by Allen, Jewel
She shook her head. What had that conversation taken, like two minutes? Hardly enough time to make a genuine connection.
And yet…
I go by Jay, he’d said in that faint, delicious non-American accent.
Just thinking about how she’d turned to see him standing there made her woozy at the knees. It was totally unfair for a guy to have such soft brown eyes that melted her where she stood. And sensuous lips surrounded by a sexy stubble on that exotic tan. He looked so comfortable yet elegant in his business attire. Like it was just second nature. Filling out that suit with broad shoulders and a muscular physique.
She should have handed him a grooming brush to see if he’d truly meant it about getting dirty. It would have been fun to see him to do the work of a hired hand. But then she might have made a fool of herself further, drooling over him. She recalled how his abs strained the fabric of his shirt front.
Well, she’d never know how he’d look like as a horse groom, would she? They weren’t exactly going to hang out together.
For one, Talia proved she was an uncouth bumpkin who’d need to be tamed like a shrew, so that was that. Then again, it wasn’t as though she was going to date the guy or anything, so no need to worry about acting more civilized around him. He wasn’t anywhere near her league, for sure. His mother made that very clear.
Earlier, as she took Eula back to the stables, she had stolen a glance toward the group of women clustered around Jay. Let them fawn over him. Talia, meanwhile, had more important things to worry about.
Like Eula.
Talia chewed the inside of her cheek. She would never be able to compete with Jay’s money. She’d planned to buy Eula from the Greens as soon as she was able to come up with the money, but they were getting antsy. Heck, she was just trying to raise a deposit so they would be assured she was serious. But now this prince wanted Eula too. Her purchase fee would be pocket change for him.
Talia sighed. She wished she’d been able to keep Eula away from Royal Estates until the prince left to count his gold bullions wherever he lived during the off-season. She also wished she’d just walked Eula instead of galloping her. Now the secret was out. Eula was a beautiful, well-conformed horse built for speed. Hopefully, his interest would wane.
Talia brushed Eula’s sorrel coat over an over until the filly calmed with her leg half-cocked. Talia pressed her cheek against the horse’s damp warmth and hugged her. Eula nickered and pranced around, her steps uneven.
This wasn’t the first time Eula favored her right hoof. Concerned, Talia lifted the hoof. Eula seemed to flinch, but it was such a minuscule reaction that Talia was sure she was just imagining it. Eula’s hoof appeared normal.
Talia was relieved that the filly seemed to be fine once again. Outside Eula’s pen, a chime moved in the breeze, and the horse calmed to it as she usually did.
“Get some rest, little girl,” Talia said. Leaving Eula behind for the evening, she hauled her saddle and tack box to her beat-up silver pickup truck and pulled out of the driveway.
***
Minutes later, Talia’s truck was bumping along on a dirt road framed by a split-rail drive. A pothole bounced her out of her absent-minded thoughts and into a swelling gladness that overtook her whenever she pulled up to her rented place.
Through a screen of scrappy trees stood a white cabin with faded green trim that looked like a bar patron tilting slightly sideways. But the sight still made her happy. She couldn’t see any of the manicured estates from her little piece of heaven, and there was room for her, her dog, and a horse to ramble.
That was all she needed.
The cabin alone was going to take a lot of work, but she’d already made inroads. There were only a few bats in the rafters, as far as she knew.
As she got out of her truck, her twenty-five-year-old flea-bitten gray gelding, Stormy, neighed his greeting from the corral she’d repaired last week. This was followed by her sheepdog, Rascal, bounding out and play-bowing at her feet.
She messed Rascal’s fur. He got on his back, and she rubbed his tummy. Afterward, he bounded around happily.
“Hey, boy,” Talia called out to Stormy. Reaching over the railing to her buddy from childhood, she rubbed his forelock.
Stormy leaned in and made happy snuffling noises. He moved his head as though to nod and pranced.
Talia chuckled. Old as he was, sometimes Stormy still acted like a young‘un.
