His head whipped around, braid flying. “What? That happens?”
“Only when people don’t wear their seatbelts. And don’t worry, I’m a very good driver. It won’t happen at all.” She prayed she hadn’t just jinxed herself. “You’ll be perfectly safe.”
His brows shot up. “As you pointed out, I’m not here. What about you? What if you throw yourself through the – the – wind…thing?”
Oh damn, he was too cute.
She suppressed her smile into something soothing, or so she hoped. “I’ll wear my seatbelt. And I won’t slam on the brakes. It’ll be fine. Come on, I do this every day.” She tried to nudge his arm, forgetting she couldn’t until his elbow was swirling like smoke.
He frowned and turned back to the truck. “Traveling by horse is much safer.”
“That is not even a little bit true.”
“It is!”
“Val, if you’d rather not go–”
“I’m going. How dare you take back your invitation?” Before she could tell him that she’d done no such thing, and that he was being ridiculous, he melted through the passenger door like something out of Casper and situated himself in the seat. He shot her a narrow-eyed, challenging look through the window.
Mia chuckled and went around to get behind the wheel.
He held himself stiffly, head pressed back against the rest, hands folded together in his lap, back ramrod straight. She didn’t know how it was possible to be so uncomfortable when you weren’t even really here, but he seemed to manage that.
When they were out on the road, headed toward the farm, Mia said, “Have you ever ridden in a car before?”
He made an unhappy sound in his throat. “I’ve been transported in vehicles, yes.”
When he didn’t elaborate, she cast a glance across the cab and saw that he was staring out the window, expression withdrawn.
“What sort of vehicle?” she asked.
“I was blindfolded, I didn’t get to see.”
“Oh.”
“I wasn’t given a seat. I was thrown in like luggage.”
Because he was a prisoner.
Mia swallowed and said, “I’m sorry.”
“Yes, well, being sorry doesn’t change anything.” He took a quick, deep breath, and his tone sounded forced afterward. “Tell me about the farm.”
“Everdale? Gosh, it’s gorgeous.” And it was. Before Donna offered her the job, Mia had been convinced she would only ever lay eyes on such a place through Dressage Today photo spreads. The barn was done up like a Colorado mountain house, with heavy timbers under the eaves and fat stone columns. Like most top-dollar equestrian centers, it boasted big box stalls, hot-and-cold washracks with heaters and fans, an indoor arena, offices, a lounge, a bathroom, and the tack room to end all tack rooms. But unlike so many farms, it had pastures, too: eighty acres of them, all the fences stained black. Mia had never ridden so many horses a day, from freshly-started four-year-olds to schoolmaster lesson horses in need of a tune-up between students. It was exhausting and amazing, and she gushed on about it until she was breathless and she was slowing the truck to turn in at the gates.
“Sorry.” She felt a blush staining her cheeks. “I got kind of carried away.” When she snuck a glance at Val, he was smiling almost wistfully, gaze fond.
“You’re passionate about what you do. I like that.”
She blushed harder and steered them up the lazy curves of the driveway, fence flashing past, toward the barn.
Val leaned forward in his seat. “Oh, it’s lovely.”
“Isn’t it?” She parked beside Javier’s Jeep, killed the engine, and then turned in her seat to really look at her spectral passenger.
Val’s gaze was directed out the window, to the front pasture where three mares and their two-month-old foals grazed. Well, the mamas grazed, tails swishing lazily at flies. The foals were engaged in a rollicking game of something like tag, darting and dodging between their mothers, nipping at one another, gamboling on their too-long legs. Val watched the scene with a smile, face bathed in morning light, his skin smooth and fine. From behind, she could see the start of his braid, at the nape of his neck, the heavy golden strands plaited together to reveal a vulnerable patch of skin just behind his ear; it looked like it would be silky-soft to the touch. If she could touch him. If he was here.
She bit back a sigh. “I would love to give you a tour. Introduce you to all the horses. But it’ll look like I’m talking to myself…”
He turned to face her, smile small and rueful. “Yes, I know. Don’t worry about me. I won’t be a bother.”
