by Jennie Lucas
Because she couldn’t commit? Because she was a workaholic? Because she was constantly on the road and didn’t need, or want, a real home?
All good reasons, he thought. All bad reasons.
Annabelle finally finished the last of her tea.
“Now?” the boys demanded.
She smiled. “Clear the table.”
The long wooden table was clean in seconds. As the boys clamored around her, even Mrs. Gutierrez came over to see what all the commotion was about. Annabelle reached into the black leather case at her feet and withdrew a stack of colorful printed images.
“Here’s a sampling of the pictures I’ve taken so far. Just preliminary pictures off my travel printer,” she warned. “The final versions will be far better.”
She placed the stack on the table, and the boys snatched them up. Immediately, they started exclaiming with praise over the beauty of the photographs she’d taken of Santo Castillo.
“You are truly a wonder, señorita.”
“Sí—you even made Juan look less ugly in this one!” another boy snickered, only to be punched in the shoulder by the first boy.
“My goodness, these are beautiful,” Mrs. Gutierrez cooed. “The prettiest pictures I’ve ever seen.” The housekeeper looked over at Stefano. “Don’t you think so, señor?”
Annabelle’s gaze met Stefano’s across the table, and he heard her intake of breath. The smile on her face fled.
Setting his jaw, Stefano walked toward her. Reaching for the papers, he looked through the images. He saw Santo Castillo’s landscapes, the golden fields around the hacienda, the dappled forest, the horses in the stables, even the boys working. He saw Mrs. Gutierrez cooking in the modern kitchen as she made a meal for seven hungry men.
Technically, the pictures were all perfect.
And yet … they didn’t move him. Something was missing. Something like passion. Like life.
“Well?” He looked up to see Annabelle biting her lip. “What do you think?”
It was the first time she’d spoken directly to him in three days. He could not tell her the cold hard truth—that these pictures did not touch his heart. What did he know about photographs? What did he know about art? Nothing.
Waiting, she licked her lips nervously. He had the vision of that pink tongue flicking at the corners of her full mouth. He felt himself tighten as he imagined those sweet pink lips against his rough skin, gasping her pleasure, crying out his name.
No—he had to stop torturing himself!
But he’d never experienced anything like this, being so close to a woman he desired without being able to possess her. Did she even know the power she had over him?
“Stefano?”
“The pictures are fine,” he muttered. Roughly, he pushed the stack of photographs aside and turned away.
“No.” The sharpness of Annabelle’s voice stopped him. “Don’t be polite, Stefano. I want to know what you actually think.”
He slowly turned back to face her.
“I think they are unremarkable,” he said quietly. “Verídicamente, I expected better from you.”
She blinked, clearly shocked. “What?”
“There is no passion in your photographs. No heat or wildness.” Lifting the stack of printed pictures from the table, he placed them gently back into her hands. “I’m sorry, Miss Wolfe. But you have completely failed to capture the essence of my ranch.”
She stared at him numbly. “You … you don’t like them?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then—”
He shook his head. “The pictures are beautiful, but have no life. They are like a beautiful corpse.” He looked her straight in the eye. “Your pictures are frozen, Annabelle. They are dead.”
Annabelle choked out a gasp. He might as well have slapped her in the face.
Your pictures are frozen. They are dead.
She’d never felt so empty or so alone as she had for these past three days. Mrs. Gutierrez had taken care of her almost like a mother, packing snacks and tea for her when Annabelle went up to the old Moorish ruin, now just a pile of rocks overlooking the valley. Even the boys had looked after her, reminding her of her own brothers in childhood. It had almost been like … a family.
Except for the constant ache in her heart.
She missed Stefano.
She hadn’t had any more nightmares to wake him. She hadn’t dreamed at all, in fact. Her mind was blank. She had nothing but emptiness in her heart as she tried to throw herself into her work. She’d dragged her heavy camera bags and lighting equipment all over the ranch, taking photographs with her camera tripod and long-lensed cameras, using her lights for closer portraits inside the house.
But the truth was that she’d barely noticed the images she photographed. Not when it took all of her focus not to rush back into Stefano’s arms.
So with a trembling heart, Annabelle had waited for Stefano’s verdict as he looked through the pictures spread across the table. She’d prayed that somehow, by some miracle, he would think they were good. Instead, she’d never had her skill so thoroughly scorned.
I’m sorry, Miss Wolfe. But you have completely failed to capture the essence of my ranch.
Now, as his brutal judgment still echoed across the dining hall, Annabelle stared up at him in horror.
The boys started mumbling out excuses in Spanish.
“Better check on the new colt.”
“Need to go shovel something.”
“Need to be … somewhere else.”
The teenagers grabbed the last pastries from the table before filing out of the room with surreptitious back glances. After one last reproachful look at her employer, Mrs. Gutierrez followed them, closing the door softly behind her.
Annabelle looked up at him with wide eyes.
“Why would you say something so cruel to me?” she whispered. She felt like she was floundering, drowning. “You’re—you’re just trying to hurt me, because of … before.”
