The memory of it was the last he would have of her.
It took all his strength to withdraw his fingers from her chin, to step back and hitch up his dignity. No sense letting the girl know how foolish in love he was with her. “Go follow your dream, Fiona.”
Chapter Nineteen
“What about your grandmother’s money?” She could not think straight. The gentle bliss of Ian’s kiss had muddled her mind, and she could not gather it enough to make sense of what he was saying. She only knew that her father would not let her go out of any sense of Christmas spirit. “I can’t allow her to be swindled on my behalf. She was my grandmother’s best friend, I know the value of that bond. I do not want to dishonor their friendship. She has paid for the property. Did my father sign over the deed to you?”
“No, he did not.” The steely mask that Ian kept in place slid away, just a second’s weakness, and she saw the truth and felt it settle in her soul. The bond between them remained, stronger than ever, and she caught his hand with hers, his so much larger and capable of accomplishing so much. She thought of the horses he had been destined to train, champions yet to be proven, and his gentle horseman’s nature. He had sacrificed much for that future. She hated that it would be delayed again.
“There might be another farm? You have a good job. Is that what you are hoping for?”
“No. That road is no longer meant for me.” His fingers twined through hers, locking them together, and that felt like destiny, too. “I sent a draft to Nana to reimburse her for the money. The original offer was for you, not the land. Do you remember?”
“But you wanted the land.”
“No. I want you.”
To have her dream, she finished for him. To take the ticket and leave town, she told her impossibly rising hopes. Not because he loved her. He did not mean he wanted her and he loved her and he felt an endless, abiding devotion, too. Her lips tingled, proof of his kiss—goodbye? Was that why he had kissed her? As a farewell gesture?
Of course, it had to be. She stared at the ticket in her hand. She was the one holding on to him. She was the one with lead feet, unable to move. Wasn’t she the one who had fallen? And yet his grip tightened, his fingers clutching hers. As if he did not want to let go.
Hope lifted on wings within her. All the things he had done for her, all that he had said came back to her anew.
“Where did you get the money?”
“I sold my mares, all but Duchess.” His throat worked, and his granite mask was back in place. Only the tic of tension in his set jaw revealed the cost of that decision.
“You sold your thoroughbreds? No. I don’t believe it.” She couldn’t make her brain accept it. “You couldn’t have. They mean everything to you.”
“Not everything.” Tender, those words, and layered with something more, something deeper. “I did it for you, Fiona.”
“For me?” A terrible cracking rent through her, the last of her denial, the last of her old, useless beliefs she had been clinging to. That there were no noble men, that no man would love her, that she did not believe in love. Those notions shattered like glass, their shards landing on the dirt at her feet, useless and impossible to pick up. Falsehoods she could no longer believe in.
“Midweek I sent a telegram to my friend, the one keeping what was left of my herd.” No sorrow rang in the deep notes of his voice. Only peace. “Jack was happy to buy them.”
What did she believe in? Ian. She believed in his noble heart, in his compassionate spirit and in the love polishing him in the lantern’s coppery light.
“You have to get them back.” She tore her hand from his, whirling away. “This isn’t right, what you’ve done.”
“What isn’t right about it? It is the best thing for you.”
“But what about you?” She had been prepared to care for her parents, find a job in town to help support them and do her share of the work forever, if it meant Ian could have his land. Was it too late to give him what he wanted most? What he deserved? “If you take Flannigan right now and hurry to town, you can make