by Valerie Parv
Suddenly a shriek tore the air. In horror Zoe watched Genie begin to slip sideways, grabbing futilely at the horse’s mane as she lost her balance. Zoe was impossibly far away with no way to prevent what was happening.
She went cold from head to foot as Genie lost her precarious grip on the horse’s mane and pitched toward the ground. Instinctively Zoe threw herself between the lower rungs of the whitewashed railings, but was pulled back by strong masculine arms. She flailed in James’s grasp. “What are you doing? Let me go to her.”
“It’s all right. Grace has everything under control.”
“But Genie fell. She may be hurt.”
Her struggles were useless against his iron grip. “She isn’t hurt. Look.”
Terrified of what she would see, Zoe made herself look across the paddock. She sagged in James’s grip as Grace helped Genie to her feet, checked her over and dusted her off. The child even giggled as she was lifted back into the saddle. “You can’t mean to let her ride again after such a bad fall.”
“Try and stop her,” he said wryly. “She’s having the time of her life. If you rush over there now, you’ll only transmit your fear to her. You don’t want that, do you?”
“What I want is to protect my baby,” she said, amazed to find she could actually speak through clenched teeth.
His eyes betrayed no flicker of emotion, but the lines around his mouth tightened. “In the first place, she isn’t a baby and in the second, she doesn’t need protecting. Riding comes as naturally to her as breathing.”
“I see you want to believe it.” How could he care anything for Genie if he was prepared to put her at such risk? “Isn’t it enough to have a daughter without forcing her to fit your mold as well?”
His face darkened. “Nobody’s trying to mold her. She loves what she’s doing.”
“You’ve made sure of it, haven’t you, by pandering to her every whim. I’ve hardly seen her since we arrived. It’s all part of your plan, isn’t it?”
The warning signs in his eyes intensified. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She ignored the warnings and plunged on, the shock of Genie’s near-miss fueling her anger. “Don’t I? Next you’ll have her calling you boss like everyone else around here.”
“It will be her choice. She has to call me something.”
“But you won’t exactly discourage it, will you?”
His eyes narrowed. “What would you suggest she call me? Personally I prefer Daddy.”
Zoe tossed her head, her response to him at odds with her urge to protect Genie. “She’s too young for what I’d suggest she call you. I thought you wanted to get to know her, not alienate her from me completely.”
He still held her arm as he began to tow her toward the stables complex. “This isn’t the place to discuss it.”
She dug her heels into the velvet turf but might as well have tried to restrain a raging bull for all the good it did her. “I’m not moving from here until Genie’s safely off that horse,” she said futilely as James continued to steer her toward the stables.
“Which is precisely why you’re coming with me. Would you rather walk or be carried?”
He was perfectly capable of it, she thought, as an image of herself in his arms invaded her mind. No point in challenging him unless she was prepared for the consequences. Already the touch of his hand generated an internal heat she found thoroughly disconcerting. It was pure chemistry, borne out of her emotionally fragile state, but the conviction didn’t lessen the intensity. “I can walk, thank you,” she said stiffly, releasing a strangled breath when he finally let go of her arm.
His breathing was less than steady, she noted. James must feel the electricity that flashed between them every time he touched her. It must be highly inconvenient for him, if so. She was sure that consorting with the enemy wasn’t high on his agenda, either.
In simmering silence she walked beside him toward the stables complex, past rows of immaculate stalls, which smelled sweetly of hay and pampered horseflesh, to a suite of offices on a mezzanine floor.
She might have known his office would be the largest and most luxurious. State-of-the-art computer equipment and a video-telephone cluttered an enormous lime washed oak desk while the other half of the spacious room held two butter-colored leather sofas and a glass coffee table. Beyond them a wall of glass framed a view of the rolling hills and paddocks as if they were living works of art.
He steered her to one of the sofas and she dropped gracelessly onto it. “Drink?” he asked.
“No, thank you.” If he thought he could turn this into a social visit and somehow charm her into agreeing with his plans for Genie, he was out of luck. “Say what you dragged me in here to say and let me get back to the training paddock.”
“Genevieve doesn’t need you watching her every move. Why do you think she took a tumble?”
Zoe felt a slow burn rising. “You think the fall was my fault?”
“You’re a distraction. If I felt your fear from where I stood, imagine its effect on a small child.”
He was too much. “Now I’m a distraction. I’m surprised you don’t ship me back to Sydney and be done with it. Why did you invite me here if you intended to drive a wedge between me and Genie all along?”
“Isn’t it what you’re trying to do to me? No matter what I want to do for her, you fight me at every turn.”
“I only want what’s best for her,” she insisted, her voice dropping to a strangled whisper.
“Well at least we agree on something,” he said, an edge like a knife in his tone. He braced his palms against his hips. “Despite what you think of me, I’m not a monster. All I want is the right to be a father to my own child, a right denied to me for almost two years.”
He began to pace, his long legs eating up the floor space. Each circuit brought him a little closer until her breathing constricted. He reminded her of a jungle animal prowling his domain. Watching him, Zoe was reminded of the ancient Greek belief that panthers snared prey by casting a spell over them, the panther’s scent becoming associated with magic and seduction. She saw both in every line of his lithe movements and she felt as mesmerized as any prey.
