The Black Sheep and the Hidden Beauty. Donna Kauffman

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      A brief smile played across her face. And a mouth he really had to stop noticing. And looking at. And wondering.

      “Nothing,” she said.

      “Are you surprised she’s not taking a chunk out of me? Is she some secret demon horse who’s suddenly going to unleash fury on me so I’ll stop this insanity and abandon the lesson idea?”

      Elena laughed that laugh again and it made something inside of him quiver, like a tuning fork finding the perfect vibration. He really had to get them out of this stall.

      “Nothing like that. Petunia is a total sweetheart. Any horse can act up, but a demon she’s not. I wouldn’t do that to anyone.”

      “Especially a friend of Kate’s, you mean?”

      “Anyone,” she reiterated, then her eyes danced a bit. “I care about the horses too much for that.”

      Rafe had to smile at that. “Ah. It’s all about the horses, then.”

      “Most of the time. They’re pretty straightforward, as a rule.”

      “Unlike people, you mean.”

      “You like putting words in my mouth, don’t you?”

      He absolutely refused to go there, but his mind provided the visual for him, anyway. It took great willpower not to look at that bottom lip, that mouth, and imagine what it would look like, wrapped around—“Actually, I’m not assuming anything,” he said, damning the rough edge to his voice. “That’s why I’m asking.”

      “Horses can fool you some of the time. People are better at it—that’s all I’m saying.”

      She was clearly making a reference to her already voiced doubts about his real reasons for taking lessons. Her forthrightness was to her credit.

      “Are you?” he asked, figuring he could be just as forthright.

      “Am I what? Better at fooling people?” She didn’t look panicked or concerned by the question. In fact, thus far, he didn’t have any indication she wasn’t exactly what she claimed to be. Then again, being as sharp as she seemed to be, he didn’t doubt she knew exactly how to handle herself, and, perhaps, him. Keeping him on the defensive was an excellent offensive tactic, one he often employed. He couldn’t help but wonder if it was intentional.

      “Have I seemed anything other than direct and honest with you?” she asked him.

      Yes, she was very good. If he wasn’t paid to be cynical and doubt every word a subject said, he’d be inclined to take her at face value. But there were too many unanswered questions as yet.

      “No,” he said, with all honesty. “No, you haven’t. I just wondered where the cynicism came from.”

      “Maybe you’re more optimistic than I am,” she said. “But then, that’s why you’re in the business of helping people, I suppose, while I stay in the barn with the four-legged beasts.”

      “You’re giving me far too much credit there.”

      “Only an optimist believes he can make the world a better place.”

      “He can. And I think I do. But I’m not as altruistic as all that.”

      She paused in adjusting Petunia’s harness. “What are you saying? That you’re in it for the money? I know you said Trinity wasn’t a charity, but I guess I thought it was because from what I hear, you and your partners don’t take money from your clients.”

      “We don’t.”

      “Sounds pretty altruistic and charitable to me.”

      “I make an income, a good one—I’m a salaried employee of the company. But you’re right, what I do or don’t do doesn’t change my bottom line in terms of income.”

      “So what motivates you, if not money, or making the world a better place?”

      “Revenge.”

      Her eyes widened.

      Good—for the first time, he had her off balance. He didn’t realize how badly he’d lost command of the situation until he regained a piece of it.

      “Revenge? I’m afraid I don’t understand. I thought the point of Trinity was to help people in need.”

      “It is. We do.”

      “What does that have to do with revenge?”

      “It’s…complicated. Our company name, Trinity? Short for Unholy Trinity.”

      “So I heard,” she said, with a hint of a dry smile. “Something to do with your partners and the exploits of your youth, right?”

      He nodded. So she had been checking up on him. Either that or the barn help had nothing better to do than gossip about him, Mac, and Finn, which he found hard to believe. “Well,” he said, smiling, “let’s just say some things never change.”

      “You grew up together?”

      “We’ve been friends most of our lives.” And how in the hell had she gotten him talking about himself again? “As for the rest, let’s just say I take greater pleasure in righting wrongs to make a point than I do in the more altruistic sense of making the world a better place by doing so. Although, as a byproduct, it’s certainly not a bad one. But we’re not exactly missionaries here.” He smiled at her mildly disapproving expression. “Does that make me a coldhearted bastard?”

      “I don’t know you well enough to say.”

      As a dodge, it was a good one. He began to wonder who was the one gathering intel here, him or her?

      Petunia grumbled and shuffled her feet, clearly affected by not being the center of everyone’s attention.

      “Everyone has motivations for doing what they do,” she went on to say. “As long as no one is getting hurt, who am I to say which ones are appropriate and which ones aren’t?” She glanced up at him. “No one gets hurt, right?”

      She didn’t look remotely vulnerable. Quite the opposite. So why was it he felt like she was asking him if he was going to hurt her? “Only the bad guys,” he said, curling his fingers into his palm to keep from reaching up and tucking that stray strand of hair presently clinging to her cheek.

      Her mouth quirked at his response, but her gaze seemed to continue to seek something out in his own. Just as he was about to break the silence…or reach for her, after all, she broke the silence. “Keep hold of the rope, with slack, but not too much,” she instructed, shifting smoothly back, once again, into instructor mode. As if their little moment hadn’t even happened.

      But it had happened, and he wasn’t being quite as successful shaking off its effects as she apparently was.

      She stepped behind him and opened the door. “You want to walk her to the center of the building and over to the other aisle. Stay just to the front of her forelegs, but to the side of her head.”

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