This Fierce Splendor

“I don’t like this, Patrick.” Dominic’s voice was tight.

Patrick looked at him in surprise. “Ramon’s right. The gray is the gentlest horse on the ranch. All she’ll have to do is hold on.”

“I don’t like her going riding at all. For God’s sake, she isn’t strong yet. What if she gets tired and takes a fall?”

“Will you kindly stop speaking of me as if I weren’t here?” Elspeth asked in exasperation. “If I get tired, I’ll stop. If I fall off, I’ll get back on. It’s very simple.”

Patrick’s lips twitched. “Yes, Dom, what’s wrong with you? You heard her, you’re building mountains out of molehills.”

“I was the one who had to pick her up when she fell off one of those mountains, and I don’t want to have to do it again.”

Elspeth felt a swift jab of pain at the hardness of Dominic’s voice. “You needn’t worry, I have no intention of asking that of you.” She turned to watch Ramon Torres stalk the gray with surprising grace and swiftness for a man of his stolid, squat proportions. “He’s very good at this, isn’t he?”

Dominic’s moody glance left her face and shifted to the Mexican in the corral. “Has he been at Killara very long, Patrick? The last time I was here, old Tomas was taking care of the horses.”

“About three months. We didn’t really need anyone, but he was a wonder with the animals, so we took him on. It was a good thing we did, because we found Tomas in the stable with his head split open two weeks later. We figured he must have fallen from the hayloft and hit his head on the anvil.” His face became shadowed. “I liked old Tomas.”

“You hadn’t met Ramon before today?” Elspeth asked. How strange. She couldn’t have mistaken the expression on the Mexican’s face as he looked at Dominic. She had received such a vivid impression of the man’s feeling for Dominic. “I thought he had been at Killara for a long time.”

“Dominic and Patrick both looked at her in surprise.

“Why would you assume that?” Dominic asked.

Elspeth frowned. “I don’t know. I guess it was because he was looking at you with such… affection.”

Patrick burst into laughter. “It isn’t men Dom usually inspires to instant affection. Perhaps we should inquire about Ramon’s tastes.”

“I don’t understand,” Elspeth said.

Dominic shot Patrick a lethal glance. “Of course you don’t, but I’m sure our Patrick will be willing to explain.”

Patrick looked a little sheepish. “Sorry, that kind of slipped out.” His gaze went to Ramon Torres, who had managed to lasso the gray mare and was leading her out of the corral. “Come on, I’ll get you Brianne’s old saddle from the barn. It will be lighter and easier for you to handle.”

The two men had evidently decided the subject was closed, Elspeth realized with frustration. They had both laughed at her and yet she knew she was right. Ramon had looked at Dominic with an almost loving gaze. “Thank you, that would be a great help. I certainly don’t want to have to depend on any man for assistance.”

Patrick pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “No, ma’am. You sure wouldn’t want that.”

Elspeth smiled reluctantly. Patrick might belong to the conspiracy of male supremacy, but he was trying to help her. “Which way should I ride so that I won’t get lost?”

“You don’t have to worry about that as long as you stay in the valley. You can see the house from practically everywhere.” He frowned. “Just stay away from the Mexican village. Sometimes the vaqueros drink a little too much mescal.”

“You’re letting her go by herself?” Dominic snapped. “For God’s sake, what are you thinking of?”

“Gran-da told me to go back to Shamrock today and help them finish up.” Patrick smiled innocently. “You’re the only one who’s not doing anything. I think you’re the one who should go with her.”

“No one has to go with me. I told you-” She broke off as she met Dominic’s gaze. He looked so strange. His gray-blue eyes were blazing, yet the curve of his lips was not tight but full and sensual. The tension emanating from him was nearly tangible.

“I’ve stopped listening to what you tell me,” he said thickly. He stood as if a statue, staring at her with his light eyes brilliant, restless. He turned away. “I’ll go saddle my horse. Be ready to leave in ten minutes.” Before she could speak he was walking swiftly toward the barn.

Patrick laughed softly. “I think Uncle Dom is a tad upset this morning. We’d better humor him and be sure we’re ready when he is. I’ll saddle the gray this time and tell you how to do it as I go along, okay?”

She nodded. “Splendid.” She cast a glance at the entrance to the barn through which Dominic had disappeared. She didn’t want Dominic with her, but no one seemed to care what her preferences were in the matter. She turned to Patrick. “Why don’t you go and say hello to Silver and Rising Star before you leave? I know they want to see you.”

Patrick’s smile disappeared. “I don’t have much time. I have to get over to Shamrock.”

Elspeth frowned. He hadn’t seemed in the least hurry to depart before this. “Don’t you want to see them? I know you like Silver and I thought you and Rising Star were old friends. Brianne told me that you all had lessons together when Rising Star first came to Killara.”

“That’s right.” Patrick kept his eyes fixed on the gray horse that Ramon was leading through the corral gate. “Rising Star didn’t know now to read or write English, of course, so Gran-da hired a school-teacher from back east to live at the house and give the three of us lessons.” He suddenly smiled. “But in three years Rising Star knew more than the teacher, so Gran-da let the schoolmarm go and Rising Star taught us. I’ve never seen anything like the way she worked to learn. She couldn’t seem to get enough. You should have seen the way her eyes would light up when she caught on to something. Lord, she was beautiful. Not like she is now. She’s different now. Just as beautiful, but different. When she first came to Killara, Brianne and I were four and she was sixteen but she seemed as much a child as we were. She was always laughing and joking and making up games.”

Elspeth’s gaze rested on his face and she experienced a flicker of anxiety she didn’t fully understand. It had something to do with the glow of tenderness illuminating Patrick’s eyes. “Then why don’t you go to the house and see them?”

He turned and looked across the courtyard at the house. He didn’t speak for a moment and Elspeth had the feeling he had forgotten she was there. “Maybe I will,” he murmured. “Just for a minute.” He tugged his hat down over his eyes and turned away abruptly, starting across the stableyard toward the barn. “First I’ll go fetch Brianne’s saddle for you.”

Elspeth stared after him, surprised at the suddenness of his departure, and then turned to look at Ramon, standing a few yards away holding the gray mare. His dark lustrous eyes watched her with bland good humor, and, as his gaze met her own, he smiled at her.

A sweet smile, but not the tender, loving one he had given Dominic.

“You were right, it is far more painful to trot,” Elspeth said.

“What?” Dominic looked over his shoulder, his expression abstracted. Elspeth experienced a surge of annoyance. It was the first word he had uttered since they set out an hour ago and exactly reflected the moody remoteness he had exhibited the entire time. There had been no need for her to be apprehensive about Dominic’s coming with her. She might as well have been alone. “You told me once it was more painful to trot than to gallop. I’m ready to attest to it.”

“I do recall saying that.” He remembered saying more than those words. He had told her that their next ride would be more enjoyable, but that hadn’t proved true. Not for him. The ride back to Hell’s Bluff from the cabin had been sheer torture, and this trip today had been little better. The tension coiled within him like barbed wire. No matter which way he turned to try to free himself, it only drove the barbs deeper.

He had tried not to look at her, not to speak to her, but it had done little good. She was there. He had never been so excruciatingly conscious of the physical presence of anyone before. Last night he had lain sleepless for hours, his body rigid and aroused and as aware of Elspeth lying in the bed in the chamber next door as if there were no walls separating them. His nerves had been tuned to such a pitch that he felt if she turned over in her sleep or her breathing changed tempo, he would know. “Do you want to stop and rest?” he asked.

Elspeth cast a glance at the red tiled roof on the house in the valley below. From here, on this summit in the