by Leigh Dillon
Tonio pried Destin’s arms loose and turned to face him. He stared solemnly into Destin’s eyes for a moment, in that shrewd, measuring way he had, and then pushed himself up a little on his toes and sealed his lips over Destin’s.
Destin returned the kiss, exploring gently, savoring the taste and texture of Tonio’s flesh. The heat that flushed Tonio’s marble-cool body every time Destin caressed him still astonished him. It was almost as if Tonio’s metabolism ran at a faster rate than anyone else’s, and any excitement could set it burning at hummingbird speed. That furnace of his required constant stoking, but then his drive was the thing that made him so wonderful.
Destin broke the kiss off and drew away a fraction. “Let’s take this upstairs,” he murmured, his voice hoarse with arousal.
Tonio nuzzled his nose against Destin’s cheek, then turned his face against Destin’s and nipped the point of his chin ever so lightly. “Good idea,” he replied. Without waiting for Destin to let go, he wriggled out of Destin’s grasp and, grinning, pulled his sweatshirt off over his head, exposing the creamy flesh of his bare torso. He let Destin get an eyeful, then turned around and strolled toward the staircase, deliberately walking with a roll of his hips that all but forced Destin to look at his buttocks.
At the foot of the stairs, he stopped and looked back. “Better come on,” he said. “I’ve got about a million ways to say goodbye, and the clock’s ticking.”
Destin didn’t need to be asked twice. He left the dishes to crust over on the table and took the stairs two at a time.
Chapter 19
DESTIN DIDN’T sleep that night, even with Tonio nestled in his arms. The grandfather clock downstairs in the entry chimed midnight, then one o’clock. Destin lay twisting restlessly under the feather comforter, rehearsing schemes to keep Tonio at the farm—schemes that grew wilder and more divorced from practicality as the night wore on.
Sometime around one thirty, Tonio got up to use the bathroom and didn’t return. Destin heard the back door open and close, and though the sound hurt, he didn’t blame Tonio for leaving unannounced. Skipping the goodbyes was probably cowardly, but at least it left the memories untarnished by awkwardness and misspoken sentiment.
Destin finally heaved himself out of bed in the frosty gloom of dawn. Lights already twinkled in the barn, and the faint beep-beep of the shavings truck backing up to the loading platform sounded faintly in his ears. Just the start of a busy day. The farrier was coming later to reshoe Butternut. The veterinarian would be stopping by to do a last seasonal worming and check the progress of the broodmares’ pregnancies. Destin should have the farrier check Argento’s teeth while he was here. Overgrown molars were a constant problem with the old guys, and maybe he ought to talk to the vet too. Argento was getting a woolly, potbellied look that might be winter coat and too much hay, or it might be the first signs of Cushing’s. Argento had been good to the Bellinghams. He deserved the same consideration in return.
A floodlight came on over the barn door. Destin expected to see Manuel and the grooms coming out to shovel shavings, but instead Tonio appeared. And right behind him, fully saddled and looking a little confused but game for adventure, Black Sambuca.
“What the…?” Destin’s outburst clouded the frosty window glass, and he angrily rubbed away the fog with the side of his hand. The lights around the practice ring blazed on, lighting the side garden in daylight glare.
Is Tonio going to ride?
Destin craned his neck to get a better view of the ring and bumped his forehead against the windowpane. Dimly through the morning mist, he saw Tonio throw a leg over Sam’s back and settle into the saddle.
“Hyahhh!” Tonio’s shout echoed loudly, even as far away as the bedroom window. Destin jumped. Sam jumped even harder and lunged forward. Tonio urged him on, elbows flapping, drumming his heels against Sam’s ribs. In a flash Sam and Tonio turned from a horse and rider to a black blur, racing away down the tree-lined driveway and out of sight.
Snarling to himself, Destin threw on the first clothes his fingers touched and raced downstairs. Crossing the kitchen, he rammed his knees into the open door of a cabinet, swore, and then did a double take.
Oh Jesus, it’s the liquor cabinet. The liquor cabinet’s open. Destin swung the door open the rest of the way and looked inside. A clean ring in the dust marked a missing bottle—good Kentucky bourbon, if he remembered right—and part of Destin’s brain caught fire. It didn’t take a genius to draw the line between Tonio’s presence last night, the missing bottle, and the horse running amok outside.
