The Forgotten Daughter

“Um,” she said incoherently, biting her lip. Staring at the equipment, she looked up at him in amazement. “You carried all of it? In a single trip?”

“It’s more efficient that way, don’t you think?”

“How on earth did you manage it?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps I’m not as clumsy as you thought.”

“I never thought you were—”

His dark gaze went through her, and her throat closed. She forgot what she’d been saying.

Stefano’s sensual lips curved into a smile. “I’ll go put your truck away now. Dinner’s at eight in the dining hall. By the way, meals are casual here.” His dark eyes seemed to twinkle as he looked over her designer suit. “If you think you can manage that.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned on the worn heel of his black leather boot. It took several seconds for her to come to her senses.

“I can do casual!” she yelled after him indignantly, but he was already gone.

She exhaled, staring at the closed door. Stefano Cortez was like no other man she’d met. Beyond his masculine beauty and devil-tongued charm, he had a physical strength and power that amazed her.

He’d carried all her gear. In one trip.

Usually, it took Annabelle—even with Marie’s help—four or five trips. And yet he’d carried it all on his back with ease, and then stacked it all efficiently. Looking through the equipment, she saw it was all perfectly in order. She opened the extra cases with her cameras inside, pristine and safe. She took a deep breath, trying to make her heart grow calm and her warm cheeks return to their usual cool state.

She was attracted to him, yes. But it was worse than that. She almost … liked him. And that frightened her most of all.

Annabelle exhaled.

Work. That thought calmed her as nothing else could. She glanced at her watch. She had most of the afternoon, and would make good use of it.

Not bothering to change out of her gray skirt suit, she grabbed an extra camera and put it into her bag. Going downstairs, she went out the front door.

Past the house, on the other side of the courtyard, she saw a whitewashed stable. She peeked inside. There were only twenty stalls, all filled with tall, powerful horses. The stable looked like the remnant of another era, as if she had gone back in history two hundred years to the time of carriages. Closing her eyes, she appreciatively breathed in the smell of fresh hay, horse sweat and leather.

She took a few pictures, then went on to explore the ranch farther. The fields around the sprawling, whitewashed house were wide and beautiful. She saw horses galloping beneath the sun, heard the lazy buzzing of bees in the soft air. The warmth of Santo Castillo was lush and lovely as a childhood summer.

Walking past a grove of trees, Annabelle saw a huge, modern, well-lit building behind the courtyard. A second stable? Annabelle shook her head, laughing at herself. Of course there was another stable. The Cortez horses were famous, after all, and twenty antiquated stalls were hardly enough for all the animals they raised here. Of course the ranch would be modern where it counted.

Opening the door, she walked inside the second stable.

It was enormous, with endless stalls and more horses than she could count. Then she heard laughter. She peeked around the corner and saw five young stablehands, perhaps eighteen or nineteen years old, dark-haired and skinny in T-shirts and jeans. They were working hard, two shoveling hay and three brushing down the horses, but even while so industriously employed the boys were still joking and scuffling. They reminded her of what Stefano must have been like at that age.

One of the teenagers saw her, and he cleared his throat. They all straightened, greeting her respectfully in Spanish.

“Buenas tardes, señorita.”

“Necesita ayuda?”

She shook her head. “I’m going to take some pictures, all right?” she replied in the same language.

They nodded, then went back to work. They seemed self-conscious under her scrutiny, but were too disciplined to do more than give her a shy glance or two beneath their dark lashes.

Annabelle took pictures of the smiling teenagers, of the vast white stable, of the beautiful horses, using her smaller camera with a portrait lens.

“Gracias.” After she left, she went out and took preliminary photos of the golden fields and sharp green mountains, testing the sunlight. She used her telephoto lens on the largest digital camera to capture some shots of the dappled brown horses galloping so gracefully, tossing their heads.

Annabelle took pictures for hours, lost in her work. By the time she came back to herself, the sun was starting to fall gently into the western horizon. The light had changed to soft gold, the color of ripe peaches.

