Santiago turned, clicking his fingers as he did so to bring the horse to him … only there wasn’t a horse to bring. Ramon’s gelding was nowhere in sight.
The expression on his face when he realised that the horse had wandered away would have made her laugh on any other occasion.
He swore softly under his breath.
‘We’ve both lost a horse.’
His withering gaze swung her way. ‘Thank you for pointing that out. It is most helpful.’
Head tilted to one side, he fixed her with a narrow-eyed assessing glance until Lucy, feeling increasingly self-conscious by his unblinking regard, snapped crankily. ‘What? What’s wrong?’
‘I was just considering the options …’
Presuming he was about to share the details, she was taken totally by surprise by the abruptness of the action that followed his terse explanation. Lucy was so shocked that she offered no resistance when he almost casually lifted her into his arms—just a scream.
A moment later she managed a breathless, indignant, ‘What are you doing?’ Other than displaying strength that Lucy—who was not by anyone’s standards a small woman—struggled hard not to find impressive. However, she had never had a single fantasy about being rescued and swept into the strong arms of a man—any man.
Especially not this man!
‘Not wasting further time hanging around.’ For assistance that seemed to be taking a long time coming.
Or asking permission before treating her like a sack of coal, she mused, giving a second shrill yelp as he moved, striding across the open ground towards the forest trail.
Lucy stared at his ear and held herself stiff, noticing the way his hair curled around it into the nape of his neck … strong neck. It was mid-morning but she could see the beginning of stubble on his jaw and cheek. It would feel … She paused mid-thought and gasped.
‘I don’t want to know!’
‘Know what?’
Lucy’s eyes fell away guiltily. ‘Know how long it will be before you drop me.’ Pleased with her quick recovery, she lifted her gaze just as he loosened his grip for a split second but enough to make her react instinctively out of self-preservation.
She grabbed him, one hand sliding under his unfastened jacket, the other around his neck.
‘Breathing would be nice.’
There was an embarrassing delay before her brain, busy processing details like the warmth and lithe hardness of the warm male body she was crushed up against, reacted to his dry comment.
‘Very funny,’ she drawled, loosening her grip but not all the way—he was almost jogging now and the next time it might not be a joke. ‘Will you put me down? This is ridiculous.’ Almost as ridiculous as her reaction to a bit of muscle.
‘Look, I’d love to argue the toss with you, but frankly I need all my breath. You’re a lot heavier than you look.’ Her weight was not the problem, but the soft yielding nature of the warm body that seemed to fit naturally into his was. Lucy Fitzgerald was not a woman who had sharp angles; she was not a woman that a man could be close to and not think about naked.
It was an image that Santiago, whose normal iron control when it came to such matters was at that moment absent, struggled to erase. In fact, he was struggling to think beyond the surge of hormones that made him want to lay her down on the warm mossy ground and … The sound of his harsh inhalation was drowned out by Lucy’s indignant gasp.
‘Are you calling me fat?’
The growl of desire growing low in his throat turned into an amused snort as, appreciating the irony, he quirked his lips into a twisted smile. He had called her many things that were worse, but it was the suggestion that she was overweight that rattled her.
‘I may not be a skinny—’
A stone too heavy, according to the man from Hollywood who, at the height of her notoriety, had dangled the female lead in a new film with the proviso she lose that stone. It had clearly not even crossed his mind, or for that matter her jubilant agent’s, that Lucy would say thanks but no thanks to the chance of being the love interest to one of the industry’s most bankable stars.
‘Sorry, but I can’t act,’ she had said to soften her refusal.
This, it had turned out, was not an obstacle and her ability to look good in very little apparently more than compensated for this minor deficiency. The scandal attached to her name had apparently been deemed box-office gold.
‘But I’m not about to starve myself so men like you can feel macho hauling me around.’
‘Dios mio!’ He stopped dead and angled an astonished stare at her indignant face.
As their eyes connected the amused exasperation in his expression vanished, as did any temptation to defend himself against the accusation.
In his arms Lucy could feel his chest lifting as though standing there were putting more stress on his heart than jogging along had; her own heart was fluttering like a trapped bird in her chest cavity.
She told herself it was her weakened state that made her tremble, unable to admit even to herself it was being the focus of his febrile gaze that had sent her nervous system into shocked overload. As for the impression that the air around them was literally shimmering with a heat haze—that was obviously a result of dehydration or fever.
‘You have a perfect body and we both know it.’
Turning his attention abruptly back to the trail ahead, he picked up pace—not a cold shower but the next best thing—and wondered about the shock in her face. Such a reaction seemed bizarre considering she was a woman who traded on her looks and sensuality.
Silenced by the abrupt assessment, Lucy was almost glad when the nausea and stomach cramps took her mind off the molten stream of desire that had turned her into a breathless bundle of craving and reduced her brain function to zero.
When a short while later, or it might have been a long time, Lucy had lost track, he asked, ‘Are you sulking?’ Lucy thought it wise to warn him.
‘No, I don’t feel very well …’ Her eyes were closed as she spoke but she could feel his dark gaze on her face.
Presumably she looked terrible because he started jogging faster. There was no way, she thought dully, that he could keep up this pace for much longer even if he was incredibly fit.
‘Nearly there,’ he murmured close to her ear. ‘Hold on.’
‘God, don’t be nice to me,’ she begged, wondering what alternative universe she had slipped into where Santiago made her feel safe and cared for. ‘Or I’ll cry.’
Tears would have left him unmoved but the plea touched him. He could not think of another woman he knew who would prefer to be yelled at than give in to tears. ‘Shut up or I’ll drop you.’
Lucy sketched a weak smile and forgot to hate him. ‘Thank you. I suppose I am being very ungrateful.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll try not to throw up on you … it’s a beautiful suit,’ she heard herself say, and wondered if, despite the fact she felt freezing cold, she had a fever. ‘God, I’m never sick!’ she groaned, vowing to show more sympathy in future to people who were physically more fragile than she was.
She was now and the sight of her poor pale face made him complete the last leg of the journey in record time.
By the time they reached the stableyard there was no question of it being illicit lust that made Lucy