Her Private Bodyguard

Instead, she took another plate out of the cabinet, almost slamming it down on the counter, and piled two pork chops, three rolls and the rest of the green beans onto it. She set the plate on a tray, along with the bowl of fruit salad and a fork, a spoon and a knife. Then she took a clean napkin out of the drawer and spread it over the top.

She stood looking down at the covered food for a few seconds before she reached across the sink and turned on the lights out in the yard. She picked up the tray before she could change her mind and carried it through the door, pushing the screen open with her hip.

When she rounded the corner of the barn, she could see a dim light coming from the bunkhouse. The patch of ground where she was standing was still in darkness, however, out of range of the lights from either building. Safe, she thought, grateful for the concealing shadows. Safe from what? the voice of her own logic, which she was beginning to despise, taunted.

Still reluctant to face the man she had yelled at this afternoon, she had to make herself walk over to the door and knock, balancing the tray on her hip. There was no sound from inside the bunkhouse, and no answer to her rather tentative tap. After a couple of minutes she knocked again, more forcefully this time, and then she turned the knob, pushing the door inward.

“Mr. Sellers?” she called.

There was still no response, so she pushed the door wider and stepped inside. The bunkhouse appeared to be empty. Maybe he was out doing another security check, she mocked mentally. She had been aware that he was making a check of all the windows and doors while she had been cooking dinner. She had already locked them as soon as she had come inside, of course, so he hadn’t had any reason to complain about her security measures.

She set the tray down on the table in front of the potbellied stove and turned to leave. For a moment her eyes surveyed the building her father had built. Pretty primitive by any standard. There were six bunks, three on each side; the table she had put the tray on and its four chairs; the stove; and bookshelves that held a variety of puzzles, games and books.

All of it was covered by a fine layer of silt that the desert wind had brought in. She hadn’t cleaned out here in a long time because no one had lived in the bunkhouse in years, which was exactly the way she wanted it.

Her father had accused her of being a recluse. Maybe she was. But the confrontation with Grey Sellers this afternoon made her know she didn’t regret the life she had chosen. She didn’t need that kind of upheaval again, especially not now.

That kind of upheaval. She repeated the phrase, wondering why she had used it in relation to Sellers. There was nothing in this situation that was anything like the other.

Her eyes rose, sheer instinct maybe, and found him watching her from the doorway that led to the bunkhouse’s communal bathroom. His black hair was wet, glistening with blue highlights under the glare of the bare, swaying electric bulb. Obviously he had just gotten out of the shower, which was why he hadn’t answered her knock or her call.

He was wearing the same jeans he’d worn this afternoon, but he was barefoot. And he was in the process of rebuttoning the chamois-colored shirt. As he did, those gray eyes, which had taken her breath this afternoon, rested inquiringly on her face.

His long fingers continued to work the buttons through their holes, one after the other, not seeming to hurry over the task. The open edges of the shirt revealed a flat brown stomach, centered by an arrow of dark hair. Her eyes had time to trace down it, all the way to where it disappeared into the waistline of his low-riding jeans, before he got to that last button, pulling the shirt together and destroying her view.

“I brought your dinner,” she said, forcing her gaze back up.

For some reason, her mouth had gone dry, so that the words were hard to articulate. She hoped he wasn’t aware of the effect that glimpse of his body had on her normally guarded emotions.

He glanced at the tray of food she had set down on the table, and then back at her. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

“And I wanted to apologize for…flying off the handle at you this afternoon,” she said, forcing the words out and hearing their clipped coldness.

It was a grudging apology at best, but her people skills were rusty. And this man seemed to have the ability to throw her off balance, just by looking at her. Just by that subtle movement at the corner of his mouth, which was happening again.

As if he knew something amusing, but didn’t intend to share. As if he were laughing inside. Laughing at her? she wondered. Paranoia, she chided, pulling her eyes away from his lips.

“I don’t like people assuming I can’t do whatever I set out to do,” she continued doggedly, determined to get this out of the way, to offer some explanation as to why she had reacted as she had this afternoon, without getting too close to the painful truth that she hated being treated as if she were handicapped.

“I didn’t assume anything about what you can or can’t do, Ms. Beaufort,” he said, his voice without inflection. “I told you. I was raised to be a gentleman. Old-fashioned, I guess. At least nowadays. But since you were obviously offended, I apologize. For…everything,” he finished softly. “I assure you, nothing like that will ever happen again.”

His eyes held on her face, saying more than his words. Those were probably meant to make up for the fact that he had put his hands on her. Except he hadn’t even mentioned that. There had been no apology for manhandling her.

Of course, she acknowledged, he wasn’t the only one who was not explaining everything. Usually she just ignored people who made a point of noticing her disability. With him, she had made a big deal of it. And if she were honest, she would have to admit that she knew why.

This was the first man she had been attracted to in years—more years than she wanted to remember. The first one to affect her with this subtle sexual tension since she had broken her engagement to Barton Carruthers.

