Leaping Hearts

by Ward, J. R.

  “When he dismounts, tell him I need to talk with him. If Beauty’s down for the count, we’re going to have to change the hacking schedule this afternoon.”

  “Will do, boss.”

  “Thanks.”

  When the door shut, A.J. swiveled around and looked out of a window, seeing bare trees. Winter had arrived. There was frost on the ground when she came into work in the morning and she’d started wearing her parka around the stables. They were also using the indoor ring for training all the time.

  Deciding to go find Johnson herself, she got out of her chair and pulled her coat on. With her cast, dressing was an awkward process and she didn’t seem to be getting any better at it. Over the past four weeks, she’d learned to hate the plaster deadweight and couldn’t wait to get rid of the thing. More than being a physical nuisance, it reminded her of things she couldn’t bear to think about.

  Her hand was on the doorknob when another knock rang out.

  “Johnson, Beauty’s off the hack schedule today….”

  As she opened the door, her breath caught in her throat.

  “Devlin.”

  She thought he had to be a dream.

  During the first weeks of their separation, she’d looked for him in every knock, every phone ring, every truck that pulled up to the stables. The letdowns had tortured her until finally, very recently, she’d given up. The loss of hope had been a terrible blow but at least she didn’t feel the agony of rejection every moment of every day.

  When she blinked and he was still standing in front of her, she asked, “What are you doing here?”

  Devlin didn’t answer her right away. Instead, she felt his eyes going over her as if he were memorizing her features.

  “I hear you’re selling Sabbath.”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t ride anymore and he deserves to keep jumping.”

  “Why are you quitting?”

  “Did you come over here just to interrogate me?”

  She was praying the answer was no.

  His response was a long time in coming.

  “I came to change your mind because it’s a waste of talent for you not to be in the ring. Now that I’m here, though…there seems like so much more to say.”

  A.J. motioned for him to enter. She shut the door.

  “Nice office,” he said.

  As Devlin looked around, she watched him with greed while she waited for him to speak. He carried himself in that way she found so attractive and she noticed he’d just had a haircut. Remembering what it felt like to run her hands deep into those dark waves hurt so much, she had to close her eyes against the pain.

  “How’s the arm?” he asked.

  “Healing well.”

  “Any reason you can’t ride when the cast comes off?”

  “No, but it doesn’t matter.” She went around her desk. Sat in the chair. Fiddled with a pen to keep from telling him she loved him.

  “How long until it’s off?”

  Frustration got the better of her.

  “Look, Devlin, I’m not sure why you came but if you don’t get to the point, I’m going to start screaming. It hurts too much to be in the same room with you and I’d just as soon get through this. Are you opening a door by showing up here or throwing more dirt on a grave?”

  He turned slowly toward her.

  “Competing was everything to you and now you’re quitting. Why?”

  “You can’t compete without the burn.”

  “All your dreams—”

  Pain made her lash out.

  “What do you want? To hear how losing you has made me despise the sport I loved and everything I wanted to prove about myself through it? That I bitterly regret not telling you about this stupid arm? That I wish I could do the whole thing over again? Those things are all true, but I’m not inclined to run through the particulars, if you don’t mind. I miss you. I wish you were still in my life but I’m moving on. Because that’s all I can do.” She shook her head sadly. “Look, I think you should go.”

  But Devlin didn’t leave. He stood there, looking deeply into her eyes, his expression melting into a mixture of tension and grief. Her heart began to pound as she watched the change.

  And then he came around to her. When he held his hand out, she looked at it curiously, unable to grapple with the gesture. Then he reached down and took her in an embrace, his arms wrapping around her and reminding her of a haven she missed so much. To feel his broad shoulders against her cheek, to smell the tang of his aftershave, to sense the strength in his body, it all overwhelmed her. Holding herself stiffly, she prayed she wouldn’t break down and thought it was grossly unfair of him to get close. She tried to push him away.

  “You’ve already ended things once,” A.J. said in a broken voice. “Don’t ask me to go through it again.”

  He mumbled something and held her tighter.

  “Let me go.”

  “I can’t,” he said clearly.

  A.J.’s heart stopped as she wondered if she’d heard him right. “What?”

  “I can’t let go. I can’t let you go.”

  Fear and happiness warred inside of her. She was desperate to believe him. Terrified of being hurt more.

  “Oh, God, I’ve missed you,” Devlin said against her hair. “Trying to stay away has been unbearable. You’ve been in my dreams so I can’t sleep. Everywhere I look around my house, I see your shadow. I put my stables on the market because the only way I could go on not seeing you was to move away.” His laugh was strained. “Although I’m realizing now I wouldn’t have been able to leave.”

  She forcibly pulled back. “Devlin, what exactly are you saying? I—I’m not strong enough to read between the lines. It hurts too much.”

  “When I read the newspaper this morning, I couldn’t believe it. I know how much competing means to you, and suddenly, you’re walking away? I was stunned. I thought I was coming over to change your mind but now I realize it was just a pretext.” He reached out and took her hands in his. “After I learned that you’d kept your injury a secret from me, I was pissed, especially because you’d been hurt because of it. It made me wonder what else you were keeping from me. I felt like I didn’t know what I could trust about you. Or us. For chrissakes, why didn’t you just tell me how much you were hurting?”

