“I’m good with them. Horses,” Iona qualified as she stroked the regal-eyed Queen Bee. “I’m hoping to work on getting good with the O’Dwyers.”
“Connor’s an easygoer, with a weakness for a pretty face. You’ve got one. Branna’s fair, and that’s enough.”
“You’re friends.”
“We are, and have been since we were in nappies, so I know Branna, being fair, wouldn’t have sent you to us if you weren’t suited.”
“I’m good at this. It’s what I’m good at.” All, she thought, she was certain she was good at.
“You’ll need to be. All my life,” Meara said at Iona’s questioning look. “So I know it’s the one who communes with horses who makes the three.”
Iona thought of the looks from the waitstaff over dinner the night before. “Does everyone know?”
“What people know, what they believe, what they accept? Those are all different matters, aren’t they? Well then, since Boyle’s running behind, we can—” She broke off, pulled out her phone when it jingled in her pocket, checked the text. “Ah, good, he’s on his way. We’ll just go out, if that’s good for you, and meet him.”
Her potential new boss, Iona thought. “Any tips?”
“You could remember Boyle’s fair as well, though he’s often short on words and temper.”
Meara gestured Iona along as she shoved her phone away again. “He’s riding Fin’s latest acquisition over. Fin’s Boyle’s partner, and travels about when he’s a mind to buying horses and hawks or whatever strikes his fancy.”
“But Boyle—Mr. McGrath—runs the stables.”
“He does—or they both do, but it’s Boyle who deals more with the day-to-day. Fin found this stallion in Donegal, and had him sent, as Fin himself’s still rambling. He plans to stud him out later in the year, and Boyle’s just as determined to teach him manners.”
“Fin or the stallion?”
Meara let out a big, brassy laugh as they stepped back outside. “That’s a question, and it may be both, though I’d wager he’ll have better luck with the horse than Finbar Burke.”
She nodded toward the end of the road. “He’s a fine-looking bastard for all that, with a devil’s temper.”
Iona turned. She couldn’t say if Meara spoke of the horse or the man astride him. Her first impression was of magnificence and hotheads on both counts.
The horse, big and beautiful at easily sixteen hands, tested his rider with the occasional buck and dance, and even with the distance, she could see the fierce gleam in his eyes. His smoke gray coat showed some sweat, though the morning stayed cool—and his ears stayed stubbornly back.
But the man, big and beautiful as well, had his measure. Iona heard his voice, the challenge in it if not the words, as he kept the horse at a trot.
And something in her, just at the sound of his voice, stirred. Nerves, excitement, she told herself, because the man held her happiness in his hands.
But as they drew closer, the stir grew to a flutter. Attraction struck her double blows—heart and belly as, oh, he really was as magnificent as the horse. And every single bit as appealing to her.
His hair, a kind of rich caramel that wasn’t altogether brown, wasn’t quite red, blew everywhere in the breeze. He wore a rough jacket, faded jeans, scarred boots, all suiting the tough, rawboned face. The strong jaw and a mouth that struck her as stubborn as the horse he rode just echoed the hard lines of temper barely leashed when the horse bucked again.
A thin scar, like a lightning bolt, cut through his left eyebrow. For reasons she couldn’t quite comprehend, it stirred up a delicious little storm of lust inside her.
Cowboy, pirate, wild tribal horseman. How could he be three of her biggest fantasy weaknesses all rolled into one big, bold package?
Boyle McGrath. She said his name in her head, and thought: You could be trouble for me, and I’m so interested when it comes to trouble.
“Oh, he’s in a mood, our Boyle is. Well, you’d best get used to it if you come to work here, for God knows he has them.”
Meara stepped forward, raised her voice. “Giving you a run for it, is he then?”
“Tried to take a chunk out of me. Twice. The right bastard. Tries it again I may geld him myself with a bleeding butter knife.”
When Boyle pulled up, the horse shook, pranced, tried to rear.
Big hands, scarred at the knuckles like the eyebrow, the boots, fought the horse down. “I may murder Fin for this one.”
As if daring his rider, the horse tried to rear yet again. Instinctively Iona stepped up, gripped the bridle.
“Stay back there,” Boyle snapped. “He bites.”
“I’ve been bitten before.” She spoke directly to the horse, her eyes on his. “But I’d rather not be again, so just stop it. You’re gorgeous,” she crooned. “And so pissed off. But you might as well cut it out and see what happens next.”
She flicked a glance up at Boyle. He wouldn’t bite, she thought, but suspected he had other ways to take a chunk out of a foe.
“I bet you’d get testy, too, if somebody packed you up and took you away from home, then dumped you with a bunch of strangers.”
“Testy? He kicked a stable hand and bit a groom, and that was just this morning.”
