“Positive.”
“Okay. Here goes.”
He boosted Angie into the saddle. Her horse was younger and had a stronger objection to having a saddle strapped to his back. He reared before Dillon could grab for the bridle. He tried to bolt when he came down, but Angie kept the reins so tight she practically pulled his head down on his chest. He shied and danced about in circles, but she quickly got him under control.
“You’ve ridden a lot,” Dillon observed dryly.
“All my life,” Angie replied with a challenging smile. “I plan to open an equestrian center.” She turned to Harper. “Are you ready to go?”
Christine was out of the yard and cantering down a lane before Harper could reply.
As they rode from the yard, Harper asked, “You didn’t tell him you knew horses, did you?”
“No.”
“He doesn’t like being made to look foolish.”
That sounded like a criticism, but Angie didn’t care. After yesterday, he deserved it. “What man does?”
“None I ever knew.”
Some emotion flickered across Harper’s face. It was gone too quickly for Angie to identify, but she had the feeling she had disturbed the memory of something that had once been very important to Harper.
“IF I’D KNOWN that’s who wanted the horses, I’d have brought them up myself.”
Dillon turned to see his foreman, Shep, studying Angie’s retreating form with undisguised admiration. Because they’d been best friends since first grade—when they were the only two fatherless boys in the class—Shep seemed to have the notion he could say anything at all to Dillon and get away with it
“You’d better keep your distance. That female would have you for lunch.”
Dillon was irritated at himself, his mother, daughter and Angie Kilpatrick. He wasn’t sure what had come over him to start acting as though he liked that blond-haired farm stealer, but he was irked she’d captured his attention. He didn’t have time for a flirtation. Certainly not with that female shark.
Shep chuckled. “But what a way to die. Did you see that body? I could—”
“You’d better put the brakes on your imagination before your radiator boils over,” Dillon warned. “That filly is way beyond your means.”
“I don’t notice you closing your eyes,” Shep countered.
Dillon hadn’t needed to look. Just touching Angie when he’d helped her mount had made his body ache with hunger. “I doubt her outfit can be bought south of New York. The price tag would make your eyes roll back in your head.”
“I don’t care if she’s fishing or just trawling,” Shep replied. “She sure baits a hook real good. She looks damned fine in the saddle to boot.”
Dillon had noticed that, too. He was irked that she knew so much about horses. He cringed when he remembered resaddling Christine’s pony.
“Put a lid on it,” Dillon advised his friend. “She wants to buy this place. The first thing she’d do would be to get rid of both of us.” The idea of her waltzing in waving her checkbook, as if buying and selling people’s lives wasn’t worth the snap of her fingers, set his teeth on edge.
“You’re sour on the world, man,” Shep said. “Besides, she doesn’t seem like such a barracuda. She gets along with Christine. It’s nice to see a smile on the kid’s face.”
That’s right, rub it in. That woman threatened more than his security and self-control; she even threatened his shaky place in his daughter’s affections.
“The woman is a menace,” Dillon said. “She’s got to go.”
“I LIKE THIS PLACE,” Angie said to Harper. “I’d like to make you an offer.”
They had finished their tour of the farm and were watching Christine take Eddie through his paces. The time together had convinced Angie that Harper Weddington was likable. After being in the sun for nearly an hour, it was wonderful to relax in the shade of the huge oaks that surrounded the riding ring. Their horses waited patiently to be unsaddled.
“It’s really not on the market yet.” Harper sounded uneasy. “I just asked Burton to find out what it would bring so I could consider my options.”
“I don’t want to rush you. I can wait a day or two if I can stand the motel that long.” It was awful, right next to the highway. Semis had whizzed by all night, keeping her awake.
“Why don’t you stay with us?” Harper asked.
The invitation surprised Angie. She was pleased that Harper had thawed, but she didn’t know quite how to take this sudden invitation. “I couldn’t impose on you like that.”
“It wouldn’t be an imposition. I should have asked you last night. My mother would have had your bags in the guest room before dinner.”
Angie wouldn’t normally have considered such an offer, but she hadn’t finished with Dillon Winthrop, as childish as that seemed. He needed a little more humbling for treating her as he had.
Besides, she loved being astride a horse, the wind in her face, the sun warming her body. The physical activity sharpened her senses, heightened her enjoyment of everything around her. Each time she got back in the saddle, she wondered how she ever managed to spend weeks at a time closed up in an office.
Christine completed the course. Angie and Harper applauded. “At least think about it before you say no,” Harper said as Christine rode toward them.
But Angie was thinking about Dillon. She was more strongly attracted to him than she liked to admit. She’d proved it by buying that hat. A few days of being exposed to his sweaty muscles and hot emotions at close range, and she might forget all her common sense. It wouldn’t do for her to fall for him. Then he’d have the upper hand.
“I still can’t get the double jumps,” Christine complained when she’d brought her pony to a stop by the fence.
“You come at them from an angie,” Angie said. “You’ve got to make a wider circle and go at them straight on. When you come at them from the side, Eddie doesn’t see them until it’s too late.”
