Ride a storm

by Quinn Wilder

  "Oh, I get it."

  "Do you?" His tone softened. "Have you ever looked at a dress or a diamond or a car and not been able to have it?"

  "I don't see what that has to do with what just happened."

  "No? It's about the difference in our realities."

  "Oh, Dace! We made love. Isn't this the modern new world where people do things like that without pledging their lives to each other?"

  "Thoroughly modern Cadence," he snorted. "I might even believe you if your old-fashioned virginity hadn't been intact."

  "You're the one who's trying to make it into something more!''

  "Your eyes are telling me something I'm not ready to hear," he proclaimed softly. "You're not the kind of woman I could have an affair with. And you're not the kind of woman I could marry either."

  "Why?"

  "I can't have an affair with you because it wouldn't be enough. And I can't marry you because I can't afford you. Besides, I've seen firsthand what marriage does to two fairly nice people."

  "That's a dilemma, all right," she said coldly, fury and hurt sweeping away the cloud of her contentment like an icy wind.

  "Oh, hell, Cadence." He reached for her. "I can't keep my hands off you, either."

  "I guess I could probably learn to sweep a floor/' she murmured, her anger dying and being replaced by this odd, unfurling flag of hope.

  "I can't ask you that"

  "Of course, you'd have to sweep them, too."

  "You're too bossy by far, Cadence."

  "Mmm." She let her hand drift under the blanket.

  "And far too beautiful."

  "I don't really even like diamonds."

  "Dammit. You're a witch. I knew right from the beginning that you were a witch. What am I going to do with you?"

  "Love me?" she suggested.

  "Yeah," he growled. "There's always that."

  "Dace, I'm not interested in tomorrow. Or your promises. I just want right now."

  "I don't believe you, Cade. A woman like you isn't going to take any less than a man's soul."

  She silenced him with her lips. Later, she assured herself, much later, she would look at the consequences of loving a man who could talk about affairs and marriage without ever mentioning the word love.

  She wished she didn't love him. It would hurt so much less if she didn't love him. But she knew with an aching, hurting tenderness that she did. She loved him. And she had loved him for a long time.

  "I'm supposed to ride tomorrow, you know," he managed to tell her in between kisses. "At Cedar Park."

  "I think we might be finished by tomorrow," she assured him, turning her head to nibble on the curve of his chin.

  "I just wondered if you were one of those coaches."

  "What coaches?"

  "The kind who thinks making love saps an athlete's energy. Who orders celibacy "

  "No," she said firmly, "I'm definitely not that kind of coach."

  "Hmm. You must be the other kind, then."

  "The other kind?"

  "The kind who encourages athletes to—"

  "Yes," she whispered eagerly. "I'm that kind."

  "Good," he said throatily. "Because I'm that kind of athlete."

  "Of course, you could always quit riding if this proved detrimental."

  He laughed. "I want that in writing."

  "I thought you dealt on handshakes?" she teased him.

  "Not if I can get something better."

  "You snake "

  "Only with you," he assured her, then pulled her on top of him and stared into her eyes. "If you're feeling any pain, you have to tell me, okay? Don't be brave about it. Or shy. I don't want to hurt you."

  "It doesn't hurt," she whispered. Except her heart had a funny little hurt in it—a kind of overwhelming tenderness for the man who lay with her among the crushed grass and wildflowers. It made her feel very vulnerable to care about anybody as much as she cared about Dace Stanton.

  But, in truth, it wasn't because they had become lovers that she was feeling this way. This was a culmination of things that she had been feeling since she had first laid eyes on this lean, handsome cowboy.

  She smiled. She knew she really had believed he could ride Storm, but now she also wondered if her heart hadn't used his skill in the saddle as a way to outmaneuver her defences. Thank goodness for hearts that wouldn't die, for spirits that still danced even after they'd been wounded.

  As for his not knowing where they were going or what he wanted, well, so what? She knew life didn't have any guarantees anyway. She knew that you could plan and plot and schedule and scheme and come no closer to ever getting what you wanted.

  Sometimes life had a few unexpected twists and turns, and it was in those unexpected, unplanned places where all the treasure was hidden. If you could outrun the booby traps.

  "In that case, if you want a really good ride tomorrow, I suggest you kiss me."

  She kissed him.

  When she watched him the next day, at the horse show, she was very much aware that he looked different to her. That she was seeing him with brand-new eyes—not as a man, but as her man. Brand-new eyes as she participated in this age-old rite of passage—a woman looking at the man who had become her lover. She marveled at the wind playing with his hair, and the ripple of bronzed muscles beneath his clothing. Her eyes strayed to his lips and his hands and his eyes, tickling the memories within her. She felt the secret and thrilling pleasure of knowing things of him that no one else here could know. Intimate secrets. How smooth and unblemished was the skin over corded muscle. How clear

  and seeking his eyes were after he made love. How tender those large, strong hands could be.

  He sat the horse like a warrior of old, something fearlessly calm in him that embraced the elements of danger, and eagerly anticipated the challenge.