Hopping a little from the pain in his shin, Destin snatched his barn jacket off the hook and charged out the door, pulling it on as he ran, his breath making great steaming clouds as he panted down the path.
Tonio had taken a shortcut across the fallow hayfield that bordered the drive. Destin raised his hand and shaded his eyes against the dazzle of the low morning sun. Even at this distance, he could tell Sam was leaning on the bit, even though Tonio was already crouched low over Sam’s neck, urging him on.
Stunned disbelief rooted Destin to the spot. What the hell did Tonio think he was doing, galloping Sam through a pasture like that? There were furrows, depressions, woodchuck holes. Was he deliberately trying to kill himself and the horse too?
Heart pounding, Destin bolted for his Land Rover. He didn’t spin the tires this time, but he drove down the golden tunnel of sweetgum trees fast enough to make the Rover lurch and buck over the dips. When he reached the wall of the hayfield, he slammed on the brakes and leaped out.
Tonio didn’t see him at first. Destin jumped up and down and waved his arms, hoping for some sign of recognition. Finally, just before Destin resorted to climbing over the stone wall and running into the pasture, Tonio turned Sam in Destin’s direction and reined the stallion in.
“Tonio!” Destin shouted.
Way off across the field, Tonio replied to Destin’s shout by giving a big, loose wave.
He’s drunk. Destin didn’t know how he knew that from such a distance, but he did. And as he absorbed this fact, fiery rage boiled up inside him. Not because Tonio was drunk, or for fear of damage to his potential-filled but worthless horse. It was the betrayal. Tonio had been so careful about his sobriety during the month he’d spent with Destin. And aside from that disastrous dinner at Ashby Inn, Destin had bent over backward to aid Tonio’s efforts. This—this drunken spectacle—was a slap in the face, a thumb in the eye, an extended middle finger to all the promises Tonio had made.
And Destin had had enough.
“Tonio!” he roared, climbing up on the doorsill of his car for emphasis. He waved his arm in a huge, circular beckoning gesture and then pointed at the ground beside the Rover.
Come over here, he thought savagely as he motioned. Come over where I can rip your head off.
Tonio clapped Sam in the ribs, and the horse streaked off at a full gallop. The trunk of a fallen white oak loomed ahead of them, a nearly six-foot-high wall of solid wood. Destin waited for Tonio to turn Sam and go around the tree, but he didn’t. In the slow motion of horrified anticipation, Destin watched Sam thunder toward the log.
Tonio is going to die. They’re both going to die.
No horse could clear a log that size. Any second now Sam was going to realize that and balk, and his drunken rider would pitch over Sam’s neck like a rag doll and smack headfirst into the tree trunk. And, of course, Tonio was not wearing a helmet. But if Sam couldn’t clear the log, there was no sign he realized it. He kept coming, head down, determined.
The instinctive part of Destin’s brain screamed at him to do something. Now. But what was he going to do? Nothing short of teleportation would get him across that field in time to do anything but help the wounded after they smashed into the log. Shouting a warning might do more harm than good. All he could do was watch, mouth open, hands clamped on the doorframe in a white-knuckled grip.
Sam ducked his head, gathered his haunches under him, and launched.
Tonio stood in the stirrups, chest leaned far over Sam’s neck, and together they flew. Sam’s belly skimmed over the tree trunk some microscopic fraction of an inch above the surface of the bark. As he crossed the apex, one forefoot struck lightly and bounced, not even enough of a tick to dislodge a regular obstacle rail. He struck out with his hind legs as he passed over the log, drawing them back in only as the curve of the trunk began to fall away beneath him. And then he was over. A deep peck of his nose toward the ground as he hit, but he never broke stride. He signaled his accomplishment with a saucy flick of his tail and came cantering over to Destin with his neck arched.
“Fun horse you’ve got here,” Tonio called when he got within hailing distance.
The fire in Destin’s brain reignited. He jumped down from the Rover and strode into the middle of the drive. Tonio urged Sam over the wall that was supposed to keep horses in the pasture. Sam took it like a two-foot hop. He wasn’t even blowing when Tonio reined him up right in front of Destin.