“Would you show me?” Christine asked.
Remembering Dillon’s earlier reaction to her helping his daughter, she said, “I’m not sure your father would like that.”
“Please,” begged Christine.
“Go ahead,” Harper said. “Dillon won’t mind.”
Angie wasn’t sure Harper was right, but she itched for an excuse to enter the ring. “I don’t promise anything,” she said, leading her horse into the paddock. “It’s been months since I’ve jumped anything but a dead battery.”
“IT SEEMS SHE’S an accomplished horsewoman,” Dillon said as he leaned against the fence next to his mother.
“She’s showing Christine how to take that oxer. She’s a better teacher than Mrs. Owens. Christine has jumped it twice already.”
“It seems there’s no end to her talents.” They watched in silence for a few minutes, Dillon’s irritation mounting.
“I’ve invited her to stay with us while she’s here,” Harper said.
Dillon whipped around. “Why?”
“She can’t stay at the motel. It has roaches.”
“And what other reasons did you have?”
Harper didn’t meet his gaze. “I want you to have time to learn more about what she wants to do with the place.”
“That won’t change how I feel.” “It might if you knew it was in good hands.” She looked up at Dillon. “How about a compromise? There’s a wonderful little farm only a few miles from here. The house isn’t so big and there’s only three hundred acres, but this place will work you into an early grave.”
“It’s not the number of acres or the house, Mom. This is where my family has lived for over two hundred years. I wouldn’t want to leave even if I knew it would work me to death. Considering what you’ve done for that mill, you ought to understand.”
“But none of that was for me. It was…” Harper shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re in a mess. The only important thing is to figure a way out.” She turned her gaze back to Angie.
“Wh
at did she say when you asked her to stay?”
“She didn’t. I think she’s afraid of you.”
Dillon made a sound between a snort and a hoot. “That woman’s not afraid of anybody.”
“She knows you don’t like her. You growl at her every time you get within ten feet.”
“I don’t growl and I don’t dislike her, just what she wants to do.”
“Then try not to look like she’s a dentist and you’re having a root canal.”
Dillon’s gaze shifted to where Angie and Christine were studying a jump together. He hadn’t seen Christine so animated, so open and natural, since her mother’s death.
That’s all he needed, a rich Yankee buying his farm out from under him and stealing his daughter’s affections. No, that wasn’t quite true. Christine had no affection for him to be stolen.
Hell! He didn’t give a damn about Angie’s ideas for the farm, but he was tired of fighting with the only two females he loved.
“Let her stay. I don’t care. But I don’t promise not to growl.”
ANGIE WAS ALREADY warm from the exercise when she rode up to the fence, but she felt the color in her cheeks heighten further when she saw that she was alone with Dillon. She patted her horse’s neck. “Where’s Harper?”
“Gone back to the mill.”
Angie felt uneasy without the buffer of Harper’s presence. It was one thing to plan to go head-to-head with Dillon. It was quite another to do it. “Christine’s a quick learner. I hope you plan to keep on with her lessons.”
“She’s been pestering me to let her stop,” Dillon said.
“That’s not what she said to me. Have you thought about getting her a bigger horse?”
“No.”
“Do. And maybe even a new teacher. There are some top-notch trainers in the Camden area. With the right kind of coaching she could be championship caliber.”
“Looks like you could be championship caliber yourself.”
He made it sound like a fault.
“I was never that good,” Angie said as she dismounted. “Besides, I spent too much time doing other things. Now I don’t ride regularly enough. I’ll be sore tomorrow.”
“Then you can ride again tomorrow. Mom says she’s invited you to stay while you look things over.”
She shouldn’t even be considering the idea. She’d seen all she needed to see for her equestrian center, but her mind was full of the new possibilities. She needed time to think them through before she made a decision. Staying here a day or two would give her the chance to do that. Besides, if she had any questions about the property or the area, she could ask Dillon.
“Don’t let my temper drive you away,” he said. “I’ve been impossible to live with for years.”
The admission sounded grudging. She wondered if he really believed it.
They watched Christine in silence. It finally became clear to Angie that if she didn’t start the conversation, he wouldn’t say anything else until Christine finished.
“Your mother is a dynamo.”
“I wish she’d start worrying about herself as much as she does other people.”
“Does that somehow refer to me?” Angie asked, completely at sea.
“No, the people of Collins. That’s why she’s knocking herself out over that mill. That’s why this place is in hock—so she won’t have to lay people off. I can’t make her realize that even if she sacrifices everything she has for this town, they still won’t thank her.”
“So she’s endangering something important to you, and you think she’ll get nothing for it in the end.”
“Something like that.”
“And you’re angry.”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“I suppose so. What will you and Christine do?”
He stared at his daughter as she schooled Eddie the way Angie had taught her. “We’ll stay with Mom. We’re the only family she’s got.” He cursed under his breath. “I thought when we came back home, everything would work out. Christine would have Mom, I’d have the farm and Mom would have a family again. But the mill has ruined everything. The best thing for us would be for the whole damned thing to burn down.”
