Spaniard's Seduction / Cole's Red-Hot Pursuit. Brenda Jackson

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СКАЧАТЬ uncontrollable anger.”

      Caitlyn fell silent. She perused him, a new respect filling her. His strength and power was clearly visible in his long, whipcord body and inflexible will, yet he was gentle, too. She didn’t want to examine why that moved her so profoundly.

      “Does anyone groom the stallion?” he asked.

      Caitlyn focused on the horse with relief. “Not since he trapped Jim between those powerful hindquarters and the wall and aimed a vicious kick at his head. Jim was lucky to clamber up the wall out of the way.”

      Rafaelo fell silent.

      The fantail was still twittering and over near the stables Caitlyn saw that a pair of swallows had appeared in the evening sky—the first she’d seen this season.

      Rafaelo spoke suddenly, “I’ll make you a deal. Dinner in town says that within a week I’ll have that horse caught, groomed and eating out my hand.”

      “Loser pays?” Caitlyn started to laugh. There was no chance that Rafaelo was even going to get near the horse. “You better bring your wallet.”

      “I don’t intend to lose.” He threw her a narrow-eyed look that stirred the flutter of butterflies in her stomach and caused her laughter to die. Then he smiled, a wide white grin that sparkled with victory, causing adrenaline to jolt through her.

      “I’ll do that,” he said softly, “we’ve got a date.”

      Too late she saw the trap. Caitlyn stared at him. Win or lose, she was committed to an evening out with him.

      Great going for a woman who didn’t date.

      Five

      An hour later, scrubbed and clean, Caitlyn pushed back the heavy drapes and stepped through the French doors into the formal salon of the Saxon homestead. She stopped at the sight of Phillip and Rafaelo eyeing each other across the wide expanse of a magnificent Persian rug like a pair of wary wolves.

      Both men turned to her, relief in two sets of dark eyes. The tension eased a little when Caitlyn started prattling about Lady Killer. A first. Normally the mere mention of the stallion’s name was enough to cause dissent, but for once Phillip appeared to welcome the topic and soon the men were debating whether the stallion could be turned into a dressage horse.

      Caitlyn fell silent, watching Rafaelo warily. She hadn’t forgotten how easily he had lulled her into a sense of false security earlier. Her wariness increased when she caught Rafaelo’s hooded eyes scanning the room as he examined the paintings, the furniture, the jewelled hues of the acres of Persian carpet underfoot that contrasted with the polished kauri floorboards.

      Was he calculating the value of what his share in the immense historic Victorian homestead might be worth?

      “Just be careful,” Phillip was saying, “that bloody horse caused an accident last month. Alyssa was badly hurt.”

      “Do I hear my name?” Alyssa picked that moment to enter the salon, Joshua at her side. Sleek and sophisticated, she was wearing a burnt amber dress that suited her dramatic beauty and dark red hair.

      By comparison Caitlyn felt underdressed in denims faded almost to white and not even her newest sneakers and the black tank top she wore eased the sensation. Then she shrugged the discomfort away. Joshua was wearing jeans, too. There was no expectation to dress for dinner at Saxon’s Folly. There never had been. The Saxons might be wealthy, but they weren’t pretentious.

      “We’re talking about your fall,” Caitlyn said, remembering that awful moment when Alyssa had lain on the cobbles in the stable yard, so still and so pale, Joshua kneeling beside her, his eyes wide with panic.

      For one horrible moment Caitlyn had thought Alyssa was dead—and so had a devastated Joshua. The memory still made Caitlyn’s skin crawl.

      “My hand hardly hurts anymore.” Alyssa held up her hand, showing off a narrow bandage. “The physiotherapist says I’m well on the mend, I just need to keep doing my exercises.”

      “I should’ve shot that stallion.” Joshua put an arm around Alyssa and pulled her close.

      “It wasn’t his fault,” Alyssa protested, huddled against his chest.

      “Alyssa was riding the stallion?” Rafaelo looked surprised.

      “No, no,” said Caitlyn. “She was riding Breeze. Two kids were lurking behind the trees in the paddock. Lady Killer—”

      “I do not like that name,” Rafaelo interjected. “It makes the horse sound like a murderer.”

      “He damn nearly killed Alyssa.”

      “Nonsense, Josh, I’m fine,” said Alyssa.

      Joshua brushed his cheek against Alyssa’s hair, his expression bemused. Alyssa smiled up at him, love in her eyes, the rest of the company forgotten. Caitlyn couldn’t stop the melting sensation that filled her at the sight of them together. This was the kind of love that she’d once dreamed of finding…one day.

      Little chance of that now…

      Finally, Joshua said, “He’s a Devil Horse.”

      “Then call him Diablo, it’s better than Lady Killer,” Rafaelo suggested. He inclined his head to Alyssa. “I apologise for interrupting your account.”

      Caitlyn took over the story as Joshua placed a kiss on Alyssa’s temple. “When Joshua and Alyssa arrived back from their ride, Lady Killer…Diablo,” she amended at Rafaelo’s hard stare, “was in a right royal lather with those hoodlums in his paddock. They made a dash for it. At the roar of the motorbike, Breeze bolted.”

      “Alyssa fell badly and needed treatment for her hand,” Phillip added. “I’ll accept that particular incident might not have been the stallion’s fault, but what he did to Jim—trapping him in the corner of the stable—was downright mean. If anything like that happens again, I’m going to have him destroyed.”

      “Let me see what I can do with the horse first,” Rafaelo cut in.

      “Take care.” Phillip appraised Rafaelo’s height, his broad shoulders. “If you can master him, as far as I’m concerned you can have him.”

      Rafaelo looked startled. Then his features hardened into a determined mask. He started to say something, but paused as Kay entered the salon, Megan close behind her. With a frown Caitlyn noticed that Kay was wearing a dressy skirt. When had the dress code for these Thursday-night family dinners changed? The crease between her brows smoothed when she saw that Megan still wore work clothes.

      “Dinner will be another fifteen minutes,” Kay announced. “Looks like we’re all here.” Kay scanned the gathering. She barely glanced at Phillip and her expression clouded over as her gaze rested briefly on Rafaelo. Caitlyn sensed the older woman’s pain at being faced with such incontrovertible evidence of her husband’s infidelity. The lines around the older woman’s eyes had deepened since Rafaelo’s arrival—and the revelation of Phillip’s betrayal.

      “Amy’s not here,” said Caitlyn, more to distract Kay’s attention from Rafaelo than for any other reason.

      “No, СКАЧАТЬ