It was an effort to drag her eyes away. “Punishing me by keeping us apart won’t change what you’ve gone through.”
His thunderous look impaled her. “You may see this as punishment, but it isn’t my doing. It’s Genevieve’s choice to spend every moment she can at the stables. Grace tells me she would sleep there if she could, to be near her beloved horses.”
There was no arguing this truth. “Then it isn’t some kind of plot to separate me from her?”
“Of course not.”
He was almost beside her now, his commanding figure blotting out her view of the ridges and valleys beyond the windows. Blotting out a lot of things, such as her ability to think straight. Her thoughts whirled. She tried thinking of Genie, reminding herself that James was the one coming between them. It did little good. Her mind seemed fixated on one thing only—how much of a man he was.
Aspects of him that she’d been trying to ignore forced themselves into her consciousness. The muscular build that would have inspired Michelangelo. The way his chestnut hair was cut in thick rising waves with square-cut sideburns that practically invited her to run her fingers through it. In that moment his eyes locked with hers, and she felt as if all resistance was being drained from her.
He knew precisely what effect he was having on her, she saw with terrifying certainty. He knew when it was the last thing she wanted him to know, or to feel for that matter. He was the enemy. Being attracted to him was no more on her agenda than it must be on his.
He came closer and she stood up, the better to meet him on his own level. Or as near as she could manage when her head barely reached past his shoulder. She was braced for an argument, not for his arms to come around her. The suddenness of his movement took her breath away, and she found herself leaning into the embrace when co
mmon sense dictated the very opposite.
His lips on hers triggered an inner dilemma. Fight or flight? One or the other seemed advisable. Anything but surrender. Yet surrender was perilously close as he kissed her throat, her earlobes and the sensitive nape of her neck. She seemed incapable of doing anything else as he awakened needs she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge for a long time. Her breath escaped in a ragged sigh as she tilted her head back, her eyes closing almost of their own accord.
Magic and seduction were the panther’s stock-in-trade, she reminded herself dazedly. Both infused his embrace, yet she couldn’t quite make herself believe she had no choice in this. Somehow she knew all she had to do was push him away, however halfheartedly, and he would stop instantly. So why didn’t she? What on earth possessed her to link her arms around his neck and pull his head down to her?
She felt as if she was being set on fire, consumed by flames of desire so powerful they burned away all reason. Her throat felt too raw to draw a whole breath, and her limbs turned leaden and languorous. James ran a hand down the length of her spine and she shuddered deliciously.
“You see, there’s no need for war between us when we can have so much more,” he said throatily. “If we’d met under normal circumstances, we may have been lovers by now.”
But they hadn’t met in the normal way. And there was a need for war between them until Genie’s future was worked out. Was this James’s way of persuading Zoe to accept his plans for the child? She forced herself to look up at him. “This isn’t going to work.”
Mild amusement flickered in the softly upturned set of his sensuous mouth. “What isn’t going to work?”
She slid out of the circle of his arms, aware that part of her still wanted all that James represented. But she steeled herself not to give in to it. The price was simply too high. “This…this scheme of yours to get me to do what you want.”
“A moment ago it was what you wanted, too.” His voice sounded as throaty as hers felt.
The truth couldn’t be denied. She had wanted him to kiss her. For all their differences, she sensed he wasn’t the sort of man to force himself on a woman. He had no need to, she acknowledged shakily. His wealth and power weren’t the source of his magnetic appeal as much as his unbridled masculinity. Her mistake was in misjudging his effect on her, which had almost distracted her from the real reason she was here—for Genie.
She felt a flush rising. “I admit I did want it, but that was before I realized what you were doing.”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Okay, I’ll bite. What was I doing?”
“Making love to me so I’ll stop resisting your plans. You said yourself it couldn’t happen too fast for you.”
His face remained level, but his eyes held a fire that made her catch her breath. “You underestimate yourself, Zoe.”
She didn’t want to consider that possibility, but heat invaded her face, among other places. The atmosphere felt as thick and heavy as molasses, like the air before a thunderstorm. Except that the storm was taking place inside her. It was suddenly imperative to shift the conversation to more neutral ground. “I won’t stand by while you risk Genie’s life riding those enormous horses of yours when she’s much too young.”
A cloud crossed his features and she knew her strategy had worked, but the satisfaction she expected to feel was absent, replaced by something more like disappointment. “I began riding at the same age. If she’s properly taught, there’s no danger. Putting her at risk is the last thing I want after all I went through to get her back.” He took a deep breath. “Will you believe me when I say she means more to me than my life?”
Something in his tone brought her head up and she was shocked at the depth of pain she found in his expression. He had paled and the character lines around his eyes were more deeply drawn. Her eyes traveled to where his hands gripped the back of a chair. The knuckles were white. She resisted the urge to go to him. “What is it, James? You look ill.”
He nodded, wincing as if the movement cost him. “Headache, that’s all. I think I will have that drink now. Join me?”
“No, thank you.”
