Emma Darcy - The Ultimate Choice

'Did I hurt you?' Kelly asked anxiously.

'No. And I don't recall giving you permission to call me Justin,' he said peevishly.

'You call me Kelly,' she argued. 'Why shouldn't I call you Justin?'

He sighed. 'How have I upset your grandfather?'

'You didn't take all the lambs you're supposed to,' she explained. 'Under the agreement…'

'I'm sick to death of eating lamb!'

'You don't have to eat it yourself. You could give it away. Or sell it to the butcher,' Kelly suggested brightly. 'But you've got to take them. Henry Lloyd used to…'

'I am not Henry Lloyd!' He glared at her. 'And I'm sick to death of being told what Henry Lloyd used to do.'

Kelly closed her mouth in thin-lipped disapproval. She glared back at Justin St John. The tension in the room thickened. He bent first.

'All right! Tell me what Henry Lloyd used to do,' he said in weary disgust.

'He used to pass the lamb on to his staff when he didn't need it for himself. The gardeners and…'

'Fine! I'll pass it on.'

Kelly heaved a sigh of satisfaction. 'I told Grandpa you'd understand. He was having visions of having to run cattle to cater for your taste. Herefords and…'

'You can't mean it?' Justin levered himself up on his elbows with a look of sheer incredulity.

'Well, what else could he do? If you wouldn't take the full complement of lambs according to the agreement…'

'Never mind!' He shook his head and dropped down on to the table again. He breathed deeply for several seconds. 'Assure your grandfather that any agreement will be kept to the letter from now on.'

'Thank you,' she said, even though he didn't like to be thanked. He should be more gracious about that, Kelly thought to herself. But she didn't want to criticise him too severely, because she had another favour to ask him.

She waited until the exercises were completed and was spreading oil over his hip-joint in preparation for the ultrasound.

‘Is it all right if I take the horse-truck?' she asked, her eyes pleading her need. 'I can't transport the horses without it.'

He closed his eyes against her and his jaw tightened as if he was clenching his teeth. 'You haven't brought back that damned stallion yet,' he bit out.

Kelly took a deep breath. 'Would you let me ride him if I did?'

'No!' It was a hard, explosive negative, leaving her no room to manoeuvre.

'Well, that settles that,' she reasoned quietly. 'But if I'm to compete with the other horses, I can't get them to Dapto without the horse-truck.'

'Kelly…' His voice sounded very strained. She felt his flesh quiver under her hand. 'Will you stop spreading that oil and get on with it?'

'Oh!' Flustered by her hand's dalliance, Kelly snatched it away and grabbed for the ultrasound. She played the small machine over his muscles as she struggled to regain her composure.

It wasn't easy. She was more aware of him than ever. It was even worse when she had to switch the ultrasound off and wipe the oil from his skin with the tissues. She felt quite sure he didn't want her to touch him.

'You can get up now,' she choked out, and quickly turned away to dispose of the used tissues.

Every pore in her body was listening for him to get off the table and walk to the chair where he had hung his trousers. Every nerve was stretched tight, waiting for a less discomfiting distance between them.

His feet thudded softly on to the floor. The short ensuing silence pulsed with a tension that was not wholly hers. The urge to turn around and see what he was feeling was terribly strong. But he had called her a forward young woman, and even suggested she could be using her body to get what she wanted. If he thought she had been caressing him knowingly…

There was a whispering sigh, and at last footsteps moving away. Kelly's chest hurt from holding her breath. She let it out slowly, desperately trying to regain some control of the situation.

'You can take the truck. As long as you don't take Rasputin.'

The flat words slapped Kelly's mind into refocusing on the problem of her favourite horse. She couldn't go without him. He was her best chance of winning the main event.

Justin St John finished dressing and swung around, his eyes stabbing right into her heart and soul as he spoke with relentless decision. 'Promise me you won't slip him in along the way. Promise me that now, Kelly.'

Slowly she shook her head. 'No! You're wrong about this. Terribly wrong. As you've been about so many other things.'

His face contorted with angry frustration. 'Why do you have to be so stubborn? You're a beautiful young woman. With your whole life ahead of you. Why put it at risk?'

'All life is a risk!' she retorted. 'And show- jumping is no more dangerous than playing polo. You did that, didn't you? And I bet if you could have gone on playing it after your accident, you would have done that too.'

'But I couldn't. And I didn't.' His eyes glittered over her with intense bitterness. 'And I don't want to see the same thing happen to you.'

Kelly flushed at the unwitting cruelty of her words. 'I'm sorry. It's just that…'

'You think I'm unreasonable,' he mocked savagely. 'Well, let me tell you, Kelly Hanrahan, I was riding horses before you were born. And my sister was in show-jumping. I'm very familiar with all types of horses, and I've seen Rasputin's kind before.' His mouth twisted. 'Noni Lloyd had one just like him. A Hanoverian stallion. Bred for jumping. He'd rather crash into a fence than balk. One mistake from you, Kelly-cutting him too short to gain time, not getting him set into the right stride for a triple or a combination-and he'll go for it anyway. And he'll take you with him.'

'You don't know Rasputin,' Kelly defended. 'He can adjust. Improvise. He's a natural. There's no other horse like him.'

A bleak weariness settled in the grey eyes. 'Kelly, I can't stop you from show-jumping other owners' horses, but I can stop you from competing with mine. I don't want it to come to that. Please… reconsider. You can ride the other three if you must. But not Rasputin.'

'You don't understand,' Kelly pleaded. 'I'll never find another like him. To ride Rasputin… it's like magic…'

'Black magic!' he snapped impatiently. 'You're tempting the gods every time you mount that devil. Put an end to it before he puts an end to you. Make your mind up to that, Kelly. For your own sake!'

There was no talking to him. She could see that. And he wouldn't even give her the chance to prove him wrong. While she was still floundering for a way to reach out to him, he pulled out his wallet, extracted a twenty-dollar note, and dropped it on the table.

'Think about it!' he said harshly, and walked out.

Kelly did think about what Justin St John had said.

But he was wrong!

She kept on riding the three horses each afternoon. He never missed watching her. It saddened Kelly that there was more than a fence dividing them. She wished that he could watch her with pleasure, that he could share the joy of it with her. But whatever compulsion drove him to watch through the whole practice session Kelly knew intuitively that it had more to do with his obsession about her safety than anything else.

And every morning she wished he could see her on Rasputin as they soared over the jumps at the judge's place. She and Rasputin understood each other. The big stallion knew what he could do and so did she. What Justin St John was trying to force upon her was totally unfair.

After much agonising over his ultimatum, Kelly came to the only decision that seemed right to her.

‘I thought you said you'd be away this week,' Justin remarked one morning as he was paying for his physiotherapy treatment. For the first time Kelly saw a hint of uncertainty in the probing grey eyes.