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Don’t look at him. Do not look at him.
She looked at him.
Zap!
That was what his stare felt like. Zing. Zoom. Zam.
“More internet research?” he teased.
Breathe.
“Actually,” she all but wheezed, “I’m a vet.”
He slammed on the brakes. She had to throw her hands forward to avoid slipping off the seat.
“What?”
They’d made it to the shed, but one glimpse into his eyes and she realized she’d shocked him. Good. If she kept him on his toes, maybe then he wouldn’t spot the way she blushed every time their gazes met.
“A vet. Graduated two years ago. That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about. I have some ideas about the aftercare of horses with an injury like Dasher’s.”
She really wished he would quit looking at her like that. It made her all kinds of uncomfortable and...quaky inside. Yes, quaky, especially since she was closer than she’d ever been to him before. She could see up close how perfectly his features all melded together into a picture of utter male handsomeness.
“Where’s your practice?”
“I don’t... Well, I mean, I do have one. I mean, I could if I wanted to, and I do, sort of....”
She took a deep breath. “I work for nonprofits, mostly. Did a year in Mexico and Chile gelding stallions for rural farmers. These days I’m focusing on problems that are closer to home. I work for a temp agency that specializes in placing veterinarians. It means I have to travel a lot, but that’s okay. Working temp jobs gives me lots of free time to focus on CEASE.”
There. That hadn’t sounded so bad. He didn’t need to know that she’d been looking for full-time work for months now. Let him think she selflessly devoted herself to her cause.
He turned off the cart. “Be right back.”
“What? Wait. I’ll go with you.”
“No, no. Just stay there.”
He left her there sitting all alone.
She slumped against the seat in disappointment. She’d been hoping for a “Good for you,” maybe even a “Wow, I’m impressed,” but all she saw was his impressive backside disappear inside the shed.
You should be grateful he put some distance between the two of you.
Instead she dwelled on her disappointment at his nonreaction, and that worried her all the more. What did she care if he wasn’t impressed by her vocation? He was a racehorse owner. The enemy.
A handsome enemy.
She covered her face with her hands and groaned. She had the hots for him, all right. And she had them bad.
“Not good,” she heard herself say.
Not good at all.
* * *
A VET.
Zach pulled the string on a brand-new bag of grain, the threads sliding free with a pop-pop-pop-pop, all the while trying to figure out what would make a woman go through years and years of schooling only to toss them all away and found an organization like CEASE.
Crazy.
Well, he knew that. Everyone at Golden Downs knew it. When she and her buddies had picketed the entrance to the track, she’d arrived in a horse costume, complete with long flowing mane made out of yarn.
Crazy.
Outside he heard the rhythmic thud of horses’ hooves. Belle and Baby must have spotted his arrival and were now galloping to the shelter in anticipation of gorging themselves on grain. One of them nickered along the way.
“Hold on, hold on,” he said, opening a feed door along the back wall. Two anxious faces stared back at him, ears pricked forward, eyes bright. He smiled. “Did you honestly think I would forget about you?”
They nodded their heads as if answering his question but were really just exhibiting equine impatience, manes flying, forelocks waving. He poured out the feed. They acted starved. The two of them had all the grass in the world, but he gave them supplements to help the growth of their unborn foals.
“Slow down, you guys. You’re going to choke.”
“I, ah, I think I’m going to head on up to the house.”
He just about jumped. His horses, too, both of them lifting their heads as if to ask, “Who’s that?”
A pain in his backside.
She stood in the doorway, her pretty hair lit up like a sorrel-colored horse. He’d never seen hair such a golden-red before and not for the first time he wondered if it was fake or natural. He would bet natural.
“I brought something I should warm up, and so if you don’t mind...” She motioned back toward the parking area. “I don’t want it sitting in the sun, either.”
“Hang on. I’ll drive you.”
He tossed the horses some grain, then all but threw the scooper back into the garbage can he used to store their feed and closed the lid with a snap before turning back around and brushing by her, their arms grazing. She jumped as if he’d hit her with flames.
It drew him up short. “Did I scratch you or something?”
“No, no.” She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I’m fine. Just a little off-balance.”
He spotted the blush then. Saw how her pulse beat at the base of her neck. The way her gaze darted all over the place—anywhere but at him.
She was aware of him.
He stepped closer. “You sure you’re okay?”
She nodded. “Oh, yeah. Great. Just hungry. That’s why I want to start heating up my dish. I didn’t have any lunch and I’m starved. I’m such an idiot sometimes. I really should eat. Surprised I don’t just keel over sometimes.” She made the sound of a splat, using her forearm to mimic falling over. “Plop. That’s going to be me one day. Not eating makes me light-headed. That’s all.”
Who was she trying to convince? Him? Or her?
He almost laughed. And she still wouldn’t look at him, and that was when he knew. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she found him attractive.
Well, well, well.
Little Miss Animal-Rights Activist was into him. He wasn’t sure if he should be flattered...or scared.
“Don’t worry,” he said softly, closing the distance between them and tipping her chin up.
She gasped.
He tried not to laugh. He had no idea why he did it except maybe he supposed it had something to do with the number of times she’d driven him insane with her actions and her comments and her innuendos and assumptions.
He pretended to examine her. “Your eyes aren’t dilated or glazed over, so no hypoglycemia.”