Stefano set his jaw. “Do you really think so little of me?” he said harshly. “It gave me no pleasure to tell you this. Believe me. But you wanted the truth.”
The truth. The truth was Annabelle felt like her heart was being ripped out of her chest.
But she could see in his face that he wasn’t trying to hurt her. He truly thought that her work was frozen and dead. A beautiful corpse. Just like Annabelle herself.
She’d always known she would someday be exposed as a talentless fraud. Barely holding back tears, she turned away. “I … I should go …”
Stefano grabbed her wrist. “Don’t.”
The pressure of his hand on her wrist left her light-headed as the pace of her heartbeat quickened. She ripped her hand away. Stuffing the pictures back in her bag, she lashed out, “What more can you possibly say?”
He looked at her. “You are a brilliant photographer, Annabelle. I have seen your work. You can do better than this.”
“Maybe I can’t.”
“You have observed Santo Castillo from a distance. But you need to feel it. You need to live it.” His dark eyes plundered her soul. “You need to come work with me.”
She stared at him in confusion. “Work? With you?”
“Sí. With the horses.”
Annabelle thought of shoveling hay, rather than watching through the safe cool distance of her camera lens. She thought of the sweat, the hard work, the risk of her makeup smearing and revealing her scar. And worst of all, she thought of being so close to Stefano, when it took all of her effort not to throw herself in his arms and beg him to make love to her.
She pressed her fingernails painfully into her palm. “Why would you want my help with the horses?”
“It is you who needs the help.” He brushed against her in a touch that seemed accidental, but she knew was not. The slow burn of his nearness sent tingles down her spine, causing her lips to tingle and her toes to curl. “To understand the ranch, you must feel it—” reaching up, he put hi
She looked up at him. She could feel the radiant heat of his hand. Annabelle’s heart pounded even harder, slamming against her ribs.
Then he took both her hands in his own.
“Will you come with me?” His fingers enfolded hers, his bare skin against hers. He did it gently, like a lover’s tender clasp, and yet her limbs burned, as if coming back to life after a long winter.
Annabelle knew she was in danger. Knew it to her bones. He wasn’t trying to seduce her body now, but her heart. Even as she shook with need for his warmth, his touch, she was scared of his power over her, and the knowledge that if she surrendered, a love affair could come to only one sad end: her own destruction.
She swallowed. “I …”
He cupped her cheek with his hand. “Come with me today, Annabelle,” he whispered. “No camera. Just you.” His hot, dark gaze fell briefly to her lips, and her mouth tingled, making her feel dizzy. “For one day, leave your camera behind. Look with your eyes. Look … with your heart.”
“Why do you care so much?”
A smile traced his sensual mouth. “I want your photographs of Santo Castillo to shine. To leave no doubt that my ranch is the best in the world.”
“The best in Europe.”
He gave her a grin. “That is a difference of opinion.”
She laughed at the gleam in his eyes, then sobered. “Is that the only reason?”
“No,” he said quietly. “I look at you and see an innocent, bright young woman that’s been hurt by the world. Beneath your cold exterior, Annabelle, I see a broken heart.”
She nearly gasped. How did he know? How did he see?
Setting his jaw, he shook his head. “It infuriates me. Like seeing a promising yearling with its spirit broken.”
Annabelle tried to hide her emotion beneath sarcasm. “So you’re comparing me to a horse?”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Let me help you,” he whispered. “Let me at least try.”
Pressing her lips together, she looked up into his gleaming dark eyes. “But what if I fail?” He gave a low snicker. “Fail? You’ve already failed.”
She choked out a laugh. “You have a funny way of trying to reassure someone.”
“Failure is liberating. It sets you free. If you are brave enough to fail and still do not quit, you will prevail,” he said softly. “And I do not take you for a coward, querida”
A breathless, almost painful hope filled her.
“You don’t?”
He shook his head.
“In fact,” he said huskily, moving closer, “I think you are a woman who would rather die before you’d give up—on anything.”
Their eyes locked. She swallowed, feeling prickles of fire spreading down her body.
“You just need to remember,” he said, touching her cheek.
“Remember what?” she breathed.
“Who you were before your heart was broken.” He lifted her chin. “And who you were born to be.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“WHERE ARE WE GOING?” Annabelle asked as he led her across the courtyard.
As they walked, Stefano smiled down at her, looking confident and completely irresistible as he pushed open the door to the old stables. “To the paddock on the upper slope. It’s where we train the colts.”
She halted inside the door, looking with trepidation at the monstrous-size horses inside the wooden stalls.
“You should change your clothes,” he said yet again, looking down as her designer pantsuit and glossy black heels.
“If I leave now, I’ll lose my nerve,” she breathed.
It had been nearly twenty years since Annabelle had last ridden a horse. The same August day she’d decided to sneak out to the party in the village. She’d felt so powerful that day. Fearless. Free.
But by the end of that night, she had been in the hospital, and Jacob arrested for their father’s murder. Her brother was acquitted, the verdict being accidental death in self-defense, but their family—and Annabelle—had never been the same.
She swallowed. The last time she’d ridden a horse, she’d been so innocent. So unafraid. So young.
