He started after her, but his damned phone began to march again. Son of a...
“What?” he demanded as he slammed the trailer door shut after him. Jo already had Betty and was shutting the paddock gate behind them both.
She couldn’t have been clearer—she didn’t want to talk to him.
“Have you lost your mind?” Chadwick thundered on the other end.
“And hello to you, too,” Phillip said as he tried to figure out where he’d gone wrong. She’d wanted it both soft and rough. Hadn’t he delivered?
“You are single-handedly jeopardizing this entire deal,” Chadwick yelled in his ear. “Even by your standards, you’ve screwed this up.”
“I’ve done nothing of the sort,” Phillip replied, forcing himself to remain calm. Mostly because he knew he wouldn’t win a shouting match with his older brother, but also because he knew it’d drive the jerk crazy. “I’ve merely reminded the future owners of our brewery that we mean more to our vast customer base than just a nice, cold beer.”
Jo stood with her back to him as she haltered Betty. Sun was aware of him, though. The horse was making short strides back and forth in front of her, his head never pointing away from where Phillip was pacing.
“...pissed off Harper and the entire board,” Chadwick was yelling. “Do you know what that man will do to us if this deal falls through?”
“To hell with Harper,” Phillip said, only half paying attention. Maybe he should have asked Jo if he could come back to her trailer instead of inviting her up to the house? “I can’t stand the guy. And he hates us.”
“I always thought you had a brain somewhere in that head of yours and that you chose not to use it,” Chadwick fumed. “I can see now that I was wrong. For your information, Phillip, Harper will sue us into last century. And any hope that you’re keeping the farm with this PR gambit will go down the drain in legal fees.”
“Oh,” Phillip said, Chadwick’s words registering for the first time. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“What a surprise—you didn’t think something through. You never think things through, do you?” Chadwick made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat. “All you care about is where the next party is.”
“That’s not true,” Phillip snapped. His head began to throb. This would be the time in his conversation with Chadwick where he’d normally tuck the phone under his chin and start opening cabinets to see if he had any whiskey. He hated it when his older brother talked down to him.
Even though Phillip knew he wasn’t going to drink, the habit had him looking around for a cabinet.
Damn, this was going to be harder than he thought.
“Isn’t it?” Chadwick’s tone made it clear that he was sneering. “The next party, the next drink, the next woman. You’ve never cared for anything else in your entire, selfish life.”
Phillip’s pride stung, mostly because it was a somewhat accurate statement. But not entirely, and he clung to that not with everything he had.
If Chadwick wanted to hit below the belt, fine. Phillip would just hit right back. “You know who you sound like right now?” he said in his most calm voice, “Dad.”
There was a hideous screeching noise and then the call ended. If he had to guess, Phillip would say Chadwick had thrown his phone at a wall. Good. That meant the asshole wouldn’t be calling back anytime soon.
He glared at the phone, then the silent woman who, not twenty feet away from him, was leading Betty around the paddock. She might as well have been on a different continent. Any good buzz he’d had earlier from his media coup and seduction of Jo was dead.
He’d had a plan—show Chadwick and the new Brewery owners that the Percherons were too valuable to auction off.
That plan wasn’t dead, he realized. He’d just finished Phase One. Now he needed to start Phase Two—getting control of this farm away from Chadwick.
Which meant he needed a new plan.
He looked at the paddock again. The cold shoulder from Jo was about to give him frostbite.
One-night stands were his specialty. He loved them when they were there, forgot about them when they were gone. So what if Jo was ignoring him? No big deal, right? He’d had his fun, just as he always did. Now was as good a time as any to move on.
But he didn’t want to move on.
It must be the chase. She was exceptionally hard to get—that had to be what still called to him.
Fine. She wanted to be chased? He’d chase.
Time for Phase Two.
Thirteen
Jo needed to go in. A breeze had picked up as dusk approached and, given the clouds that were scuttling across the spring sky, they were in for some rain. She hoped it was a gentle rain and not Mother Nature throwing a fit, but she wasn’t going to hold her breath.
Besides, her legs ached. Okay, so it wasn’t the standing and walking that had them aching. That was more to do with the unusual strain of the afternoon.
She shoved back that thought and focused on the tasks at hand. If it was going to rain, she wanted to brush Betty before the donkey could track any more dirt into the trailer. And Sun—a gentle rain wouldn’t kill the horse, but a storm with crashing thunder and lightning might push him over the edge. She couldn’t risk him trying to bust through the fences. She needed to get him haltered and into the barn.
She needed not to get killed doing it. There wasn’t anyone else around at this point—everyone else had driven off about half an hour ago.
She was not going to ask Phillip for help. She didn’t need it. She wouldn’t need him.
Jo was so focused on her work that the effort was physically exhausting. But it was still better than thinking about what she’d just done. With Phillip.
So she didn’t think about it. She thought about the horse.
Sun was, by all reasonable measurements, quite calm. She haltered Betty again and led the patient donkey around the paddock again. This time, she walked within five feet of Sun. The horse didn’t skitter away.
