I’ve been grooming horses in the neatest riding school just outside Paris, where they teach dressage. Part of my salary has gone into riding lessons naturally. Oh, Alec, I know what joy it is for you to ride a fast racehorse, but did you know you can achieve the same joy from riding at a slow, cadenced trot? It’s called “passage,” and you’re truly one with your horse. It’s the same feeling as when you ride the Black, only you achieve it by high, measured strides. I can’t wait to have you try it! We have Hanoverians, Trakehners, even Lipizzaners to ride when you get here!…

Alec paused again. He’d never heard of Hanoverians or Trakehners but knew of the Lipizzaners at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria. Pam’s love for horses included all breeds and all kinds of riding, Western as well as English. There was no one horse for her, as the Black was for him. She was a natural horsewoman, gifted with an instinctive understanding of the equine mind.

Pam loved all people as she did all breeds of horses, Alec reminded himself. She wanted to try everything, know everybody, not waste a minute of her time, her life. She wanted to enjoy each moment, each day, each horse and each face. How could she settle for one person, one kind of life with him? Alec wondered. He knew she loved him as he did her, but would it ever work out? It would, he decided, if he thought of marriage as not being mutual ownership. If he always respected Pam as the complete individual that she was and understood her love and need to expand. He had no doubt that he could do it. Pam’s response to life, her exuberance, her trust in her fellow man, was what made him love her all the more.

 … Three friends and I have rented a small Volkswagen and are leaving tomorrow for the Spanish Riding School in Vienna to see the Lipizzaners perform! We’ll be gone only a week, and I’ll be back by the time you get here. We’re going by way of the highest Alps through Austria, and the beauty of the snow-covered mountains and passes should be something to see! It’s snowing here in Paris so it should be really great up there! I wish you were going with me, but we’ll have our time together, Alec, and it will be forever. Ours is not a story with a beginning and an ending. Didn’t I always love you? Won’t I always?

Pam

Alec put the letters away. The difficult part of being in love, he thought, was letting go when and if necessary. One can never have or own anyone. But he needed Pam very much, now more than ever. How he wanted to forget the necessity for winning, the frustration of losing. How he hated the fact that, from a business point of view, so much money was invested in him to win. He knew that if he didn’t get away he’d break under the mental strain and be no good to Hopeful Farm or anyone else. Only Pam could help him break free of the pressures that had him imprisoned. He needed to feel her joy again, the joy of life itself and all it offered.

Alec left the office and went to his horses. Walking past the stalls, he smelled again all the familiar odors he loved—of hay, ammonia and feed—and heard the familiar sounds. Satan nickered and came to the iron bars of his stall, eager for attention. Even after so short a time away from the farm, Alec was impressed by Satan’s size.