Chance Meeting (23 page)

His career always came first. And after witnessing time and again how spoiled creatures like Allegra Palmer destroyed men with stunningly casual ease, Steve had given wealthy women an especially wide berth.

But for some inexplicable reason, Ty Stannard was turning him inside out. It wasn’t because she was damnably lovely but because she actually seemed to care. That was what got to him. And it elicited a bizarre and unwelcome reaction. Every time he spent more than five minutes with her, anger started simmering inside him, he, who normally was the epitome of Southern, laid-back casual—at least when he wasn’t competing in a jumping class. Part of him wanted badly to trust her, but the other part knew he’d be three kinds of a fool if he did. Frankly, it scared him how much he needed to believe in her. But then the anger would win out, triggering the resentment within. Christ, thought Steve bitterly, he was a bloody mess inside.

Gathering Gordo’s reins in his gloved hand, Steve led him down the broad, clean-swept center aisle of the barn and then left, where the indoor ring was connected to the barn by a short corridor. He stared straight ahead, refusing to count the number of vacant stalls they passed. This was the last jumping day he planned for his two geldings. After this morning’s workout, his horses wouldn’t see another fence until they entered the arena at Madison Square Garden. Then their legs would be fresh, and, with any luck, so would their eagerness to win. The remaining days before the National Horse Show would be reserved for flat work, concentrating on drills that called for shortening or lengthening strides and for keeping them rounded and collected.

Getting a horse listening and balanced on the flat was of supreme importance in show jumping. If your horse left the ground uncollected, chances were that, at the very least, a rail was going to get knocked down. Once that happened, it was a real slippery slope; the horse might get rattled, lose its concentration—if only for a millisecond, but a millisecond was all it took—and then
wham!
there went

another rail, perhaps a refusal, and more penalty points tacked onto your ride. The day before, he’d raked the surface of the indoor ring and positioned the jumps the way he wanted them for today’s workout. He’d only set up five: a triple combination, then a brush jump on the diagonal line to a vertical set on another curve eight strides away. He’d made the mini course challenging enough for the two geldings given their different temperaments and abilities. Of the two, Gordo was the more experienced. A thoroughbred, he was a fast and aggressive jumper, which was great when chasing seconds in a speed class. But Gordo’s hot temperament meant that unless Steve kept him well in hand, the gelding’s preferred MO was to charge full steam ahead and attack fences from impossible distances. The triple combination was precisely the sort of element in a jump course where Gordo lost it. If the takeoff distance on the first fence was too long, that left him scrambling and flat in his approach for the next two. Most of the time, Gordo and Steve got lucky. But Steve couldn’t rely on luck this time around. Macintosh was the flip side. A big, seventeen-hand chestnut Hanoverian, he was the equivalent of a Sherman tank compared to Gordo’s Maserati-like feel. Solid as a rock, powerful enough to get lift-off over higher fences and wider spreads without even having to think twice about it, Macintosh was a solid ride, careful to a fault. And therein lay the problem. Getting Macintosh to crank up the speed was like waiting for the bank to clear a check, an exercise in frustration. Steve had learned to rely instead on the horse’s natural balance and awesome power. Often, they could successfully eliminate strides in a distance, or pull off radically angled approaches to a fence, anything that might shave off seconds and compensate for the gelding’s lack of overdrive.

If there was a positive side to the nightmare of the past six weeks, it was that Steve’s horses were totally rested and refreshed. He’d scratched their recent shows, he himself too stressed and battered emotionally to ride in competition the way his horses deserved.

Steve was pleased with the results of the selfimposed break. Although Gordo was full of spit and vinegar, the concentrated flat work and gymnastic exercises they’d been doing for the past month were paying off. Steve’d been able to keep Gordo rounded, jumping off his haunches through the triple combination. Steve was cooling Gordo down, walking him slowly on a long rein, patting the bay’s sweat-darkened coat that was slowly drying as Steve allowed himself the pleasure of a cigarette. Through the open double doors at the end of the ring, he heard the rumble of his truck’s engine. It was coming closer, the rattle of metal louder as the truck bumped its way over the field.

