by Karis Walsh
“What are you doing?”
Merissa jumped at the sound of Billie’s voice. “Eavesdropping,” she said, without a hint of guilt.
Billie grinned. “Hear anything good?”
“Just you. The damned door is too thick. Why did you come inside?”
Billie grabbed her hand and led her outside. “You were taking so long, and I was getting nervous. I sent a text. Well, maybe a few texts.”
“My phone was turned off.” Merissa pulled it out of her briefcase as they walked up the hill toward Billie’s car. “Time for part two of the plan.”
She was about to enter Kensington’s number when Billie closed her hand over Merissa’s and stopped her. She used her other hand to sift through Merissa’s hair and tuck it behind her ear. “You don’t have to do this. I don’t want you doing anything that might put you in danger. I’m sorry about Dennis, but I can’t risk losing you on the off chance this little scheme of yours gets the wrong person angry.”
“We need to find out the truth,” Merissa said, although the thought of leaving all this pain and fear behind and letting herself see only a new future—one with Billie in it—was terribly appealing.
“The truth isn’t worth your safety.”
Merissa shook her head, not because she disagreed with Billie, but because she wasn’t sure what she believed anymore. “I’ve gone this far. I’ll call Lemaine and Kensington, and if nothing comes of it, then I’ll back off.”
Billie didn’t say she approved, but she released Merissa’s hand and let her dial.
Merissa called Lemaine first. She told him she was thinking of buying the business and hoped they would be able to work together, but that she would spread her business among other contractors as well. With Kensington, she said she was going to buy the firm and would follow Dennis’s precedent and work solely with Lemaine.
She managed to get through the calls with only a slight shake in her voice. Billie’s hand on her lower back—steadying, supporting, protecting—kept her calm enough to speak. She was accustomed to dealing directly and honestly with people after years of watching her grandfather manipulate and prevaricate. She didn’t want to be like him, whether in business or in her personal life, but here she was, fibbing to Karen, her legal team, and these two men all in the space of an hour. She ended the call to Jeff and powered down her phone, glad to be back to the present with the frank and honest Billie.
“Well?” Billie asked as they started walking up the hill again. “Did you get a sense of their reactions? I couldn’t tell anything from your side of the conversation.”
Merissa sighed. “I learned disappointingly little. I guess I expected some concrete evidence to come out after all this planning and fuss. Maybe even an outraged admission of guilt,” she admitted with a slight smile. “But they were both professional. If you could hear a shrug in someone’s voice, I heard it in Lemaine’s. I got the sense he thinks of me as an amateur and not worth his time, like his attention was shifting to the next order of business in his day even before he said good-bye.”
Merissa attempted to keep her disappointment hidden, but the bump from Billie’s shoulder made it clear she hadn’t been successful. Aside from solving Dennis’s murder, she had sort of been hoping for more reaction over the potential loss of her business, but why would either man really care? She didn’t have Dennis’s credentials or his experience. What she did have were a handful of design ideas and enough money to buy the firm. She shook off the sinking sense of self-worth. She grabbed Billie’s hand and gave it a squeeze, anchoring herself in the here and now. She didn’t have to judge herself by impossibly high standards just because she had been born into wealth.
She continued with her assessment of the calls. “Jeff Kensington sounded disappointed but resigned. I suppose Dennis led him on so many times he was relieved to hear me come right out and say I wouldn’t ever work with him.”
“It was worth a shot,” Billie said. “And until we’re sure neither one will retaliate, I’m going to stay so close you won’t know where I end and you begin.”
Merissa felt her face relax into a genuine and happy smile. “In that case, let’s hurry home so you can take up your guard duty post in the bedroom.”
