Dice reached the shed before me and was already ensconced on the rafter above the two straight stalls. He was licking himself furiously, growling displeasure at the soaking.
Rafe was wiping Orfeo down with clean straw as the gelding lipped hay from the manger as placidly as if he hadn't been hysterically insane with fear a scant hour before. I arrived in the shed's open end just as lighting flashed and thunder cracked.
"Easy, lad," Rafe soothed Orfeo's restless dancing. "My God, look what swam in!" And he went right on tending the gelding.
Well, I couldn't fight that. Didn't want to. I got into the shed and began to wipe rain from my arms and legs, wringing out my shirttails before I sagged wearily into the bedding of the other stall. And rose up with a pain-filled gasp. I really couldn't sit on anything, especially straw.
"What's the matter?" Rafe asked.
"You wife-beater. You miserable sadistic brute."
A bunched horse sheet was launched at me, accompanied by his pleased (damn him) chuckle. "Try this!"
I spread the sheet, doubled it after a moment's close thought, and then carefully settled down again.
"Did you see how he took that pasture fence, Nialla?" Rafe asked, his voice excited, as he couldn't restrain his enthusiasm any longer. "He’s fantastic. He’s incredible. And you're right about the speed in him. Good thing I know every inch of this farm, or we'd've come a cropper. And responsive? No wonder you can ride him with a hackamore. He's like a goddamn cutting horse. And I knew it! Ask Ted or Steve. I kept telling them all this horse needed was the right handling. You are a white witch, my dearest. A proper white witch."
A gust of wind whipped rain on my legs, so I scooted back into the stall. Lightning outlined Rafe coming toward me.
"Where are you?" His hand connected with my ankle, and then he flopped over on his back beside me, tiredly, reaching for my hand. "That's some storm. Well," and he exhaled deeply-"no possibility of that meadow fire smoldering with that drenching. Probably clear the stench from the stable, too. Couldn't you have found anything better than manure to douse that fire with, Nialla?"
"No." I couldn't have cared less. I was tired, my feet stung, my butt smarted, my throat throbbed; but Rafe was lying beside me, and all I could feel was his hand on mine.
"Did I really hurt you?" Rafe asked suddenly in a penitent voice.
"Yes. No."
He propped himself up on his elbow, grinning down at me in the gloom, and lifted my hand to his lips.
"Yes and no?"
"Yes, because it did hurt. No, because the hurt didn't matter because I knew you wouldn't have whaled me so if you didn't love me."
His eyes glittered as his hand dropped to my breast, slid inside the wet blouse and bra, gently exciting me.
"A good thing I admitted my fatal passion for you before I rode Orfeo, huh?"
"Mmmmm." I turned toward him eagerly.
He made an abrupt movement upward. "Let's get back to… No!" And he was back beside me again. "No one can interrupt us here, by God, and I've been aching for you all day." His hands were busy with my shirt, but no busier than mine. The wet shorts tore, and I giggled, struggling with his. But our wet skins were touching at last, and I could rub my palms up and down the smooth hard muscles of his back, down to his waist and around. Suddenly his fingers dug into my buttocks. I gasped, and he gave me several sharp little slaps. Incredibly aroused by that, I seemed to go mad, desperate for him, infuriated by his delighted chuckle for my wanton response. He was slapping me again, but now he was within, his lips fastened on one breast as I arched my back, straining to him.
Thunder and lightning were all around us, and in us. Fire and noise were part of the storm that seized us both and drowned individuality into one single, fused entity.
Epilogue
We were sitting down to a perfectly normal, every-Monday-morning-type breakfast when James Michaels knocked on the door.
"Well, the honeymoon is over," Rafe remarked, shoving back his chair, but the grin in his eyes was positively lecherous as he rose to greet the detective. "My God, man, you look ghastly. Get him some coffee, Mrs. Garrison. Better still, get him a steak."
One look at the man's face, and I shooed Mrs. Garrison to the stove for the steak and poured the coffee myself.
"I've been up all night."
"We wouldn't have guessed," Rafe said, but our eyes caught over his head, and I could feel myself blushing. We hadn't got back to the house ourselves until nearly five. Our occupation had at least been… well…
"What happened? Besides Galvano denying everything?" Rafe asked.
Michaels grimaced, sipping eagerly at the coffee. "I expected that. But what I didn't expect was that he was telling the truth part of the time."
"Ah, come on, Michaels."
"This turned out to be a bit more complicated than any of us could have foreseen, Mr. Clery."
"Explain."
"Please," I added, and Michaels gave me a very weary smile.
"John, alias Caps, Galvano did murder your father, Mrs. Clery. And he confessed to it this morning, but only because we threatened to charge him with the murder of an unidentified man in a car registered in his name."
Rafe whistled tonelessly through his teeth.
"And it was as you suggested, Mr. Clery, Galvano found out that Russell Donnelly had discovered the hidden kilos of grass in the unused bales of hay. Galvano said he didn't mean to kill your father…"
"Kind of him!"
Michaels flushed at Rafe's sarcasm. "I'm not defending him, Mr. Clery, but it is one thing to kill in a cold, premeditated way, another to… Well, all Galvano wanted was to recover the grass. Your father rushed at him, and he grabbed up the pitchfork and…" Michaels' eyes asked me to accept the confession.
I nodded. Michaels didn't need any lumps for telling me.
"Galvano got back to Mexico without anyone being aware he'd left, because he'd paid a cousin to circulate the track wearing his clothes. And no, he did not bump off the cousin to keep him from talking," Michaels said, holding up a hand to forestall Rafe's protest. "You'd better let me tell it my way, Mr. Clery. It's rather complicated, you see." Rafe settled back, resigned to listening. "Galvano, having established an alibi, was still not certain whether you'd seen him, Mrs. Clery. And he also had to produce either the money or the marihuana. When he was questioned by the police, along with anyone else connected with the Marchmount stables and your father, Galvano realized that you hadn't seen him leaving the loft. But he was still in grave trouble with the grass ring.
"I gathered"-and Michaels grinned sardonically-"that Marchmount had more or less dispensed with Galvano's auxiliary services over the few months preceding your father's death. In fact, that was what drove Galvano to venture into drug-running. Now, he had some time before the drug contact would want payment, but he had to find money. Bizarre as it seems, Mrs. Clery, it was Marchmount himself who gave Galvano the idea of extorting money from you. He contacted Galvano and paid him one thousand dollars-in expense money-to do some quiet investigating, for the purpose of clearing the good name of Marchmount; not, I'm afraid, Russell Donnelly."
Rafe swore under his breath and stroked my arm soothingly. I nodded in a sort of numbed way, remembering now how startled and furious Marchmount had been when I stammered out the reason for my need of money.
"So Galvano approached you, Mrs. Clery. He knew your father wasn't poor, but he didn't count on the probate delay. You gave him five hundred dollars the first time, I understand."
Michaels' eyes met mine squarely. I nodded.
"And I presume that Marchmount refused to give you anything because he realized the source of the suggestion?"
Rafe squeezed my hand imperceptibly.