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The horse allowed her touch. He whickered softly into her palm. She performed a quick examination just to make sure there was nothing more to treat than the bloody, half-hanging ear.
“Well?” Luke asked, as she finished the exam.
She wished he’d worn a shirt as she tried not to stare at his sweat-shiny, blood-streaked, perfectly formed male chest. “I’m going to have to medicate him before I can clean and stitch him. Can you lead him out of the stall for me?”
He nodded. So Mercy unlatched the door and backed into the main part of the stable. Luke started to bring the stallion out, too. But the horse grew fractious, jerking the rope Luke had on him, blowing hard through his nostrils.
Luke was gentle. And so patient. He petted the stallion and whispered in his good ear. When he guided the horse forward again, the animal went quietly.
Mercy had the needle ready. As Luke petted and soothed the big gray on one side, she thumped the other side of the horse’s neck sharply with three fingers to desensitize it. She was good with a needle, got it in quick and smooth. Swiftly attaching the syringe, she gave the injection and eased the needle out. Candyman didn’t seem to feel a thing.
Luke stayed close, petting the horse and talking softly to him, as the drug took effect. After a few minutes of waiting, he sent a glance around the stable at the watching men. “We gonna need these boys, you think?”
By then, she had judged that a local anesthetic should do the trick, since Candyman seemed settled and kind of peaceful, with the trank in his system and Luke stroking him and whispering to him.
“I think the two of us can handle this now,” she said. “As long as help’s in shouting distance if there’s trouble.”
“Go on back to your bunks, boys…”
The men left them.
Mercy had the second injection ready. The horse snorted softly when she gave him the shot just behind his ragged ear. But he was already relaxed from the tranquilizer and she was done so fast, he never got around to kicking up a fuss.
As they waited for the area to grow numb, the horse was calm and the stable was quiet. All the stalls were empty, which didn’t surprise her. In the hot summer weather, the horses would be happier and more comfortable outside during the night.
“It’s so quiet,” she said, feeling strangely self-conscious.
Luke made a soft sound of agreement.
“You live in the main house?”
“I do.”
“The rest of your family, too?”
“Uh-uh. Most of them have houses in San Antonio. Or elsewhere.” Luke had six brothers and two sisters. “But they all come back to the ranch for holidays and to get away from the rat race now and then.”
She shook her head.
“What?” he asked in a whisper, a smile playing at the corner of his finely-shaped mouth. “Some reason I shouldn’t live there?”
“All those fat white pillars. Like a palace in Greece. Or maybe a Southern plantation house.”
Luke chuckled low. “You would have had to know my Grandpa James. He modeled it after the Governor’s mansion.”
Once the Cabrera hacienda, La Joya, the jewel, had stood where the huge white house with those proud white pillars stood now. Mercy had seen pictures of La Joya and thought it so fine, so suited to the land it was built on, with thick stucco walls and a tile roof to keep things cool in the hot Texas summers. James Bravo had torn the hacienda down to build the white mansion surrounded by green lawns and rose gardens.
“Must cost a small fortune to water all that grass,” she said, keeping it offhand, not allowing any bitterness to show. She was, above all, loyal to her adopted family. But now was not the time to raise the specter of the longtime blood feud.
He kept things neutral, too, with a half-shrug of one powerful bare shoulder. “We use well water. What can I tell you? My father loves that damn house and those rolling green lawns maybe more than my grandfather did.”
She touched the horse, sliding a hand down his neck first, and then carefully reaching up again to press the flapping, bloody flesh of his torn ear. Candyman didn’t flinch. “He’s ready. I need to wash my hands.”
“Over there.”
She went to the long, deep concrete sink at the far wall and lathered up with the strong disinfecting soap in the tray there, then dried her hands with a paper towel from a wall dispenser. Luke watched her, she knew it. She could feel those eyes of his, searing a hole in her back, tracking her every move. She tossed the towel into the wastebasket by the sink and turned again to face the man and the stallion.
For the stallion’s sake, she approached them slowly. And maybe, if she were honest, it wasn’t only that fine gray horse that had her moving with care. Something in Luke’s burning blue gaze made her pulse turn slow and lazy, made her heart beat a deep, hungry tattoo beneath her breasts.