“Really, Stormy?” she said. “You wanna go for a ride, ole boy?”
He nickered and she chuckled, despite her muscles feeling stiff from working Eula and the Greens’s other horses. All she wanted to do was to sit down somewhere in the shade with a tall glass of lemonade. But she couldn’t say no to Stormy. Not today. Not when she’d practically neglected him all week. She kissed his soft muzzle and went back to her truck to fetch her tack.
Tied to a log Talia had fashioned into a crude hitching post, he flinched as she set the saddle gently on his ancient bones. He’d lost a lot of weight in the past years, but it was more noticeable now that she was working with younger, better-fed horses. Still, Stormy was a great horse with a lot of heart that the younger horses still had years to achieve.
He’d always been her sidekick, through thick and thin, especially when she lost her parents the year she turned twelve. Soon, she was absorbed into the foster system, and Stormy was set to be auctioned off. The local AG teacher took pity on Talia and allowed her to board Stormy for free in exchange for farm chores, which was a lifesaver. If they’d forced her to separate from Stormy, she’d have most likely turned into a juvenile delinquent.
As it was, she turned out to be a jockey. A dang good one at that, if she could say so herself.
Eventually, Sunnyridge, Colorado, got a little too small for her. She jockeyed in Pimlico, Florida, and, finally, Lexington. So far so good. Until the Greens’s stables burned down. The police said it might have been arson, but there wasn’t enough evidence to pin it down on someone, and the case was dismissed.
It was really too bad. The Greens were good people and deserved better. She thought for sure she’d be canned, considering their resulting financial situation, but they kept her on, dangling potential ownership of Eula and a small salary in exchange for her continuing to work with the horses. In a few weeks, Eula would be ready for her debut at Kentucky Oaks, the sister race to the Derby. A smaller race, but not too shabby.
This year’s winning purse was a cool $564,000.
You bet Talia was going for her cut of it.
Mounting Stormy, Talia urged him forward.
Stormy moved stiffly at first and then more confidently over the carpet of grass dotted with wildflowers.
Talia loved Colorado’s mountains, but Lexington’s effortless lushness had her home state beat. Bees buzzed lazily in the breezeless air, and grasshoppers scattered as Stormy’s hooves marched on.
Talia emptied her mind of worries, letting the cadence of Stormy’s progress lull her into a relaxed state. She found an opening in the meadow where the fence had fallen, making a mental note to come back sometime to fix it. Meanwhile, she would head back to the cabin via the dirt road. She lifted her face to the setting sun, closed her eyes, and smiled.
A horn honked, making Stormy bolt sideways.
Talia automatically squeezed her legs to maintain her balance and reached under Stormy’s mane to calm him.
When she turned, a huge black Toyota pickup crouched in front of them, as though ready to spring. The driver was scowling as he leaned on his horn once more, a cigarette dangling from his tightened lips.
The jerk.
All this open space, and he acted like he owned it. She recognized the guy with a shock of blond hair as Abe, the foreman for Hadley Stables, a forbidding fortress further down the road.
Talia had looked into applying there when she first arrived in Lexington but decided against it after her first and only disastrous interview with Abe. He’d offered her a lower salary than they’
d advertised, and then he said she was only worth that much anyway when she declined.
Spurring Stormy on and around Abe, she kept her gaze fixed on the road. When she looked back, Abe’s eyes continued to follow her in his rearview mirror.
Bristling with unease, she turned forward and trotted Stormy home.
CHAPTER THREE
Jay woke to the first hints of sunrise. Birds chirped insistently outside his French windows, ready for the day. Jay usually got up about now to go into the office. He lay there for a moment, blinking into wakefulness.
No, not the office today.
He’d bristled at Talia’s insinuation that a good stable owner should spend time with his horses, but he knew she was right. From this day on, he would spend more time on the grounds. And hopefully run into a certain jockey, too.
The thought made his pulse race.
