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“Seriously, are you okay?”
He kept asking her that. “I don’t know what you could do if I’m not.”
“Get you home?” he suggested hopefully.
She straightened. “Just today, I went hiking, did guard duty, got kidnapped, rode a horse, got locked in a house of books, built dozens of booby traps?—”
“Wait, dozens?”
“And now you want to put me back on a horse. No, I’m not okay.”
“I’m extremely sorry about all of those things. Again. Even though none of them were my doing, and I was the victim of your booby traps.”
“You, in particular, are innocent? That’s your defense?”
“You’re right. That sounded terrible. What do you mean by guard duty?”
He seemed to want to convince himself that this attack had come out of the blue, that a few kids had knocked out one little witch, so it couldn’t be that big of a deal. Her blood came to a rolling boil.
“Months! They’ve been breaking the treaties, coming on our land, and threatening to do what they finally did today for months. This was a premeditated attack on the sovereign territory of my coven.”
He squeezed his eyes closed. “This was a declaration of war.”
“Not on our side.”
4
Goldie bit her lip to keep from smiling. The man looked so desperate and sorry standing there with his horse. “How far is it?”
“About five miles.”
“Okay, I’ll ride a horse.”
He cocked his head. “You don’t weigh much.”
“Is that your version of a compliment?”
“We can ride together.”
Her eyes went round, and she fought competing crashes of arousal, fear, and resistance.
“It’s hard going,” he said. “It’s hard to ride if you’ve never done it.”
“You think? Got any other brilliant bits of philosophy?”
“Okay, I’ll get you your own horse.” He dropped the horse’s reins and walked away.
Goldie said nothing. She didn’t move. She stared up at the head of a brown monster who stared right back at her with nothing between them.
“What are you doing?” she whispered as she heard a stall door open.
He returned with a saddle in his hands. “I assume you don’t want to ride bareback.”
She shook her head slowly, afraid to make any sudden move. He finally noticed her disquiet.
“With the reins down, he won’t move. Bonanza meet Goldie, Goldie this is Bonanza Blue Roan Stallion Junior.”
She frowned. “That’s his name?”
