Relief so intense it almost knocked her back a step broke over the ranch manager’s face. The hired hands all grinned, obviously thankful that Sun was someone else’s problem now.
“Provided,” she went on, “my conditions are met.”
Richard tried to look stern, but he didn’t quite make it. “Yeah?”
“I need an on-site hookup for my trailer. That way, if Sun has a problem in the middle of the night, I’m here to deal with it.”
“We’ve got the electric. I’ll have Jerry rig up something for the sewer.”
“Second, no one else deals with Sun. I feed him, I groom him, I move him. The rest of you stay clear.”
“Done,” Richard agreed without hesitation. The hands all nodded.
So far, so good. “We do this my way or we don’t do it at all. No second-guessing from you, the hired hands or the owners. I won’t rush the horse and I expect the same treatment. And I expect to be left alone. I don’t date or hook up. Clear?”
She hated having to throw that out there because she knew it made her sound as if she thought men would be fighting over her. But she’d done enough harm by hooking up before. Even if she was sober this time, she couldn’t risk another life.
Plus, she was a single woman, traveling alone in a trailer with a bed. Some men thought that was enough. Things worked better if everything was cut-and-dried up front.
Richard looked around at his crew. Some were blushing, a few looked bummed—but most of them were just happy that they wouldn’t have to deal with Sun anymore.
Then Richard looked across the fields. A long, black limousine was heading toward them.
“Damn,” one of the hands said, “the boss.”
Everyone but Jo and Richard made themselves scarce. Sun found his second wind and began a full-fledged fit.
“This isn’t going to be a problem, is it?” Jo asked Richard, who was busy dusting off his jeans and straightening his shirt.
“Shouldn’t be.” He did not sound convincing. “Mr. Beaumont wants the best for Sun.”
The but on the end of that statement was as loud as if Richard had actually said the word. But Phillip Beaumont was a known womanizer who made headlines around the world for his conquests.
Richard turned his attention back to her. “You’re hired. I’ll do my level-best to make sure that Mr. Beaumont stays clear of you.”
In other words, Richard had absolutely no control of the situation. A fact that became more apparent as the limo got closer. The older man stood at attention as the vehicle rolled to a stop in front of the barn.
Phillip Beaumont didn’t scare her. Or intimidate her. She’d dealt with handsome, entitled men before and none of them had ever tempted her to fall back into her old ways. None of them made her forget the scars. This wouldn’t be any different. She was just here for the job.
The limo door opened. A bare, female leg emerged from the limo at the same time as giggling filled the air. Behind her, Jo heard Sun kick it up a notch.
The first leg was followed by a second. Jo wasn’t that surprised when a second set of female legs followed the first. By that time, the first woman had stepped clear of the limo’s door and Jo could see that, while she was wearing clothing, the dress consisted of little more than a bikini’s worth of black sequined material. The second woman stood up and pulled the red velvet material of her skirt down around her hips.
Beside her, Richard made a sound that was stuck somewhere between a sigh and a groan. Jo took that to mean that this wasn’t the first time Phillip had shown up with women dressed like hookers.
Betty nickered in boredom and went back to cropping grass. Jo pretty much felt the same way. Of course this was how Phillip Beaumont rolled. Those headlines hadn’t lied. The thing that had been less honest had been that interview in Western Horseman. That had probably been more about rehabilitating his brand image than about his actual love and respect for horses.
But on the bright side, if he’d brought his own entertainment to the ranch, he’d leave her to her work. That’s what was important here—she had to save Sun, cement her reputation as a horse trainer and add this paycheck to the fund that she’d use to buy her own ranch. Adding Beaumont Farms to her résumé was worth putting up with the hassle of, well, this.
Then another set of legs appeared. Unlike the first sets, these legs were clad in what looked like expensive Italian leather shoes and fine-cut wool trousers. Phillip Beaumont himself stood and looked at his farm over the top of the limo, all blond hair and gleaming smile. He wore an odd look on his face. He almost looked relieved.
His gaze settled on her. As their eyes met across the drive, Jo felt...disoriented. Looking at Phillip Beaumont was one thing, but apparently being looked at by Phillip Beaumont?
Something else entirely.
Heat flushed her face as the corner of his mouth curved up into a smile, grabbed hold of her and refused to let her go. She couldn’t pull away from his gaze—and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. He looked as if he was glad to see her—which she knew wasn’t possible. He had no idea who she was and couldn’t have been expecting her. Besides, compared to his traveling companions, no one in their right mind would even notice her.
But that look.... Happy and hungry and relieved. Like he’d come all this way just to see her and now that she was here, the world would be right again.
No one had looked at her like that. Ever. Before, when she’d been a party girl, men looked at her with a wolfish hunger that had very little to do with her as a woman and everything to do with them wanting to get laid. And since the accident? Well, she wore her hair like this and dressed like she did specifically so she wouldn’t invite people to look at her.
He saw right through her.
The women lost their balance and nearly tumbled to the ground, but Phillip caught them in his arms. He pulled them apart and settled one on his left side, the other on his right. The women giggled, as if this were nothing but hilarious.
