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“You should be the one to worry.”
“Me?”
“Grooms here are expected to show discretion. Hind hears you gossiping and you’ll find yourself out the door.”
Great. The last thing I needed was for him to report me to Hind. I opted for silence. When I finished the braid, there wasn’t an elastic handy, so I pinched the ends between my fingers and glanced at my tormentor over my shoulder. “Anything else?”
“I’ve seen better.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine why Dunhill would entrust the care of expensive horses to an inept novice.”
I frowned and wanted desperately to shake off the flash of myself at fourteen, ugly and awkward, always having to do better to meet my parents’ impossible standards and never quite being able to. “I don’t know who you are to be passing judgment on me like this.”
“What’s the real reason you’re here?” he asked again, ignoring my concern.
One thing I’d learned growing up was to read people and give them what they expected. Want to get noticed? Show off some flesh and throw your shoulders back as if you owned the world. Want no one to realize you’re around? Wear baggy clothes, flat shoes and hang your head. What Grant Montney wanted was an excuse to either champion me or kick me around. I took a calculated risk.
“You want the truth?” I asked, running a tentative hand down Azur’s neck. I hung my head practically to her mane.
Montney tilted his head to one side and crossed his arms beneath his chest. “That would be refreshing.”
“The truth is that I’m a screwup.” I kept my voice low and my eyes darted up and down the aisle as if I didn’t want anyone else hearing about my shortcomings. “My parents kicked me out of the house because I failed out of school. I had nowhere to go, so Belinda took me in. Now with the baby coming.” I shrugged the way people did when they wanted others to believe that whatever they were dismissing was no big deal but really was. I should have gotten to go to the Oscars instead of Porsche.
“I had to move on. She knows Patrick Dunhill and put in a word for me. She gave me this chance and I’m trying really hard not to blow it.” I slanted him my most innocent look. “Have I done anything wrong with Azur or with any of the horses?”
He didn’t say anything for a long while and I was starting to think my little act had failed to make an impression.
“The jury’s still out.” He approached Azur’s side and ran a hand down her front leg, stopping at her fetlock. “Squeeze here and she’ll pick up her foot.”
And like magic, she did.
“Thanks,” I said, containing my elation at this small triumph over the trainer. “I love working with horses. I really am trying to do a good job.”
He nodded before heading back to wherever he’d come from. “See that you do.”
A short while later, a shrill whistle pierced my musings of bubble baths and silk sheets as I clipped a lead line to Harrison’s halter for his daily constitutional as outlined on the chore chart. I looked around half-expecting my stablehand’s Jack Russell terrier to come romping up the aisle. Then I remembered I wasn’t at my estate and I was the groom.
“Hey, you!” A thunderous voice rolled from behind me at the back doors of the stable. I fervently hoped I wasn’t the one in trouble—again. Bart Hind had already found a dozen ways to criticize me. If I wasn’t more careful, I’d end up heading home before I even got to unpack my suitcase.
The black silhouette at the door strode into the light, and I froze when I realized Ross Hardel was stomping his way toward me.
The last time I’d seen him was at a riding lesson at my dressage coach’s stable more than ten years ago—preaccident. He’d been an obnoxious teenage twit two inches shorter than me, all skinny arms and knobby knees. Now look at him. Six feet of hard, lean muscle and brooding bad boy.
And if you believed the gossip rags—every woman’s dream. Yeah, right. None of my dreams involved a one-night stand, but then, I had high standards. I still wanted to believe I had a chance at a relationship that lasted longer than a bump in the night with a stranger.
His Vogel boots, polished to a mirror finish and undoubtedly custom-made, struck the concrete with understated power. He reeked of cool aloofness, yet more electricity flashed from the killer blue of his eyes than a nuclear power plant.
And all that potent energy was directed at me.
Even though he looked as irritable as Nat in full PMS mode, even with everything I knew about him, something in me just kind of gave as he got nearer. Curiosity, undoubtedly. My downfall, I’ll admit. He was probably used to that reaction from women, likely even expected it, and for some reason that irked me. Having my hormones scramble to attention for a guy who was whistling at me as if I were a dog doubled the insult.
“Surely you can’t be whistling at me,” I said, tapping my chest with the tips of my fingers as he stopped in front of me and hitched his fists on his hips like some sort of bloodthirsty pirate.
“What the hell are you doing?”
His voice rumbled like thunder and rolled inside me in a way I found disconcerting. Did everyone pick on the new girl or was it just me?
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I shot before I could stop myself. In my defense, I’d already had a backbreaker of a day and it wasn’t over yet.
His eyes narrowed. “Where’s Mandy?”
“Who’s Mandy?”
“The girl who takes care of my horses.”
“That would be me.”
“You’re not Mandy.”
“I believe we’ve already established that.”
His scowl deepened. “What happened to Mandy?”
“She left?” I raised both eyebrows and widened my eyes in a duh motion.
“Why?” He asked the question as if somehow Mandy’s departure was part of a conspiracy against him.
I dismissed the follow with a half snort. “Do I look like directory assistance?”
“Whatever happened to yes, sir?”
I scratched Magnus’s velvety muzzle. “I believe Lincoln freed the slaves a while back.”
He shook his head. “Where did they find you?”
“Me?” I shot him my best country bumpkin smile. “Why, I’m fresh off the hay truck.”
He scowled again, definitely not amused.
“I don’t want anyone but Mandy taking care of Magnus.” He spoke to me, but his gaze flicked over Magnus as if my mere presence at his side had somehow damaged the horse.
“You’re out of luck, then,” I said, urging Magnus forward, “because she’s gone and I’m it.”
“Magnus is special.” Ross’s hand reached for the lead line, forcing us both to halt and me to let go of my hold.
“So are all my charges.” I stuck my hands in my jeans pockets, puffing out my chest and raising my chin.
Magnus nickered softly and, with nimble lips, sucked up the sugar cube in Ross’s palm.
“You’re going to rot his teeth,” I said, taking in Ross’s mink-brown hair, the stretch of custom-tailored breeches over ripped thighs and the breadth of shoulders beneath the navy polo shirt. A body like that was wasted on someone like him.
“He’s recovering,”