Читать книгу The Prince's Cowgirl Bride - Brenda Harlen, Brenda Harlen - Страница 9

Jewel decided to grab a quick shower after she finished up at Haven and was just tugging on a clean pair of jeans when she heard a knock on the back door. A quick glance at the clock confirmed that it was almost six. Confident that the housekeeper would let him in, she didn’t hurry. She was combing her fingers through the unruly mass of hair she’d released from its ponytail when the knock came again.

Ignoring the socks she’d tossed on the bed, she made her way to the kitchen. Where she expected to find Bonnie hovering at the stove, she instead found a note.

Crystal is driving me into town to pick up a package at FedEx. Dinner is in the oven. Enjoy.

She noted the two place settings along with the candles and wine on the table and seriously doubted that there was any package. She’d invited Mac to dinner because she’d believed Crystal and Bonnie would also be there. But somehow her conniving sister had managed to take what was supposed to be a business discussion over a meal and made it look like a date. And while she understood her sister’s motivations, she had no intention of being manipulated.

She tucked the candles and wine into the pantry, returned the stemware to the cupboard and moved the place settings to opposite ends of the table before she went to answer the door.

The first thing Mac noticed when Jewel opened the door was that she’d showered and changed since she’d left the stable. Her hair tumbled freely down her back, her freshly scrubbed skin glowed and her feet were bare. She wasn’t wearing any makeup that he could tell, but she looked beautiful, natural.

She noticed the flowers in his hand and frowned. “You shouldn’t have brought me flowers.”

“They’re only for you if you cooked the pot roast.” He was pleased to note that his response had surprised her, because he suspected that the only way he was going to make progress with Jewel was to give her the unexpected and keep her off her stride.

“I didn’t.” She smiled wryly. “For which we should both be truly grateful.”

He smiled back. “Then the daisies are for Bonnie.”

“You’ve met Bonnie?”

“Not yet, but your sister did such a good job extolling her culinary virtues I almost feel as if I have.”

“Well, you won’t meet her tonight, either. She had an errand to run in town.” Jewel took the flowers from him. “But I’ll put these in water for her and tell you that she’d appreciate the thought.”

As he followed her into the house, he thought she smelled good enough to eat, though he didn’t think the citrusy scent was perfume. She didn’t seem the type to bother with such frills. More likely the scent was from some kind of lotion or cream that she’d rubbed onto her skin after her shower.

He firmly shoved that tempting image from his mind and glanced around the kitchen.

The table and chairs appeared to be solidly built and obviously well used. The dishes were stoneware rather than china, the cutlery was stainless instead of silver, the napkins made of paper not linen. It was a family table, and the rich aromas that filled the air were those of a good, home-cooked meal, and he found the simplicity of everything appealed to him.

As Jewel appealed to him.

Noting that the table was set for two, he said, “I thought your sister would be here for dinner.”

“So did I.”

Something in her tone suggested that she wasn’t only surprised—but annoyed—by Crystal’s change of plans. And he wondered if it was the thought of dining alone with him that bothered her.

“Does her absence mean there’s no cheesecake?” he asked.

“No.” She smiled as she carried a tray laden with thick slices of beef and chunky roasted vegetables to the table. “The cheesecake’s in the fridge.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” he said.

She gestured for him to sit, but he scooped the basket of warm rolls and the pitcher of steaming gravy from the counter to set on the table before she could do so.

She slanted him a look, as if his willingness to assist with domestic chores was something else she hadn’t expected, but silently took her own seat on the other side of the table.

He loaded his plate with a generous helping of beef and vegetables and noted that she did the same. When he passed her the pitcher of gravy, she smothered her plate with it.

They chatted casually while they ate, about the horses and the routines in her stables and then about thoroughbred training and racing in general. He enjoyed her company as much as dinner because of her sharp intelligence and wry humor and found he was reluctant for the meal to end.

When she got up to get dessert, she frowned at the clock. “Is it seven-thirty already?”

“Looks like,” he agreed. “Is there somewhere else you need to be?”

