Almost Home (14 page)
"Do you really think people will change their
minds about him if his horse wins the
"In
the
speculative look. "You going to stay in town long, Miss Whitfield?"
"I'm not sure yet."
"Well, I hope you'll stay until the
weeks away, and it's an experience you won't want to miss." Sam paused in
front of a large barn. "This is the breeding shed. When we go in, stay
behind me. We're breeding John Royal to Miss Penny today."
Katherine gulped. They were breeding two horses this
very minute, as in mating, as in sex? She'd never actually seen two animals
mate, and she wasn't all that sure she wanted to see it now. "Maybe I
should just wait outside."
"Don't worry. There's a viewing area. You won't
be right in the room with 'em," Sam said, heading into the barn.
Katherine stayed as close to him as possible as he led
her into the breeding shed. He mounted a few stairs to the left and let her look
through the glass.
"Oh, my," Katherine murmured, watching as
two men held on to the bridle of a beautiful chestnut-colored horse.
"That's Miss Penny. She came all the way from
Sam looked at her and smiled. "You don't know much about horses, do you?"
"I don't know anything."
"Breeding is our business. Owners send us their
mares and we breed them to our stallions. The bloodlines are traced back for
several generations. Every aspect of each horse's breeding is taken into
account, and the result is a pure thoroughbred who will hopefully win some
races and enhance the value of the bloodline."
"It seems so cold-blooded."
"It is," he said with a laugh. "But the
horses don't care. Everything is kept one hundred percent sterile. The walls are
padded, no nails or spikes, nothing that could injure a rattled horse or one of
our men."
"You make it sound like a rather violent process."
"It can be. These are twelve-hundred-pound
animals. And sometimes a mare can get a little nervous."
Katherine licked her lips. She could understand that.
She felt a little nervous, too, and not at all sure she wanted to witness the
coming event. As she turned to tell Sam she'd just wait outside, she saw Zach
walk into the room, and everything else simply faded from view.
Dressed in tight-fitting, faded blue jeans that were
stained with dirt at the knees, a navy blue polo shirt that stretched across
his broad chest, and a baseball cap on his head, Zach Tyler was every inch a
male with his long, lean legs and powerful arms. He strolled up to the mare and
began to pet her as she danced lightly on her feet.
Katherine couldn't hear what he was saying through the
glass walls, but it didn't matter. Watching him quiet the mare was an amazing
experience. She'd seen him hard and angry and impatient and annoyed, but she'd
never seen him so tender.
"Zach's good with the girls," Sam said with
a grin in her direction. "The four-legged kind, that is."
As he finished speaking, Zach turned to look at them.
He didn't appear happy to see her, but it was too late to get rid of her,
because a large door had opened on one end of the room and all eyes turned to
the stallion who began to whinny and snort and rear back on his hind legs.
Katherine pressed her hands against the glass,
reassuring herself that there was some barrier between her and these two wild
animals.
"That's not the real one," Sam said in her
ear.
"What do you mean?"
"That's the warm-up act."
At her look of confusion, he explained. "That's a
standard-bred stallion, not a thoroughbred. His job is to tease the mare, see
if she's ready, see how she's going to respond. If the mare is truly in heat,
she'll be submissive. If not, she may try to resist the stallion and kick him.
We can't risk our very expensive stallion getting injured, so we test the
waters first."
Katherine watched as the mare was backed up against
the wall of the adjoining room where the stallion was. The stallion thrust his
nose at her, snorting with eagerness. The mare stood quietly under Zach's firm
hand. A second later the door slammed shut between them.
"What happens next?" Katherine asked as Zach
moved the mare through another doorway.
"Show-time," Sam said, leading her along the
glass wall until they could see into another room. "Billy there is putting
a thong over the mare's nose, which is attached to that thick stick. It's
called a hobble and a twitch."
"I'll take your word for it."
"In another minute, Zach will bring in John
Royal. He won't let the stallion rush her. We don't want to have her jump or
jerk."
Katherine felt her entire body stiffen as Zach brought
in an enormous copper-coated horse. The horse's power, his muscles rippling,
his strength, scared the hell out of her. She couldn't imagine what the mare
thought.
"Here we go," Sam said.
And without any further ado, the stallion rose on his
hind legs and moved toward the mare. Katherine saw one of the other men hold up
something that looked like a rolling pin and place it between the horses as the
stallion plunged into the mare.
"Oh, my!" Katherine said as the mare jerked
her head so hard the stick and the stableboy went flying against the wall.
Zach grabbed the mare as two other men guided the
stallion. Another minute and it was over, the stallion led away, the mare left
standing alone, never having once seen the face of her mate.
"You okay?" Sam said, sending her a
speculative look. "Your face is a little green."
"That was so—so animalistic." There had been
no emotion to the mating. It was all about heat and lust and the need to
procreate. Watching it had stirred something very basic within herself.
"They're horses. What did you expect?"
"I have no idea. Sometimes I feel like I landed
on the moon when I landed in that ditch."
"You'll get your moon legs. Just give yourself a
chance. Do you want to step outside and wait for Zach?"
"I think so," she replied, following him out
of the shed. The fresh air was a welcome relief. Sam left her to wait for Zach,
so she sat down on a bench and took in several deep calming breaths. It didn't
help. She felt unsettled, out of her element, not sure whether she was standing
or sitting.
While she was pondering what had just happened, a
large orange cat climbed into her lap without waiting for a welcome and purred.