Chapter Nineteen
Billie was off the sofa bed and halfway across the room before she even noticed she was awake. She stood still in the darkness for a moment while she tried to recapture the details of the nightmare. She had been crouched on the dusty ground, covering her teammates as they crossed an open street in the twilight shadows. Her grip had been loose on her rifle, ready to tighten and aim if necessary but not so tense she might overcommit to a harmless stray sound or movement. Something had caught her attention, but she couldn’t remember what it was. A silhouette glimpse of someone lying in wait? A snap of a twig or scuttle of a kicked pebble? The smell of foreign cigarette smoke?
Whatever it had been, it had signaled danger. A haunting one from her past, or a chilling one in the present? She quietly walked to the window and stood to one side while she looked across the pastures and outbuildings. She barely registered the flicker of movement on the path leading to the upper barns before she was pushing away from the wall and hurrying to the front door of the apartment.
She picked up her gun and boots and carefully shut the door behind her, not wanting to wake Merissa who was sleeping in the bedroom, and ran down the steps in bare feet. She paused briefly to pull on her boots at the bottom of the staircase. She had been tempted last night when Merissa had made it clear she’d have willingly shared the bed with Billie again, but Billie hadn’t been able to say yes. She couldn’t risk Merissa by letting her guard down. She had slept better the night before than she had for years—albeit not for long after their hours of lovemaking. Would she have been as sensitive to the danger outside the apartment if she’d been nestled in Merissa’s arms? She focused on that aspect of her decision to sleep on the couch. If she managed to protect her own heart while protecting Merissa, it was only a bonus. She had gotten very close very fast, and she was already feeling a sort of dependence. She had been slow to fall asleep last night, and her nightmares had been bad. She couldn’t rely on Merissa or anyone else for her sanity. She had let it happen for one night, and the lack of Merissa’s touch had made the usual nighttime problems seem nearly unbearable.
The tangible proof of her need to stay detached was moving stealthily through the night ahead of her, although she wasn’t sure why someone coming after Merissa would head away from the house and the barn apartment. She stopped for a moment and scanned the property behind her in case this was just a distraction, meant to lure her away from Merissa, but everything seemed still. She resumed her original course with her pistol held at her side. She hadn’t been through these upper barns before tonight, but the moon lit her path well enough for her to move without making a sound. The person she followed either wasn’t as skilled in stealth tactics, or didn’t realize she was trailing behind. Either way, whoever it was moved without trying to stay hidden or remaining quiet.
She had nearly caught up to the intruder when the barn door opened in front of her and the person turned on the overhead lights. Billie recognized Jean-Yves as her eyes adjusted to the bright lights. She tucked her gun in the waistband of her sweatpants, ready to draw it if necessary, and stepped out of the dark shadows.
Jean-Yves nearly bumped into her as he was coming out of a feed room to her right, and he yelped and dropped the bandages he had in his arms.
“Where’d you come from?” he asked, bending down to pick up the bandages. “Were you following me?”
“Were you sneaking around in the middle of the night?” Billie countered. She retrieved one of the bandages that had rolled away from him. She wiped off the dirt from the floor and handed it to him. He didn’t look like someone up to no good, unless his thermos was full of chloroform instead of coffee and the strips of cotton were meant to tie Merissa’s wrists together.
“One of the hors
es up here has an injured leg, and I need to soak it every few hours.” He turned away from her and walked down the aisle, but stopped a few yards away.
“I’m looking out for her, too, you know,” he said without looking back at Billie.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “I know.”
He continued walking and unlatched a stall door. “While you’re here, you might as well help me.”
She studied him for a moment. “Are you planning to club me over the head with your thermos once I’m inside the stall?”
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “Are you planning to shoot me with your gun?”
Billie moved the pistol so it rested against her lower back, still comfortably close and accessible, but less visible. “Truce?”
“Truce.”
She went after him into the stall and gasped when she saw the small bay horse huddled in the corner. Every bone seemed to be on display, and his coat was patchy and rough. All four legs were wrapped in colorful bandages like the ones Jean-Yves carried, but she could see swelling above and below the cotton on the horse’s left foreleg.
