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Hitched to the Horseman
Hitched to the Horseman
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Hitched to the Horseman

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As he sipped from his own cup, he realized he shouldn’t have invited her in here. In fact, he shouldn’t have danced with her last night. Because even now he was assaulted with the memories of her curvy body brushing temptingly against his, the scent of her skin, the softness of her sigh as it skittered against the side of his neck. He couldn’t remember a time that any woman had left such an indelible impression on him, and that could only mean trouble. Mercedes was rich, strong and independent—just like the woman who’d married him, then smashed him into useless pieces.

“So you’re home now,” he said. “What do you plan to do with your time?”

She stared into her cup rather than at him. “I—I’m not sure yet. For starters, I’m going to give myself a few days to adjust to civilian life.”

She could afford to do that, Gabe thought. In fact, she could afford to do anything she wanted to do. He couldn’t imagine having that much financial security. Sherleen had been rich, before and after they’d married. Not nearly as rich as Mercedes or her family, but wealthy enough. As her husband, Gabe had never considered his wife’s money as his, too. In fact, he’d never wanted it and had done his best to pay his own way throughout their short years together. A man of any stock didn’t want to be labeled as being kept by his wife. And to Gabe, riches weren’t measured by the balance in a bank account. Unfortunately, his ex-wife had thought differently. Now he found himself attracted to another rich woman. What the hell was the matter with him, anyway? He’d learned the hard way that he and wealthy women didn’t mix.

He said, “I guess that was a stupid question on my part, anyway.”

Her eyes were full of questions as they roamed his face and Gabe realized he needed to be more careful or his personal feelings would show.

“Why do you say that?”

What the hell, he thought. He wasn’t going to tiptoe around this woman as though she were royalty. “Nothing. Just that—well, it’s not like you have to go out and find a job.”

Disgust turned the corners of her lips downward as she rose from her seat to amble around the tiny room. “I can’t read your mind, Gabe. So I don’t have any idea what sort of impressions you have about me. But I can assure you that I don’t plan to sit on my hands.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” he drawled with a bit of sarcasm. “It might flatten them.”

She shot him a droll look and then chuckled. “Smart mouth. I’ll bet as a teenager you gave your mother fits.”

A dark cloud suddenly shadowed his thoughts. Though he reminded himself that this woman was teasing, that she couldn’t know about Jenna Trevino’s death, it still hurt to think of growing up without his mother and the horrible way she’d left this world.

“No. I didn’t give her fits,” he said curtly. “She was in her grave.”

Mercedes couldn’t have felt more awful. She wanted to walk behind the desk and crawl inside the knee hole, but hiding would hardly help her now. “Oh, boy, I messed up there, didn’t I?” she murmured more to herself than to him. Glancing regretfully at the man, she tried again, “Gabe, I—You’re a young man. I just assumed that your mother was still alive. Forgive me.”

She watched him draw in a long breath, then release it, and from the strained expression on his face, she got the notion that he felt more awkward than even she did.

“Forget it, Mercedes. You didn’t know.”

Afraid she’d worsen her foot-in-mouth disease with any sort of reply, she waited for him to say more, anything that would explain how his mother died. But after several more clumsy moments passed in silence, she decided it best to change the subject completely.

Resting a hip on the corner of the desk, she said, “So. What do you use the computer for? Keeping track of sales?”

“Yes. And I also keep a file for every horse on the Sandbur. It’s a big help in keeping track of their breeding, farrier visits, vaccinations, injuries, progress in their training. You get the picture.”

Mercedes was very impressed. Her cousin Cordero was a good horse trainer, but he’d never been that meticulous about keeping data. “You sound like a doctor keeping updates on his patients’ charts.”

“Exactly. I’ll show you.”

Leaving the couch, he walked past her and went to stand behind the desk. Mercedes swiveled around to see him switching on the computer. While the machine whirred to life, she used the time to study him from beneath a pair of lowered lashes.

Apparently he’d not taken the time to shave this morning. A black stubble of beard covered his jaws, upper lip and chin. His hair, what she could see of it beneath the brim of his hat, curled damply against the back of his neck, as though it hadn’t been long since he’d stepped out of the shower. The scent of soap and musk and man all swirled together and drifted across the small space between them.

Stirred in spite of herself, she looked away and made a steeple of her hands. For the past eight years, she’d worked around men on a daily basis. Some of them had been goodlooking, even sexy. A few had become buddies. And one—Well, she’d thought Drew was a very special friend until he’d proved not to be a friend at all. But even before his betrayal, she’d never found his flirtatious smile and rumbling laugh this distracting. He’d never had her thinking of hot nights, sweaty sheets or even a slow, wet kiss the way this man was doing now.

