Some Kind of Angel (11 page)

While the horse stood with shivering skin, Michael undid the right rope.  “Now I’ll undo the other one.  You’re doing fine, old chap.  Just stand very still.”

I sent Jake and Gabe out to look for Michael.  To me it seemed he’d been gone a long time.  Now the brothers stood in the back door of the stable, watching their sister’s business partner enter the stall of the most dangerous, undisciplined horse on their ranch.

“The damn fool,” Jake muttered and started forward.  Gabe caught his arm.  “Wait.  It would be better if we let that devil horse give our idiotic guest a kick or two.  Teach him a lesson.”

“As long as Black doesn’t kill him.  Leslie would never forgive us.”

“We’re right here.  If anything happens, we can pull him out in seconds.”

Against his better judgment, Jake stood with his brother, watching.

“Suppose you tell me all about it,” Michael said to the big stallion.  The horse poked his nose into Michael’s shoulder.  “Ah, I see.  You grew up as a wild horse.  You liked your life the way it was.  You want your freedom.  Believe me, I understand.  But suppose you could learn to like this life.  Suppose you could have snatches of freedom in between doing what the humans want you to do.  Could you live with that?  What do they want with you?  Do you know?”

“They want you to mate with a mare of their choosing?  Well, that doesn’t seem so terrible.”  Michael plucked a brush from the wall and began grooming the beautiful horse’s mane.  It was full of burs and tangles.  He suppose this proud creature hadn’t let anybody get close enough to groom him.  “You do not love her.  You love the palomino in the next stall?  I don’t blame you.  She is a beauty.  I suppose they are worried about keeping the palomino’s blood line pure.  I wonder.  Perhaps we could somehow convince the brothers that you are worthy of such a filly.”  He continued to brush down the mane, his mind working.  He broached a plan to the stallion.  The stallion nodded his agreement.

Michael eased open the stall door and before the brothers realized his intent, he slipped a bridle over that black-as-midnight nose, hoisted himself up on the stallion’s back and flew past them through the open door.  They shouted after Michael, but he was soon at the fence of the corral.  “It’s all right,” Jake said.  “They can’t get out of the corral.”

“Can’t they?  Well, they just did.  Black went over that fence like he had wings.”

“That stallion will throw him off and stomp on him.  We’ll have to go pick up the pieces.  Leslie is going to kill us, especially if she finds out we could have stopped him.”

Never had it seemed to take so long to saddle the pinto.  She was the fastest horse in the stable just now and Jake felt as if it took hours before he swung onto her back.  He sent the pinto pounding out into the corral with Gabe right behind him. There was another delay while Gabe jumped down to open the corral gate.  Then they were out on the grazing land, a vast sea of green Bahia grass.  The stallion was nowhere in sight.

“It looks as if we’ve lost them all together, my beauty.  Perhaps we’d better turn back and let them have a look at us.  A close look, if you don’t mind.”

Michael was pleased that it took a good five minutes of traversing the grazing land before he caught sight of Jake and Gabe.  He wanted to pull Beauty up next to the two men, but he knew if he got within grabbing distance, they’d do just that, lift him off of Beauty’s back, thinking they were protecting him.

“What in hell do you think you are doing?”  Jake launched the first attack.

“I should think it would be perfectly obvious to a couple of horsemen like you two what I am doing.”

“Get down off that horse before you get killed.”

“I’m in no danger, and I think you know it.  Save your protective shields for the women in your family.  I can take care of myself.”

“All right then.  Turn that devil around and head him back to the stable.”

“Not just yet.”

While Jake ground his teeth, Gabe’s eyebrows went sky high.  He knew of very few men who would defy his brother on his brother’s own land.

“Beauty and I would like to challenge you to a race.”

“Beauty and you?” Jake scoffed.  “You’ve renamed him?  You’ve only got a bridle on him.  You’ll fall off and break your crazy neck.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.  What’s the matter?  Afraid I’ll beat you?”

Jake considered himself a pretty good judge of men.  He’d taken Michael for a man who wasn’t a sissy, exactly, but a man who’d rather talk than fight.  He was having to revise his first assessment rather quickly.

“I’ll have to be fair and warn you.  This pinto is the fastest horse in my stable.”

“Then I’ll extend the same courtesy to you.  You have no idea what this stallion is capable of.”

“He’s capable of scaring off my stable hands.”

Michael guided the stallion around so he was next to the pinto.  “Do you want to race…or talk?”

That stung.  Jake gritted his teeth and took the pinto’s reins in his hands.  “Call it, Gabe.”

“First one to that far hummock of palm trees wins.  Ready, set, go.”

