by Rachel Lee
“This is Jake McCord. He’s going to be working here taming Zorro. This is Ellen Martin. She’s your cook.”
Her brows rose, and her eyes went skeptical. “That’s a tall task. Good luck with that. Breakfast is at 8:00, lunch at noon and dinner at 5:00. Coffee is always hot and pie plentiful. Snacks on demand.” She smiled, and Alanna was aware of just how pretty the single mother was. She might have sixteen-year-old Daisy, but she was only thirty-three. She didn’t want to think about Ellen and Jake in any romantic situation, not that it would happen. Why did that bug her?
Jake tugged his hat again. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
Alanna stopped at a small office and opened a metal lockbox hanging on the wall. Searching through, she extracted a key. Climbing the stairs up to the third floor of the remodeled barn, she took him through the door to the largest of the apartments.
“Home away from home,” she said, opening the drapes to reveal a balcony patio. “Fowler requested you be given these accommodations. Parking is in an underground area below the apartments.”
“This is very generous of you, ma’am. Thank you.”
Alanna walked back toward the door and Jake stood just inside the foyer. She had to slide past him. “Fowler thinks you should be as close to and have as much access to Zorro as possible. You will need a comfortable place to come back to.” Her voice lowered. “Zorro is...dangerous. He’s been mishandled in the past and, coupled with a fighting spirit, he is unpredictable. I would ask you, for your safety, to be very careful.”
Jake studied her for a second, then leaned his shoulder against the wall. A heavy measuring look settled on his face, and she got the impression once again that he carried a considerable burden. “Horses don’t live in the past or the future. They live in the moment. People are the ones with an agenda, timetables, time limits, goals. Makes for a major disconnect with their horses. Dwelling on the past brings baggage, and focusing on the future can bring anxiety.” The way he looked was incongruent with his sage response. Awareness churned through her, making her heart jump and she was struck by a paralyzing fascination to know what it was she saw in his eyes. “I work with horses in the present. No need to worry. Zorro won’t hurt me.”
He could hurt you. She thought without reason or comprehension, and Alanna was very good at protecting herself. She had to in a family with more politics than the US government and just as much backstabbing as ancient Rome. With a father who had been rumored to be a former bank robber, a serial killer uncle, Fowler and Marceline scheming to create trouble between everyone, her stepmother’s histrionics, growing up on guard with an inner layer of steel was warranted. She wasn’t going to find out about Jake. Vulnerability was too risky. She had her own burdens to bear, stress and anxiety to handle. Best to steer clear of anything too complicated when her attention needed to be elsewhere. Even with those thoughts, she felt something had tilted beneath her as if everything had just been thrown out of sync. The bleak look in Jake’s eyes did awful things to her heart, and she shivered, hurting for him. And not even knowing or understanding why.
Copyright © 2016 by Harlequin Books S.A.
ISBN-13: 9781488005121
Conard County Marine
Copyright © 2016 by Susan Civil Brown
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