Men Made in America Mega-Bundle

by Gayle Wilson, Marie Ferrarella, Jennifer Greene, Annette Broadrick, Judith Arnold, Rita Herron, Anne Stuart, Diana Palmer, Elizabeth Bevarly, Patricia Rosemoor, Emilie Richards

  “I feel that I’m making satisfactory progress in that direction,” Curran said, leveling his gaze with hers.

  “But time is running out.”

  “Finn hasn’t forgotten how to run, only how to trust. He’ll be getting that back soon enough, and then who knows?”

  “Soon enough to win the Classic?”

  “I’m betting on it,” Curran said. “Heavily.”

  Though Phyllis’s “I see” was clipped, her smile didn’t falter. “So what is your secret? Are you one of those mysterious horse whisperers or something?”

  Curran’s eyebrows shot up and his blue eyes held a definite gleam. “Or something. Though I do tend to speak softly around Finn.”

  “But what is it you tell him?” Phyllis persisted. “What is it that will make him yours?”

  “I tell him what he needs to hear.”

  “But how do you know what that is?”

  “Why, I read his mind, of course,” Curran said with a big grin.

  Jane wasn’t smiling. He was acting as if he was joking, but she believed him. Is that what he’d been doing to her the night before?

  Phyllis’s laughter didn’t quite reach her eyes. Suddenly she rose and snatched up her bag. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to powder my nose.”

  As she rushed toward the ladies’ lounge, Curran asked, “And you don’t feel the need to join her? I thought women descended on the facilities in pairs.”

  “I thought I would give her a head start.”

  “Are you afraid she will corner you, then?”

  “Even if she does, I can’t tell her anything you haven’t shared about your secret powers.”

  “Which seems to be the point of this evening.”

  “A fishing expedition,” Jane agreed.

  “I wonder if Saladin put her up to it.”

  “That would explain why he’s not here tonight. Though what he thought you would reveal…something that would help him with Stonehenge?”

  Was that the emergency that had pulled the Saudi away from Phyllis’s party?

  “Perhaps it was no more than finding out exactly how much a threat Finn might be,” Curran said.

  “Perhaps.”

  Thinking to find the ladies’ room herself, Jane edged her chair back from the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll give our hostess a chance to corner me after all.”

  Curran was quicker than she. He smoothly held her chair and, as she rose, braced her arm.

  His touch was electric. Jane met his eyes and lost herself in the depth of his gaze for a moment.

  As if their minds met on some level.

  As if he was reading hers?

  Jane couldn’t get to the lounge fast enough. But once there, she composed herself before going inside. No need to give Phyllis any clue to what she might be feeling.

  Calmly opening the door, she spotted the socialite perched on a chair before a mirror. But rather than primping, she was talking to someone, her cell phone to her ear.

  “What do you mean it’s not finished?” Phyllis was saying in a low voice. She didn’t notice Jane coming up behind her. “You have no more…” Suddenly looking up, she met Jane’s gaze in the mirror. She licked her lips. Then smiled. “Well, yes, darling, we’ll discuss it later.” She kissed at the phone, disconnected, then swung around to face Jane directly. “Ready to head for home?” she asked.

  Jane was more than ready. She was also puzzled by Phyllis’s demeanor. Her use of the endearment and the kiss…surely that had been Saladin on the other end. What could he have done to earn her ire? And did he really tolerate a woman speaking to him that way?

  If Phyllis was stewing over something, she put on a good face all the way back to Grantham Acres. But when she let them off at the main house, she sped away without looking back.

  His expression odd, Curran stared after her.

  “That was a quick end to the evening,” Jane said, relieved that it was over.

  “The evening doesn’t have to end.”

  “It’s late and I have an early appointment in Lexington.”

  Now she had his attention.

  “How early? What about Finn?”