“Get down,” Destin snarled through clenched teeth. He grabbed Sam’s reins and held them tight. “Get off my horse, get off my property, and get the hell out of my life.”
Tonio’s expression of slightly stoned exhilaration didn’t waver. “I figured out what Sam’s problem is,” he said. “Don’t you want to hear it before you throw me off the place?”
Destin stifled a childish urge to grab Tonio by the leg and topple him off Sam’s back. “All right,” he grated, still half-blinded by the flames dancing behind his eyes. “What’s wrong with him?”
Tonio leaned down. “He’s bored.”
“Bored? What the hell are you talking about?”
“The arena jumps are too easy for him. It’s like making a math prodigy do first-grade addition. Not just once, but over and over. It’s like me in school. You wanna know why I sucked so bad? It’s because they made me do stupid shit I already knew. I just didn’t want to play their fucking little game. So I didn’t. And neither does Sam.” Tonio brought the flat of his hand down on Sam’s shoulder with a resounding slap of approval.
“Bored!” The stuff about schoolwork wasn’t penetrating Destin’s brain. All understanding had stopped at that one word: bored.
“You want me to spell it out for you?” Tonio asked, exaggerating his enunciation as though Destin had gone deaf. “Sam needs a challenge. If the game don’t make him think, he ain’t gonna play it. You know why he does so well with dressage? He has to think about it. He’s gotta work to do it right. You want to see him jump a perfect Grand Prix round? Go back to the practice ring and raise the bar. Set every damn cup at the highest position. Put all the rails six feet high. Pull the oxers out three feet and push the combinations in so they’re two feet closer together. Make the course impossible. Then you’ll see what your guy is made of.”
Destin hesitated, torn between yanking Tonio off Sam’s back and kicking him all the way to the gate, and driving up to the practice ring and making him prove his theory. For a long moment, kicking Tonio through the gates seemed to be winning out. But curiosity finally took over.
“All right,” he said, hopping into the driver’s seat. “Show me.” He slammed the door before Tonio could reply.
Tonio and Sam hopped the opposite wall and galloped off through the broodmare pasture. Destin took a more indirect route and found Tonio waiting for him when he reached the crest of the hill.
“You’re drunk,” Destin announced as he got out of his car. “You know that, right?”
“No, I’m not.” Tonio didn’t look the least bit abashed at the lie.
“You stole bourbon out of my liquor cabinet.”
“Yeah. I did.” Tonio cocked his head and fixed Destin with that intense look of his. “I was gonna drink myself blind because I’d just screwed up the best thing I’d ever had. But I didn’t. I sat there half the night, looking at that bottle, telling myself I could have it. Wanna know why I didn’t drink it?”
Destin fought against the lull of Tonio’s charm, then gave in and nodded.
“Because getting drunk was giving up. Getting drunk makes me a loser, and I am not a fucking loser. And sometime—I dunno, like five o’clock—it hit me like a big neon sign. Here, help me move the rails.”
When Tonio brought Sam around and lined up to jump the first upright, Destin held his breath. Sam fixed on the rail and his ears came forward. Tonio slackened the reins and leaned forward. Sam cleared the jump, for once putting visible effort into the takeoff. One hind foot clipped the rail as he landed, and Sam’s ears flicked back in annoyance.
Tonio rose in the saddle and pulled Sam into a sharp turn, aiming at the jump immediately beside the one he just cleared. An ordinary jumping horse, or even a very good one, would have either refused the jump or plowed into it, but Sam squatted down on his massive haunches and lunged. This time a loud “crack” echoed on the still morning air as Sam’s metal-shod front hooves contacted the wood of the rail. The rail rocked perilously in its cups, but somehow it stayed up. Sam’s belly skimmed over it, and he finished with not only that contemptuous flick of his tail, but a kick of his hind legs as well.
After that, Tonio picked jumps at random. Sam jumped every one without hesitation, digging in and attacking every time Tonio asked the impossible of him. Sometimes he knocked rails down, from being pushed beyond his skill, not from lack of effort—and every time a rail fell, Sam responded with that unhappy backward flick of his ears. Only when Sam’s sharp pivots slowed and sweat shined his coat from black satin to fresh tar did Tonio finally ease up, dropping Sam first to a trot and then a walk.
