The new owners’ intent to bring it back to pristine condition was evidenced by the half-dozen vans and pickups sporting names of contractors and other service companies parked along the length of the porch. Still, from where Melanie sat in her idling T-Bird, the house looked almost regal.
Knowing her cousin Elizabeth’s penchant for flowers, she found it easy to picture how the landscape would look in the late spring, exploding with color.
But it was months until spring. Right now, the grounds of Lucas Racing looked as bleak as Melanie felt. Never in her life would she have imagined herself leaving her family’s home and business to work for a competing stable. The fact that she was well on the way to doing exactly that had her stomach rolling while she drove the rest of the way up the drive.
She parked the T-Bird away from the clutter of trucks and vans. Sliding out, she pulled on her pale green lambskin jacket to ward off the brisk morning wind. Though her intention had been to call Marcus’s cell when she arrived, she found herself setting off on her own, taking the crushed stone path that led around the side of the house.
Several outbuildings came into view. Then sheds and a barn. Farther out, where the earth curved up, she could see horses grazing and the faint glimmer of sun striking water. A few more steps and she reached the back of the house where a brick patio spilled out of tall French doors.
Off to one side sat a two-story building of the same redbrick as the house. The first story consisted of a long garage with four parking bays, their white doors closed. Glistening second-floor windows overlooked a balcony spanning the building’s entire length, with metal stairs at each end.
Melanie continued along the path until she spotted two large white buildings with ventilation turrets along the roofs. Stables, she knew. Nearby was an oval track where horses and their handlers had gathered for morning exercises. Split-rail fences and paddocks checkerboarded the area and the scent of hay and horses drifted through the cool air.
Closer now to the oval track, Melanie spotted Something To Talk About, easily distinguishable by his gray coat and white stockings. Even though she’d only been away from the colt for a short time, she allowed herself a tiny spark of pure envy at seeing one of the exercise boys riding him.
Next, she turned her attention to the men standing along the fence that ringed the track. As if she were a heat-seeking missile and he her target, her gaze zeroed in on Marcus. Clad in jeans, a blue work shirt and thick denim jacket, he stood with one booted foot propped on the fence’s bottom rung, his black hair glinting beneath the strengthening sun. She took in his clear-cut profile, the hard geometry of his jaw, the no-nonsense curve of his mouth.
That mouth, she thought. She knew the feel of it. The taste.
An ache settled deep inside her.
She curled her fingers into her palms. If she was going to work here, work for him, she had to get a grip. Lusting after the boss was not allowed.
As she made her way to the fence, five horses were loaded into a portable gate that had been positioned on the racetrack. When the last of the back gates was shut, Marcus pulled out a stopwatch. His finger flicked a switch the instant the gates sprang open.
The horses flew out.
Gripping the fence, Melanie stood transfixed, tracking the horses while they took the first turn. Nothing on earth gave her heart more of a knock than watching that first rush of speed as the blur of powerful bodies surged forward in unison.
Her throat closed, burned with a desperate need to be a part of that again. To sit astride Something To Talk About while he raced like the wind against other horses.
It was then she knew for sure she would leave Quest and work here.
Her gaze slid back to Marcus. He didn’t need to know yet that she’d made her decision. She had got little sleep last night, thanks to him. But she hadn’t let those hours go to waste. Instead, she’d booted up her laptop and created a strategy.
Now, she was ready to negotiate terms. And determined not to agree to work at Lucas Racing until Marcus agreed to them.
ALTHOUGH HE KEPT his attention on the track, Marcus knew the instant Melanie approached. It was as if he could scent the woman from a mile away. Deliberately, he kept his eyes focused on the horses streaking around the oval while he slammed the door on thoughts of her.
Even so, he knew it was more than just the thundering hoofbeats that had his blood drumming.
He watched the horses speed along the track, felt the earth vibrate beneath his feet as they headed down the backstretch. When they neared the finish line, Something To Talk About held the lead by three lengths.
And kept it.
“Damn good time,” Marcus said after checking his stopwatch. He studied the riders rising high in their stirrups while slowing their mounts. “You get that time down, Billy?” he asked after a moment.
“Yes, sir.” The head groom, a stooped, white-haired man, rechecked his own stopwatch while making notes on the clipboard he held propped on the top rail of the fence. “That colt has the thirst to race, all right. He’s a fine addition to your stables, Mr. Vasquez.”
Your stables, Marcus thought. For a man who’d left home as soon as he’d been able, moving from stable to stable, track to track, it was going to take time to get used to hearing those words. And to accept that, by putting down stakes, he had lost a measure of the freedom he once thought he would never willingly surrender.
But he had given it up, and he intended to make a success of the venture he and Demetri had embarked on. Starting with the help of Something To Talk About.
“You’re right, Billy,” Marcus agreed. “That colt will be Lucas Racing’s first star.”
If Melanie hadn’t been there, Marcus would have vaulted the fence and gone to the horses to stroke them while giving the riders a comment or two on their performance. But she was there, and he’d spent a sleepless night wondering if she would take him up on his job offer. He wasn’t going to keep her waiting.
While the exercise boys led the horses away to cool down, Marcus turned to her. “Something To Talk About doesn’t appear to have suffered from his move here.”
“He’s a champion,” she said, a mix of pride and pleasure in her voice. “He knows it.” She paused for a moment, and Marcus caught the quick shadow that flicked in her blue eyes. “He’ll win, no matter who’s riding him.”
“The champion part I agree with,” Marcus said, studying her.
She’d clipped back her short blond hair in a way that should look messy but instead made him suspect he was getting a glimpse of how intriguingly rumpled it would be after a bout of hot sex. Beneath her pale green lambskin jacket she wore jeans and an ivory turtleneck sweater that looked incredibly soft.
Just like her skin. That was something he had personal knowledge of. A woman with skin like that could tempt a man until she drew him in, heart and soul.
He fisted a hand against the top rail of the fence. He would do well to remember he’d grown up watching the misery that resulted when one person was drawn to another with a strength of emotion that bordered on obsession. It was a type of fixation that stripped one’s soul over time, taking away instead of giving until there was nothing left but an empty shell.
Instinct told him if he ever let loose the part of him that was never allowed out of control, he could fall that deeply, that dangerously for Melanie Preston.
So, even though there was something about her that reached out to him as a man, and begged him to conquer her as a woman, he would not allow himself to act on that desire. He would adhere to his rule of keeping his hands off coworkers.
And the sooner he convinced her to take the job at Lucas Racing, the better. “Your statement that Something To Talk About will win no matter who’s riding him is debatable,” he commented.
“He came in ahead of the other four horses a few minutes ago,”