Six White Horses (10 page)

In agonizing slow motion, Patty saw the second pair of horses attempt and fail to avoid the fallen white steed. Lodestar, unable to continue without his partner, was nearly pushed to the ground by the momentum of the second pair tumbling clumsily over the jump.

The bars were down as Landmark and Loyalty joined them, their hooves tripping on the wooden rails. Patty had already shifted her weight to Landmark's back as Loyalty lurched forward and fell into the two horses struggling to regain their footing.

In the next instant she was flying through the air as Landmark went to his knees. Instinct had not allowed her to act swiftly enough to push herself to the outside. Instead she fell between the horses. Pain screamed through her at the concussion of the arena floor. With tightly closed eyes, she waited for the moment when a flailing leg would strike her or the warm white bodies that surrounded her would roll on top.

By some miracle neither happened. Except for a few brushing blows, she lay on the sand-clay arena unscathed. Human voices wavered through the whirling chaos of her mind, the seating pain in her chest nearly separating her from reality. The oppressive heat of the horses' bodies was no longer pressing around her. The touch or a pair of hands forced her lashes to flutter open.

"Don't move!" The snapped order was issued through clenched teeth.

The blazing fire that flamed with blue lights into her face halted the hysterical impulse to laugh. Movement seemed such an impossible thing, but the order had the reverse effect of encouraging her to move, to make certain she was in one piece. Even as her lungs burned in an attempt to fill with air, Patty guessed her true motivation was to show Morgan Kincaid that she couldn't be ordered around.

When she tried to push herself into a sitting position, he roughly forced her down, little gentleness in the fingers that were probing her arms and legs for injury.

"I'm…a-all right," she gasped painful swallows of oxygen. "The w-wind…the wind w-was just knocked…out of m-me."

"You lie down or I'll break your neck!" The savage bite of his voice was reinforced by the black fury of his expression. "I told you, you half-witted little idiot, not to take those jumps at that height, but you knew it all! You just had to show me what an expert you were! Do you feel very expert now?" he jeered.

The last thing that Patty wanted was a flurry of I-told-you-so's, however accurate the observation. Acid tears burned her eyes as she averted her head from his harshly accusing gaze. Her grandfather was kneeling down beside her, his weathered face lined with concern, fear lurking in the recesses of his eyes.

"Patty, gal, are you all right?" Everett King murmured in a throbbing voice.

Choked, she could only nod that she was, as a tear spilled from one eye to race across a dirt-smeared cheek.

"The wind was knocked out of her," Morgan clipped the ends of the words. "I ought to break one of her arms or legs just or general principle."

"Help me up, grandpa," Patty requested tightly, hating and loathing the man who continued to taunt her with her foolishness.

But it was Morgan's arm that curved around her back, his fingers biting into her waist as he lifted her onto her feet. Her mind had already registered the fact that she was not seriously injured, but Patty felt like one big throbbing ache. Her legs were shaking badly and as much as she wanted to shake away Morgan's supporting arm, she needed it. The arena thundered with applause.

"Put me back on the horses," she said between gulping breaths as strength began flowing to her limbs again.

"Turn off the heroics, Patty!" Morgan snapped, giving her a sharp shake as if to instill some sense in her. "Besides, which injured horse would you ride?"

With a jerk of her head, Patty focused her gaze on the six white horses. She shut her eyes tightly at the sight of the blood red gash on Liberty's flank and Landmark, who was favoring his right front leg. There were cowboys at each horse's head, soothing the frightened, nervous horses while others worked swiftly to untangle the mess of harness and reins.

"How bad—" Patty could get no more out than that before an enormous lump blocked her throat.

"Nothing looks broken," her grandfather answered, touching her shoulder in reassurance.

"Oh, grandpa, I'm sorry," Patty gulped, tears running more freely through her tightly closed eyes.

"I know, honey," he replied.

"It's too late for tears now. The damage is done." Compassion was noticeably absent in Morgan's rough tone. "Wave to the crowd so we can get out of here!"

Squaring her shoulders, Patty shrugged away from his arm, stepping free to lift an arm in salute to the cheering audience. The horses were already being led toward the gate as she turned toward it. With the same determination, she pushed her guilty feelings to the side as she tried to assess from a distance how extensive were the injuries to the horses. Lodestar was walking easily, as were Legend and Legacy. Patty tried
desperately to ignore the eyes that were boring holes in her back.

"Where do you think you're going?" Morgan demanded when Patty turned with her grandfather to follow the horses to the stable area.

"To take care of the horses, of course." There was a faintly defiant tilt to her head.

Her grandfather's hand touched her arm, almost regretfully. "You'd better go to the trailer, Patty. Change your clothes. Maybe fix a cup of tea to soothe your nerves."

At her grandfather's words of agreement, Patty had stopped, turning her resentful expression on the forbidding dark features belonging to Morgan.

"I suppose that's what you think I should do, too," she challenged coldly.

"Yes, I do." But Morgan didn't leave it at that. "Just as I thought you should lower the jumps."

There was a sharp intake of breath as his quietly spoken comment struck its mark with penetrating sureness. Pain flashed through her eyes as she tried to decipher the unreadable expression behind his sooty veil of lashes. Without any attempt to argue, Patty spun on her heel and commanded her watery legs to take her to the trailer. Perhaps she deserved that, she didn't know, but it hurt all the same.

When she stepped out of the shower more than a quarter of an hour later, the teakettle was whistling merrily on the stove. While the tea steeped, Patty dressed, donning a pair of slacks and a white knit top.

The hot cup of tea sat on the small table, her elbows on either side, her face buried in her hands. The beginning of a headache was pounding at her temples. After the first tentative sip at the fragrant liquid, Patty knew she couldn't sit idly in the trailer. She had to go to the stables and help. She couldn't leave the entire burden to her grandfather. After all, it was her fault that the accident had occurred in the first place, as much as she wanted to blame Morgan and his autocratic ways.

