She’d been raising hell around the barn all morning. He was simply the latest in a long list of casualties.
Mucking out stalls, breaking his back caring for thirty horses, twelve hours a day would be child’s play compared to dealing with that piece of work. She had a mouth on her that would strip the paint off a car and an attitude to match.
Unfortunately, he conceded, studying her fine rear end in the tight-fitting gray breeches as she stalked away, she was also extraordinarily beautiful. Traffic-stoppingly, outrageously beautiful. He would have had to have been fixed like half the horses in the barn not to have appreciated the delicate, heart-shaped face, remarkable blue eyes and honey blond hair that gave her an almost angelic look. Highly deceptive, clearly.
Blowing out a breath, he gathered up Bacchus’s reins and took the beautiful bay gelding for a walk along the cobblestoned laneway to cool him off. To cool himself off.
It had been damn near impossible to swallow the comeback that had risen to his lips when Cecily Hargrove had thrown her world cup ranking at him. His grandmother had been top three in the world. She would have ridden circles around the superior Ms. Hargrove in her day. But exposing his true identity as a Salazar and rendering this challenge null and void wasn’t something he could do. Not when Antonio and Stavros had already successfully completed theirs.
Not when his private island in the BVI was up for grabs—one of the few places on earth he found peace.
He led a cooled-down Bacchus into the barn and rubbed him down with a cloth. The therapeutic work he’d always loved gave him a chance to process the last, bizarre, twenty-four hours of his life.
It had not surprised him when Sebastien’s jet had deposited him at the Louisville airport last night where he’d been instructed to report to the Hargroves’ legendary, hundred-acre horse farm just outside of the city. Nor to find in the rustic cabin he’d been allocated in the staff quarters a couple of pairs of jeans, some T-shirts and boots, as well as a small stack of cash and an ancient mobile phone. It was exactly the same picture that had greeted Antonio and Stavros upon their arrival at their challenges.
The cryptic note that had been left on top of the pile of clothes had been similar as well.
For the next two weeks Alejandro Salazar does not exist. You are now Colt Banyon, talented drifter groom. You will report to Cliff Taylor at the stables at six a.m. tomorrow, where you will work for the next two weeks.
You will not break your cover under any circumstance. The only communication you may have with the outside world is with your fellow challenge-takers on the phone provided.
Why this particular assignment for you? I know you have been searching for the time to provide your grandmother with the proof she desires to right a wrong long-ago perpetrated. To restore the Salazar family honor. Your time as a groom will provide you with both the means and the opportunity to do so. I hope it offers you the closure you are looking for.
I wish you luck. Don’t blow this, Alejandro. I’ve gone to a great deal of effort to provide you with an airtight identity. If you, Antonio and Stavros successfully complete your assignments, I will donate half of my fortune, as promised, to setting up a global search and rescue team. It will save many more lives.
Sebastien
Alejandro’s mouth twisted as he switched to Bacchus’s other side, toweling the sweat from the gelding’s dark coat. No doubt the idea of him breaking his back shoveling horse manure for two weeks with a name torn from the pages of a Hollywood script had provided an endless source of amusement for his mentor. But if Sebastien had been here, he would have told him this chance to provide his grandmother with the justice she was seeking was exactly the kind of closure he’d been looking for.
The feud between the Salazars and Hargroves had been going on for decades—ever since Quinton Hargrove had illegally bred his mare Demeter to his grandmother, Adriana Salazar’s, prize stallion Diablo while the horse had been on loan to an American breeder. The Hargroves had gone on to build an entire show jumping legacy around Diablo’s bloodline, one Adriana had never been able to match.
Heartbroken, his grandmother had been unable to attain proof as to what the Hargroves had done, watching as her fortunes plummeted and the Hargroves’ star had risen. Sebastien, in setting up the elaborate identity he had for him had put Alejandro in the perfect position to acquire that proof. Not only did he have the skills to carry out the subterfuge from summers and holidays spent on his grandmother’s Belgian horse farm, he had her touch with a horse.
He ran the towel down Bacchus’s hind end. Somehow, he acknowledged, it seemed almost too simple, this assignment of his, given the emotionally complex challenges Antonio and Stavros had been handed.
Antonio had been sent undercover to work as a mechanic at a garage in Milan. No issue there given his skill with a wrench. Far more shocking had been the child the Greek billionaire had discovered, the product of an old love affair. Antonio was still grappling with the considerable fallout of that life-altering discovery.
Stavros had warily gone next, finding himself sent to Greece to pose as a pool boy at his old family villa, a place he had long given a wide berth. Purchased by new owners, the property still held the ghosts of Stavros’s childhood, the site of his father’s death in a boating accident in which Stavros had survived.
Which undoubtedly left Alejandro the winner in the challenge lottery. Collecting a DNA sample from Bacchus, Cecily Hargrove’s prize horse, to prove the Hargroves’ crime was as simple as saving a few mane hairs from a brush and sending them off to Stavros to analyze in one of his high-tech labs.
Which left his biggest challenge to find a way to steer clear of Ms. Cecily Hargrove’s razor-sharp mouth and perfect behind over the next two weeks.
