“It’s better,” Iona said. “But she remembers how much it hurt. She remembers being hungry. Being afraid. Until you.”
Saying nothing, he crouched to run his hands up the foreleg, down again as Darling nibbled playfully at his hair.
“Do you have an apple in your coat pocket? She’s pretty sure you do.”
It was . . . disconcerting, to have his horse’s thoughts translated to him, but he rose again, slid his hands along Darling’s flank.
Iona thought if a horse could purr, she would have.
While Aine had astonished her, so much beauty and grace, Darling tugged her heart with her simple, unabashed devotion.
They knew, she and Darling, what it was to yearn for love, or at least genuine understanding and acceptance. To wish so hard and deep for a place, for a purpose.
It seemed they’d both gotten that wish.
Then Boyle reached in his pocket for the apple, into another for his pocketknife. Iona felt Darling’s pleasure in the treat, and more, that it would be offered.
“You’re filling out well, my girl, but what’s a bit of an apple, after all?” She took it neatly, eyed the second half as she ate.
“This one’s for Winnie, if she behaves with her student.”
“You saved her.” Iona waited while he stepped out, closed the stall door. “She’ll never be anything but yours.”
Iona reached up to stroke; Darling stretched out her neck again.
“She’s not skittish with you,” Boyle noted. “That’s progress. She’s still a bit nervy with strangers.”
“We understand each other.”
When Darling angled her head so her cheek pressed to Boyle’s, and when he took the half apple out of his pocket, and fed it to her, Iona knew she was done.
“I’ll get another for Winnie. You haven’t had enough of them in your life.”
“That’s done it,” Iona muttered. “I’m good at getting mad, mostly when it’s justified. At least I think so. But I suck at staying mad. I just can’t hold on to it, it’s so heavy. Then add in me standing here watching this mutual love affair, and I can’t do it. So I’m finished being mad at you, if that matters.”
Boyle eyed her with some cautious speculation. “The day and the work go easier without having the mad weighing it down.”
“Agreed. So.” She held out a hand. “Peace?”
He frowned at her hand a moment, but he took it. He meant to let it go, right away. But he didn’t.
“You work for me.”
Iona nodded. “That’s true.”
“You’re cousin to one of my closest mates.”
Her pulse skipped lightly, but she nodded again. “I am.”
“And it’s barely a week since I first set eyes on you.”
“I can’t argue.”
“And what you are is . . . a matter.”
Now she frowned. “A matter of what?”
“A matter of, well, fact. And something you yourself are just getting acquainted with.”