Nothing like that will ever happen again, he had promised. The “that” carefully unqualified or defined. And she was equally unwilling to pursue a discussion of that physical contact. Grey Sellers would be gone in the morning. She would see to that, even if she had to drive him into town herself and then send someone out here to tow his truck off her property.

When she had, she’d talk to Wallace or to the insurance company, and all of this nonsense would be over. Maybe she had overreacted this afternoon—she wouldn’t deny that—but there was no need to continue to do so. Grey Sellers had chosen to ignore the fact that he’d touched her, and she would, too.

“And thanks for bringing the tray out,” he said, his voice low. “I figured the invitation to dinner had been rescinded.”

Rescinded. As strange a choice of words for the man he seemed to be as untoward had been. But the soft sincerity in his voice made her conscious again that she didn’t feel threatened by him. She hadn’t, not even when he’d shaken her. His action had been only a reflex, a reaction to her anger and her accusation.

“Good night,” she said, deliberately breaking the connection that was growing between them. She didn’t want to know any more about Grey Sellers than she already did. She didn’t want to think about him any more than she already had.

She limped across the room, conscious that her footsteps echoed unevenly on the old boards. Conscious that his eyes were on her, even if she couldn’t see them. Let him watch. Let him get a good look, she thought, suddenly angry and unsure why.

After tomorrow, she told herself again, things would go back to normal. At least, as normal as they could be until she had gotten rid of the albatross that was Av-Tech.

And the sooner she did that, the better, she decided, shutting the door of the bunkhouse firmly behind her. All the way back into the house, however, it seemed she could feel the force of those silver eyes, still watching her.

“IT’S OKAY,” Valerie crooned to the stallion, keeping her voice low and soothing. “Easy now. Easy, boy. Everything’s okay now, you big old bad boy.”

This on top of everything else, she thought, feeling the tension, which she had spent most of the nearly sleepless night trying to destroy, seep back into her neck and shoulders.

Being tense wasn’t a real good thing, of course, when you were dealing with a spooked horse. And despite her continued attempts at reassurance, the black was still upset, head up and ears forward.

One reason she had chosen Kronus as her first stallion was because of his disposition. For a stud horse, he was remarkably well behaved. She had watched him work, and his previous owner had vouched for him. And since she had owned the stallion, he had never given her any cause to question that reputation.

Until today. As soon as she’d come out of the house this morning, shortly after dawn, she had heard him banging in his stall. He had even splintered one of the rails, which meant she didn’t want to leave him in the tiny holding pen until she could make repairs.

Probably better to put him into the corral, she had thought. The other horses were all in the pasture that surrounded the spring, so there would be nothing to bother him out there. Nothing beyond whatever it was that had made him so edgy already.

He’d be in a less confined space and less apt to do himself damage. She took her eyes off the black long enough to glance back into the stall she had just led him out of. It was inside the simple enclosure that she had built herself when she decided she needed to buy her own stud. Granted, the building was very small, but it had seemed plenty secure, and it was far enough from the barn that he didn’t cause problems with the other horses.

She could see nothing in the stall to provoke this kind of display. However, a lot of things could spook a horse, from an unexpected or unfamiliar noise to a piece of plastic blowing along the ground.

Maybe Kronus sensed there was a stranger on the property. As she led the jittery stallion by the bunkhouse, her eyes focused briefly on the door, still closed against the growing light. She realized that she had been aware of that door the whole time she’d been in the yard.

Anticipating when her uninvited guest might open it? she wondered, leading the stud toward the corral. If so, it was an anticipation she didn’t want to feel. Despite her resolve, however, she remembered the impact of Grey Sellers’ eyes. And that small tug of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

She had been momentarily distracted by that memory, but her attention was abruptly brought back to Kronus, where it should have been all along. He had been nervous throughout the short journey. Now he threw up his head, jerking against the lead, and jigging to the side.

She shortened the nylon rope by changing the position of her hand, intent on controlling his head. She was by his shoulder, right where she needed to be. Even so, she could sense the gathering of muscle in those powerful hindquarters, his front hooves even seeming to lift a fraction from the ground.

Val knew that he just wanted to be gone, just to get away from whatever was frightening him. That flight instinct was highly developed in horses, and that’s exactly what Kronus wanted to do. Just get the hell out of here.

Although she was talking to him the whole time, she could feel his tension building. And she still couldn’t understand why. There was nothing—

He jerked his head up, pulling strongly against the lead she held, the whites of his eyes showing. She stayed with him, fighting to keep control. They were so near the safety of the paddock. If she could just get him through that gate and inside.

She reached for the gate with her free hand, and Kronus crow hopped, trying to pull away. He dragged her a few inches away from the fence before she was able to get his head back down.

She could feel her bad knee beginning to tremble, however, as it always did under strain. She ignored it, gritting her teeth against the pain, and grimly hung on as he jumped to the side again.

It would be dangerous for the horse to let him get loose, as crazy as he was acting. Although her land was fenced around the perimeter, there were too many ways he could do damage to himself if he got away out there.