No, she was not thinking about the way Phillip had picked her up and carried her back to bed. She was also not thinking about the way he’d made her watch as he went down on her. And she was certainly not thinking about the way every molecule in her body had been pulling her into his arms when he’d whispered “Please” against her skin.
How she’d wanted to say yes. Just...let herself be at his beck and call. Be in his bed when he wanted, how he wanted. Let him mark her skin and fill her body and make her come so hard. It’d be easy—for as long as she was here, she could have him.
He could have her.
But then what? She was going to throw herself at him—because, God, she wanted to throw herself at him—and then quit him cold turkey in a week, or two weeks or however long she had left to train Sun?
And if she went to his house, went to his bed—word would get out. People would notice. People would talk. Her reputation as a professional horse trainer who could take on the toughest cases would be shot to hell and back. People would think she’d gotten this job because she was sleeping with Phillip.
She knew what kind of man he was. He’d move on, just as he always did.
Just as she used to do. One man was the same as another, after all.
But he’d made her remember what she liked about men in the first place. The warm bodies, soft and hard at the same time. The way orgasms felt different in someone else’s arms compared to when she did them herself. The feeling, for a fleeting moment, of being complete.
That was the part she’d blindly run after. She’d always confused being wanted with being had, though. But now she knew. Wanting and having were not the same.
She’d wanted Phillip. Now she’d had him. But, unlike all those men from long ago, she wanted him again. Not just a man, but Phillip.
> God, she was so mad at herself. She knew she couldn’t have him and just let him go any more than she could have one drink and not have any more. She knew that. What had she been thinking?
That was the problem. She didn’t know what to think anymore.
So she un-haltered Betty. And re-haltered her. Again.
This time, she walked up to Sun and stopped right in front of him. The horse’s head popped up and he stared at her, his ears pointed at her as he chewed grass.
This was good. She wished she felt more excited about the victory.
“See?” she said in a soft voice. Sun’s head jerked back, but he didn’t bolt. “It’s not so bad. Betty doesn’t mind it, do you girl?”
She rubbed Betty’s head between her ears. It’s not so bad, she silently repeated to herself. She’d had Phillip once. She could back away from the brink of self-destruction again. She’d already said no to him a second time, right? Right. Not so bad.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. Then, unexpectedly, Sun’s nose touched Betty’s. It was a brief thing, lasting only two seconds, tops. Then Sun backed up and trotted off, looking as if he’d just won the horse lottery.
Jo grinned at his retreating form as she un-haltered Betty. So her mental state was all out of whack. The horse, however, was doing fine and dandy. She watched as Betty trotted after Sun. It looked like a little sister chasing after her big brother. Jo could almost hear Betty saying, “Wait for me!”
Jo walked back over to the gate and picked up Sun’s halter and lead rope. Maybe... “Betty,” she called. “Come on.”
Betty exhaled in what was clearly donkey frustration. She only had so much patience for non-stop haltering. But after a moment, she plodded toward Jo.
Sun followed.
Jo moved slowly, demonstrating on Betty how the halter went over the nose and then the ears, then how the lead rope clipped on. She knew he’d been haltered before, but a refresher never hurt anyone.
She held the halter up for Sun to sniff just as a distant rumble echoed from the clouds. Sun whipped his head around, trying to find the source of the noise—then he took off at a jumpy trot. Crap. This whole process needed to happen sooner rather than later. She didn’t want to spend a night standing in a downpour just to make sure Sun didn’t accidentally kill himself.
Just then, Sun’s ears whipped back and he blew past her to rush to the edge of the paddock. Seconds later, she heard it, too—the sound of whistling.
Yes, she was mad at herself and yes, she knew that it wasn’t healthy to take her anger out on anyone else but damn it was tempting to light into Phillip. Everything had been going fine until he’d arrived on the farm. She’d been a well-respected horse trainer that never, ever gave in to temptation, no matter how long or lonely the nights were. She wanted to go back to being in control, removed from the messy lives of her clients.
She also wanted to stomp over to that gate, throw it open and demand to know what the hell he was thinking, but she didn’t get that far.
Phillip came forward, looking at the halter in her hands. “Any luck?”
Then he had the damned nerve to wink at her.
She wanted to tell him to shove his luck where the sun didn’t shine but she didn’t. “I was making progress. A storm’s coming in. I need to move him to the barn without setting him off again.”
Phillip looked at her with such intensity that it made her sweat. “I know what he needs,” he replied in a voice that was too casual to be anything but a double entendre.
She glared at him. She was not going to lose her head again. She was not going to give in to her addictions. One and done. That was final.
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small baggie of carrots. “Oh,” she said, feeling stupid. “Okay.”
Phillip opened the gate and walked in. He took out a carrot and stood remarkably still, the carrot held out on the flat of his palm.
Betty came up to him, her lead rope trailing behind her as she snuffled for the treat. “Go ahead,” Jo said when Phillip looked to her for approval.
