Книга - The Taming Of Jackson Cade

The Taming Of Jackson Cade
Bj James


I'm stubborn, opinionated and unreasonable. No one knows better than I that Jackson Cade is the original immovable object. - Jackson Cade, horse breeder and firebrand From the moment Jackson Cade laid eyes on Haley Garrett, he'd known she was trouble. The lovely and sophisticated veterinarian was exactly the type of woman Jackson had vowed to steer clear of - no matter that she set every male impulse raging within him like wildfire.He fought, struggled, resisted and denied…because he knew that Haley was the one woman who could cut through the barbed wire around his heart.









“Making A Point Here, Doc?”


“I’m here at your request, Mr. Cade. Beyond that, I have no point to make.”

“Ah.” Jackson Cade’s smile was mocking as his gaze lingered over the slight décolletage of her gown. As mocking, as disparaging, his gaze traveled with exquisite thoroughness down the length of her slim, dark skirt to linger pointedly on scuffed boots.

“Then we’re to believe you always make barn calls dressed like the Duchess of Belle Terre?” he murmured. “Or better still, that with a few paltry concessions to this call, we should understand you’re slumming by coming to River Trace?”

Haley was determined not to allow him the satisfaction of seeing her react.

“We both know I’ve never made a visit here. We both know why. I’ve never come to River Trace because you never wanted me here.”


Dear Reader,

Welcome to Silhouette Desire, where every month you’ll find six passionate, powerful and provocative romances.

October’s MAN OF THE MONTH is The Taming of Jackson Cade, part of bestselling author BJ James’ MEN OF BELLE TERRE miniseries, in which a tough horse breeder is gentled by a lovely veterinarian. The Texan’s Tiny Secret by Peggy Moreland tells the moving story of a woman in love with the governor of Texas and afraid her scandalous past will hurt him.

The exciting series 20 AMBER COURT continues with Katherine Garbera’s Some Kind of Incredible, in which a secretary teaches her lone-wolf boss to take a chance on love. In Her Boss’s Baby, Cathleen Galitz’s contribution to FORTUNES OF TEXAS: THE LOST HEIRS, a businessman falsely accused of a crime finds help from his faithful assistant and solace in her virginal embrace.

Jacob’s Proposal, the first book in Eileen Wilks’ dynamic new series, TALL, DARK & ELIGIBLE, features a marriage of convenience between a beauty and a devastatingly handsome financier known as the Iceman. And Maureen Child’s popular BACHELOR BATTALION marches on with Last Virgin in California, an opposites-attract romance between a tough, by-the-book marine drill instructor and a free-spirited heroine.

So celebrate the arrival of autumn by indulging yourself with all six of these not-to-be-missed love stories.

Enjoy!






Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire




The Taming of Jackson Cade



BJ James










BJ JAMES’


first book for Silhouette Desire was published in February 1987. Her second Desire title garnered for BJ a second Maggie, the coveted award of Georgia Romance Writers. Through the years there have been other awards and nominations for awards, including, from Romantic Times Magazine, Reviewer’s Choice, Career Achievement, Best Desire, and Best Series Romance of the Year. In that time, her books have appeared regularly on a number of bestseller lists, among them Waldenbooks and USA Today.

On a personal note, BJ and her physician husband have three sons and two grandsons. While her address reads Mooreboro, this is only the origin of a mail route passing through the countryside. A small village set in the foothills of western North Carolina is her home.




Contents


Foreword

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve




FOREWORD


In the coastal Lowcountry of South Carolina, where the fresh waters of winding rivers flow into the sea, there is an Eden of unmatched wonders. In this mix of waters and along the shores by which they carve their paths, life is rich and varied. The land is one of uncommon contrasts, with sandy, seaswept beaches, mysterious swamps, teeming marshes bounded by ancient maritime forests. And a multitude of creatures that abide in each.

In this realm of palms and palmettos, estuaries and rivers, shaded by towering live oaks draped in ghostly Spanish moss, lies Belle Terre. Like an exquisite pearl set among emeralds and sapphires, with its name the small antebellum city describes its province. As it describes itself.

Belle Terre, beautiful land. A beautiful city.