Mercedes believed the sexual side of her had died along with her dreams of finding love. Yet for some reason she couldn’t understand, Gabe Trevino seemed to be shaking her back to life.

“Okay,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “Here’s a chart on He’s A Peppy Charge. Take a look.”

Attempting to shake away the sensual fog settling over her, Mercedes placed her coffee mug on the desk then walked around to stand next to him. With every ounce of strength in her, she forced herself to focus on the monitor screen rather than him.

“Everything is here,” she observed. “His birthday, family tree, color and markings, vet visits, blood tests.” She scanned the data until she reached Gabe’s personal comments and then she read aloud, “Deceptive charmer. Tries to buck if not completely warmed up. Great speed and athleticism. Needs experienced cowboy on his back.”

A provocative smile curved her lips as she turned her head to look at him. “Does that mean you?”

The moment she saw his eyes narrow, Mercedes knew she’d struck a nerve and nudged him over the invisible line that had been acting as a polite barrier between them.

As he moved closer, she sucked in a bracing breath.

“Just what are you doing here, anyway, Ms. Saddler?”

Gabe had never intended to let this woman provoke him. From the moment he’d spotted her on the fence, he’d planned to appear cool and collected, even if his insides felt like a boiler on the verge of exploding. But now the teasing glint in her sexy blue eyes made him forget all about his earlier determination. Now his focus refused to go beyond the moist pout of her lips, the idea of how she would taste and feel.

“Uh—what do you mean?” she asked hoarsely.

Before Gabe could stop himself, he wrapped his hand around her forearm and tugged her against him. As her breast flattened against his chest, he could feel her heart flutter, and his own begin to pound.

“I mean, here,” he clipped out. “At the horse barn. Where you knew you would find me.”

Gabe hated the way her soft curves aroused him, yet at the same time, he couldn’t deny the excitement rushing through his veins.

Scowling at him, she said, “I walked down to the horse pen because it’s a nice, cool morning and I wanted to get out of the house. This is the last place I thought you would be.”

Her lame excuse filled his snort with a mix of humor and sarcasm. “Really? This is where I work. Where did you think I’d be?”

“In bed. Where everyone else is right now!”

Her nostrils flared like a filly being circled by a stallion, and Gabe felt a hot, feral flame flicker deep inside him.

“Everyone is in bed—but you and me,” he pointed out lowly.

Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips and it was all Gabe could do to keep from closing the last bit of space between their faces. “If you think—”

“I think a whole lot of things,” he bluntly interrupted, “but I know we’re both thinking about this.”

Mercedes wasn’t sure if he tugged her forward or if she simply wilted against him, but the next thing she knew his mouth was hot and heavy on hers, his arms were wrapped around her shoulders, anchoring her upper body against his.

The intimate connection was such a shock to Mercedes’s senses that the thought of resisting didn’t have time to enter her mind. And then as his lips began to search and plunder her mouth, she realized that she didn’t want to resist. She didn’t want to do anything but stand in the circle of his arms and drink in the heady taste of him.

Somewhere outside, she heard a rooster crow, a horse snort, another squeal. Inside the room a clock was tick, tick, ticking. Or was that the sound of her heart beating in her ears? She couldn’t tell anymore. Her senses were beginning to melt into a useless puddle.

A keening moan gurgled in the back of her throat as her hands searched for some sort of support. It came in the way of his hard shoulders, and her fingers were about to latch over them when he suddenly jerked back from her.

The abrupt separation of their bodies tilted Mercedes’s footing and left her snatching a steadying hold on the edge of the desk. As she stared at him in stunned fascination, she felt her lips burning, her lungs dragging in long ragged breaths.

After several hard swallows, she finally managed to ask, “What—what was that all about?”

His jaw hardened as his gray gaze swept over her flushed face. “To let you know that I don’t play games, Mercedes. Not with you. Not with any woman. Try it again and I promise you—you’ll get burned.”

Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her chin. “Pompous ass,” she snarled at him. “Do you think every woman that gets within speaking distance of you wants to crawl into your bed?”

Without warning, his hand shot out and cuffed around her upper arm. Mercedes glanced down at his fingers biting into her flesh and then she saw them—tough welts of jagged scars on top of his wrist and disappearing beneath the cuff of his shirt.

Somewhere, somehow he’d been terribly injured. The visual evidence, even the mere thought, shocked Mercedes almost as much as his kiss had, and for long moments she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his brown skin.

“Gabe, your—”

Before she could say more, he jerked his hand away and quickly stepped back from her.

“Get out of here, Mercedes,” he gritted. “Go find some other man to amuse you.”

