Or THINK. THIS WAS not--she had not expected this. Her heart pounded in her ears as robert drew back in slow motion. she avoided his gaze, unable to deal with the emotions swarming over her chest, her brain, her hands. Heat and loss, joy and fear, desire and embarrassment.Her eyes landed on her horse. motivated by a terrible instinct to run away, she headed for bianca. A coat of warm gray horse-hair restrained the panic. Aurelia swung onto the bare back and dug her heels into the mare's sides.but robert stepped forward, blocking her path. His hands hung loose, and she did not dare look at his face. He must be standing there to apologize, to say he was sorry--that he had not meant it. And she could not, she could not listen to him say it, because somewhere deep down under all her chaos and confusion, she hoped he had.As if controlled by another source, she urged bianca around him into a gallop, calling in a foreign voice, "I'll race you on the meadow. show me what that stallion of yours can really do!"And she was gone, down the creek bed, over the hill, onto the meadow.