A very proper, very elegant, beautiful city. A gift for the soul. An exquisite mélange for the senses. With ancient and grand structures in varying states of repair and disrepair set along tree-lined, cobbled streets. With narrow, gated gardens lush with such greenery as resurrection and cinnamon ferns. And all of it wrapped in the lingering scent of camellias, azaleas, jessamine, and magnolias.

Steeped in an aura of history, its culture and customs influenced by plantations that once abounded in the Lowcountry, as it clings to its past Belle Terre is a province of contradictions. Within its society one will find arrogance abiding with humility, cruelty with kindness, insolence with gentility, honor with depravity, and hatred with love.

As ever when the senses are whetted and emotions untamed, in Belle Terre there will be passion, romance, and scandal.




Prologue


In a rare moment of peace, unmindful of the blaze of light spilling through the barn door to lie like pale fire on the ground before him, Jackson Cade stood as rigid as a figure of stone.

In sudden, blessed quiet, his bleak gaze ranged over the land beyond. But he didn’t see.

His mind was too full of turmoil and grief to appreciate how beautiful the acres of lush pasture were in moonlight. He didn’t smell the perfume of a southern night drifting on a breeze that touched his heated skin in a cooling kiss.

Once he would have stood in this exact spot with a sense of pride in all he saw. For this was River Trace. His land, his home, and he’d made it what it was. But tonight there was no pride, no sense of accomplishment. Only the knowledge that he’d fought a fierce and frenzied battle…and failed.

Because of his failure and stubborn pride, a magnificent suffering creature would die. And with it his dreams.

Footsteps sounded behind him, a hand clasped his shoulder. Jesse Lee, a trusted friend, an expert horseman, asked gruffly, “What are you doing standing here like this?”

A heavy shoulder lifted beneath the old cowboy’s rough hand. “Wishing I could change things, I suppose.”

Jessee nodded even though he knew the younger man wouldn’t see. “I reckon we both wish we could change a lot of things. But fact is we can’t. And there’s no going back. Only forward.”

Jackson laughed, a bitter, defeated sound. “How do I do that? Accomplishing what?”

“You do it by taking yourself into the house to make the phone call you’ve refused to consider.” Jesse’s fingers tightened on Jackson’s shoulder. In compassion, in respect, in regret for a man too proud for his own good. “I can’t say what it will accomplish, but it’s a chance. And if it saves the poor, mad critter back there in that stall, or even if it only eases his suffering, what’s the eating of a little crow in comparison?”

“You don’t mince words, do you, old man?”

“Never have,” Jesse drawled. “And just like you said, I’m too old to start.”

Jackson nodded but didn’t look away from the land.

This was more than River Trace. It was his dream. His life’s work. The investment of all he had, his heart, his blood, his sweat and tears. After years of struggle, success beyond his wildest dreams was only a colt or two away. Colts that might not ever be. Unless a phone call could make the difference.

“Unless,” he muttered, stepping into the moonlight.

“What does that mean?” the older man questioned, his arm falling to his side.

“Exactly that, Jesse. Unless.” Jackson walked, grimly, determinedly in a stilted pace toward the house. A tattered, historic treasure neglected in favor of barns and horses, but his.

“Where in thunder are you going, Jackson Cade?”

Without slowing his pace, Jackson called back over his shoulder, his voice grimly resigned, as stilted as his step. “To make a phone call. Eat some crow. Say a prayer.”

“Care if I join you in the prayer part?”

“You do that.” At the steps leading to the back door, Jackson swung about. Over the little distance, young eyes met old and held. “Thanks for coming tonight, Jesse. I know you tried.”

“We both did, Jackson. What we could do just wasn’t enough.”

Jackson drew a long, harsh breath, nodded again, then turned away from the night to climb steps of stone.

The darkness of the house enveloped him, blocking him from sight, but the old cowhand still stood in the barn door. “Our bad luck was that your brother isn’t here. The good is that there is someone else.

“Call,” Jesse urged softly in a whisper no ear but his would hear. “Take a chance. What you find just might be worth all the crow in the world.”




One


The screams. She could still hear the screams.

Gripping the steering wheel, forgetting the incongruity of her stylishly perfect black dress and that her silver-blond hair was caught in a coil as perfect, Haley Garrett thrust a stiletto heel against the accelerator, sending the massive truck rocketing ever faster through darkness.