She rubbed the dust and sweat off her forehead as she looked at her watch. Seven-thirty. She looked quickly through the images she’d taken with her digital camera. They were good, but the composition didn’t quite do justice to this magical place. Some critical component was still missing. But what?

She’d have to figure it out tomorrow. The sunset was deepening, the golden light slanting. She tucked her camera back in her bag. Work was over. Now she had no choice but to deal with the problems of the real world.

Like how she would be able to be around Stefano Cortez for an entire week.

Even having dinner with him tonight scared her. We won’t be alone, she told herself. Hadn’t Stefano said everyone at the ranch ate together at the long table in the dining hall? She would just sit far away from him, talk to the laughing teenagers and pretend Stefano wasn’t there.

A childish action, to be sure. But it seemed her only hope. Because as much as she tried to tell herself that her body’s strange reaction to Stefano had been a one-off, and all the warnings she’d heard must have just thrown her, she didn’t quite believe it. She would just have to be icily polite to him from now on—a layer of ice on top of a glacier, she told herself.

But she didn’t believe that, either.

Even just thinking of him caused a shiver of heat down her spine. Why did her body react this way? Why?

Annabelle hurried toward the house. As she passed the large modern stable, she saw the boys were long gone. She was going to be late.

Rushing upstairs to her bedroom, she raced down the empty hallway and jumped into the shower of her en suite bathroom. She was toweling off her hair in two minutes flat. She pulled her wet hair back into a tight ponytail. Far from optimal for scar coverage, but it was all she had time to do.

Her hands trembled as she tried to hurry with her makeup, putting on thick foundation and cover-up over the long red scar that crossed her cheek and forehead. She’d repeated this routine every day, often multiple times, for almost twenty years. She could have done it blindfolded. Drawing back to survey her face in the mirror, she exhaled. At least her scar was invisible.

But she was going to be late, and she was never late for anything. Her cheeks went hot as she imagined Stefano’s darkly amused drawl: Did it take you an hour to find something casual to wear, Miss Wolfe?

And it might. Annabelle zipped open her carefully packed suitcase. I can do casual, she’d told Stefano defiantly, but as she dug through her suitcase she had a sinking feeling in her heart.

Her former assistant had always packed something casual for her on every trip just in case. Unfortunately, now Annabelle was packing for herself, and she hadn’t thought casual clothes were necessary. She double-checked, but the results were the same. Her only “casual” choices were an old silken robe she’d bought in Hong Kong, or a single pair of flimsy flip-flops. Great.

Exhaling, she sat back on her haunches. She missed Marie.

Marie had been the most capable assistant she’d ever had, but she’d put her photography career on indefinite hold to raise her family. My camera will always be there, she’d told Annabelle, but time with my babies will be short and precious.

Just thinking of her assistant’s happy, exhausted face when Annabelle had visited her in the hospital, remembering the way Marie had cooed to her newborn baby as her accountant husband beamed at them both with an adoring, protective smile, Annabelle felt a pain in her throat as sharp as a razor blade.

With an intake of breath, she squared her shoulders. She told herself that self-pity was ugly and ridiculous and she must stop it, she must stop it at once.

Fine, she thought grimly as she reached for a clean pantsuit and pulled it over her sensible white cotton underwear. Let Stefano and his young ranch hands laugh at her in her dressy clothes. She didn’t care. In fact, it would make it easier.

She stared at her expressionless face one last time in the mirror and pulled her blond bangs forward over her now-invisible scar in an automatic gesture. She glanced at her watch: 7:59.

Closing her door behind her, she walked through the darkened hallway and down the sweeping stairs. Though the hacienda had only two floors, it was deceptively large, perhaps even the size of Wolfe Manor. When she finally approached the dining hall, she knew she was late. She came almost at a run.

But when she reached the doorway, she slid to a halt. Her mouth fell open.