“How about the town?”
“Look, I’ve got to go. I shouldn’t have said so much, but if you buy this place, you’ll be in the middle of it You might as well know what you’re getting into.”
“I can’t see how what happens in Collins would affect me.”
“In a small town, everything affects everything else. You’ll see.”
Angie’s gaze followed Dillon as he led the horses to the barn. He seemed a man weighed down by difficulties centering around the two people he loved most in the world. No wonder he was irritable. She didn’t imagine she’d be any different if their positions were reversed.
Maybe she wouldn’t try to get even. He had enough problems. But it was nice to know he was vulnerable, that he had feelings. She didn’t even try to figure out why she cared.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DILLON WALKED OUT to the front porch. Night was one of his favorite times.
A thousand tiny pinpoints of light pierced the sky, setting every tree and building into clear relief. Heat radiating from the warm earth softened the chill in the autumn evening. The breeze had died. Everything was still. Even the frogs and crickets seemed to be sleeping. But it was a comforting stillness, the kind he’d always enjoyed as a boy, the kind he’d missed when he was away.
All his life this had been the only place he felt truly at home.
He walked down the steps and picked up a piece of dead pine tree limb, systematically breaking it into tiny pieces. Now his peace was threatened from every angle, and Angie Kilpatrick was trying to take away the land that had always given him his sense of belonging.
Worst of all, he was attracted to her in spite of himself. Wealthy, beautiful and supremely self-confident, she reminded him too much of his ex-wife.
He had met Evelyn in college. The attraction was immediate, physical and beyond their ability to resist. They had become lovers immediately, certain their love could never be used up. The first crack appeared when Evelyn discovered she was pregnant. Morning sickness caused an open rift. By the time she was six months pregnant, she was furious at him for ruining her life. The only reason she didn’t throw him out was that her parents wanted her to do just that. They were married two weeks before Christine was born. A month later, Evelyn moved in with her parents and started divorce proceedings.
When Christine was six years old, Evelyn died in a car accident with one of her lovers. Her will named her parents as Christine’s guardians. Their granddaughter was the Stringfellows’ only link with Evelyn, and they desperately wanted to keep her. They refused to hand her over to Dillon until the court awarded him custody.
Then Angie Kilpatrick had walked in, upsetting things even further.
He threw down the last bit of broken twig, climbed the steps and settled into a chair. But Angie was a guest, and for his mother’s sake, he’d decided to put aside his animosity. It had been surprisingly easy. She was an enchanting woman and he’d almost grown to like her. No, that wasn’t exactly the truth. He lusted after her. He’d like nothing better than to spend the night wrapped in her arms.
Angie had come down to dinner tonight wearing a white dress made out of some filmy material that clung to her body like plastic wrap to a sliced tomato. The scent of her perfume nearly drove him crazy.
Dillon had escaped before Floretha put dessert on the table. Christine’s constant demands for attention had made it easy. He was surprised when Angie came out and sank into a rocking chair opposite him.
“Did you finally choke Christine or did you just run away?” he asked.
Angie laughed softly. “Your mother sent her off to get dressed for bed. I promised to tell her goodnight.”
“You’re being awfully kind to a child you never saw before yesterday.”
“I’ve enjoyed her company. Most of the time,
people don’t want to hear me talk about horses. My mother never cared for them, and my stepfather doesn’t understand anything that can’t be reduced to a column of figures. It’s wonderful to have someone hang on every word I utter as though I were an expert. But I imagine you know just as much as I do.”
“It doesn’t make any difference if I do. I’m her father. Not nearly so interesting.”
Dillon felt uncomfortable discussing his inadequacies as a father with a virtual stranger, but Angie seemed like a different person tonight, one for whom he was developing a dangerous attraction. He needed to remind himself why she was here. He changed the subject.
“Why do you want to open an equestrian center? After running corporations, what would you find to keep you interested?”
“Do you enjoy your work?”
Just like a woman not to give a straight answer. “Is this a game? I ask you a question, then you get to question me?”
“If you like. But I’m the guest. I get to go first. Or, if you don’t buy that, how about ladies first.”
“You’re as bad as Christine. When you want your way, you mean to have it.” He was irritated at himself. He was letting her smiling good humor cause him to lower his guard.
“You’re stalling.”
“You business types are all alike. You ask a question and you expect an answer in thirty seconds, all neatly arranged by paragraphs in order of preference.”
“It’s a failing we Yankees have. I’m waiting.”
He didn’t doubt that her good looks and charm—which she could turn on when she liked—contributed a lot to her business success. And that dress would give her an unfair advantage in any gathering of males. Dillon forced himself to ignore the stirring in his groin.
“I like being my own boss,” he said. “I like making a decision without having half a dozen people tinker with it.”
“You sound like the last untamed man. Is that why you got a degree in farm management instead of textiles?”
Warning signals sounded immediately. “How did you know that?”
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