“With them, it’s sometimes hard to predict why they do things.”
Charles’s horse snorted and Charles tilted his head sideways, closing his eyes, and murmured, “Can’t you feel it in the air? There’s a storm coming.” When he opened his eyes, they were yellow. He straightened and, though Anna couldn’t see that he moved again, his horse broke into a gentle canter.
They put the other horses away before taking Portabella into the same smaller arena that Anna had ridden in the day before. The mare didn’t look any different than she had before Anna had gotten on her outside. Or if she did, she looked even calmer, because she’d still been a little huffy about Chelsea when Anna had hopped on.
Charles lengthened the stirrups a lot, checked the cinch, and then swung up on the mare. Her head went up, her eyes rolled until Anna could see the whites that were normally hidden, she shifted her weight to her haunches, and she danced uneasily from foot to foot.
Charles just sat there, his body loose and easy; the only motion he made was the motion generated by the horse’s movement. She shuffled a few steps forward, two backward, a hop sideways. He made no move to correct her, just stayed balanced and light on her back.
They fit each other, Anna thought: big dark man, big dark horse, both elegant and strong. The idea made her lips quirk up, even with the worry that the janitor wasn’t the fae they were really looking for.
“You coming to the show tomorrow?” Kage asked. “Michael’s riding in the lead-line and Mackie’s taking the little gray you rode yesterday in the English walk/trot class.”
“I’ll ask Charles,” she said, watching as the mare, left mostly to her own devices, finally stopped moving except for the unhappy swish of her tail. “I think we’re going to try to get in to see the guy the FBI has locked up if we can. But I’d love to come see the kids ride.” And to make sure that they were safe.
After five minutes more (Anna checked her watch), Charles still having done nothing but sit there, the mare lowered her head and began to chew her bit. Immediately, Charles slipped off. He patted her neck and led her out of the gate. “If you want to put her on your list of possibles,” he told Anna, “that would be okay.”
And she knew for sure that he really liked her. Anna liked her a lot, too. “Okay,” she said. She looked at Kage. “She’s on our list of possibles, but not on the price list you gave us. Do you have a price for her?”
“Ten thousand,” said Hosteen.
Kage snorted. “Not anywhere near that, Hosteen. Five thousand for a pretty horse, well broke for trail. Twenty-five hundred for the well broke plus twenty-five hundred for the pretty. But don’t make up your mind yet, there’s some nice horses you haven’t seen.”
And as Kage and Hosteen left to put the mare away, Anna heard Hosteen chortle, “Did you hear him? She’s a challenge. He wants her. He’d have paid ten thousand for her.”
“We don’t overcharge for our horses, old man,” said Kage. “That’s a good way to get a bad reputation. And I suspect that Charles knows just exactly how much that horse should cost.” He paused. “I shouldn’t have said anything at all. I could have just told Dad what you tried to do; then you’d be in real trouble.”
Hosteen made a reply, but Anna couldn’t hear what he said. His voice sounded happy.
“I like them,” Anna said, very softly.
Charles’s lips quirked. “Hosteen was watching Kage when he gave us that price, did you see?”
“He was right, though,” Anna observed. “You’d have paid ten thousand for her because she’s a challenge.”
He smiled, eyes soft. “I already have a challenge,” he told her in a gravelly voice.
She shook her head with mock sadness. “I’m not a challenge, Charles. I’m just another woman panting after you like that teacher with the hungry eyes at the day care.”
He laughed out loud. “Sure you are,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Sure you are.”
Well, she knew it was true, even if he didn’t believe her. His arm pulled her a little off balance, and paradoxically it steadied her at the same time. That was what Charles did to her heart, too. He knocked it off balance into what felt like the right position, a safe place that was still exciting, exhilarating, and terrifying.
What if I