“You just need to remember,” he said, touching her cheek.
“Remember what?” she breathed.
“Who you were before your heart was broken.” He lifted her chin. “And who you were born to be.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“WHERE ARE WE GOING?” Annabelle asked as he led her across the courtyard.
As they walked, Stefano smiled down at her, looking confident and completely irresistible as he pushed open the door to the old stables. “To the paddock on the upper slope. It’s where we train the colts.”
She halted inside the door, looking with trepidation at the monstrous-size horses inside the wooden stalls.
“You should change your clothes,” he said yet again, looking down as her designer pantsuit and glossy black heels.
“If I leave now, I’ll lose my nerve,” she breathed.
It had been nearly twenty years since Annabelle had last ridden a horse. The same August day she’d decided to sneak out to the party in the village. She’d felt so powerful that day. Fearless. Free.
But by the end of that night, she had been in the hospital, and Jacob arrested for their father’s murder. Her brother was acquitted, the verdict being accidental death in self-defense, but their family—and Annabelle—had never been the same.
She swallowed. The last time she’d ridden a horse, she’d been so innocent. So unafraid. So young.
Coming up behind her, Stefano put his hands on her shoulders. She felt his warmth and strength like a burst of sunshine through rain. “Do you know how to ride?”
“I used to.” She slowly reached up to stroke the horse’s nose. “I used to race to keep up with my older brothers.” She stopped her hand in midair, not quite touching the animal. She whispered, “I used to be fearless.”
“You can be again.”
She swallowed, then looked back at him. “Can I? Can I ever be that girl again?”
“Yes,” Stefano said steadily.
With a deep breath, Annabelle turned back toward the horse. Then she hesitated. “But what do I do? How do I start?”
Coming closer, he smiled down at her. “First, you will choose the right horse. Not Picaro, he is a brute for all of his innocent face. Do not believe his deceit.” He pulled her farther back into the stables. “Now this is Josefina, she is gentle. She will care for you like a mother.”
He swiftly saddled the horse, then turned back to her.
Her eyes locked with his, and suddenly, climbing on the horse’s back seemed easy compared to being this close to Stefano, to enduring the searching intimacy of his dark eyes.
Ignoring his hand, Annabelle went around him. Putting one foot in the stirrup, she threw her leg over the back of the saddled dapple-brown mare. To her surprise, she discovered that she hadn’t forgotten how to do it. Her body somehow still remembered how to use her thighs to grip the saddle, her hands to hold the reins lightly.
“Excelente,” Stefano said approvingly. “You have not forgotten how to sit a horse.” Swiftly saddling a horse in the nearby stall, he swung up on the black gelding in a single movement of beauty and grace. “Follow me.”
Annabelle couldn’t take her eyes from Stefano as he led them out of the stable. He moved so well, and never more so than on horseback. She stared at his muscular backside, at his tree-trunk thighs splayed across the saddle. Then as he rode away from her, she blinked and clumsily urged her horse to follow. The gentle mare took pity on her and obeyed.
The wind blew against them as they rode away from the hacienda. Stefano glanced back at her with a wicked smile, then urged his horse faster with a low whistle. Watching him ride ahead of her, Annabelle was mesmerized by the image of the darkly handsome Spaniard riding the black horse across the wide golden field.
He looked back at her, his horse rearing back on two legs.
“What are you waiting for?” he shouted.
Annabelle felt a fierce answer in her own heart. Leaning low over her mare, she lightly tapped her heels and her horse raced forward with excitement that matched Annabelle’s own. She soon caught up with Stefano. Smiling at him coquettishly, Annabelle gave a wild, joyful laugh, and raced past him.
She heard Stefano’s shocked laugh behind her, then the rapidly approaching pounding of hooves as he caught up with her.
“The upper paddock,” he called to her. “It’s this way.”