“No.” She slid a generous slice of cake onto a plate. “I was just wondering what kind of errand could have kept Bonnie out so long.”

As if on cue, the phone rang. Jewel passed him the plate then excused herself to answer the call.

“That was Bonnie checking in,” she said, when she returned to the table. “Apparently she and Crystal decided to stop for coffee and got caught up chatting with some mutual acquaintance.”

He stabbed his fork into the cake, noting that while she’d started to relax over dinner, she wasn’t so relaxed now. Was she anxious for him to leave? Or nervous because the phone call had reminded her that they were alone together?

She sat back down with obvious reluctance and cut herself a much smaller piece of cake.

“Tell me about Haven,” he said. “The more I know about it, the more useful I can be.”

“Why are you so eager to help out?”

“I figured that was obvious,” he said. “I’m trying to ingratiate myself to you so you’ll keep me around, maybe even consider having a hot and torrid affair with me.”

Jewel glanced at Mac across the table. “Was that comment intended to fluster or flatter me?”

He shrugged. “I’m guessing it failed on both counts.”

Actually it had succeeded on both counts, but she wasn’t willing to let him know it. Or know that she’d given some thought to the same thing.

“Are you always so suspicious when someone offers you help?” he asked her.

“Let’s just say that I’ve learned to look for the strings that are usually attached.”

“I like horses,” he said. “And, for some reason, I like you, too. Maybe it did occur to me that spending time at Haven might result in spending time with you, but my motives are no more nefarious than that.”

“Well, you were right about extra hands being needed at Haven,” she said. “And if you really want to spend your spare time there, I have no objection.”

“That’s incredibly gracious of you,” he said.

She smiled at his dry tone. “Yeah, Crystal’s always telling me I need to work on my social skills. But the horses don’t usually complain.”

“I’m not complaining,” he said.

She took the tray of leftovers to the counter to wrap up. She heard the scrape of chair legs on the floor as Mac pushed away from the table, too, then brought their plates to the counter.

“Are you going to question my motives for clearing the table, too?”

She bit down on her lip, because she’d been tempted to do exactly like that. Instead she said, “I appreciate your help, but I can handle it.”

He ignored her and began loading the dishwasher.

“You’ve got to be up early in the morning,” she pointed out.

“And you’ll be up just as early,” he noted. “Whatever time I walk into the stable, you’ve already been there.”

“It’s my stable,” she pointed out.

“No one’s disputing that.” He nudged her aside with his hip so he could move around to the other side of the dishwasher.

The brief contact shot arrows of awareness zinging through her system.

She stepped back quickly and braced her hands on the counter behind her. As she did so, her elbow bumped a water goblet on the counter and sent it crashing to the floor. The glass shattered, jagged shards flying.

Silently cursing her clumsiness, she started toward the closet for the broom.

“Watch,” Mac said.

“I am,” she snapped irritably, then swore when she stepped down on a piece of glass.

She lifted her foot, saw the blood was already dripping.

Before she could say anything, he scooped her up off her feet and lifted her onto the counter. Her breath whooshed out of her, though she wasn’t sure if that was because of the unexpected jolt when he plunked her down or the surprising thrill of being held by a strong man.

He took a step back and picked up her foot. His hand was warm, his touch firm but gentle, and somehow incredibly sensual.

“Mac—”

He snagged a paper towel from the roll. “Just let me take a look.”

She didn’t see as she had much choice in the matter. And when his thumb slid over her instep, she didn’t protest because she was incapable of speaking.

He dabbed gently at the blood. “You up-to-date on your tetanus shots?”

“I had one a couple of years ago,” she said.

“It doesn’t look like it needs a stitch, but it definitely needs some antiseptic cream and a bandage.”

“There’s a first-aid kit in the bathroom. If you let me get down, I’ll—”

“You stay put,” he said. “I’ll get it.”

“You give orders better than you take them, Mac,” she noted when he returned with the box of medical supplies.

He shrugged. “I didn’t figure you wanted to get blood all over the floor by hobbling around before that cut was tended to.”