  She tried to explain in a halting voice. “When I went back to training after I fell that first time, and I realized the arm hadn’t healed, I was afraid to tell you. I thought back to the fight we had over my going to the doctor. I was worried that you’d demand I pull out of the Qualifier.”

  He shook his head with regret. “I’m sorry I lost it at you that afternoon. I reacted emotionally and that was a mistake. I just couldn’t bear to see you hurt.”

  “Devlin, it was stupid of me not to tell you the truth. I felt awful the whole time. I’m so very sorry. And I never lied about anything else. You’ve got to believe me.”

  She watched as his hand rose and then she felt the skin of his fingers stroke her cheek. “I do.”

  There was a long silence and then he said, “I don’t want to be without you. I love you. I need you in my life.”

  Tears welled in A.J.’s eyes and she wasn’t able to speak as they embraced. All she could do was hold on to him, and vow she would never let go. As they stood, chest to chest, hip to hip, she could feel the pound of his heart against her cheek, the warmth seeping from his body into hers, the sensation of his hands stroking her back and her hair. When the touch of his finger came under her chin, she lifted her lips for his kiss, a soft, gentle brush that was a declaration of love.

  “Don’t sell him,” Devlin whispered.

  She pulled back in surprise.

  “Sabbath is your horse. No one else is going to be able to ride him like you can.”

  “You’re saying I should go back in the ring?”

  “It’s what you love to do. What you were born to do.”

  “But how can you—”


  Devlin kissed her, drowning out the words. This time his mouth was passionate as it moved over hers, his tongue coming inside and stroking hers with a demand she met feverishly.

  When their lips parted, he said, “I want all of you. And that means the stallion and the eventing, too. I’m not saying we won’t clash again but I know we can find a way to work anything out. Our love will be strong enough. This I know.”

  A.J. closed her eyes against the emotions that rushed over her. She felt gratitude, relief, happiness. When she looked up at him again, she brought his hand to her lips, kissing it before speaking.

  “Losing you, and knowing I was responsible for it, has been the hardest thing I’ve ever faced in my life.” She laughed ruefully. “I don’t know. Maybe I got what I needed out of the Qualifier after all. Even though it didn’t turn out as I expected or wanted, I feel like I’ve grown up. It isn’t enough just to separate myself from my family or go into the ring on a flashy horse. If I want to be taken seriously, I’ve got to be more serious. Stop being so impulsive and reckless. Does that make any sense?”

  “It does.”

  She warmed under the respect and love that shone in his eyes.

  He said, “And I’m ready to train you in the ring, if you want. I think we make a great team.”

  “So do I,” she replied as she pressed her lips to his.

  They were married two weeks later in a small church deep in the Virginia hills. Chester, Devlin’s best man, wore a tuxedo for the first time in his life. He liked it so much he declared he was going to throw out his overalls. Margaret said she loved him with or without the cummerbund. Carter Wessex, A.J.’s cousin, took tranquilizers to get on an airplane for the first time in ten years and flew in from her latest archaeological dig. The occasion was, she’d said, well worth the anxiety. And while Garrett walked his daughter down the aisle, his eyes were light even though his heart was heavy because he’d never missed her mother more.

  Peter was a big surprise. After the accident, he’d quit his job, moved out of the mansion and taken up residence in a penthouse in New York City. He’d done it all in a matter of three days and, sooner than he had a working telephone, he’d signed on with an agent to represent him as an actor. Both the move and the agent had turned out to be good choices. He relished life in the big city and had just learned he’d been signed by a major soap opera to play a villain people would love to hate. When he shared the news with A.J., he said that playing Brock O’Rourke on Wings of Fate was going to be hard but, considering all he and A.J. had been through together, he had the character in the bag.

  During the wedding, Peter sat in the front row of the church, and for the first time in anyone’s memory, there was someone sitting by his side other than his mother. The woman he’d brought with him was a brunette, with a flashing smile and smart eyes. An investment banker who was also a socialite; he’d met her at an art exhibition. Regina had hated the woman on sight.

  It was going to be, Peter told A.J., a fair fight.

  After the festivities and a reception at the Borealis Club, A.J. and Devlin returned to the farmhouse. As he carried her over the threshold, he stepped around the boxes of her things, which had been delivered the day before, and then took her upstairs to their bedroom. There, he removed her veil and released, one by one, the hundred or so pearl buttons down the back of her mother’s wedding dress. When he was finished, he slipped the acres of thick satin from her body and stripped his own clothes off so they were standing naked together.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he told her softly, his lips caressing her collarbone. She felt his hands slip around her waist and pull her against him. His skin was soft, his body hard. “Now that you’re my wife, I only need one more thing to be complete.”

  “What’s that?” she asked breathlessly.

  He pulled back, and began plucking pins from her hair, releasing the waves from the chignon. “What the hell does A.J. stand for?”

  Laughter filled the room.

  “Didn’t you look at the marriage license?”

  “I was too blinded by love. So?”

