Cherish and Protect

by Lori Ryan

  But the fact remained, her mother had thought so little about the health of that horse, about the safety of its rider, she was willing to do something unforgivable in Presley’s eyes. Sure, there was a lot of drugging going on in the world of stadium jumping. It was an issue that the organizations with oversight were working to address.

  It was also an issue her own father had strong feelings about. He might be hard as hell on his students, he might push them further than a lot of coaches would push, than a lot of parents would allow. But he never allowed cheating. And he certainly never would have cheated in this way, not in a way that put the horse at risk.

  Presley’s head spun for what seemed like an eternity, but was only the remaining hour-and-a-half of the drive back to their land. She would have thought they’d be eager to escape the confines of the car, ready to get away from one another. Instead, when her father cut the engine outside the barn, they sat in silence.

  How would Presley go back and face the people her mother had tried to cheat? How could she face Harry and not tell him her mother had been the one behind the horse’s seizure? How could she believe her mother wouldn’t do it again? Hadn’t done it before?

  It was Presley who finally broke the silence when she realized the answer to all her questions was that she couldn’t. She couldn’t do this anymore. “I think I’m finished.” She shook her head and sat up straighter. “No, I don’t mean I think.” As the words came, she felt more strength come with them. She felt the determination of one who knows when it’s truly time to act.

  “I am finished. I’m retiring.”

  14

  The ensuing argument with her parents was exhausting. Not that Presley would have expected anything less.

  She honestly didn't know whether to feel surprise or pride in the fact that she hadn't given in, that she'd stuck with her decision to retire.

  Now, driving toward Bishop Ranch, she began to feel an almost numb sort of panic take over. Walking away from all she knew, all she'd achieved over the years, was thrilling on one level and terrifying on another. But the knowledge that her mom would go to such extremes to keep Presley on top during her injury had sickened her. It also reminded her that her parents did a lot of what they did for themselves, not for her. Not for her career and not for what she wanted. For what they wanted. For what they could get out of her career.

  She hadn't said that to them, and probably never would. She loved them and knew, in their own way, they loved her as well. Or at least she would continue to believe that. She had to.

  She thought she was driving to the ranch to see Tess. When she arrived, it instantly became obvious to her that she'd been driving toward James. She didn't stop at the animal barn, instead driving straight out to his barn. When she knocked on the door to the staircase that led to his loft she felt nothing close to confident. The last time she'd seen him he'd kissed the hell out of her and then all but ran out of the room.

  When he opened the door, she found herself unable to put into words what she needed. She didn't seem able to say, "hold me," "kiss me," "make me feel better about everything."

  He looked at her for a long minute before pushing the door wider and reaching out to take her hand. The feel of his strength, the warmth of his hand, washed over her.

  When they got to the loft, he turned to her and opened his mouth and she knew there would be questions coming. What had happened? What was wrong? Or maybe not. Maybe he was opening his mouth to apologize again. To apologize for kissing her.

  And she didn't want any of that. She went to tiptoes, bringing her arms up around his neck and pulling him down to her. Pulling his mouth to hers.

  She felt the moment when he gave over to her kiss, gave in and took control, making the kiss his own. The feeling was heady and intoxicating. Both knowing she could entice him to the point of giving in and the feel of that control of his crashing to a halt. She'd seen his control, seen how hard he fought to keep everything under wraps. And right now nothing about the man was under wraps.

  His arms came up, his hands tangling in her hair as he tilted her head. The access he sought was freely given, and he growled as he turned his attention to her neck. Every part of her body tingled and burned with arousal, giving her the distraction she'd sought. Making her feel something other than the shock of realizing what her mother had done. Giving her the ability to ignore, for the moment, that she was about to throw away everything her life had been about up to that point. That she was about to walk out on a limb that was frightening and possibly very lonely.

  She moaned as his kisses crossed to the nape of her neck and all but wept his name when his hands found her breasts.

  He touched her over her shirt but quickly broke apart from her with a curse, only to lift her shirt and pull it over her head. He came back to her then and his hands and mouth were everywhere all at once. The feel of him on her like this left her wanting one thing—her hands on him. She tugged at his shirt and he stepped back to let her remove it, revealing hard muscle and smooth skin broken in many places by scars that told the story of his life.

  It was a story that she knew he would probably never tell. Not to her, and probably not to anyone. Right now, that didn't matter. What mattered was her hands on him and his hands on her. She ran her fingers over the warm skin, reveling in the feel of him. Reveling in the way her own body responded to being able to touch him.

  She had never experienced that before. A man's touch had always aroused her but there had never been something so exciting and thrilling about being able to put her hands on a man's body. And when he growled or moaned at something she did, the response was almost like a drug.

  He walked them backward to his bed and sat on the edge, pulling her between his legs, spread wide to make room for her. He remained clothed from the waist down, but he quickly stripped her bare. He leaned in, tasting her breasts, her stomach, then lifting her and twisting until she lay on the bed and he knelt between her legs.