  “Meet me at the barn at seven-thirty and I’ll get him out of his stall before I leave,” Jane said, distracted by a noise coming from the main barn. She could swear that was a pounding like hooves against a stall wall. “You can just let him spend the morning in the paddock until I return.”

  “That’ll do,” he said. “Or perhaps he’ll let me handle him. The appointment—anything I should know about?”

  “A follow-up with my surgeon,” she said, just as a loud squeal turned them both toward the barn.

  Jane would recognize that sound in her sleep.

  “Finn!” she cried.

  “STAY PUT and I’ll take care of it!” Curran told Jane.

  Instinct drove him for the barn as fast as he could run. The thumps driving against wood were louder now, as was the terrible equine uproar of rage and fear. He immediately concentrated on the sounds but when blackness threatened his mind, he stopped trying to connect with Finn. He couldn’t do anything for the horse if he was tossed back into the void created by his gift.

  Throwing open the door and flying into the barn past mares who kicked their stalls and nickered at him, he realized the building hadn’t been locked, nor did the alarm go off. Someone must have tampered with the security system.

  And with Finn.

  His stall door stood open and he was loose at the far end of the barn, twisting and bucking some invisible demon.

  “Finn,” Curran called in a soothing voice, even as he looked around into the dark corners of the barn for anything amiss. “What’s the game, lad? Why are you so terrified?”

  The sound of his voice got to the horse, who slowed his frenzy to a few halfhearted bucks.

  “That’s the lad. Quiet now, quiet. You’re safe. ‘Tis me here, is all.”

  Not quite. Footsteps behind him made him glance back to see Udell and Jimi Stams near the open barn door. Wide-eyed, father and son stood frozen to the spot. He indicated they should stay where they were.

  “It’s just Udell and Jimi,” Curran murmured, pulling closer, praying that whatever had just happened hadn’t undone the day’s work. The horse had been coming along so well. “You know them now, Finn. Quiet, lad, quiet.”

  One last buck and Finn stopped thrashing. Snorting, he threw up his head, but when Curran inched forward, the horse’s flesh quivered as if he’d been touched by a hand.

  “Easy, Finn,” Curran murmured as he drew even closer. Slow. Careful. No sharp movements. “There’s a lad. You stand quiet or I might be desperate and then I would have to sing to you again.”

  A quick look at Finn’s stall showed a decisive amount of damage but no broken latch. Someone had simply opened his stall door.

  “Finn!”

  The soft feminine cry pebbled the skin along Curran’s spine. Jane flew past him, her limp pronounced, and went straight for the stallion.

  “Don’t be foolish now,” he said, following her.

  “Oh, Finn.” The threat of tears filled her voice. “What happened to you this time?”

  And before Curran knew what she was about, Jane wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck and sobbed.

  “Jane, he’s all right,” Curran said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  Reality shifted so quickly that he was instantly paralyzed, caught in a world not of the moment.

  Wind and the rush of water pulled him along through the mist of his mind.

  Crack! Pain felled him.

  He looked up…a raised weapon crashed down, splitting Finn’s nose…blood everywhere.

  You’re a ruined man! No one will ever let you near a horse again!

  The words echoed through his head as he scrambled back, away from the threat. From the rage of a man too drunk to be steady on his feet.

  He fought his way out of the mental maze…

  Sud
denly, he was thrown back into the moment.

  Still holding on to Finn, Jane was staring at him aghast. She knew. She definitely knew.

  He shifted focus to the stallion, who seemed to have calmed as if by magic. Because of him? Because of Jane? Or was it the connection between them all?

  “We need to check him,” Curran said quietly.

  “And then we need to talk.”

  “Indeed.”

  It was more than time for some disclosures, though Curran wasn’t looking forward to it. At least not the part where he had to explain himself.

  “Miss Jane, what can we do to help?” Udell asked.

  As if the burden of the world were resting on her shoulders, she looked to Curran.

