered the van. And even though the single occupant of the van was blanketed from just behind his ears to his tail, his entire body covered, she knew where the horse had come from.
She touched the perfect white exclamation point between flaring nostrils, unsurprised to see her hand was trembling. This was a horse that a trainer or owner could well wait a lifetime for and never encounter, a horse with utterly perfect conformation, pure bloodlines, incredible beauty and performance, and a temperament that made working with him a joy.
He stood over sixteen hands tall at the withers with the pads on his front hooves and was powerfully muscled even though barely four years old. He was a three-time Walking Horse National Champion: Warlock.
Maggie carefully untied the stallion and led him from the van, taking care going down the ramp. When they stood outside, Warlock lifted his head high and called a commanding challenge to any other stallion within earshot, yet he was instantly obedient to Maggie’s hand on the lead rope. She was only vaguely aware of the van pulling away, and of the gathering crowd of admiring Shamrock people.
“Let’s have a look at him,” Rafe said. He stepped to the horse’s side and unfastened the blanket, folding it neatly as he removed it to reveal Warlock in all his ebony beauty.
“Rafe…” Maggie stared up at the man at her side, forgetting, for a moment, what had passed between them yesterday. “Hawkes wouldn’t sell him; he just laughed at the offers!”
“He didn’t laugh at my offer.” Rafe smiled down at her. “We’d better take him inside, don’t you think? He isn’t used to this Arizona sun.”
Maggie came to herself with a start, and quickly led the stallion inside the cool barn hall. In her elation she forgot everything, feeling the excitement only another trainer could know. Warlock! To be able to ride and show such a horse! To watch his foals as they matured, searching for the sire’s wonderful traits in his offspring.
A once in a lifetime opportunity!
She turned the stallion into one of the four specially reinforced stables meant to house the more powerful and erratic males, then leaned over the Dutch door to watch him acquaint himself with his new home. “He’s beautiful,” she murmured.
“That he is.” Rafe was standing beside her, watching also. “We’ll have to find brood mares worthy of him, lass. The only real champion mare we have on the place now is your Calypso, I’d say. Do you plan to show her another season, or breed her?”
The tacit offer brought Maggie’s gaze to his face, and for a moment she allowed herself to dream. Calypso and Warlock—what a foal they’d produce! But then she remembered everything, and she turned back to stare at the horse of her dreams. “I…couldn’t afford the stud fee,” she said in the steadiest voice she could command.
“No fee,” Rafe said casually. “You earned a foal just by recommending him, Maggie. Call it a bonus, if you like.”
It was a not-unheard-of offer from an owner to a trainer, but the ramifications of his words shocked her. “You—you bought him on my say-so?” She knew he hadn’t left the ranch to fly East since her arrival. “You didn’t even go see him first?”
“No need to. You said he was the best.”
“Yes, but…Rafe, that was my opinion! What if I’m wrong?” She was shaken, knowing that he must have paid the earth for Warlock only on her wor
d that the horse was worth the price.
He looked down at her for a moment, his dark eyes very intent and utterly serious. “You know horses, Maggie. You’ve lived with them, ridden them, trained them, shown them. You’ve devoted your life to horses. I trust your opinion as I’d trust my own.”
She swallowed hard. There was simple truth in his eyes and his low voice, and she didn’t doubt his sincerity. Never in her life had she been so trusted. Looking away blindly, she whispered, “Thank you.”
“You don’t value yourself enough.” His hand was warm on her cheek as he gently forced her to meet his eyes again. “And don’t thank me for the truth.” He sighed. “What a team you and I would make. Maggie—”
“I’m leaving, Rafe.” It took all her willpower to force the words out, to say what left her torn inside. “As soon as you find another trainer.”
After a moment he nodded. “I see. No second thoughts in the quiet hours of the night?”
“No.”
“Well, I can hardly lock you in a turret, can I?” He smiled oddly. “More’s the pity. Those days are past—even for a Delaney accustomed to riding roughshod over people.”
“I never said that,” she protested almost inaudibly.
“No, you never said that,” he agreed dryly. “You said a few other idiotic things, but not that.”
“I didn’t—”
“Oh, yes, you did.” His voice, which had been calm and level, took on a suddenly intense tone. “Tell me something, lass. Do you think one person has the right to sacrifice another person’s happiness?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then why are you prepared to do just that?” he demanded softly.
She stared at him.
He went on, his gaze holding hers. “You think if you married me, I’d never be sure it was me more than the ranch you wanted. That’s it, isn’t it, Maggie? I don’t know if you love me, but I know that’s the reason you won’t marry me. I’ve got what you’ve worked for all your life, and that’s what’s standing between us.”