She couldn’t believe that only seconds before sympathy for the man had swept through her. Right now, she’d love to slap his jaw.

“In case you’ve forgotten, the Sandbur is my home. I’m not going to tiptoe around you as though you’re something special. If I want to come here to the horse barn or anywhere else on the ranch where you just happened to be, I will! And if you don’t like it, you can just—go!”

Not about to wait for any sort of reply from the man, Mercedes stomped out of the little office and marched down the alleyway of the barn. By now, sunlight was slanting through the door of the cavernous building, shedding light on the stalls lined against both walls. Several horses were sticking their heads over gates, watching her movements. Under normal circumstances, she would have stopped and greeted every animal. As it was, her lips were on fire, her eyes stinging with tears, and she couldn’t get out of the barn fast enough.

Back in the tiny office, Gabe switched off the computer and slumped into the desk chair, then immediately jumped back up and grabbed his coffee cup. As he splashed more hot liquid over the portion that had cooled, he muttered several choice curse words at himself. He didn’t know what in hell had come over him or possessed him to grab the woman, much less kiss her.

She’d done nothing more than tease him. And she’d done it gently, at that. Nothing she’d said or done had warranted his behavior. Even if she had come down to the barn purposely to see him, even if she was using him to amuse herself, that didn’t mean he should have taken the bait. He liked to think he was older and wiser than to let his head be turned by a pretty face.

But the moment she’d stood next to him, her face only inches away, her scent drifting over him, tantalizing every cell in his body, his common sense had crawled out the door. Now just the memory of her lips beneath his, the feel of her hands moving against his chest was enough to leave him hard and frustrated.

So what are you going to do now, Gabe?

Remind himself that he was nothing more than a hired hand and get to work.

Chapter Three

Later that morning, Mercedes was in her bedroom, trying to motivate herself to finish unpacking the boxes that were stacked in one corner. So far, she’d done little more than hang a few garments in the armoire.

What was she really doing here on the ranch, anyway? she asked herself for the umpteenth time. Was she really home to stay, or was she simply using the ranch as a launching pad to some other job at some other place?

Sighing wistfully, she dropped the slinky blouse back to the open box lying upon the bed and walked over to a huge arched window. Since her upstairs bedroom was on the west end of the house, the window was partially shaded by the enormous limbs of a live oak, yet through the break in the leaves she could see a part of the ranch yard and a small portion of the horse barn. Just looking at the old barn and recalling her encounter with Gabe Trevino was enough to make her blush.

Unwittingly, her fingertips lifted to her lips. She’d never been kissed like that before, as though she were a piece of meat and he a starving animal. It was embarrassing to think how much the kiss had excited her, had shaken the very core of her womanhood.

She’d thought John had been an adept lover. She’d believed that she would never meet another man whose touch would sweep her senses into such a mushy state of bliss. But Gabe had done that and more. Those few moments in his arms had left her feeling like a hungry tigress. She’d wanted to tear at his clothes and her own. She’d wanted to surrender to him completely. It was frightening to think how he’d woken her sleeping sexuality and turned it into a sizzling libido.

“Darling, you haven’t even gotten started with these boxes. Would you like for Alida to come up and help you?”

At the sound of her mother’s voice, Mercedes turned away from the window to see that Geraldine had walked into the room. Concern was on her face as her gaze flicked from her daughter to the still packed boxes.

“Mother, I didn’t have a maid in the Air Force. I hardly need one now.”

Geraldine scowled. “No need to get huffy. I was just offering. Or would you rather I help you?”

“No. I can manage,” she insisted. Spotting the faint look of hurt on her mother’s face, she crossed the space between them and pecked a kiss on her smooth cheek. “I don’t mean to sound sharp, Mother. I’m tired, that’s all. This past week has been a little hectic. I don’t think I’ve caught up from the jet lag yet.”

Mercedes didn’t go on to say that having a maid in the house made her feel guilty and overly pampered, especially after some of the pitiful sights she’d endured while on rescue missions in America and abroad. Floods, fires, earthquakes. The U.S. military stepped in to help when natural catastrophes shredded people’s lives and left them homeless and frightened. In those cases, having necessities was the difference between living or dying. The word maid didn’t exist in that reality.

Geraldine turned a sympathetic smile on her daughter. “And the party last night went on forever,” she conceded. “I guess I should have waited to throw it. But everyone has been so excited about you coming home. I didn’t want to wait.”

Nodding that she understood, Mercedes went over to the queen-size bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. “I’m glad you didn’t wait. I enjoyed seeing everyone again.”