Sun looped around the paddock a few times, each circle tightening on where Phillip stood, another carrot at the ready. This wasn’t how she wanted to do this. They were forcing something that she normally would have worked on for a week, maybe more.
But the sky was starting to roil as the clouds built and moved. So she stood next to Phillip, ready to halter a horse.
They waited. For once, Phillip had all the patience in the paddock. Jo was the one who kept glancing at the menacing clouds as if she could keep them at bay by sheer will.
“Come on, Sun,” Phillip said in a low voice that sent a tremor down Jo’s back. “It’ll be okay, you’ll see.”
Miraculously, Sun came. Head down, he walked toward them as if he agreed to be haltered every day.
Jo held her breath as the horse sniffed the carrot in the man’s palm. Then Sun’s big teeth scraped the carrot off Phillip’s hand.
“Good, huh?” Phillip said, lifting his hand to rub Sun’s nose. “I have more if you let Jo put the halter on you.”
Sun shook his head and walked away. But he didn’t go far.
A few days ago, Phillip might have whined about how long this was taking. But not today. He merely got another carrot out and waited.
Betty leaned against his legs, so he broke the carrot in half and gave her the smaller part. That got Sun’s attention, fast. He came back over to Phillip.
“Carrots,” Phillip said, letting Sun take the remaining half, “are that good, aren’t they?”
He started to fish out another carrot—and Sun was waiting for it—but Jo stopped him. “Let me try to get the halter on, then give him another one if he cooperates.”
Sun gave her a baleful look. Clearly, he was too smart for his own good.
“You heard the lady,” Phillip said in a teasing tone to his horse. “No more without the halter.”
Sun shook his head again. Thunder rumbled again, closer this time.
“You don’t want to spend the night in the rain, do you?” Sun blew snot on the ground. “No,” Phillip went on, “I didn’t think so.” He held out another carrot so Sun could smell it.
Jo stepped forward as quickly as she could and slipped the halter over Sun’s nose. He shook her off and reached for the carrot, but Phillip pulled back. “No halter, no carrot.”
Sun dropped his head in resignation. Jo slipped the lead rope over his neck and handed the ends to Phillip. Then she leaned forward and slipped the halter over his nose, then over his ears. She clipped the throat latch.
Victory. She knew it, Phillip knew it—hell, even Betty seemed to know it. She clipped the lead rope on the halter. Phillip gave Sun another carrot.
“Now we have to get him to the barn,” she said. “Can you lead him?”
Phillip gave her the kind of smile that didn’t so much chip away at her defenses as blow them up. Nope. Not working on her today. Or any other day.
She was not that girl anymore. She would not throw herself at a man. Not even Phillip Beaumont.
“I can honestly say I’ve done this before. Plus,” he added with that grin, “I’m the one with the carrots.”
She steeled her resolve. Sun hadn’t been indoors in almost two weeks. This could go south on them. Maybe she should leave Betty in the stall next to Sun for the night? It couldn’t hurt. “Fine. Betty and I will lead the way.”
Why did she have a sinking feeling that things were about to get interesting?
* * *
Phillip had a death grip on the lead rope. The odds that Sun would freak out were maybe 50/50. He couldn’t do anything about bucking except stay out of the way, but if Sun tried to bolt, he’d have to spin the horse in a small, tight circle before he could build up a head of steam. And
if he reared...
Damn, Phillip wished he had on some gloves. If Sun reared, Phillip just might get rope burn on both palms. He tightened his grip.
He followed Jo and Betty into the barn. The lights came on overhead, which made Sun start, but he didn’t bolt. Jo led her donkey past Sun’s stall and then paused. “This stall is empty,” she said in a gentle voice. “I’ll put Betty in.”
“Okay.” The situation made him nervous. Leading a mostly-calm Sun down a wide hallway was one thing. Being in a stall with him was a whole different thing.
“Easy does it,” Jo said. For the first time since she’d walked away from him that afternoon, he heard something soft in her voice.
Phillip nodded as he walked into the stall with Sun. Then Jo was standing next to him, unclipping the throat latch and sliding the halter from Sun’s head.
The three of them stood there for a moment, humans and horse, wondering if they’d just accomplished that without shouting, ropes or guns. Sun shook his head and pawed at the ground, but didn’t freak out. Hell, he didn’t do anything even remotely Sun-like. He just stood there.
“Carrot?” Jo said in her quiet voice.
“Carrot,” Phillip agreed, fishing the rest out of his pocket and holding them out to the horse.
His horse.
* * *
The wind gusted. He gave Jo a sideways smile that was absolutely not working. “It’s going to storm.”
“I know.”
“We’re under a tornado watch until eleven p.m.,” he told her. “You should come up to the house—the trailer may not be safe.”
Of all the sneaky, underhanded things... “I’ll sleep in the barn with the horses.”
“Jo.” He was forced to shout as the wind gusted up. “Come to the house, damn it. This isn’t about seduction, this is about safety.”
She hesitated. “I’m not sleeping with you tonight.”
He stared at her. “First off, I have a fully stocked guest room. Second off...” He stepped toward her. “I’m sorry.”
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