  Yes, she had always looked at him with a kind of pure feminine appreciation. But now she looked at him differently again. The world was a little brighter around the edges because he was in it. He seemed electrically alive, and everything else seemed faded and dull. Now, she saw him with a lover's possessiveness and it did extraordinary things to her heart to see this self-possessed, magnificently attractive man, and think, He's mine. And tonight, when all of this is over, he'll cradle me in those same arms that are so effortlessly holding that horse in check, he'll capture me with those same steel-strong legs that he uses to guide the horse, he'll unleash on me the power that he keeps such a tight leash on when he rides Storm.

  She could feel a flush starting up her cheeks. He was hers. For now. But he'd already warned her he wouldn't or couldn't stay. She didn't know what to do about that. Her pride told her to call it quits before he did. Her ego told her to get out now before she got in too deeply, and the hurt of getting back out became unbearable.

  And her heart told her to ride the storm for as long as it lasted. Her heart told her to accept the unexpected gifts of life exactly as they were given. Without expectation or regret. Without looking backward or forward.

  Dace, who had been focusing on the course, riding the jumps and planning his strategy in his mind, turned, as suddenly as if she had called him,

  and looked at her. And she knew, from the unguarded tenderness that flashed through his eyes, that for now, for this moment in time, her heart was safe in this man's keeping.

  His name and number were called, and he snapped the chin strap closed, touched the brim of his cap to her, and then, with utter and compelling confidence, guided Storm into the ring.

  With effort Cadence forced herself to focus on the task at hand. Storm was going beautifully today. He was calm and good-mannered, responsive and obedient. He always jumped superbly when he was like this; as effortlessly as though he were part eagle.

  A warning whistle blew and Dace nudged the big gray into that easy, powerful lope. They completed one tight circle and then approached the first jump.

  It was a harder course than anything they had practiced, Cadence observed. But
if they were nervous it didn't show. All that showed on Dace's face was total concentration. He was so focused on the course, and the horse, and the jumps, that the rest of the world must have disappeared for him. It was a feeling she remembered well.

  Her own nervousness disappeared and was replaced with a slow awe. They were beautiful. They were everything that this sport was about— boldness, and heart, and incredible discipline. They were poetry, absolute and effortless poetry, as they sailed, a complete team, over one jump after another.

  She felt a single moment of jealousy for the world she had left behind—for the feel of that magnificent horse surging underneath her, giving his whole huge heart to the job in front of him. And then even that was gone. She could still share it. Dace

  knew how she felt, and he was so good at describing for her every sensation, every nuance of feeling, every reaction of the horse to his every command. He sensed her hunger for details and provided them with good humor and grace.

  She could feel a certain sizzling tension building in the silence of the crowd and she looked around. She could see they were beginning to see what she had always seen. There wasn't so much as the rattle of a popcorn container coming from the crowded stands as every eye focused on the man and the horse. Rarely, ever so rarely, a man and a horse performed like this. With a unity of spirit that was awe inspiring, with a compatibility of grace and strength and power that were unbelievable.

  She turned back to them; back to her dream of the gold. She knew it would come true. She simply knew, in that moment, that she had never lost the dream, that it had only been postponed.

  She would remember that moment of certainty for the rest of her life, and wonder if it had incensed the gods that she still wanted. That, even though last night she had been given more than she had ever dared expect from her life, she still wanted more.

  Out of nowhere, with absolutely no warning, Storm went berserk. He had been loping steadily toward his next jump, when suddenly he corkscrewed sideways and began to run.

  Dace's expression hardly changed, except that a determined line whitened around his mouth. His horsemanship was superb. In fact, she could tell that he had ridden a bucking bronc or two, and that experience stood him in good stead now. But he was pitting his strength against the strength of

  a formidable opponent. The horse was in a complete panic. He didn't even seem to be slightly taken aback by Dace's attempts to get him under control.

  Over the loudspeaker, far away, she could hear an announcer saying something about one of the finest demonstrations of horsemanship he had ever seen. And it was true— Dace was showing amazing skill. Obviously everything he'd ever learned about horses was being poured into this moment. When it became evident he could not halt the horse, he stopped trying, and resigned himself to guiding the movement as much as he could. He managed to maneuver Storm out of the hazardous area of the jumps and began to manipulate him into a large circle around the perimeter of the arena.

  The horse was wild-eyed, beginning to froth under his saddle and at the mouth. Cadence wondered, sickly, if he could run forever. She was so proud of Dace for not bailing out, for sticking with it—for being able to stick with it.

  And just when it looked as if Dace would win Storm abruptly changed direction, fighting the rein, and throwing Dace off balance. He charged the permanent boundary fence that surrounded the jump area. He hit it like a steamroller. The fence splintered. Dace went down, and Storm sprang free.

  Dace lay in a crumpled heap, among the litter of the fence, blood seeping from underneath his helmet, down his face.

  By the time she reached him a crowd had formed around him. He was beginning to stir, but he had lain deathly still for just long enough for her to imagine the abyss that life would become without him in it.

  Suddenly, she felt foolishly and angrily naive that he had not made her the promise of forever that just moments ago she had been so blithely sure she could live without.

