Wedding His Takeover Target / Inheriting His Secret Christmas Baby: Wedding His Takeover Target. Emilie Rose
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to the mares, driving them inside.
The barn smelled different. Instead of dust and disuse, Sabrina smelled fresh hay, shavings and oats. She scanned the stalls as she descended. Two of the four had been prepared. “When did you do this?”
Gavin made closing the heavy sliding doors look easy when she knew it was anything but. She grunted and groaned and had to put her entire body weight into it when she opened them. “Henry and I cleaned up after we returned from the mine.”
She’d wondered where the men had gone. “Usually Pops naps in the afternoon.”
“He naps because he has no sense of purpose. He needs to feel useful,” he said as he began unhitching the harness from the horses.
Without the pale sunlight the shadowy interior created an intimacy she didn’t want—not while she battled this push-pull thing between them. “But the inn’s chore list—”
“Is beyond his capabilities at the moment. He’s not ready to admit it yet.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile that made her stomach flutter.
“Mucking stalls is too much for him.”
“I had him clean the tack room while I did the heavy work.”
His consideration surprised her yet again. How could he be a swindler? She automatically helped him remove the tack from the horses. Her fingers fumbled with the once familiar task of slipping pliable leather through buckles. Gavin, she noted, did not fumble. After they finished and the gear had been hung on the wall, he handed her a brush. She caught herself watching him, specifically his hands, and unconsciously matching his rhythm as she stroked the bristles over the mare’s glossy hide.
Would his hands be as gentle on a woman?
She pushed the disturbing thought aside. Gavin was as good with the horses as he was with her grandfather. But was it an act? A means to an end? Or was he the real deal? Evidence said he was no stranger to hard work, but her years of experience with men of his ilk said otherwise.
She needed to focus on something besides his positive attributes. “So your twin brothers, Blake and Guy, are a year older than you, and Trevor is a year younger?”
“Yes.” He bent over to clean his horse’s hooves and her attention zeroed in on his backside. Tight, firm, with enough muscle development to keep it from being flat.
Gavin straightened. She pried her gaze away and kept it focused on the dust motes dancing in the murky light while he tended her horse’s hooves. Then he led the bay mare he’d been grooming into the first stall. She led the sorrel into the second and latched the door. The slurp of the horses at the water buckets broke the silence.
Sabrina cleared her throat. “Are you and your brothers close?”
He shrugged. “Close enough.”
“Then there’s Melissa and … Erica Prentice? But she’s not a Jarrod, right?”
“We share the same father, but he never acknowledged Erica when he was alive.”
The bitterness in his voice caught her attention. “Don’t you like her?”
“Erica’s nice enough.”
“But?”
He pitched the brushes into a caddy. “My father had an affair immediately after my mother died.”
“You think he forgot her, and you’re angry that he moved on.”
“I don’t care.”
But he did. It showed in every stiff line of his body as he carried the caddy and blankets to the tack room.
She followed him inside. The smell of Lexol brought back memories of spending hours in here cleaning and oiling saddles and bridles. A small window filled the room with diffused light.
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