“That’s what a horse looks like when he’s having fun,” Tonio announced, sidling over to Destin and pulling Sam up. For once Sam genuinely looked like he had worked. Sweat streaked his satiny flanks, and steam boiled off his overheated body like a movie locomotive. But his head was still up, his ears pricked and eyes lively.
“Wonderful,” Destin grumbled, trying to keep the hope and excitement out of his voice. “So all we have to do is ask every course designer at every competition to build a special impossible course for Sam, and we’re all set. Or maybe you’re going to tell me he should be a three-day eventer instead of a jumper?”
“No. I’m saying give Sam some variety. Make training a game instead of a chore. And for fuck’s sake, stop trying to work up the ladder by jumping him in single-A and AA competitions. Start him at Grand Prix level and screw his lack of experience. AA is a waste of everybody’s time.” Tonio dismounted, pulled the reins over Sam’s ears, and thrust them at Destin.
Destin stared at Tonio in confusion. “What? You got him hot and sweaty—you cool him out. Don’t give the reins to me.”
“I don’t work for you anymore, remember?” Tonio snapped back. “He’s your horse, you hot-walk him. I’m going to finish packing.”
“Tonio, wait!”
“Wait for what? You told me to get off your horse and off your property. And oh, yeah, out of your life. Well, I’m off your horse. Give me another hour, and I’ll be the other two too.” He gave an exaggerated mock bow and strode away.
“Tonio! Tonio, stop!” Destin started after Tonio at a trot, still holding Sam’s reins, and without giving Sam any warning. Sam got a rude bridle yank and threw his head up, leaving Destin fumbling wildly for the flying reins. When he got hold of them again, Tonio had stopped and was watching him, grinning.
Destin got control of the reins and asked Sam to walk. Together they approached Tonio.
“I’m sorry I said that,” Destin said, not quite meeting Tonio’s eyes. “I was upset. I didn’t mean it.”
“So what are you saying? My clock hasn’t run out after all?”
“No.” Destin raised his eyes and met Tonio’s gaze squarely. “You’ve solved the problem with Sam, and as far as I’m concerned, your month isn’t up till midnight tonight.” He grinned, and Tonio’s smile answered his own.
“So I’ll be riding for Bellmeade after all?” Tonio asked with a lift o
f his eyebrows.
Destin stared into Tonio’s face, drinking in the energy dancing in his blue eyes, the lush mouth, and the firm chin. A feeling of daring overcame him, sweeping away his inbred restraint. He dry-swallowed.
“Yes,” he said, his voice a husky whisper. “For the rest of your life, if you think you can stand it.”
The grin dropped off Tonio’s face. His mouth worked, but for once his glib tongue came up empty. Without warning, he walked up to Destin, wrapped his arms around Destin’s body, and put his speechless tongue to another, more effective use.
“So is that a yes?” Destin asked a little breathlessly when they broke apart again.
“That’s a hell yes.” That infectious grin from the magazine photo broke over Tonio’s features again, this time infused with pure delight. “Now give me those reins, and let’s go home.”
Epilogue
DESTIN PULLED his tie straight for the tenth time in the last two minutes. Bright spring sunlight streamed across the packed grandstands of the Upperville show ring. Despite the record crowd of spectators, the only sound was a kind of susurration punctuated by gasps whenever the horse and rider in the ring executed a particularly dangerous or daring maneuver.
“I’m telling you, this is a phenomenal new team,” the female commentator boomed from the announcer’s booth. “Tonio and Black Sambuca are just destroying McClain Ward’s time on this jump-off.”
“I think those inside jumps are going to catch up with Tonio, though,” the male commentator rebutted. “He’s asking an awful lot of such a green horse. Ohhh! That was close.”
“But he made it. Such athleticism!”
The commentary was nothing but a drone in Destin’s ears as he stood by the ring exit and sweated. This was their third time in actual competition, and the performance Tonio and Sam were putting on in the ring was nothing he hadn’t seen dozens of times before in practice, but this time it was for a real prize.