really sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He took the whole thing in stride, as if things like this happened to him every day. His mouth quirked up on one side.
Something about the gesture ruffled her inside. Another time, another face came to mind. She shook her head and turned to fill a plate for herself. Kyle is dead. Stop thinking about him. How was she going to get this man out of her kitchen without being rude?
“It’s not funny,” she said. “If you give me your shirt, I’ll add it to the laundry tomorrow. Not now, I mean, after dinner. I mean, when you change.” Her jerky movements flung strands of spaghetti across the counter.
“I make you nervous.” Kevin tossed the offending meatball resting in his lap to Blue who gobbled it in one bite.
As Kevin dabbed at the tomato sauce staining his T-shirt, his gaze followed her every move. The insistent tracking enhanced the stiffening of her muscles. She seemed to grow ten thumbs and her feet seemed to work backward. Was he studying her? Looking for weakness? She might be down, but she wasn’t out. “Did Bancroft send you?”
“I don’t know anyone named Bancroft.”
“He owns the Thoroughbreds.”
Kevin got up and filled a glass of water at the sink. His shoulder zinged against hers, more breeze than touch, making her stiffen even more.
“I’ve got iced tea, if you like.” She jigged sideways to put distance between them. Why did her chest squeeze so hard when he was close?
He raised the glass. “This is fine.”
“Judge Dalton, then?” She suddenly feared finding the garbage-filled bags would become a black mark on her scorecard. See, Judge Dalton, she can’t take care of these horses. They could have gotten cut on the wire or tangled with the rope. And if they’d eaten any of that horsetail, they could have hurt themselves staggering like drunks. No, sir, Mr. Judge, this woman can’t handle such expensive animals, especially in their delicate state.
“Like I said, I found out about the job from Ms. Conover.”
She set her plate on the table and forgot why she went to the fridge. “I have some Parmesan cheese, I think.”
“I’m fine.”
She returned to her chair and shook cheese she didn’t want onto her spaghetti.
The refrigerator hummed. The air conditioner fanned cool air. The ice in her glass shifted and clunked.
He ate with reverence as if he was giving thanks for every bite. Blue tracked his master’s fork, hoping for a little something to fall his way, although she’d seen Kevin feed him a bowl of kibble at the truck earlier.
The scent of garlic and oregano added a sense of warmth and comfort to the room. And the night shrank the world to the pool of yellow light brimming from the fixture overhead. Too cozy.
Though she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, she couldn’t seem to work up an appetite. She twirled her fork into the pasta.
“You seem to get around,” she said, breaking a meatball in half. “Oklahoma, Montana, Colorado.”
“You checked my references.”
The piercing intensity of his dark eyes made her want to push her chair back. She forced herself to eat a bite of meatball. “Of course.”
He nodded.
Concentrating on her plate, she tried to eat more. She didn’t want to feel anything toward him. Not sympathy. Not curiosity. Not even hatred. Any of those would require emotional investment. What she wanted was disinterest, detachment, indifference. There was no point creating ties only to break them. Especially with someone who seemed to burrow under her skin as easily as chiggers.
But try as she might, she couldn’t keep the questions from bubbling until they spilled. “Who taught you…?”
He looked up from his plate, met her gaze and didn’t flinch. His eyes were impossibly dark. Like a starless night, she thought. The vastness of the depth brought out a sudden sense of agoraphobia, of panic, whose grip was almost impossible to bear.
“Taught me what?”
“What you did with Luci and Apollo. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He took a long swallow of water, then set the glass down. When he looked at her once more, warmth swam in his eyes, bringing the sting of tears to her own eyes and a longing she didn’t understand to her heart.
“My grandmother believed that everything is connected. Every human, every animal, every rock and tree. The horse isn’t lower than the dog. The human isn’t king above all. She believed that we’re all equal, but different. We all have a purpose. She taught me to treat the horse with respect.”
Ellen sipped her tea. “It took me a long time to gain Luci’s trust. How could you reach through her fears so fast?”
“If you want to communicate with a horse, you listen to him talk, then respond to him in his language.”
“You didn’t say anything.” Not that she could have heard him from inside the kitchen.
“The horse’s instinct is honed to survive. He’s programmed to run away, to protect himself from anything that scares him. To earn his trust, you need patience, a soft hand. You need to ask yourself how he feels in any given situation. Nothing magic about it.”
She rose. Snatching her plate off the table, she headed toward the sink. It suddenly occurred to her that Kevin was using that very tactic on her. Patience. He’d stayed far longer than she’d wanted him to, hadn’t he? A soft hand. He’d chosen to show her that skill through her horses. What did he see when he put himself in her shoes? Her isolation? Her weakness? “Why are you here?”
“I need a job.”
“You could have a stable of your own. With the way you have with horses, you could put on clinics and make a ton of money. Why work hand to mouth?”
“I don’t work for Bancroft. I don’t work for Judge Dalton. I don’t work for anyone but myself.”
Independence. She could understand that. It was what she wanted for herself. Someone like him probably had to learn to depend on only himself to survive. She scraped the uneaten food into a container. Still…he had a talent that could easily overcome his looks. Why waste it on a rescue ranch that would never turn a profit?
“You want to work for me.”
“Only for a while.”
Then he’d move on. She didn’t know why that should bother her so much. The need for change, Kyle had had it, too. Why did this man keep resurrecting Kyle when she was trying so hard to forget him? Of course with Chance a part of her life again, Kyle was never really far away from her thoughts.
“I like what you’re trying to do here.”
She looked at Kevin over her shoulder. The tenderness in his eyes caught her off guard. He quickly turned away, finishing the last