“That’s good,” she said softly.
“But if you fall down, I’ll catch you.”
He released her. She blinked. He smiled. She turned the same color as her hair.
Oh, yeah. She found him attractive, all right.
So what are you going to do about it?
Drive her crazy, he told himself. Completely and utterly crazy. Maybe then she’d leave him alone.
Chapter Three
She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Mariah ran back to her car while he finished up with the pasture horses. With any luck, she’d have gained control of her emotions by the time they met up again, at least she hoped so, anyway, as she pulled to a stop in front of his home. She found herself pausing for a moment after reaching between the passenger seat and driver’s seat and grabbing a brown bag with her hors d’oeuvres.
She peered out the front windshield in curiosity. His home was gorgeous. A real showplace. Absolutely nothing of the original ranch remained. The outside consisted of three A-frames that sat side by side, with the middle portion bigger than the rest. Redwood siding complemented the massive windows along the front. The landscaping alone had to have cost 100 grand.
When she opened the car door and stepped outside, she could smell the redwood mulch used to line the planters of the gardens.
At least she didn’t smell him anymore.
He’d told her to go on inside, but it still felt odd to open one of the double doors.
“Wow.”
Okay. There was nice, and then there was niiiice. Cavernous didn’t begin to describe the place. Huge beams supported the middle-section roofline—like the rib cage of a dinosaur. A parquet floor stretched from the fireplace on her right to the entertainment center on her left. Straight ahead a trio of windows overlooked the backside of the ranch with a stunning view of low-lying mountains outside.
“Must be nice,” she heard herself mutter, heading to the left, where she could see the gleam of state-of-the-art kitchen appliances. After vet school she’d inherited a pile of debt and a liability insurance policy the size of a mortgage. It was why she didn’t have her own practice. Not yet, anyway. By the time she made her student loan payment and paid the rent and insurance, not to mention a medical truck payment, she’d be lucky to clear five hundred dollars a month, not enough to live off, and certainly not enough to start her own business. Getting hired by an established vet—someone who could split expenses with her—was the first step toward that happening. And so she waited, and in the meantime she filled in for vacationing veterinarians whenever she could, which wasn’t nearly as often as she needed. Thus the old jalopy outside.
The kitchen was just as spacious and grandiose as the foyer. Stainless-steel everything, light brown countertops with spots like quail eggs, tile on the floor instead of parquet. She set the bag down on the island in the middle, almost afraid to make a mess. If this was being small-time, where did she sign up?
Five minutes later she had just finished stirring the Parmesan cheese into her spinach dip when she heard the front door open.
Oh, dear.
Two seconds later he walked into the kitchen, the smell of him reaching her before he did: it wasn’t shavings she’d smelled on him earlier, but some kind of fresh-cut grass and sweat and some sort of pine-scented aftershave that had caused her just as much discomfort inside as it had outside.
“Whatever that is, it looks delicious.” He cocked his cowboy hat back a bit and peered into the dish. “What is it?”
He was tall. She liked tall men. They made her feel feminine and secure and somehow safe.
He’s a racehorse owner, the sane part of her screamed. Heck, and a horse trainer, too.
But he’d agreed to let her help him. That meant something.
“It’s cheesy spinach dip.” She tried like heck not to edge away from him, but she could feel the heat radiate off of him, which, in turn, made her feel flush. “There’s enough calories in that to clog an artery or two.”
He leaned down close to her, so close she could see the dark blue ring around his eyes. “You trying to kill me, then?”
He could have no way of knowing how just being next to him was killing her. No way at all, but she could have sworn she saw the glimmer of something in his eyes, something that made her skin prickle.
“It’s really good.” She sounded like a timid little girl.
He had really white teeth and a smile that made it difficult to hold his gaze. “What do we dip?”
She pointed with her chin toward the brown bag. The moment he stepped away, the muscles in her shoulders collapsed. Her legs damn near did, too.
He found the pieces of the French loaf she’d cut up earlier, his look of pleasure as he dipped a fluffy piece of bread, lifted it to his mouth, then chewed doing strange things to her insides.
“Forget dinner. We should eat this.”
“That’s okay with me.”
He smiled. “Nah. I have something special planned. Braised short ribs with a port arsenic reduction.”
It took her a moment to follow his words, which just went to show how discombobulated she was. “Uh-huh.”
All right. So he made her feel all silly and tongue-tied and teenager-like inside. Oh, well. She’d get over it.
“Just kidding.”
He was? She straightened in embarrassment. How had she missed that?
You were too busy ogling him.
“Seriously,” he said. “I’m making fajitas. Simple.” He went to the fridge and began pulling out the ingredients—a package of beef, a bell pepper, an onion and grated cheddar cheese—and then set them on the island next to her brown bag. “Only takes a moment. Sit down while I brown the meat and onions. You can tell me your plans for Dasher.”
She told herself to focus on what she’d come to do, not how the light from a window along the front of the house cast a glow onto his face, highlighting the dusky outline of his whiskers. He had a chin right out of a comic book and the shoulders to match. Hours out of doors had turned his skin a deep mahogany that emphasized the cobalt of his eyes. He kept peeking at her as he unwrapped the meat and set it on a cutting board.
“Go on,” he encouraged.
