“I can’t ride, either.” Her hand gripped him tightly.
“I know. I’m holding you safe, see?” He squeezed her waist gently. She was sitting so rigidly he could snap her in two. “I’ll hold him safe, too.”
She said in a voice that shook, “If one of your hands is holding me and the other is for Nicky, who will hold the horse?”
“I will. With my thighs.”
“Yourwhat?” Faint outrage showed through the terror.
He smiled to himself. She obviously had no idea it was his thigh she was hanging on to with all her might. “They’re very strong thighs, and he’s a very well-behaved horse. Now come on, Nicky, that rain is almost upon us. Get on.”
As he spoke several large drops of rain pattered down. “Do it, Nicky,” she said at last.
His misgivings obvious, the child hesitantly reached out and took hold of Gabe’s arm.
“Good boy. Now put your left foot on my boot here and when I give you the word, jump and swing your right leg over the horse behind me. You’re perfectly safe. I won’t let you drop.” The boy obeyed, closing his eyes and making a blind leap of faith. In a moment he was seated behind Gabe on Trojan.
“Now lift my coat over the top of you so that when the rain starts, you don’t get wet. You can hold onto my belt or my waist, whichever you prefer,” Gabe told him. He felt the coat lift, then two little arms wrapped around his waist in a convulsive grip.
Gabe nudged his horse and Trojan moved off as the rain started. The woman and boy clutched on to Gabe like grim death.
Icy needles of rain pelted down on Gabe’s face and trickled down the inside of his coat. He was cold and wet and he should have been miserable.
Instead, he grinned, suddenly exhilarated. Until an hour ago his life had stretched out before him, an endless stretch of pointlessness and ease. A life sentence of tranquility.
Now, suddenly—blessedly!—he had a problem, a difficulty, trouble. And she was sitting rigid and unbending in his arms like a small, wet piece of wood, her eyes screwed tight shut, clutching his thigh as if she would never let go; his own little piece of trouble.
It suited Gabe perfectly.
Callie closed her eyes and clung on, enduring. If she’d thought this man threatened her son in any way, she would have fought him, but he’d been kind to Nicky, and to her, she admitted. Besides, she was all out of fight. She didn’t know where he was taking her, but it couldn’t be worse than trudging along a dark cliff top in freezing rain, not knowing where she was.
The worst thing was the horse.
She loathed horses. She hadn’t been on one since she was six and Mama…She shivered, seeing it in her mind, as vividly as if it were yesterday, the horse’s hoof smashing into Mama’s head. And the blood…
Even Rupert hadn’t been able to get her near a horse again.
But if it meant Nicky would be taken to warmth and safety sooner, well, she could put up with anything.
“Nicky, are you all right?” she called.
“Yes, Mama.” She felt the flutter of small fingers against her waist and she clutched her son’s hand thankfully. Her own personal lifeline.
“The coat has several capes,” Gabriel Renfrew told her, his breath warm against her ear. “Nicky is warm and dry, so stop worrying about him. You, on the other hand, are frozen. Lean back against me and I’ll button my coat closed. We’ll all be warmer that way.”
But Callie could not bring herself to move. If she did, she was sure she’d fall off.
“Don’t worry, I have you safe,” he said again. The deep rumble of his voice was soothing, but still she couldn’t bring herself to change her posture one iota. She sat with a spine so straight she barely touched him, her eyes shut tight, her hand clinging to Nicky’s fingers.
He sighed and pulled her right against his chest. “Now lean against me while I see to this.”
Callie opened her eyes for a brief moment, then squeezed them shut, instantly. He was buttoning up the coat. With both hands. Nobody was holding the reins of the horse. She couldn’t bear to look.
“It’s all right to breathe, you know,” he murmured in her ear. “There, that’s better. Comfortable?”
Comfortable?On ahorse? She shuddered.
“Pommel sticking into you, is it?” He adjusted her position so she sat across his lap, held firmly in a circle made up of his arm and his broad, warm chest, cocooned within his coat.
