been wild when he’d thought she’d been crushed against the wall with all the brute’s weight. Wilder when hooves that would have cut her fragile flesh to ribbons stomped over and over, narrowly missing her as she lay unconscious on the floor. Fear and galvanizing panic had given him strength he hadn’t known he possessed. He didn’t tell her that if Jesse hadn’t kept a cooler head, calming Jackson as much as the horse, he would have killed Dancer with his bare hands. Nor that when she was safe, but he didn’t know the extent of her injuries, he was a madman.
“Then Cooper came?” Haley frowned and pressed a massaging finger against her temple as she tried to make sense of the chain of events by putting them in proper sequence.
Jackson’s head barely moved in a nod. “Cooper came.”
Like a gift of fate, Cooper had arrived in the midst of the worst of Jackson’s worry. And promptly threatened to eject him from his own barn, even forbidding him to watch, if he didn’t stop hovering and cool down. Throughout the cursory examination conducted outside the stall, Jackson had paced. Impotent, helpless, a banished animal. After Cooper’s determination that the bump on her head was simply a bump on the head, he continued with assurance that the breath had merely been knocked from her lungs when her back crashed into the wall.
Merely? Merely! Jackson had roared, adding angrily that he didn’t see much damned difference, since Haley, by damn, certainly appeared to be unconscious. Unconscious and still. Frighteningly, heart-stoppingly still.
“He examined me?” Her eyes widened. If any trace of lethargy remained, the idea of being unaware and at the mercy of three men—three disparate men—brought it to a screeching end.
“You weren’t exactly yourself.” He saw confusion and chagrin in her face. It pleased him to see this coolly controlled and professionally confident woman falter. The pleasure was short-lived as the militant conscience of a gentleman, however reluctant, kicked in. “I doubt even Superwoman would be herself after being body-slammed by the stallion from hell.”
“Body-slammed.” Haley sighed and ignored the penalty the stupidity levied. Jackson painted a good description of the little she remembered. “Knocked the breath out of me, did he?”
Though she’d paled with the sigh, she tried to hide it behind a wry smile. After hours of watching her, Jackson had grown familiar with every nuance of her mobile features. He saw the pain but respected her efforts by making no comment beyond addressing her supposition. “Among Dancer’s destructive behaviors, there was that. Along with a bump on the head.
“Which Coop assured me wasn’t as much the reason you were lying in a puddle like a discarded doll as the breath thing.” Anger kindled again as Jackson remembered how calm and controlled Cooper had been. As if a horse of River Trace causing injury to a beautiful woman were an everyday affair. “Which I told him was a damned fool thing to say. For, as far as I could see, unconscious was unconscious, no matter the cause.”
After that cynical remark from Jackson, Coop had given her something to ease her enough that she would sleep. Then he’d launched into a detailed explanation, comparing Haley’s condition with a child’s tantrum, held breath and all. Before he could stop himself, Jackson had snapped back that in case Coop was too blind to notice, Haley wasn’t exactly a child. And, in case Coop was too stupid to understand that tackling frenzied horses did not include holding one’s breath, he ought to try one or both someday.
Cooper laughed then, with Jesse’s guffaws joining in, while both watched him with smug, knowing looks. Which only made Jackson angrier, more frustrated. Which, he decided, excused him for being ornery. Explaining why Cooper’s offer to take her to Jackson’s bedroom—where, Coop pointedly reminded him, Jackson had insisted she rest and recover—was summarily dismissed. Which, to his mounting ire, produced another round of smiles.
It was the final straw when Cooper volunteered to stay. By then, finally convinced the Duchess was truly all right, and fed up with both Coop and Jesse, he nearly pushed each man out of the room. Then, gracelessly, he’d instructed Jesse to see to Dancer. With no more grace he suggested Cooper go home and wait for the next call, instead of dropping in.
Then he’d shut the door in their grinning faces.
“Why?” Jackson didn’t realize he’d spoken the word out loud. The word he’d asked himself more times than he could count as he’d sat by her bed through the few hours left of the night. Why had he been so cavalier with Haley when, after all, he had called her? When her only sin, beyond interrupting a special evening to rush to River Trace, was wanting to help? Why had he been irritable with Cooper, whose arrival had been a godsend?
And Jesse? The man worked tirelessly, asking no quarter, giving none, as he fought for Dancer and with Dancer. Jackson knew his treatment of the old hand was unforgivable.
“Ask for help, then spit in the eye of any who do,” he muttered, and turned from the bed and from Haley, to stare at the dawn that had become full-fledged morning.
“Is that what you call it?” Haley’s voice was strained as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and rested her bare feet on the floor. Bare feet. She didn’t want to think about that. Or that she was naked under the shirt she knew was Jackson’s. Except for her panties. He’d left her that small shred of pride.
“Is that what I call—” Jackson had spun away from the window. In long, hurried steps he returned to her bedside. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
“I don’t think, Jackson. I know.” Hands clutching the mattress, she tilted her head to meet his blazing gaze. “I’m getting out of your bed. And, if you’ll bring my clothes, out of your shirt as well.”
“You can’t.”
“No?” The anger she’d conquered hours ago for the sake of a suffering animal flared now at the fierce arrogance. “Watch me.”
The minute the words left her mouth, she knew her boast was worse than his bark. But pride wouldn’t let her back down now. She knew something of her dilemma must have shown in her face when she felt his arms circling her, lifting her gingerly to her feet.
“Thank you,” she murmured when she felt steady enough to speak. Glancing down at his muscular arms dusted with a pale auburn down, and conscious of his hands pressed against her back, strong fingers supporting, caressing, she whispered almost breathlessly, “You can let me go now.”
“Of course.” Jackson stepped back. His hands moved from her back to her shoulders, trailed down her arms, then curled over her clammy fingers. “You’re sure you can do this?”
“I’m sure. So long as I don’t need to tackle another horse anytime soon, I’ll be fine.”
Jackson laughed then, and released her. “Yes, you will, won’t you? Be fine, I mean.”
“It wasn’t the first time…”
“I know,” he interrupted softly. “Nor the last.”
“I’m repeating myself.” This time she didn’t laugh.
“Doesn’t matter.” A gesture called her attention to a door opposite the hall. “The bath’s there. A nice hot soak should feel good about now. If you don’t find all you need, just yell.”
“So long as the water’s hot, I’ll be fine.”
“Somehow