The stallion was off like a shot and a full length ahead of the pinto.  The pinto strained to give Jake all the speed she could, but the stallion remained in the lead all the way to the hummock, the proposed end of the race.

Michael sat on Beauty’s back, waiting for Jake.

Jake pulled the pinto around to stand next to the stallion.  “What do you think this proves?”

“Well, first of all, it proves your stable hands are idiots.  They showed fear and Beauty reacted with his own fear.  Secondly, you have a fine race horse here.  With the right training, he would likely win you some money.  What did you buy him for originally?”

“We bought him for a stud horse.  But he won’t mate with the mare we’ve chosen.”

“Have you thought about trying the palomino in the next stall?  Maybe our boy likes blondes.”

“I can’t have the bloodline mixed.”

“Not even if you get a champion race horse out of the two of them?”

“He’s got a point, Jake.”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

It was a silent ride back to the stable.

When Michael had installed Beauty in his stall, Jake said, “Will you groom him and train him while you are here?”

Michael shook his head.  “That will be a full-time job.  I also do not wish to give our fine stallion the idea that I will be here with him permanently.  I suggest you turn Beauty’s training over to Dorian.  I think the two of them will do very well together.”

“Dorian doesn’t have much experience with horses.  He’s always been on the bookkeeping and cattle breeding side of things.”

“Then perhaps he will learn,” Michael said, smiling that smile that Jake was beginning to recognize.  Of all the crazy things, it radiated so much assurance that it reminded him of an angel’s smile.

That night, Leslie lay in bed, her bare body next to Michael’s equally bare body.  “All right,” she said, turning to him and drawing circles on his chest in a way that made his lower body come to attention, “you’re going to tell me what happened out there this afternoon after you went to look around the ranch.”

“Just straightening out a couple of things with your brothers.”

“If they did anything to hurt you…”

“Quite the contrary.  I think I insulted them.”

“Michael, I know you.  You’d sooner eat worms than insult anybody, particularly my family.  So tell me what happened.”

She crawled on top of him and rubbed him in all the right places with every part of her body.

“We had a little disagreement about a horse.” She was making it difficult for him to concentrate on the conversation.

“You sure you weren’t arguing about me?”

“The world does not revolve around you, my sweet.”

“That’s the first almost unkind thing you’ve ever said to me.  Are you saying it just to distract me from my question?”  She fondled his male member, rubbing him under his head and his tip.  He felt himself hardening under her caressing.

“I promise you, my dearest, we were not discussing you.  I was trying to convince your brother of the merits of mating that black stallion with the beautiful palomino in the next stall.  He’s in love with her.”

“Oh, Michael,” she said, laughing.  “How could you possibly know that?”

“He told me.”

“He told you?” she echoed disbelievingly.  She sat back on her knees in the semi darkness and examined his face.

“What?  You think horses cannot fall in love?”

“You talk to horses?”

“Yes.”

“I think I almost believe you.”

He rose up then and moved over on top of me, taking control from me, plunging into me with a suddenness that shocked and thrilled me.

I found myself reacting to his sudden possession with an erotic demand for as much of his body as it was possible for me to take in. 

“Are you trying to distract me from horse talk?”  I wanted to cry out with pleasure.

“Is it working?”  He was cool and remote above me, giving me pleasure but controlling his own, very unlike him.

“I don’t know you and I don’t understand you.”  I clenched around him, wanting to give the pleasure back.  His eyes darkened.  “I only know I love you.”

He plunged into me and released me again and again, almost as if he were trying to expunge the words of love I said to him.

I grabbed his shoulders and stopped him from moving.  “You must love me, Michael.  You wouldn’t have asked me to marry you if you didn’t love me.”

“I do not love you, Leslie, not in the way of your love.  I love you as your protector, your guardian.”

I gave him a mighty shove and slid out from under him to stand on the side of the bed, my body nude, my anger in full spate.  “
My protector?
  No one marries a woman to protect them.”  My voice died away as I realized that was exactly what he had done.  He was a consummate do-gooder.  He believed that he had to protect me and my baby from condemnation.

“You bastard,” I said.  “You led me to believe you loved me.  If I’d known for one moment that you asked me to marry you out of some sort of Samaritan complex, I’d have told you to take a flying leap in to the East River.”

“What difference does it make
why
I asked you since you are not going to marry me, anyway?”

I stared at that beautiful male body laid out for me to see every bare bit of him.  “I’m beginning to think you
are
from another planet.”  I waited for him to deny he was different, deny those words that he’d said.  When he didn’t, I said, “I’m going downstairs.  I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Why?”

