Adelaide, the Enchantress

by Kay Hooper

  “Where’s Addie?”

  Stiffening, Shane sent a glance to the man leaning against the fence beside him. “The back of beyond,” he answered, trying to keep hostility out of his voice.

  Tate nodded, his face as expressionless as his voice had been. “Helping one of her sisters, I take it.”

  Shane neither confirmed nor denied the assumption; he watched a groom leading a spirited black horse past them and said nothing.

  “I want to apologize,” Tate said abruptly, and grimaced faintly when Shane sent him a look of surprise. “I couldn’t bring myself to until today. I’ve been a bastard and I know it. There was never anything but friendship between Addie and me except in my own mind. I can see you’re more right for her than I’d ever be. You love her. And she loves you.”

  After a moment Shane said, “Forget it. I can hardly blame you for wanting to fight for her.”

  Surprising Shane yet again, Tate grinned. “I felt like a bloody caveman. Then she offered to let me strangle her. Did you know that?”

  Shane blinked. “No.”

  “I said I wanted to and she told me to go ahead.” He laughed sheepishly. “Made me feel about twelve. All of a sudden we were kids again, and Addie was making me mind my manners.”

  “She seems to have that effect on people,” Shane said with a smile.

  “She sure does.” Tate mused a moment in silence. “She was always like that. Looks every inch the delicate lady, made out of a dream. Then she picks up a hammer or swings up on some bloody-minded Thoroughbred, and you realize she’s made out of pure iron. When that gentle voice of hers starts tearing strips off somebody—”

  “I know.” Memories began filtering through Shane’s mind, memories of the varied faces of Addie.

  “You’re afraid for her when she races,” Tate said abruptly.

  Shane glanced at him, but didn’t deny it; he knew damn well everyone at the track was aware of his feelings—or would be if they cared to look. “Does that surprise you?”

  “No.” Reflectively, Tate added, “Funny. I never was.” Then he shrugged away the thought. “She looks fragile, but she isn’t, you know. She’s as tough as boot leather. All three of those ladies are.”

  “I know.” There was nothing else Shane could have said. He did know. It didn’t help.

  Tate nodded slightly, his expression saying that he knew it didn’t help. Then he gave Shane a small salute and walked away.

  Shane leaned against the fence and fought his demons.

  —

  The veterinarian showed up on Sunday to check on a few of his patients, and found a moment to tell Shane that the analysis of Resolute’s stomach contents had definitely shown poison. He seemed content to leave the matter in Addie’s hands, but warned Shane that if there were any further problems, he’d have to report them to track officials.

  Late Sunday afternoon Shane watched over Ringer while Tully went for his dinner. More on guard than ever after hearing the vet’s report, he nonetheless had his own restlessness to thank for his quick reaction to a possible tragedy. He was pacing back and forth down the long barn hall, uneasy, trying yet again to come to some decision as to who could be trying to put Resolute out of action.

  He no longer suspected Tate so strongly, especially after yesterday’s olive branch; he still couldn’t find it in himself to suspect Bevan, given the old trainer’s horror over the poisoned feed and the insecticide. Who? Bevan would never hurt Resolute, and Tate, Shane was sure, would never hurt Addie. Given those facts, the list of suspects could include only those not personally involved with either Addie or Resolute, but wishing to make money on the stallion’s no-show in the Cup. Which left the owners of the other horses and every bookmaker within miles.

  Wonderful.

  At one end of the hall Shane swung back to pace toward the other end, then stopped abruptly, his senses straining in a half-conscious warning. He recalled a brief movement just seconds before he’d turned, seen only fleetingly from the corner of his eye…What had rung alarm bells in his mind?

  He was moving even as he smelled the smoke and saw it curling lazily from the empty stall at the end of the barn.

  Five minutes later he stood with an empty bucket and stared down at the mound of blackened wet straw. The straw had not been heaped deliberately to feed the fire; it had not been necessary. Anyone involved with horses knew that even the safest of stables was a firetrap, given the amount of dry material all around.

