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To Tessa’s mortification, he managed to lead the yearling to the fence where a blanket was folded over the top rail. Denver placed the blanket on Frenzy’s quivering, lathered hide.
The colt shied. He minced away from Denver, but Denver persisted and finally placed the saddle gently on Frenzy’s strong back. He tightened the cinch. The yearling, squealing, took off like a rocket!
Denver braced himself. The lead rope stretched tight, yanking hard on Denver’s arms. “Damn you,” Denver muttered as the colt dragged him forward a few feet.
Tessa grinned.
But Denver dug his heels into the ground. His shoulders flexed and strained. Frenzy bucked and reared, his hooves slashing as he tried to shake the horrid leather beast from his back, but he couldn’t rip the strap from Denver’s hands.
“You’re only going to wear yourself out,” Denver told the horse. Frenzy reared again, shrieking. Denver moved closer. “Come on, boy. Let’s see what you’ve got.” Clucking his tongue, Denver urged the colt forward.
Chagrined, Tessa watched as Frenzy began trotting around Denver. The colt was far from calm, his steps were nervous, his eyes rimmed in white, but he did, in fact, run at the end of the lead in a tight circle.
“How about that?” Denver said, gloating.
Tessa, grudgingly, conceded. “I didn’t think it was possible.”
Denver’s face was covered with dust, but he was grinning from one ear to the other. When he finally pulled the saddle from Frenzy’s back and unsnapped the lead, he couldn’t help rubbing his victory in. “Easy as pie—if you know what you’re doing,” he said.
Tessa felt the perverse urge to ram Frenzy’s bridle down Denver’s throat, but she said instead, “Good job.”
“So, how soon can you get packed?”
Her eyes rounded. “You’re not serious.”
“We had a bet,” he reminded her.
“But I can’t leave!”
“I thought we already discussed this.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead and shoved a jet-black lock of hair away from his face. “I have some things I’ve got to take care of here, too,” he said, “but then, you and I are going to L.A.”
She fought back the urge to scream at him. For years she’d been able to hate the city where he’d run. It was easy to blame California for the pain he’d caused. But she’d never reneged on a bet in her life, and now, as she stared at his dust-streaked face, she found herself wanting to go to Los Angeles, to find out more about him, to know every tiny detail of his life. “Give me a few days,” she said, hopping to the ground beside him.
“Okay. But since I have to wait, I think you owe me something.”
“I don’t owe you anything—”
He placed a finger to her lips. “Before you go flying off the handle, just listen. All I want is to spend a little time with you.”
Her heart fluttered expectantly. “We’re together all the time—”
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
That much was true. “I thought you wanted it that way.”
“Maybe I did,” he admitted. “But since we’re stuck here together, we should try to get along.”
She laughed. “Impossible.”
“Is it, Tess?” His voice was suddenly serious, his gaze far off, as he stared at the hills.
She swallowed against a lump in her throat. The tender side of Denver had always broken through her resistance. As she stared at him, his face grimy, his hair windblown, the hard edge to his features temporarily erased, she couldn’t say no. “What do you want to do?”
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand. “I’ll show you.”
“Wait—Denver—” But he was running across the yard, past the house. She had trouble keeping up with him, taking two strides to his one. “Where are we going?” she asked, gasping for breath, as they wound down a seldom used path to the small lake nestled in a thicket of oak and maple.
Blackberry vines crept through the underbrush and high overhead, beneath the tattered clouds, geese flew, their V formation seeming to float over the sun-dappled water. The old dock was gray and beginning to rot. It listed as it stretched into the lake.
