and ask myself, what will I learn today?”
Smokey nickered softly as Dal approached. She smiled and stroked his broad forehead with a brush where the sweat was trickling down and itching where he couldn’t scratch. The gelding leaned gratefully toward her, eyes half-closed in enjoyment. Dal’s mouth puckered. “Then I learned plenty from my ex-husband,” she said, beginning to rub Smokey vigorously.
Jim rested his arms on the stallion’s wide back, gazing over at her. “What was Gordon like?”
Her head snapped up and she met his serious expression. It was a personal question, one that she had never discussed with anyone, not even her parents. Dal could have retorted, it’s none of your business. Only she got the feeling Jim really wanted to know. He didn’t seem the prying type, except with her….
Dal resumed her brushing of the gelding. “I married Jack when I was twenty-three.”
“That’s pretty young.”
“Too young,” she agreed grimly. “I was a green college kid who had played catch-me-if-you-can games with guys my own age until Jack came along. He was ten years my senior, extraordinarily handsome and at home in the most expensive business suits.” She blew a strand of hair from her eyes, her face glistening with the sweat of her exertion. “To make a painful story very short, I married him three months after I met him. I was moon-eyed over him; it was the first time I’d ever fallen in love….”
Jim took the cloth and wiped down the stallion all the while, listening to the edge of pain in her voice. “And then what happened?”
“He painted a wonderful future for both of us. I was one of the three people at the university majoring in ornithology. I had a straight 4.0 average and was Professor Jacob Warner’s assistant. I had trained under one of the most widely recognized ornithologists in the world for four years. Rare and exotic species were my specialty. That and predatory birds.” She halted, looking over at Jim, her face flushed. “Jack said we’d make a wonderful team. He wanted to import and export birds from the jungles and sell them to zoos around the world. He lacked the expertise but had the managerial knowledge.”
“Are you saying he married you for that?”
She managed a pained smile. “No…I know he loved me in the beginning. At first, we were both excited about the possibility of tramping the jungles of the world with each other, looking for exotic birds.”
“It sounds pretty good so far,” he said quietly.
“The rose-colored glasses were definitely on,” Dal agreed tightly. “We spent the first two years in the Amazon and the Far East chasing birds; I identified them and watched Jack crate them up and send them to zoos. At first, I thought his enthusiasm for the birds was okay. After the third year he got more excited about a blue-crowned hanging parrot from Malaya than about our marriage. He got caught up in the desire to make more and more money. The last two years was a total sham. Somehow, we let our relationship falter and we just grew further and further apart.”
Jim continued to brush Flight down, saying little, though his mind worked furiously. Gordon had used her idealism and trust to manipulate her to get what he wanted. Anger rushed through him as he stole a look over at Dal. She appeared distraught over her admission as she worked on the horse. An overwhelming sense of helplessness rushed through him; no wonder she had looked fatigued three years ago when he first met her. Gordon had taken everything from Dal, including her own sense of self, for his own end.
“What about you?”
“Me?” Jim echoed, rising and resting a hand across Flight’s wither.
She gave him a slight smile. “Here I am dumping the story of my life on you and I know so little about you. Are you happily married with a bunch of kids?”
It was his turn to smile. “Is that how you see me?”
Dal thoughtfully ran the comb through Smokey’s silky mane. “Yes. You look married.” And then she gave a self-conscious shrug. “Some men just give you that impression of being happily married.”
“I see….”
“Are you?”
He shook his head, brushing Flight’s back. The stallion groaned and lifted his head in utter pleasure. “Not yet. I just never met the right woman.”
Mustering a smile, Dal murmured, “The woman that gets you will be very lucky.”
“Thank you. And I think the man who’s able to reach out and get beyond your past experience with your marriage, will also be lucky.”
Dal untied Smokey, leading him back to his roomy stall. “I’m staying single,” she promised him. “Marriage isn’t for me.”
Sliding the box stall door shut on Flight, Jim turned and walked down to where Dal was standing. An enigmatic smile shadowed his well-shaped mouth as he approached her. “Let time heal your outlook on marriage,” he said, coming to a halt. God, she looked so enticing with her hair in delicious disarray about her flushed features. Jim wanted to reach out and lightly touch her cheek, just to feel the velvet pliancy of it. There was so much he wanted to do—could have done if Dal wasn’t running so scared from him….
Dal lowered her lashes, unable to stand the tenderness burning in his honey-colored eyes. Suddenly, she felt shy and unsure of herself in his presence. “Listen,” she began, her voice barely above a whisper, “about last night…”
“It was special,” Jim returned huskily.
She lifted her chin, her sapphire eyes luminous with tears as she held his gaze. Whatever had made her think she couldn’t trust Jim Tremain? He stood inches from her, his hands thrown languidly on the hips of his well-worn jeans, looking incredibly self-assured and handsome in her eyes. The notion that she even had a shred of trust left in her shook Dal completely. But whatever was left of her pulverized emotions was reaching out like tendrils of new life toward him. This time, Dal didn’t fight those feelings as she held his searching gaze.
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