Leaving the tea half-drunk, Patty rose from the table, ignoring the bruises that were just beginning to make themselves known. With hurried steps, she traveled the distance from the trailer to the stables, not stopping until she was pausing at the door to Liberty's stall. The top partition of the door was open and her fingers closed over the edge of the lower door.

A local vet was examining the gash on the white flank, obviously caused by one of the other horses as it fell. Patty's heart constricted painfully at the unsightly mark on the shimmering white coat.
 

"Is it serious?" The question came out in a taut whisper, not carrying to the vet or her grandfather standing at Liberty's head.

"Not as serious as it looks," Morgan's low voice sounded beside her, turning Party's head with a jerk.

An unrestrainable feeling of guilt widened her brown eyes. "I—I couldn't stay at the trailer."

Diamond eyes returned her look, the ultimately masculine face serf-contained and implacable. An odd tension took hold of Patty, tripping her pulse.

"So you came here," Morgan observed. "To help?"

"Yes," she nodded weakly.

Pointedly he glanced at the faint tremor vibrating her clenched fingers on the stall door. "With those shaking hands? We just got the horses settled down. The last thing they need is to be exposed to your bundle of nerves."

Her knuckles turned whiter as she tightened her hold, the quiet bite of his voice nearly worse than his jeering anger of before.

"It was my fault," she acknowledged softly, averting her face from his inspection. "I should be here doing something about it."

"Everything is being handled. Your grandfather will rest easier in his mind if he knows you're at the trailer. If you'd only admit it, the shock of the fall hasn't worn off."

"I'm all right!" A desperate kind of anger coated her statement.

"Physically," Morgan agreed. "But your stiff upper lip is quivering again."

Patty felt the trembling of her chin and bit tightly into her lower lip, the ensuing pain almost a relief. Why did he have to be so perceptive?

"I—I can clean the tack—or something," she argued rigidly.

"If you're trying to assuage your guilt, you'll have plenty to do taking care of the horses over the next few weeks while they recover. In the meantime, you can spend the rest of the night thanking God that the injuries weren't any more serious than they are, and reminding yourself that if you hadn't been so damned stubborn—"

"You don't have to say 'I told you so' again!" Patty broke in sharply. "I don't need you to tell me it was my fault! If you hadn't tried to trick me—Oh, what's the use!" she ended with a throbbing catch in her voice.

She started to turn her back to him, planning to walk to the tack room and soap down the leather tack but before she could take a single step, Morgan was swinging her off her feet into his arms.

"You're going back to the trailer." As Patty started to struggle, the metallic glare of his gaze was directed at her. "I wouldn't argue if I were you," he warned with soft harshness. "I'm still thinking that a sound lecture administered to your backside might be a good thing."

Inwardly there was an acknowledgment of defeat, although Patty held herself with rigid defiance. A quaking weakness was shuddering through her body. If it had been anyone but Morgan who held her, she would have willingly rested her head against that muscular chest, so broad and so strong. But to seek his comfort and support was something her stubborn pride wouldn't allow her to do, no matter how miserable she felt.

So, while she stared at the inviting expanse of chest, she kept in view the powerful line of his jaw and the firm male mouth. He had already made fun of her quivering chin. She didn't want to be subjected to his mocking laughter by sobbing, however silently, on his shoulder.

"You are neither gentle nor a gentleman," Patty accused.

"Why? Because I threatened to give you the spanking you deserved?" he mocked.

"No!" she retaliated vigorously. "Because you keep rubbing it in that it was my fault. I've already admitted that it was, but you keep wanting me to grovel. Well, I won't! I feel horrible enough."

Her eyes smarted with angry tears that she refused to shed, self-pity and guilt warring with her dislike for Morgan Kincaid.

"Maybe I feel some guilt, too," he told her coldly. "I knew something like this would happen. I shouldn't have allowed those jumps to be raised." They were at the steps of the trailer when he set her on her feet, his hands keeping a grip on her shoulders while his narrowed gaze studied her upturned face, slightly startled and surprised by his unexpected admission that he was in any way to blame. "Part of the responsibility is mine for allowing that stubborn streak of pride you possess to influence me."

In the few seconds it took Patty to adjust to this new discovery, the trailer door was opened and Morgan was shoving her roughly inside. She found herself angered by his admission,

"If you feel that way," she turned on him roundly, her brown eyes snapping as he closed the door, "then why were you so mean? You never even once asked if I was all right! You simply threatened to break my neck!"

His hands were on his hips, accepting the challenge she was laying down. "I've come to the conclusion that that's the only way to handle you. Otherwise you're so intent on proving that you're some kind of superhuman female that you'd end up killing yourself. Put me back on the horses,'" he mimicked. "The minute your grandfather arrived, you insisted on trying to prove what a heroine you were."

"That's what you're supposed to do when you've been thrown or have fallen."

"Not when you're too dazed to know if you're hurt or not!"

"Well, I wasn't hurt," Patty argued.

"But you could have been!" Morgan shouted back. "You could have broken your bloody neck!"

"I know that!" Her body was trembling with the supreme effort of checking her tears. Bailing her fingers into tight fists, she turned from him. "Why do you always have to pick on me?" she demanded angrily. "Why can't you ever be civil? You always have to shout and order me around and tell me all the things I'm doing wrong."

"Somebody had better," he responded shortly. "You seem incapable of seeing how idiotically you behave."

"And that's why you keep tearing me down?" Patty flashed, brown eyes snapping as she darted him a fiery look. "Calling me Skinny and kid and a pint-sized Annie Oakley? Doesn't it ever occur to you that those names might hurt?"