by Angie Derek
"I agreed to come and meet them as he requested, and I have. You can't force someone to have a connection they don't want."
"I'll have a talk with them."
"That's not what I'm saying." She tried not to let her disappointment creep into her voice. "It's time for me to go home."
"Take a walk with me."
"Why?" Suspicion rose within her. He was going to show her something to try to force her to stay.
"I need some air." He led the way out of the office, then out the front door. The sun was just beginning its drop into the orange and pinks. "And I have more to show you."
She just bet he did. "Marc…"
"This way."
He didn't take her hand to tug her along as he had the night before. Instead, he strode out purposefully, and she had to jog a couple of steps to catch up to him.
As they rounded the corner, they came to the side of the house where she'd originally arrived. At the time she'd been so focused on the mansion itself she'd barely noticed the ten–stall garage.
Marc paused, his gaze finally coming back to her. "The garage."
"Kinda obvious." She hugged herself and rocked back on her heels. "That has ten bays, and there are several cars in the front of the house and three outside the garage."
"We have a lot of cars. Personal and business."
Next to the garage, she spotted the one she'd been driven around in. She wrinkled her nose.
"The boys who stay on campus live in the apartments above the garage."
Little windows lined the top of the two-story garage.
"The boys?"
"You met one of them last night."
"You mean guards."
He shrugged. "Part of the job description." He started walking again past the garage at a slower pace.
Lessa noted one of the boys walking the perimeter of the pool. Marc nodded to him as they passed and headed in the direction of the vine-covered hills.
He ran a hand through his hair and dropped it. "About Tony—"
"Tony doesn't matter anymore." She sighed. "I think I can avoid him until I leave."
He looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Jio was already planning on keeping Tony out of the way. You don't need to run off on his account."
"I'm not."
"Look." He stopped and turned to her. "Give it a couple more days."
She raised an eyebrow. "That's not very convincing."
Marc rocked back on his heels and dropped his hands on her shoulders as he had earlier. "You'll regret being run off. You'll wonder what could have happened if you'd stuck it out."
He might be right, but he'd also made it clear he didn't believe her father should have invited her to come there. How much of his protestation was real and how much was him following his old boss' orders?
"I could regret not leaving before things get worse."
"You're being dramatic."
Lessa raised her eyebrows and stayed silent.
His lips curved. "I'm being cautious not dramatic. Come on." He released her shoulders and grabbed her hand to tug her after him.
At the familiar gesture some of the tension she'd been carrying released, and she let him pull her after him. The dirt lane bordering the house was thankfully easy to traverse in her sandals.
"Where are we going?"
"Just giving you a feel for the land, since you're going to be spending a lot of time here."
She sighed. "You don't give up easy."
"I didn't think you did."
She jerked him to a stop. "Now, wait a minute. You have no right to judge me."
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are. You spend half your time issuing dire warnings, with the seeming intention of running me off, and the rest of the time acting like I somehow owe it to Jiovanni to hang out here and wait until one of my half-siblings condescends to speak with me." She placed her hands on her hips, warming up to her rant. "You pop in and out whenever you feel like it, leaving me to be babysat like a child. I can't fathom why you'd think I'd want to hang around for another day?
"That's not—"
"It's not like he even wanted to meet me or get to know me. He had me summoned after he died. For what purpose? To stir up trouble with his family, because that's all that's been accomplished—"
"Jiovanni was respecting your mother's wishes to leave you alone."
She rolled her eyes. "If he'd had any interest in me, he wouldn't have waited until after he died to contact me."
He clenched his jaw before huffing out a breath. "You didn't know him."
"No." She breathed deeply. "I didn't know him at all. You know, I almost cried for him at the funeral until I realized my sadness wasn't for him, but for what he represented and for what he took away by being my real father."
He kicked at the dirt, staring at the ground a moment. "I think I've been a little too forthcoming with my own feelings about all of this. I didn't know about you, Lessa, so I can only guess as to his reason for sending me to bring you here. But it's still just a guess. Family was important to Jiovanni."
She barely prevented herself from rolling her eyes in exasperation. "So, you've told me multiple times, but he's not here, is he?" At Marc's slight flinch, remorse flickered through her. She kept forgetting he'd actually been close to her father and had to be grieving. "I'm sorry. I'm…" She closed her eyes, trying to pull her thoughts together, but all she could think of was going home and leaving the turmoil behind her.
"Don't worry about it."
His hand grabbed hers again, and she opened her eyes. His smile was back in place, making her wonder if she'd imagined the flash of grief.
"I want to show you my favorite place."
"It won't change my mind."
"We'll see."
He led her to another building she'd barely noticed while sitting by the pool, figuring it had something to do with the vineyard. It wasn't until they'd walked around a bend in the dirt lane that she could see the clearing around the building and the horses behind the fences.
"A stable?"
"Know how to ride?" He stopped at the fence and leaned his arms along the top rail.
"Nope." Lessa didn't consider the few trail rides she'd gone on in summer camp to count. A brown horse walked up to them, sniffing at Marc first before checking her out. As she'd been taught, she held her hand out for him to smell before reaching up to pet him between his eyes. Except she wasn't sure if the friendly horse was a he or a she.