She didn’t, of course, but that wasn’t the point. “I would have managed just fine if you weren’t here.”

In fact, she probably wouldn’t have knocked the glass off the counter if he hadn’t been there to distract her—not that she was going to admit as much to him.

She sucked in a breath when he wiped an antiseptic pad over the bottom of her foot.

“You’re being ungrateful again,” he told her.

She frowned at that. “I’m used to doing things on my own.”

“Then it’s not just me,” he noted, dabbing some cream onto the pad of a Band-Aid before affixing it to her wound.

“No.”

His fingers smoothed down the edges of the dressing, and caused those tingles to dance and swirl through her system again.

“Maybe,” she muttered under her breath.

Not quietly enough, obviously, because he looked up at her and grinned.

“That should take care of it,” he said, finally releasing her foot.

But he didn’t move away, and she was suddenly aware of the intimacy of their positions—of the cupboards behind her back, and the man standing between her thighs.

“I need to, uh, get that glass swept up.”

He stayed where he was, his hands on the counter, bracketing her knees. “Are you always this skittish when anyone gets too close?”

She laid her hands on his chest and tried not to think about the solid muscles beneath her palms, the strong beat of his heart, or the heat of his skin as she pushed him back a few inches.

The intensity in his gaze made everything inside her quiver, but she managed to keep her eyes level with his and her voice steady when she responded. “I have this thing about personal space—as in, I don’t like people in mine.”

Before he could say anything else, a flash of headlights warned of a vehicle coming up the driveway.

“That will be Crystal dropping Bonnie off,” she told him, torn between relief and disappointment that their time alone together was about to be interrupted. Because as much as she did tend to veer away from intimacy, she occasionally experienced pangs of loneliness, moments when she was sometimes even tempted to open up her heart again. Usually those moments were quick to pass and her life would go back to normal.

But Mac Delgado had shaken up the status quo the minute he walked into the Halfway Café, and Jewel didn’t know what—if anything—she was going to do about him.

Mac’s knowing expression suggested that he’d picked up on her mixed emotions, that he knew how confused she was and how tempted she didn’t want to be. She found it strange that a man she’d met only a week earlier should be able to see through all the layers she’d worked so hard to build up over the years and recognize the longing that was buried deep in her heart.

And she knew that if she wasn’t careful, he might find a way to tunnel through those layers.

As Mac found the broom and quickly swept up and disposed of the broken glass, Jewel promised herself that she would be careful. Very careful.

Jewel was making some adjustments to the yearling training schedule on her computer when Caleb Bryant came into her office. He’d started as an exercise boy for her father when Jewel was still riding ponies and they’d grown up and into the business together. Now he wasn’t just an Eclipse-winning trainer but a good friend.

The ready smile faded when she saw the concern etched between his dark brows.

“Gabe Anderson was here,” he told her.

It was all he said, and yet those few words said so much. Gabe Anderson had been a client of Callahan for a long time, and he’d never made any secret of the fact that he had doubts about JC’s ability to run the facility as her father had done. Jewel would have liked to be able to tell him to take his horses elsewhere, but the fact was, he had a fair amount of clout in the racing world and a lot of horseflesh in her stables. So she gritted her teeth and tried to accommodate his needs and wishes whenever possible, but something in Caleb’s eyes warned it wouldn’t be so easy this time.

“Is there a problem?”

“After Midnight came ninth in a field of fourteen at Belmont on the weekend.”

She rubbed at the throb in her temple. The headache had been hovering there for a couple of hours, but she’d managed to stave it off with a handful of aspirin and focused determination. Until now.

“Should he have done better?”

Caleb only shrugged. “He’s a young colt with a lot of potential, but right now, he has more enthusiasm than focus.”

And that was the reason, she suspected, that Caleb had recommended not racing the colt so early in the season. The two-year-old had been a late season foal and would have benefited from a few more months training before being loaded into a starting gate. But he was also a foal with impressive bloodlines and a price tag to match, and she knew that Anderson was focused so intently on seeing a return for his investment that he couldn’t see anything else.