Page 26 of Irish Rebel
“Come on now, Jim, you lost the draw. You can’t be welshing on me.”
“I’m not. I’m gearing up.”
The young exercise boy was gritting his teeth and rolling his shoulders when Keeley stepped up to the box. “Good morning. I heard you drew the short straw, Jim.”
“Yeah, just my luck.” He shot a mournful look at Betty. “This one wants to eat me.”
“Chew you up and spit you out more like,” Brian said in disgust. “You’re just giving her cause now by letting her know she intimidates you. You’ll go down in history today—the first weight the next winner of the Triple Crown feels on her back.”
As if reacting to the prediction, Betty snorted, tried to dance as Brian firmed his grip on the shortened reins. And Jim’s eyes went big as moons in a pale face.
“I’ll do it.” Keeley wasn’t sure if it was the challenge of it, or compassion for the terrified boy. “If it’s an historic moment, it should be a Grant up on a Royal Meadows champion.” She smiled at Jim as she said it. “Let me have the jacket and hat.”
“You sure?” With more hope than shame, Jim looked from Keeley to Brian.
“She’s the boss. In a manner of speaking,” Brian told him. “Your loss here, Jim.”
“I’ll take the loss and save all my skin.” A little too eagerly, he started out of the box. As if sensing her opening, Betty bunched, kicked out. Swearing, Brian shoved Jim aside with his shoulder and took the hoof in the ribs.
The air went blue, and every curse was in an undertone that only added impact. Without a second thought, Keeley moved into the box and laid her hand over his on the reins to help control the filly.
A thousand pounds of horse fought to plunge. Keeley felt the heat from her and from Brian when their bodies bumped together. “How bad did she get you?”
“Not as bad as she’d like.” But enough, he thought, to steal his breath and have the pain shooting up until he saw stars dancing.
He tossed the hair out of his eyes, blinked at the sweat stinging in them and muscled the filly down.
“Man, Bri, I’m sorry.”
“You should have more sense than to turn your back on a skittish filly,” Brian snapped out. “Next time I’ll let her take a shot at your head. Go on out. She knows she’s bested you. Stand back,” he ordered Keeley in the same cold tone of command, then he jerked the reins just enough to bring Betty’s head down.
“So this is how it’s to be? You want all the temper and none of the glory? Am I wasting my time with you? Maybe you don’t want to run. We’ll just wait until you come into season and bring a stallion in to mount you, and set you out to pasture to breed. Then you’ll never know, will you, what it is to win.”
Just outside the box, Keeley slipped on the padded jacket and hat. And waited. There was a line of damp down the back of his shirt, his hair was a wild tangle of brown and gold. Muscles rippled in his arms, and his boots were scarred and filthy.
He looked, she decided, exactly how a horseman should look. Powerful. Confident. And just arrogant enough to believe he could win over an animal more than five times his weight.
He kept talking, but he’d switched to Gaelic now. Slowly, the rhythm of the words smoothed out, and warmed. Almost like a song, they played in the air, rising, falling. Mesmerizing.
The filly stood quiet now, her dark brown eyes focused on Brian’s green ones.
Seduced, Keeley thought. She was watching a kind of seduction. She’ll do anything for him, Keeley realized. Who wouldn’t if he touched you that way, looked at you that way, used his voice on you that way?
“Come in here,” he told Keeley. “Let her get your scent. Touch her so she can feel you.”
“I know how it’s done,” she murmured. Though she’d never seen it done quite like this.
She slipped into the stall, ran her hands gently over Betty’s neck, her side. She felt the muscles quiver under her hand, but the filly looked at nothing and no one but Brian.
“I’ve seen countless people work in countless ways with countless horses.” Keeley spoke quietly as she stroked Betty. But like the horse, her eyes were on Brian. “I’ve never seen anyone like you. You have a gift.”
His eyes shifted, met hers, held for a moment. One timeless moment. “She has the gift. Talk to her.”
“Betty. Not-so-bad Betty. You scared poor Jim, didn’t you, but you don’t scare me. I think you’re beautiful.” She saw the filly’s ears lay back, felt the slight shift under her hands, but kept talking. “You want to race, don’t you? Well, you can’t do it alone. I’d tell you this isn’t going to hurt, but you don’t care about that anyway. It’s all pride with you.”
Once again she looked at Brian. “It’s all pride,” she repeated, understanding both horse and man. “But you can’t have the pride of winning without this step.”
When Brian tightened the saddle, everyone seemed to hold their breath. Then Keeley let hers out, and put her knee in Brian’s hands for a leg up.
