Heaven's Gift aka Kiss of an Angel

back at him, her brows drawn over her eyes in consternation. 'If he's so dangerous, why did you buy him?'

Sighing, J.T. came to her side. 'Because I'd hoped I could break him.'

'He's a beautiful animal,' she said softly.

Caitlan's gentle serenity whispered to J.T., filling a void in him. He wondered if that was how King felt when she was near. Maybe that was why the animal responded so well to her. 'Quite honestly, King wasn't this wild when I first bought him. He was a little spirited, which I liked, but he's gotten progressively worse over the months.' He glanced down at Caitlan, looking into her upturned face. 'I'm surprised you got as close as you did without him taking a chunk out of you.'

She chewed on her lower lip, and he read the hesitation swirling in her violet eyes. Finally, she said, 'Someone's been spooking him.'

He lifted a brow, her declaration making him uneasy. 'After five minutes in King's stall you came to that conclusion?' He forced an amused note to his voice. 'I suppose King told you that while you were in his stall? Whispered it in your ear, maybe?'

She glanced away, but not before he saw her annoyance at his teasing remark. 'I have… a way with animals,' she explained, her attention drawn to the sugar cubes that were beginning to crystalize in her palm. 'Your stallion is very spirited by nature, but he has some symptoms of being mistreated.'

Her words were spoken with such conviction, he wondered if he should be insulted. 'You're not insinuating I mistreat my animals, are you?'

Her gaze flew to his, her lips pursed. 'Of course not. You're far too gentle and caring to abuse anything or anyone.'

He jammed his hands on his hips, impatient and unsettled by all her observations. 'Is my stallion marked?'

'No, not physically.'

The woman was a witch, J.T. thought. Or an animal psychologist, if there was even such a thing. In so many words she was telling him that King was scarred emotionally. What a crock! He shook his head, retaining the urge to laugh off this whole verbal exchange. 'You're crazy, you know that, lady? I'm going to just forget we ever had this weird conversation.' He turned and started for the door. At the last minute he stopped and glanced back at her. 'And stay out of his stall, Caitlan.'

Caitlan watched J.T. slip out of the barn; then she moved to King's stall. She knew her comments about King's emotional abuse sounded strange to J.T., but she had no concrete evidence with which to back up her claim; only this strong sense she shared with the stallion.

Looking through the slats, she met King's gaze and knew in that moment that the stallion trusted her. 'Good boy,' she murmured, smiling. 'I have a feeling you and I are going to become good friends.'

Chapter Six

At three in the morning, after two hours spent with King, forming a fragile trust, Caitlan slipped quietly into the ranch house and up the stairs to the guest bedroom. Everyone had been asleep for hours, and she was careful not to make any loud noises as she shrugged out of her jacket and pulled off her boots.

Caitlan was pleased with the open way King had responded to her. With time and care J.T. would be able to fully enjoy the stallion's spirit, without the threat of the horse being dangerous. She couldn't help but wonder who was spooking King, and why.

More exhilarated than tired, Caitlan changed into her nightshirt, grabbed her sketch pad and pencil from the dresser drawer, and went back downstairs to cozy up in her spot in the livingroom window seat. Drawing up her knees slightly for a table, she rested the pad on her thighs. Tonight she was too keyed up to lay down.

Thumbing past the disturbing sketch of the young boy she'd drawn last night, Caitlan started on a clean sheet of paper, consciously sketching a picture of J.T. astride King to keep herself occupied. The contours of J.T.'s handsome face came easily to her, and as the image came to life, each feature at a time, a warm, shimmering sensation settled in her belly. Familiar images once again touched the edges of her memory. She closed her eyes to probe deeper, searching valiantly for the link to these visions.

Strangely, the fragrance of a spring afternoon surrounded Caitlan, and the sensation of a warm breeze wafted across her skin. The sky above the beautiful meadow was cloudless. She heard the chirp of birds, and two orange butterflies fluttered past. The sound of giggles and boyish laughter reached Caitlan's ears; then she saw them in her mind. The boy she'd drawn last night was playfully chasing the blond-haired girl, deliberately allowing her to take the lead. Caitlan realized with sudden clarity that the boy was J.T., at about the age of fifteen. Why hadn't she noticed the resemblance in her drawing? And what significance did the girl hold to her visions?

J.T. chased the girl, closing in on her as they neared a stream and a large shady tree. The girl taunted him over her shoulder, daring him to catch her. One last long stride and he tackled her gently to the soft carpet of grass, her squeal of surprise rending the air.

'I gotcha!' he said, smiling down at her.

She gave him an upswept look, much too sultry for a girl so young. 'So what're you gonna do about it?'

'This.'

Caitlan watched in her mind as J.T.'s fingers fluttered over every ticklish spot on the girl's body. Impossible as it seemed, Caitlan's body began to tingle, as if she was being tickled, and she had the strangest urge to laugh along with J.T. and the girl. The young girl's gales of laughter filled the meadow and she gasped for breath, begging him to stop the torture.

'Say the magic words,' J.T. coaxed, all the while his fingers were finding every vulnerable area-her neck, under her arm, her waist, just above the knee.

'I love you,' she said breathlessly, then grew serious when J.T. stopped tickling her. She stared up at him, eyes shining with adoration. 'I love you, Johnny.'

'Much better,' he murmured, a grin of satisfaction curving his mouth. All play vanished, replaced by a sensual hunger. 'Now kiss me, Mandy.' Lowering his head, he dropped his mouth over hers.

The kiss the young lovers shared was passionate, like the one she'd shared with J.T. last night. Caitlan's breath caught as ripples of silky heat rushed along her nerve endings, and the sensation of being deeply, thoroughly kissed stole through her. She was being swept away, into her vision, taking the place of the blond-haired girl.

J.T.'s feelings poured into her soul, an aching tenderness, an eternal love that twined around her heart, seducing her in the sweetest way…

The creak and soft thud of someone coming down the stairs penetrated Caitlan's mind, banishing the images, but leaving the soft hum of awareness in her veins. Startled out of her thoughts, the pencil fell from her fingers and hit the wooden floor at the same instant that J.T. rounded the corner into the living room. He stopped abruptly, and even in the dim moonlight she could see his whole body go rigid and alert. Then a hiss of breath escaped him when he saw her form silhouetted in the window seat.

'Jesus, Caitlan, you scared the hell out of me.' He dragged his fingers through his disheveled hair. 'What are you doing up at this hour?'

Willing her pulse to subside, she watched him approach in slow, lazy strides, his bare feet padding on the floor. The only article of clothing he wore were his jeans, and Caitlan's mouth went a little dry when she remembered the hard warmth of his chest beneath her fingers last night. She swallowed and answered his question. 'I, uh, I'm rawing.' Flipping the pad closed, she concealed her private thoughts and images. 'I couldn't sleep.'

He sat down on the other end of the seat, his thigh touching her toes. His smile was sleepy, warm and sensual, and did intimate things to her already aroused body. Somewhere along the way last evening, through a pleasant dinner and afterward, watching a video with Laura, a truce had been called silently between them. She liked being comfortable with him and hoped it would last.

'Do you ever sleep?' he asked, moonlight glinting off the humor in his eyes.

'Yes.' Considering two nights in a row he'd caught her up in the early morning hours, his question was a valid one. 'I function fine on a few hours.'

'I wish I could say the same.' He leaned closer, looking over her jersey-covered knees to the sketch pad she