Salazar's One-Night Heir

by Jennifer Hayward

  Her expressive eyes took on a reflective cast. “My mama was like that. Horses gravitated to her—it was like she spoke their language. They’d do anything for her in the ring.”

  Zara Hargrove. Alejandro knew from his grandmother she had died in a riding accident at the height of her career. Which would have made Cecily only a teenager when she’d lost her... Tough.

  He ran a palm over the stubble on his jaw, hardening his heart against those dark bruised eyes. “You will figure this out. Bacchus will come around.”

  Her lips pursed. “I hope so.”

  She fed Bacchus another handful of cereal. He pulled his gaze away from the vulnerable curve of her mouth. Dio. She was the enemy. It might be guilt by association, she might have been trained to be a Hargrove, but she was one nonetheless. He was nuts to be standing here trying to solve her problems.

  He knelt beside Bacchus’s hind leg. “Show me where he tore the tendons.”

  She squatted beside him and ran her hand down the horse’s leg. “Here.”

  “Difficult spot.” He wrapped his fingers around the tendons and very gently worked the leg, massaging the sinewy flesh until it eased beneath his fingers.

  “Can I try?” Cecily asked.

  He nodded and dropped his hand.

  She wrapped her fingers around the horse’s leg, kneading his flesh. But her touch was too tentative, too light to do any good.

  “Like this.” He closed his fingers over hers to demonstrate, increasing the pressure. The warmth of her hand bled into his, a fission of electricity passing between them. Heat flared beneath his skin. Her breath grew shallow. He inhaled her delicate floral scent, so soft and seductive as it infiltrated his senses with potent effect. They may have had a rocky start, she might be the enemy, but his body wasn’t registering either of those facts, consumed with a sensual awareness of her that clawed at his skin.

  She turned to look at him, eyes darkening. “Have you ever thought of doing this for a living? You’re very good at it.”

  “I’ve thought about it.” He responded as Colt Banyon, professional drifter. “But I like to travel too much. Maybe someday I’ll settle down and get my own place.”

  She didn’t scoff at that, as if he didn’t have a hope in hell of ever owning a place like this. Didn’t know he could buy and sell her family ten times over. Only said quietly, sincerity shining in her eyes, “I hope you do that someday. You’d be amazing at it.”

  He thought then that perhaps first impressions hadn’t done Cecily Hargrove justice. That if he curved his fingers around her neck and drew her to him for a kiss so he could taste that delectable mouth, she wouldn’t protest, she’d meet him halfway. That if he did, he might be able to banish some of those dark shadows from her eyes for just a few minutes.

  Why all of a sudden it was the most unbearably tempting proposition when it was the last thing in the world he should ever do was beyond him.

  He pushed to his feet before madness ensued. “A few minutes of that every day will help him stretch out, trust himself a bit more. It might help.”

  She rose to her feet beside him, any hint of an invitation gone from those blue eyes. If he saw a flash of regret there, she masked it just as quickly.

  “Thank you, Colt,” she said quietly, brushing her palms against her dress. “He’s in excellent hands. Y’all have yourself a good night.”

  * * *

  Oh, my God. Cecily dragged in a deep breath as she exited the stables on weak knees, the earth feeling as if it was shifting beneath her feet. What had just happened?

  You didn’t invite a complete stranger to kiss you when he’d clearly barely been tolerating your presence and didn’t even like you. And yet, her dazed brain processed, for a second there, she’d thought he’d been thinking about kissing her too before he’d replaced those barriers of his and put her back in her place as surely as she’d put him in his earlier today.

  Had she imagined it?

  She pressed her palms to her heated cheeks. She shouldn’t be interested in kissing anyone right now. It was the last thing she should be doing with her career hanging in the balance.

  Skirting the floodlit natural water grotto her father had spent millions building for her mother, she took the path to the house. Perhaps she should go stick her head in there. It might inject some sense into her.

