Читать книгу Born Of The Bluegrass - Darlene Scalera - Страница 10

Hamilton Hills Farm

Lexington, Kentucky

Reid woke. His hand reached, sliding across the sheet with the same care used to touch a Thoroughbred’s million-dollar foreleg. The woman was gone. Where she had lain was still warm.

The night might have been a dream—the sky neither light nor dark, the evening song rising, too many people swaying beneath a white canopy. A heat. The scent of need. He had turned to greet yet another guest when he’d seen her. No sound had come from his parted lips. How long he had stared he didn’t know. There was only the raging red of her hair, a jewel green dress, slim hips, elegant legs. An unknown wildness. The dream begun.

He gathered the sheet into his fist. It was here now. It’d been there then. From the first. Fire.

The woman had stared back, her hand rising to the bared skin above her breasts. Breasts that promised the taste of life. Her fingers had followed the long edge of her collarbone, lifted to the tender flesh where her jaw and neck met. There they’d rested as if reassuring him she was flesh and blood. Small swallows had rippled her throat as he’d moved toward her. He had put his hand on hers, felt the press of warmth, the flash of need. Fire.

Her name was Danielle DeVries, a debutante up from the Carolinas. She was here for the horses. Everyone was here for the horses. Her knees had swayed at the first touch of his lips to hers.

He was known for his ease with Thoroughbred horses and beautiful women. Many would say this was only one more night of many nights providing pleasure and passion. He would have agreed if he’d also been a curious observer or merely a clever participant. He hadn’t. There’d been no room for wiles. He’d taken her in his arms and was no longer the master of his own fate. He’d been shaken, stunned, and, even now, craving more.

He sat up, fully awake, although his sleep had been little and his drinks had been many. He was content, restless, sated, wanting. Here was the magic they talked about. Who would have thought—a tip of the head, a curve of the neck, a meeting without warning? He would never underestimate life again.

He gathered his clothes, dressed, left the stone and wooden-beam cabin where his great-grandfather used to escape to drink bourbon, smoke cigars and swap stories with friends. The night was also leaving. The moon was a ghost. Still it would be sometime until the sun tinted pink the dew of the world’s richest grass. The tent was standing, but the tables and the pavilion had been cleared of the remains of last night’s party. Beyond rose the big house, white and old South. Reid saw a light in the kitchen, knew the coffee had been put on. But first he would check the horses. Always the horses.

It was quiet inside the stallion barn except for a few snorts, the paw of horseshoes against the straw-covered asphalt. In the distance, Reid heard the night guard’s truck leaving one of the other barns, stop at the next, making rounds. Reid walked down the wide center lane, the memory of the night and the woman still washing over him. He moved toward the far end to a stall on the right, the brass nameplate on the bottom half of its Dutch door inscribed Aztec Treasure. A hot-blooded champion who would have been gelded had his genes not been worth gold. Reid was halfway down the corridor when he heard a low moan. He quickened his steps toward the almost human sound, already murmuring, “Easy, champ. What’s the—”

His calming voice broke off as he met the horse’s eyes, white, wet without tears. His first thought was colic. He went to open the door, frowning when he saw it hadn’t been properly latched. He carefully slid back the solid slab of oak, nicked and deeply indented from the animal’s frequent fits. The horse didn’t rear up to claim his dominance as in the past. He only stared, his flanks heaving, his body trembling. Reid stepped toward the animal, then stopped, seeing the animal’s foreleg held off the ground, dangling at the knee. He stared as if what he saw was not real, only more of the night’s illusion. He felt the sweating horse’s heat, his own heat of shock and fear. Finally he turned. And saw his brother’s crumpled body lying in a bed of softest straw.