He had blood on his cheek. In a sudden, shocking image, she saw herself licking it off.
“Tell him nice things,” she instructed, “and keep a soothing hand on him. I’ll need to clean him up first.”
Luke was impressed with Mercy’s doctoring skills.
Fifteen minutes after she washed her hands, Candyman was clean and stitched up and bedded down in his stall, with the fan going to keep the heat of the night at bay.
And Mercy Cabrera was putting her instruments away in that black bag of hers, getting ready to leave.
Luke didn’t want her to go.
Which was insane. And also stupid. Where could it go with the two of them? Nowhere. If he made a move on her, he would only be asking for trouble.
There hadn’t been a flare-up in hostility between their families in years. Not since his father hired her adoptive mother, Luz, to work for him in a well-meaning attempt to put the old feud to rest.
Davis Bravo’s plan had backfired. Luz’s working for a Bravo had infuriated her husband, Javier, who had demanded his wife quit immediately. She hadn’t. Things had gone downhill from there.
Since then, the families had sense enough to avoid each other. It had been going well. Tensions were low enough that a little minor interaction would probably work out fine.
Mercy taking over for Phineas…that could be good. She could treat Luke’s horses. But she wouldn’t technically be working for anyone named Bravo. There would be nothing in such a transaction to get Javier Cabrera’s back up again, nothing to poke at that hotheaded pride of his. Mercy doctoring the Bravo Ridge livestock was a safe and sane way to start putting the feud behind them.
Safe. Sane.
What Luke wanted when he looked at her was not safe. And not sane. Not in the least.
He wanted to touch her. To stroke a hand down her shiny black hair, to press his palm against her soft cheek. To taste that ripe, red mouth of hers. And more…
A whole lot more.
There were a bunch of pretty women in South Texas who didn’t have Cabrera for a last name. If he wanted companionship he should go looking for one of them. What was the matter with him to even consider messing with Javier Cabrera’s daughter?
He wasn’t considering it, he told himself firmly. Uhuh. No way.
Mercy hooked the clasp on her black bag and stood. “The stitches are the kind that dissolve, so I won’t need to remove them. But I’ll come by next week to check on him.”
“Thanks.” The word came out rough and low. All he had to do was nothing. Just stay right where he was until she was gone.
He took a step closer to her.
Her dark eyes widened. Another step, close enough that he could smell her. She smelled good. Fresh. Like a meadow of wildflowers in early morning. With a hint of something sweetly spicy, something exotic and tempting.
“I, um…” She licked those lips of hers, quickly drawing her pink tongue back inside. He wanted to sink his teeth into the smooth brown flesh of her throat, to suck that tongue of hers deep into his mouth. To rip off that snug T-shirt, shove down those faded jeans. “Call the office,” she said. “If there’s a problem.”
“I’ll do that.” He held her gaze and his voice went lower, rougher. “I remember you. When you first came to stay with the Cabreras. I remember those eyes of yours. Black. True black.”
Those eyes tracked—his mouth to his eyes. And back again. “She had cancer, my mother.”
“I heard that. It was hard for you, huh?”
“She died a year after we came to stay with Luz and Javier. They made her final months as good as they could have been. They loved her. And me. And I’m their daughter now, their true daughter. In my heart. And by law.”
He stepped closer. Close enough he could have reached out and grabbed her. But he didn’t.
She held her ground. “I owe them everything.”
Another step. He was crowding her. There was no excuse for such behavior. But he did it any way, stepping sideways, boxing her in. Too late, she moved to put distance between them. Since he blocked the exit, she backed up. Three steps and she could go no farther. The section of wall between Candyman’s stall and the next one over stopped her. She watched him, her eyes locked on his, as he closed the distance between them.
“Luke.”
“What?”
She gazed up at him, eyes deep and dark enough for drowning, and she whispered, “We shouldn’t…”
Before he took her mouth, he whispered back, “I know.”
Chapter Two
She sighed when his lips touched hers. It was the sweetest, sexiest sound. A sound of surrender. A sound that told him everything he needed to know.