Coming up behind her, Stefano put his hands on her shoulders. She felt his warmth and strength like a burst of sunshine through rain. “Do you know how to ride?”
“I used to.” She slowly reached up to stroke the horse’s nose. “I used to race to keep up with my older brothers.” She stopped her hand in midair, not quite touching the animal. She whispered, “I used to be fearless.”
“You can be again.”
She swallowed, then looked back at him. “Can I? Can I ever be that girl again?”
“Yes,” Stefano said steadily.
With a deep breath, Annabelle turned back toward the horse. Then she hesitated. “But what do I do? How do I start?”
Coming closer, he smiled down at her. “First, you will choose the right horse. Not Picaro, he is a brute for all of his innocent face. Do not believe his deceit.” He pulled her farther back into the stables. “Now this is Josefina, she is gentle. She will care for you like a mother.”
He swiftly saddled the horse, then turned back to her.
Her eyes locked with his, and suddenly, climbing on the horse’s back seemed easy compared to being this close to Stefano, to enduring the searching intimacy of his dark eyes.
Ignoring his hand, Annabelle went around him. Putting one foot in the stirrup, she threw her leg over the back of the saddled dapple-brown mare. To her surprise, she discovered that she hadn’t forgotten how to do it. Her body somehow still remembered how to use her thighs to grip the saddle, her hands to hold the reins lightly.
“Excelente,” Stefano said approvingly. “You have not forgotten how to sit a horse.” Swiftly saddling a horse in the nearby stall, he swung up on the black gelding in a single movement of beauty and grace. “Follow me.”
Annabelle couldn’t take her eyes from Stefano as he led them out of the stable. He moved so well, and never more so than on horseback. She stared at his muscular backside, at his tree-trunk thighs splayed across the saddle. Then as he rode away from her, she blinked and clumsily urged her horse to follow. The gentle mare took pity on her and obeyed.
The wind blew against them as they rode away from the hacienda. Stefano glanced back at her with a wicked smile, then urged his horse faster with a low whistle. Watching him ride ahead of her, Annabelle was mesmerized by the image of the darkly handsome Spaniard riding the black horse across the wide golden field.
He looked back at her, his horse rearing back on two legs.
“What are you waiting for?” he shouted.
Annabelle felt a fierce answer in her own heart. Leaning low over her mare, she lightly tapped her heels and her horse raced forward with excitement that matched Annabelle’s own. She soon caught up with Stefano. Smiling at him coquettishly, Annabelle gave a wild, joyful laugh, and raced past him.
She heard Stefano’s shocked laugh behind her, then the rapidly approaching pounding of hooves as he caught up with her.
“The upper paddock,” he called to her. “It’s this way.”
Annabelle felt strangely free, her heart light. She felt young again. They raced their horses side by side and, in the distance, she could see the far-off ocean echoing deep blue into the sky above, as the fields shimmered and waved around them like a golden sea. They rode side by side, hooves flying beneath them as Annabelle looked at him.
Stefano was laughing, his dark eyes alight with joy. “How could you ever give up riding?” he shouted to her. “How could you ever give this up?”
“I don’t know,” she cried. She felt like she’d been sleeping for twenty years, and in this moment, she awoke.
They reached a plateau high in the green cragged hills. Following his lead, she tied her reins as she climbed down from the horse, feeling slightly sweaty but exhilarated as her feet touched the soft earth and her weary legs nearly buckled beneath her. The ride had tired her more than she’d expected. But it was worth it.
Was this all it took for Annabelle to reclaim the girl she’d been? One ride across the fields with a handsome man? If so, why hadn’t she done it before?
Stefano went inside a large shed, and she surreptitiously checked her hair and makeup in the compact mirror from her jacket pocket. Her hair was ruffled but her makeup still in place. Perhaps working on the ranch wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d feared.
Stefano came out of the shed with a rope lariat hanging around his neck, then brought out the first of the young foals from the nearby paddock out into the large pen.
“Stay close,” he told Annabelle when she tried to move back to the shade. “You’re going to do this.”
For hours, he worked tirelessly to train each young colt to respond to his command, whether given by voice or gesture—to walk, to stop, to change direction or speed. When he returned each colt to the paddock, he brought out another, then another. Some of the animals obeyed. Some refused at first. But Stefano never lost patience. He worked each foal hard, and as the sun beat relentlessly down on them, his skin soon glistened with sweat.
Annabelle felt a bit sweaty herself, watching him with trepidation. He finally turned back to her, holding out the rope. “Now you.”
She felt a surge of terror. “No, I really.”
“Here.” He pushed the rope into her hands. “Now walk him,” he ordered in a quiet, soothing voice, as if training her as much as the horse.
Annabelle tried her best to follow Stefano’s instructions, but it was physically demanding work. The wily young horse didn’t obey her commands as it had Stefano’s. He kept pulling away, resisting her, yanking hard on the rope until it ripped out of her hands, chafing her skin.
When he was done, Stefano brought out another horse, then another. He kept forcing Annabelle to try again, until all she wanted to do was return to the house and collapse weeping in her bed.
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