Spaniard's Seduction / Cole's Red-Hot Pursuit: Spaniard's Seduction. Brenda Jackson
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his astonishment he found himself saying, “If I do as you want, if I extend my stay from a couple of days to a couple of weeks will you have dinner with me?”
A stillness came over her and a frostiness descended around her. “That’s not fair!”
“Why not? If I stay, I’ll be doing what you want—and I’ll be doing something I don’t want to do.”
Her eyes went from cloudy to utterly opaque, blanking out all emotion. “It’s not that I don’t want to have dinner with you….I don’t date.”
Rafaelo was puzzled by her response. Annoyed, too, his pride affronted. Women didn’t turn him down when he invited them out. Usually they leapt all over him. Yes, Rafaelo. Whatever you want, Rafaelo. Do you want it now or later, Rafaelo? Instead Caitlyn was edging away. So what in the devil’s name was this about?
“Don’t date?” He looked her up and down. “But why not? You’re an attractive, nubile young woman.”
She coloured and looked away, then said softly, “I don’t talk about it, either.”
Her closed expression warned him to tread carefully. It had to be about her romantic mooning over his dumb-ass half brother. Rafaelo’s annoyance grew. “Is it because of what you think you feel for Heath?”
The look she gave him was horrified. “What do you mean?”
Rafaelo waited.
At last she said, “It has nothing to do with Heath.” She gave a broken little laugh. “How can it? Your brother doesn’t even know I exist.”
“Half brother,” he corrected. “He’s a fool. And so are you for pining over one man. Madre de Dios—” he raked a hand through his hair “—how long has this been going on?”
She spread her hands helplessly. “It’s complicated. You don’t—can’t ever—understand.”
“So I’m a simpleton?”
“No…no. Please, I’m not insulting your intelligence. It’s my fault.”
Mouth twisting with wry humour, he murmured, “Ah, this is one of those circumstances where a modern woman would say, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ hmm?” The consternation in her eyes made him regret the impulse to tease her. Almost. He made one of the lightning-fast decisions that he was famed for. “I’ll stay. Two weeks. I’ll extend my booking in town.”
“No!” At his look of surprise she tempered her tone. “You can’t possibly stay in a hotel. There are three guest cottages on the estate. I’m sure you can stay in one of them.”
“All right.”
Her face lit up, as if he’d promised her Christmas.
Rafaelo gazed into her pale eyes. They should have been cold and wintry. They ought to have frozen out this loco attraction. Instead they sparkled like clear, pure crystal, radiating enthusiasm and pleasure, drawing him deeper under her spell.
With a struggle he found his voice. “Don’t read too much into all this.”
“I understand,” she said at last. “You’re still going to sell your share in Saxon’s Folly.”
“And don’t think you’ll change my mind,” he growled.
Several days later Caitlyn let out a tired sigh. The path that led over the gentle hill from the winery to the stables, where she lived in a loft apartment, seemed longer and bumpier than usual. Her hot, tired feet dragged.
In the distance the golden glow of the late-afternoon sunlight cast a creamy glaze over the whitewashed stables. To the left, a ray of sun glinted off the chrome trim of Joshua Saxon’s Range Rover, where he inspected the vines. At the end of the block a copse of native trees marked the start of rolling grass meadows dotted with horses, some grazing, others slumbering, heads low, tails whisking to keep the flies at bay.
It had been hellish in the winery. Surrounded by oak casks, Caitlyn had spent the day racking wine, transferring it from one cask to another to remove the lees. She’d worked quickly to lessen the exposure to air. Her back ached and her feet were hot and sore in the scuffed sneakers. She longed for the sharp needles of a cool, refreshing shower…followed by a good book and her own company for a while.
Except today was Thursday. Family night. The night the Saxons all made a point of having dinner together—and included regulars as part of the extended family. Caitlyn was one of those regulars. Even Amy, Roland’s grief-stricken fiancée, would be there. Since Kay had reluctantly agreed that Rafaelo could stay in one of the vineyard cottages, it was possible Rafaelo would have received an invitation to dinner, too.
If the Spaniard was there, the Saxons would need all the support they could muster, she couldn’t abandon them. Caitlyn glanced down, caught sight of her jeans and wrinkled her nose. Kicking a stone out of her path, she decided that solitude and the best seller she was reading would have to wait. But a shower was a necessity—along with a clean change of jeans—before she’d be respectable enough to grace anyone’s dinner table.
The sound of whistling gave her pause. Her head came up. She searched and located Rafaelo lounging on a tussock just inside a paddock near the stable block, his back propped up against the fence post, his harsh profile softened by lips pursed to whistle. Caitlyn couldn’t help noticing that his overlong hair gleamed blue-black like Tui feathers in the sun. She slowed, her heartbeat accelerating with the discomforting awareness that the sight of Rafaelo brought.
She looked away.
Lady Killer was standing a distance away, ears flickering back and forth, the muscles in his haunches bunched and his tail tucked between his legs, every line of his body screaming his protest at the human invading his space.
“Come, sit.” Voice low, Rafaelo patted the mound of grass beside him.
Her pulse went wild. She could no longer pretend she hadn’t spotted him and sneak past. “I thought you were sleeping.”
He cracked one eye open. “That’s what I wanted the stallion to think.”
“He hates people, that horse.” Caitlyn drew nearer and folded her arms across the top railing of the fence, propping her chin on her forearm. At the sound of her voice, the stallion’s ears flattened against his skull.
Rafaelo continued to whistle, a slow mesmerizing sound. Lady Killer stood, stiff-legged, not grazing, his tension showing his fury and his resentment.
Eyes half-closed, the Spaniard murmured, “Sit down. You’re threatening him by standing there.”
“Me? Threatening him?” Caitlyn gave a snort of disbelieving laughter and glanced nervously to the patch of grass Rafaelo was patting.
Taking in Rafaelo’s long, relaxed body reclining on the invitingly green grass, his lazy gaze focused on the horse, she decided that the man was no threat to her. Bent double, she stepped through between the railings and lowered her tired, aching body beside Rafaelo.
He didn’t react. A fantail twittered and fluttered crazily in a nearby bush. Gradually the tension leached from Caitlyn’s muscles. It was heaven to rest back on her elbows and inhale the fresh scent of crushed grass.
Rafaelo didn’t even open his eyes to spare her a glance. Caitlyn snatched up the opportunity to examine him. The hawkish profile, the sensually pursed lips, the olive skin stretched tight across his cheekbones, the small jagged scar beneath his mouth. He was too male to ever be called beautiful.
Then it came to her. The perfect word to describe him.
Macho.
“He’s not as tough as he’d have everyone believe.” At his words, she turned her attention back to the horse.
“Ha! Don’t believe that. There’s a reason he’s called Lady Killer—and it’s not because of his flirty ways with