Spaniard's Seduction / Cole's Red-Hot Pursuit: Spaniard's Seduction

Eyes half-closed, the Spaniard murmured, “Sit down. You’re threatening him by standing there.”

“Me? Threatening him?” Caitlyn gave a snort of disbelieving laughter and glanced nervously to the patch of grass Rafaelo was patting.

Taking in Rafaelo’s long, relaxed body reclining on the invitingly green grass, his lazy gaze focused on the horse, she decided that the man was no threat to her. Bent double, she stepped through between the railings and lowered her tired, aching body beside Rafaelo.

He didn’t react. A fantail twittered and fluttered crazily in a nearby bush. Gradually the tension leached from Caitlyn’s muscles. It was heaven to rest back on her elbows and inhale the fresh scent of crushed grass.

Rafaelo didn’t even open his eyes to spare her a glance. Caitlyn snatched up the opportunity to examine him. The hawkish profile, the sensually pursed lips, the olive skin stretched tight across his cheekbones, the small jagged scar beneath his mouth. He was too male to ever be called beautiful.

Then it came to her. The perfect word to describe him.

Macho.

“He’s not as tough as he’d have everyone believe.” At his words, she turned her attention back to the horse.

“Ha! Don’t believe that. There’s a reason he’s called Lady Killer—and it’s not because of his flirty ways with the mares,” she muttered darkly.

“He’s not a killer. He’s an Andalusian,” Rafaelo continued. “In my country we value such horses. We care for them and train them. We do not leave them to become wild and wary like this stallion.”

“He hasn’t been abandoned,” she protested. “Roland bought him about four months before his death. He had plans to turn him into a dressage horse. But the horse is difficult. And with all the work at the winery, Roland didn’t have enough time to put into him. Then he died.”

“Someone needs to take the horse in hand.”

“No one has the time.”

“Or the interest.” Rafaelo’s voice was flat. “I have two weeks. I will speak to my father. Someone needs to give that animal time.”

Caitlyn glanced at him in shock. He was no longer pretending to sleep; all his attention was fixed on the stallion. Caitlyn had been furious with him for pursuing his plan for revenge, to wrest a piece of Saxon’s Folly away from the Saxons. But perhaps it had cooled his anger. It was certainly the first time she’d heard him refer to Phillip as “my father.” She suspected Phillip would be relieved to have Rafaelo’s time occupied, preventing him from skulking around the winery, poking around the fortified wines that they produced. But contrarily she said, “It will be a waste of time. No one can catch that horse, he leads them a fine dance. Jim simply opens his door in the morning and shoos him into the paddock, leaving him a hay net for the day. In the evening, we open his stable door and he comes in for his evening meal.”

The eyes that connected with hers were frighteningly direct. “Who is Jim?”

“One of the cellar hands. He helps Megan feed the horses and muck out the stalls in the morning. Although some students from the local polytechnic who do their practical coursework here also help. And so do I when Megan’s overseas at a wine show.”

“You can ride?”

“Yep, I usually exercise Breeze when Megan’s away.” She pointed to a pretty chestnut mare in the next field. Under his intent gaze the tingling returned, and she moved restlessly. “What can you do with the stallion in two weeks?”

He shrugged. “Teach him to trust me.”

“No chance. That horse doesn’t trust anyone.”

“He already knows I won’t hurt him.”

“Hurt him?” She gave a disbelieving laugh. “If anyone is going to do hurting, it’s that mad creature.”

“He’s not mad, he’s scared.”

She stared at him. “Scared? How do you work that out?”

He didn’t turn his head. His profile was harsh and jagged against the verdant grass and the foliage of the surrounding trees. “The first time I raised my arm, he squealed and kicked and tried to bite me. Now, when I raise it, he flinches and puts his ears flat. Someone has hit this horse around the head.” There was cold fury in Rafaelo’s voice.

“It wasn’t any of the Saxons.” Caitlyn sprang to their defence. “He was already difficult when Roland bought him.”

“Stop worrying. I don’t suspect your precious Saxons. But it angers me that a good animal has been ruined by someone’s uncontrollable anger.”

Caitlyn fell silent. She perused him, a new respect filling her. His strength and power was clearly visible in his long, whipcord body and inflexible will, yet he was gentle, too. She didn’t want to examine why that moved her so profoundly.

“Does anyone groom the stallion?” he asked.

Caitlyn focused on the horse with relief. “Not since he trapped Jim between those powerful hindquarters and the wall and aimed a vicious kick at his head. Jim was lucky to clamber up the wall out of the way.”

Rafaelo fell silent.

The fantail was still twittering and over near the stables Caitlyn saw that a pair of swallows had appeared in the evening sky—the first she’d seen this season.

Rafaelo spoke suddenly, “I’ll make you a deal. Dinner in town says that within a week I’ll have that horse caught, groomed and eating out my hand.”

“Loser pays?” Caitlyn started to laugh. There was no chance that Rafaelo was even going to get near the horse. “You better bring your wallet.”

“I don’t intend to lose.” He threw her a narrow-eyed look that stirred the flutter of butterflies in her stomach and caused her laughter to die. Then he smiled, a wide white grin that sparkled with victory, causing adrenaline to jolt through her.

“I’ll do that,” he said softly, “we’ve got a date.”

Too late she saw the trap. Caitlyn stared at him. Win or lose, she was committed to an evening out with him.

Great going for a woman who didn’t date.

Five

An hour later, scrubbed and clean, Caitlyn pushed back the heavy drapes and stepped through the French doors into the formal salon of the Saxon homestead. She stopped at the sight of Phillip and Rafaelo eyeing each other across the wide expanse of a magnificent Persian rug like a pair of wary wolves.

Both men turned to her, relief in two sets of dark eyes. The tension eased a little when Caitlyn started prattling about Lady Killer. A first. Normally the mere mention of the stallion’s name was enough to cause dissent, but for once Phillip appeared to welcome the topic and soon the men were debating whether the stallion could be turned into a dressage horse.

Caitlyn fell silent, watching Rafaelo warily. She hadn’t forgotten how easily he had lulled her into a sense of false security earlier. Her wariness increased when she caught Rafaelo’s hooded eyes scanning the room as he examined the paintings, the furniture, the jewelled hues of the acres of Persian carpet underfoot that contrasted with the polished kauri floorboards.

Was he calculating the value of what his share in the immense historic Victorian homestead might be worth?

“Just be careful,” Phillip was saying, “that bloody horse caused an accident last month. Alyssa was badly hurt.”

“Do I hear my name?” Alyssa picked that moment to enter the salon, Joshua at her side. Sleek and sophisticated, she was wearing a burnt amber dress that suited her dramatic beauty and dark red hair.

By comparison Caitlyn felt underdressed in denims faded almost to white and not even her newest sneakers and the black tank top she wore eased the sensation. Then she shrugged the discomfort away. Joshua was wearing jeans, too. There was no expectation to dress for dinner at Saxon’s Folly. There never had been. The Saxons might be wealthy, but they weren’t pretentious.

“We’re talking about your fall,” Caitlyn said, remembering that awful moment when Alyssa had lain on the cobbles in the stable yard, so still and so pale, Joshua kneeling beside her, his eyes wide with panic.

For one horrible moment Caitlyn had thought Alyssa was dead—and so had a devastated Joshua. The memory still made Caitlyn’s skin crawl.

“My hand hardly hurts anymore.” Alyssa held up her hand, showing off a narrow bandage. “The physiotherapist says I’m well on the mend, I just need to keep doing my exercises.”