His, Carolyn Faulkner [books to read to be successful .TXT] 📗

Normally, he might whisk her away to some exotic place, but unless she'd expressed some sort of interest in going anywhere in particular, he couldn't see spending the travel time.

So what he did was throw a small, casual party for her and some of their closest friends, with all of her favorite foods, and no presents allowed, and a very ostentatious birthday cake with multiple tiers, because he knew that one of her few indulgences was a big slab of cake from a particular bakery in town. The only gift allowed at the party was his own, to her, which he gave to her as he toasted her with Cristal champagne, telling her in a voice that carried, but in a way that no one else would really know the intimate meaning of, "One of the things I'm giving you for your birthday is the weekend off."

Her smile nearly blinded him, and what he'd given her hadn't cost him a dime - that was so like Raina. He could have given her a diamond the size of her head on a gold necklace as wide as a belt and he knew that her smile wouldn't have been any bigger or brighter.

Applause and giggles tittered through their small audience, and one of their friends piped up with, "Is that all?"

Raina preempted his answer, hugging him tight and saying, "That's more than enough!"

Someone - who knew him extremely well and could get away with it - shouted out, "Cheap bastard!" and everyone laughed, knowing, that especially when it came to Raina, he was anything but.

And he proved them right even more so the next day, when there wasn't a crowd around to comment on it, or even know about it. He wasn't that type of person - he didn't need anyone's approval for what he did.

He made her breakfast himself the next morning, all of her favorites - both patty and link maple breakfast sausage, which she almost never ate, French toast using some excellent Italian bread from the same bakery that had done her birthday cake, drowning in butter and real Vermont maple syrup, and a big mug of Dunkin Doughnuts coffee. Despite the fact that they could afford better - that she could have afforded better before she even met him - that remained her favorite brand of coffee.

He'd also cut a large slab of the tons of remaining birthday cake, just in case she had a hankering. On her birthday, she could - and did - eat anything, and cake for breakfast wasn't the worst she'd ever requested first thing in the morning. The first time he'd done this, she'd wanted a full New England roast dinner - complete with potatoes, carrots, and onions - despite the fact that it was only seven o'clock in the morning. With a slab of cake for dessert, then, too, as he recalled.

After she'd stuffed herself - and shared liberally with him everything but the cake - he asked her to get up and get dressed. Raina always had to do an auditory double take once a year, because she wasn't used to him asking her to do anything. And this time, he was even asking that she put clothes on. How unusual!

She acquiesced to his requests easily, mostly because he'd piqued her interest. Once she was dressed, he took her hand and guided her out the back door, then down the gentle slope towards what had been an abandoned guesthouse. It didn't look abandoned any more, but then it had been years since she'd been down here. If they had guests, which was rarely, they stayed in one of the multitude of bedrooms in the main house.

As they got closer and closer, and she saw how it had been cleaned up and painted, Raina supposed that, if his present to her was to have renovated the place, so that they could have privacy even when they were invaded with family or friends, that would be lovely.

But just then, his surprise - one of them, anyway - decided to announce itself, and a big black head craned over the half door of what had been converted to a stall, joined seconds later by a second, beautiful, fiery red ginger head that nickered at her as if they'd been friends for years.

Raina was overwhelmed, and ran to pat those sleek necks and scratch the big, friendly faces. She'd had horse fever all her life - since she was six or eight or so and discovered horses through an ancient copy of "Black Beauty", but of course her family had absolutely no money for such luxuries. And then, now that she did have the money, she hadn't remembered the yearning, although it had never really left her.

She'd confided her interest in horses to him one evening months and months ago, when they were talking quietly in the darkness. He'd suggested that she look into lessons, but she'd never gotten around to it.

The sorrel kept butting her chest, as if demanding a special something. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I don't have a treat for you - " she started to apologize, but only until he produced a big bag of apples, which she doled out to the grateful animals, then threw herself into his arms.

"Thank you so much - this is too generous!"

He gave her a look that said she'd better not go any further with that sentence, and she didn't. She was much too tickled.

"The stable is just big enough for the two of them. You have all the tack you need, and I have someone coming on a daily basis to take care of them."

"Oh, wow, I was wondering how I was going to muck out a stall and get into work at the same time!" She was so happy she was practically dancing, and her happiness was infectious.

"No, that's not all of your surprised, you know."

When Raina turned to him, her eyes sparkled with dainty greed. "It's not?" she whispered, not really believing him.

But