Geraldine walked over to a nearby armchair and sank into it. As she crossed her long legs, Mercedes couldn’t help thinking that her mother had hardly aged the past eight years. She was quite slim and shapely for a woman of sixty-four. Her complexion was tanned and smooth, while her silver hair sparkled with life. This past year, she’d started to date again, a widowed Texas senator. Mercedes admired her courage and was especially glad that she’d never given up on life after her husband had died.

The way you’ve given up on men? Maybe she had given up on men, she told herself, but she had good reason—they weren’t to be trusted.

“Darling, we’ve not done anything to this room since you left for the Air Force,” Geraldine commented as she looked around the room. “Maybe you’d like a change. New paint? Drapes? Furniture?”

The walls of the room were a soft, textured pink and the furniture was antique heavy oak that had been here since her grandparents’ heyday. She didn’t want to change a thing about the room. It was herself that Mercedes needed to change. But she didn’t have a clue how to start. How did a person forget pain and betrayal? How could she ever have a family of her own if she couldn’t trust a man to take out the garbage on time, much less take care of her heart?

Mercedes’s gaze joined her mother’s as it traveled around the walls that were crowded with photos and paintings, then down to the Spanish tile scattered with thick looped throw rugs. “There’s nothing wrong with this room, Mother. I don’t want it changed.”

Seeming not to hear her, Geraldine went on, “Well, since Nicci’s moved out, you could take over her room if you like it better.”

Now that Nicci had married Ridge and given birth to a new daughter, Sara Rose, her sister’s bedroom was empty. As empty as Mercedes’s heart.

“No,” Mercedes said flatly. “I’m happy here.”

Geraldine’s lips pursed together. “You hardly look as if you’re happy, Mercedes. And I don’t mean to push you, but frankly, I’m worried about you, honey. I thought—” She paused and shook her head with frustration. “Well, let’s just say that I hoped coming home would make you feel differently about things.”

Mercedes plucked at the knobby bedspread. “What things?”

“Well, dammit, I’m not going to beat around the bush with you. I never have, so I don’t guess I should start now. I’m talking about that bastard—John. And don’t tell me that you’re still not moping about him. I would have thought that after eight years, you would have gotten the man out of your system. But no, I still catch you staring off into space with that my-world-has-ended look. Frankly, Mercedes, I’m sick of seeing it.”

Geraldine’s angry words snapped Mercedes’s head up. “That’s not true! I’m not moping about John Layton. Good Lord, Mother, it’s like you just said, that was more than eight years ago!”

“But you haven’t forgotten.”

How could she forget the most humiliating, heartbreaking experience of her life? John had been her history professor at the University of Texas. He’d been a quiet, serious man, highly intellectual and handsome to boot. When he’d first shown a romantic interest in Mercedes, she’d been completely bowled over by his charm. Later, as their relationship had progressed into a full-blown affair, she’d truly believed that he loved her and wanted to marry her. She’d thought that the two of them together could conquer the world. God, she’d looked at him and the world through rosecolored glasses.

Sighing, she tried to explain. “Look, Mother, I believed John was the love of my life. I thought he was going to be my husband. The father of my children!”

“Instead, you learned in an offhanded way that he already had a wife with a child on the way. Believe me, Mercedes, that would have been enough to wipe all memories of love or anything else from my mind. Apparently, you’re different from me. I guess I’m just too hard-hearted to let some noaccount, playboy college professor ruin my life.”

It was just like her mother to lay the whole affair out in such blunt terms. She didn’t play favorites with her children. She treated them all with the same tough love.

“I don’t still care for the man, if that’s what you’re thinking, Mother. In fact, I couldn’t care less what has happened to him. It’s just that the whole thing with John made me see how easy it is to be duped by a man. I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to trust another one.”

Mercedes didn’t go on to explain to her mother that John’s deception was only a part of her reluctance to enter another relationship with a man. Three years ago, she’d been terribly betrayed by Airman Drew Downy. Because of him, her security status had been lowered and she’d been reprimanded severely for her lapse in judgment. It had taken months of hard work for her to regain the trust of her superior officers. All because she’d trusted a man. Because she’d believed he was a good friend and had truly cared for her. But instead of being loyal, Drew had blown the whistle on her for sharing classified secrets that he had prompted her to disclose. The memory still made her cringe with humiliation and hurt.

Even though Drew hadn’t been her lover, Mercedes had believed their relationship might grow and blossom into something lasting. When she finally figured out that he was only using her to show himself in a positive light, she’d been crushed and shocked that she’d once again so misjudged a man. After that, she’d gone numb and so guarded that she was reluctant to even share the time of day with a male counterpart in a social context.

“God help you,” Geraldine murmured.