Deception

by Carolyn Haines

  Connor stepped silently to the stall door. Pebbles Houston, her blond hair carefully pulled into a chignon at the nape of her neck, was standing on a crate in the middle of the stall, determinedly yanking hair from Copper’s mane. The child was a perfect miniature of a grown woman, an expensively outfitted one. Only the expression on her face, which registered childish petulance and bad temper, revealed her youth, and her arrogant stupidity. The horse, untied and nervous, shifted away, his neck arching as he prepared to bite.

  “If you don’t stand still,” Pebbles hissed at the horse, “I’m going to …”

  Reaching one slender arm over the stall door, Connor clamped her fingers on the child’s shoulder. “Prescott! Watch out!” With a surge of adrenaline, she lifted the child out of the horse’s reach.

  A squeal of fright escaped the girl, and she pulled free of Connor’s grip. Her expensive leather boot slipped in a pile of fresh manure, and Pebbles’ bottom immediately followed.

  “Oh, shit!” The child’s wide blue eyes, full of shock that rapidly changed to anger, locked onto Connor’s. “I’m going to tell my mother on you. She’s going to make sure you get fired. You scared me.”

  “Get out of Copper’s stall and call your mother. You won’t be having a lesson today,” Connor said calmly. “If I catch you in a stall with any horse for any reason ever again, you won’t be taking lessons here at all. I can’t afford an injury caused by stupidity.”

  “You don’t own Pacific Heights. You can’t act like this.”

  “Go, Prescott,” Connor said with forced calm. “It’s dangerous to enter a horse’s stall. Any horse, but especially Copper’s. If your mother wants you injured, possibly scarred, you can do it at another stables. And I plan on telling her this myself. Now go home.”

  She opened the stall door and held it. The child, a compact bundle of anger, stormed past her.

  “You’re going to be sorry,” Pebbles threw over her shoulder as she ran toward the barn door, her tan riding pants stained in a most embarrassing place.

  Connor quickly checked the horse. The job offer from Mobile, Alabama, sounded better and better.

  “Don’t jump, Connor girl,” she said softly, imitating her father’s tone and the best advice he’d ever given her. “Take it step by step.” She sighed, thinking of his most recent actions. “Yeah, Dad, you’re a fine one to talk,” she answered herself. Walking quickly, she went to the ring where Richard was trotting his mount around in figure eights. She put the future and the past completely out of her mind and focused on her work.

  Three hours later, Connor had taught her last lesson, checked the horses that were under her care, and climbed behind the wheel of her vehicle. She took the winding road out of Topanga Canyon, trying to convince herself that the wildness of the land still held her heart. Instead of going home, she took the coast road toward the public library. Within forty-five minutes she had every scrap of information the library had acquired on the Alabama coastal city of Mobile. As an aside, she also picked up a book on how to trace family trees. If she went to Alabama, she’d be a stone’s throw from the little Mississippi town where her great-great-grandmother had begun her life as an American citizen.

  “I’m not jumping, Dad,” she whispered to herself as she opened the first book. “I’m definitely testing the water with a toe.”

  When she had a mental picture of a small city with a hot, lush climate, she picked up the contract that had come with the fifteen-thousand-dollar check. If she took the job that Clay Sumner, Esquire, offered, she’d make forty-five thousand dollars in less than a year. She’d live and eat free, with a housekeeper and grooms and a virtual mansion to live in. She could bring her own horses and stable them free.

  And in return for such largess, her duties would include buying two horses and two ponies and training them, and teaching Clay Sumner’s two children to ride each afternoon. Each afternoon after school, she corrected. Which meant she’d have all day to ride her own horses and to begin her dream of acquiring breeding stock.

  She closed the library books, picked up her contract, and felt her pocket again to make sure the check was still there. Clay Sumner called it an advance.

  Connor Tremaine called it a chance at a dream.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Out, Cleo.” Connor urged the black mare down the ramp. “Good girl,” she said, as she tied the mare’s lead rope to the trailer hook and opened the left trailer door.