"I could teach you." Marc ruffled the horse's forelock. "He's gentle, but you'd have to stay for more than a day."
"What makes you think I want to?" She raised an eyebrow as she cocked her head to look at his face.
It was relaxed in a way she hadn't seen before as he grinned first at the horse and then at her. "You're not afraid of him. Besides, every little girl loves horses."
"I'm not a little girl."
He shrugged. "Vertically challenged."
Despite her amusement, she dropped her hand and pivoted on her heel to fix him with a glare. "Excuse me. You didn't just insult me?"
He reached up to brush her hair behind her shoulder, then rested his fingers on her neck. She froze, surprised by the gesture. It wasn't the first time he'd touched her. In fact, he touched her a lot, but this was much more intimate than any of the others. Her eyes locked with his, and she felt like she was under a spell at his intense gaze.
His hand dropped to his side as he looked away first. "Come on, I'll give you your first lesson now."
He didn't wait for her to respond, but walked along the fence toward the barn door. The horse followed him until the side of the barn forced it to go inside. Lessa's feet took a moment to respond to her command to follow Marc, but she finally stepped into the interior. Plenty of light filtered in through the large doors on both ends of the building. Marc was nowhere to be seen.
"Marc?"
"In here." His voice came from the room closest to her, and she stuck her head in to see that it was fill
ed with saddles and bridles.
"I'm not dressed for riding." Her light blue blouse and skirt were more fitting for socializing than being in the outdoors. "Not to mention my sandals. I do remember that you're supposed to wear boots."
"I thought you said you'd never ridden?" He turned with a pair of short black boots in his hand.
"A few trail rides here and there. Since all I had to do was sit in the saddle and let my horse follow the one in front of me, I didn't think that's what you were asking me."
"Try these on." He held the boots out to her.
She sighed. "You don't listen very well."
"I hear everything you say to me." He pulled a saddle and bridle off their racks and stepped out of the tack room, leaving her alone with the boots in her hand.
He might hear what she said, but he ignored what he didn't want her to say. Shrugging her shoulders to no one but herself, she sat on a trunk and pulled the boots on, zipping them up her ankles. Surprisingly, they fit. She narrowed her eyes and walked over to the trunk he'd pulled them from and saw it was full of boots in various sizes. Too bad there weren't any socks in there. The boots might fit, but they weren't designed to be worn without socks. She'd probably end up with blisters.
She brushed at the dirt on her skirt. It would get a lot dirtier before he took her back to the house.
"They fit?" Marc called in.
She stomped over to the doorway and stared in wonder at the tacked-up horse. "That was fast."
"Didn't want to give you time to back out." He tossed the reins over the horse's neck. "Come on, up you go."
She backed up a step. "I'm in a skirt."
"Old Ben doesn't care."
She hissed through her teeth in irritation. "Try to listen."
He smiled and held his hand out. "I am. You won't get pinched."
The saddle did have some sort of white fuzzy stuff on it. She reluctantly took his hand, and he moved behind her so she was trapped between him and Old Ben.
"Put your hands on the saddle." He directed, placing her hands where he wanted them. "I'm going to boost you up with your leg. Swing your other one over, balancing with your hands so you don't fall on your face on the other side."
She looked over her shoulder at him. "There you go, reassuring me again."
His grin flashed as he leaned down and lifted her leg up, grasping her calf. "On three. One, two, three, up."
Her hands scrambled as she shot up, but she managed to swing her leg over and landed awkwardly on the soft fur. Old Ben didn't even shift under her thump. She tugged uselessly at her skirt to try to cover her thighs.
"Good." Marc led the horse forward out of the barn, and she grabbed onto the edge of the saddle, though it hugged her pretty thoroughly and she didn't feel like she would fall off.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Marc used the small mounting block at the front of the stables to give him a few more inches so he could mount Old Ben without knocking Lessa off. She leaned forward automatically when he put his foot in the stirrup to swing up, settling himself behind her and the saddle. As soon as he released the reins, Ben stepped forward into a ground-covering walk. He turned the bay gelding to head up the trail that would take them to the winery's highest hill.
It would give Lessa a good view of everything and would hopefully take long enough for his tension to ease. He had never even seen a real horse until he'd come to work for Jiovanni. Since the boss's favorite way to check the vineyards had been on horseback, Marc had learned to ride when he'd been assigned to guard the boss.
Lessa relaxed in the saddle and her back brushed his chest, pulling him from his thoughts. She hadn't said a word since he'd mounted. Apparently her tension had eased, too. As he'd figured, the Aussie saddle held her securely enough. She still held the pommel with both hands, but her grip was loosening and her arm brushed his with each step.
He waited a moment for her to say something, but she didn't seem to need to fill the silence with words. He'd wait for her cue. Just the sound of her voice made him feel like smiling. He couldn't remember the last time a woman had made him want to laugh as often as she did. Her back brushed against him again, and he fought the urge to wrap his free arm around her to pull her snug against him.
