Cat slumped, cursing her pride and the implacable judgment that had driven him away. Even if she got right into Turk’s truck and drove as fast as she could, she knew she’d never catch up with him. He could cover terrain no vehicle could manage. And he had every reason to run and keep running until sunset found him human again, friendless and alone.
There was no reason in the world for him to come back. She’d given him not a shred of hope.
And all her hope had gone with him.
She checked out quickly, tossed her duffel in the truck and drove back to the ranch by a circuitous route, indifferent about when she arrived or what she’d do once she got there. She pulled up in front of the ranch house well after noon, as weary as if she’d walked all the way from Taos.
Turk tapped on the window. She rolled it down and summoned a smile.
“Back so soon?” he asked. “Thought you might be spending the weekend in town.”
“I had a good time, but I think I may be coming down with something. If I have to be sick, I’d rather be sick in my own room.”
“Sorry to hear it, Miss Cat. I’ll put the truck away.” He opened the door for her and took her place in the driver’s seat. Cat looped the duffel over her shoulder and plodded toward the house. Pilar met her in the kitchen, the housekeeper’s hands and lower arms coated with flour. A ball of pie dough sat on a wooden board beside the sink.
“Catalina!” Pilar hastily washed her hands and dried them on a thick cotton towel. “How was the festival?”
“It was fine.” Cat dropped into a chair and stared at the pretty bouquet of wildflowers Pilar had set on the table. “I just…got a little lonely.”
“Ah?” Pilar rubbed at a patch of flour left on a fingernail. “Did you find no one to keep you company?”
The inevitable blush burned Cat’s cheeks. Pilar nodded gravely. “I saw the change in you the night Kelpie came back lame. I see it even more strongly now. Who is he?”
Cat found that she had no desire to pretend any longer. “I met him that night. He helped with Kelpie, and—” She broke off, unable to describe how she’d felt that first time. “He was…is…unlike any man I’ve ever known.”
“What is his name? Where does he live?”
All of Pilar’s questions were logical, but the answers would tell her nothing. “His name is Andrés,” she said. “I don’t think he has a home.”
“Yet he has won your heart.”
Pilar’s words, so simple and blunt, stopped the air in Cat’s lungs. She tried to stand and fell back again, her muscles gone weak and useless.
She’d known Andrés all of three days. It just wasn’t possible to fall in love so quickly. But she’d never believed in curses or men who could change into horses, either.
“He was not what you expect to find when you came to us,” Pilar said.
“No.”
“Your mind tells you to stay away, yet you cannot.” The older woman placed a plump hand on Cat’s shoulder. “Has he done you some wrong, this Andrés? A wrong you can’t forgive?”
How could Pilar possibly have guessed? Andrés had betrayed Itzel. He’d let her people die while he stood by, refusing to intervene. His punishment had been no less than he deserved.
But that isn’t why you turned on him. It isn’t what happened hundreds of years ago that matters, is it? It’s what he did to you, how he deceived and manipulated you….
“Perhaps you came to us for a reason,” Pilar said. “Not only to find love, but to free yourself from your own past.”
And to free Andrés as well.
Cat jumped to her feet. “I have to go out, Pilar. Don’t expect me back before dawn.”
The housekeeper nodded, smiled, and returned to her pie crust. Cat grabbed several bottles of water and a chunk of cheese from the refrigerator, fetched a blanket from her room and ran outside to look for Turk. When she didn’t find him, she saddled a mare and placed the blanket, food and a supply of oats in a pair of saddlebags she hung over the mare’s hindquarters.
Rosie was more than ready to cooperate with Cat’s eagerness to be gone. Cat rode north toward the Colorado border, certain that Andrés would head away from civilization. She paused at five to drink and eat and rest the mare, refusing to give up hope.
By eight the sun was beginning to set. Cat had no idea how far she’d gone; the countryside had hardly changed, and she’d encountered only cattle, horses, and a few pronghorn antelope. Her legs ached, and Rosie was beginning to droop.
Cat dismounted at the foot of a small hill, stretched, and left Rosie to graze while she finished off the last bottle of water. Her heart was a leaden weight in her chest. She couldn’t continue with only the supplies remaining in the saddlebags; when morning came she’d have to turn around. The chances that she’d find Andrés were growing smaller by the moment.
Wearily she spread the blanket on the brown grass and lay down. She had just closed her eyes when Rosie nickered softly. Half afraid to hope, Cat opened her eyes again.
The stallion stood at the top of the hill, the plume of his tail stirring in the evening breeze. Cat rose, adrenaline rushing through her body.
Come, she begged silently. Come to me.
For a handful of minutes it seemed he would turn and flee. But slowly, hesitantly, he started down the hill, head lowered and ears pressed flat. He stopped several yards away, his eyes filled with that very human sadness.
“Andrés,” Cat whispered.
His ears flickered, but he came no nearer. Cat offered her upturned hands.
“I was wrong,” she said. “You’ve paid enough. It’s time you had a second chance.”
The stallion lifted his head. An eldritch light sprang up around him, gilding his coat and crackling the grass under his hooves.
Cat was never sure what she saw then. Andrés changed; four legs became two, and the ebon mane became a shock of thick, dark hair. He stood naked before her, still silent, still waiting.
Love and desire tangled in Cat’s mind, one inseparable from the other. She, too, had been transformed.
“We forgive you,” she said. “I forgive you, Andrés. Be free.”
He began to shake, and she realized he was laughing. His voice boomed in a cry of triumph and joy. He opened his arms and she walked into them, breathing in the sharp, clean scent of his body.
“Mi gatita,” he said, taking her face between his hands. “Gracias. Gracias desde el fondó de mi corazón.” He searched her eyes. “How may I repay you?”
In answer she kissed him, her hand wandering between them to stroke his erect cock. “If you really want to repay me,” she murmured, “don’t make me wait a second longer.”
She took his hand and led him to the blanket. He removed her clothing with something like reverence, worshiping her body with lips and tongue. But when he parted her thighs to enter, she rolled over and pushed him onto his back.
“It’s my turn now,” she said, and mounted him with a groan of pleasure.
That night she had the ride of her life. And when it was over and they lay together gazing up at the fading stars, she knew Itzel was at peace.
“Stay with me,” she said. “Stay with me forever.”
He traced her lips with his fingertip. “Forever is a long time.”
“Not nearly long enough.”
“You hardly know me. How can you be sure—”
“Let me show you just how sure I am.”
And they rode together, bound as one, until they could ride no farther.
TO DIE FOR
Keri Arthur
CHAPTER 1
THE WORST THING ABOUT WORKING FOR AN INVESTIGATIVE agency specializing in paranormal and psychic events was the long, often irregular, hours.