  “Out, Tinker,” she urged. The second horse stepped backward down the ramp and Connor secured her lead rope, too. Only then did she take the time to fully examine her surroundings.

  A long drive shaded on both sides by huge oaks had led her to the front of the big barn. The house was located nearly two hundred yards to the west, tucked behind a pecan orchard and a garden. She’d caught a glimpse of the three-story structure with the wide, inviting windows and the peaked roof. White and elegant, it rose from the lush vegetation that surrounded it, giving the impression that it watched the land that spread out before it. At the moment, though, the barn was foremost in Connor’s thoughts. She’d driven for six days, and she and her mares were tired and sore. Cleopatra and Tinker’s Damn needed a turnout and a chance to roll and limber up.

  Connor visually checked the area for some sign of life. There was no one about, no one to greet her. For the millionth time, doubts about her decision to come to Mobile squeezed at her chest. The step she’d taken was irrevocable. She’d quit her job and cashed the fifteen-thousand-dollar check to make the trip south. Since her father had taken his last bit of horse luck to Australia nine months before, there was nothing left in California for her to return to. She was on her own.

  The September sun was warm on her back as she stood before the big stone barn. After days of endless driving with sharp eyes turned to passing barns and homes, Connor was aware how unusual the stones were. Most of the older buildings in the South appeared to be made of wood. The sandy soil didn’t produce the stones necessary for such a structure. Many of the newer homes were brick, but stone was almost nonexistent. The barn reflected a sturdiness from another time, another place.

  “My ancestors had the stones brought down from the Tennessee mountains.”

  The deep, educated voice behind her made her start. She swung abruptly to face a tall man, his face shadowed by the late afternoon sun. Although she couldn’t see his features, she could read his stance, the casual way he held his athletic body. After Richard Brian’s description, Connor had no doubt who this was.

  “You’re early,” Clay Sumner continued, unaware of the start he’d given her. “I meant to be down here sooner, to open the barn and all, but I was delayed in town. A client.” He shrugged. There was no hint of apology in either his tone or his posture.

  Connor knew he was sizing her up, assessing her. He had her at a disadvantage, and one she felt was deliberate. She could make out only the shadow of his face and the enormous house behind him, peeking through the trees and borders of shrubs. The darkness of his face, the intensity of the light, was disorienting.

  “Ms. Tremaine, is something wrong?” There was the hint of a challenge in his voice.

  “It was a long drive.” Connor found her voice and her composure. Clay Sumner was not a man she wanted to catch her off-guard.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing you work. Richard Brian said you could control a horse with a tone of voice. He said you were the best trainer alive with difficult horses—and children, and as we both know, Richard isn’t easily impressed and even less inclined to flattery.” Clay Sumner stepped around her and walked toward the barn door. “I had a little trouble finding the key. I’m afraid the barn has been locked for several years.”

  When Clay passed her and moved to the door, sunlight struck his shoulders and head. He was lean and fit, with thick blond hair that had a tendency to curl at his collar. Small lines were trapped in the perfect tan of his face around his eyes and mouth. In contrast to his talk about clients and work, h
e was dressed in jeans and polo boots.

  “Richard’s a good friend. I think a lot of him,” Connor said. An unusual tightness made her clear her throat. Clay was staring at her, watching her lips and eyes. She met the challenge in his gaze and her thoughts stopped. His direct blue eyes never wavered. They spoke of secrets, of time hanging still outside the window of a large, airy room, of gauzy curtains blowing inward over a bed. In total confusion she dropped her gaze.

  “Nice mares.” Clay motioned Connor toward the barn. “Off the track?”

  “Santa Rosa. They didn’t have the temperament to run.” She would never, never accuse Richard of exaggeration again. Clay Sumner’s stance and demeanor conveyed power and a raw sensuality that he made no effort to conceal, a passion artfully overlaid by propriety. He was a man she reacted to in a disconcerting way.

  “Breakdown?”

  The word startled her. She’d lost the thread of their conversation. “Oh, the horses, not exactly, but if I hadn’t gotten them, they would have.”

