need all the support they could muster, she couldn’t abandon them. Caitlyn glanced down, caught sight of her jeans and wrinkled her nose. Kicking a stone out of her path, she decided that solitude and the best seller she was reading would have to wait. But a shower was a necessity—along with a clean change of jeans—before she’d be respectable enough to grace anyone’s dinner table.
The sound of whistling gave her pause. Her head came up. She searched and located Rafaelo lounging on a tussock just inside a paddock near the stable block, his back propped up against the fence post, his harsh profile softened by lips pursed to whistle. Caitlyn couldn’t help noticing that his overlong hair gleamed blue-black like Tui feathers in the sun. She slowed, her heartbeat accelerating with the discomforting awareness that the sight of Rafaelo brought.
She looked away.
Lady Killer was standing a distance away, ears flickering back and forth, the muscles in his haunches bunched and his tail tucked between his legs, every line of his body screaming his protest at the human invading his space.
“Come, sit.” Voice low, Rafaelo patted the mound of grass beside him.
Her pulse went wild. She could no longer pretend she hadn’t spotted him and sneak past. “I thought you were sleeping.”
He cracked one eye open. “That’s what I wanted the stallion to think.”
“He hates people, that horse.” Caitlyn drew nearer and folded her arms across the top railing of the fence, propping her chin on her forearm. At the sound of her voice, the stallion’s ears flattened against his skull.
Rafaelo continued to whistle, a slow mesmerizing sound. Lady Killer stood, stiff-legged, not grazing, his tension showing his fury and his resentment.
Eyes half-closed, the Spaniard murmured, “Sit down. You’re threatening him by standing there.”
“Me? Threatening him?” Caitlyn gave a snort of disbelieving laughter and glanced nervously to the patch of grass Rafaelo was patting.
Taking in Rafaelo’s long, relaxed body reclining on the invitingly green grass, his lazy gaze focused on the horse, she decided that the man was no threat to her. Bent double, she stepped through between the railings and lowered her tired, aching body beside Rafaelo.
He didn’t react. A fantail twittered and fluttered crazily in a nearby bush. Gradually the tension leached from Caitlyn’s muscles. It was heaven to rest back on her elbows and inhale the fresh scent of crushed grass.
Rafaelo didn’t even open his eyes to spare her a glance. Caitlyn snatched up the opportunity to examine him. The hawkish profile, the sensually pursed lips, the olive skin stretched tight across his cheekbones, the small jagged scar beneath his mouth. He was too male to ever be called beautiful.
Then it came to her. The perfect word to describe him.
Macho.
“He’s not as tough as he’d have everyone believe.” At his words, she turned her attention back to the horse.
“Ha! Don’t believe that. There’s a reason he’s called Lady Killer—and it’s not because of his flirty ways with the mares,” she muttered darkly.
“He’s not a killer. He’s an Andalusian,” Rafaelo continued. “In my country we value such horses. We care for them and train them. We do not leave them to become wild and wary like this stallion.”
“He hasn’t been abandoned,” she protested. “Roland bought him about four months before his death. He had plans to turn him into a dressage horse. But the horse is difficult. And with all the work at the winery, Roland didn’t have enough time to put into him. Then he died.”
“Someone needs to take the horse in hand.”
“No one has the time.”
“Or the interest.” Rafaelo’s voice was flat. “I have two weeks. I will speak to my father. Someone needs to give that animal time.”
Caitlyn glanced at him in shock. He was no longer pretending to sleep; all his attention was fixed on the stallion. Caitlyn had been furious with him for pursuing his plan for revenge, to wrest a piece of Saxon’s Folly away from the Saxons. But perhaps it had cooled his anger. It was certainly the first time she’d heard him refer to Phillip as “my father.” She suspected Phillip would be relieved to have Rafaelo’s time occupied, preventing him from skulking around the winery, poking around the fortified wines that they produced. But contrarily she said, “It will be a waste of time. No one can catch that horse, he leads them a fine dance. Jim simply opens his door in the morning and shoos him into the paddock, leaving him a hay net for the day. In the evening, we open his stable door and he comes in for his evening meal.”
The eyes that connected with hers were frighteningly direct. “Who is Jim?”
“One of the cellar hands. He helps Megan feed the horses and muck out the stalls in the morning. Although some students from the local polytechnic who do their practical coursework here also help. And so do I when Megan’s overseas at a wine show.”
“You can ride?”
“Yep, I usually exercise Breeze when Megan’s away.” She pointed to a pretty chestnut mare in the next field. Under his intent gaze the tingling returned, and she moved restlessly. “What can you do with the stallion in two weeks?”
He shrugged. “Teach him to trust me.”
“No chance. That horse doesn’t trust anyone.”
“He already knows I won’t hurt him.”
“Hurt him?” She gave a disbelieving laugh. “If anyone is going to do hurting, it’s that mad creature.”
“He’s not mad, he’s scared.”
She stared at him. “Scared? How do you work that out?”
He didn’t turn his head. His profile was harsh and jagged against the verdant grass and the foliage of the surrounding trees. “The first time I raised my arm, he squealed and kicked and tried to bite me. Now, when I raise it, he flinches and puts his ears flat. Someone has hit this horse around the head.” There was cold fury in Rafaelo’s voice.
“It wasn’t any of the Saxons.” Caitlyn sprang to their defence. “He was already difficult when Roland bought him.”
“Stop worrying. I don’t suspect your precious Saxons. But it angers me that a good animal has been ruined by someone’s uncontrollable anger.”
Caitlyn fell silent. She perused him, a new respect filling her. His strength and power was clearly visible in his long, whipcord body and inflexible will, yet he was gentle, too. She didn’t want to examine why that moved her so profoundly.
“Does anyone groom the stallion?” he asked.
Caitlyn focused on the horse with relief. “Not since he trapped Jim between those powerful hindquarters and the wall and aimed a vicious kick at his head. Jim was lucky to clamber up the wall out of the way.”
Rafaelo fell silent.
The fantail was still twittering and over near the stables Caitlyn