What in hell is she doing now?
he asked himself, straining to catch sight of the battered pickup. The sound of the engine died abruptly, indicating that she’d parked somewhere in the pasture, frustratingly, however, outside the window’s periphery. That nixed his chances of spying on her from a safe distance. He’d have to go check out what his partner was up to once Gordo was cool to the touch.

18

T
y grabbed the wheelbarrow’s handles and set off, back toward the truck, the long-handled shovel banging against the rim as she pushed. The nursery had sold her the tallest pair of apple trees they had in stock. It was a good thing she’d had the foresight to ask the men loading the trees to place them at the very rear of the truck. As it was, she was covered with dirt from shoving the burlap-encased root balls the mere inches it took to bring the trees to the edge of the truck’s tailgate.
Okay. This is it,
Ty thought, pushing the wheelbarrow as close to the back of the truck as she could manage. There was a wisp of hair stuck fast against the end of her nose which she blew at, lower lip thrust outward. Then, when the strands didn’t budge, absently swiped at them with the back of her hand, while staring fixedly at the truck’s cargo, contemplating her next move. Should she stand on the ground and try to pull the trees down into the wheelbarrow, or hop back on the truck, sit down on its bed, and give the ball a solid shove with her boots? She’d go with option number one; the second was too chancy. She might push too hard and knock the tree sideways, perhaps damaging the trunk as well as the root ball in the process.

Double-checking that the tree was in position, she scooted around the wheelbarrow, reached out, and wrapped her arms around the wide dirt-and burlapcovered ball. She gave a hard tug, pushing backward with her legs, feeling her arms strain with effort.

“Want to tell me why you’re hugging trees in the middle of the day, in the middle of my field?”

Ty pulled again, ignoring him, the words they’d exchanged last night still stinging. He wasn’t worth wasting her breath, especially since she was panting already, and the dratted thing hadn’t budged an inch. She gritted her teeth, yanked harder, this time throwing her back into the effort. She pulled until her muscles screamed. Nothing.
Bloody hell.

“Here, move out of the way. You’re going to hurt yourself,” Steve said, suddenly beside her. “I’ll get the thing down.”

“It needs to go into the wheelbarrow.”

“I figured that. All right, you ready? Guide it into the barrow as I lower it.”

“Okay,” Ty replied, too grateful to argue. She was coming to the conclusion that Steve Sheppard possessed a real gift for making her feel like an emotional yo-yo. She assumed he was fully aware of his ability.

They stood on opposite sides of the wheelbarrow. Steve positioned his feet beneath the overhanging steel panel of the truck’s gate, then leaned forward to grab hold of the root ball. As he wrapped his upper body around the base of the sapling, whipcord-lean muscles flexed beneath soft flannel. Ty’s mouth went dry as with a single, fluid movement, Steve hauled back, bringing the root ball toward him, pebbles and dirt scraping roughly against the metal bed. For a second the burlap-covered ball hung suspended over the wheelbarrow, Ty quickly thrust her arms out, grabbing hold.

“Okay, I’ve got it. You can lower it now.” Ty said breathlessly, disturbingly aware of his body close to hers.

A minute later, Steve was following her with the wheelbarrow as she led him over to the grave. When she came to a stop at one end of the freshly overturned earth and turned to him, he raised a dark blond brow in silent inquiry. Nervously, she cleared her throat, abruptly uncertain whether perhaps she’d gone too far, whether she’d trespassed unforgivably.

“They’re apple trees,” she explained, stammering a little. “According to the man at the nursery, there hasn’t been a hard frost yet, so the trees can be safely planted. If Mother Nature cooperates, they might even bloom next spring. I thought . . .”