She watched as he poured a stiff scotch over ice and downed half of it in a quick toss. An uncomfortable sensation took hold inside her. Was Genie the only problem here? He intercepted her look of concern and misread it completely. “Don’t worry, this is a rarity for me. Genevieve won’t be living with a drunk.”
As he lifted the glass in an ironic toast, it slid from his fingers. He swore as the glass crashed to the floor, shattering on the edge of the bar on the way down.
Thoroughly alarmed now, she went to him. “Something is the matter.”
His brow furrowed and he flexed his arm and shoulder. “Arm went numb. Probably due to the headache. It’s nothing.” He bent to gather up the shards of glass.
Although he protested, she helped him. “Has this happened before?”
He slid the fragments into a wastebasket and met her anxious look with a fierce glare. “Your concern is a bit sudden, isn’t it? A moment ago you were ready to boil me in oil.”
And a moment before that she’d been transported by his kiss and the heady feel of his arms around her, she recalled uncomfortably. Now he was obviously hurting and it tugged at her in a way she didn’t care to examine too closely. Telling herself it was simple concern for another human being didn’t help. “I believe in fighting fair. You were fully functional then,” she snapped at him.
Their heads were close together as they gathered up the broken glass. Without warning, his unaffected arm shot around her waist and he pulled her hard against him as he brought them both upright. “I’m still…fully functional,” he said in a warning tone. A frisson of half-alarm, half-anticipation shrilled through her.
Where the moment might have led, she was not to discover because he was interrupted by a brisk knock on the office door. “Is everything all right? I heard glass breaking.”
It was Grace McGovern’s voice. With a look that clearly promised, “Later for this,” James released Zoe and went to the door, opening it to admit the stud manager. Zoe was aware of how her flushed face and slightly disheveled appearance must look, but she held herself straighter, leaving James to explain if he chose. “I dropped a glass. No big deal,” he said dismissively.
Grace’s sweeping glance took in James’s set face. “The arm again?”
He gave a slight shrug. “It’s not important. How is Genevieve?”
What was not important? What did Grace mean by again? James obviously wasn’t about to enlighten Zoe, evidently believing that one kiss didn’t give her the right to an explanation. He was quite possibly right, but it hurt all the same.
“Genevieve’s fine. She’s in the house having a glass of milk,” Grace assured them, taking her cue from James.
“No aftereffects from her fall?”
It was James who asked, but Grace turned to Zoe to deliver the answer. “None at all. She couldn’t wait to get back on. Genevieve has the hands and feet of a born rider.”
James shot Zoe an I-told-you-so look, but she refused to be placated. “All the same, I’ll check on her myself,” she insisted and was halfway back to the house before either of them could object.
Apart from a couple of small bruises, Genie’s fall had done her no harm. She begged Zoe to allow her to eat lunch with the stable staff and scampered off without a backward glance the moment Zoe gave reluctant assent. It was a bleak portent, she thought. If the prospect of a solitary lunch held this much anguish, how on earth was she to endure a life without her precious child?
The main dining room with its wonderful soaring timber ceiling was deserted, so Zoe asked for her lunch to be served out on the pergola-covered terrace. She was picking desultorily at a chicken salad when James dropped into a chair opposite her. Apart from a certain strain around his eyes he looked much better. “Dining alone?”
She glanced around. “I don’t seem to have much choice. As you p
ointed out, Genie has practically taken up residence in the stables. How do you feel?”
He rotated his arm at the shoulder experimentally. “Fine, thanks, Grace gave me one of her neck and shoulder massages.”
Without thinking, she said, “I could have done it for you if I’d known it would help.”
He allowed a long moment to pass. “I got the impression you wanted your hand on my neck—but not to massage it. But I’ll bear the offer in mind.”
Why hadn’t she kept her fool mouth shut? The last thing she wanted to do was touch him, even in the line of duty. She was relieved when the cook interrupted to deposit a plate of fettucine with pesto sauce in front of James. Then he helped himself to iced tea from a pitcher on the table.
“Does Grace know about Genie?” Zoe asked.
He nodded. “The McGoverns managed a property I owned before White Stars. After Ruth left, they stuck by me through all the months of searching for Genevieve. As you’ve seen, they’re already besotted with her.”
Feeling like a fifth wheel, Zoe shoved the food around her plate listlessly. Instead of reassuring her that Genie was in good hands, his comment had the opposite effect. It meant Zoe wouldn’t even be missed when she returned to Sydney.
He watched her carefully. “You’ll still have a place in Genevieve’s life if you want it,” he offered. “You’re important to her.”
But not important to him. He hadn’t bothered to deny that winning Zoe over was merely a means to an end. “I’m glad you acknowledge that much,” she said stiffly.
His eyebrows flickered. “I’ve never denied it. We both have adjustments to make.”
Before Zoe could point out that she was doing most of the adjusting, Genie bounded up to the table. Automatically Zoe reached for her napkin and dabbed at a streak of tomato sauce on the child’s cheek. A pang shot through her as she wondered how many more times she’d be doing this.
As soon as she could, Genie squirmed free and turned to James. “Is Mummy coming camping with us tomorrow?”