His Bid For A Bride

The taunt, Skye was sure, had more to do with her almost waist-length copper-red hair, confined in a ponytail at the moment, than it did with her surname!

Heated colour warmed her cheeks at this man’s deliberate rudeness; as if his own first name were so ordinary. Although, Skye had to admit, there was no denying how perfectly it suited his look of Viking fierceness…

‘My eyes are a sky-blue.’ She spoke for the first time, defensively, her voice husky, the slight Irish lilt making it more so.

Eyes of the same clear blue met her gaze with bold amusement. ‘So they are,’ Falkner Harrington acknowledged mockingly, that gaze raking over her with merciless assessment now, taking in the rounded beauty of her youthful face, the pink sweater over pert breasts, denims fitting tightly over the long length of her legs. ‘And you’re almost eighteen,’ he echoed sceptically, obviously finding that very hard to believe.

She was five feet six inches tall, not that short for a woman, her hair, when it wasn’t confined, a mixture of blonde, cinnamon and copper, her skin, now that she had at last passed through puberty, pale and flawless, her figure perhaps a little on the slender side rather than voluptuous, but there was time for that.

There was certainly nothing about her, Skye decided indignantly, that warranted this man looking at her as if she were no more than a precocious child!

‘Come on, Falkner,’ her father cajoled. ‘Just letting Skye take a look at the stallion isn’t going to do any harm, surely?’

‘No harm, no…’ the younger man agreed slowly, still looking assessingly at Skye.

A look she deeply resented. If he would just once let her near the stallion then she would show him—

She drew in a deeply controlling breath, forcing herself to smile naturally—which wasn’t easy when she considered this man had insulted both her father and herself in the last few minutes! ‘I really would like to see Storm, Mr Harrington; my father has done nothing but sing his praises since he saw him last week,’ she added encouragingly.

That deep blue gaze flickered briefly in the older man’s direction. ‘I wasn’t aware you had been to see Storm, Connor,’ he murmured softly—dangerously so.

Skye glanced at her father too, knowing by the slightly reproachful look he shot at her that she had just said something indiscreet.

‘I happened to be in this area on business last week,’ her father told the younger man with a dismissive shrug. ‘You were away at a competition at the time, but your groom kindly let me take a look at the stallion you’ve told me so much about.’

‘Really?’ The younger man’s relaxed demeanour hadn’t changed by so much as a flicker of the eyelids, and yet his displeasure at this revelation was nonetheless tangible.

Skye didn’t hold out much hope of the groom escaping verbally unscathed from this disclosure. ‘Surely it’s only reasonable for my father to want to take a look at something he intends offering to buy?’ she dismissed lightly.

Falkner Harrington looked at her coldly. ‘Reasonable, yes—if I had had any idea your father intended offering to buy one of my horses at all,’ he rasped. ‘Least of all Storm.’

‘But why would you want to keep him if he’s unsuitable for jumping?’ Skye continued recklessly; goodness knew her father, as this man’s sponsor, knew what it cost to stable, train, and compete horses who were suitable for the circuit, let alone ones that weren’t in that class.

Falkner Harrington looked down his arrogant nose at her impertinence. ‘Could it just be that perhaps it’s because he’s unsuitable for that purpose that I have my doubts about selling him to a young girl barely out of braces?’ he rasped harshly.

The twin spots of angry colour in her cheeks clashed wildly with the redness of her hair; how could this man possibly know that until a few months ago she had worn braces on her teeth?

Skye could see from the corner of her eye as her father shifted in his chair at this visible display of her rising temper, but she was too indignantly furious now to heed that subtle warning.

‘So you’re unwilling to even let me see Storm?’ she snapped between clenched teeth.

Falkner Harrington shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I have no problem at all with your seeing him.’

‘Then—’

‘Merely with your ever owning him,’ he concluded scathingly.

Skye opened her mouth, closing it again with a snap as her father sat forward slightly and lightly touched her arm. She glanced up at him, knowing her frustration must be evident from her expression.

He gave a barely perceptible shake of his head before turning back to the younger man. ‘As you know, Falkner, I have a pretty impressive stable myself in Ireland. I taught Skye to ride there,’ he added lightly. ‘She really is a very capable horsewoman,’ he assured the other man. ‘Professional standard, in fact,’ he added firmly.

