sean

Make sure the seaweed lies flat.''Okay.''Leave an inch below the knee.''Okay.''It's got to be loose enough to put a finger in the top.''Sean Kendrick.' I say it emphatically enough that the stallion's ears prick toward me. (...)Sean doesn't appear to be at all apologetic. 'I think you'd better let me do that after all.''You're the one who had me in here in the first place.' I say. 'Now I think it's you who doesn't trust me.''It's not just you,' He replies.I glower at him. 'Well, I'll tell you what. I'll hold him and you wrap. That way, when it's done wrong, there's only yourself to slap. And take your jacket. I'm tired of holding it.

I lost a horse today.''That sounds careless. What happened?''She jumped off a cliff.''A cliff! Is that normal?

In the sea, Corr__ clumsiness will disappear, his weight cradled by the saltwater. I don__ want to say good-bye. I blink to clear my vision and reach up. I pull off his halter. The ocean is his love and now, finally, he__l have it. I back out of the surf. There__ a thin, long wail. Corr takes a labored step away from the November sea. And another. He is slow, and the sea sings to us both, but he returns to me.

I whisper like the sea in the horse's ear.

Sean reaches between us and slides a thin bracelet of red ribbons over my free hand. Lifting my arm, he presses his lips against the inside of my wrist. I'm utterly still; I feel my pulse tap several times against his lips, and then he releases my hand."For luck," he says. He takes Dove's lead from me."Sean," I say, and he turns. I take his chin and kiss his lips, hard. I'm reminded, all of a sudden, of that first day on the beach, when I pulled his head from the water. "For luck," I say to his startled face.