Free Affair of the Heart by Joan Wolf Page B

a racetrack and everything. Every year he has what he calls the Rocky Mountain Stakes Race.” His voice was heavy with irony. “It’s for local horses only. It’s become kind of a big deal to win—gives you bragging rights and all that. Anyway, the boys have been after me to enter Mahogany. He hasn’t been ridden, though, since I broke him four years ago.”
    “Mahogany belongs to you, not to your father?”
    “Yes.” He grinned. “Dad told me that if I could break him I could have him. It was quite an incentive.”
    “I didn’t know you had your own stud here,” Caroline said after a minute. “I must say, I’ve been terribly impressed by the ranch horses and I wondered where you got them from. Mahogany’s a thoroughbred, isn’t he?”
    “Yeah. Dad bought him from Kentucky. We breed our own horses because it’s the best way to be sure of a constant supply of good ones. We have to provide every hand with three or four mounts, you see.”
    “How many mares do you have?”
    “About twenty. The horses we don’t want to keep, we sell.”
    They had reached the barn by now, and Caroline gave Dusty a pat. “Well, this guy is grand. I’ve enjoyed him a lot.”
    “You must have horses of your own,” Jay said a little gruffly.
    “I have a hunter, of course, but he’s down in Virginia and I only get to ride him on weekends. There’s a local girl who exercises him for me the rest of the week. I’m afraid he’s really more her horse than mine,” Caroline said a little sadly. “I haven’t had a real horse of my own, one to ride every day, since I was at school.”
    “That’s too bad,” he said noncommittally.
    “Yes.” She sighed. “It is.”
    They stripped and groomed the horses and put them in their stalls in a silence that was surprisingly companionable. Then Jay said, “Have you seen the new kittens?”
    “No!” Caroline’s face lit up. “Did Manny have her babies?”
    “She did. They’re up in the loft. Want to see?”
    “Oh yes.”
    “This way then.” He went over to the ladder that led to the loft where the hay was kept. Caroline followed close behind him. The kittens were all curled up in the hay next to their mother; she had made a nest for them.
    “Oh,” said Caroline softly. “Aren’t they darling.”
    They watched the mother as she nuzzled and licked and groomed them. Then Caroline lifted her face to Jay. “There’s something about babies— all babies—that just melts you inside,” she said in her low husky voice.
    For a minute he looked back at her, his eyes almost black in the dimness of the loft. Then— “Caroline,” he groaned and reached for her.
    She tried to resist, remembering last night, her hands braced against his chest to push him away. But though his mouth was hard on hers, it was the urgency of passion and not of anger. His hands were on her back, pulling her toward him, and after a minute her arms slid up to circle his neck and her lips opened under the pressure of his. The scent of the hay and the masculine smell of his flesh and hair were in her nostrils. The length of her body was pressed against his, and she could feel his kisses all the way down in her stomach.
    His mouth withdrew, and she stared up into his face, into narrowed, slitted eyes of midnight blue. He put his hands on her waist and gently pulled her down with him to the hay.
    Caroline went. She was a little afraid of what she had seen in his face, but her will to deny him seemed to have evaporated. He began to unbutton her shirt.
    “Jay,” she said, huskily, uncertainly.
    “You’re so beautiful, Cara,” he muttered. “Christ, you’re so beautiful.” He leaned over her, silencing her mouth with his own. His hard body crushed hers down into the hay.
    Caroline lost all sense of place and time. He was kissing her bared breasts, and she felt the rising throb of desire growing in her. She wanted him, she wanted to take off her clothes for him, wanted to please him. Her hands slid up