was making it clear that no one slipped past him. The guy was probably in his early fifties but his big, burly frame was still all muscle—a formidable opponent in a fight. Not that Jack was looking for one, not with this man, who was just doing his job. He returned to the rental car he’d hired at the airport, thinking the view from the ranch house did not take in the whole perimeter of this estate.
Half an hour later he’d parked the car on the verge of a side road, raided his luggage for jeans, a dark-blue T-shirt, and Nikes, changed out of his visiting clothes and hiked cross-country to the white fence that marked the territory he wanted to scout.
He leaned on the top railing for a while, taking in the view of horses grazing in lush pastures, what was undoubtedly state-of-the-art stables, and a rider—a girl with a mass of red-gold curls streaming out from the tight constriction of her riding hat—putting her horse through a series of pony club jumps.
Was she the elder of the two adopted daughters?
Or a stable hand, employed to train the horse to jumping?
The slender figure looked shapely enough to be a young woman, though that factor certainly didn’t rule out a girl of fourteen. She rode well, handling the horse with confident authority, but then he had, too, at fourteen, having learnt the hard way on his stepfather’s ranch.
He scaled the fence and strolled towards the exercise enclosure, wanting his curiosity satisfied. It was a matter of supreme indifference to him that he was trespassing. To his mind he had more natural right to be here than anyone else on this property.
Sally didn’t see the man’s approach. Blaze hadn’t been completely set right for the triple jump and she wanted to take him through it again. The big gelding had been too eager. She had to rein him in a bit, make the timing perfect. Her concentration on the task was total. Only when Blaze had sailed beautifully over the third hurdle did the sound of clapping alert her to the presence of a spectator.
Flushed and exhilarated by her success, she turned to smile at the person who had admired her skill enough to applaud it, expecting to see Tim Fogarty, the stable hand who always helped her groom Blaze for showjumping. It startled her to see a stranger, especially a stranger who was alone. That didn’t happen here. A visitor was always accompanied by someone.
He was very handsome, outstandingly so compared to the young men of her acquaintance—thick black hair, a face that instantly drew fascinated interest, and his tall and strong physique was definitely ten out of ten. His forearms, resting on the top railing of the enclosure, were tanned and muscular, suggesting he lived an outdoors life. Maybe he was a new employee.
Sally nudged Blaze into walking over to where the man stood, aware that the flutter in her stomach was caused more by a sense of excitement than curiosity. His eyes were examining her in a very detailed fashion—vivid blue eyes—making her extremely conscious of how she looked and raising a silly hope that he found her attractive.
It was silly because it was obvious he was too old for her. In his twenties, she judged. At fourteen she had the height and the figure of a young woman but not the years to match this man. There was something in his eyes—a knowingness that came from a lot of hard learnt experience.
“Who are you?” she asked, feeling a compulsion to learn everything she could about him.
His mouth quirked into a dryly amused little smile, making her wonder how it would feel to have such beautifully sculptured lips kissing hers. Would they be gentle and sensitive to her response or hard and ravishing? He was the kind of man who could have stepped out of one of the romance books she’d read, making her wish for things that weren’t yet part of her life.
“Who are you?” he countered, surprising her with his American accent. Nice voice, though, deep and manly.
“I’m Sally Maguire,” she answered with a touch of pride, wanting to impress him with her status as daughter to a man who was virtually an Australian legend.
“Ah…” he said, but it wasn’t an admiring Ah, more a mocking one that told her he wasn’t impressed at all.
Had she seemed snobby about who she was?
“Fine horse,” he remarked. “You handle him well. Have you been riding long?”
She nodded, suddenly feeling ill at ease with him. “Dad gave me a pony when I was five.”
“No doubt he bought this one for you, too.”
The mocking tone was more pronounced this time.
“Who are you?” she repeated more sharply. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugged. “Just looking around.”
“This is private property. If you have no business here, you’re trespassing.”
“Oh, I have business to be done. Very personal business.” His eyes stabbed into hers like blue lasers, scouring her soul. “I’m waiting for my father to come home.”
None of the employees had a son like him. She was sure of it. “Who’s your father?”
“The same as yours.”
Shock rendered her speechless for a moment. Was it true? A bastard son who’d never been publicly acknowledged? He didn’t look like her father, though he did have blue eyes, a much sharper blue though.
“I know nothing about you,” she blurted out, seized by the fear that whoever he was, he’d come to make trouble.
“Not surprising,” he drawled derisively. “I’m sure Lady Ellen prefers to pretend I don’t exist.”
He hated her mother. She could see it, hear it, feel it.
“She probably doesn’t know about you, either,” Sally threw at him defensively, fretting over his attitude.
He shook his head. “What a protected little cocoon you live in, Sally Maguire!” There was a wicked challenge in his eyes as he added, “Why don’t you ask Lady Ellen about the marriage she busted up and the boy she wanted no part of?”
“What marriage?”
“Leonard Maguire’s marriage to my mother,” he tossed at her, obviously confident that he was dealing with irrefutable fact.
Sally could only stare at him, her mind struggling to take this stunning information on board. If what he said was true, he wasn’t a bastard son. He was her father’s natural-born heir, not adopted like her and her younger sister. Her very safe world suddenly felt very shaken.
“Have you been up to the house?” she asked in a burst of panic, feeling that everything she’d thought she’d known was about to change.
“Not yet.”
“Does my mother know you’re here?”
“She knows I’ve come. Lady Ellen was not inclined to put out the welcome mat for me. In fact, she had me turned away at the gate. What do you think of that, Sally Maguire?” He cocked his head to one side, mockingly assessing her reaction to this information. “Here you are on prime horseflesh, revelling in having your love of riding indulged and completely catered for—” he gestured towards the stables, obvious evidence for his viewpoint “—and I am turned away from setting foot on my father’s land.”
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t right.
A sense of guilty shame sent a gush of heat flooding into her cheeks. Yet she had only this man’s word that what he was telling her was true. She had no idea of what had happened with these relationships in the past, before she was born and adopted into this family. Maybe her mother had good reason to block his entry to this property. Hadn’t she just felt her own world being threatened by him?
“What do you want?” The words spilled out of the fear that was curdling her stomach. He wouldn’t have come if he didn’t want something.
“I