  Each of them seemed lost in the swirl of arousal, her murmuring nonsense words as he used his tongue and hands to bring her to an earth-shattering orgasm.

  She didn't hear the words he spoke, knowing only from their tone that they were words of appreciation and possibly even wonder.

  James knew he should stop this. His brain screamed at him to put an end to this, to send Presley away. He was past the point of reasoning, though. He had only enough control to go to his duffel and grab a condom. He bought a box of them when he left the hospital, then he’d gone to a seedy dive bar and picked up a woman whose smile had told him she would gladly spend the night with him and not expect anything in the morning.

  He ignored the fact that, with that woman, the release had been nothing but pure physical bliss. The need to rid himself of the tension that had built inside him in the years since Catalina had died. With that woman, he’d closed his eyes and done his best to ignore the fact that she wasn't Catalina.

  With Presley, he closed his eyes as well, but it had nothing to do with any memories of Catalina invading. Catalina was far from his mind, for the moment.

  He closed his eyes now, because he couldn't bear to look at the woman he knew he would hurt in the morning. When she expected more from him, when she expected this to go somewhere.

  He knew he was lowering himself beyond the dirt on her boots. That he owed her more respect than to use her body this way, but when she'd shown up on his doorstep he hadn't been able to say no to her.

  There had been a look of such pain in her eyes it made his chest ache and he needed to reach out and pull her in.

  And when she'd reached for him and kissed him like she needed him—not just anyone—but him… well, that had done him in.

  He kissed his way back up her body, listening to the panting need in her breath. He should stop, talk to her, tell her. Make sure she knew damn well what this was, and more exactly, what it wasn't. But he didn’t. When she moaned and writhed beneath him, lifting her hips in a gesture that told him exactly
what she wanted, he gave it to her. He sheathed himself in her slick heat, stopping once he was buried to the hilt.

  He had to stop and catch his breath, but he kept his face buried in her neck, licking and nipping, but most importantly not looking at her.

  She pressed her hips into him. "More, James, please."

  With that, she set him loose and he moved within her, lost to the heat and the feel of her wrapped around him. He would hate himself when this was over, but for now he reveled in her. Only her.

  15

  Presley waited for James's breath to even out before sliding out from beneath his arm. It was the second time she had attempted the move. The first time, he'd caught her around the waist, pulling her into him and within minutes he ramped up the arousal again, entering her as soon as she was ready for him.

  He'd taken her again as they lay spooned together, her back to his chest. The position had meant he was holding her wrapped in his arms and the feel of it had taken her breath away. More than that, it had meant that he wasn't able to bury himself as deeply within her, instead only rocking within her, in a teasing way that drove her mad with want and need.

  She had struggled to turn around in his arms so that she could wrap her legs around him and let him plant himself deeper within her. But he hadn't let her, an almost rough laugh telling her he knew exactly what she wanted, but he wouldn't give it to her.

  Instead he'd reached around and found her clitoris with one hand, driving her mad as their hips moved in tandem. When they orgasmed again he'd slipped out of her and fallen back to sleep.

  This time, he let her slip from the bed and she dressed quickly before slipping out of the room as Lulu watched from a bed in the corner.

  She left because she didn't want to face the talk in the morning that would surely come. The conversation where he would tell her that there couldn't be anything between them. That what had happened was a mistake and something that couldn't happen again.

  She knew if she stayed there and faced him in the morning she wouldn't be able to put on the false bravado that would let her say she understood it could only be physical. She needed time to get herself under control before she could play that game. Presley wasn't like that. She wasn't the kind of woman who could sleep with someone and have it be purely physical without letting her emotions get involved.

  She knew she needed time to be able to mask the feelings that James was slowly bringing out in her. She would face him after she'd gotten herself together enough to play the part.

  It was nearly four in the morning when Presley slipped into her own bed, finally allowing herself to close her eyes and sleep.

  16

  Presley would've liked to go see Tess in the morning, but she put it off, knowing she would likely find James at the ranch. Not to mention, she still needed to face her parents and deal with planning how the announcement about her retirement would go.

  She ate cottage cheese and strawberries in her kitchenette, before using the connecting door to enter her parents’ part of the house.

  She hadn't thought about it, but it would make sense for her to move out of the house now. She laughed to herself—it would have made sense for a thirty-year-old to move out long before then, but with the stables on the property it'd always been easier for her to stay. That wasn't the case anymore.

  She entered the kitchen to find her parents in an uncomfortable silence. One she was loath to break, but did anyway. "Good morning."

  She sat at the table, her hands playing at the cup of coffee she'd carried over from her place.

  "Dare we hope you've come to your senses this morning?"

  She answered her mother with a small smile. "I told you yesterday that wasn't going to happen."