She slowly approached the gelding and held out her hand for him to sniff. He didn’t seem interested in making the effort, so she carefully rubbed his forehead and neck.
“What happened to him?”
“Neglect and starvation to name just two.”
His voice sounded as angry as Billie felt inside. Merissa couldn’t possibly be responsible for this. She turned to face Jean-Yves, and he held up his hands as if to fend off an attack. “Not here, so put your hackles down. All the animals in these upper barns are rescues.”
He knelt next to the horse and started unwrapping one of its legs, and Billie did the same on the opposite side.
“Merissa runs an animal rescue here?” she asked as she unwound a long strip of flannel. She felt as if she had been constantly revising her opinion of Merissa since the moment they met. Every layer peeled away gave Billie a new idea of the woman behind the controlled and elegant exterior, just like she’d had to get past the extravagant and cool front rooms of the mansion to get to Merissa’s hidden, cozy suite.
“A local group was about to fold because it couldn’t afford operating costs anymore. These barns were empty, and Merissa offered them to the rescue. Rub his legs like this, to help with circulation.” Jean-Yves massaged the horse’s bare leg while he spoke, switching between instructions to Billie and comments about Merissa without pausing in between. “She doesn’t actually run the rescue, but she’s on the board and she pays for most of the bills, including vet care, feed, and boarding. Without her, who knows where these horses would be now.”
Billie remained silent as she finished with the foreleg and followed Jean-Yves as he changed position to work on the horse’s hind legs. She hadn’t completely lost her doubts about his loyalty to Merissa and had still had him on her list of suspects…until she heard him speak just now. The same respect and admiration and concern for Merissa that Billie was feeling were apparent in Jean-Yves’s voice. He was no more likely to have broken into her room and changed the photos than Billie was.
He rewrapped the horse with practiced skill and showed Billie through the barn, introducing her to the various residents. The horses here couldn’t compete with Mariposa and the other highly bred polo ponies in Merissa’s main barn, but Jean-Yves’s pride in them was as clear as his devotion to Merissa. He described in detail the state each had been in when it arrived at the farm, and pointed out all the positive changes in coats, hooves, and general condition. Billie would gladly have followed him through the other barns as well, but she made herself thank him and say good night after touring just the first one. She felt a lingering tension after thinking an intruder had been on the farm, and she needed to get back to the apartment and Merissa.
She jogged down the sloping driveway, keeping on the grassy border where her footfalls were masked instead of on the noisy gravel even though the night’s threat seemed to have been a false one. Her progress around the main barn areas was silent, and she froze at the sound of movement coming from inside the dark arena. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the light in the upper barn. Jean-Yves’s form was just visible moving near the doorway, and she knew Merissa would approach her directly if she was out here. Billie crept forward, her breathing slow and even, until she came to the end of the arena’s long wall.
Someone was definitely moving around inside the arena. She inched toward the large sliding doors and drew her gun in a fluid motion as she pulled open one side, hoping to use the element of surprise to her advantage.
Unfortunately, the horse inside the arena beat her to it. Billie got a glimpse of the tall liver chestnut coming at her before she tried to move out of its path. She wasn’t quick enough, and the horse spun her around as it careened into her shoulder and out the door.
“Shit,” she said, picking up her dropped gun and tucking it back into her waistband. The horse—she recognized it now as Agincourt, one of the young horses Merissa was training—had none of Billie’s concern about moving quietly as he trotted along the gravel path to the sound of pebbles ringing against metal horseshoes. Billie sprinted after him, stopping just long enough to grab a halter from the nearest stall as they passed by the main barn.
Agincourt stopped for a mouthful of grass, but moved on again as soon as Billie got close enough to touch him. She cursed and followed him to the next tempting patch of greenery, trying to keep her demeanor calm and unthreatening.
“Hey, fella,” she said in a sing-song voice. “I just want to pet you. Don’t pay any attention to the halter I’m holding. Damn!”