“Fancy loved apples,” Steve interrupted quietly. “They were his favorite treat. What was your idea, a tree on either end?”

She nodded, then surreptitiously studied his face as he stepped back and looked at the scene before him, as though imagining the two trees framing the spot where his horse lay. Ty’s breath hitched as she caught the small smile that lifted the corners of Steve’s mouth.

“Yeah, Fancy will like lying in the shade of apple trees,” Steve pronounced, grabbing the shovel from the barrow and walking over to where she stood. “You want me to start digging, or should we go and get the other tree first?”

“Let’s get the other one and position them the way you like. Afterward, I can run back to the shed and grab a second shovel. The digging’ll go quicker that way.”

“Right. Let’s do it.” Steve thrust the shovel into the soft ground, hefted the tree from the depths of the wheelbarrow, and lowered it gently next to where Ty stood. She was glad his concentration was elsewhere. It was hard to remain unaffected by such a casual display of strength. Without a hitch, the two of them repeated the same procedure for the second tree. As soon as it was aligned, Ty sprinted back to the shed for another shovel.

Steve paused in his own digging to watch Ty racing back to the grave, metal shovel swinging by her side. She was flushed and dirty, her gray eyes shining as they met his fleetingly. Without fanfare, Ty immediately set to work, propping her booted foot against the lip of the shovel and pushing down hard, then bending knees and back to scoop out the rich, brown soil. Steve’s heart performed a strange acrobatic leap, as if suddenly set free, seeing her there, looking so lovely, dirty streaks and all. There she was, his wealthy million-billionairess, digging in the dirt because that might make him feel better. The notion boggled his mind, completely outside his realm of expectations. Just knowing that she’d spent time thinking up the idea, out of concern for his dead horse, out of concern for
him,
stunned him. That she was out here, doing this grubby work, hauling trees, digging in the dirt, was no less than astonishing. He hadn’t anticipated such simple yet exquisite kindness from her.

Resting his forearms against the top of the shovel’s handle, he regarded her curiously. “You know, you could have hired one of the men at the nursery to give you a hand. That’s how these landscape companies make their fortune out here.”

Ty nodded, continuing the rhythm of thrusting the shovel into the ground and upending dirt. “Well, I did have to ask them for instructions. I’ve never planted a tree before,” she confessed with a quick, shy smile. “But it didn’t seem that difficult when they explained how to do it. Besides, if they’d done the work, it wouldn’t have been the same, would it?” Ty asked, knowing the answer in her own heart. “But I’m glad you came around to lend a hand,” she confessed a little breathlessly, working the shovel around a particularly cumbersome clump. “The digging’s bound to go a lot faster. And those trees must have grown during the ride over. They’re a lot heavier than they were supposed to be!”

Steve chuckled, a sound that had Ty’s heart drumming with happiness. Then the two of them resumed digging in earnest—and for the first time since Ty’s arrival at Southwind, working side by side in companionable silence.

“They look wonderful,” Ty pronounced, filled with quiet satisfaction at the sight of the two small trees neatly planted, bracketing Fancy Free’s grave.

“Yeah, they do,” Steve agreed. “Thank you, Ty.”

At his quietly spoken words, bittersweet emotion flooded her. This was definitely a day for firsts: here he was, finally treating her like something other than the enemy.

And he’d said her name, rather than some clever nickname he’d invented. She drew in a shaky breath, telling herself not to read too much into this apparent transformation.

“There were some nice wooden benches on sale at the nursery. I thought maybe . . .”

“Yeah, that’d be good.” He nodded. “The ground’s getting damn cold, even without a frost.” When he grinned, Steve’s blue eyes crinkled. Lord, he was attractive, disarmingly so. This new, easygoing version of Steve Sheppard was making her positively lightheaded. The feeling only intensified when he reached out and retrieved the shovel from her hand, his fingers casually brushing her own. As from a distance, Ty heard him ask, “What do you think of alfalfa and timothy?”