“OOOOh,” I gave him a disgusted growl and turned to leave.

“Shouldn’t you take a cover with you?” he said calmly.

“Yes,” I cried and pulled the top cover off him.  I slung it around me three times before I got it to wrap around my shoulders and stay.  Normally Michael would have jumped to his feet and helped me, I knew.  Now he just lay there on the bed like the idiotic male he was and watched me with those hundred-year old eyes.

“Will you kiss me goodnight?”

I gave him my best angry glare.  “You can’t be serious.  I’m never going to kiss you again.”  I went out of the door, mumbling to myself.  “I knew he was too good to be true, I just knew it.”

After she had gone, Michael lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.  In the faint light coming in from the window, shadows played over his head.  They reminded him that he was utterly alone, that he no longer had Gabriel’s wisdom to guide him.  What would Leslie’s reaction to his truthfulness be?  Tell her family she’d realized it was a mistake and call off their partnership?  With all his vast understanding, he didn’t understand Leslie.  Why had he made her angry by telling her the truth?  What was he going to do now?

He could always pray, but he had fallen so far, his prayers probably wouldn’t be heard.  No, he couldn’t think that.  Humans prayed.  He could, too.

I lay on the couch, unable to sleep.  The house was dark and quiet except for the tick of the grandfather clock that had been a gift from my father to my mother.

What was I going to do?  I couldn’t be his business partner.  The trouble was, I had more than myself to consider.  I had the baby to think of.  Much better to have a steady source of income for the baby.  I did have a skill for selling antiques.  But if I gave it up, my announcement would be all they would need to toss Michael out on his ear. 

Had I known in my heart he didn’t love me in the same way I loved him?  Perhaps I did, but simply didn’t want to believe it.

Well, what did I expect?  I accepted his business proposal without knowing anything about him.  I’d been impulsive and now I was getting what I deserved.  I’d pursued Michael right from the beginning, kissing him on the roof, inviting him to make love to me in his little apartment.  Just as I had impulsively let Adam take me to bed.  Now the impulsive deeds were racking up, one on top of each other.  When would it end?  When would I stop and look before I jumped?  What was I going to do about Michael?

I could do many wrong things in my life, but the one thing I could never do was fool my mother.  Elizabeth hadn’t said anything about my pregnancy.  But given my mother’s nearly perfect intuition, it wouldn’t surprise me if she already knew.  I turned over and tried to snuggle down into the chilly leather. 

Michael rose up early the next morning and despite his denying that he would groom Beauty, he snatched up an apple from a fruit bowl in the dining room and made his way out to the stable.  It was a beautiful Florida morning, sun shining, making the palm trees glisten a bright green under a crystal blue sky swept clean of clouds.  He told himself he just wanted to check on the stallion to make sure the brothers hadn’t gone back and restrained the horse with two ropes again.  If they had, the animal would think Michael had betrayed him.

They hadn’t.  He greeted the stallion with a low murmured hello, and the stallion nuzzled his lips, giving him a horsey kiss.  “How did your night go?  Better than mine, I hope.”

Beauty bobbed his head, asking what was wrong.  “Nothing to worry your head about, son.  I brought you something.”

The stallion gobbled the apple down in three bites. 

Michael stepped inside the stall and picked up a grooming brush.  He worked on the horse’s mane, hoping to finish up what he began last night.  The horse felt Michael’s hand on his neck and Beauty’s skin quivered with pleasure.  “Would that the woman I had in my bed last night felt as much pleasure as you do at my touch, old son.”  He worked at the few remaining tangles.  Beauty’s mane was beginning to shine with the brilliance of a raven’s wing.  Michael brushed over the sturdy body and then began work on Beauty’s tail.

It took him nearly three hours to get the horse groomed, but when he finished, he thought he had never seen such a beautiful animal.

“You told my brothers you weren’t going to groom him.”

Michael thanked heaven it was Dorian who’d come to the stable and not Jake or Gabe.  “I could not help myself.  He is such a glorious horse and he needs to be seen at his best.”

“Jake had planned to sell him into the rodeo circuit.”

“I hope he’s reconsidered.”

“He has.  Where did you learn so much about horses?  I thought you were from New York City.”

“I’m from Ireland.  We love a good horse there, you know.”  He rather missed that ping that came with his lies.”

“I admire any man who can best my brothers.  They think they know everything there is to know about horses.”

“We men like to believe we know everything there is to know about life.  That’s why God gave us women, to show us how wrong we are.”

Dorian laughed.  “I knew I liked you.”

“I wish your sister felt the same way.”

“Had a lover’s quarrel, did you?”