Kathryn Jensen - The Royal and The Runaway Bride

“My problem horse. He’s always been a wonderful mount. Won me a bundle of Grand Prix ribbons as a jumper. Aside from that, I just plain like him better than any other horse in my stable. But he’s refusing jumps now.”

“When did he start doing that?” she asked.

“About a month ago. It happened very suddenly. No warning at all. One of my exercise lads was taking him through his paces, just warming him up easy before I came out to ride for the day. By the time I reached the ring, the lad was on the ground cursing the horse, and Eros was in a lather, pacing the yard as if he’d been terribly frightened.”

“He might have been. You can never tell with horses what will spook them.” She felt satisfied with how astute and experienced she sounded. “Did you ask the boy what had happened?”

“Of course.” Phillip anxiously dragged fingers through his thick brown hair. “No one in the yard saw anything that might have scared the animal. Nothing out of the ordinary seems to have happened during those few minutes.”

“Hmmm,” Alex said, aiming for an expression of sage perplexity. “Well, let’s take a look at him.”

Phillip led her down a row of half doors, the generous-sized stalls behind them smelling of cedar chips, saddle soap and the natural muskiness of horseflesh. She had always loved this part of being around horses—the smells, rough and masculine textures, sounds of hooves restlessly shifting on wooden planks, snuffles and whinnies of horses talking to one another in their secret language. It was the riding part that hadn’t been as easy, or at least as painless.

Phillip stopped in front of a stall and whistled between his teeth. Almost immediately, an enormous black head with shining dark eyes appeared in the opening. “Hello, Eros, old man,” Phillip murmured tenderly. He ran a gentle hand beneath the horse’s chin and thumped the side of its neck.

“Phillip,” she gasped, “he’s gorgeous.” She meant it.

Her eyes took in the dark line of the animal’s body on the other side of the door. The classic lines of the Thoroughbred were perfected in the shining flanks, the delicate limbs and well-muscled barrel chest of the horse. She’d ridden some wonderful horses as a girl, up until the time she’d quit her lessons fourteen years ago when she turned sixteen and gotten up the nerve to tell her father riding just wasn’t for her. But Eros made them all look like commoners.

Alex swallowed over a lump of emotion in her throat. Would she ever dare ride such a horse? Or course, Phillip probably didn’t let just anyone hop on the back of this magnificent creature, clearly his pride and joy.

“Any opinion?” he asked, interrupting her admiration.

“He’s wonderful, of course,” she breathed.

“I meant, your professional judgment.”

“Oh. Of course.” She recovered quickly, her mind racing to come up with something…anything that might sound like trainer-talk. “Ummm. Well, anyone can see he’s still jittery. Something has broken his confidence.”

Phillip scowled and reached out to rest his palm over the wide, velvety bridge of Eros’s nose. “You can see that in here? Just by looking at him?”

She nodded wisely. “Yes. I’ve seen this sort of thing a lot. The whole character of the horse can change after one bad incident.”

“But nothing happened to—”

“Nothing your stable hands will admit to,” she said quickly. “I don’t know about you, but people who work for my fa— my employer,” she corrected herself hastily, “although they may be loyal and honest in most ways, often have trouble admitting to a mistake. They don’t want to make their boss angry, so it’s natural to cover up, hoping things will mend themselves.”

He studied her for a long moment. “I suppose you’re right. I probably will never know what, if anything, got to Eros that day.”

“Exactly.” She felt more confident now that she’d gotten him to agree with her, even though her point was a vague one at best. “So all we can do now is build the horse’s confidence.”

“How do we do that?”

She only had to think for a second before she remembered how she’d recovered after a few bad falls. “You start at the beginning. Retrain him as if he’s never jumped before.”

Phillip shook his head. “My own trainer said that he must be made to take a couple of high jumps, then he’ll be fine.”

She let out a doubtful chortle. “Right. And how are you going to force a couple thousand pounds of horseflesh over a five-foot hurdle, short of using a forklift?”

He smiled and stepped closer to her, their shoulders touching, and she felt a tingle of excitement. “You have a point. Tell me more,” he said.

She let Eros sniff her palm then stroked his sleek black throat. “Ride him on the flat for a dozen or more loops around the ring. No jumps at all. Then walk him over a rail lying on the ground. After he’s comfortable with that, move up to a rail placed no more than four or five inches off the ground. Keep raising the height slowly, but don’t move him up until he takes the new level without hesitation. If it takes weeks, fine. Don’t push him.”

Phillip nodded slowly. “It sounds logical. You’ve used this technique before with other horses?”

“Zillions!” She smiled when Eros playfully nuzzled her cheek. And now, she thought, time for lunch. She couldn’t get enough of the wonderful Mediterranean seafood found all over the island.

But Phillip had other ideas. “Let’s get him saddled.”

“What?” She stared at him apprehensively.

“No time like the present. Besides, you yourself said you won’t be here for long. I want to take advantage of your expertise.”

“But I’m sure your own trainer—”

“He hasn’t succeeded yet, and I don’t want to take the chance that Eros might connect Marco with whatever originally spooked him. He seems to like you. Maybe a woman’s touch is what he needs.”

“I haven’t brought riding gear,” she objected.

“There’s plenty you can use in the tack room. Just down there.” He pointed. “I keep spare boots, crops and such for guests. What shoe size do you take?”

“Six, American,” she said wearily.

“I’m sure there’s something that will fit you. Go along. I’ll get him ready for you.”

Great, she thought glumly a moment later as she pulled riding breeches over her casual shorts and wedged her feet into leather riding boots. What was she going to do now? She could confess to Phillip Kinrowan that she had lied to him and wasn’t who she claimed to be. But that would be humiliating. She didn’t care if he was angry, but she wouldn’t be laughed at.

Or she could call his bluff and ride Eros. And risk breaking your neck by doing so, a little voice inside her warned.

But the timid jumper had seemed as gentle as a lamb in his stall. Sure, Thoroughbreds were unpredictable and their moods could change without warning. But she knew how to handle a basic trot around a ring or a walkover exercise, and that was all she was going to do. She’d explain to Phillip that pressing the horse to take a jump of any height today would be premature and could permanently ruin him for competition. What owner would take that risk?

Alex grinned. She could do this. No sweat. Then on to bouillabaisse!

Phillip cinched up Eros’s saddle, talking comfortingly to him all the while. “She weighs hardly more than a feather, old man. You won’t feel her. And you saw how nice she was, right? Pretty woman like that, she’d never do anything to hurt you. Just relax and take her for a little spin around the ring, and let me enjoy the view, huh? Do that for me?”

It seemed almost too good to be true, Alex’s advice. He wondered why such common sense hadn’t occurred to him or Marco. So simple. Start from the beginning. But she was obviously well experienced. He was excited to see how Alex would handle Eros. The horse was spirited, true, but he had been a well-mannered mount until the day he started refusing jumps.