Chapter One

1

The Beach

The Black Stallion raced along the beach at the water’s edge, spray flying from his hooves. Alec Ramsay pressed himself flat against his horse’s neck. Riding bareback, he was crouching high and tight and perfectly balanced, guiding the stallion with soft pressure from his hands and legs. Slowly he eased the Black out of his gallop, to a trot, and then a walk.

Tossing his head, Alec sat up and flicked his red hair out of his eyes. Gray predawn light shone over the sand dunes on one side of him and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. Out to sea a distant line of fog blurred the horizon where the ocean met the sky.

This was nice, Alec thought. He took in another deep breath of sea air and blinked his tired eyes. He’d been up late last night and barely slept an hour before he and the Black left New York’s Belmont Park at four o’clock this morning. After an hour’s drive, he arrived at his friend Pete Murray’s riding academy, located next to this wildlife refuge on the coast of Long Island. The reason for coming here was to pick up a yearling colt Pete wanted moved up to Hopeful Farm. Alec was vanning the Black back to the farm today, so he’d offered to bring the chestnut-colored colt along with them. But when Pete realized he had misplaced some of the yearling’s medical records, he suggested Alec take the Black for a ride on the beach. It would give them something to do while he searched through his files for the missing papers.

Alec looked out to sea, letting his sleepy gaze drift away into the distance. The fog on the horizon was moving closer now. The wind was still. Just offshore a fishing