“I didn’t think you would be. I wanted to apologize in advance, though, for not being able to talk to you like I want.”
One of his hands opened in his lap, lifted a fraction – he’d wanted to reach for her, she thought – and then eased back down. He smiled again, and it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Seeing will be enough.”
She swallowed with sudden difficulty. Where are you? How can I help you?
She gathered her keys and said, “Follow me, then.”
~*~
Val had assured her that he could keep himself cloaked from everyone but her, and that appeared to be true. At one point, she’d glanced up and seen Javi lead a horse right through Val. She’d gaped…but Javi hadn’t seemed to notice.
Val shot her a wink.
The usual daily chaos swept her up in its tide, and she didn’t get the chance to worry about how Val was faring. She taught two lessons, schooled two of the five-year-olds, and ate the sandwich Donna brought her. She snuck glances of Val: him peering into stalls; him standing in the shade of the pop-up tent beside a client who didn’t notice him; him staring out across the fields, untouched by the breeze, his gaze open and heartbroken.
She lost track of him for a while. But he reappeared in the early evening, when Mia finally climbed aboard Brando for her own lesson. He stood at the rail, projecting the image of having his arms folded over the top board, gaze trained on her as Donna sat down on the mounting block. Mia sent him a quick, small smile.
He returned it, but there were shadows under his eyes. A tiredness she hadn’t seen before. And his face didn’t seem as solid, his skin translucent. With a start, she realized that she could see the barn through him. He was fading.
“Mia,” Donna said. “Did you hear me?”
“What? Yes, sorry.” She gave herself a firm mental shake. She needed to focus; her horse and her instructor and her sport deserved better attention than she’d paid it today.
Putting Val out of her mind – a difficult task, more troubling than she was ready to admit – she gathered her reins and squeezed Brando into a swinging warm-up trot, encouraging him to stretch through the neck and back with gentle pressure on the bit.
Unlike her coach and mentor, Mia hadn’t been born to the equestrian life. Her father, already a prominent scientist when she was born, had bounced the family from university to university…that was before the divorce…trying to earn grant money to start up his own facility. Mia and her mom had been left to their own devices for the most part, and Mom, Kate, had tried to make up for Mia’s absent father through a variety of mother-daughter activities. They’d tried ballet together, and jazz, and tap. Painting, and ceramics, and even soccer. But they went for riding lessons when Mia was six, and that was it. End of story. Mia didn’t want to do anything but ride after that.
Edwin and Kate divorced when Mia was ten. Edwin got his grant, and Kate got Mia.
And Mia got a mother who scraped, and saved, and sacrificed so that her daughter could chase her Olympic dreams. Mia had been a barn rat, mucking stalls, polishing tack, wrapping legs. She’d exercised horses, broken colts, driven tractors. She’d fetched coffee, and lunch, and whips, and used her own t-shirt to wipe the snot from the nose of her trainer’s horse right before they went into the show ring. Her chiropractor said she had the neck of someone who’d been in a terrible car crash, after years of riding, and lifting, and
working her fingers to the bone.
And now here she was. DT had actually interviewed her a few months ago. Interviewed her. “I’m so proud of you, baby,” Kate said over the phone every time they talked. Because Mia had beaten a brain tumor, and all the odds, and that Olympic dream wasn’t really out of reach anymore.
So she wasn’t born in the saddle, but after an early childhood of moving from city to city, the saddle had been the first place that felt like home. From the calluses in her palms, to the busted capillaries in her knees, she was a horsewoman to her bones. On the back of the horse, nothing else mattered.
Today, like every day, she shifted her weight back, shortened her reins, and when Brando responded – lifting his back, surging to meet her halfway – she forgot all her earthly worries. There was no possible new tumor, no Val, no distractions. She asked, and Brando answered; they danced.
“Good,” Donna said. “Less inside rein, more outside leg, yes.”