Katherine instinctively rubbed her fur, missing her own little kitty. At least
this
felt familiar.
* * *
Zach saw Katherine
sitting
on the bench and
stopped
to watch her for a minute. She was talking to the cat, looking more comfortable
with an animal than he would have expected. He'd seen her face through the
glass in the breeding shed, the wonder, the shock, the wrinkling nose of
disgust.
At first he'd been angry that Sam had brought her
inside. Then he'd been glad, because if there was one event that could shock a
romantic city girl, it was watching two horses mate in cold, sterile, realistic
surroundings.
That was what sex was, elemental, basic, a need, just
like an itch or a hunger. It was women who made it more than that. Who wanted
words of love and singing birds and sparkling fireworks. Men just wanted to get
inside, fast, hard, quick.
Although quick might not be right this time around. He
had a feeling a man could go real slow with Katherine, take all day, all night,
maybe even a few nights to really touch her, taste her. Damn. He felt his body
harden with each teasing thought. Why couldn't she have just stayed away?
"She's waiting for you," Sam said, giving
him a nudge. "Go on, so I can get back to work."
"I didn't tell you to stop work. You should have
sent her back to
"And miss showing you in action? I couldn't do
that."
"How's Ryan?" Zach asked, referring to the
stableboy who'd been tossed against the wall earlier.
"Sprained wrist. He'll live."
"I thought that mare was going to be quiet."
"You never know with women. Sometimes they
surprise you," Sam said.
Zach rolled his eyes. "I'm going. You better get
your old ass back to work or I'll have to fire you."
Sam went back to work, and Zach walked over to join
Katherine. She looked up at him with wary eyes. "Nice cat," she said.
"Simon is a lazy bum. Go on, scat," he said,
taking the cat out of her arms and shooing it away.
Katherine stood up and brushed some stray fur off of
her light blue sweater. At least she'd come dressed more appropriately today.
Even if her jeans were designer, at least they were practical. Unfortunately,
they curved in all the right places.
"So what did you think?" Zach asked.
"That was—bizarre, the whole thing."
"It's the natural way of things."
"Natural? Padded walls, long sticks, a warm-up
act?"
"Okay, not exactly natural, except for the act
itself. Did it make your stomach turn?"
"I wouldn't say that exactly. It was just
different, shocking, exciting, frightening." She smiled at her confusing
words. "I've never seen anything like it."
"And probably don't want to again, right?"
He wanted her to say yes. He willed her to say yes, to add that she was going
home, to
to civilization.
"I don't know that I'd rush to see it again, but
I have to admit there was something—awesome about the whole thing. A little
sad, too. I mean the mare didn't seem to enjoy it much."
"Oh, she liked it just fine."
"Spoken like a true man," Katherine replied.
He grinned, unwillingly charmed by her easy manner,
her openness to the experience. "So what are you doing here, anyway? Did
you come to say good-bye?"
"No. I was on my way to J.T.'s farm to talk to
him when I saw your sign and thought I'd check out this place first."
"So you came to see me."
"Not you, exactly."
"Then who?"
"I just wanted to see the farm. I've never seen
one before. I thought it might be interesting. I didn't expect it to be so big
or that there would be so many people working here."
"Forty-seven to be exact, counting all the
part-timers," Zach replied.
"Do you own this place?"
"No. It belongs to Harry Stanton and his wife, Claire.
I'm just the farm manager."
"Which means you're in charge of all this?"
She waved her hand around the barn area.
"Impressed?" he asked with a cocky smile.
"Not at all."
"Good. Because appearances can be deceiving."
Before she could reply, he reached out and tucked a
wayward strand of hair behind her ear. The action brought him closer to her, so
close he could feel her breath against his cheek. She put up a hand to push him
away, to give herself some space, but he caught her hand in his and held it against
his sweaty chest.
She tried to look away, but Zach caught her chin with
his other hand and held it firmly in place. He looked down deep into her eyes,
knowing they'd been heading toward this moment since the first time he'd seen
her. "Come with me," he said.
She looked startled. "What?"
"Come to my office." Still holding her hand,
he pulled her along, ignoring the curious looks of some of the employees. They
knew better than to question his actions. He was the boss, after all, and if he
wanted to have a little privacy with a beautiful blonde, that was his business.
His office was in the first building, a large room
with computers, printers, a fax, and a large desk that was perpetually covered
in papers. His secretary had an office next door, but she was off somewhere on
a lunch break, so there was no one down at this end of the building but him—and
Katherine.
He led her into the room, slammed the door behind
them, and placed his mouth over hers. It was what he wanted, what he needed,
what he couldn't deny. He'd thought about it all night. He'd almost kissed her
in the bar, but somehow he'd held back. He couldn't deny himself again, not
when she was so close, not when she was so soft. Damn!
Katherine lost her breath as Zach's mouth covered
hers. He branded her lips with a hot, fiery mark of possession. No gentle,
get-acquainted kiss for Zach. He sought total possession, sliding his tongue
into her mouth with a groan of desire that completely matched her own.
The emotions of the past half hour had heightened all
of her senses, and Zach's kiss turned the sparks between them into a blazing
fire. Katherine couldn't get enough. She put her hands on his chest, then slid
them up and around his neck, pressing his head closer to hers, allowing him no
chance for retreat. When he withdrew, she pursued. When she stopped for breath,
he leaned in for another kiss. It should have ended after one or two or three,
but they couldn't seem to stop.