* * *
Cecily’s bad behavior plagued her all afternoon and well into dinner in the formal dining room at Esmerelda, a ridiculous indulgence on her stepmother’s part when the stately redbrick manor’s elegant, columned entertaining space seated thirty and it was only she, her father and her stepmother dining tonight.
She spent most of the insufferably dry meal staring moodily out the window. Her mother, Zara, had raised her to have impeccable manners. She was never rude. But Colt Banyon had hit a nerve this afternoon—a guilt she’d been harboring perhaps. A part of her knew this mess with Bacchus wasn’t just his fault—that whatever had happened to them in that horrific accident in London was something that still haunted them both.
Dessert was finally served. Her stepmother, Kay, otherwise known as the Wicked Witch of the South, flicked a jasmine-scented wrist at her as a maid served a lime sorbet. “What are you wearing to the party next week?”
Something her stepmother would undoubtedly hate on sight.
“I don’t know,” she dismissed. “I’ll find something.”
Kay eyed her. “You know Knox Henderson is coming here specifically to court you. He’s number forty-two on the Forbes list, Cecily. A catch if there ever was one.”
Her lip curled. “No one uses the word ‘court’ anymore. And like I’ve told you a half a dozen times before, I have no interest in Knox.”
“Why not?”
Because he was an arrogant jerk who owned half of Texas with his massive cattle ranches and oil reserves, merely looking for a wife to decorate his salon in entertainment magazine photo spreads. Because he reminded her far too much of her ex, Davis—another male who’d been far too rich and far too appreciative of multiple members of the opposite sex—all at the same time.
“I am not marrying him.” She lifted her chin and stared her stepmother down. “End of story. Stop matchmaking. It’s only going to be embarrassing for both of us if you keep this up.”
“Perhaps Cecily is right,” her father interjected, sweeping his cool, gray gaze over her. “She would do better to focus on the task at hand. Dale said your times today were still
subpar. Do I need to buy you another horse to make this happen?”
Her stomach twisted. No, ‘I’m sorry you had such a bad day, honey.’ No ‘You’ve got what it takes, just stick with it’ from her father. Never any of that. Only the stern, silver-haired disapproval that was her father’s de facto response. It made her feel about two feet tall.
Her lashes lowered. “I don’t have time to break in a new horse, Daddy. Besides, the committee will expect me on Bacchus.”
“Then what do we need to do?”
“I will figure it out.”
Suddenly the idea of Knox Henderson’s impending visit combined with the vast amount of pressure being heaped on her from all directions vaporized any desire for dessert.
She set her spoon down with a clatter. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a headache. I think I’ll go lie down.”
“Cecily.”
Her stepmother put a hand on her father’s arm. “Let her go. You know what she’s like when she’s in one of these moods.”
Cecily ignored her, scraping back her chair and leaving with a click of her heels on the hardwood floor. She started toward her bedroom, then changed her mind, taking a detour to the kitchen where she acquired some of Bacchus’s favorite breakfast cereal, then headed out the back door to the barn.
She thought she might owe both Bacchus and Colt Banyon an apology. She told herself that was the only reason she was venturing out into a balmy, perfect Kentucky evening when she had a stack of entrance forms waiting to be filled out. It was not, she assured herself, because of Colt Banyon’s sinful dark eyes she couldn’t forget.
Her bad timing on the course earlier today seemed to follow her as she entered the barn to find the grooms had finished up work. Not about to track Colt Banyon down at the staff quarters, she headed for Bacchus’s box.
She pulled up short when she got there, watching with astonishment as her horse, extremely picky when it came to grooms and highly nerved, blew out a breath and closed his eyes, putty under Colt’s hands as the groom massaged his head. She hadn’t seen him look this relaxed since before the accident.
Her attention shifted to the two-footed male in the box. Still clad in the close-fitting faded jeans, a gray T-shirt skimming his amazing abs, she found herself transfixed by the ripple of muscle in his powerful arms...by the lean, taut, undeniably ogle-worthy thighs underneath the worn denim.
He was a man—unlike Knox Henderson who preferred to preen like a peacock, there was a quiet substance to Colt that held her in its thrall.
He slid his hands down her horse’s head and began working his neck muscles, the kneading movement of his big hands making her horse shudder. Her stomach curled, tiny pinpricks of heat unfolding beneath her skin.
Would he handle a woman with such sensual precision? What would those hands feel like? Would they be deliberate and demanding? Slow and seductive? All of the above?
Bacchus lifted his head, his soft nicker of welcome causing the subject of her fascination to turn around. She wiped her expression clean, but perhaps not quick enough. Colt Banyon’s cool, dark stare made her freeze, utterly disconcerted.
“Why aren’t you eating with the others?” she blurted out.
A blast of arctic air directed her way. “Wasn’t hungry.”
She sank her hands into her pockets. Blew out a breath. “I owe you an apology for my behavior earlier. I was frustrated, I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”
A barely perceptible blink of those long, dark lashes. “Apology accepted.”
