The smell of oats, hay and fresh shavings, and the hum of insects brought back memories. Until she’d turned seventeen, she’d spent almost as much time with her horse as her books, but when her old gelding had died of colic, she hadn’t had the heart to replace him.
“Did you miss the ranch when you were touring?”
For several moments, Rex ignored her question while he exchanged the bridle for a halter and cross-tied the mare in the stall. He shoved his hand into the caddy carrying the brushes and stabbed a soft bristled-body brush in her direction. “Yes. Groom her.”
Juliana couldn’t imagine leaving Wilmington or Alden’s behind. For as far back as she could remember, she’d wanted to work in Alden’s headquarters. The building’s two-story foyer, with its marble pillars and the wrought-iron railings on the second-floor balcony, had been her own personal castle. She’d loved visiting after hours with her father, listening to the echo of their footsteps across the marble floor and the overwhelming silence of the place after the employees and customers had left for the day.
Because she’d wanted to stay near home and friends, she’d chosen to attend the local state university—much to her mother’s dismay—rather than go to an Ivy League school out of state like so many of her classmates. The University of North Carolina at Wilmington had been her father’s alma mater, and for once he’d spoken out against her mother’s decrees and supported Juliana’s decision to go to school locally and serve an internship at Alden’s.
“Did you ever think of moving back?”
His gaze met hers over the horse’s withers. The grooves beside his mouth deepened, drawing her attention to the dark evening beard shadowing his square jaw and upper lip. “You bought riding lessons not my life story.”
Touchy, touchy. But she dealt with hostile people all the time. Digging into someone’s accounts and revealing discrepancies didn’t bring out the best in anyone. She’d learned to hold her ground and keep asking the questions until she had the information she needed. What exactly was she looking for here? She didn’t know, but she’d keep digging until she found it.
“No, Rex, I didn’t buy your biography, but if we’re going to spend approximately sixteen hours together over the next four weeks, then we have to have something to discuss besides the weather. The story of my life would put us both to sleep, and since I imagine napping is frowned upon when riding or driving, I thought we’d try yours. You’re welcome to volunteer other topics if you choose.”
Scowling, he removed the mare’s saddle and saddle pad, and deposited both on the top of the stall’s wooden half door, and then braced his hands on either side of it. His shoulders, clad in another Renegade T-shirt, looked as stiff and broad as the beams supporting the barn roof.
“Yes, I missed the ranch. And I wish I’d gone back. But, I didn’t. By the time I wised up, my sister had married and moved away and my parents were dead.” He delivered the information in a matter-of-fact tone. His warning not to offer pity or sympathy came across loud and clear, but the ill-concealed pain in his voice brought a lump to Juliana’s throat.
She ducked under the cross-tie, hesitated and then laid her hand on the rigid muscles of his back. “I’m sorry.”
He flinched and stepped out of reach, then ducked to pick up the grooming caddy. Heat zinged through her from the brief contact, crackling and popping along her nerve endings in an unsettling manner. She lowered her arm and closed her prickling fingers into a fist. Before she could separate and label the avalanche of sensations, he straightened and turned. The emptiness in his eyes made her chest ache.
“Don’t be. I got what I deserved. Groom the mare. I’ll put the tack away and get her oats. We have to meet the reporter at Renegade in thirty minutes.” He shoved the grooming box in her direction, snatched up the saddle and bridle as if they weighed nothing, and left.
Juliana stared after him. If Rex thought snarling like a wounded beast would put her off, then he’d miscalculated. The glimmer of softness he tried so hard to conceal had piqued her curiosity, and once Juliana had a puzzle to solve, she never gave up until she had every piece in place.
Three
“So tell me, Ms. Alden, why would the heiress to a banking empire need to buy a date?” Octavia Jenkins, the reporter, asked.
Heiress. Rex’s chair wobbled precariously. He nearly fell over backward. Fighting for balance, he rocked forward. The front legs of the chair hit the floor with a thud. Up until now, he’d been completely relaxed. His half of the interview had gone well. He’d plugged the bar, served the reporter a selection of tasty appetizers and avoided discussing his aborted career.
“Your family owns the bank?” Rex asked. His first impression after the auction had been that Juliana had more money than sense, but he hadn’t expected it to be that much money. Holy spit.
Juliana shifted in her seat and glanced around the restaurant as if checking to see who’d overheard his question. “I told you I worked for Alden Bank and Trust.”
“You never told me your family owned it.” And owned him, or at least the note on his business. It would be her family’s minions who would padlock Renegade’s doors if Rex couldn’t pay off the note. And he’d lose everything—his apartment and his business—since he’d invested all he had into Renegade. “You never told me your last name.”
“You never asked.”
He hadn’t asked because he hadn’t wanted to get involved beyond the lessons. So much for detachment.
The reporter looked up from her furious note-taking with a hungry glint in her eyes and a flush on her cocoa-colored skin. Rex had seen that look often enough in the past to know it meant trouble. “Were you trying to keep your family connections a secret?”
Juliana hesitated. “What would be the point? Every eligible male in the southeast knows who my family is.”
And that, Rex deduced from Juliana’s flat tone, was an issue. Had the banker’s daughter experienced the degradation of being dated for what she represented rather than who she was as a person? He tamped down the empathy budding in his chest because he didn’t want to have anything in common with Juliana. But she’d put a chink in the wall he’d worked so hard to build between them.
“Which leads us back to my original question, Ms. Alden. You should have men standing in line to wine and dine you. Why buy one?”
Juliana looked every inch the poised southern belle as she lifted her chin and smiled—a smile that Rex noted didn’t reach her eyes—at the reporter. “My mother is the auction organizer. I wanted to support her efforts.”
Bull. Rex didn’t know how he knew it, but something in her voice and in her beauty-queen bearing told him that wasn’t the real reason Juliana Alden, banking heiress, for crying out loud, had bought his package. His auction package—he clarified when a neglected part of his anatomy twitched to attention.
“And why did you choose Rex?”
Yeah, why him? He silently seconded Octavia’s question. Lacing his fingers on the tabletop, he awaited Juliana’s response.
“He’s new in town and I’ve never ridden a motorcycle.” More bull. He’d bet his Harley on it.
“You’re playing welcoming committee?” He didn’t bother to sugarcoat his disbelief.
“Is there something wrong with being neighborly?” She eyed him haughtily, but the tension in her features told its own tale. What was she hiding? Curiosity coiled in his gut.
Octavia persisted. “This had nothing to do with your recent thirtieth birthday, coming into your trust fund and your friends Andrea Montgomery and Holly Prescott also buying bachelors?”
Juliana paled and her eyes widened slightly. She inhaled a long