Читать книгу Wedding His Takeover Target / Inheriting His Secret Christmas Baby: Wedding His Takeover Target - Emilie Rose - Страница 13

She needed to end this Christmas card moment now, Sabrina decided as the carriage turned the corner and the inn came into view. But telling herself to snap out of the romantic fantasy Gavin had created with his horse-drawn tour of the city at sunrise and doing it were two different things. She adored horses and buggy rides—thanks to her grandmother.

Warm and toasty despite the frosty temperatures, she snuggled deeper into the fur blankets. Gavin had plied her with hot coffee, fresh beignets and stories about growing up in Aspen, and sometime during the past hour the steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves and the quiet tinkling of the bells on their harnesses had combined with the light drifting snow and the crisp start of a new day to blur the line between reality and fantasy.

“You have good hands,” she offered grudgingly.

He shot her a look filled with sexual intent and the fire in his dark eyes nearly roasted her.

She gulped. “I meant you’re good at this carriage-driving thing. Your grip is steady but firm on the reins. My grandmother always said good hands were the mark of a good horseman.”

“My father made us work a variety of jobs. I drove the carriages when I had the chance.”

“What other jobs did you have?”

“We did whatever needed doing. Dad wanted us to learn the resort business from the bottom up.”

Once again, Gavin blew her preconceptions out of the water. Could he truly be that different from the spoiled men who’d attended the college where her parents taught? “You were good with Pops yesterday. How did you know how to handle the situation? Every time I try to talk to him about Grandma he gets ornery.”

“I’ve learned from experience with friends and co-workers who’ve lost loved ones to listen if they want to talk and give them space and privacy to grieve when they need it. Men don’t like to share their tears.”

When he said insightful things like that it was difficult to believe he was scheming to steal the inn from Pops. In fact, at the moment she actually liked Gavin. And that wasn’t good. Her guard was down, and she needed to keep a clear head around him. Being with him threatened the inner peace she’d fought so hard to find. But as long as they stayed out in the open nothing could happen.

He guided the horses into the inn’s driveway and then steered the carriage toward the barn. She straightened, letting the fur blanket slip. “Where are you going?”

“Henry’s letting me keep the horses in your barn while I’m working here. This pair is good for riding as well as pulling the carriage. You miss riding. So do I. We’ll ride together.”

No. No. No. “I don’t have time to ride.”

“You have to make time for the things that matter. Besides, Henry likes watching you. He says you and your grandmother rode together.”

Making it a request from Pops made it impossible to refuse. “She’s the one who taught me to ride. Her horses were her babies.”

He climbed from the carriage and opened the barn’s double doors then returned. The coach rocked as he resettled himself in the seat, his body nudging hers and bumping her heart rate right off the charts, then he clucked to the mares, driving them inside.

The barn smelled different. Instead of dust and disuse, Sabrina smelled fresh hay, shavings and oats. She scanned the stalls as she descended. Two of the four had been prepared. “When did you do this?”

Gavin made closing the heavy sliding doors look easy when she knew it was anything but. She grunted and groaned and had to put her entire body weight into it when she opened them. “Henry and I cleaned up after we returned from the mine.”

She’d wondered where the men had gone. “Usually Pops naps in the afternoon.”

“He naps because he has no sense of purpose. He needs to feel useful,” he said as he began unhitching the harness from the horses.

Without the pale sunlight the shadowy interior created an intimacy she didn’t want—not while she battled this push-pull thing between them. “But the inn’s chore list—”

“Is beyond his capabilities at the moment. He’s not ready to admit it yet.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile that made her stomach flutter.

“Mucking stalls is too much for him.”

“I had him clean the tack room while I did the heavy work.”

His consideration surprised her yet again. How could he be a swindler? She automatically helped him remove the tack from the horses. Her fingers fumbled with the once familiar task of slipping pliable leather through buckles. Gavin, she noted, did not fumble. After they finished and the gear had been hung on the wall, he handed her a brush. She caught herself watching him, specifically his hands, and unconsciously matching his rhythm as she stroked the bristles over the mare’s glossy hide.

Would his hands be as gentle on a woman?

She pushed the disturbing thought aside. Gavin was as good with the horses as he was with her grandfather. But was it an act? A means to an end? Or was he the real deal? Evidence said he was no stranger to hard work, but her years of experience with men of his ilk said otherwise.

She needed to focus on something besides his positive attributes. “So your twin brothers, Blake and Guy, are a year older than you, and Trevor is a year younger?”

“Yes.” He bent over to clean his horse’s hooves and her attention zeroed in on his backside. Tight, firm, with enough muscle development to keep it from being flat.

Gavin straightened. She pried her gaze away and kept it focused on the dust motes dancing in the murky light while he tended her horse’s hooves. Then he led the bay mare he’d been grooming into the first stall. She led the sorrel into the second and latched the door. The slurp of the horses at the water buckets broke the silence.

Sabrina cleared her throat. “Are you and your brothers close?”

He shrugged. “Close enough.”

“Then there’s Melissa and … Erica Prentice? But she’s not a Jarrod, right?”

“We share the same father, but he never acknowledged Erica when he was alive.”

The bitterness in his voice caught her attention. “Don’t you like her?”

“Erica’s nice enough.”

“But?”

He pitched the brushes into a caddy. “My father had an affair immediately after my mother died.”

“You think he forgot her, and you’re angry that he moved on.”

“I don’t care.”

But he did. It showed in every stiff line of his body as he carried the caddy and blankets to the tack room.

She followed him inside. The smell of Lexol brought back memories of spending hours in here cleaning and oiling saddles and bridles. A small window filled the room with diffused light.