9
‘I didn’t expect you to be up so early,’ Felipe said, leaning against the door to one of the stables.
Valentina smiled, a shiver of excitement running through her as she stood before him—the boy she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since the harvest a week earlier. But her attention was quickly diverted when Felipe’s father appeared, leading a sweaty-looking horse beside him, its hooves click-clacking over the hard-packed ground.
‘Miss Santiago,’ José said, his eyebrows peaked in surprise. ‘Your papa knows you’re here?’
She nodded. ‘Valentina, remember? There’s no need for such formalities with me,’ she said, grinning over at Felipe. ‘And yes, he does. But it’s to be a secret from my mother.’ She doubted any of the outside workers would ever cross paths with her mama, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
Valentina saw the look that passed over his face, as if he wasn’t at all convinced she should be there, but he simply nodded and kept walking, leading the horse into a stall. Her papa had given consent, and that was all that mattered. She expected he would confirm what she’d told him whenever he next saw Basilio, but she didn’t mind—she would never havecome if he hadn’t given permission, so she had nothing to worry about.
Felipe gestured for her to follow him once they were alone again, and she did, stopping to stand at the open door to one of the stalls, watching as he stood beside a beautiful bay-coloured horse.
‘This is Pablo,’ he said. ‘Come closer and meet him. He won’t bite, I promise.’
Valentina did what he instructed, never having been inside the stall with one of the horses before. She’d walked past them countless times and touched their noses each time as she passed, or patted her father’s polo ponies on the field, but she’d never been in an enclosed space with one of the large animals before, their bodies so close they could crush her if they so wanted. She eyed up Pablo’s strong legs and sturdy hooves, but soon her eyes travelled higher and she marvelled at his sleek, shiny coat and muscled body.
‘Come and place your hand on him,’ Felipe said. ‘Feel his strength.’
Valentina watched for a moment, before stepping forward and finally placing her hand on his shoulders, her palm splayed against his soft hair. The horse felt velvety and soft beneath her touch, and she realised then that despite his size, he was as gentle and calm as any animal could be.
‘He will match his heartbeat to yours,’ Felipe said, and when she looked up, she realised just how close they were standing now. ‘If you’re calm, he will be calm. If you’re nervous and your heart is beating too fast, then he will feel the same and start to jitter.’
She knew that her heart had begun to hammer in her chest, not because she was scared of the horse, but because she was equal parts nervous and excited about being with Felipe. Valentina loved how relaxed he was with her, the easy way hesmiled at her and spoke as if she was just another girl his age. But then she started to think about the kiss all over again, and she couldn’t stop her heart from racing. She quickly withdrew her hand from the horse.
‘Would you like to ride today?’ Felipe asked, stroking the horse’s neck as he spoke to her. ‘I thought we could saddle up and go for a nice long walk, so you can get the feel of being in the saddle, but if you’re not comfortable then we can just groom him to start with.’
Valentina swallowed and hoped she wasn’t still blushing. ‘I would like to ride,’ she replied, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. ‘Very much.’
Barely twenty minutes later, Valentina was sitting astride a horse and feeling more at home in the saddle than she’d ever expected. She’d lived on a polo farm for most of her life, and yet somehow she’d never fought for the privilege to ride before, which suddenly felt like the strangest thing in the world. Sitting high in the air and looking out from such a vantage point, feeling the power of the horse beneath her…she could see why her papa was so addicted to the sport of polo, and so far, she’d only walked.
‘Pablo was your father’s favourite pony for many years,’ Felipe explained, as he indicated that she was to nudge her horse on with her heels to keep him walking. ‘He told me to bring him out of retirement for you, so that you could learn on him. We call horses like this one high-goal ponies, because they are the most successful in the stable.’
‘My father always loved me coming to watch his matches, but he never offered for me to ride, other than to lead me around when I was a little girl for fun.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t want you to get hurt?’
She shrugged. ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps it was never worth the wrath of my mother. She can be fierce when she’s angry.’
Felipe laughed, and she decided not to tell him how serious she was. Her mother had very particular beliefs about what a young lady should and shouldn’t do, and Valentina had always wondered why she even cared so much.
‘Keep your heels down and your back straight,’ he instructed. ‘And try to balance yourself without holding the reins too tightly.’
She did as he said, finding that her body moved easily with the horse. She also loved the fact that her papa had hand-picked Pablo for her. He might not have come down to watch her take her first ride, but he’d made sure to organise it for her. She would thank him for it later, when she told him just how much she’d enjoyed her excursion.
‘Where I grew up, in Spain, the girls were some of our fiercest riders,’ Felipe told her. ‘We all trained together at weekends, and they were tough competitors.’
‘Were you sad to leave?’ she asked, imagining what it must have been like for him.
‘Yes, but when I saw this place, I could understand why my father had chosen to move,’ he said. ‘We have a nice home here, your father is very generous to us, and my father is happy. He’s working with the best horses in Argentina, and now, so am I. And it also helps that your father is Spanish. I think it makes my dad feel more at home, if that makes sense.’
Valentina was so curious about Felipe, and she found that she couldn’t hold her tongue, asking him all the things she wanted to know as they walked on horseback, side by side.
‘Do you go to school?’
‘Not anymore. I’m working in the stables all the time now.’
‘How old are you?’
