since the mysterious benefactor was the one paying her salary. Still, she’d be better off if she kept her distance. This was strictly professional! With a soft oath, she crossed back to the bed, picked up her cereal bowl and took a big bite.
“Ugggghhh!” The sweetness of the cereal made her gag and she spit it out, wiped her tongue with the paper napkin, then guzzled down the tart and barely dissolved Tang. The toast was just as bad, cold and overloaded with jelly. Holly dropped it back on the plate and wiped her hands. “At least I won’t have to worry about those fifteen holiday pounds.”
By the time a soft knock sounded on her door, nearly twenty minutes had passed. She’d dressed, restored some order to her hair and applied a quick bit of mascara and lipstick. Holly took one last look in the mirror then called out. Slowly Alex opened the door, but he ventured only a few steps inside. “You’re not ready,” he said, taking in her choice of wardrobe, the cashmere sweater set, the wool skirt and her water-stained leather pumps.
Holly glanced down at her clothes, then back up. “I’m sorry. This is all I brought. I thought I’d go out today and get some more casual clothes.”
“Those shoes won’t do.” Alex stalked out of the room and returned a few moments later with a pair of tall rubber boots. He dropped them at her feet. “Put those on.”
Holly glanced down at the high rubber boots, encrusted with who knows what and at least six or seven sizes too big. There were probably spiders lurking inside their dark depths. She crinkled her nose and shook her head. “Thank you, but I think I’d be more comfortable in my own shoes.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. We’ll start with the barns.” Alex stepped aside and motioned her out the door.
“Actually, I don’t need to see the barns,” Holly said, grabbing her coat, “unless you’d like them to be decorated, too. I really need to start in the house. I’ve got to measure the rooms and decide on an approach. I think we should stay with more primitive, country themes. Besides, I’m really not very good with animals—dogs, cats, goats, horses.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “I think the standard decorations would be fine,” he said, striding out of the tack house. “You know, shiny balls and tinsel garland.”
She closed the door behind her and shrugged into her coat. “No! I meant real animals. They don’t like me. As a child I had a rather unfortunate encounter with a Guernsey cow.”
“This is a horse farm,” he said. “If you plan on staying until Christmas, it’ll be hard to avoid the animals.”
Resigned to her fate, Holly hurried after him, her heels sinking into the soggy snow along the path. They began with a tour of the barns, Alex showing her the indoor arena first. She stood on the bottom rung of the gate and watched as Alex’s father ran a horse in circles around the perimeter of the arena.
“Why does he have the horse on a leash?”
Again, she caught him smiling. “That’s called a lunge line,” he said. “It gives him more control. Some of our horses don’t need it.”
Their tour didn’t stop for long. He turned away from the arena and led her back to the main aisle of the barn.
“How many horses do you have?” she asked.
“We have about seventy horses on the farm,” Alex replied. “Just over forty thoroughbred broodmares, twenty-seven yearlings that we’ll sell at auction in January, a few retired stallions, a few draft horses and some saddlebreds. In the summer we can have another twenty horses that board and train here while they’re racing at Saratoga. They use the outer barns and the track.”
“That seems like a lot of horses.” Holly sighed. “Actually, one horse is one too many for me. I once had this horrible experience with a horse, the kind that pulls the carriages around Central Park. It was frightening.”
He forced a smile. “We’re really a small operation compared to some. In my grandfather’s day, we were a lot bigger. But we’ve got a good reputation and great bloodlines. Our yearlings fetch a high price at auction.”
He reached in his shirt pocket and handed Holly a few sugar cubes, then pointed to the horse in the next stall. “That’s Scirocco, grandson of Secretariat. He’s one of the old men we keep here and he’s retired from fatherhood. He’s got a sweet tooth and he likes the ladies.”
“If you don’t use him how do you get…horsey babies?”
“Foals. And that’s all done scientifically now,” Alex said. “These days, you don’t need the actual stallion, just what he has to offer.”
Holly frowned. “You mean he doesn’t get to—”
Alex shook his head. “Nope.”
With a frown, Holly held the sugar between her fingers, just out of the horse’s reach. “That seems so cruel. What about his needs?” Though she’d never liked animals and considered them smelly and unpredictable and frightening, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for the old horse—even though he did have very big teeth.
“Believe me,” he muttered. “A male doesn’t always have to follow his…instincts.” Though the discussion was clearly about a horse, Holly couldn’t help but wonder if there might be another meaning to Alex’s words.
Alex put the cube in her palm and pushed her hand nearer. The moment the horse nibbled the sugar, she snatched her fingers away. “Animals hate me,” she said nervously, her attention diverted by the gentle touch of his hand. “Dogs bark at me and cats shed. I—I won’t even tell you about my run-ins with chickens and ducks.”
“Funny, he seems to be quite taken with you,” Alex replied, capturing her gaze with his. For what seemed like an eternity, neither one of them moved. Holly wasn’t even sure her heart was still beating.
Somehow, she didn’t think Alex was talking about the horse this time, either. Uneasy with the silence, she braced her hand on the edge of the stall door and tried to appear casual and composed, as if handsome men stared at her every day of the week and she barely noticed. “If we’re through here, I think we should—ouch!”
Holly jumped back, a sharp pain shooting through her finger. But she moved so quickly that she didn’t notice the danger lurking right behind her. Her foot sank into a warm pile of horse manure. She tried to gracefully extract herself but when her heel struck the smooth floor beneath, her foot skidded out from under her. With a soft cry, she landed on her backside, right in the middle of the pile of poop.
The smell that wafted up around her made her eyes water and Holly moaned softly, not sure how to cover her embarrassment. She glanced down at her finger and found it bleeding. “He bit me!” she cried, holding out her hand.
She heard a low whinny come from the stall and saw the vicious horse watching her with a mocking eye and a smug smile, his lip curling over his huge fangs. Alex held out his hand and helped her struggle to her feet. “I’m sorry,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Scirocco can be a little aggressive when it comes to treats. And that should have been cleaned up.”
Holly winced as she tried to shake the filthy shoe off her foot. But the horse poop had seeped inside and it stubbornly clung to her toes. “Just because you haven’t had sex for a few years, doesn’t mean you have to take it out on me!” She glanced up to find Alex looking at her with an astonished expression. Holly felt her face flame. “I—I meant the horse, not you.”
“I’m sure you did.” With an impatient curse, Alex scooped her up in his arms and carried her across the barn to a low bench.
She might have protested, if she hadn’t enjoyed the feeling of his arms cradling her body. He lifted her as if she weighed nothing more than a feather. But before she could start to like the feeling too much, Alex dropped her to her feet, causing her knees to buckle slightly.
“Sit,” he ordered.
Holly twisted to see the damage