Putting on a short-sleeved polo shirt, jeans, and a pair of loafers, he wandered out of the main house to the barn. He chuckled to himself as he recalled how he had reacted when his father said he was buying the stables. A mixture of incredulity and hilarity. Mother was incensed. But for once, his father looked like he was actually excited about something.
With the passing of Father, all this landed in Jay’s lap as the oldest of the five Assante brothers. Mother was very much hands-off, like she had been all of Jay’s and his siblings’ lives. At his age, Jay no longer needed his parents emotionally. That time had long passed. For all that, his parents had prepared him well for business.
Genuinely happy? No. But what was happiness anyway? If it meant having any material thing he could ever want, he wasn’t complaining. There were enough people dazzled by his wealth that he could practically buy his friends too.
Sad but true. Of his “friends” from all the boarding schools his parents shipped him to, some of them had stayed in touch, mostly to do deals. And the girls? Forgettable. None of his girlfriends lasted. Not when he tested them and their loyalty. Not when he showed them the prenuptial clause saying they would not get a single cent of his wealth or keep their title were they to be divorced.
Jay descended the stairs and emerged into the courtyard. The horizon was lightening, and, already, the stables were a hive of activity. A half-dozen grooms passed him, glancing at him in surprise.
“Good morning, sir,” one of them said.
“Good morning,” Jay greeted back. “Where is Untamed Lady?”
The groom scratched his head. “Sorry, sir, I don’t know―”
“This way,” said a female voice.
Jay smiled to himself and turned. There was Talia, standing with her boots apart, challenging him with her stare.
Untamed Lady, indeed.
Talia moved and Jay followed. The darkness of the morning seemed to lift, and the smell of fresh-cut grass reached his nostrils. In Boston, everything smelled of city or the harbor. He inhaled deeply, a thrum of pleasure filling his chest. The thought of spending several more days in the company of this woman was delicious. Of course, she’d have to allow him around her first.
“You’re up early,” she said. “You didn’t get up just to see Eula, did you?”
“No, I did so to see you,” he admitted.
Her expression didn’t change. She stared straight ahead. “Can we please make one thing clear?”
“Sure,” he said, curious.
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Who says I’m trying to flatter you?”
“You just said you’d gotten up to see me.”
“Well, yes.” He smiled. “I wanted to talk to you about Eula.”
She sucked her breath in. Was she blushing? “Okay,” she said. “Fair enough.”
He was having fun with her. He really should let up. Maybe he should also admit he didn’t want to only see the horse, but the jockey as well. But that might spook her. She was prickly enough as it was. He wondered why. Conversely, he wondered why he was trying to please this woman when he could have any woman he wanted. Selena, Becky, Gilda―they all pushed themselves on him. All of them could fly over at a moment’s notice. But he didn’t want some easy conquest, or girls who made the chase too easy.
No, that’s not the kind of girl he wanted. He wanted this one with the flashing eyes and full lips, with hair pulled away from her face but streaming down her back like a glorious mane.
At the entrance to the massive paddock, Jay paused. He thought he heard bells. “What’s that?” he asked.
Talia paused and bit her lip. “Chimes.”
“Chimes.” He raised an eyebrow.
Her smile widened. “It’s my signature barn accessory.”
He burst out laughing. “You sound like a brand.”
“I didn’t mean to sound stuck-up.”
“No, that isn’t it.” He chuckled. “You have a thing for chimes?”
“Yes. But more importantly, Eula has a thing for chimes, I discovered.”
“I’ve never heard of a horse favoring chimes.”
“She’s been a skittish two-year-old, as most colts are, but way too much horse in her pen. She used to kick at the walls. I was afraid she was going to hurt herself. One time, I had her in a trailer at my rental, and she pricked her ears at the sound of chimes coming from my house. It sure calmed her down. I think it helps give her something pretty to focus on.”
Jay nodded, impressed. “I’d have thought it’d work the opposite. That she’d spook with the noise. Sometimes, chimes can be…annoying.”
“Fortunately, it worked for her.”
