Pegasus: A Novel (42 page)

“And say what?” Nicky said with a sheepish look. She would have felt silly calling,
despite their common history.

“Call him for advice about the horse you just bought. I think your meeting was fated.
The hand of destiny. Think of it, his grandfather and your great-grandfather were
best friends. Yours saved his grandfather’s life, and now here you are seventy-six
years later.”

“It’s just a coincidence,” Nicky said, brushing it off. “Though weird, I’ll admit.”
Nicky called her mother in Virginia that night and told her, and Violet was touched
by the story and remembered meeting Alex’s father and his grandfather when she visited
the ranch with her mother Marianne, after a horse show in Santa Barbara in
1965, when she was training for the Olympics, three years before she won the gold.

“That was all before I was married, and before I had you, and before the man you met
today was born. What’s he like?” She was curious about him, the two families still
exchanged Christmas cards every year, but she had lost track of the details. And the
man her daughter had met at the auction was an echo of her own history, their two
families somehow intertwined.

“He’s nice. Kind of a handsome cowboy,” Nicky said thoughtfully.

“Was he upset you got the horse?”

“No, he was very gentlemanly about it. I wasn’t about to give up that horse,” she
said, and her mother laughed.

“I’m sure that’s true.” Nicky never gave an inch once she made up her mind. She was
strong-willed and independent, which was why she wasn’t married. She had never met
her match, and wasn’t sure she wanted to anymore. She liked her freedom too much.
“Well, I can’t wait to see the horse. He must be gorgeous,” Violet said warmly. They
were all horse mad. It was in their blood.

“He is gorgeous,” Nicky said, referring to the Lipizzaner and sounding delighted,
and she told her mother all about him. And two days later, Violet saw him for herself,
when Nicky brought him home. He was even more beautiful than she’d expected, and a
gorgeous specimen of the breed.

Nicky started working with him immediately, and trying to break him, but he was the
fiercest, most stubborn horse she had ever seen. He was strong and independent. And
for the next month, he resisted all her efforts to train him, although she had trained
several Lipizzaners before him, and knew the breed well.

She called him Snow, and he tried to bite her whenever she said his name, as though
he didn’t like it. The rest of the time, he threw
her every chance he got. She had never been thrown as often by any horse she tried
to train, and she was black and blue from head to foot, but determined not to give
up. She almost called Alex Bing once to ask him for advice, for real, not as a ploy,
but she didn’t want to admit she was having trouble with the horse. It was embarrassing.
She had never had a horse she couldn’t break, except this one. He was totally wild,
and after two months, she was wondering if she should sell him. She thought again
about calling Alex Bing, to offer the stallion to him for breeding, but she didn’t
want to sell him a bad horse. But she was beginning to think that Snow would be good
for nothing except breeding. He had flawless bloodlines and a rotten disposition.

She decided to take him to a horse show with her, when she went to Santa Barbara for
a jumping event. She was thinking of selling him to a breeder there.

After the show, she left her jumpers at the stable in Santa Barbara and, on the spur
of the moment, decided to drive to Santa Ynez to check out Alex Bing’s ranch. She
took a single-horse trailer with her, with Snow in it, to ask Alex’s advice. She didn’t
call before she got there. She wasn’t planning to stay long, and if he was busy, she
would just leave.

She was impressed as soon as she drove onto the property, and saw the beautifully
maintained ranch, and the enormous barns. They obviously had a lot of horses. She
saw him walk out of one of the barns as she drove up. She stopped her trailer, and
he turned to look at her. He smiled as though he’d been expecting her to come, and
she laughed as she got out of the front seat in jeans and a crisp white shirt. He
was wearing the same cowboy hat he’d worn in England or one just like it.

“Well, what brings you here?” He looked pleased to see her, and recognized her immediately
when he walked over to her.

“I brought a friend to visit,” she said, pointing to the trailer.

“Anyone I know?”

“Could be,” she said, as she opened the door of the trailer and led Snow out. He was
a splendid horse, and they both stood admiring him for a minute. Alex was happy to
see him again, and her.

“How’s he doing?” Alex asked with interest, as a much older man stood in the doorway
of one of the barns, and watched them with a smile. He had a feeling he knew who she
was. Alex had told him the story when he got back from England, and Lucas had been
impressed by the sheer coincidence of their meeting at the auction. He sensed that
this was the same girl and the horse.

She laughed at the question and was honest with him. “He’s a huge pain in the ass.
He throws me every time I ride him. He bites me if I say his name. I don’t think he’ll
ever be any good for anything but breeding. He can’t be trained.” She had trained
a lot of horses, but not this one.