  Shane made sure the fire was out, not surprised when he couldn’t find what had started the blaze. He piled the blackened straw into an empty feed sack and locked it in Addie’s jeep, then returned to the barn to check the alarm system.

  Tully returned as Shane was staring grimly at two severed wires, and the young man’s expression went just as grim. “There are other horses in this barn,” he noted in a quiet, dangerous voice. “The son of a—” He nodded, more to himself than anything else. “I’ll call a friend of mine to help watch,” he said. “And we’ll make damned sure the fire alarm works.”

  Shane nodded in agreement. “And if you know an electrician who isn’t connected with the track—”

  “I do. Another friend. He’ll fix this and keep his mouth shut about it.” Tully gave Shane a level look. “I plan to bet my savings on Addie in the Cup.”

  He hadn’t needed the reassurance, but Shane managed a smile. “Thanks. Why don’t you go call your electrician friend? I’ll wait here until we get this repaired.”

  “Right.”

  Shane stared at the severed wires after the other man left. Some demons, he thought, were more sinister than others.

  —

  He hadn’t meant to, but Shane fell asleep on Addie’s bed waiting for her. He didn’t even hear her come in, but the touch of her beside him in bed woke him instantly, and he turned to her with a groan of relief and need. She was instantly responsive, fire in his arms, and he lost himself in her. The days without her had heightened an already overpowering need, and he simply couldn’t get enough of her. There were no words between them, only murmurs and an escalating desire that flung them higher than ever before….

  Shane didn’t realize then just how clear his desperation had been to her, but the next morning he knew. He woke before dawn to find Addie up. She was sitting at the desk with a bankbook and pad of paper before her, working with a frown over a column of figures. Wearing only his shirt, she looked even smaller and more delicate than usual, the lamplight burnishing her hair with the fiery glow that was the only outward sign of the passion he now knew so well.

  “Addie?”

  Having obviously completed her calculations, she met his gaze. And she wasn’t smiling. The smile came within seconds, but her dark eyes were somber when she rose and came to sit on the side of the bed. As he sat up, she leaned to kiss him softly.

  “I don’t think we said hello last night. Hello. I missed you.”

  He laughed a little, capturing her hand and carrying it briefly to his lips. “Hello. I missed you. Lord, how I missed you. Did you—is everything all right with Manda?”

  “Fine.”

  The gravity of her expression unsettled him. “Then something else is wrong. Honey, if it’s because of last night—”

  She looked startled. “Last night?”

  He gestured a bit helplessly with his free hand. “Well, I didn’t even give you a chance to say hello. If I was too—oh, hell—if I was too rough or—”

  It was her turn to laugh softly. “In case you didn’t notice, I was just as eager.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  Her smile faded. “Missing the races I have, and losing some I should have won has made things difficult, Shane. I’ve had to plan for taxes, for expenses.”

  “What are you telling me?” He could feel himself tense.

  She drew a deep breath, a flicker of pain in her eyes. “I’m telling you that I’m going to have to race all out until the Cup. Every mount I’m offered. Every chance I can ta
ke. Not even selling Resolute would make up the difference. I have to race.”

  He stared down at their clasped hands, his heart beating with a slow, heavy rhythm. “I see.” Was that his voice—that hoarse, strained sound?

  “I’m sorry.” Her own voice was a whisper, soft and aching. “But I have to do this, Shane.”

  “I know. I know you do.” He pulled her into his arms, staring blindly over the top of her head. “It’s all right, sweetheart.”

  “I love you.”

  His arms tightened compulsively. “I love you.”

  He stared over her head and fought grinning demons.

  —

  There was, for Shane, no respite. Addie raced that day, and the next and the next. Other than emergencies, she set aside her blacksmith work to concentrate on the races. Shane had told her of the attempt to burn the barn, and about the vet’s report, and both made her all the more determined to succeed in her efforts.

