by JoAnn Ross
“Let me try,” Kate suggested after the Thoroughbred had worked himself into a lather.
“Be my guest.”
She slowly approached. Just as he’d done with Alec, Legends Lake would wait, visibly trembling, trotting off whenever she got within arm’s length. Three times she attempted to approach the horse; three times he bolted. Seemingly undeterred by her failure, she continued to talk to him in a low, soothing tone one might use to calm a frightened child.
“Last time he pulled this, I finally got him to come to feed,” Alec suggested.
“Let’s save that for a last-chance solution,” she said mildly.
“Hey, it’s your call.” So long as she didn’t make things worse.
She stopped about six yards from the horse, crossed her arms over her chest, then lowered her head and drew in her shoulders. Visibly smaller, she then turned as still as one of the stone statues of the Virgin Mary found at crossroads.
The horse snorted. Pawed the turf. Snorted some more.
Kate didn’t move. Indeed, from what Alec could tell, she was barely breathing.
Legends Lake trotted toward her. Head down, she didn’t appear to notice. The horse moved closer. Still she didn’t move.
He stopped, ears pricked, every flight instinct obviously on full alert as he watched for her slightest movement.
Nothing.
He licked his lips. Then began to inch toward her.
Still she stood there, head and eyes downcast.
When he was only a few inches away, close enough for her to reach out and grasp his reins, the colt snorted again and trotted away. When he got to the edge of a small pond, he stopped, then spun back around.
If the horse had been seeking attention by running away, he definitely wasn’t getting it. Indeed, Kate O’Sullivan appeared to be in another world, far away from this Irish turf track.
He tossed his mane. Neighed. Appearing to lose his patience, he lowered his long head and charged right at her in a full blown, ears back attack.
“Get the hell out of the way!” Alec shouted, sprinting forward to head Legends Lake off. The other men, who’d stayed to watch the battle of wills, were right behind him.
Kate didn’t appear to hear him. Nor did she appear to be aware of either the men or the charging horse. The colt closed in, swerving at the last minute, but not before coming within millimeters of her slender body.
“Christ.” Alec took a deep breath and instructed his heart to begin beating again. “Okay. That’s enough humoring him.”
“Please,” she said on a voice so soft he could have been imagining it. “Just let it be.”
“Right. Like I’m going to stand by and watch you commit suicide just because you’re too damn stubborn to admit that this horse is too far gone for even you to help.”
“You’re wrong.”
He’d just opened his mouth to argue when the stallion charged again, twelve-hundred pounds of furious horse headed right at her.
“Goddammit!” he shouted at both horse and woman. When the idiot female seemed unprepared to move, he grabbed her and shoved her behind his back.
This time Legends Lake skidded to a halt in front of them and reared up, front hooves high and ready to strike. His high pitched whinny rent the air.
That was when Kate did what was either the most foolhardy or bravest thing Alec had ever witnessed. She slipped from behind him, lifted calm blue eyes to wild brown and continued to stand her ground.
Legends Lake dropped back down. Shook his large head. Then stood absolutely still.
She was speaking to him, soothing Irish words that rode on the soft breeze like a low hum. The two of them could have been in their own private world. Seeming oblivious to anything but the horse, she began walking away from the men, the horse watching her every move.
“That woman is flat-out nuts,” Alec muttered, hating the way his heart still felt as if it were going to pound its way out of his chest.
“Some might say so,” O’Bannion agreed. “Others around here might call it something else.”
“Such as cursed,” Kevin Murphy grumbled.
“The girl is no more cursed than you or I,” John O’Neill insisted. “Yet she does have a near magic way with horses. As her own da did, and none ever called him cursed.”
Murphy frowned at the comparison. “Because he didn’t go around the county claiming to be a witch.”
“She has Biddy Early’s blood. It’s not surprising that she would be inheriting The Sight,” O’Neill pointed out. “I don’t recall you turning her away when she showed up with that ginger tea when Maeve was sick as a dog with the morning sickness last spring, Kevin Murphy.”
“There’d be not a shred of proof the tea made any difference.”
“True. And likewise no proof that it didn’t.”
“Mam says Maeve would have gotten past the babe sickness without the tea. Like all women do.”
“And felt a great deal worse in the meantime. If you ask me, Kevin, your only problem with Kate is that she finally wised up and threw your nephew out of her house the way she should have years ago.”
“Divorce is a sin.”
“Now, I may not know my catechism as well as some, but surely wife-beating is a far greater transgression than divorce in God’s eyes.”
Alec hadn’t been listening all that closely to the argument, more concerned with the stubborn, foolhardy woman’s safety than gossip about what magical powers people in the village might believe her to possess. But that statement caught his attention.
From what he’d seen, Kate O’Sullivan was a strong, independent woman with a mind of her own. The idea that she’d allow any man to strike her, not just once, but from what O’Neill was implying, for several years, was difficult to believe. Still, the guilty dark flush rising from Murphy’s collar suggested that O’Neill’s accusation may well be true.
