“She competed in small, regional stuff,” he backpedalled. “Nothing at your level. She gave it up to have a family. But she had a way with horses like no one I’ve ever seen.”
Her expressive eyes took on a reflective cast. “My mama was like that. Horses gravitated to her—it was like she spoke their language. They’d do anything for her in the ring.”
Zara Hargrove. Alejandro knew from his grandmother she had died in a riding accident at the height of her career. Which would have made Cecily only a teenager when she’d lost her... Tough.
He ran a palm over the stubble on his jaw, hardening his heart against those dark bruised eyes. “You will figure this out. Bacchus will come around.”
Her lips pursed. “I hope so.”
She fed Bacchus another handful of cereal. He pulled his gaze away from the vulnerable curve of her mouth. Dio. She was the enemy. It might be guilt by association, she might have been trained to be a Hargrove, but she was one nonetheless. He was nuts to be standing here trying to solve her problems.
He knelt beside Bacchus’s hind leg. “Show me where he tore the tendons.”
She squatted beside him and ran her hand down the horse’s leg. “Here.”
“Difficult spot.” He wrapped his fingers around the tendons and very gently worked the leg, massaging the sinewy flesh until it eased beneath his fingers.
“Can I try?” Cecily asked.
He nodded and dropped his hand.
She wrapped her fingers around the horse’s leg, kneading his flesh. But her touch was too tentative, too light to do any good.
“Like this.” He closed his fingers over hers to demonstrate, increasing the pressure. The warmth of her hand bled into his, a fission of electricity passing between them. Heat flared beneath his skin. Her breath grew shallow. He inhaled her delicate floral scent, so soft and seductive as it infiltrated his senses with potent effect. They may have had a rocky start, she might be the enemy, but his body wasn’t registering either of those facts, consumed with a sensual awareness of her that clawed at his skin.
She turned to look at him, eyes darkening. “Have you ever thought of doing this for a living? You’re very good at it.”
“I’ve thought about it.” He responded as Colt Banyon, professional drifter. “But I like to travel too much. Maybe someday I’ll settle down and get my own place.”
She didn’t scoff at that, as if he didn’t have a hope in hell of ever owning a place like this. Didn’t know he could buy and sell her family ten times over. Only said quietly, sincerity shining in her eyes, “I hope you do that someday. You’d be amazing at it.”
He thought then that perhaps first impressions hadn’t done Cecily Hargrove justice. That if he curved his fingers around her neck and drew her to him for a kiss so he could taste that delectable mouth, she wouldn’t protest, she’d meet him halfway. That if he did, he might be able to banish some of those dark shadows from her eyes for just a few minutes.
Why all of a sudden it was the most unbearably tempting proposition when it was the last thing in the world he should ever do was beyond him.
He pushed to his feet before madness ensued. “A few minutes of that every day will help him stretch out, trust himself a bit more. It might help.”
She rose to her feet beside him, any hint of an invitation gone from those blue eyes. If he saw a flash of regret there, she masked it just as quickly.
“Thank you, Colt,” she said quietly, brushing her palms against her dress. “He’s in excellent hands. Y’all have yourself a good night.”
* * *
Oh, my God. Cecily dragged in a deep breath as she exited the stables on weak knees, the earth feeling as if it was shifting beneath her feet. What had just happened?
You didn’t invite a complete stranger to kiss you when he’d clearly barely been tolerating your presence and didn’t even like you. And yet, her dazed brain processed, for a second there, she’d thought he’d been thinking about kissing her too before he’d replaced those barriers of his and put her back in her place as surely as she’d put him in his earlier today.
Had she imagined it?
She pressed her palms to her heated cheeks. She shouldn’t be interested in kissing anyone right now. It was the last thing she should be doing with her career hanging in the balance.
Skirting the floodlit natural water grotto her father had spent millions building for her mother, she took the path to the house. Perhaps she should go stick her head in there. It might inject some sense into her.
Hadn’t her disastrous engagement to Davis taught her a lesson? Good looking men were trouble. A disaster waiting to happen. She was better off sticking with males of the four legged variety. They never broke her heart.
CECILY SPENT THE next few days steadfastly ignoring sexy, elusive Colt Banyon and putting all her focus into her practice sessions. But it seemed the harder she tried, the worse her times became—as if desperation was setting in and Bacchus could sense it, feeding off her nerves in all the worst ways.
By the time Friday rolled around, her event three weeks away, she was at her wit’s end. She could continue to pound away at the fruitless efforts that were getting her nowhere or she could follow Colt’s suggestion and take a step back.
She couldn’t afford to give up on her hopes for the season, but perhaps she might be able to rewire her horse’s brain with a total change of pace. Maybe Bacchus just needed a mental breather, an escape from the pressure cooker. Just like her.
An idea filled her head over tea in the thankfully deserted breakfast room. Except she knew her father wouldn’t allow it unless she took someone with her and since having company along for the ride defeated the purpose of obtaining some peace, it wasn’t an option.
Unless she took the less than talkative Colt with her, she mused over a sip of tea. She could pick his brain about some of his techniques along the way. While keeping her head in sane territory, of course, something that shouldn’t be hard because Colt would clearly give her the brush off again if she did something dumb like invite him to kiss her, which of course, she wouldn’t.
Her mouth curved. It was a plan. She finished her tea, collected her things and went off to execute.
* * *
Alejandro dropped the package off at the courier office in town on his mid-morning break. Containing a sample of Bacchus’s mane hairs, it was now up to Stavros’s high tech lab to confirm the Hargroves’ crime.
He texted Stavros from the truck.
Package has been sent. Obrigado amigo, I owe you one.
Forget it. I’m feeling generous. I am, after all, soon to be a married man.
Alejandro almost dropped his phone.
Sorry?
You heard me. Details to come. Got to run.
Got to run? Alejandro eyed the phone as he threw it on the seat of the truck. Antonio with an insta-family? Stavros married? What the hell was going on? It was...insano.
Stavros, he bemusedly processed as he started the truck, didn’t even sound panicked about it. He sounded almost...cheerful.
The sense of relief he’d been feeling about having netted this particular challenge magnified ten-fold as he drove back to the farm. No chance of any of those emotional attachments with him. He didn’t need to acquire a wife