  “In the morning, you and Jimi can see to repairs,” he said, indicating the stall. The one opposite was empty and usable with the addition of hay, water and feed. “Right now, set this one up for Finn. And one of us needs to watch over him through the night until we can have someone out from the security company to see why the system failed. We can take shifts.”

  “No, I’ll do it,” Jimi said. “I’ll bring a cot in and sleep outside Finn’s stall. I’ve done that dozens of times with pregnant mares due to deliver. Don’t worry, I’m a light sleeper. No one’s gonna get by me.”

  “I didn’t mean to put it all on your shoulders, lad.”

  “If I’m gonna ride him in the Classic, then he’s gotta get to know me better.”

  Curran only hoped Jimi Stams was as good a rider as Jane made him out to be. Considering how little time they had, they needed a jockey with a heart for this horse.

  Father and son went to fetch a bale of hay while Curran and Jane checked over Finn to make certain he hadn’t hurt himself. To Curran’s amazement, Finn allowed his touch with little more than an ear flick and a snort.

  Something had happened between the three of them, he realized. They had all connected. Even Finn.

  People believed that animals operated on a more basic mental level than humans. Curran often found them to be more intuitive. And wasn’t this proof? As if the stallion got it, Curran realized. As if Finn understood Curran’s gift and therefore accepted him.

  For suddenly the stallion allowed his touch at least as readily as he did Jane’s. A definite improvement, possibly days ahead of schedule.

  To add to the plus side, Finn hadn’t suffered a new injury. Curran left the horse under Udell and Jimi’s care with a clear conscience.

  As he and Jane left the barn, he said, “Shall we have that talk now?”

  “I’m certainly not in the mood for sleep,” she whispered harshly.

  Her voice was tight, Curran noted. Then, again, he wasn’t looking forward to this dialogue either, as necessary as he knew it to be.

  “Then let’s go to my place,” he suggested, “where we won’t be disturbed.”

  He wanted to take Jane’s arm, to support her, to make things a bit easier for her, but he suspected now was not the time to chance touching her. Instead, he adjusted his gait to hers. They walked side by side in silence as they crossed the barnyard and took the path to the guest house. Once inside, he bade her sit while he poured two bourbons over ice, suspecting that they would both need a bit of fortification.

  One sip and she asked, “What magic is it that you practice, Curran?”

  “Not magic.” He took the chair opposite her, a solid pine coffee table offering a sea of separation. “Not anything I sought out. A gift. Part of my legacy from my grandmother. Moira McKenna was a special woman. A healer. A visionary. She knew things no one else did and helped those in trouble. She didn’t ask for her gifts, not any more than I did mine.”

  “What exactly is this gift of yours?”

  “Some would say that I’m empathic.”

  “You can read minds?”

  “Emotions. Of Thoroughbreds, mostly.”

  She shook her head. “No, Curran. I felt you. I’m not crazy. I know something happened between us two different times that I can’t explain.”

  “Three,” he amended. “It started when I first saw you working with Finn the other morning. You fell…I didn’t know if it was you or Finn…but it began then. We’re all three connected by it.”

  “I—I don’t understand. It?”

  “Shared pain,” he explained. “I’ve connected with your emotional pain perhaps because whatever happened to Finn happened to you as well.”

  He didn’t explain his sister Keelin’s theory about why he’d been able to connect with her. He wasn’t about to tell a woman he’d kissed once that she was his forever when he didn’t more than half believe in The McKenna Legacy himself.

  And he was reluctant to put words to the danger part, though it seemed Keelin had been right about the fates being set in motion. If the barn break-in was any indication of the forces at work, then none of them was safe.

  “So you can what?” she asked, obviously struggling with the concept. “Connect with anyone you touch?”

  “Animals, usually. But I’ve never been able to read another human being, not before you.”

  He could see she was trying to take it all in. A lot for her to handle. Even if she believed it.

  “What was it that you saw?” she asked.

  “Someone deliberately struck you in the knee. And Finn. You were trying to protect him.”