He'd nearly kissed her at the fence. He could still picture an image of him wrapping his fingers in her hair to hold her still so he could plunder her mouth. Just the feel of the soft skin at the nape of her neck had nearly sent him over the edge. What made it crazy was that it wasn't like he'd never touched her before. He'd been touching her since they'd arrived, and if he hadn't been so focused on his world falling apart, he might have realized it was completely unusual for him to be touching a woman as often as he did her. He was her bodyguard not her lover.
Her hair, lifted by a gentle breeze, brushed his face. The urge to touch and stroke came upon him again. He wanted to bury his face into the curve of her neck to see how she smelled. Somehow his free hand was resting on her thigh. She didn't object, but leaned back in to him. A sigh of contentment worked its way up his chest.
They reached the top of the hill and went around the large barn that held a lot of the vineyard's equipment, including several tractors. This was the best spot to view the entire ranch. But his focus wasn't on the view. It was on the feel of her against him. A vision of her wrapped around him in his bed flashed through his mind. He couldn't will the fantasy away no matter how inappropriate it was. Her curves were too enticing.
The sun sank into the ocean, and pinks and oranges streaked across the sky.
She finally broke their silence. "It's beautiful."
"Yes." He was more interested in looking down at her and the curve of her neck no longer hidden by her windswept hair. His fingers itched to trace the gentle slope to create a path for his lips to caress, but he didn't. It would be crossing a line.
Not that he hadn't already crossed the line, he admitted to himself, but all the other touching could be excused away with riding double on Old Ben.
"Still doesn't make me want to stay."
At her words, he tightened his fingers on the reins, and Ben shifted under them. "You're very determined to leave."
She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes hidden by her eyelashes. "I have no reason to stay."
His gut churned and he focused on her lips. He could hear the determination in her voice. If she left, she'd probably never return. They'd done a good job keeping her low profile, so she could return to her old life with no one the wiser as to her true identity.
He shifted slightly and wrapped his free arm around her waist. Her eyes widened, but she didn't turn her face or pull away.
"If you're going to leave..." He molded his fingers to her side, wanting to tuck them into the waist of her skirt.
"Yeah?" Her voice was breathless.
"There's something I'd like to do."
He lowered his head and caught her lips with his. The rush that went through his veins caught him by surprise. He lifted his head slightly and wondered if her surprised look mirrored his own expression. Not wanting to think about it, just feel, he pulled her tighter against him. Their position prevented him from making the kiss as deep as he wanted, so he concentrated on small tastes. He kissed her lips softly before claiming the corner of her mouth, then her cheek, and back again to her lips.
Her fingers grabbed his thigh as she twisted toward him. Her movement shot lust straight to his groin, and he groaned, pulling away from her. He wanted her off the horse and on her back amidst the grapes.
He sucked air through his teeth as she leaned into him to press her lips against his. He took control again, lifting his hand to hold her face still, sliding his tongue in between her lips. She surrendered quickly.
Old Ben shifted under them, breaking the spell. Marc lifted his head to look around. Suddenly he remembered that they weren't exactly hidden. Anyone in this area of the vineyard could see them. It didn't matter that darkness was practically around them. Stupid of him to allow h
is desires to make him forget his surroundings.
Ben's ears pricked toward one of the lanes at the bottom of the hill just as the headlights of a vehicle appeared. One of the patrol jeeps was slowly making the climb.
Marc dropped his hand from Lessa's face to wrap his arm securely around her waist. He turned Old Ben back toward the main house. He didn't need the men gossiping about his night ride with the strange woman he'd brought here.
"Marc?" Her voice was full of uncertainty.
"We've been out later than I intended." Though he knew that wasn't what she'd been asking. He'd surprised them both. She removed her hand from his thigh, and he instantly missed the warm pressure. "Someone will be worrying about you."
"You're the only one who would worry."
He looked down at her. Before he could stop himself, he pressed his lips just inside the collar of her blouse. She shuddered at the light touch. He was tempted to turn her face toward him again, but instead he raised his head to scan the darkness as the barn came into view. The barn hand had left the main light on, no doubt guessing someone had taken Old Ben for a night ride.
His arousal made the ride back not nearly as comfortable. He shifted slightly to try to relieve some of the pressure. It didn't work.
Her back tensed as she started to sit up away from him. He tightened his arm. Despite his discomfort, he loved feeling her body pressed against him. She stopped trying to move, but didn't relax.
"Marc?" Again, the uncertainty in her tone.
"Hmm."
He could just make out a guard patrolling on foot around the stable. The guard halted and focused on them. Brady's stance relaxed as they drew closer and he recognized Marc. He saluted them and continued on his rounds. By morning, every boy would know he'd been out riding with Lessa.
"You aren't still trying to convince me, are you?"
He couldn't help the chuckle as amusement flooded him. What came out of her mouth was never what he expected. She wasn't his normal type, but that didn't mean he hadn't noticed she was cute in that typical blond, blue-eyed, tanned, fit and tiny way cheerleaders tended to be. It had been hard to ignore how she'd filled out her skin tight workout clothes when he'd met her.