Indra tapped her fingers against her mouth as she tried to figure out what to do. She’d erred on the side of caution, as she always had, not wanting to risk Starlight being injured in such a big race. But Sebastian had wanted to give Starlight the opportunity to prove herself.
Helen ran through some stats. “Bill says that if you don’t run her, you could breed from her right away.” Indra blanched at the way Helen spoke. She glanced outside, where Starlight lifted her head from the grass. Something had caught her attention, and she was looking inquisitively around before her gaze stopped, as if caught by the distant hills. Indra pressed her hand to her throat. Was she trying to give her favorite horse the life which she’d been given? To be safely kept within the tight confines of the field, fenced in, with nothing more to enjoy than what was before her nose? Was she never to experience the fun of the competition, the urgings of the rider pushing her on to win ahead of all the other horses?
“Have you made a decision about Starlight?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, I have.”
Sebastian slammed the car door. He winced as the sound compounded his headache. Ridiculous, to give himself self-inflicted pain like that. But, he thought as he crunched across the gravel drive to the estate offices, wasn’t that always the way with him? Hadn’t he ultimately been responsible for all his pain? And it didn’t look as if he’d learned anything over his thirty years. He was still making the same bad decisions, terrified that something would get through to that part of himself he’d been protecting since his youth. And where had it got him? Precisely nowhere. Or, more precisely, to a place where he could no longer continue to act that way. It was killing him and all those around him. It was a non-life. And that was something Indra had showed him. He owed her. Big time.
He burst into the office and looked around, but there was no Indra. He walked over to Helen, who looked up from the computer.
“Have you seen Indra?”
“Yes, you’ve just missed her. She’s gone out to see Starlight.”
He glanced out the window and saw her approaching her horse, who whinnied in response to her greeting. He turned back to the men. “I suppose she’s stopped it, has she? Put her foot down about her racing?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. If he’d been blind, so had she. Couldn’t she see what her mother and his father had done to her? They’d turned her into someone who was too afraid of her own shadow to leave the estate.
“Indra!” he called.
She didn’t look at him, although he knew by the tension in her shoulders that she’d heard him.
“Have it your own way.” He climbed over the stile and jumped into the grassy meadow. He slowed as he approached her, enjoying watching the rapport she had with Starlight. It was obvious that the horse loved her, and it was reciprocated.
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
She glanced at him. “Another one? It seems all you do is apologize to me.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps I should begin apologizing in advance.”
Again the tantalizing backward glance. “That might be a good idea.”
He liked the small quirk of a smile at the corner of her mouth and had an impulse to kiss it. An impulse which he quickly quashed. Maybe he had learned something.
“I should make lots of apologies so that you can accumulate them, so they’re there when needed,” he replied. “Like a deposit in a bank. And what do you think the next payment will cover? What will my next apology be for?”
She didn’t speak for a few minutes, but continued to smooth her hand over Starlight’s flanks. Sebastian wished those delicate fingers, which seemed to feel each rise and fall so acutely and sensitively, were moving over his skin. He inhaled a sharp breath. He had to get a grip. Then she patted her horse and turned to Sebastian, folding her arms across her front as she so often did when she felt the need to protect herself.
“I don’t know. How about I’m sorry, Indra, for being such an idiot? That would be a good catch-all for anything you might do in the future.”
He grimaced. He deserved that. “I’m sorry, Indra, for being such an idiot.” It seemed a usefully comprehensive apology.
She took a step closer but her smile had slipped now, revealing her inner vulnerability. He hated seeing her like that, and had to grip his hands into fists in his pockets to stop himself from reaching out and pressing his mouth over those trembling lips.
“You think it’s so easy, don’t you?” she said. “Behave like you want, just as you’ve always done, then apologize, return and everything will be okay, until next time. It doesn’t work like that, Sebastian.”
“Then tell me how it does work.”
The horse nudged her, and she turned to her. “Like Starlight here. She’s so used to being here, it’s her entire world. It’ll be hard for her to compete in the outside world.”
He couldn’t contain himself any longer and reached out and smoothed his hand along the horse’s back, before halting beside her hand. “You think?” he asked, noticing she didn’t move away when his hand brushed her fingers.
“I know.”
He took the risk of skimming over her hand and then caressing it as she caressed the horse beneath her. The horse stilled, as if aware of the double caress. His heart thumped heavily once, twice, three times as he waited for her to move. She didn’t move her hand, but twisted her head to look at him. They were close enough to kiss, but he managed to restrain himself.
He focused instead on Starlight, withdrawing his hand from Indra’s to stroke the back of his fingers down her nose. “She’s a beauty and she’s fast and elegant. She could go so far. Do you really think she should be deprived of the chance to test her mettle against others? We never know how capable, how strong, how skilled we are by ourselves. Not until we are tested against others.”