  An amused look touched his features and disappeared. The unpleasant thought crossed Connor’s mind that he knew his effect on her and might be enjoying it.

  Clay pulled a key from the pocket of his jeans and picked up the heavy lock that hung from a rusted hasp. “Just a moment, and I’ll have the barn open. I’m afraid we aren’t fully prepared for you.”

  A flash of anger surfaced. Connor started to comment, but bit back the remark. Clay Sumner had known she’d arrive today—he’d known it for several weeks. Why in the world hadn’t he sent someone to open the barn? He hadn’t made the first effort to prepare for her arrival, and her mares had had a long and exhausting trip. She felt the sting of disappointment that she’d driven so far, expecting more.

  “I considered letting the foreman open the barn, but I wanted to do it myself,” Clay said. “I had Old Henry and Jeff pull down the paddock fences and rebuild them. I meant to take care of the barn, but …” He let the sentence drift into nothing.

  For the first time, Connor noticed that his hands weren’t quite steady as he fumbled with the lock. It was so unexpected, and so uncharacteristic of the powerful man who stood before her, that her angry thoughts stopped abruptly. He’d built a new paddock but hadn’t opened the barn. Well, she’d heard enough from Richard Brian to know that Mobile was rife with the eccentric rich, and Clay Sumner definitely fell into that category. Richard had laughingly called him “old Mobile, in a state of grace achieved through clinging tenaciously to the kudzu vine and the tit of an incestuous social order.” The description hadn’t bothered Connor a bit, at the time. She’d chalked it up to Richard’s never explained bitterness about his hometown. In the nearly three years she’d known him, he’d never made a positive remark about Mobile, Alabama.

  At last the lock opened with a snap. Clay pushed the door with his shoulder, spilling the late afternoon light into the dim interior of the barn. For a second he seemed to hesitate, and then he walked boldly inside.

  Connor, only a few steps behind, stopped at the sight of the interior. It was a magnificent structure built to withstand time and weather. Heavy timbers, rough-hewn and indestructible, supported the roof, arching over head in a high peak with a loft on either side. The center aisle was wide and spacious. Sets of cross ties, each held to a timber by a wrought-iron horse’s head, hung at intervals. She counted the stalls, twenty in all, ten on each side, with what was apparently a spacious tackroom on the left and a feed room on the right.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, taking in the craftsmanship that was evident in minor details. The stalls were solid wood, carefully fitted to the height of a big horse’s shoulder. Decorative wrought iron separated each stall, giving each horse protection and yet allowing each animal to see around the barn. The smell of saddle soap and leather still lingered in the air, mixed with mold and dust. “This must have been a showplace at one time,” she said.

  “Yes.” Clay walked to a stall and slid the bolt on the door. “Jeff’s the foreman, for want of a better term. He’ll bring in some shavings and prepare the bedding. I’ll have hay delivered by tomorrow, and feed. The stalls have automatic waterers, but I’m afraid they’ll need to be cleaned.” He walked from the stall in a long, hurried stride. “The paddocks are behind each stall. As I said, I’ve had one completely repaired, and the others will be done as we need them.”

  “Why did you close the barn?” Connor looked at the beauty of the building. It was almost a sin to lock it away.

  “My wife … reacted negatively to horses.” Clay turned to look at her directly. His face was expressionless, but his voice was sad. “She had an abnormal dislike for them. I quit riding when I realized how much it upset her. Then, later, I closed the barn.” He walked to the north door, unbolted it from the inside, and threw it open.

  Connor blinked against the brightness. Clay stood silhouetted in the open door, a study in darkness and light, sinister and yet strangely tragic. He stepped toward her and shattered the image.

  “Let’s give your mares a chance to shake out the kinks,” he said, walking past her as he went to the trailer. “I’m sure they’d like a romp.”

  Before Connor could agree or disagree, he had Cleopatra’s lead line and was walking her toward a stall. He took the mare through the stall and out into the sunshine. Connor followed with Tinker. When both horses were in the paddock, they took off the halters and let them go. For several minutes the horses ran and bucked, delighted to be able to move their stiff muscles.

