She chose her words carefully. “I work for Division International. It’s a San Diego PR firm.” There. That much was true.
He looked puzzled. “Public relations?”
She nodded, but didn’t elaborate.
“But your degree is in business. You told me you wanted to run an equestrian camp for at-risk kids. Take them out of depressed urban areas and put them in the countryside where they could get sunshine and fresh air and learn to ride. You said you had some trust fund money you were going to use for the start-up.”
She curled her fingers around her coffee mug, suddenly feeling a little chilly inside. “That was a long time ago,” she told him.
“It wasn’t that long.”
“Yeah, Daniel, it was.”
A lifetime ago, she thought to herself. Back when she’d been happy and felt fortunate and wanted to share that happiness and good fortune with the rest of the world.
“What happened to change your mind?” he asked.
She sighed. “Not long after you…Not long after San Diego,” she quickly amended, “my father’s business failed. We lost everything.”
Daniel lowered his coffee cup. “Everything?” he asked.
“Everything,” she told him. She glanced up to meet his gaze, found that she couldn’t hold it, and looked back down. “To pay Dad’s creditors and survive the financial loss, we had to liquidate everything. Including my trust fund, my car and Blue Boy.”
“Your horse,” he said.
She nodded.
“But you really loved that horse.”
“I did,” she agreed. “But he was worth more than twenty thousand dollars, so…”
“He had to be liquidated,” he finished for her.
“Yeah.” She tried to smile. “He was bought by a very nice man, though, as a gift for his daughter’s tenth birthday. So Blue Boy ended up with a little girl who loved him. And he loved kids.”
“He wasn’t with you, though.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
Daniel said nothing for a moment. “You had to give up a lot when your father lost his business.”
Marnie nodded. “Yeah, but losing Blue Boy was the worst of it.”
“You sure about that?”
“Totally.”
“No more big house or fancy convertible,” he reminded her.
“No.”
“No more condo on the beach.”
“No.”
“No more life of leisure.”
As if she’d ever really enjoyed that anyway, Marnie thought. “No.”
“No more dreams of equestrian camp.”
“No,” she said sadly. “Which was the second-worst thing to lose.”
He was silent again, and she suddenly wished like hell she knew what he was thinking.
“Well, at least you still had your friends,” he said.
“Yeah, at least I had that.” Hardly. It was amazing how quickly people abandoned a person when she hit a rough patch. Of course, Marnie supposed she could argue that if they’d abandoned her when she really needed them, they weren’t friends in the first place.
And really, she didn’t miss them. Not anymore. It had been difficult at first. Terrifying, actually. She and her parents had felt dazed and displaced and wondered if anything would ever feel normal again. But her father had emerged from bankruptcy with a newfound sense of purpose and, with help from friends who invested with him, started a new business from scratch. It was significantly smaller in nature than his previous one had been, but he was enjoying himself more. Her mother had become his assistant in running the small vineyard they’d purchased three years ago. It would be turning a profit for the first time this year, a very modest one, and Marnie hadn’t seen her parents so happy in a long time. In many ways, they seemed happier now than they’d been when they were on society’s A-list.
Marnie, too, had found some small degree of happiness after losing everything. No, she wasn’t following the dream she’d originally mapped out for herself, and there were times when her job drove her crazy. But she’d convinced Hildy at Division to take on a handful of small accounts that weren’t as profitable to the company but were still worthwhile—like her parents’ business—and she enjoyed working with them. The big fish on Division’s client list might be the ones who paid Marnie’s salary, but it was the small fish who brought her satisfaction. Maybe someday she’d have her own PR firm and work with causes she considered worthy. And maybe then, she’d be as happy as her parents were.
“I know public relations might seem like kind of a strange occupation for me,” she said now, “but it’s actually a good fit. I like people, and Division liked the fact that I knew so many, some of them very prominent. I’ve been doing it for more than five years now.” She sat up and lifted her chin a little defiantly as she added, “And I’m good at it, too.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute,” Daniel said. “I’m sure you could do whatever you put your mind to.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s just that you seemed so focused on the camp for kids, that’s all.”
Marnie really didn’t want to talk about this right now. So she said, “It’s good to see you again, Daniel.”
Oh, damn, where had that come from? She really hadn’t meant to say anything like that. She really hadn’t meant to feel anything like that. But she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that she was still attracted to Daniel. The moment she’d turned to see him in the waiting room, her heart had begun to hammer, and heat had pooled low in her belly. And when he’d uttered her name in that low, soft way he used to…When she looked at his hands and remembered what they had felt like skimming over her bare skin…When she looked at his mouth and recalled the way he’d kissed her and tasted her, and all the places he’d kissed and tasted…
She halted the memories from forming, but not before they ratcheted up her body temperature a few degrees. Daniel Whittleson had been an incredible lover, had scorched her with his touch and enflamed her with his words, until she’d been unable to think about anything but him, until she could only feel him surrounding her and burying himself inside her, and…
She closed her eyes, hoping to put an end to both her distant memories and her current desires. There was no way she could allow herself to be attracted to Daniel again. It would mean risking her heart all over again, and then there was the difficult position her job had put her in.
But when she opened her eyes again, her resolve was nearly shattered. Because Daniel was looking at her as if he felt the same pull from the past that she did, as if he were remembering the same things she was remembering, as if he wanted and needed her now as much as he had then.
Very softly, he replied, “It’s good to see you, too, Marnie.”
And something inside her broke open, releasing all the feelings she’d wanted so desperately to keep locked up tight.
Oh, Daniel, she thought. Why did we have to meet again now? Why here?
She searched for something, anything, to say that might dispel the almost palpable awareness that lay between them. But all she could come up with was a very lame, “So. You, uh…you work for the Prestons. That must be interesting. They’ve bred and trained some pretty amazing horses.”
At first, she feared he would only continue to look at her with that same soulful yearning she felt so