Reminding himself that he had no desire to involve himself in this woman’s marital problems, Alec turned his attention back toward the standoff, watching as she reached out and stroked the stallion’s long neck. Legends Lake snorted again, but this time the sound was lacking the earlier threat.
The Thoroughbred drew closer yet, allowing her to stroke the white blaze running down the front of his long face. Alec waited for her to reach up and grasp the bridle that was now within reach, but she surprised him yet again by turning her back on the horse and walking away.
“What the hell is she doing now?”
“Just wait,” O’Neill suggested. “Watch a true horsewoman spin her spell.”
Kate was walking back toward them, Legends Lake following, as obedient as a pup brought to heel.
“We’d best be getting him back to the stud.” Her calm tone belied the fact that she’d just risked her life. “Then I’ll try to find out what’s wrong with the poor dear.”
Alec was struck with the thought that she’d only been in that field with the horse because of him. Because he’d been so damn eager to crawl his way back to the top he’d been willing to do anything—risk anyone—to get there. Residual fear from having watched her nearly stomped to death metamorphosed into an anger that was easier to deal with than guilt.
“That poor dear could have stomped the life out of you.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t have done that.” She reached up and tossed her arm around the horse’s neck as it stopped beside her, seeming to wait for her next move. “Would you, darling boy?”
The Thoroughbred nickered in what sounded like agreement. He was much calmer than he’d been when he’d bolted, yet looking at him closely, Alec viewed a glint of red in his eyes that suggested lingering danger.
“What the hell is it with you?” His temper was hanging by a single ragged thread as they walked the colt back to the trailer. “Are you some sort of damn adrenaline junkie? Or do you just have a death wish?”
She glanced up at him, clearly surprised by the force of his tone. “Of course I don’t. Why would you be asking that?”
“Because in the few days I’ve been here in Ireland, I’ve watched you face down a bulldozer and a crazed horse.” The words were forced through clenched teeth. “Both of which could have easily crushed you.”
“Standing in front of the bulldozer was not such a risk.”
“You’re that sure of your alleged magical powers? Or perhaps you were expecting the faeries who supposedly live in that tree to rescue you?”
“No,” she said equably. “I was that sure of Brian. I’ve known him all my life. When we were nine years old, I watched him tend to a bird he’d found on the sand. The poor wee thing had broken his wing flying into the cliff in a storm and Brian carried him in his own two hands to my grandmother for a bit of healing powder. He never would have run me down.”
“What about the horse? I realize you don’t want to admit it, because it might suggest a flaw in your breeding, but in case you haven’t noticed, he’s crazy.”
“Not crazy. Merely afraid. He also knows that I’m the only one who can help him.”
“I suppose he told you that?”
“He didn’t have to. We understand each other, Legends Lake and I. I was the first human he saw after entering this world. He remembers that I care for him. And more importantly, he remembers that he cares for me, as well.”
Alec was irritated as hell that she was managing to remain calm while he couldn’t recall ever being so scared. Not even that time when he’d been seven, abandoned by his mother on a darkened street in a city that was as foreign to him as Oz, and a pervert who’d reeked of whiskey had tried to drag him into his van. He’d slashed the back of the bastard’s hand with his pocketknife. Later, his father had whipped him for having lost the knife in the dark.
She secured the door to the trailer and had walked around to the driver’s door, when Alec stopped her. “I’m not finished talking to you, yet.”
Kate slanted a pointed look at the hand he’d slammed against the door beside her head. “Wouldn’t that be a shame for you, then.” She reached past his arm to the chrome handle that showed a touch of rust. “Since I’m through talking with you.”
Alec was all too aware that the others had stopped loading their own horses and were watching them with not a little interest. Unwilling to create a scene in front of witnesses, he backed away, allowing her to open the door while he marched around to the front of the truck and threw his body into the passenger seat.
* * *
“How much farther do we have to go?” Zoe complained as she followed Jamie O’Sullivan on foot through a cemetery of high stone crosses.
“It wouldn’t be far now,” he assured her.
She stumbled over a fallen grave marker, then glared down at the high platform heels. She should never have come out here in these boots. She should have worn a pair of sneakers. She should have just stayed home.
“Are you all right?” Shea stopped beside her, concern on her freckled face.
“Yeah, sure.” Zoe pushed herself to her feet. “Other than a broken ankle, I’m just dandy…. Look, why don’t we do this some other day?”
“But what about the Lady?” Brigid asked.
“Your brother can tell me all about her on the ride back to the farm.” The temperature was dropping. She looked up at the sky, saw the dark-rimmed clouds beginning to gather and remembered none of them had brought an umbrella.
“Oh, it wouldn’t be the same thing at all,” Jamie and Rory said together.
“It’s a grand story,” Jamie said. “But best told at the lake itself.”
Personally, as fire shot through her ankle, Zoe didn’t give a damn if she went the rest of her life without hearing the stupid story. But there was something about his earnest face. Something in the eyes—weird as it was, since she had not a single thing in common with this little Irish kid who sort of reminded her of Opie Taylor—that Zoe thought she recognized.
“This had better be worth it.”
“It will,” Jamie assured her.
“It will,” Brigid echoed.