  Pleasure touched Connor’s face, softening the squareness of her jaw and touching her blue-green eyes with a warm light.

  “You really care for those animals, don’t you?” Clay asked. “That’s a good sign.”

  His voice was almost a physical sensation. Yes, he’d be very effective pleading to jurors, or voters. “Cleo and Tinker are the beginning of my future. I bred Cleo to a warm blood before I left Malibu.” She gave him a smile. “I paid for the breeding with your money. I couldn’t afford the stud fee before.”

  “You’re obviously hoping for a foal with jumping ability.”

  She nodded, her gaze returning to the frisking mares. “Her first. She’s got the blood to produce runners. Tinker, too. That’s my goal, eventually. For now, a jumper is a good start.”

  “They’re two exquisite animals.” He hooked his boot on the rail and his leg brushed hers. “I’ve always had a theory about women and horses.”

  “Oh?” Connor’s muscles tensed. How many times would she have to endure this old saw?

  “Men are never as good as women on a horse. Most men.”

  Startled, Connor swung around to face him fully. She waited for him to continue.

  “Men try to dominate the animal. It becomes a struggle between master and subject. Women, or the good ones, anyway, find that perfect level of partnership. The female rider tries to complement the horse.”

  “The best riders of both genders do that,” Connor said.

  “A lot of men make the same mistake in their personal relationships. They try to dominate the woman. And then again, there are women who like to play that trump.” His lips twiched up in a smile. “Have I shocked you?”

  “Not at all,” Connor answered, “except with your ideas. I’m afraid Richard led me to believe you Alabamians were just beyond the Neanderthals. Now I find an enlightened …” she let am impish smile tickle her own lips, “specimen.”

  Clay’s laughter rang out against the barn. “Do you fence, Ms. Tremaine, other than verbally?”

  “Oh, let’s just say I keep in practice with all necessary sports.”

  “We’ll continue this later. Right now, though, I’m sure you want to see your living quarters. The house has a wing with suites, a bedroom, bath, and sitting room. I’ve put you there so you can have some privacy. Let Willene know what you need and she’ll take care of you.” He smiled again. “Welcome to Oaklawn, Ms. Tremaine. It’s going to be a pleasure working with you.”

 
In that moment Connor pushed her doubts to the back of her mind. “Thanks. I’d like to settle in and … clean up.” She’d been about to say “bathe,” but it seemed such an intimate word. Clay Sumner made her self-conscious. Even as she lifted her hand to brush back her auburn hair, she was acutely aware of her gesture. In the tick of a second, she looked at him and then away.

  Connor stumbled. Her hands caught at the paddock fence just in time to save herself from a fall. Had she imagined that jolt of sensuality? Clay Sumner was undoubtedly the best-looking man she’d ever worked for. She’d known plenty of attractive men, but none had carried such potent desire in a single glance.

  Well, good-looking bosses were no problem for her, because that’s what they stayed, the boss. It was one of the few rules her father had taught her, and it was a valuable one. The place you earned your bread and the place you took your pleasure were separate. A woman who forgot that rule could end up hungry. And if she were ever tempted to forget the rule, she had Richard’s warning about Clay.

  “Your bags have been taken up, and Jeff will park your rig and return the truck to the house. Your suite is upstairs. The downstairs section isn’t in use now. It’s actually a suite that I keep for the children’s grandmother. When she comes to visit, which isn’t often, she hates … to climb the stairs.” His smile was slightly strained, but he recovered. “After Richard’s detailed and very complimentary description of you, I didn’t think you’d mind a few stairs.”

  The warm September sun had finally calmed the horses. They paced the fence, sniffing and examining their new surroundings.

  “Not at all,” Connor answered. “I’ve always wanted an upstairs bedroom.” It was an inane, if truthful, comment. She turned to look at the house. She could clearly see the two big windows on the third floor. As she watched, a shade was drawn. The house seemed to wink at her. A chill brushed her shoulders, causing the skin to dimple in the old, familiar pattern of goosebumps. She shrugged the silly feeling off. “It’s a lovely house. I’m looking forward to my stay here.”