Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [54]
She remembered how fluidly his muscles slid over each other, the way his hands held a shovel so firmly, his single-sighted intensity as he went about any job. His jaw was always set, his eyes narrowed against the harsh light of the sun, his determination evident in the lines of his face. She’d spent a few nights even fantasizing about touching him, about the feel of his work-roughened hands against her skin, about the pressure of his lips as he kissed her.
Now as she reached the north paddock, she located Ink Spot, standing head to tail with the palomino and switching flies in the shade of a solitary oak tree. Nostrils quivering, Ink Spot lifted her head, spied Maggie, and snorted. With a toss of her head, she took off, and Maggie gave slow, quiet chase. After a few minutes of the game, Ink Spot trotted up to her and pressed her forehead into Maggie’s chest.
“I love you, too,” Maggie said, rubbing the hard spot between the mare’s ears and slipping on the halter. “Let’s go for a ride.” She led the mare to the stable, and while Ink Spot shifted restlessly in a stall, snorting into the empty manger and generally seeming ill at ease, Maggie collected her favorite saddle and bridle. The horse gave out an irritated neigh.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said, carrying the tack with her. The light wasn’t all that great, just shafts of sunlight piercing through open windows and doorways to an interior where dust and straw covered the floor and the scents of old urine and fresh manure mixed with the warm odor of horses. Cobwebs and the empty, brittle carcasses of dead insects littered the windowsills, and barrels of oats and mixed grain were stacked in a corner.
Ink Spot, true to her nature, flattened her ears and cocked a hoof she would never kick, but always used as a threat to Maggie as she cinched the saddle. A pale blue eye watched her nervously.
“Boy, you’re ornery today,” Maggie said to the white-faced horse. “We’re going for a ride. Whether you like it or not.”
“Bossy thing, aren’t you?” Thane’s voice startled Maggie, and she jumped. She hadn’t heard him enter through the open door, hadn’t picked up on the sound of a worn leather boot scraping against the concrete flooring.
She threw him a glance over her shoulder. “When I have to be.”
“Is that often?” He reached for a shovel that was hung on a nail near the door.
“Depends.” Buckling the cinch, she wrapped the end through a loop she’d made in the extra length of strap.
“On?”
Was he baiting her? This time when she looked over her shoulder she met his steady gaze with her own. Blue-gray eyes, the color of the sky at dawn, observed her without flinching. She swallowed hard and felt years younger than seventeen. “On…the situation.”
“I thought maybe it was just your nature, Mag Pie.”
She bit back an instant sharp retort. “Did you?”
“Mmm.” His gaze moved slowly down her body, hesitating a second in silent appraisal. Past neck, shoulders, breasts, waist, hips, and legs to her feet where her tired-looking boots were half-buried in the straw spread upon the floor of the stall. “Sometimes you seem angry.”
“Angry?” she repeated, feeling a fool. “How would you know?”
“The way you ride.” He leaned on his shovel now, lifting his gaze quickly to meet hers.
“And how is that?”
“Hell-bent-for-leather. Like you’re runnin’ from something.”
“You can tell all that just by the way I sit in the saddle?”
“Nope.”
Uncomfortable with the conversation, she opened the stall’s gate and led Ink Spot past Thane and through the door. She thought the discussion was over, but she was wrong. He sauntered through the doorway and leaned a shoulder on the weathered siding.
“It’s that you’re always in a hurry. Faster, faster, faster.”
“Maybe I just like to ride that way.” She stuck a foot in the stirrup and hoisted herself onto Ink Spot’s back. It was still hot outside, the afternoon heat intense.
“Most people who do smile once in a while.”
“I smile.”
He shook his head, the blond streaks visible in the afternoon