  Hadn’t her disastrous engagement to Davis taught her a lesson? Good looking men were trouble. A disaster waiting to happen. She was better off sticking with males of the four legged variety. They never broke her heart.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CECILY SPENT THE next few days steadfastly ignoring sexy, elusive Colt Banyon and putting all her focus into her practice sessions. But it seemed the harder she tried, the worse her times became—as if desperation was setting in and Bacchus could sense it, feeding off her nerves in all the worst ways.

  By the time Friday rolled around, her event three weeks away, she was at her wit’s end. She could continue to pound away at the fruitless efforts that were getting her nowhere or she could follow Colt’s suggestion and take a step back.

  She couldn’t afford to give up on her hopes for the season, but perhaps she might be able to rewire her horse’s brain with a total change of pace. Maybe Bacchus just needed a mental breather, an escape from the pressure cooker. Just like her.

  An idea filled her head over tea in the thankfully deserted breakfast room. Except she knew her father wouldn’t allow it unless she took someone with her and since having company along for the ride defeated the purpose of obtaining some peace, it wasn’t an option.

  Unless she took the less than talkative Colt with her, she mused over a sip of tea. She could pick his brain about some of his techniques along the way. While keeping her head in sane territory, of course, something that shouldn’t be hard because Colt would clearly give her the brush off again if she did something dumb like invite him to kiss her, which of course, she wouldn’t.

  Her mouth curved. It was a plan. She finished her tea, collected her things and went off to execute.

  * * *

  Alejandro dropped the package off at the courier office in town on his mid-morning break. Containing a sample of Bacchus’s mane hairs, it was now up to Stavros’s high tech lab to confirm the Hargroves’ crime.

  He texted Stavros from the truck.

  Package has been sent. Obrigado amigo, I owe you one.

  Forget it. I’m feeling generous. I am, after all, soon to be a married man.

  Alejandro almost dropped his phone.

  Sorry?

  You heard me. Details to come. Got to run.

  Got to run? Alejandro eyed the phone as he threw it on the seat of the truck. Antonio with an insta-family? Stavros married? What the hell was going on? It was...insano.

  Stavros, he bemusedly processed as he started the truck, didn’t even sound panicked about it. He sounded almost...cheerful.

  The sense of relief he’d been feeling about having netted this particular challenge magnified ten-fold as he drove back to the farm. No chance of any of those emotional attachments with him. He didn’t need to acquire a wife as Stavros did, had no undiscovered children lying around—he’d made sure of that. And Sebastien knew his feelings on marriage.

  When the day came for him to make a match to deliver the Salazar heir, it would be at least a few years down the road with a woman he’d handpicked as a sensible selection. He would research her just as he would an expensive car, making sure she ticked all the right boxes for the rational, practical match he had planned. Because he knew from personal history, impulse purchases, matches made out of passion never lasted. His parents were a perfect example of that.

  He reached the stables five minutes after his break officially ended. Putting his mind blowing conversation with Stavros out of his head, he went di
rectly to the tack room to collect the gear he needed to exercise one of the three horses he had to take out that afternoon.

  Checking the gear over, he let the easy rhythm of the stables slide over him. The clip clop of hooves on concrete, the whinny of horses talking to each other over their stalls, the clink of metal on metal as an animal was shod filled him with a sense of peace he hadn’t felt in months.

  If he wasn’t consumed with the thought of the hundreds of emails piling up in his inbox back in New York, the two massive deals his brother Joaquim, director of Salazar’s European operations, was stickhandling for him, it would almost be idyllic.

  “Hey Hollywood.” Tommy, one of his fellow grooms, stuck his head in the tack room. “Boss’s daughter wants to see you.”

  Uh-oh. He’d done such a good job of avoiding Cecily after that moment they’d shared in the stable. Was pretty sure she’d been avoiding him too. So why seek him out now?

  He joined a group of grooms congregated in front of the tiny kitchen, Cecily holding court in their midst. Dressed in jeans and a sleeveless shirt that hugged her lithe curves, her hair caught up in a ponytail, she was a tiny, delectable package a man might want to eat for breakfast. Just not him, of course.

