The Wedding Dress

He drew rein beside her, the mare giving a whicker filled with satisfaction, the equine equivalent of “took you long enough to catch us.” But from the mare’s come-hither eyes, Jared wondered if the two females had let themselves be caught. One more part of the mating ritual, just to keep things interesting—tempting the male to a knife’s edge of desire and then retreating.

But the theoretical analysis that usually took the edge off Jared’s sex drive wasn’t working nearly as well as it always had before. Not with the way Emma’s full breasts curved beneath her surcoat, her slim waist accented by the narrow gold-filigreed girdle. Long nights alone he’d dreamed of a woman’s body garbed like that, his hands stripping the layers away as if they were petals, with velvety feminine skin at the center. The only fantasies he’d let himself have since Jenny….

Don’t think about her now. Don’t think about anything except the job you’re supposed to do here.

“So you decided to join us after all, Dr. S. M.,” Emma said, her eyes dancing.

Jared knew she was itching to have him ask what she meant by the nickname, but he wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction. He swung down from the stallion. Taking both sets of reins, he tied the horses to a low-hanging branch. “Angelica told me it was common among actors to say they ride when they really haven’t had much experience. I underestimated you. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

Emma raked wayward black curls away from her face. One strand stuck to the corner of her bottom lip. Jared couldn’t help staring at it.

“Before I read the script for Lady Valiant, my all-time favorite horses were the kind with candy-striped poles through their middles so they couldn’t go anyplace but around in circles. I’d taken a trail ride once with my stepfather and then there was the pony ride at the county fair back in Illinois.”

Jared tried to tear his gaze from the rebellious curl, fought an inexplicable urge to take his own finger and smooth it away just so he could have an excuse to touch that impossibly perfect lip. He reined in the impulse as ruthlessly as he would have reined in a stallion scenting a mare in heat.

“You learned to ride less than a year ago?”

“My best friend back in L.A. is a brilliant equestrian. She gave me a crash course on her Dutch warmblood, Arlie. I think he’s the love of my life.”

“Davey will be so disappointed.”

“Yeah, well, Arlie and I suffered through a lot together during horse boot camp. I figure if Sam ever gets tired of the writing gig, she can be a gunnery sergeant. By the end of the month, my legs were so cramped up I walked like Festus in the Gunsmoke reruns my grandfather used to watch.”

She demonstrated a bowlegged strut so foreign to her natural grace and elegance Jared was amazed. Never would he have guessed a polished woman like the actress before him would make fun of herself so freely.

Jared found himself smiling back at her. “So why didn’t you call ‘hold, enough’ when Angelica was awarded the part? That was over a year ago. It’s obvious you kept riding.”

She flushed, impossibly thick black lashes drifting down to hide her eyes. “Know the funny thing?” she asked in a voice he’d not heard before. She laid her cheek against her horse’s withers and slid her hand into the silky cove between the mare’s mane and neck. “I never expected I would love riding so much. The freedom of it, the feel of the wind. It’s not like motorcycles, you know? All noisy and spitting fumes in your face. On a horse, it’s just you and the quiet, the peace, of being out in the hills alone.” Her voice changed, a little wistful. “You’ll never know how much I needed that.”

Midnight eyes peered almost shyly into his. He could feel her waiting for him to make some wiseass remark.

Instead, he felt a strange kind of connection, a link he hadn’t expected. He spoke to her for the first time without anger or acid wit. “I think I can guess.”

How many hours had he spent on horseback with no one but the wind and the sky and his thoughts?

How strange that this exquisitely beautiful woman with her twenty-million-dollar paychecks and the world at her feet should feel the same thirst to escape as he did.

And yet, how hard must it be for her to get that time alone? With the press stalking her and her fans eager to devour any news about her private life. As if she owed it to them to expose her very soul.

Careful, man. Jared’s cynical side nudged him. Remember the lass chose this life. Fame is what she wanted.

Why did that slick Hollywood existence seem so incongruous with the woman before him, silhouetted against the rugged Scottish landscape, banks of heather and clumps of crab apple trees?

Her eyes drifted closed and she breathed in deep against the mare’s sleek coat. A pleased smile tipped the corner of lips more kissable than Jared had imagined a woman’s ever could be. Damn if Emma McDaniel wasn’t smelling the horse! That comforting combination of hay and leather and sweat that soothed Jared’s ragged nerves so often.