  “You could have made that assumption after seeing us together for the past few days.” She shook her head, as if trying to convince herself. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It was night and the winds were high. It was near water, a river perhaps?”

  She answered his question with one of her own. “What did the man look like?”

  Curran shook his head. “I couldn’t see him. I only felt him. His drunken rage.”

  “I’m still not convinced.”

  But she was white-knuckling her glass as she finished her bourbon, Curran noticed. She was open to the possibility even if she demanded proof.

  He set down his own drink, leaned forward and gave her his best shot. “You told him that you would ruin him. That he would never work with another horse.”

  “My God,” she breathed, letting go of her glass, which tumbled to the carpet unharmed. Not that she seemed to notice. “What else?”

  The way she was looking at him…

  The face of desperation, Curran thought. She didn’t want to be alone in this nightmare of hers. She didn’t have to be if only she would trust him.

  “Nothing more,” he said. “That’s it.”

  Now avoiding his gaze, she said, “I need to get back.”

  “To what? Refusing to talk about what happened won’t free you.”

  Her expression closed and she started to rise, then suddenly noticed the glass. She picked it up from the floor and placed it on the table.

  “Nothing will free me, not ever. Certainly not sharing the sordid details.”

  A peculiar way of putting it, he thought. “Try.”

  “I can’t.”

  “If you can’t do it for yourself, then think of Finn,” he said, playing on her obviously active conscience. “Someone tried to harm him tonight. The same man?”

  “That would be impossible.”

  “Why?”

  Jane Grantham turned her back on him and started to leave. Determined to stop her, wondering what he was missing, Curran tried again.

  “Jane, we all may be in danger here. How can you be so sure that the man who hurt you and Finn hasn’t returned to finish the job?”

  She stopped, and when she turned her face toward his, he saw an infinite sorrow reflected in her expression. Her eyes glassed over as if she was about to cry.

  “Because he’s dead,” she said.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I killed him.”

  With that unexpected confession, she left him staring after her.

  Chapter Seven

  That she’d said the words to another person at last should have made
her feel better, Jane thought as she stripped and stepped into the shower. So why didn’t they? Where was the relief that was supposed to come with confession?

  Then, again, she had confessed already, to the Hudson Valley authorities in New York where the horror had happened. They’d believed her story and had sent her home to Kentucky, at least for the time being. But she would never truly believe it was finished. A person couldn’t take another’s life without consequences. And so far, there had been none.

  At least none that she knew of.

  Perhaps she would have to tell it all to lighten her soul. To stop seeing Gavin Shaw when she came into a room…or turned a corner…or stepped onto a bridge with a rotting handrail. Indeed, she had thought she’d seen someone in those trees the night before and that someone had been a dead man. A ghost who haunted her.

  Would she never be free of him?

  And if people knew the truth…she wasn’t ready for that, certainly not with Curran McKenna. He was no confessor. As a matter of fact, he was as far away from being an uninterested party as was possible.

  Or so it seemed.

  Hot water pounded at her shoulders and back, but it didn’t relieve her tension.

  Curran was too interested in her. And getting too close. And she was letting him.

  Was she not capable of learning from her mistakes?

  Beyond that, she wanted to understand what was really happening between them.

  Having felt it for herself, she couldn’t deny the connection of which he spoke. But why her? Physical attraction seemed too simple an answer.

  Curran McKenna made her distinctly uncomfortable. Part of her wanted him to be gone with the sunrise. But another part of her—one that had nothing to do with Finn and everything with herself—longed for him to get closer in a way that defied analysis.

  For a moment, she closed her eyes and gave in to the fantasy of physical attraction. Curran’s hands stroking her…his mouth exploring her…his bringing fire and a promise of forgetfulness to her very center…

  But the fantasy was fleeting.

  She couldn’t lose herself in it. She couldn’t hide from reality.

  Jane turned off the faucet handles, stepped out of the shower and wrapped a huge bath sheet around her.