  “You aren’t going to believe it.”

  “Try me,” he said, as the last pin fell to the floor. He buried his hands in her hair, shaking it out around her shoulders.

  “The first is Arlington.”

  “Not bad. Better than a lot of other words that start with A.” His smile was warm.

  She cast him a dry look. “It was the city I was born in.”

  “Makes it easy to remember.”

  “The other is Juniper.”

  He froze in disbelief. “You’re named after a bush?”

  “It’s a damn nice planting, a hearty shrub.”

  Devlin was laughing as he said, “And the connection is…”

  “I think I might have been conceived under one.”

  “That’s adventurous.”

  “I haven’t asked a lot of questions.”

  “I can see why.”

  Devlin’s eyes scanned her features with a hunger and a love she relished. When she felt his hand on the base of her neck, urging her forward to his lips, she went eagerly into his kiss. Passion flared as their bodies melted and their hearts hammered and their blood rushed.

  When they were too breathless to continue, Devlin pulled back and murmured against her mouth, “Whatever the origins, I think A.J. suits you. It’s a strong name, for a strong woman.”

  “I’m stronger with you,” she said tenderly. His tongue slid into her mouth and she moaned, gripping onto his shoulders, scoring his skin with her nails. When he left her lips and began to lick his way down her neck, her head fell back and she mumbled, “To think this all happened because of a baseball cap.”

  Devlin shot her a puzzled look as he bent down and kissed the tip of her breast.

  “If you hadn’t picked up my hat at the auction, who knows….” Her words were lost as he suckled a proud nipple.

  “There’s only one other thing,” Devlin said, falling to his knees. His hands splayed over the small of her back and then the swell of her hips.

  “Something else?” A.J. said breathlessly, as she felt his tongue go across her belly.

  “We haven’t figured out what to do for a honeymoon.”

  She pulled back, eyes sparkling with purpose.

  “Oh, no,” he groaned. “You’ve got that look again.”

  “What look?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Well, since you brought it up, there’s an auction down in Florida and there’s this mare I heard about—”

  “Don’t tell me her name is Babylon.”

  “No.” A.J. tried to look innocent.

  “Let me guess, she’s a real handful.”

  “She may need a little work but she’s got terrific—”

  Devlin rose and silenced her with a powerful kiss, his tongue rushing into her mouth, his arms steel around her body. When he was finished, he said, “Wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do, I’m there for you. And that includes horse auctions in Florida.”

  A.J. sighed as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed.

  “Devlin?”

  “Hmmm?” he said, as he laid her down.

  “I think her name is Angel.”

  He shot her a wry look.

  “And she and Sabbath would have the most fantastic colts….”

  Read on for a sneak peek of

  another contemporary romance by

  J. R. Ward writing as Jessica Bird

  HEART OF GOLD

  Available from Signet.

  CARTER WESSEX straightened her shoulders, lifted the heavy brass door knocker and let it fall. As a thunderous noise rang out, she took a step back and regarded the grand entrance to the mansion with a jaundiced eye. The place could have been a luxury hotel.

  But what else did she expect a billionaire corporate raider to live in?

  While she waited for a response, she couldn’t
believe she was about to ask Nick Farrell for permission to dig on his land. After he’d just thrown off her competitor. Or rather, after one of his groundsmen had chased off her closest competitor with a shotgun.

  She looked down at her running shoes and wondered with gallows humor whether she was about to put them to good use.

  Of course, that rat Conrad Lyst hadn’t asked first. He’d just gone up Farrell Mountain with his shovel and started making holes. Like a lot of other professional and amateur archaeologists. And one by one, they had all been removed. As a matter of fact, in archaeology circles, it was considered a rite of passage to get tossed off Farrell’s property.

  The site was considered a Holy Grail of American history because of what it might be hiding. The solution to one of the great Revolutionary War mysteries, as well as a fortune in gold, were probably buried in the man’s soil but he refused to let people get anywhere near it.

  Which only made Carter more determined.

  When the door opened, Carter was surprised to find herself staring into the pleasant face of a sixty-year-old woman. She’d assumed only Lurch would answer that kind of knocker.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Farrell.”

  “About?”

  “I’m an archaeologist and I—”

  “He doesn’t like archaeologists much.”

  “So I’ve heard. I just want to ask him if I can dig up on the mount—”

  “He doesn’t like people digging up there.”

  “Heard that, too. But if I could just ask him—”

  “He doesn’t like being asked.”

  “Does the guy like anything? Or is he as bad-humored as his reputation suggests?”

  Carter clamped her mouth shut. Great, she thought. She’d just managed to insult him to his staff while trying to wheedle a way in to see him. Way to win friends and influence people.

  “Sorry about that crack,” she muttered.

  There was a long pause. She waited to hear how she was going to be summarily tossed off the property and wondered whether cops would be involved.

  Instead, the woman smiled. “Tell you what. I’ll give you twenty minutes to see for yourself if he’s that awful. If you’re crazy enough to want to give it a try, you might as well get the full experience. Besides, the way he’ll throw you out will be a heck of a lot more interesting and inventive than anything I could do to you.”