The hour was late—a harvest moon gleamed in a blue-black sky. But Haley gave no more thought to breathtaking Southern nights than she did to the glittering gala and the attractive man she’d deserted to come careening through the countryside.

Her riveted gaze rarely straying from the ribbon of unfamiliar asphalt, she thought of little but her destination, and the mystery awaiting her there. At last, as she passed through an open gate, thickets of pine and palm gave way to an avenue of oaks. Draped in ghostly moss, their massive limbs entwined over the lane in a leafy cathedral, sealing away the sky, the stars, the moon.

Beyond the gate there would be miles of carefully tended fences. Fences guarding the many pastures of River Trace, premier horse farm of the South. She had heard the land was beautiful. She knew the horses bred there were extraordinary. But for Haley, the land was rent by the remembered screams of a single horse.

Hurt, maddened, its cries echoed unceasingly in her mind.

Even muffled over the telephone, the terrifying sounds had played a ghastly musical accompaniment to the desperate summons. No, worse than desperate. Jackson Cade would be worse than desperate to seek the help of Haley Garrett, newcomer to quaint Belle Terre, the city’s newest Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.

The last of the trees flashed by, the truck burst into a flood of moonlight. Before her lay a midnight pastoral scene of South Carolina’s lowcountry. With its shabby manor and sprawling lawns, it might have been taken from the pages of history.

“All that’s lacking is the mint julep,” Haley muttered, and was instantly contrite. Sarcasm was not normally a part of her attitude. But neither was she normally as anxious as now.

Driving on, she discovered the one jarring note was the main barn. Built in historic style, it was too obviously new. As light blazed from within the structure that, in time, would blend with its surroundings, Haley knew the interior would be uniquely modern.

Bringing the truck to a halt, she leaped to the ground. Pausing only to fling aside elegant sandals, she stamped her feet into practical boots and pulled on equally practical gloves.

Unconcerned by the paradox of her costume, but making a mental note that jeans and a sturdy shirt should be added to the supplies stored in the truck, she snatched up her medical bag. Thankful for the deep slit in her narrow skirt, Haley dashed for the barn, the thick grass muffling her footsteps until she stepped onto a cobblestone path by the entrance.

Blinded by the glare of lights, scarcely inside the open door, she paused. Shading her eyes with a hand at her forehead, she waited for her vision to adjust. In that little time Haley knew she’d been right. The barn was state-of-the art in horse breeding.

“Doc.” A figure appeared at the end of the spotless hall. She recognized the voice before she could make out his face.

“Jesse.” His name was her greeting. The familiar drawl belonged to Jesse Lee. The Arizona cowboy had come to the lowcountry to serve as foreman at nearby Belle Reve, where Gus Cade, patriarch of the Cade family, ruled with an iron will.

Given his vast knowledge of horses, and the proximity of the plantations, it wasn’t surprising Jesse was here. Haley had expected that in the absence of Lincoln Cade, her veterinary partner, Jesse would be first choice at River Trace. As the horse quieted, she wondered where the rest of the staff could be.

Where he could be.

He. Jackson Cade, Lincoln’s brother, third of Gus Cade’s sons. The man who’d disliked her and rejected her help with his horses, until now. Until he, not Jesse, made the call.

Haley forced herself to proceed calmly. If she was not calm, she would be of little help. “How is he?” she asked, wondering if she meant the berserk horse or its owner. Remembering the tone of the call, she thought the question could apply to man or beast. “The situation sounded urgent. I came as quickly as I could.”

“’Pears to me you came a mite too quick,” Jesse drawled, with a glance flicking over her sleek black dress.

“Making a point here, Doc?” The second voice came from behind her. This drawl was deeper, colder. A far cry from Jesse’s droll, good-natured teasing.

When Haley turned to face her accuser, his look was contemptuous, colder than his tone, leaving no room for misinterpretation of the unspoken insult. Though she tried not to react, it took all her strength to not respond in kind. Gleaning composure from lessons learned, refusing to be intimidated or provoked, her reply was unruffled. “I’m here at your request, Mr. Cade. Beyond that, I have no point to make.”