He turned and went back to work. Her skin burned. He’d clearly formed an opinion of her and wasn’t about to change it. Which should have been fine because she was used to people forming false impressions of her. Sometimes she even encouraged it, because it was easier than trying to maintain human relationships, something that never seemed to work out for her.
But for some reason, she wanted Colt Banyon to approve of her. Maybe because her horse had already given him the thumbs up and Bacchus’s opinion was never wrong.
Her horse nuzzled the pocket of her dress. She pulled out a handful of his favorite brightly colored fruit breakfast cereal and fed it to him.
Colt eyed her hand. “What is that?”
“Breakfast of champions. He’ll do anything for it.”
“Except jump the course the way you want him to.”
Ouch. She winced at the dig. “Are you always this—”
“Impertinent?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you thought it.”
“I think,” she corrected stiffly, “that you are direct. And that you don’t like me very much.”
He glanced at her, face impassive. “It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m paid to follow orders just like you said.”
She bit her lip. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Sure you did.”
Wow. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her. She watched as he ran his hand over Bacchus’s side and dug his fingers into his trapezoids, key muscles her horse used to balance himself with. “What are you doing?”
“He seemed stiff when you rode him earlier. I thought a massage might loosen him up.”
“Did your grandmother teach you that too?”
“Yes. If he’s tight, he can’t stretch over the jumps properly.”
Well she knew that, of course. Jumping was all about form. But she’d only ever heard of equine therapists doing this kind of a massage.
“Is your grandmother a therapist?”
He shook his head. “Just a horse lover with a special touch.”
“Does she live in New Mexico?”
A longer glance at her this time. “You been checking my résumé out?”
Heat stained her cheeks. “I like to know who’s working in my stables.”
“So you can see which ‘school of psychobabble’ we come from?”
“Colt—”
He started working on her horse’s back. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the stall. “We had an accident,” she said quietly. “In London last year. Something in the crowd spooked Bacchus as we approached a combination. His takeoff was all wrong—we crashed through the fence.”
She closed her eyes as the sickening thud, still so clear, so horrifically real, reverberated in her head. “I was lucky I didn’t break my neck. I broke my collarbone and arm instead. Bacchus tore tendons—badly. Physically, he’s a hundred percent but mentally he hasn’t been right since then. That’s why I was so frustrated today.”
He turned around and leaned against the wall. The corded muscles in his forearms flexed as he folded them over his chest, a flicker of something she couldn’t read sliding across his cool, even gaze. “That had to have left some emotional dents in you as well.”
She nodded. “I thought I was over it. Maybe I’m not.”
* * *
Alejandro knew he should keep up the brush off signals until Cecily Hargrove walked back out that door—the safest place for her. But there was a fragility that radiated from her tonight, dark emotional bruises in her eyes he couldn’t ignore. Perhaps they were from the accident. He thought they might be from a hell of a lot further back.
His heart tugged. Her undeniably beautiful face, bare of makeup, blue summer dress the same vibrant shade as her eyes, she looked exceedingly young and vulnerable. His grandmother had always said showjumping was a mental game. If you lost your edge, it all fell apart. Maybe Cecily had lost hers.
“Maybe you need to take a step back,” he suggested. “Take some time for you and Bacchus to fully heal—mentally and physically. Figure out what’s missing.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have time. I have a big event in a month. If I don’t perform in the top three there I won’t make the world championship team.
Bacchus is the only horse I have that’s at that level.”
“So you make it next year.”
“That’s not an option.”
“Why not?” He frowned. “What are you—mid-twenties? You have all the time in the world to make the team.”
Her mouth twisted. “Not when you’re a Hargrove, you don’t. My grandmother and mother were on the team. I am expected to make it. If I don’t, it will be a huge disappointment.”
“To who?”
“My father. My coach. The team. Everyone who’s backed me. They’ve spent a fortune in time and money to get me here.”
That he understood. He’d spent a lifetime trying to live up to his own legacy—to the destiny that had been handed to him from the first day he could walk. Sent to an elite boarding school in America from his native Brazil when he was six, then on to Harvard, the pressure had been relentless.
When he’d moved to New York to run the Salazar Coffee Company’s global operations as the company’s CEO, that pressure had escalated to a whole other level, driven by a ferociously competitive international marketplace and a father who had never been content with less than a hundred and ten percent from his sons.
He knew how that pressure could rule your life. How it could crush your soul if you let it.
He set his gaze on the woman in front of him. “You know better than anyone what you do is as much psychology as it is sport. Master the course in your head and you’re halfway there. Fail to do so and you’re dead in the water.” He shook his head. “If you push Bacchus before you’re both ready, it could end up in an even worse disaster than the one you’ve already been through.”
Long, golden-tipped lashes shaded her eyes. Chewing on her lip, she studied him for a long moment. “Was your grandmother a show jumper?”
Meu Deus. He gave himself a mental slap for revealing that much. He’d thought it an innocent enough reference at the time with Ms. High and Mighty goading him, but it had clearly been a stupid thing to do. Proof he liked to live close to the edge.
“She competed in small, regional stuff,” he backpedalled. “Nothing at your level. She gave it up to have a family. But she had a way with horses like no one I’ve ever seen.”
Salazar's One-Night Heir Page 2