The black bag fell to the straw at their feet.
He wrapped his fingers around the bars of two stalls—Candyman’s and the empty stall next to it. He did that to keep from grabbing her, to keep from pulling her down to the straw-strewn dirt floor with him, to control himself.
At least a little.
He held those bars hard and tight as he kissed her, nuzzling those soft, sweet lips of hers, urging her to open and then sliding his tongue inside the instant her lips parted.
She tasted so good. He drank in her long, hungry sigh, then lifted his head from hers just long enough to slant the kiss the other way. That time, she let him inside without his even having to press his tongue against her lips. She parted for him and he swept those silky, wet inner surfaces.
Her low moan of need and desire had him pressing his hips to her, rubbing his aching hardness against her flat belly.
Too soon, with a low cry, she turned her head away. “No,” she whispered. “No…” Her breath came hot and heavy.
So did his.
Her hair tangled against the stall bars, and her dark lashes were down, silky fans against her smooth cheeks, those eyes closed to him. And she kept her head turned hard away. Luke’s mind got the message, though his body didn’t like it. With slow care, he peeled his hands from around the bars and stepped back from her.
Only then did she turn her head to him and open her eyes. Her lips were redder even than before, plundered by his kiss. And her eyes had storm clouds in them. With stunning grace, she dipped to her knees and grasped the handle of her vet’s bag. She rose again with the same elegance. Luke stepped to the side, clearing her way out of the stable.
“That never happened,” she said flatly. And then she turned and left him there.
Luke watched her go, aching to follow, to grab her and kiss her again.
But he knew she was right. It was asking for trouble to even consider getting something going with a Cabrera. And he wasn’t considering it. He would be steering clear of the tempting Mercy from now on.
“He did not.” Elena’s big brown eyes were shining.
“Oh, yeah. He did.”
“Did you…like it?”
“Chica, don’t ask me that.” It was Thursday night, less than twenty-four hours after Mercy had stitched up Luke Bravo’s gray stallion. Elena was spending the night at Mercy’s little South Side house. They sat on Mercy’s bed, sharing secrets the way they always did, with Mercy’s dog, Orlando, snoozing on his rug in the corner. Mercy was sitting cross-legged behind her sister, brushing Elena’s long, brown hair. So beautiful, her sister’s hair. Softly curling, crackling with life, silky to the touch and shot with strands of red and gold. “I would love to have your hair, Elena…”
Elena reached back and stilled Mercy’s hand. “Who cares about my hair? I want to know if Luke Bravo’s a good kisser.”
Mercy freed her hand from Elena’s grip and continued brushing. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me. I mean it.”
Mercy couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Papi would kill me.”
“Tell me.” Elena scooted out from under Mercy’s touch and turned to face her.
“I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
Elena sucked in a breath of pure sisterly outrage. “What? Of course you should have mentioned it. You should tell me everything. Same as I tell you.”
“I told him no. When I left, I said that it never happened.”
Elena lowered her head and glanced up from under her lashes with a slow grin. “But it did. And you liked it.”
Mercy set the brush on the nightstand. “Yeah. I liked it. I liked it a lot. Way too much. And that’s why it can’t ever happen again.”
Elena scowled. “That’s stupid. You like him. I can see it in your eyes. In the way your face goes all soft when you talk about him.”
“He’s a Bravo. His grandfather stole our land, tore down our home and killed our grandfather. Then he murdered our uncle. And his father caused our father to leave our mother.”
“James Bravo didn’t steal our land. His horse beat grandfather’s horse in a race. James Bravo bet money. And grandfather bet La Joya because he wanted that money and the rancho was all he had by then. And then grandfather died on a Bravo oil rig, working to support his family, since he’d foolishly gambled his home away.”
Mercy had her mouth hanging open by then. “What’s the matter with you? Now you’re defending the Bravos?”
“It’s a stupid feud. We both know it. James Bravo killed Uncle Emilio in self-defense.”
“That’s what the Bravos said. And the Anglo sheriff went along with his lies…”
“And Papi shouldn’t have been such a jerk when Mami took that job with the Bravo company.”
“How can you know that, Elena? You weren’t even born then.”
