Page 8 of Lorenzo

I line up the perfect shot. Then a giant chocolate-colored German Shepherd jumps in front of me and races under the horse’s muzzle.

The horse goes wild.

I hear a sound like a crack of thunder.

The horse rises on his rear legs in front of me, all heavy chest and flailing legs. His once-elegant red feather plume whips sideways.

“Get back,” shouts the coachman.

The couple he’d been talking to scrambles for shelter.

I look up, absolutely frozen.

The horse looms like a wall of black above me, its hooves cutting the air in wide, desperate arcs.

I feel the displaced air on my face, hear the coachman still shouting.

And I even hear Anna’s tiny voice still speaking through the phone in my hand.

My legs refuse to move. Even though every rational part of me screams to run.

Out of the corner of my eye I catch a blur of black. A suit jacket, a shoulder …

… and then the air rushes out of me as a pair of arms locks around my waist and wrenches me sideways.

For a split second we are airborne.

I hear the horse’s hooves crashing down somewhere behind me.

And I’m close enough that I feel the shudder of it through the ground as the stranger who rescued me and I land hard in the grass.

The impact knocks my phone loose.

I lie there for a moment, the sky tilting above me.

The aroma of earth and cedar, combined with fresh-cut grass fills my lungs.

My savior is a man.

I can tell by the solid weight of him. The broad shelf of his shoulders above me. And the way his hand still grips my waist.

I can’t help but admire his firm jaw. And dark hair slightly displaced from whatever heroics just occurred.

And now he’s just close enough that I can see how good-looking he really is.

For one absurd moment, I think of Mr. Darcy striding across the grounds of Pemberley.

Anna’s voice filters through the phone which landed a few feet away.

“Emily? What’s happening?”

My rescuer crouches over me, his dark eyes scanning me up and down for injuries.

“Are you okay?” He closes a hand around my forearm and draws me to my feet in one clean motion.

I’m not okay. I feel dizzy.

The world tilts around me.