“Ah.” Jackson Cade’s smile was mocking as his gaze lingered over the slight décolletage of her gown, reminding her that it afforded a glimpse of the tilt of her breasts and the shadowed cleft between them. As mocking, as disparaging, his gaze traveled with exquisite thoroughness down the length of her slim, dark skirt to linger pointedly on scuffed boots. As if to satisfy himself his message had been understood, he glanced at her hands and found them clenched within leather gloves.

“Then we’re to believe you always make barn calls dressed like the Duchess of Belle Terre?” he murmured. “Or better still, that with a few paltry concessions to this call, we should understand you’re slumming by coming to River Trace?”

The remark stung, as he’d intended. But Haley was determined to not allow him the satisfaction of seeing her react. “We both know I’ve never made a visit here. We both know why. I’ve never come to River Trace because you never wanted me here.

“Tonight, I came as I was. From the tone of your call and the sound of your horse, I felt it merited speed more than proper dress. Lincoln isn’t here. In fact, as you well knew when you stooped to summoning me, he isn’t even in the lowcountry. So, Mr. Horse Breeder par excellence, you would be wise to remember beggars can’t be choosers.” With a quick breath, she continued with false detachment, “Dressed to suit your personal code or not, unless I miss my guess, I’m all you have.”

Jesse Lee smothered a strangled sound Haley could have sworn was a chuckle, yet she would not look away from Jackson Cade’s narrowed stare to interpret it. Keeping his gaze, one that would have been gorgeous were it not so hard and cold, she drew herself to her tallest. A mistake, she realized as he abandoned the duel to let his attention sweep over the lifted thrust of her breasts as thoroughly as he had before.

Haley endured the ordeal by gathering her composure more closely around her, refusing this insufferable man the satisfaction of the blush that threatened. He’d called for help. The situation was unquestionably grave, yet he wasted precious time with this uncharacteristic, chauvinistic performance.

Uncharacteristic because Jackson Cade was known as a man who loved most women. Tall, short, fat, skinny, old, young, ugly or pretty, he loved them. Some without reservation. Others—ambitious, motivated career women such as she—he treated temperately, courteously, but from a coolly guarded distance.

That he cared little for her sort was patently clear. Yet even at his coolest he was, without fail, ever gallant, ever pleasant, ever respectful. Without fail, to all but the inexplicable pariah, Haley Garrett. For whom he reserved a special hostility. A vitriolic antipathy she didn’t understand, escalating with each inadvertent encounter.

Even now, perversely, for reasons only he knew, in his dislike the need to humiliate her was stronger than his desperation. Which made no sense, for added to the legend was his even greater love of horses. Jackson Cade of River Trace was a breeder of some of the world’s finest stock. One who spared neither time nor expense to insure their excellent care.

Despite an unmistakable distrust of his brother’s partner in their veterinary practice, his attitude was senseless in the extreme. Haley couldn’t begin to comprehend his motives or to fathom their origin. But, since it was doubtful he could ever address her in genial terms, much less explain her sins, she’d given up trying to understand this contrary, cantankerous Cade weeks ago.

Indeed, if it were only this frustrating man, she would turn on her booted heel, leaving River Trace in the dust and Jackson Cade to reap the consequences of his unbridled arrogance.

But the problem wasn’t just the enigmatic Jackson Cade. There was the horse and its strange malady. In the midst of this standoff, troubled sounds had begun to drift from a distant stall. Proving, as Haley feared, the embattled quiet had been only the respite of overwhelming fatigue.

Because she couldn’t turn her back on any hurting creature, she put resentment and quelled anger aside in favor of ethical prudence and compassion. “If it will make you feel better, I apologize for my costume, Mr. Cade. I was attending a dinner following a concert,” she explained. “When you called, I considered the situation an emergency. I still do. If you’ll let me, I’d like to help. To do that, I need to examine the horse while it’s quiet. Which, from the sounds I’m hearing, won’t be long.”

Jackson Cade, whom she knew from his brothers had been trained from childhood to behave in a gentlemanly manner, had the grace to look ashamed of his behavior. But only for a single moment, for in the next he was covering the faltering of his dislike with a brusque gesture and a mocking bow. “Be my guest, Duchess. The problem with Dancer has stymied the best of us.”

“So,” Haley snapped with rare impatience, “as a last resort you decided to give me a shot at diagnosing.”

“Something like that.”

