LITMIR.BIZ

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heat returned in a flash of red.

      “Yesss!” The word came out a long, low hiss as she advanced on him. “I am very good at my job—that’s why Joe employed me—so I hope you’re not insinuating I earned this windfall doing anything besides training horses.” She reached down and wrenched the pillow from behind him, then seriously contemplated koshing him over the head with it.

      “Hey, take it easy. I said some might assume.”

      The some most likely encompassed the rest of Joe’s family but apparently didn’t include Nick—that was why he had been so taken aback when he learned her identity. What had he called her? A crazy little horse-training woman in pajamas and boots. The thought of anyone wanting to bed that must really have tickled him.

      Not having to prove the nature of her relationship with Joe should have delighted T.C., so why did she feel so…slighted? Annoyed with her contrary feelings, she tossed the pillow aside. It didn’t matter what Nick Corelli thought of her; it mattered that he was lounging on her bed, treating Joe’s bequest with a complete lack of respect.

      “What about your part in this, Nick? What did your family make of that?”

      “They shared the rest of Joe’s fortune.” He shrugged negligently. “I guess I got the consolation prize.”

      Hands on hips, she took a step forward and looked down on him with all the scorn that comment deserved. “You feel you deserved a prize?”

      He tipped his head back against the bare concrete wall, eyes narrowed, expression no longer amused. “Meaning?”

      “Meaning where were you when your father needed you? When your brother and sisters took turns sitting by his hospital bed for days on end? It was you he wanted there, Nick. You he asked for. And where were you? Oh, that’s right, you had some dinky mountain to ski!”

      Slowly he unfolded his long frame and rose to his feet. His eyes glittered darkly, a muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth, and without conscious thought T.C. took a step back. But when he spoke his voice was cool and flat. “George told you that?”

      She swallowed, nodded, wondered what nerve she had struck.

      “Did he tell you how much effort he put into finding me? That he didn’t even bother leaving a message with my service?”

      “He shouldn’t have had to find you.”

      “I should have known Joe was sick…how?”

      T.C. flushed. Joe hadn’t told a soul about his diagnosis. No one had guessed until it was too late.

      “I’m sorry, Nick.” And because the words sounded totally inadequate, or maybe because the dark emotion in his eyes—the hurt, anger, regret—echoed somewhere deep within, she reached out and placed her hand on his arm.

      “Yeah, well, it’s history now.” Nick shrugged off both her apology and the touch of her fingers. He didn’t need her awkward attempt at sympathy any more than he needed his own sense of frustration at what might have been. Both were pointless. Abruptly he swung around, away from the mix of compassion and confusion that gleamed in her eyes. He needed something else to focus his frustration on, and he found it right before his eyes in the stark concrete walls, the uncarpeted floor and make-do furniture, the clothes discarded atop packing trunks.

      “Why are you living here?”

      She shook her head slightly. “What do you mean?”

      “George said you used to live in the house but you’d moved out, I assumed to somewhere off the farm. Why the hell would you move out of the house into this rat-hole?”

      “I didn’t feel right staying in the house,” she said stiffly.

      “Couldn’t you find anywhere better than this?”

      “I didn’t have any—” She stopped abruptly, changing tack with a forced casualness that didn’t fool Nick for a second. “I needed to be here, near the horses. It’s no big deal.”

      “George should have told me you were living here.”

      Except how could he, when Nick hadn’t given him a chance? When he’d grown so frustrated by the man’s smoothly evasive replies that he threw his hands in the air and walked out, jumped in his car and drove straight here?

      He scrubbed a hand over his face and wondered what had happened to his logic, which seemed to have gone missing…probably to the same place as his usual even temper. He adopted a more reasonable tone before he continued. “If I’d known you were living here, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see your light.”

      “So that’s why you came down here.” Her smile was edged with relief, as if she’d needed an explanation…or because the conversation had taken a safer turn. “Something woke me, but I wasn’t sure what, so I turned the light out again. When I heard you outside, it scared about a year off my life.”

      “Sorry about that. I guess we both had the wrong handle on each other.”

      Whatever the reason for her smile, it sliced a swathe through Nick’s irritability, made it possible for him to smile right back at her. And he found something in her expression, in the slow color that highlighted her cheekbones, that reminded him what sort of a handle they’d had on each other in the close darkness of the breezeway. Her hands sliding over his shirt, touching his jeans. His hand on her belly, her breast. Heat licked through him like wildfire, doing more than sear his blood vessels. It surprised the hell out of him.

      Jet lag, he reminded himself as he shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and cleared his throat. “You want to pack a few things—what you need for tonight?”

      She stiffened visibly. “I beg your pardon?”

      “You’re not staying here.”

      “I’m perfectly comfortable here.”

      Her mutt, which had fallen asleep on the foot of her bed, chose that moment to whimper and twitch. Nick snorted. “Your dog isn’t even comfortable here.”

      “Must we discuss this now?”

      “No. We can discuss it later…after we’ve moved you.”

      When he started toward her, she held up a hand. “Look, it’s the middle of the night. I don’t want to fight with you, and I don’t want to have to make up another bed. Okay?”

      Nick dragged a hand through his hair. Unfortunately he could see her point. “Fine,” he conceded. “But tomorrow you’re moving out of here.”

      “Shouldn’t sorting out this ridiculous bequest be our first priority?”

      Nick frowned at her choice of adjective. Unexpected, yes. Unusual, maybe. Overly generous, definitely. “You think it’s ridiculous?”

      “It makes no sense.”

      “You can’t think of any reason why Joe would leave you a million-dollar bequest?”

      All the color leached from her face as she stared back at him. In his world, a million dollars didn’t turn a hair; to Tamara Cole, the figure was obviously staggering. Buying her out would be as simple as writing a check, Nick realized. So where was the satisfaction that always accompanied knowledge of a sure thing, a deal all but closed? As she continued to stare at him, wide-eyed and unblinking, he noticed she looked more than stunned. She looked as dead beat as he felt.

      “Sleep on it, green eyes,” he advised as he headed to the door. “We’ll talk later.”

      “Nick.”

      He stilled, one hand on the doorknob. Now why should the sound of his name on her tongue cause his pulse to pound? All his responses seemed shot to bits tonight.

      “I’m sorry about before, about mistaking you for a burglar.”

      Nick turned, caught her looking at him with that same expression as before, the one that made him

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