  Concentrating on racing became a matter of blanking her mind fiercely, shutting out the pain that was Shane’s and hers. Because her need was so desperate, she managed to do that, but the effort took more and more out of her with every race. Shane remained close to Ringer’s stable, and both Tully and his friend shared guard duty so that there were always at least two people within the barn.

  And Addie raced.

  More than once during those days she thought that only blind instinct and years of experience enabled her to ride and win. She felt raw and aching inside, helpless to ease Shane’s fear and pain. She knew the image of his stepbrother’s death haunted him, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She sometimes woke in the night to find his arms rigid around her, his eyes fixed blindly on the ceiling. He was, she knew, strained almost to the breaking point. Except when she rode, he was always close, watching her in a way that broke her heart because it was just the way a man would gaze at a dream he couldn’t really believe in.

  There was nothing else she could do, and so she pushed herself even harder. At night she clung to him, trying with every thread of her being to reassure him. Yet, somehow, she knew she was failing. He made love to her with passion and tenderness, but held back something of himself, as he had always held back. It was not his love, she thought, but something far more basic and primitive.

  To him she was magic, and magic wasn’t quite real.

  Addie didn’t know how to deal with that. In loving Shane, she was always conscious of his flesh-and-blood reality; how could she convince him of hers? He freely admitted she was stronger than she appeared, and seemed amused by the occasional earthy curses she directed at some miscreant, yet he couldn’t quite rid himself of the illusion of her fragility, her unreality.

  Addie racked her brain, but could think of no solution. There were no words she had not already made use of. And how could one prove reality?

  At first Shane was able to push the fear aside when she wasn’t racing. But he found himself waking in the night more and more often, and tension wound so tightly within him that it gradually became an ever-present thing. He knew what he was doing to Addie. He could see it in her eyes, those eyes that were so expressive. She was hurting because of his pain.

  By the end of the week he didn’t know how much more he could stand. If he were the sort of man who developed nervous habits, he would have bitten his nails to the quick or chewed his lips raw. As it was, he could only watch and grapple with the dark churning of his emotions.

  Something had to give. And late on Friday, during the last race of the afternoon it did.

  The race began as all the others of the day had; there was nothing to warn Shane. And in spite of his tense foreboding, he was totally unprepared to see a galloping Thoroughbred stumble abruptly and a small figure in blue and gray silks tumble to the ground.

  No…oh, dear God, no!

  He didn’t know if he had spoken aloud, but Shane heard the hoarse sound he made even above the pounding of hooves and the gasp of the watching crowd. He never felt the splinters of the wood railing bite into his hands, and never took his agonized gaze off the colorful body curled in a small knot as it was lost beneath tons of horseflesh.

  Shane could feel the steel-shod weapons of those racing hooves, feel the choking dust and hear the thundering noise, and his chest was aching because he couldn’t breathe and his heart was frozen. Everything inside him shuddered, waiting in horror for the devastating memory of sirens and a hushed silence to become reality.

  Then, after an eternity, he was breathing again, drawing air in rasping sobs into his starving lungs. He could feel the splinters of the wood railing biting painfully into his hands, and through his blurred gaze he could see the tiny blue and gray figure climb to its feet and wave a reassuring hand to the crowd.

  She was all right.

  Shane knew that he had walked back to the barn because he suddenly found himself there. It looked unreal somehow. There was a strange, eerie stillness within him; even his heart, pounding so heavily until then, seemed to have stopped. He heard himself casually report to Tully that Addie was fine, and wondered idly why the younger man looked at him so oddly.

  Time seemed to drag past, and he waited patiently. He didn’t think, but wondered in a dim way why he wasn’t hurting. It never occurred to him that the human body tended to protect itself from the agony of extreme pain by temporarily wrapping itself in a thick layer of cold, insulating shock.

  It was good to be free of the pain, he thought. He wouldn’t hurt Addie anymore if he wasn’t hurting himself. Time still dragged, and he waited placidly.

