LITMIR.BIZ

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a reasonable one. So, perhaps concealing her gender might be considered less than reasonable.

      But with her hair cut short, and baggy clothes over her rather straight up and down figure, no one questioned it.

      In part, she imagined, because very few people looked directly at her. Much less Matías Navarro.

      Or his beautiful, birdlike fiancée, who had come to live at the estate just last month. She was a lovely creature and reminded Camilla very much of her mother. She had cascading waves of curling blond hair, pale blue eyes and alabaster skin. Anytime she went out onto the rancho she took extensive breaks to stand in the shade and slather her body with sunscreen.

      Matías seemed solicitous of her, often putting his hand on her lower back, or taking hold of her arm, as if the woman would fall onto her face on the uneven terrain if he did not hold on to her in some fashion.

      Camilla wondered what it might be like to have someone treat her like that. No one had ever been gentle with her. Her father had treated her as though she were the son he didn’t have. Had allowed her freedom, had encouraged hard labor. Her mother had treated her like an irritation. She had preferred the former.

      But no one had ever made her feel precious. No one had ever made her feel fragile.

      She sniffed and shrugged her shoulders upward, going back to the task of shoveling manure.

      She would rather have this than be cloistered away in that giant manor house. Would rather be out in the sun, out where it smelled like hay and horse and grass.

      She looked up and squinted. Judging by the position of the sun, it was about time for Matías to make his rounds. That meant he would be coming out to the stables, likely attempting to take Fuego into the arena to be lunged.

      Historically, that had not gone well.

      Camilla had watched through a crack in the door of the stable, whenever she had the opportunity. Whenever she wouldn’t get caught by the foreman and scolded for being idle. She wouldn’t do well at all to get fired.

      She scampered over to the end of the stable and took her typical position. And then her breath caught.

      There was Matías, walking into the arena with Fuego on a lead. Fuego was as beautiful as ever, his coat glossy beneath the late-afternoon sun. He tossed his head, already telegraphing his irritation with the situation, his ears listing backward.

      Then her eyes slid to Matías. And everything inside her seemed to freeze.

      He was stunning in his own right and reminded her in many ways of the animal he was attempting to tame. His black hair was pushed back off his forehead, his skin bronzed and gleaming. His chest was broad, his white shirt unbuttoned down to the center of his chest, the sleeves pushed up past powerful forearms. He was wearing tan breeches that molded to lean hips and powerful thighs, to say nothing of...other parts of him.

      Camilla had been around jockeys her entire life. Typically, they were slightly built, all the better to ride quickly. And she knew that Matías did not race for that very reason. It wasn’t practical. A man well over six feet tall with such a heavy build could never compete with other racers.

      No, Matías was not a jockey. Therefore, the sight of him in those breeches was...a different experience. And one she was not accustomed to, no matter that she had grown up at a stable.

      Matías and his foreman switched out the horse’s lead for a lunging rope, and Matías stepped backward, moving to the edge of the arena, a whip in his hands, which would be used, not to harm the animal, but to signal changes in what he desired Fuego to do. When he wanted him to change his gait, when he wanted him to stop, or turn.

      But, as had happened every time in the past couple of months, Fuego balked. He more than balked. He reared, nearly turning himself over onto his back. Camilla felt a spike of rage, and before she knew what she was doing she was tearing out of the stable and heading toward the arena.

      Her face was on fire, her heart beating quickly, and this time it had nothing to do with Matías’s breeches.

      “Tonto!” she shouted. “You know he doesn’t like it. And you insist on doing it. He’s going to injure himself.”

      It took her a moment to realize what she had just done. That she had just shouted at the master of the domain, while in his domain. That she had just undone two months of attempting to go unnoticed by rendering herself as conspicuous as possible.

      “I see,” Matías said, taking too long strides across the arena and heading toward her. “You fancy yourself a great trainer, do you?”

      Those dark eyes pinned her to the spot, her feet nearly growing down into the grass as he moved to the edge of the fence. She took a step backward, with great effort, trying to put some distance between herself and her formidable boss.

      “Not great, perhaps,” she said, attempting to keep her voice low and steady. “But I know the horse.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “When I came here...” She desperately tried to improvise. “I did not lie when I said that I would have no home if I wasn’t hired.” She cast a look at the rancho foreman just to be sure that he was listening. So that he could corroborate at least that part of her tale. “I came from the Alvarez rancho. I’m familiar with Fuego. I can work with him.”

      “You’re only just now telling us this?” Matías asked, shooting his foreman an appointed glare.

      “Don’t blame Juan. I didn’t tell him. I was afraid to draw attention to myself. But now I see that Fuego is not going to acclimate to this new environment. Or to new trainers. I could ride him.”

      Matías leaned over, resting those strong forearms over the top rail of the fence. “I am to believe that Cesar Alvarez allowed a scrawny boy to ride one of his most prized horses? That this beast responds to you?”

      “That’s right,” she said, tilting her chin upward. “I have a way with him.”

      She had always had a way with difficult horses, just like her father had. It was a gift. One that Cesar Alvarez had believed you either had or didn’t. He had told her it was in her DNA, as it was in his.

      It had been their sole point of connection. Her father had been entirely invested in the rancho, and anyone who loved him had to love that place just as much. And she did. She very much did.

      “I’m not letting you anywhere near that animal.”

      “Why not?” she asked. “What do you have to lose?”

      “It’s not so much what I stand to lose as what I don’t want to have to cope with. I would rather not have to respond to an inquiry over a foolish boy breaking his neck on my rancho.”

      “I’m not going to break my neck,” Camilla said. “But Fuego might snap a limb if you continue to handle him like this. I hear that you’re very good with horses, Señor Navarro, but I have not yet seen it.”

      “You think insulting your boss is the way to long-term employment?”

      “I assume that you are a man who would appreciate honesty. You are allowing your pride to get in the way of making the most of your animal, and I daresay I have seen it many times before.”

      One of Matías’s dark brows shot upward. “Many times?”

      “Yes. During the year I was employed with Cesar Alvarez. There were a lot of rich men with animals they could not handle.”

      “I’m a horseman,” Matías said. “Not simply a rich man.”

      “You are a businessman primarily. That is nothing to be ashamed of, but it does mean that your focus is split.”

      Then Matías did something she did not expect. He laughed.

      “All right then, boy. Come into the arena and show me what you can do.”

      Matías

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