AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And everything else?” she whispered, thinking of the feud, her father, Black Magic’s disappearance and their long, lost affair.
“Doesn’t matter.” He pushed his face so close to hers that she hardly dared breathe. “Marry me, Cassie.”
Her heart took flight. He wanted her! He loved her! “Oh, Colton, yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” Wrapping her arms around his neck, she sighed happily. Finally they’d crossed all the barriers between them and she was where she belonged, wrapped in the safety of Colton’s arms.
Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a ring—a diamond ring with a single winking stone. “Wear this,” he said, his voice catching as he slid the ring over her finger. “It was my mother’s.”
Katherine’s? “Oh, Colton.” Her heart filled her throat, and tears pooled in her eyes when she thought of Colton’s feisty mother and how she’d lost her life trying to save the horses. “You don’t have to—”
“I’ve waited eight years for this,” he said.
“Hardly—”
“Well, maybe I didn’t know it, but I knew someday, if I did ever marry, I’d want my wife to wear this ring.”
Cassie blinked rapidly. “Thank you,” she whispered, her heart so full of love it threatened to burst.
“Don’t thank me,” he growled against her ear, “show me how much you love me.”
“I will—oh, I will,” she whispered, finding his lips and kissing him as if she’d never stop. She didn’t think of the pain eight years before, nor the feud between the families, nor Black Magic. There was no room. Her heart, mind and body were filled with only Colton McLean.
Chapter Thirteen
Cassie snuggled close to Colton, not caring that her dress was probably ruined, her hair a mess. Sighing contentedly, she closed her eyes as he drove from the McLean Ranch back to her father’s house.
“Something’s up,” Colton said as he turned into the Aldridge lane. Ahead, though it was nearly three in the morning, the house lights were blazing. Across the broad expanse of yard, the broodmare barn, too, was illuminated. Yellow patches of light spilled through the windows.
“It’s probably Sylvia,” Cassie said as he braked the Jeep near the barn. She hurried from the Jeep and into the barn, where, as she expected, her father was settled on the top of an old barrel, staring over the slats of Sylvia’s stall.
At her entrance, he glanced up, and his mouth tightened at the sight of Colton following her inside.
“Sylvia?” she asked.
Her father nodded.
Cassie grinned at the sight of a tiny black tail waggling as the filly nursed hungrily. Long-legged and spindly, the foal was coal-black against his mother’s roan coat. Sylvia shifted, protecting her new one.
“She’s a beauty,” Cassie said, wondering at the lack of pride in her father’s eyes.
“That she is.”
“And so black.”
“Same as Devil Dancer,” he replied quickly, mentioning the foal’s sire as he placed his hands on his knees and pushed himself to a standing position. He flicked a cold glance at Colton, then took in Cassie’s soiled dress. “The party get a little out of hand?” he asked.
“A little,” Cassie said, her eyes sparkling. Colton was standing behind her, with one arm slipped possessively around her waist. Her stomach had tightened into knots even though she’d never been happier in her life. “Dad . . .” she started, as her father slapped his hat against his thigh.
He glanced up, his skin losing some of its pallor, as if he expected what was to come. “What is it?”
“Colton and I are getting married.”
Ivan’s old shoulders slumped. His jaw slackened, and a heavy sigh fell from his lips. “I was afraid of that,” he admitted, bracing one arm against the wall as if he’d been kicked hard in the gut.
The seconds ticked by, measured only by the drumming of her own heart and the soft sounds of the foal suckling nearby.
“I love him,” she said simply. “I always have.”
Ivan’s throat worked. “And what’s it got you, huh?” he demanded of Cassie before impaling Colton with his furious eyes. His face turned beet red, and one fist coiled angrily at his side. “Only heartache. And what did it get your mother when she fancied herself in love with a McLean? Nothing!” Big veins throbbed in his throat. “I always wanted what was best for you, Cassie. Always. I would have done anything to make you happy, but ... ah, hell!” He kicked a water pail and sent it rattling down the concrete corridor, then reached for the door.