  She sank down beside him and took his hand. She was reassured by the strength in it, the resiliency of his skin, the warmth. He opened his eyes, and stared at her. He tried to smile, and them grimaced from effort.

  "Geez, Cade," he mumbled, "what did you hit me with?"

  In a matter of minutes, he was stubbornly blocking the attempts of the first-aid people to get him on to a stretcher. He walked off the field, to thunderous applause.

  "Where's Storm?" He tried, unsuccessfully, to shake off the grip of the muscular young man who was the first-aid attendant. "Would you let go of me?" he snapped.

  "No, sir. You'd probably fall over if I did. That wound has to be bandaged. It looks as if you have some fragments of wood imbedded in your skull."

  "Thick as it is," Cadence said, and was rewarded with a glare. She reached out and touched his face. Her hand came away smeared with blood, and she shoved it under his nose.

  "Oh, hell," he said, as if bleeding to death were a nuisance he didn't have time for right now. But she knew he was weaker than he appeared when he allowed himself to be led over to the grassy area where the first-aid vehicle was parked.

  Dace looked suspiciously at the ambulance. He refused to go in it. The ambulance attendant wisely saw the need for compromise, and opened the back

  doors so that Dace could sit in the doorway, with one of those long legs firmly planted on green grass.

  "It looks worse than it is," the ambulance attendant assured Cadence, as he cleaned the wound. It was fairly obvious to him that his patient was not patient—and not the least bit interested in the proceedings. "Head wounds bleed a lot. But," he said to Dace, "it'll probably be a couple of days before you are doing much of anything. And there's a chance of concussion "

  Dace grunted impatiently. "Would you just hurry up?"

  The young man seemed to become even more meticulous in his dressing of the wound—winding a white gauze around the now cleaned wound. Cadence silently thanked him.

  "What's your hurry?" she asked Dace.

  "I doubt if they've managed to catch Storm yet."

  "I don't know if they've caught him," she said coldly, "and I don't care. My father was right about that horse. He should be shot."

  Dace was frowning. "No. In that second when I felt him start to twist underneath me, something clicked. For a second I knew why he was doing it. But I can't remember right now."

  "It doesn't matter. Not right now." Not ever again, she decided. She could not subject the man she loved to the danger of an unpredictable horse over and over again. Something was going to have to be done. Right now, she was angry enough to think the only solution was a shotgun. Which, considering her loyalty and affection to the horse, was a very strong statement about the power of her feelings for Dace.

  "Now/' said the young man, looking proudly at his bandaging job, "why don't you just come lie down in the back here until your head clears a bit?"

  Dace stood up. He wavered.

  "Dace," Cadence crooned, "just lie down for a "

  At precisely that moment Storm thundered by, frothing and frenzied, but not looking nearly as frenzied as the harried officials who were chasing him.

  "For heaven's sake," Dace breathed. He swung in that direction and Cadence clutched his arm.

  "They can manage without you, Dace."

  "Did it look as if they were managing?" he asked, looking askance at the hand on his arm. "I'm going to find a rope. I think I can "

  She shuddered inwardly at the vision of him being dragged behind the horse that shot through her mind. He'd been through enough and so had she.

  She didn't move her hand. Her lip trembled. "I need you right now. And I don't want to talk about that horse."

  "Cade, you know Storm as well as I do. And chances are not a soul is going to be able to get near him. The highway is too close to the grounds. They'll kill him if it isn't handled right."

  "Good."

  He sighed impatiently. "You must be in shock. You won't feel that way in a while. Besides, something cl
icked "

  "So you said once before," she said coldly, knowing she was losing.

  "I have to go. That's in my blood. You can't take the cowboy out of me, Cade, and a cowboy

  looks after his horse. First and last. That's all there is to it"

  "And what about the woman? Where do I fit into your stupid, corny cowboy code of honor?"

  "Cadence, you're not in need. You're not scared and hurting. He could be hurt."

  "I am scared and hurting. I don't want you running around with a fractured skull after a mad horse."

  "I have a cut on my head. I don't have a fractured skull. And the horse isn't mad." He looked at her long and hard. "This isn't how it works, Cadence."

  "How what works?" she demanded, but she didn't like the resignation in his tone—as if this was something he knew he would have to tell her.

  "This isn't about Storm. It's about you and me. You don't own a person because you've made love to them. Not even if you love them. Love isn't about owning. It's not about always having your way. It's not about making me choose between you and what I feel my duty is."

  "I'm going to have the horse shot," she said, because she was so angry with him. She had been so careful not to mention the word love. She had been so careful not to do exactly what he was saying she was doing anyway. But she did love him and he was choosing a horse over her. Damned cowboy!

  "All the more reason I'd better get to him," he said wryly. "Look, it probably won't take long. They may have him under control already..." His tone was dubious. "Why don't you go get some supper, and I'll come find you as soon as I can, all right?"

  "Don't bother!'' she spat out viciously. "I'm going to leave now."

  His eyes held hers sternly and then he shrugged. "Have it your way. I have better things to do than spend my time with a willful, spoiled brat."

  She raised her hand, and he caught it in an iron

  grip-

  "The next time you raise your hand to me, or

  throw your cane at me, I'm going to turn you over