She stomped after him as he moved away from her reaching hand and swerved toward the main house. She circled around and tried to herd him back toward the safety of the barn. The path to the main road was blocked by the closed iron gate, but he still had acres of land to use for evasive purposes. An easy leap over the gate on the path leading to the trails, and he’d have miles of forest in which to get lost or hurt. She finally got him heading down a dead-end path between two pastures, but he turned around and came toward her at a brisk trot. She tried to block his way, but he feinted right and then whipped past her to the left, using all his polo skills to make her look like a fool. Billie swore again and ran after him.
She lost count of how many times the horse let her get within grabbing distance before running off again. She stopped to catch her breath and push her sweaty bangs out of her eyes when she heard the swish of grain in a bucket. She looked behind her and saw Merissa standing there with a rubber feed tub in her hands.
Billie’s frustration melted away at the sight of Merissa so close to her. She was wearing a short robe made of a silky lavender material, belted at the waist and with a deep V in the front, through which the lacy top edge of a camisole was visible. The robe stopped midthigh, and the memory of those slender but muscular legs wrapped around Billie’s hips made her sweat more than the exertion of chasing the horse had.
Merissa’s hair was wild and sleep tousled, and a pair of tall work boots covered her calves. The combination of delicate satiny beauty with the mud-encrusted rubber of her boots was more stunning than either look could have been on its own. Ethereally gorgeous and exquisitely sexy. Practical and down to earth. A dreamer and a hard worker. Merissa was all of them at once. While talking to Jean-Yves in the upper barns, Billie had been thinking she had found Merissa’s true nature the deeper she got—whether in her home or on her farm—but each layer only added to the one before and didn’t cancel it out. Merissa was everything at once.
Billie took an automatic step back. She wasn’t really afraid of getting to know Merissa so deeply, or of discovering how her attraction grew stronger with every new thing she learned about her. What scared Billie most was her desire to let Merissa see all the different sides and angles of her as well. To show Merissa all her contradictory, muddled, mixed-up emotions and traits.
Billie took another step away as the damne
d horse trotted directly to Merissa and stuck his nose in the grain bucket.
“What’s going on?” Merissa asked as she easily looped a lead rope around the horse’s neck. “I was worried when I noticed you weren’t in the apartment and I came looking for you.”
“I needed some exercise, so I was out here for a midnight jog. I guess Agincourt had the same idea.”
Merissa gave an exasperated sounding sigh, and Billie stopped joking around. “Fine. I saw someone moving around the property and I came out to investigate. I followed him to the upper barn before I realized it was Jean-Yves.”
“He has some horses that need to be cared for every few hours,” Merissa said, resting her hand on the chestnut’s neck.
“I know. I saw them. I think what you’re doing for the rescue horses is wonderful.”
Merissa waved off her compliment. “So how did Aggie get out?”
“What was he doing in the arena overnight?” Billie countered, crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself as she finally noticed the cold night air seeping through her thin shirt. Even though neither threat had panned out as a real one, she had still experienced surges of adrenaline and the tension of being on high alert. Now that both incidents were over, she was dropping fast.
“I didn’t want him cooped up in a stall all night before his first polo match, so I let him stay in there where he could move around if he wanted to. But let’s get the two of you into the barn before you freeze. I think he’s worked out most of his kinks by now.”
Billie followed Merissa into the barn. She felt a little silly about her inability to catch Agincourt—why hadn’t she thought to run into the feed room for some tempting grain?—and she wondered how much of their antics Merissa had seen before she stepped in and caught the horse. At least the sight of Merissa’s rear end, barely covered by the flimsy robe, was enough to distract her from her embarrassment, and she focused all her attention there while they walked. She was barely functioning as the fatigue of assuaged worry overwhelmed her and she leaned against the wall while Merissa shut the horse into an empty stall with the remaining grain.