Mia could sense the pirouette, an electricity that lived beneath her skin, and Brando’s. A power ready to be unleashed if she could just tap into it the right way. She half-halted, slowed, slowed, slowed, adjusted the flexion.
Hold, release, hold, release. Abs, outside rein, seat, leg…
Almost. It wobbled. The shape was right, even the steps, but it was too big. Not tight and clean enough.
“That was too big,” Donna called.
“Yeah,” Mia panted.
“Again.”
She gave it three more tries, then Donna sent her off to do an extended trot down the center line – Brando had beautiful extensions, with incredible reach and flipped toes, and he knew it, too. He swiveled his ears and snorted in obvious pride when they reached the rail and turned.
Mia laughed, patted his neck, and slowed him to a walk. That was one of Donna’s fixed rules: always end on a good note. Always do something last that the horse does well. She was convinced they all had egos and, well, she wasn’t wrong.
Mia let the reins slide through her fingers and walked down the long side of the arena to her trainer.
Donna had a water bottle in one hand for Mia, and a sugar cube in the other hand for Brando. “It’s coming along,” she said. “Next time we’ll try to spiral into it from a ten-meter circle. All the mechanics are there, it’s just not confirmed.”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
Donna patted her knee, a rare show of physical affection. “You’ll get there.” Then she tipped her head back and peered up at Mia through her sunglasses. “How are you doing today?” she asked, tone softer and more concerned than Mia had ever heard. It was disconcerting.
“I…why?” Mia blurted. She gripped the water bottle too tightly and felt it bend between her fingers.
Donna studied her a long, inscrutable moment, eyes hidden behind dark lenses. “Just checking,” she finally said, and drew back.
Mia thought she’d acted normally today…but maybe not.
~*~
She caught up with Val later, after she’d cooled down and then bathed Brando. She walked the big bay out to hand-graze him in an open patch of grass behind the barn, and Val ambled over from his place at one of the picnic tables.
He looked almost sickly up close: skin sallow, eyes smudged with shadows, the whole image of him unsteady, flickering at the edges.
Her pulse skipped. “Val, what’s wrong?”
He turned to look at Brando, wet flanks gleaming in the evening light. He lifted a hand and laid it against Brando’s side – tried to. He let it hover there, half-in and half-out, tangled vapors.
Brando lifted his head and snorted, twisted his head around and looked right at Val, eyes white-rimmed.
“Shh,” Val whispered.
Brando waited another moment, then flicked his tail and resumed grazing.
“I’m tired, I guess,” Val said, voice soft. “I’ve never dream-walked for an entire day like this. Well,” he amended. “Not in a long time.” He lifted his head and looked at her with flagging eyelids. “I had to leave, in the middle of the day. They brought my meal and woke me.” Pained smile. “I came back.”
“Yeah.” She wanted to touch him, press her hand to his forehead and see if he felt as feverish as he looked. “Do you need to…um, wake up? I guess? Or go back?”
“I do. Soon.” He blinked slow, swayed on his feet. Made an effort to look her in the eye and force a trembling grin. “Thank you for showing me this place. It’s wonderful.”
“You’re welcome.” It felt like the absolute least she could do. Insufficient.
“You ride beautifully.”
“Oh. Well. Thank you.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mia.” He bowed, and was gone.
She let out a deep breath. “Bye, Val.”
5
TIPPING, AND THEN FALLING
Sometimes he appeared in the mornings, sometimes in the evenings, sometimes along the rail while she was riding. Sometimes it was velvet, other times rough tunics she thought must have come from his own time, and occasionally in modern clothes. But Val visited in some way every single day. Like riding, like teaching, like eating, and sleeping, and unrolling her yoga mat, he became a part of her routine. Familiar as her well-worn boots; beautiful as the summer sunset; more engaging than any of the novels on her shelves.
“Are you lonely?” he asked one day, apropos of nothing.