  It was hard for her to blame them for holding out hope that she might change her mind. She had to admit, she almost expected it herself. They didn’t know that she’d been thinking about this for a long time. They had no idea that it was some misguided sense of duty to them keeping her in the world of stadium jumping.

  And they probably wouldn’t understand how her mother’s actions had absolved her of that duty. It had, though.

  “Presley, this is foolish.” Her mother turned to her father. “She’s always been like this. She reacts and makes a decision and then there’s no changing her mind, but this isn’t something we can undo once it’s done.”

  Her mother’s words shocked her. Presley wasn’t at all like that. She didn’t make decisions quickly at all. She obsessed and planned and questioned again and again. It hurt that her mother could be so far off the mark on her.

  She wanted to tell them about her plans to open a flower shop, but she didn’t. There was no way they would understand that. And she didn’t want to subject herself to their arguments that she shouldn’t be considering that. She didn’t want to subject herself to what would likely be laughter or at the very least scoffing in response. It wouldn’t matter that she had a business plan or that she was excited to do it or that she thought she might be really good at it. What would matter was that it wasn’t what they wanted her to do. It certainly wasn’t what was expected of Lawrence and Katerina Royale’s daughter.

  “Katerina, leave her be. It can be undone if she decides she wants to come back. It can just be a sabbatical. A rest.”

  Then that was going to be her dad’s tactic. To be understanding and give her the time and space she needed to come back to the fold. It was a good strategy, she had to admit. But what he didn’t realize was that she wasn’t just wanting a little time off. This wasn’t about taking a break or not wanting to work hard. She wanted to work hard for something that mattered to her now instead of living her mother’s and father’s dreams.

  Her parents argued in the background as Presley began to run through her savings in her head. As one of the top earners in stadium jumping, she’d pulled in a little over a million dollars the previous year, and similar sums for years before that. Of course, the majority of that didn’t go to her. It went to Royale Stables.

  Most riders kept anywhere from ten to twenty percent of their winnings. Her father had always given her twenty-five percent. Since she lived in her parents’ home, she didn't have many expenses.

  She bought both her cars with cash over the years. Her education had been paid for by her parents. She didn't have a college degree, but she'd been educated well past the high school level by tutors. To say her life was blessed was putting it mildly.

  So she had the kind of savings she needed to start her business. Presley chewed at her bottom lip as she realized what she wanted to do with the day.

  "Are you listening, Presley?” Her father’s voice pulled Presley from her thoughts.

  "I'm sorry, I was thinking."

  "I was saying that I realize you don't want to go into training or breeding." She had told them as much the night before, but she was a little surprised to realize her father actually seemed to have absorbed the information. He continued, "but your mother has connections, if you think you might want to go into broadcasting."

  Presley blinked. "Broadcasting?"

  "Sure, Equine sports casting is a field all its own now."

  She frowned, unable to fathom why her father thought she would want to go into sports casting. It was the furthest thing from what she might want to do with her life. "I'm sure it's not easy to break into."

  "I can put you in touch with the right people." Her mother came and sat at the table, her eyes already sparkling at the idea of it. "I'm sure it's very hard to break in for most people." Her mother waved her hand as though it was understood that Presley was not most people.

  Presley shook her head, mostly clear the fog, but also to remind herself and her parents that she had goals here that mattered. "No, thank you but no." She took a deep breath. "I have an idea of what I want to do but it's something I need to work on a bit."

  It wasn't entirely true. She didn't need to work on her plans for a flower shop. She had the business plan and it had been vetted b
y other people. She'd run through her budget several times and had even gone so far as looking online at some of the commercial space available in downtown Evers.

  What she hadn't done was go to look at the available space in person. She would change that today. She didn't want to talk to her parents about what she was doing until she'd put things in motion, though. She wanted to be well enough along in her plans that they understood this was not a whim. That they understood she would not be changing her mind.

  She stood, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. "I'll tell you about it as soon as I can, I promise."

  She leaned down and kissed first her father and then her mother on the cheek, leaving both of them looking a little stunned as she walked out.

  She left through the front door, walking around to the back where her cars were. She used her truck when she was doing horsey things, and her Jaguar when she wasn't. It looked like her Jaguar was about to get a lot more use.

  17

  Presley asked Laura and Ashley to meet her in town. It was Sunday afternoon, but she was hoping they might be able to get in touch with some of the realtors representing building owners in town.

  "What is this all about? You sounded really excited over the phone." Ashley leaned in to hug Presley.

  Laura hugged her next and Presley spoke as soon as she released her. "I told my parents I’m retiring."

  "Yes! Good for you." Ashley had known Presley had wanted to do this for a long time.

  "What?" Laura was a bit more surprised. So far Ashley and James were the only people Presley had ever told about wanting to open a flower shop.

  "It's a long story and it's been building for a long time, but for right now I need your help."

  "Anything," Ashley and Laura said in near unison.

  "I want to look for my space today."