Cindy Gerard – The Millionaire's Club: Jacob, Logan and Marc: Black-Tie Seduction / Less-than-Innocent Invitation / Strictly Confidential Attraction (страница 18)

“Let’s just say the evening opened me up to new possibilities.”

“Well, I say, you go, girl. Just…well, be a little careful, okay? I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I’ll be fine,” Christine assured Alison even though she wasn’t one hundred percent sure herself. “I know what I’m doing.”

Six hours later, however, as Christine pulled into the drive of Jake Thorne’s ranch south of Royal, one burning question kept surfacing like a stubborn cork in a choppy sea: What am I doing?

She eased her convertible around the circular drive, then stopped in front of a portico that flanked a pair of massive double doors framed in a stucco structure the color of sand.

Money. The place reeked of it with its understated elegance and style. The house was new—one of many in this area where land was sold in five-hundred-acre parcels of rolling hills and the occasional thicket of timber. Only the wealthy and privileged could afford the property here.

Lot of house for one man, she thought as her gaze roamed over the impressive facade. A light mounted under the portico came on and the front door swung open.

Make that, a lot of man for one woman.

Neither the businessman nor the tease strode out to meet her. A cowboy did. And Jake Thorne as an icon of the American west personified the cowboy mystic in resounding three-dimensional color.

His boots were a rusty-brown color. His Wranglers looked soft and worn and tight. On his head was a black, well-shaped Stetson—black for bad guy, she thought—and his shirt was as white as snow with mother-of-pearl snaps running down his torso and on the breast pockets. The blue bandanna he’d tied around his neck lay in stark contrast against his white shirt and tanned throat. Spurs jingled with every long, purposeful stride.

The only thing missing was a pair of six-shooters strapped on his lean hips. Still, she got the feeling that he was gunning for her.

“Nice wheels,” he said by way of greeting as he looked her car over.

“It’s new,” she said inanely.

One corner of his mouth turned up. Not a smile. Not a sneer. Small clue as to what he was thinking.

“Got your boots on?”

She got out of the car and showed him. And his nota-smile-not-a-sneer expression turned into a frown. Big clue as to what he was thinking.

“Let met guess—those would be new, too?”

She glanced away from his look of disgust at her pretty red boots. “What’s wrong with them?”

“I was thinking cowboy boots.”

“These are cowboy boots.”

“If you’re strutting down Rodeo Drive in California maybe. Not if you’re planning to ride a horse.”

She’d suspected he had a midnight ride in mind, even though she’d held out hope for something else. She didn’t ride. In fact, she’d never ridden—guess the choice of boots might have given that away. Somehow she figured he already knew that, too, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it.

“These boots will do just fine,” she said.

He grunted and shook his head. “Come on.” Then he walked away from the house toward a mammoth, pristine white barn.

“This is Cletus,” he said opening a box stall.

Inside was what Christine considered to be a very big—strike that, an exceptionally huge—brown horse.

“Does he bite?” She could have kicked herself, but the question was out before she could stop it. Talk about sounding green.

“Only blondes,” Jake said, leveling her a look. “But since you’ll be on his back, you should be safe.”

Her stomach sank toward her knees as she looked up the broad length of him. But she smiled. “Oh. Well. Good.”

Jake studied her face. “You have ridden, right?”

“Sure. Lots of times.” Why was she playing this game? What did she think it was going to net her?

A broken neck, probably, but something about his smug attitude just wouldn’t allow her to let him see that she was scared senseless.

“You two get to know each other,” Jake said. “I’ll go get my mount.”

“Good. Great. I’ll be fine,” she said, lying through her teeth. “Nice…horse,” she whispered when Jake was out of her line of sight. “Be nice, okay? I brought you something.”

Again, because she’d figured a ride might be what Jake had in mind, she’d hedged her bets. She fished into her hip pocket and pulled out a sugar lump. She’d heard that horses like sugar.