  She turned to him once she’d finished her conversation with the others. “I want to go for a hack up to the lake. I’d like you to come with me.”

  Oh, no. He recognized a bad idea when he heard one. “I still have three horses to exercise,” he demurred smoothly. “Perhaps you can take someone else.”

  A female groom gaped at him. Tommy’s brows rose. Cecily lifted her chin, training those vibrant blue eyes on him. “I would like you to come.”

  An order. Back to being mistress of all she surveyed, clearly.

  He inclined his head. “Let me gather up a few things.”

  “Don’t worry about food and water. I have that figured out.”

  He saddled up Jiango, a big, black stallion he’d had to exercise anyway. Tommy elbowed him as he walked the horse toward the yard. “Making an impression, Hollywood? A hundred bucks says you can’t get past the ice cold exterior.”

  “Not looking to.” He nipped that one in the bud. Rumors were the quickest way to blow his cover, particularly when they involved him and the boss’s daughter.

  Cecily eyed him as he brought Jiango to a halt in the yard. “I asked you along because I decided to take your advice and spend some downtime with Bacchus. I would have preferred to go by myself but my father won’t let me ride up there alone. You will be the least talkative of the grooms.”

  So he was supposed to provide silent companionship to her highness? That he supposed he could do.

  “Fair enough.” He attempted to keep his eyes off her curvaceous rear as she turned, stuck her foot in the stirrup and climbed on Bacchus.

  Usually, he went for tall, leggy women who matched him in physical attributes, but in Cecily’s case, his mind immediately degenerated into all sorts of creative possibilities.

  Bad Alejandro. He gave himself a mental slap and mounted Jiango. “How long a ride is it?”

  “About an hour. It’s gorgeous, you’ll love it.”

  He did. Jiango, a powerful, Belgian-bred stallion, one of the Hargroves’ up-and-coming young horses, more than kept up with Bacchus as they rode through pastures so green they looked frankly unreal, bounded by mile upon mile of picturesque white fence.

  Aristocratic flowering trees with vibrant magenta and white blooms lined the track they rode on, providing shade to the long legged, elegant horses who dozed beneath a sky of the deepest blue.

  The sun moved high in the sky as midday closed in. They left the pastures behind and entered a shady, light-dappled forest. Cecily turned to him, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Want to show me what you’ve got, Hollywood?”

  “If the prize is you not calling me that,” he responded dryly, “I’m in.”

  “Done.” A wider smile, a dazzling one that lit her face. “A race then, to the end of the road. First person over the creek wins.” Her mouth pursed. “I will warn you—there are obstacles. You need to keep a sharp eye.”

  He’d gone cliff diving in Acapulco, bungee jumping in Thailand. He and the boys had even taken on sumo wrestlers in Japan. This would be a piece of cake.

  “You’re on,” he said laconically. “You want a head start?”

  Fire lit her gaze. She dug her heels into Bacchus and was flying down the road at breakneck speed before he’d even registered she’d moved. Kicking Jiango into a gallop, he gave him his head. Crouched low over the stallion’s withers, he did his best to avoid the branches and obstacles that appeared out of nowhere, the odd one snagging him good.

  Cecily held the lead. She was an insanely good rider, glued to the seat, but his horse had a longer stride than Bacchus’s, helping him to make up ground. He was almost even with her when they neared what appeared to be the end of the road, the track growing steeper, plunging downhill to the creek. It took every bit of his experience to keep Jiango steady as they flew down the incline and headed for the water, the two horses even now.

  He crouched forward in the saddle. Jiango jumped the water in a smooth, powerful movement. A gasp rang out behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bacchus dig his feet in at the last moment, coming to a screeching halt on the rocks, nearly catapulting his rider over his head.

