Winner Takes All - Anna Harrington Page 0,3
outlandish ones in the past— “You were planning on riding him in the race yourself!”
“Because I’m the only one who can handle him.”
Her answer confirmed his suspicion, and this time he couldn’t hold back the curse. “Are you mad? Risking your neck like that, lying to your father—”
“I didn’t lie to Papa. I have his blessing to enter Midnight in the Derby.” She hesitated before confessing, “He just assumed that I’d hired an exercise boy and jockey to race him.”
He lifted a brow. “Exactly how hard did you hit your head when you fell?”
She glared at him. “My head is just fine.” Yet she reached up and yanked off the tweed cap she’d pulled down low over her ears to hide her hair, which now fell free in silky waves over her slender shoulders. “But this hat itches like the devil.”
She tossed it onto the hay beside her and raked her fingers through her toffee-brown hair, to shake it loose and scratch at her scalp. But the act only made her look exotic, wild, tempestuous—
“Stop that,” he ordered as an old, familiar longing rose in his gut.
Her hand froze, her fingers tangled in her tresses. Her eyes snapped to his, and she asked innocently, “Stop what?”
He half growled in warning, “You damn well know what.”
Understanding fell over her, but the minx didn’t lower her hand. Instead, now she brushed it through her hair with deliberate flirtation, letting it cascade in thick curls that caught the sunlight that fell through the small window. “It never bothered you before to watch me fuss with my hair.” Her voice turned husky. “You used to like it, in fact.”
Still did, if the aching throb in his groin was any proof. That was the problem. Leaving her four years ago hadn’t been what he’d wanted at all. But the daughter of a viscount had no future with a man who mucked out her father’s stables.
“I do like it.” He caressed his hand farther up her leg to her thigh. The buckskin barred him from touching the smooth skin he knew lay beneath, but it didn’t stop her jerky inhalation of surprise. “If I thought for one moment that you were doing it to please me rather than to distract me—” He shamelessly stroked higher until his fingers brushed mere inches from the juncture of her legs. She trembled, her big eyes darkening with desire. “More of your clothing would be coming off than just your hat and boot.”
Her lips parted delicately. “Jack…”
“You know how I feel about you, Francesca.” His voice dropped to a low confession. “You’ve always known.”
Just as she knew why he’d had to leave when he did. Because if he’d stayed any longer he would have made love to her, unable to resist the delicious temptation she presented of beauty and intellect and the shared skill of working well with horses. He’d already claimed more of her intimacies than he’d had a right to, although he didn’t regret any of them. Just as he didn’t regret caressing her thigh now in slow, sensuous strokes that made her sink into the hay beneath her.
“But you’re vying for a Derby win.” He pulled his hand away without warning, and a soft whimper fell from her lips at the unexpected loss of his touch. “I make it a rule not to embrace the competition.”
Her face flushed, and she scrambled to sit up in the hay. “Why, you infuriating son of a—”
“Horse trainer?” He pulled himself up to his full height and coolly crossed his arms, as much to keep himself from reaching for her as to scold. “What’s the real reason you’re here with that colt, Francesca? The truth this time.”
“His name is Midnight’s Promise. I had him sired from the Earl of Derby’s stallion and one of the Duke of Kenilworth’s best brood mares. Cost me a small fortune to make those arrangements, but the two men had no idea what bloodlines their horses possessed, or the speed and stamina that could be produced from them. Midnight’s three now, old enough to show off his talents and my skills at breeding.”
“By racing him yourself in the Derby?” Disbelief edged his voice.
“By winning.”
Shaw laughed, although from what he’d seen of her horse, the colt had a very good chance of doing just that.
“Because if I don’t win,” she added loudly enough to cut through his laughter, “my father plans to marry me off.”
The laughter strangled in his throat.
Chapter Two
Frankie slid Shaw an assessing look across