Mia looked up from her tablet and blinked at him in surprise. He’d shown up in jeans and a t-shirt today; she’d recognized the outfit as one worn by a model in a Macy’s catalogue she’d left sitting out on her kitchen counter: artfully destroyed denim with slits in the knees, and a clinging plain gray v-neck that showed off stark collarbones and pale skin. He lay on the floor beside her, and his shirt had ridden off to reveal a stretch of lightly-toned stomach and sharp hipbones.
Mia forced her gaze up to his face and he flashed a quick grin to show he knew where her eyes had gone first.
“What?” she asked.
His expression grew thoughtful. “I asked if you were lonely.”
“I heard you.” Self-consciousness moved like an itch beneath her skin. “I just don’t know why you asked.”
He tilted his head, hair rustling against the carpet. “You live alone. I haven’t seen you spend time with any friends. Or a lover.”
Heat filled her face. “Well that’s rude as hell.”
“It’s only an observation, darling.” His eyes were soft, the same faded blue as his jeans. “You’re beautiful. You could have your pick of lovers if you wanted one.”
“Ugh. Okay.” She rubbed at the blooming tension between her brows so she didn’t have to see him looking at her like that and saying things like that. “We’re not having a conversation about lovers. And don’t use that word. It’s…” Too intense for today’s casual handling of love, sex, and relationships. “Corny,” she said, instead.
Val breathed a laugh and she heard him sit up. “Too late.” When she dropped her hand, he was sitting beside her, almost in front of her, their faces level and much too close. It made her wish he was really here, that she could feel the heat of his skin and breath. “Now I’m interested.”
She glared at him. The best she could, anyway. He was irrepressible cute when he smiled like that. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” he countered. “We’re friends. I want to know more about you.” His smile dimmed a fraction. “We are friends, aren’t we?”
“I see you every day. If that doesn’t count as friends, I don’t know what does.”
“An excellent point.” He brightened again. “Now tell me all about your salacious love life. I’m dying to know.” He propped his chin on his fist and batted his lashes at her.
She groaned. “It’s not salacious.” When he only blinked at her expectantly: “I’ve had two boyfriends. If you could call them that.” She shrugged, uncomfortable. “Not much to tell. I was busy with horse stuff, they were busy with their stu
ff. Neither one was serious. We parted ways amicably.”
He seemed displeased.
“What?”
“That’s unacceptable.”
She huffed a laugh. “Excuse me?”
“It ended amicably? How? They just let you go? Like absolute fools?”
“What were they supposed to do? Hit me over the head and keep me captive? That’s illegal, Middle Ages Man,” she tried to joke.
But Val was serious. He leaned in closer – close enough to the see the darker striations in his eyes; close enough to see a thin, pale scar at his hairline she hadn’t noticed before, a silvery line that caught the sunlight. “Mia, why didn’t they fight to keep you?” he asked earnestly. “Why not?”
“Because they didn’t love me.”
He held her gaze a moment, his own stern. “Idiots,” he finally said, like a curse, and flopped back down to the rug.
~*~
“Killed by sunlight–”
“Wrong.”
“…aversion to crosses–”
“My brother is a Roman Catholic.”
“What about the garlic thing?”
Val snorted. “Absolutely not.”
“And we’ve already established you can’t turn into smoke.” Mia tried to keep her grin in check. Val sat cross-legged on her kitchen island, eyes slanted almost shut, nose lifted to a comically superior angle. He looked every inch the prince in his traditional Romanian formalwear. “But what about turning into a bat?”
His eyes and mouth sprang open, an expression of such blended offense, dismay, and horror that Mia couldn’t help the laugh that punched out of her.
“Oh my God, your face!”
“You’re horrid,” he said, sniffing disdainfully. “Here I am trying to disabuse you of all the ridiculous notions you’ve picked up from novels, and you mock me.” He splayed a hand over his heart, pressed the back of the other to his forehead. “Poor me, locked away in a cell for centuries, and you treat me so cruelly, when I’ve only offered you friendship and wisdom.”
Mia’s laugh died down to a low, tense chuckle. It was easy to forget, in moments like the one just before, that he was being held against his will. That his visits to her were the only positive human contact he ever had.
Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3) Page 4
