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“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked groggily, holding her against him and frustrating her attempts at escape.

“I want to check on Gypsy Wind.”

“I told you she was fine.” Brig ran his hand over his eyes in an effort to awaken.

“I know, I know. But that was several hours ago and the storm’s gotten worse. She may be frightened.”

“Is that what you’re worried about?” Brig asked, propping himself on one elbow. “Or are you afraid that your brother might have let her out again?”

Becca ignored the pointed remark about Dean. It only served to reinforce her fears. “I’m worried about the horse, Brig. She’s high-spirited.”

“To the point that a storm would spook her?”

Becca extracted herself reluctantly from Brig’s embrace. “I’m not sure . . . I just want to check.” She slipped off the bed and began dressing in the dark.

Brig snapped on the bedside lamp and smiled lazily as he watched her struggle into her clothes. “I’ll come with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Sure I do.” He straightened from the bed and began pulling on his pants. “That’s what I came here for—to look at your wonder horse.”

A stab of pain pierced Becca’s heart, but she ignored it. What did she expect—words of love at every turn in the conversation? For someone who had vowed to keep Brig Chambers out of her heart, she was certainly thinking like a woman in love.

Gypsy Wind stood in the far corner of her stall, eyeing Brig suspiciously and ignoring Becca’s cajoling efforts to get the filly to come forward. Not even the enticement of an apple would lure the highspirited horse. Instead she paced nervously between one side of the stall and the other, never getting close enough for Becca to touch her.

“She’s got a mind of her own,” Brig stated while he watched the anxious filly.

Becca couldn’t disagree. “I’ve noticed,” she commented dryly.

“What does O’Riley have to say about her?”

“He worries a lot,” Becca admitted almost to herself, as she clucked softly to the horse. “And he tries not to let on, but I’m sure he has some reservations about her.”

“Because of her similarities to Sentimental Lady?”

Becca nodded. “Her temperament.”

“A legitimate complaint, I’d venture.”

Trying not to sound defensive, Becca replied, “Sentimental Lady’s spirit wasn’t all bad, Brig. She was bound to be a good horse, but her spirit made her great.”

“And killed her.” The words hung in the air.

“Sentimental Lady’s spirit didn’t kill her, Brig . . .someonedid! If she hadn’t been injected, she might not have misstepped, or she might not have continued to run . . . or she might have been able to come out of the anesthesia—”

“But she didn’t!” His face had hardened as he judged Gypsy Wind on the merits of her sister. “And you and I . . . we let our pride get in our way. We should have figured this out long ago. We should never have let it come between us for this long.”

“I don’t know what we could have done to save Sentimental Lady.”

“Maybe we couldn’t, but the least we could have done was trusted one another enough to find the culprit.”

“But—”

He turned to face her and his eyes glittered like forged steel. “I’m not blaming you—I was as much at fault as anyone. I assumed that you had something to do with it because you kept telling me that it was all your fault. I shouldn’t have listened to you, should have followed my instincts instead. God, Becca, I knew you couldn’t have done it, but I thought that you knew who did! That was what really got to me—that you’d protect some bum who killed your horse.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know that now.” Brig’s eyebrows had pulled together as he concentrated. “We have to figure this thing out, Becca, if you really plan to race Gypsy Wind. Otherwise the same thing could happen all over again.”