  Worried, Addie rushed into the barn then and threw herself into his arms. “I bet I won’t even bruise,” she said breathlessly. “Not a single hoof touched me—can you believe it? And stupid to fall like some Sunday rider with two lessons under my belt—”

  Shane held her in his arms, but was annoyed because he couldn’t quite feel her there. Absurd. She was there. “You should be more careful,” he told her politely.

  She drew back a little and looked, if anything, more anxious. “Shane? I wasn’t hurt at all.”

  “Yes, I know.” He wondered why she was staring at him like that. Couldn’t she tell that he was perfectly all right? “If you’re finished here, we can go back to the hotel.”

  “I’m finished.” Her voice was very small.

  “Then let’s go.” He waved absently to Tully and led her out to his car. He didn’t start shaking until they’d left the racetrack behind them.

  “Shane?”

  His jaw began to ache, and he realized his teeth were gritted. “You’re all right?”

  “I’m fine. Really.” She was touching his arm.

  “You weren’t hurt.”

  “No. I wasn’t hurt.”

  “It was…just a fall.” He heard his voice, cracked now and unsteady.

  “Shane…”

  Abruptly, he hit the brakes and turned the car off the main road and onto a less traveled one. Seconds later he was turning again, this time onto no road at all; the car came to a halt in a small wilderness of trees and bushes on the edge of one of Melbourne’s parks. It was a secluded, peaceful spot, too far off the beaten path for tourists or passersby.

  He killed the engine and flung open his door, stumbling from the car with the jerky motions of a man who has to do something before he shatters. Addie was right there, her face white and her eyes enormous, and when he hauled her into his arms this time, he could feel her against him.

  “Oh, Addie—” His mind was totally blank, there was only this frenzied, imperative need to be as close to her as he possibly could. Closer…closer…

  He was barely conscious of tearing her blouse in his rough haste, hardly aware of anything but his furious, overpowering desire. A distant part of his mind told him that she was responding, helping him to rid them both of clothing. He felt thick grass beneath them, a primitive bed. And then his senses tunneled, focusing only on her and the erupting fire between them.

 
; Her breasts swelled in his hands, the nipples hard buds his mouth captured hungrily. The soft, throaty sounds she made shivered through his body, an intimate caress, and he groaned aloud when he felt her hands stroking him. He wanted her so badly he felt savage, all his instincts raw and screaming for possession. Yet he couldn’t stop touching her, tasting her. His senses were drunk from her, and he wanted more.

  His hands were shaking as they explored a body they knew well, and in the turbulence of his need there was no control, no gentleness, no holding back. Her fall from a horse had sharpened his fear to a razor’s edge, and there was nothing left but this terrible demand of all his senses to blunt that fear with the touch of her.

  Addie arched against him, her body aching and burning, shaking in the wild rush of overpowering need. Her fingers locked in his thick hair and she moaned, her senses spiraling crazily. The rasp of his tongue on her taut nipple sent shock waves through every nerve, and her swollen breasts filled his hands, molding themselves to his touch.

  The strength and power of him was devastating, and her body responded in a glorious freedom she had never known before. It was madness, sheer mind-shattering pleasure.

  His mouth found hers in a blind, seeking touch, the first possession of his tongue meeting the fire of her response. He demanded with the strength of untamed male command, taking whether she would have given or not, drawing everything that she was into himself. And it wasn’t enough.

  He was quite literally a man possessed, driven by a demon of rampaging fear. Something had snapped within him, leaving a ragged wound, and the only healing for it lay in assuring himself in the most primitive way possible that her life force was strong and sure.

  He wanted to bury himself in her until they were bonded, fused together, mindless, formless.

  Her body strained against his, trembling, her soft cries pushing his desperate need almost over the edge. He felt the sharp sting of her nails in his back, felt the silken touch of her thighs closing about his hips. And he groaned hoarsely when her body surrounded him, welcomed him in a slick, hot union. It was a fierce, stunningly powerful joining, escaping savagery only because her response was as wild, her need as imperative as his own.