She’d heard right. Cletus went for the sugar like a bear after honey. It was icky feeding it to him. He snuffled all over her palm before finally lipping the sweet treat into his mouth. When he was finished, he lowered his head and nudged her hip pocket where she’d tucked the rest of the sugar, evidently smelling it there.

“Okay, okay,” she said, laughing in spite of herself, and gave him another hit. “Now we’re friends, right?”

In answer, the horse nipped at her pocket.

“Hey,” she sputtered, stepping back. “Easy on the jeans.”

“They as new as your boots?” Jake asked, startling her as he walked down the aisle of the barn, a big buckskin in tow.

She manufactured a smile. “You’re right about the biting thing.”

His blue eyes pinned hers in the dimly lit barn. “Any guy is liable to bite if a woman has something in her pants that he wants.”

Oh. My. This must be where the walk on the wild side came in. He was letting her know. You came out here to learn, and I’m just the man to teach you.

“Busted,” she said, conceding that he’d caught her with the sugar but not going anywhere near the sexual innuendo. “Who knew he’d be such a glutton?”

“Offer me sugar. See what kind of a glutton I become.”

He gave her another one of those long, smoldering looks that held undertones of all kinds of gluttony, along with shades of warning. She actually thought about turning tail and running as fast and as far as her new red boots would take her.

The old Christine would have run. The new one followed him as he led the two horses out of the barn and into the moonlight.

“Come on. I’ll help you up into the saddle,” Jake offered. “Cletus is long on leg, and you’re just a little short on one end. Um, you always mount from the left, Chrissie.”

Face flaming red, Christine walked back around to the horse’s left side. “I knew that. I was just checking out the, um, stirrup.”

“Sure you were,” he said. “Now grab the saddle horn. It’s that tall thing right behind the mane and in front of the seat,” he added with another shake of his head.

“Well, if I could reach it, it would help,” she sputtered, angry with herself for not being better informed and angry with him for knowing it. “Oh, whoa.” The next thing she knew, she was airborne.

Jake’s strong hands had gripped her around the waist, lifted her up and deposited her on the saddle like a sack of potatoes.

“Here are your reins,” he said when she’d managed to push herself to a sitting position. Problem was, she was gripping the saddle horn for dear life and didn’t have any intention of letting go, even if it was to take the reins.

“What’s he doing?” she asked, near panic when the big body between her legs seemed to pitch and roll like a ship in a rough sea.

“Shifting his weight from one back leg to the other,” Jake said, grinning openly now. “You ready to give up the pretense?”

“Yes,” she all but whined. “Am I going to get hurt?”

He chuckled. “Not on Cletus. He’s a pussycat. And you nailed his soft spot with the sugar, so he’s not going to take a chance of dumping you because you have his sugar stash. Just sit easy, rock with the motion and trust him to take you where we want to go.”

Trust. There was that word again. And that was what this was all about.

“Well, then, yee haw,” she said and smiled when it made him chuckle.

Jake mounted up and they were on the move. The night was warm. The wind that usually kicked up during the day in this part of Texas had mellowed to a breeze. It played gently with her hair, cooling her skin yet somehow warming the night.

Or maybe it was the fear of falling off the horse that made her so warm. More likely it was the prospect of what the evil twin had in mind. Cletus proved to be a real gentleman as he plodded along beneath the stars. So far Jake had been a gentleman, too. Despite the temperature of the night, despite the blanket of stars shining down, she shivered in anticipation of what he had in mind for lesson number two. In all likelihood, being a gentleman was the furthest thing from his mind.

“Greenhorns,” Jake sputtered good-naturedly an hour later when he helped Christine down out of the saddle. “How can you live in Texas and be such a greenhorn?”

“Not all of Texas is yippee-yi-yo-ki-yay land, you know,” she grumbled. “I grew up in Houston. We had cars.”

Cute. She was too cute. And a little sore, if Jake didn’t miss his guess. But she was game, he’d give her that. Once she’d found her seat, she’d taken to the midnight ride like a trooper.