“Fine. I’ll be up, too.” She set her cup and saucer on the cart. “Good night, Dante.”
“Good night, Daisy.”
She was up early. Daisy dressed in her still-dark room and, aided with directions from a sleepy housemaid, found the stables just as the sun broke on the horizon. Inside the stables a half dozen ranch hands were already busy at work.
Daisy immediately liked Señor Gutierrez. He was an older man, wiry, strong and grizzled from a lifetime in the sun. The morning passed quickly, and at noon Daisy returned to the house for lunch. But on reaching the house she discovered it empty. Dante and Anabella had already gone.
There weren’t really words, she thought, for the emptiness she felt on learning that Dante had left on time after all, and without saying goodbye. She felt utterly flattened. Not to mention rejected.
It wasn’t that she expected a big emotional farewell, but some kind of goodbye would have been nice.
Face it, she told herself, standing on the veranda and facing the stables and protective ring of trees, you wanted to see him this morning. You were counting on seeing him this morning.
It was true. All morning as she’d followed Señor Gutierrez around the stables she’d felt a bubble of excitement, a bubble she’d tried to suppress, but it had been there and she’d felt happy thinking she’d see Dante soon.
Now he was gone, and she had no idea when he’d be back.
The afternoon passed much more slowly, and Daisy was relieved when Señor Gutierrez sent her back to the house. Daisy had a solitary dinner before retiring to her room. It wasn’t even nine when she turned out her light but she was tired and a little blue, and sleep offered a respite from thoughts of Dante.
A doorbell was ringing somewhere far away. Daisy was dreaming about Collingsworth Farm and didn’t want to leave the dream behind. She pressed her pillow over her head, trying to block the doorbell, but it just rang and rang and finally she realized it wasn’t the door, but the phone on her nightstand.
Rolling over, she lifted the receiver. “Hola,” she whispered groggily.
“Did I wake you, Daisy?”
Dante. She propped herself on her elbows. “What time is it?”
“Almost eleven. I didn’t know you’d be in bed already or I would have waited for the morning.”
“I was tired.”
“I can call back—”
“No!” she interrupted, and then closed her eyes when she heard him laugh softly. He knew how she felt. Even if she pretended indifference, he knew better.
“I’m sorry about leaving so abruptly this morning. I made my meeting in Buenos Aires and then Anabella was being difficult. I meant to call earlier but the day got away from me.”
“These things happen.”
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m not hurt. I don’t care—”
“You don’t fool me with this ‘I don’t care’ routine. You do care, Daisy. I care, too.”
She pressed her forehead against her palm, squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for patience. “Let’s not talk about this again. We’re not getting anywhere and it just makes me crazy.”
She heard him draw a slow breath.
“I think I’d like to see Daisy lose control,” he said after a lengthy pause. “I think it would be incredible.”
“Well, it’s not going to happen.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. We might just have to wait until you’ve returned to Kentucky, but it will happen. I promise you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
IF HE thought his promise was a comfort to her, he was wrong.
Daisy slugged her pillow hard and then again before finally getting comfortable and falling back asleep. But in the morning her temper was still on edge.
Thankfully, working with Señor Gutierrez helped keep her mind off Dante—during the day at least. At night, however, she found herself thinking about him endlessly. It was awful wanting someone this much, awful craving contact. She thought she’d give anything to be in his arms, against his chest, breathing him in.
She’d never felt like this before. If this was lust she could do without it.
Four days passed, four very long days. When she finished work on Thursday she remained at the paddock near the stable, not able to face returning to the empty hacienda-style house.
This is for the good of the family, she reminded herself, picking up the heavy rope and tying it into a loose knot. You’re here for Dad and Zoe, and it won’t be forever.
She swung the rope over her head and let it fly. The loop landed around a fence post and she pulled hard, cinching the knot.
“Do it again.”
The voice was Dante’s, the energy his, too. Daisy felt a shiver run through her. Slowly she turned and looked over her shoulder. He was every bit as tall and sexy and devilishly gorgeous as she remembered. “Hello, count.”
Was that cool, calm voice hers? She couldn’t believe she could sound so calm when her heart had begun to race, thumping like a wild bronc.
“Can you do it again?” he asked, leaning on the fence railing, watching her where she stood in the center of the ring.
“Of course. I could lasso you, if I wanted.”
His eyes gleamed. “You’re that good?”
“I’m very good.”
His laugh, husky and low, soothed her somehow. “You’ve never lacked confidence.”
He was wearing jeans and boots and a tight black T-shirt and as he swung himself up onto the top railing, muscles popped in his forearms and biceps.
She felt heat bloom within her, and happiness, too. She shouldn’t care that he was back and yet everything in her was responding to him. Everything was turning on. “Why should I? I can do anything I want to do.”
“I’ll have to remember that.” The way he said it sounded very sexual and lethal at the same time.
He watched her move to the fence post and untie the knot she’d thrown. He was a couple feet away but she felt him so strongly that her hands shook.
“Señor Gutierrez said you’re a fast study,” he said.
The sun was beginning to drop in the sky but it was still warm, still a beautiful day. The blue of the sky stretched forever. She stalked to the center of the ring. “I could have told you that.”
“He said you know what you’re doing.”
“I think I did tell you that.” Her lips twitched. “About a hundred times.”
“Not a hundred,” he answered mockingly. “Maybe eight times.”
“Nine,” she retorted.
“You are incredibly stubborn.”
“Yes. One of my many virtues.”
“You do have many virtues, but I don’t think stubbornness is one of them.”
“Maybe you just need to learn to appreciate it.”
He laughed softly, and she cast him a cool glance. Their eyes met, and Daisy saw appreciation in his gaze, appreciation and something else that made her heart falter and her belly tighten.
He wanted her.
Her throat felt raspy as she breathed in. She