  Somehow Cecily stayed in the saddle, regaining control as her horse skittered away from the water. He turned Jiango around and jumped back across the creek, bringing him to a halt beside Bacchus. Cheeks flushed, frustration glittering in her eyes, all the joy had gone out of Cecily’s face.

  “Guess that makes you the winner.”

  He frowned at the false bravado in her voice. “He normally jumps the creek?”

  She nodded. “He loves it.”

  “Did your accident involve a water jump?”

  “Yes, but he’s jumped them since. His behavior isn’t making any sense.”

  “Fear often doesn’t make sense.” He bunched his reins in one hand and sat back in the saddle. “A horse I worked with once had a bad crash on a really unusual fence that spooked him. He recovered, but the same thing happened to him that’s happening to Bacchus. He wasn’t just refusing on jumps that were new to him, he was refusing on jumps he had always been comfortable with—as if he didn’t trust his rider anymore. Because, in his eyes, he’d led him astray.”

  “You think Bacchus believes I let him down?”

  “I’m saying it’s a possibility.”

  She chewed on her lip. “What did you do to make the horse right?”

  “I gained his trust back.”

  “How?”

  He lifted a brow. “You sure you want to learn from the ‘school of psychobabble’?”

  She gave him a reproachful look. “Yes.”

  He dismounted and walked over to Bacchus. “Get off,” he instructed. “Take off your scarf.”

  “My scarf?”

  “Yes—off.”

  She dismounted. Slid her fingers through the knot of her scarf and untied it, pulling it from her neck. Colt tied it around Bacchus’s head, covering his eyes. The horse pawed the ground nervously, but stayed put.

  “Take your shoes off and walk him across the stream.”

  She pulled off her riding boots and socks. Colt did the same. Boots in hand, he went first with Jiango. The water wasn’t deep, but it moved fast. Jiango hesitated at the edge, but a firm tug on the reins had him moving forward.

  Cecily and Bacchus followed. The moment Bacchus’s hooves hit the running water, her horse jammed on the breaks and came to a grinding halt. Mouth set, Cecily walked back to him, stroked his neck and talked to him. By the time Alejandro and Jiango had reached the other side of the stream, Bacchus was cautiously making his way across.
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  “Take the blindfold off,” he instructed when the pair walked up onto the bank.

  Cecily removed the blindfold. Bacchus eyed the stream, sniffed the water, ears flickering as he registered he was on the other side.

  “He knows he can trust you to get him to safety,” Alejandro explained. “Now take him back across without the blindfold.”

  Horse and rider picked their way across the stream, then back again, Bacchus’s confidence building with every step.

  Cecily stopped Bacchus at his side. “What now?”

  “We’ll give him some time to think about it. See if he’ll jump it on the way back.”

  She nodded. “It’s just so strange. This is his favorite place.”

  “He’s got something stuck in his head. Also,” he added, eyes on hers, “he’s absorbing your tension. I’ve been feeling it all week watching you ride. You’ve got to loosen up—change the dynamic between you two. Rebuild the trust.”

  She pushed her hair out of her face. “My coach doesn’t believe in any of this. You’re supposed to make the horse do what you want them to do.”

  “And that’s working for you?”

  Her eyes flashed. Lifting her chin, she nodded toward a path in the woods. “Lake’s this way.”

  * * *

  Cecily attempted to recapture her good mood as they walked the horses to her favorite picnic spot on the bank of the lake, but she was too agitated to manage it. For Bacchus to refuse a jump on his favorite ride was sucking what little hope she had left out of her that she would be ready to compete against the top riders in the world in just three weeks. It didn’t seem possible.

  She knew Colt was right, knew she needed to change the dynamic between her and Bacchus—she just didn’t know how.

  The sun at its midday peak, hot as the devil as her Grandmama Harper used to say, they tethered the horses in a shady spot under a tree. A mile wide, the lake was a stunning dark navy blue, bounded by forests of the deepest green. Quiet—eerily quiet except for the odd call of a bird or the splash of some water creature, it made her suddenly, inordinately aware of how very alone she and Colt were.