Chase The Clouds. Lindsay McKenna

      One

      “Mrs. Daguerre, I can assure you I’m not used to having people fall short of their obligations to me. Especially ones where a legal contract is signed and services are promised.”

      Danielle stiffened in her chair and stared across the small office that was located within the main stabling barn. She was tall for a horse trainer, almost five foot nine, but she felt diminutive against the man who stood in the doorway blocking the afternoon April sun that slanted across his broad shoulders. Easing out of the black leather desk chair, she folded her arms against her small breasts, feeling positively threatened by his detached coolness. His eyes, the shade of pewter gray, assessed her with mild interest.

      “Mr. Reese,” she began, taking a firm tone that she would normally use with misbehaving horses, “my ex-husband signed that document over a year ago to ride your three-day-event thoroughbred, I didn’t.”

      He gave her a thin, cutting smile, one corner of his generous mouth pulling upward. Removing the Stetson from his rich, dark hair, he let the hat dangle in his right hand. “Right now I don’t care who signed it. I’m sorry that your marriage was broken up, but an agreement is an agreement.”

      “Your stallion, Altair, has a nasty name on the show circuit,” she reminded him stubbornly. As much as she hated to use her ex-husband’s name, she went on, “Jean’s notes tell me that he’s shy of water jumps, headstrong and impulsive and won’t listen to his rider.”

      His cool, twisted smile remained as he studied her across the distance. “Yes, I’m afraid he’s a bit like me in some respects—hard to handle.”

      Dany’s nostrils flared with a show of contempt. Pointing at the fact sheets compiled on the jumper, she said, “You can’t take a range horse and make him a Grand Prix jumper, Mr. Reese. It just can’t be done. Your stallion has been mishandled too long, and I don’t have the time or inclination to try and retrain him for you, contract or no contract.”

      His gray eyes glittered with an unnamed emotion. “Altair was out of the finest thoroughbred stock money can buy, Mrs. Daguerre. The fact that his dam was stolen and then abandoned in the middle of the Nevada desert with Altair at her side has no bearing on his abilities. It’s true he was raised in the wild with a herd of mustangs. He was caught as a four-year-old by wranglers who busted him for use as a cow horse.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I saw him by accident when I was looking over a herd of charlois, and bought him immediately.”

      Dany tried to quell her frustration. “It’s a very touching story, Mr. Reese but—”

      “You haven’t heard all of it,” he ground out softly.

      Something in the tone of his voice warned her to remain motionless. “All right,” she capitulated, “tell me the rest of it. But it won’t change my mind.”

      “The more facts you have, the better you’ll be able to weigh your decision,” he parried.

      “I’m waiting.…”

      “The wrangler who owned him tried to beat the spirit out of Altair. Consequently, he’s pretty scarred up from it, both physically and emotionally. I knew he was thoroughbred by his conformation.

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