“I’d love to have a horse once my life settles down a bit,” Emma confided. “I adore Arlie, but…he’s definitely Sam’s baby. I want a baby of my own.”

Strange, Jared thought. Hadn’t the headlines on that gossip rag broadcasted that Emma didn’t want children to ruin her gorgeous figure and muck up her career? That was why her husband had left her, wasn’t it? But then, you could hire a groom to take care of a horse while you were gone for months at a time. And if you got tired of the commitment you could sell a horse. Children narrowed your options forever.

Guilt pinched Jared and he busied himself unlashing the bundle from the back of the saddle. He hated the feeling that he, too, was intruding into parts of Emma McDaniel’s life that were none of his business. He had plenty of baggage he’d never want to share. Knew firsthand that suffocating feeling of…

He cut off the thought as the bundle slid free.

“What’s that?” Emma asked, eyeing it with interest. “Some really long hot dogs for a picnic lunch…or breakfast. I keep forgetting what time it is.”

“I brought the swords along so you could practice here. We’re better off away from the site. We’d be a distraction. Here, we can bash around without a soul to hear us but old Snib. And I’d actually like to irritate him. He’s given me plenty of headaches himself.”

“Headaches?”

“Putting the fear of God in my students if they dare wander onto his property. Accusing them of everything from sheep stealing to highway robbery when the worst they’ve done is steal a kiss or two among the standing stones.”

“Why not stay right here? This brook would be a lovely place to…well, steal something besides sheep.”

Jared chuckled. “The standing stones are supposed to make men more potent and ladies fertile. There’s a story that when Lady Aislinn failed to conceive, she left offerings of flowers at the stones in desperation, hoping the spirit there would help her have a child.”

“Did it work?”

“No. But I figure it wasn’t the fault of the stones. It was more the fact that Lord Magnus was forever running off fighting for the English king.”

“I thought the Scots hated the English. Especially…” She paused a moment, her brow furrowing with concentration. “Edward Longshanks, the Hammer of the Scots.”

Surprised, Jared smiled in spite of himself. The lady had definitely done her homework. “King Edward didn’t get the name Hammer until much later, but say what you will about the man’s methods, he was canny as any fox. He gave Lord Magnus wealthy estates in England to buy his loyalty. Quite a dilemma for many Scots nobles. And our own king at that time had sworn fealty to Edward, so there were many who believed honor bound them to take up arms for England.”

“And you?”

Jared regarded her a moment, surprised.

“If you’d been Lord Magnus, what would you have done?”

“My idea of honor is a lot closer to Sir Brannoc’s. And speaking of the most notorious mercenary of his time—” He took one sword and handed it to Emma, his hand brushing hers as he transferred the hilt into her grip. He felt the weapon tug her arm down by its sheer weight.

She quickly added the grasp of her other hand. “My Lord! This thing weighs a ton!”

Jared raised an eyebrow. “My point exactly. Think if I ship one over to your director he’ll finally give this whole fight scene up?”

“No. And neither will I. It’s great conflict. So powerful. And it’s a brilliant symbol for all the strength Lady Aislinn has gained by the end of the script.”

“Have it your way then.” Jared sighed, taking up his own weapon. He ran his fingers down the flat of the blade, drawing from the familiar surface a sense of calm, of power, of invincibility. “Lay on, MacDuff. But when your whole body aches like a boil tomorrow, don’t complain to me.”

He lost himself in explanations, examples, demonstrating the simplest of fighting stances. He tried not to laugh as Emma’s skirts tangled about her legs, inhibiting her stride. In spite of that, she proved to be stubborn as any Scot Jared had ever known. Demanding that he repeat moves again and again, scoffing when even he—bastard that he was—suggested she rest a moment, take a drink from the wine sack he’d brought along.

As it happened, he could have used a moment to collect himself. Clear his mind of the distractions that had surprised him: the soft swells of breasts straining against cloth as she raised her arms to swing, the alluring curve of hip and narrow waist, as time and again he divested her of her sword.

She lunged and parried, thrust and gasped for breath, like one of the Valkyries in legends left in Scotland by Vikings invading ages ago. But time and again, Jared swept the sword out of her hands until at last she didn’t have the strength to lift it above her knees.

“See what I mean?” Jared said. “This whole sword-fight scenario is ludicrous. It’s impossible for Lady Aislinn to win.”

“Nothing…is…impossible.” She wheezed, bending over, bracing herself on the sword. “One day I’ll find a way to drop you like a rock. Just like Billy Callahan, the school bully.”