“Are you selling him to me?” Alex asked with a look of serious interest, feeling the
horse’s legs and flanks with expert hands, and Snow stood peacefully and let him do
it, while Nicky waited for him to go wild. But he didn’t. He looked at Alex like an
old friend, and as she watched them, she knew why she had come. It was suddenly crystal
clear in her mind.

“No,” she said quietly, “I’m giving him to you. I have this crazy feeling that he
wants to be here. Besides, it’s a family tradition. My family gives yours horses,
Lipizzaners, every seventy-six years.” Alex laughed and shook his head. He knew what
she had paid for him. A fortune.

“I can’t accept a gift like that.” He smiled as he said it.

“I’m sure your grandfather said something like that to my great-grandfather in 1938.”

“Maybe so,” Alex said, watching her quietly, and then he looked at the stallion again.
“What did you call him?”

“Snow,” she said, and the horse turned and gave her a filthy look, but he didn’t try
to bite her.

“What about Pegasus?” Alex said, and the horse turned again and looked like he was
smiling.

“See what I mean? He doesn’t even like the name I gave him. I swear, he hates me.
I think he wanted to go home with you all along.” It felt that way now, watching him
nuzzle Alex. He was wearing a bit and bridle, and Alex swung easily onto his bare
back and led him around. The giant Lipizzaner was as meek as a lamb. And Alex looked
at Nicky and smiled.

“Want to go for a ride? I can grab you a horse from the barn.” She was wearing riding
boots, and she nodded, still unable to believe that he was riding the huge stallion
bareback with no problem. He had a magical way with horses, and the Lipizzaner looked
like he knew he was home and had a friend. He had treated Nicky like the enemy since
she bought him.

Lucas saw what they were doing, and brought her a horse a minute later. He introduced
himself, and Nicky explained who she was. He had known it the minute he saw her.

“Beautiful stallion,” he commented about the Lipizzaner she had brought with her.

“He belongs here,” she said simply. And a moment later they cantered off, and Alex
had no problem with him at all. They rode for a long time and were still on his enormous
ranch.

“I don’t know why, but I had a feeling you’d come here. And I felt
like I was going to see him again,” Alex said quietly, referring to the stallion.

“You must be psychic,” she said, and he laughed.

“No, I just felt like our meeting was so strange, as though it were meant to be, or
happened for some odd reason.” And then he realized where he had taken her, without
thinking. They were walking their horses past the peaceful place where his grandfather
was buried, and Christianna beside him, looking out over a bluff, and Pegasus was
buried nearby. He looked at Nicky then, and saw again that her eyes looked familiar,
as though he had known her for a long time, or in another place. And she had the same
feeling about him. It was as though they had been linked long ago, and their paths
had been meant to cross that day at the auction. It felt as though forces more powerful
than they were at work.

“I’m glad you came,” Alex said quietly. “I thought about you a lot after we met. I
almost called you a couple of times, but I didn’t know what to say.”

“Me too,” she admitted. “I just rode in a show in Santa Barbara, and I knew I had
to bring him here. He was meant for you. He doesn’t belong to me. He never did.”

“Pegasus,” Alex said quietly, and the horse gently moved his handsome white head at
the sound of his name. “Welcome home,” he said, patting him, astride his powerful
bare back, and as he said it, he looked at Nicky and she smiled.

He gave Pegasus his head then, and Nicky followed beside him, as they galloped through
the fields. They had come through generations to find each other, and the white stallion
that had bound their ancestors to each other and saved three lives had come with them.

Pegasus had come back to them. They slowed their horses to a walk as the barns came
into sight, and Alex reached out and gently
touched Nicky’s cheek. She felt as docile as the stallion when he did it, which wasn’t
like her. He had a magical touch. “Welcome home,” he said again. He was saying it
to her this time, and as their eyes met, it was the most peaceful feeling in the world.
And as Lucas watched them from the distance, he smiled, too, and walked into the barn,
knowing that all was well in their world. Pegasus had come home.

DANIELLE STEEL has been hailed as one of the world’s most popular authors, with over
600 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include
A
Perfect Life, Power Play, Winners, First Sight, Until the End of Time, The Sins of
the Mother, Friends Forever
, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of
His Bright Light
, the story of her son Nick Traina’s life and death; A
Gift of Hope
, a memoir of her work with the homeless; and
Pure Joy
, about the dogs she and her family have loved.

Visit the Danielle Steel website at
daniellesteel.com
.