It hurt to see them, like ghosts of her past come back to haunt her.
“Mr. Beaumont,” Richard began in a warm, if desperate, tone as he went to meet his boss. “We weren’t expecting you today.”
“Dick,” Phillip said, which caused his traveling companions to break out into renewed giggles. “I wanted to show my new friends—” He looked down at Blonde Number One.
“Katylynn,” Number One giggled. Of course.
“Sailor,” Number Two helpfully added.
Phillip’s head swung up in a careful arc, another disarming smile already in place as he gave the girls a squeeze. “I wanted to show Sun to Katylynn and Sailor.”
“Mr. Beaumont,” Richard began again. Jo heard more anger in his voice this time. “Sun is not—”
“Wha’s wrong with that horse?” Sailor took a step away from Phillip and pointed at Sun.
They all turned to look. Sun was now bucking with renewed vigor. Damn stamina, Jo thought as she watched him.
“Wha’s making him do that?” Katylynn asked.
“You are,” Jo informed the trio.
The women glared at her. “Who are you?” Sailor asked in a haughty tone.
“Yes, who are you?” Phillip Beaumont spoke slowly—carefully—as his eyes focused on her again.
Again, her face prickled with unfamiliar heat. Get ahold of yourself, she thought, forcibly breaking the eye contact. She wasn’t the kind of woman who got drunk and got lost in a man’s eyes. Not anymore. She’d left that life behind and no one—not even someone as handsome and rich as Phillip Beaumont—would tempt her back to it.
“Mr. Beaumont, this here is Jo Spears. She’s the horse...” She almost heard whisperer sneak out through his teeth. “Trainer. The new trainer for Sun.”
She gave Richard an appreciative smile. A quick study, that one.
Phillip detached himself from his companions, which led to them making whimpering noises of protest.
As Phillip closed the distance between him and Jo, that half-smile took hold of his mouth again. He stopped with two feet still between them. “You’re the new trainer?”
She stared at his eyes. They were pale green with flecks of gold around the edges. Nice eyes.
Nice eyes that bounced. It wasn’t a big movement, but Phillip’s eyes were definitely moving of their own accord. She knew the signs of intoxication and that one was a dead giveaway. He was drunk.
She had to admire his control, though. Nothing else in his mannerisms or behaviors gave away that he was three sheets to the wind. Which really only meant one thing.
Being this drunk wasn’t something new for him. He’d gotten very good at masking his state. That was something that took years of practice.
She’d gotten good at it, too—but it was so exhausting to keep up that false front of competency, to act normal when she wasn’t. She’d hated being that person. She wasn’t anymore.
She let this realization push down on the other part of her brain that was still admiring his lovely eyes. Phillip Beaumont represented every single one of her triggers wrapped up in one extremely attractive package. Everything she could never be again if she wanted to be a respected horse trainer, not an out-of-control alcoholic.
She needed this job, needed the prestige of retraining a horse like Sun on her résumé and the paycheck that went with it. She absolutely could not allow a handsome man who could hold his liquor to tempt her back into a life she’d long since given up.
She did not hook up. Not even with the likes of Phillip Beaumont.
“I’m just here for the horse,” she told him.
He tilted his head in what looked like acknowledgement without breaking eye contact and without losing that smile.
Man, this was unnerving. Men who looked at her usually saw the bluntly cut, shoulder-length hair and the flannel shirts and the jeans and dismissed her out of hand. That was how she wanted it. It kept a safe distance between her and the rest of the world. That was just the way it had to be.
But this look was doing some very unusual things to her. Things she didn’t like. Her cheeks got hot—was she blushing?—and a strange prickling started at the base of her neck and raced down her back.
She gritted her teeth but thankfully, he was the one who broke the eye contact first. He looked down at Betty, still blissfully cropping grass. “And who is this?”
Jo braced herself. “This is Itty Bitty Betty, my companion mini donkey.”
Instead of the lame joke or snorting laughter, Phillip leaned down, held his hand out palm up and let Betty sniff his hand. “Well hello, Little Bitty Betty. Aren’t you a good girl?”
Jo decided not to correct him on her name. It wasn’t worth it. What was worth it, though, was the way Betty snuffled at his hand and then let him rub her ears.
That weird prickling sensation only got stronger as she watched Phillip Beaumont make friends with her donkey. “We’ve got nice grass,” he told her, sounding for all the world as if he was talking to a toddler. “You’ll like it here.”
Jo realized she was staring at Phillip with her mouth open, which she quickly corrected. The people who hired her usually made a joke about Betty or stated they weren’t paying extra for a donkey of any size. But Phillip?
Wearing a smile that bordered on cute he looked up at Jo as Betty went back to the grass. “She’s a good companion, I can tell.”
She couldn’t help herself. “Can you?”
Richard had said his boss was a good judge of horses. He’d certainly sounded as if were true it in that interview. She wanted him to be a good judge of horses, to be a real person and not just a shallow, beer-peddling facade of a man. Even though she had no right to want that from him, she did.
His smile went from adorable to wicked in a heartbeat and damned if other parts of her body didn’t start prickling at the sight. “I’m an excellent judge of character.”