On the ride over here from the farm, Zoe had noticed that the little girl adored her big brother, echoing nearly everything he said. If she had a little sister or brother, would it look up to her?
“Stupid question,” she muttered. She didn’t have any brothers or sisters and now that her mother was dead, never would.
“Sister Mary Joseph says there are no stupid questions,” Rory volunteered.
“Then Sister Mary Joseph needs to get out more. The world’s full of stupid questions. And even stupider answers.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Celia’s question came from out of the blue.
“I don’t know.” Zoe didn’t want to think about the possibility of Jake taking some other girl to California when he got out of jail. “Why?”
“Because our sister, Mary, is a teenager. And she gets out of sorts the same way whenever she’s having boy trouble. Nora says it’s just part of growing up.”
“Thank you for the advice, Dear Abby.”
The sarcasm flew right over the curly red head. “You’re welcome to it. But my name is Celia,” she reminded her. “Though there are two girls named Abby in my class this year,” she tacked on helpfully.
Zoe just shook her head in mute frustration, then stopped as they reached a towering hedge. The brambles looked impenetrable, like ones that had kept any princes from rescuing Sleeping Beauty for a hundred years.
“If you think I’m going to become a human pincushion trying to get through this, you need your head examined.”
“Don’t worry. There’s a secret passageway,” Jamie assured her.
“It’s a shortcut everyone uses to get to the lake.” Brigid put her hand in Zoe’s. “I’ll show you.”
As her fingers closed around that small hand, Zoe decided against pointing out that if everyone used the shortcut, it couldn’t be all that secret. They emerged from the hedge to a view that was admittedly pretty cool. The reed-fringed lake was as smooth as blue glass until broken by the splash of a fish jumping. Two swans, a black and a white, floated on the surface. The gray stone castle stood on the far bank, crumbling, but dignified.
“Isn’t it grand?” Jamie’s face beamed with childish pride at having shown her such a special place.
She shrugged as she watched another swan glide in from the sky. “I’ve seen better.” When the lie caused his small shoulders to droop, Zoe felt an unaccustomed prick of guilt. “But yeah, I guess it’s pretty grand.”
A huge smile wreathed his freckled face.
“A beautiful queen used to live here,” Shea told her. “With long hair that went all the way to the ground.”
“It was as yellow and bright as a leprechaun’s gold,” Brigid piped up.
“But she wasn’t only beautiful.” This from Rory.
“She was kind, as well,” Jamie took up the story. “So the ancient ones—the gods who lived here a long, long time ago before St. Patrick brought his Catholic God to Ireland—gave the kingdom a very special gift.”
“Gold, I suppose.” She’d secretly always been a sucker for fairy tales. Hadn’t she spent years fantasizing about Alec as a knight in shining armor?
“Oh, better than that,” he said.
“Guess again,” Brigid nearly shouted.
Zoe shrugged and played along. “Diamonds?”
“Better!” they all said.
“It was”—Jamie paused dramatically—“a spring!”
“That’s all? A lousy spring?”
“It was a magic spring,” Rory said. “Anyone who drank from it never got old.”
Zoe still thought that was a pretty useless gift. “I can’t wait to get older. Then no one can tell me what to do.”
“That’s what Mary says, too,” Celia said comfortingly. “But Nora says that nobody gets to do exactly what they want in this world.”
“We’re getting away from the story,” Jamie complained.
Zoe turned back to him and gave him an exagger
atedly bored, go-ahead gesture.
“The thing was, you see, the spring had to be capped with a magic stone every night so that it wouldn’t overflow and flood the valley. It was the king’s job to do that. But there was also a wicked faerie who lived in the glen.”
“This is my most favorite part,” Shea confided, smiling benevolently back at Jamie when he shot her a frustrated look at having been interrupted yet again.
“She was as ugly as a boar, as sharp as a brier, and as evil as the devil,” he forged on.
“So no man would ever fall in love with her,” Shea interrupted again. “But then, guess what?”
“She fell in love with the king.”
“Would you be knowing this story?” Jamie asked.
Once again Zoe felt a little guilty at his crestfallen expression. She wasn’t used to caring about anyone else’s feelings except her own. “I just guessed. Don’t women always fall in love with handsome kings in fairy tales?”
“Oh. I suppose so. Well, the problem was, you see, he didn’t love her back.”
“Because she was so ugly, right?”
“That’s what the faerie thought!” Shea called out.
“Who’d be the one telling the tale?” Jamie asked.
“Sorry.” Her guileless smile even had Zoe’s lips reluctantly quirking. Jamie O’Sullivan may only be eight years old, but he was still a male, susceptible to a beautiful female, even if she was still a child. He stared at Shea Joyce’s sunshine bright smile a moment longer, seeming a bit dazed, then continued doggedly on.
“Well, since she thought the problem was because she was so ugly—”
“Ugly as a boar,” Zoe remembered.
“Aye.” He didn’t seem disturbed by her interruption; Zoe guessed he was just pleased she was actually listening to him. “She made a magic spell that turned her into the most beautiful woman in all the kingdom.”