That cold blue gaze flickered over her briefly before Falkner gave another shake of his head. ‘We’ve already agreed Storm’s temperament isn’t suited to that way of life.’

‘We’ll settle for just seeing him,’ Connor cajoled.

‘If you insist!’ Falkner Harrington accepted impatiently after a brief glance at his wrist-watch, obviously aware that he owed at least this much politeness to the man whose company was his professional sponsor. ‘Storm should be back from his gallop by now.’ He rose abruptly to his feet, at once revealing why he had looked down his arrogant nose at Skye’s own height minutes ago; at least six feet four inches tall himself, he must tower over almost everyone he met!

Her father, a man Skye had looked up to and admired her whole life, looked positively short beside the younger man, even the breadth and power of the older man’s shoulders doing nothing to allay that impression; Falkner Harrington had wide, powerful shoulders himself beneath the black jumper he wore, his waist and thighs muscular in cream riding trousers and boots.

The Falkner stable, as Skye had discovered for herself when she and her father had driven into the yard in their hire car a few minutes ago, was a large concern, and although the house itself was slightly run-down, both inside and out, the stables and training grounds were of the very highest standard.

Well, they would be, Skye thought disgruntledly; O’Hara Whiskey, her father’s company, paid for most of that!

But as Skye accompanied the two men outside, for all the resentment she now felt towards Falkner Harrington, both on her own and her father’s behalf, she realized that the sexual attraction she felt towards him was increasing to an almost overpowering degree.

The man was obviously lean and fit, his arrogant good looks beyond question, but it was the animal magnetism he exuded that made her tremble with longing, that made her aware of every aching inch of her own body in a way she never had been before.

But even those feelings faded to insignificance as they entered the cobbled stableyard and Skye fell in love for the first time in her life…

He was wonderful. Tall, dark, and so handsome he took her breath away, his face aristocratically beautiful as he looked down his long nose at her in arrogant query.

Storm.

Her father had told her the stallion was magnificent, pure black, with the fine delicacy Arabians were so known for, but he hadn’t told her how absolutely breathtakingly beautiful Storm was.

‘Thanks, Jim.’ Falkner Harrington took the reins from the groom who had just returned from exercising the magnificent stallion, patting the horse’s neck even as he spoke gently into one of the sensitively flicking ears.

‘What did I tell you, Skye?’ her father enthused happily beside her. ‘Isn’t he the most darlin’—?’

‘Sorry to interrupt.’ A softly spoken middle-aged woman crossed the yard towards them. ‘There’s a telephone call for you at the house, Mr O’Hara,’ she informed him lightly.

‘Ah.’ He nodded knowingly. ‘Can I leave Skye with you for a few minutes, Falkner? I really need to take this call.’

‘Go ahead.’ The younger man gave an abrupt inclination of his head. ‘Skye will be perfectly safe with me,’ he added tauntingly.

She gave him a sharp look before turning to give her father a reassuring smile, knowing he had been expecting this call from his older brother, Skye’s uncle Seamus, in Ireland.

‘You see what I mean.’ Falkner Harrington barely waited long enough for her father to follow the other woman out of the yard before turning scathingly to Skye, Storm moving skittishly on the reins, the beautiful brown eyes glaring his displeasure at this change in his morning routine. ‘Storm just isn’t suitable for a lightweight amateur,’ he added disgustedly.

‘Lightweight—!’

Her father really wasn’t exaggerating when he said she had been riding horses before she could walk. Her mother had died when Skye was less than a year old, and immediately after the funeral in England her father had sold up there and returned to his native Ireland to take over the running of the family business from his father, Old Seamus, taking baby Skye with him.

Instead of engaging a nanny to look after her, as most men would have done in the same circumstances, her father had simply taken her with him, either when working in his office, or in the stables that were really his first love.

Skye had been crawling under horses’ legs, and put up on their backs before she could even stand on her own two legs, leading the huge animals about by their reins by the time she was two years old, riding out with the grooms on their daily exercise by the time she was eight.

How dared this man call her an amateur?