LITMIR.BIZ

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stallions earning stud fees was gone, at least for the time being. And Leopold’s Legacy’s millions in winnings might have to be surrendered if it was proven he hadn’t been sired by a Thoroughbred. A few longtime employees had been laid off due to the financial hit Quest had taken. Now, handsome, irritatingly aloof Marcus Vasquez, their head trainer, was leaving, too.

      The first notes of a low, bluesy song drifted on the night air, prompting Melanie to glance over her shoulder. Despite the family’s worsening problems, her mother was determined that life at Quest continue as normally as possible. So this December, as all others, the massive, two-story redbrick house shimmered with Christmas lights inside and out. Tonight, the lights were a fitting backdrop for Melanie’s Australian cousin’s wedding to Quest’s female farrier.

      Through the conservatory’s big bay window, Melanie watched wedding guests chat while sipping champagne. Some headed for the area where furniture and potted plants had been removed to make a temporary dance floor. Others gathered before the huge Christmas tree decorated with silver ornaments that dominated one corner of the room.

      The person who interested her most, however, wasn’t inside the house.

      The thought of going after Marcus had Melanie squaring her shoulders. She had planned to approach him right after her grandfather toasted the bride and groom. But the instant crystal flutes had clinked together, Marcus set his empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter, and headed out the French doors. Now, his long gait had taken him so far away she could barely make out his tall, moonlit form silhouetted against the security lights rimming the stables, the barn and various outbuildings.

      By morning he would be gone.

      She was surprised to find herself torn between a sense of relief and a tingle of regret.

      In keeping with Marcus’s maddening refusal to reveal anything about himself, no one at Quest seemed to know his plans for the future. But he was one of the country’s top Thoroughbred trainers, so there were bound to be dozens of job opportunities available for someone with his formidable skills. Not just here in Kentucky, but nationwide. Worldwide.

      Melanie flexed her fingers, then curled them into her palms. If she didn’t talk to him, her conscience would niggle at her forever. She had no intention of offering an explanation for why she’d spent the majority of her time avoiding him. Or concede that she should have at least consulted him about her decision to work away from the main stables with the colt her younger brother felt sure would be the family’s saving grace.

      Tonight she simply intended to tell Marcus goodbye. Wish him luck. It was a matter of self-respect. She took her work as a jockey seriously. For reasons she couldn’t explain, making sure that Marcus Vasquez understood that had become a priority.

      And maybe, just maybe, knowing she’d gone to such lengths to detour around him scraped at her pride. It was too close to cowardice.

      She wasn’t a coward. Just a woman trying her best to stave off temptation in the form of a gorgeous Spanish hunk.

      So, she would speak to Marcus as one professional to another. Keep the conversation businesslike, to the point and short. She just hoped she managed to hide the fact that he made her nervous. Edgy. Stirred up.

      Melanie puffed out a breath that turned into a white cloud on the night air. With her pulse pounding and her nerves jittering, she wasn’t sure how she was going to pull this off.

      “Just get it over with,” she muttered.

      Hiking the skirt of her gown above her ankles, she headed down the veranda’s stairs and went after him.

      HIS GAZE FOCUSED out the window of what was now his former office, Marcus Vasquez watched Melanie Preston move along the cobblestone walk, the Irish wolfhound, Seamus, loping beside her as he’d done earlier at Marcus’s side. The silver moonlight mixed with a pale glow from the small landscape lights dotting the gardens, making the woman and her massive escort seem almost ghostlike.

      Since the path veered off in several directions, he wondered where the hell she was headed.

      None of his business, he reminded himself. He’d had little say during his tenure at Quest over what the ace jockey did. As of this afternoon Marcus no longer worked for Thomas and Jenna Preston, so whatever had prompted their only daughter to leave her cousin’s wedding reception and traipse around in the moonlight was none of his concern.

      That didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the view. Leaning a thigh against the desk, Marcus tracked her progress along the walk.

      Despite her ankle-wrecking heels and the walkway’s uneven surface, Melanie’s gait was fluid, like a dancer’s. The only other time he’d seen her in a dress was at a gala last summer when he’d first arrived at Quest. Which was a good thing, because the way the gold material slithered against her slim hips was enough to revive a dead man.

      He was very much alive.

      Watching her, Marcus felt the hunger that he’d kept hidden since the moment they’d met stir inside him.

      She was barely five feet tall, lean and agile. For the rest of his life, he would carry a mental picture of her from the video he’d watched uncountable times: Melanie Preston on Derby Day wearing Quest’s bright racing silks, urging Leopold’s Legacy to leap from the starting gate and hurtle onto the track. Barely fastened to the saddle, her entire body had lifted into the air like a butterfly preparing to take flight. Only her hands on the reins and the tips of both boots wedged in the stirrups still tied her to earth.

      Marcus had worked his way up in the racing business on four continents. Without a doubt, she was the best jockey he’d encountered. If the scandal hadn’t broken after the Preakness win, she most likely would have raced the stallion in the Belmont to a Triple Crown sweep.

      She was also the most annoying jockey he had ever run across.

      It wasn’t simply that she’d made herself scarce around the main stables since his first day on the job, choosing to work instead with her younger brother Robbie, who’d taken a colt named Something To Talk About to train on his own. The few times Melanie had shown up here in his office, her talk of implementing unproven approaches to stable management techniques had tried Marcus’s patience.

      It hadn’t helped that during every exchange he’d been as aware of her striking blue eyes, sun-streaked blond hair and compact curves as he’d been of her words. He’d damn well had his share of X-rated fantasies about his boss’s daughter.

      Fantasies he hadn’t allowed himself to act on. Not only because he had a policy never to mix business with pleasure. There was the small complication of his blood ties to the man who, Marcus had only recently learned, owned Apollo’s Ice. Although there was no proof Nolan Hunter was involved in the scandal that had tarnished the Preston family’s standing in the racing world and caused a fiscal disaster for their stables, Marcus doubted the Prestons would have hired him away from the Australian side of their family if anyone had known he was Hunter’s half brother. And because of a promise made long ago, Marcus didn’t intend to tell anyone.

      Withholding that information from the Prestons weighed heavy on his shoulders, and Marcus had felt a measure of relief when he saw proof that their youngest son, Robbie, had developed the capabilities to step into the head trainer position. Confident that the horses and stables would be in good hands—and knowing it would ease the strain on the Prestons not to have to pay his hefty salary—had made it easy for Marcus to give notice that he would be moving on.

      Even if he still had no idea where he would be moving on to.

      He’d worked on farms and around tracks since he was ten. Stable boy, exercise boy, groom. Working his way up, hustling his way through. For the first time, he felt the dull ache of regret about leaving a certain place behind.

      A certain woman. He almost felt cheated.

      Grinding out an oath between his teeth, he pulled his gaze from the window. Turning away, he forced himself to dismiss thoughts of Melanie Preston. Tried to, anyway.

      He worked in silence

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