He stepped closer to the chime hanging by Eula’s halter hook, just outside her pen. It was a simple contraption with a pleasant sound to it.
Without warning, Eula snorted, spraying mucus all over Jay.
Talia froze, looking worried.
But Jay just laughed, rubbing his face with what he could reach of his sleeve.
Talia snickered too, and their eyes met. Something warm and happy passed between them.
A sneeze interrupted the intimate moment.
“Good morning, George,” Jay said without turning around.
“I am so glad I caught up with you, sir,” George said. “It’s time to go over our schedule for the day.”
“You’re early.” Jay turned to George.
“But, sir, you said yourself that being early―”
“―is a rich man’s trait. Yes.”
Jay flicked his glance at his secretary―prim, straight-arrowed, and without a hair out of place. He probably slept standing up. “I did,” he continued, “but you don’t need to follow it to a T.”
“I happen to agree, sir,” George said, nodding. “In fact―”
Jay held a hand up. “George.”
George froze, staring back at Jay. “Yes, sir?”
Jay gestured toward Talia. “I’m in the middle of a conversation with a lady, in case you can’t tell.”
“I’m so…so…sorry―choo!” George frowned, looking puzzled. “But you told me to interrupt you because scheduling takes precedence over everything.”
“George is right,” Talia said, her eyes dancing. “You should go and schedule. Eula and I need a bit of privacy anyway. I do horse yoga with her.”
Jay couldn’t tell if she was serious or not about the yoga part, but her eyes were certainly laughing at him. As he deserved. “Very well. Good day, Talia. I will catch you later.”
George trailed behind Jay as he left the stables, saying, “Of course, we’ll have to schedule that…”
CHAPTER FOUR
Talia blew her bangs out of her eyes. The guy was a scheduling fiend. Did he even have time for romance?
A romance with a prince. It sounded so…dreamy.
Even if they did go on a date, would he have to schedule “kiss her” to the minute?
Her body tingled at the thought of Jay taking her in his arms and pressing his lips against hers.
Eula snorted, snapping her back to reality.
“Not that I’m intere
sted in him,” she muttered, catching Eula’s eye. “Whatcha looking at?”
Eula blinked.
“Oh, who am I kidding?” she said, picking up a brush and entering Eula’s stall. She sighed. “Why does he have to be so dang good-looking?”
Eula snorted.
Talia chuckled. “Not your type, eh? He’s not exactly my type either. Though it doesn’t hurt that he’s rich. I guess he’s too…businessy.” She paused in the act of brushing out Eula’s coat.
What was her type? She’d always fallen for the strong and silent guy. Tallish. Well, anyone would be taller than her petite frame. She pictured Jay in her mind. He wasn’t overly tall, just the right height that if he were to pull her into his arms, tip her chin up for a kiss…
Ah, must she keep thinking of kisses?
She pulled at her plaid shirt and wrinkled her nose. Who’d want to kiss her anyway? She always smelled like a horse or hay. Granted, to her it was the best smell ever, but probably to someone so polished like Jay, he would just break out in hives. She wondered if he’d ever mucked a horse pen in his life.
He was Prince Jamal, and that’s how he would always be to her.
“Ready, Eula?” she said.
Eula watched her with discerning eyes. A ripple of energy surged through the mare’s sleek body. She could sense when Talia was transitioning into the next part of their morning routine.
Talia had been joking about yoga, but, come to think of it, their quiet horse-human moments resembled it.
It started the day off for both horse and rider from a good place.
Talia grabbed the halter off a hook on the wall and began putting it over Eula’s head. Just as she inserted the leather through the buckle, she heard a whinny from a nearby stall. It was so faint at first that she didn’t think anything of it. But when the sound became more insistent, she cocked her head and listened.
There. The noise came from the next pen over. Diamond in the Trough, or Diamond for short, was also from the Greens’s stables and was boarding there. She was one of the star fillies in the stables. In fact, if Talia weren’t so biased in favor of Eula, she’d have predicted Diamond to be the front-runner in the Oaks.