When he straightened from a sweeping bow worthy of a Knight of the Round Table, his blue gaze only vaguely mocking, eyes as blue waited for his. Ambushing him. Catching him off guard. In that naked glimpse Haley saw beyond the anger to hurt and fear. Jackson Cade was half mindless with worry because he cared so very much. His horses were more than a business. More than dollar signs. And like it or not, like her or not, Haley Garrett was truly his last resort.

“In that case,” she responded, still keeping his gaze, “I’d best make this good, hadn’t I?”

Turning away, she addressed the older man, who waited with an oddly pleased and knowing expression. But Haley couldn’t be concerned with any more peculiar masculine behavior. “Jesse, if you would go with me to Dancer’s stall…”

“I’ll go.” Jackson stepped closer. Even as the shortest of the Cades, he towered over her only a fraction less than a foot.

“No.” He was so close, so imposing, she had to steel herself against the urge to step back. “Thank you, but no,” she said in rephrase, hoping to avoid another confrontation. “I need a cool head. You’re too emotionally involved to think clearly.”

“This is my land, Dancer’s my horse, Doctor Garrett.” Eyes that could smile and warm female hearts were arctic blue.

“Your horse but my patient, Mr. Cade,” Haley reminded him without returning his heavy-handed sarcasm. Without looking away from his piercing glare, she asked quietly, “Ready, Jesse?”

“Never readier.” The slender cowhand pushed away from the wall where he’d leaned to watch the show. Now he was all business. “The hands took the other horses to pasture. Dancer’s fit was catching. Part of what you heard over the phone was them, wild and getting wilder, though they didn’t see what Dancer was imagining.”

“A concert, you say?” Jesse changed subjects adroitly. Tossing the question over his shoulder, he led Haley down a corridor intersecting the main part of the barn. “I ’spose that means you had a date. A good-looking filly like you, dressed in pretty finery, be a shame if you didn’t.”

Whether there had or had not been a date or an escort was none of Jesse’s business. But he was nearly as famous for his superstitions and harmless, gossipy curiosity as for his horse sense. For the latter, Haley admired and liked the wily old fox.

“Thank you for the compliment, Jesse. It’s nice to know you think I’m a ‘good-looking little filly.’” Smiling at the lumbering hitch in his step, she knew he was waiting for the punch line, and decided she wouldn’t prolong the suspense. “And, yes, I had a date for the concert. For dinner, too.”

Wide shoulders too heavy for his lanky form twitched, even as he resumed a smooth stride. “Guess it couldn’t’ve been Daniel Corbett, since he would’ve been conducting.”

This took prying to a ridiculous level, even for Jesse. But Haley had dealt with enough contention for one night. It wouldn’t hurt to satisfy his determined curiosity. “It was chamber music, Jesse, not the orchestra. Daniel didn’t conduct.”

“Oh?”

Hearing mounting curiosity in the questioning word, wondering why he should care, she gripped the heavy bag, intending to shift it from one tired hand to the other hand. Before the move was completed, the bag was taken from her. Jackson had stepped forward. Medical bag in hand, he matched his stride to hers.

As she looked up at him, she realized that in the shadowed hall his features were haggard and incredibly weary. Excusing his insolence, in that moment her tender heart went out to him. But, certain the last thing this strong, hotheaded man wanted was sympathy, she turned her attention back to Jesse, who rattled on.

“I beg your pardon?” Haley hurried to catch up with the loquacious cowboy, and to keep Jackson at a comfortable distance. “Sorry, Jesse. I’m afraid I wasn’t listening.”

“Humph! You don’t have to beg nothin’ here, little girl. Considering Jackson’s bark’s worse than his bite, you don’t have to be afraid, neither. What I was sayin’ is, what with conducting and all, Daniel must be pretty interesting.”

“Daniel’s certainly interesting.”

“I ’spose that short answer means you ain’t gonna say just exactly who your date was?”

Wondering why she cared that Jackson was hearing this conversation, she brought it to an end. “As a matter fact, I’m not. I came to treat a horse, not to discuss my social life.”

Grinning again at Jesse’s grunt of frustration, she slowed her steps as he slowed. When he stopped at the bolted gate of a stall, in a gasping breath her grin was swept away.

Cade’s Irish Dancer was known in informed circles as a magnificent stallion, a most valuable stud. Or he had been.