“Stop it,” Iona repeated when the horse tried to jerk his head free. “Nobody likes a bully.” Using her free hand, she stroked his neck. “Even beautiful ones like you. He’s pissed off, that’s all, and making sure we all know it,” she said to Boyle.
“Oh, is that all? Well then, no harm done.” He dismounted, shortened the reins. “You’d be the American cousin then, the one Branna sent.”
“Iona Sheehan, and I’m probably as inconvenient to you as this stallion. But I know horses, and this one didn’t like being taken away from all he knew. Everything’s different here. I know what that’s like,” she said to the horse. “What’s his name?”
“Fin’s calling him Alastar.”
“Alastar. You’ll make your place here.” She released the bridal, and the horse flicked his ears. But if he considered trying for a nip, he changed his mind, looked carelessly away.
“I brought my resume,” Iona began. Business, business, business, she reminded herself. And stay out of trouble. And pulled out the flash drive she’d stuck in her pocket that morning.
“I’ve ridden since I was three, and worked with horses—grooming, mucking, trail and guided rides. I’ve given instruction, private and group. I know horses,” she repeated. “And I’m willing to do whatever you need for a chance to work here.”
“I’ve shown her around and about,” Meara began, then took the flash drive from Iona. “I’ll put this on your desk.”
Boyle kept the reins firm in his hand, and his eyes, a burnished gold with hints of green, direct on Iona. “Resumes are just words on paper, aren’t they? They’re not doing. I can give you work, mucking out. We’ll see if you know your way around a horse for grooming before I set you on that. But there’s always tack to clean.”
Riding boot in the door, she reminded herself. “Then I’ll muck and clean.”
“You’d make more walking over to the castle and seeing about work there. Waitresses, housekeeping, clerking.”
“It’s not about making more. It’s about doing what I love, and what I’m meant to do. That’s here. I’m fine with mucking out.”
“Then Meara can get you started on it.” He took the flash drive from Meara, stuck it in his own pocket. “I’ll see to the paperwork once I get this one settled.”
“You’re going to put him in a stall?”
“I’m not after checking him into the hotel.”
“He’d like . . . Couldn’t he use a little more exercise? He’s gotten warmed up.”
Boyle arched his brows, drawing her gaze to the scarred one—the sexy one. “He’s given me near an hour’s fight already this morning.”
“He’s used to being the alpha, aren’t you, Alastar? Now you come along and you’re . . . a challenge. You said a resume’s not doing. Let me do. I can take him around your paddock.”
“What are you? Seven stones soaking wet?”
He was giving her a job, she reminded herself. And compared to him—even compared to Meara—she probably did come off as small and weak. “I don’t know how much seven stones is, but I’m strong, and I’m experienced.”
“He’d rip your arms out, and that’s before he tossed you off his back like a bad mood.”
“I don’t think so. But then, if he did, you’d be right.” She glanced back at the horse. “Think about that,” she told Alastar.
Boyle considered it. The pretty little faerie queen had something to prove, so he’d let her try. And she could nurse her sore arse—or head, depending on which hit the ground first.
“Once around the ring. Inside,” Boyle said, pointing. “If you manage to stay on him that long. Get her a helmet, will you, Meara. It might help her from breaking her head when she lands on it.”
“He’s not the only one who’s pissed off.” Confident now, Iona offered Boyle a smile. “I need to shorten the stirrups.”
“Inside,” he repeated, and led the horse in. “I hope you know how to fall.”
“I do. But I won’t.”
She shortened the stirrups quickly, competently. She knew Boyle watched her, and that was fine, that was good. She would settle, and gratefully, for a job doing no more than mucking out stalls and cleaning tack.
But God, she wanted to ride again. And she wanted, keenly, to ride this horse. To feel him under her, to share that power.
“Thanks.” She strapped on the helmet Meara brought her, and since Meara had carried one over, Iona used the mounting block.
Alastar quivered under her. She tightened her knees, held out a hand for the reins.
Now he reconsidered—she could see it in those tawny eyes.
“Branna won’t be pleased with me if you end up in the hospital.”
“You’re not afraid of Branna.”
She took the reins. Maybe she’d never been sure where she belonged, but she’d always, from the first moment, felt at home in the saddle.
Leaning forward, Iona whispered in Alastar’s ear. “Don’t make a fool out of me, okay? Let’s show off, and show him up.”
He walked cooperatively for four steps. Then kicked up his hind legs, dropped down, reared up.
Stop it. We can play that game another time.
She circled him, changed leads, circled back, changed again before nudging him into a trot.
When the horse danced to the side, tried another kick, she laughed.
“I may not weigh as much as the big guy, but I’m sticking.”
She took him up to a pretty canter—God, he had beautiful lines—back to a trot.