Page 67 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

“There,” he said.

He did not pull his hands away immediately. He was acutely aware that he should. He was aware of the heat of her fingers beneath his own, the slight tremble in them that had nothing to do with the morning cold, and the way her breathing had changed the exact moment he had reached up.

He stepped back and moved to her shoulders instead, placing one large hand on each, pressing them down and back from behind. She startled slightly at the sudden contact.

“Ye’re carryin’ them at yer ears,” he said.

“I am nae.”

“Ye are.” He pressed down firmly until he felt the tight muscles release, and her shoulders dropped where they belonged. “There. Now breathe.”

She breathed.

Beira took one slow, deliberate step forward, feeling the change in her rider, and settled.

Edward stepped back entirely.

“Walk her,” he said. “Nothin’ else. Just walk.”

Chloe led her to walk. He stayed on her left side, a stride behind, close enough to act and far enough not to crowd either woman or beast. She made a full circle of the open field, then another.

By the second circle, her hands had stayed soft against the reins. By the third, her hips had found the natural rhythm of it.

He watched her figure it out. That was the thing about teaching someone to ride. You could explain it in words indefinitely, and it would mean nothing until the body suddenly understood.

“Now trot,” he called out.

She snapped her head around to look at him.

“Ye’re ready,” he said.

She looked like she wanted to argue, her lips parting. She turned back to the horse instead and asked Beira for the trot with her legs, pressing the horse’s flanks the way he had shown her.

Beira moved into the quicker pace immediately.

Chloe lurched forward. She caught herself, then lurched again. He watched her fight the hard bounce for four strides, then five, her hands tightening again, her jaw clenched, and her eyes focused on a point between Beira’s ears with almost painful concentration.

He said nothing, letting her figure it out. Six strides, seven, and then something in her lower back relaxed. Her hips started to follow the rolling movement instead of resisting it, and she was sitting the trot. Not gracefully, not without real effort, but she was sitting it—actually sitting it—moving around the open field on her own on a horse she had needed physical help just to get on a week ago.

The sound she made was immediate and entirely involuntary. Bright, breathless, and startled out of her. She came around the bend toward him, her face open and flushed, lit with something uncomplicated and purely triumphant.

Edward felt his mouth move before he had decided to allow it. The smile was brief. He pressed it back almost immediately, the familiar reflex taking over, the hard containment.

“Again,” he said, his voice coming out slightly rougher than he intended.

She did it again. And again after that, each circuit cleaner than the last, her confidence expanding into the space her fear had occupied.

He walked the center of the field and watched, saying very little because there was very little left to say. She was doing it.

Then she asked Beira for more.

He saw the slight, premature shift of her weight, the leg asking for speed before she had fully thought through what speed on a horse meant. Beira responded honestly, lengthening her stride into a canter, and the abrupt change in pace sent Chloe’s balance completely off. Not catastrophically, but enough.

He was already moving before she could fall.

Beira felt her rider go loose and turned instinctively, a sharp left that sent Chloe sideways out of the saddle. Edward reached them in three massive strides. One hand caught the leather rein to stop the horse, and the other went directly to Chloe’s waist. She came down, not to the hard ground, but hard against his chest, his thick arm taking her full weight while her hands found his wide shoulders at the exact same moment.

She was pressed tightly against his chest, her fingers gripping his shoulders, his arm securely wrapped around her waist. She was breathing heavily, her ribs rising and falling against him. So was he, although the three quick strides across the grass did not slow the rush of his blood. Her face was inches from his. He could see the flush high on her cheeks and the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose that he had been noticing—against his better judgment—for some time now.