Right then, the party girls decided to speak up. “Philly, we want to go home,” one cooed.
“With you,” the other one added.
“Yes,” Jo told him, casting a glare back at the women. “I can see that.”
Sun made an unholy noise behind them. Richard shouted and the blondes screamed.
Jesus, Jo thought as Sun pawed at the ground and then charged the paddock fence, snot streaming out of his nose. If he hit the fence at that speed, there wouldn’t be anything left to save.
Everyone else dove out of the way. Jo turned and ran toward the horse, throwing her hands up and shouting “Hiyahh!” at the top of her lungs.
It worked with feet to spare. Sun spooked hard to the left and only hit the paddock fence with his hindquarters—which might be enough to bruise him but wouldn’t do any other damage.
“Jesus,” she said out loud as the horse returned to his bucking. Her chest heaved as the adrenaline pumped through her body.
“I’ll tranq him,” Richard said beside her, leveling the gun at Sun.
“No.” She pushed the muzzle away before he could squeeze the trigger. “Leave him be. He started this, he’s got to finish it.”
Richard gave her a hell of a doubtful look. “We’ll have to tranq him to get him back to his stall. I can’t afford anymore workman’s comp because of this horse.”
She turned to give the ranch manager her meanest look. “We do this my way or we don’t do it at all. That was the deal. I say you don’t shoot him. Leave him in this paddock. Set out hay and water. No one else touches this horse. Do I make myself clear?”
“Do what she says,” Phillip said behind her.
Jo turned back to the paddock to make sure that Sun hadn’t decided to exit on the other side. Nope. Just more bucking circles. It’d almost been a horse’s version of shut the hell up. She grinned at him. On that point, she had to agree.
She could feel her connection with Sun start to grow, which was a good thing. The more she could understand what he was thinking, the easier it would be to help him.
“Philly, we want to go,” one of the blondes demanded with a full-on whine.
“Fine,” Phillip snapped. “Ortiz, make sure the ladies get back to their homes.”
A different male voice—probably the limo driver—said, “Yes sir, Mr. Beaumont.” This announcement was met with cries of protest, which quickly turned to howls of fury.
Jo didn’t watch. She kept her eye on Sun, who was still freaking out at all the commotion. If he made another bolt for the fence, she might have to let Richard tranq him and she really didn’t want that to happen. Shots fired now would only make her job that much harder in the long run.
Finally, the limo doors shut and she heard the car drive off. Thank God. With the women gone, the odds that Sun would settle down were a lot better.
She heard footsteps behind her and tensed. She didn’t want Phillip to touch her. She’d meant what she’d said to the hired hands earlier—she didn’t hook up with anyone. Especially not men like Phillip Beaumont. She couldn’t afford to have her professional reputation compromised, not when she’d finally gotten a top-tier client—and a horse no one else could save. She needed this job far more than she needed Phillip Beaumont to smile at her.
He came level with her and stopped. He was too close—more than close enough to touch.
She panicked. “I don’t sleep with clients,” she announced into the silence—and immediately felt stupid. She was letting a little thing like prickling heat undermine her authority here. She was a horse trainer. That was all.
“I’ll be sure to take that into consideration.” He looked down at her and turned on the most seductive smile she’d ever seen.
Oh, what a smile. She struggled for a moment
to remember why, exactly, she didn’t need that smile in her life. How long had it been since she’d let herself smile back at a man? How long had it been since she’d allowed herself even a little bit of fun?
Years. But then the skin on the back of her neck pulled and she remembered the hospital and the pain. The scars. She hadn’t gotten this job because she smiled at attractive men. She’d gotten this job because she was a horse trainer who could save a broken horse.
She was a professional, by God. When she’d made her announcement to the hired hands earlier, they’d all nodded and agreed. But Phillip?
He looked as if she’d issued a personal challenge. One that he was up to meeting.
Heat flushed her face as she fluttered—honest-to-God fluttered. One little smile—that wouldn’t cost her too much, would it?
No.
She pushed back against whatever insanity was gripping her. She no longer fluttered. She did not fall for party boys. She did not sleep with men at the drop of a hat because they were cute or bought her drinks. She did not look for a human connection in a bar because the connections she’d always made there were never very human.
She would not be tempted by Phillip Beaumont. It didn’t matter how tempting he was. She would not smile back because one smile would lead to another and she couldn’t let that happen.
He notched up one eyebrow as if he were acknowledging how much he’d flustered her. But instead of saying something else, he walked past her and leaned heavily against the paddock fence, staring at Sun. His body language pulled at her in ways she didn’t like. So few of the people who hired her to train horses actually cared about their animals. They looked at the horse and saw dollars—either in money spent, money yet to be made, or insurance payments. That’s why she didn’t get involved with her clients. She could count the exceptions on one hand, like Whitney Maddox, a horse breeder she’d stayed with a few months last winter. But those cases were few and far between and never involved men with reputations like Phillip Beaumont.
But the way Phillip was looking at his horse... There was a pain in his face that seemed to mirror what the horse was feeling. It was a hard thing to see.
Tempted by a Cowboy Page 2