Haley had never been afforded the coveted opportunity to study him in the flesh. But she’d read about him, poring over his photographs in breeder and veterinary journals. Yet if she hadn’t been told the exhausted creature cowering in the battered stall was the legendary horse, she wouldn’t have believed it.

His coat was soaked with sweat and matted. His head drooped, his tail hung dull and lifeless. Gone was the proud bearing of the much-sought-after stud that had once, no doubt, been as arrogant as his master. At a glance, he appeared to have lost a tremendous amount of weight. But given the short duration of his seizure, she knew it was likely severe dehydration.

Though it didn’t explain Jackson’s hostility toward her, Dancer’s condition was cause enough for his mood.

“Jackson,” she whispered, oblivious in her alarm that she called his given name. “How long has he been like this?”

“It began several hours ago.” He waited a pace behind her. “The onset was like this, first lethargy then a few minutes of erratic behavior. Dancer’s temperamental. It seemed like a fit of exceptionally bad humor at first. Then the madness started. We tried all we knew to calm him. Finally, both Jesse and I—and even all the hands—exhausted every avenue.”

“Tell me.” Haley’s racing mind searched for answers. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave out the smallest detail.”

It was Jackson who answered, which was only natural. Dancer was his horse, the greatest source of his livelihood. More than that, the stallion’s anguish was his anguish. When he finished explaining every treatment, she found he’d been thorough and practical. His mind quick, he was well organized and sensible. More reasons to be puzzled by his reaction to her.

Mulling over all he’d said, Haley nodded. Thinking hard as she studied the horse that was a pitiful remnant of the awesome creature he’d been, something nagged at her. Something Jesse had said, recalled briefly by Jackson’s explanation. But in the shock and duress it had slipped from her mind.

“But what?” Out of habit, with no sign of vanity, she absently tucked a slipping hairpin into place. “Jesse!”

“Yes, ma’am. Still here.”

“What was it you said?” Closing her eyes, as if blocking out her surroundings would bring the elusive thought within reach, she muttered, “Something about the other horses.”

“I don’t recall the order, but it was something about the other horses reacting to Dancer, and the hands taking them to pasture.” Sliding back his broad-brimmed hat, Jesse peered at her from the shadows cast by overhead lights. “Does that help?”

Haley took a closer look at the stall, hoping for the spark of the thought. The effort changed nothing. She was as confounded as Jesse or Jackson.

Jackson? When had she begun to think of the stiff-necked man as Jackson? she wondered. Especially since it was unlikely they would ever be on a first-name basis as she was with his brothers Adams and Jefferson, who didn’t avoid her.

Abandoning thoughts of the stubborn, arrogant Cade, returning to the elusive memory that teased at her mind, she admitted honestly, “Maybe it will help. Then again, maybe not. Perhaps the thought was too far-fetched to stick.”

“Jesse said one other thing.” Jackson came to stand by her, resting his arms on the stall door. In close proximity, mixed with the scent of hay and horse, Haley breathed in a pleasant woodsy fragrance that suited a man like Jackson. Except, what did she know of the kind of man he was? Or what would suit him?

In that rare moment, regret that he resented and disliked her so adamantly surfaced. In more amenable circumstances, she believed he would have been a gentleman, a man she could admire. One whose friendship she would value.

A pipe dream. It took two to make a friendship. Of all the emotions rampant between them, friendship was not one of them. Nor would it ever be. Unaware of her melancholy sigh, or that Jackson looked at her with something in his eyes that would have shocked her, focusing on the horse, Haley asked, “What was it?”

Jackson had lost the thread of concentration. Brows only a little darker than his auburn hair lifted in question. “‘It?’”

“Sorry.” This was her night for apologies. “I didn’t mean to speak in riddles. Just wondering aloud what else Jesse said.” She glanced at the cowhand, but he shrugged. Jesse had no answer or had delegated that responsibility to the younger man.

“What probably struck you as odd,” Jackson volunteered again, “was his comment that the other horses weren’t seeing what Dancer was imagining.”

“Imagining?” She looked into eyes bearing no shred of anger. “Jesse thought the horse was imagining something?” Before either man could respond, she questioned Jackson. “Did you?”

“At the time, I didn’t think of anything but preventing Dancer from hurting himself.” Unconsciously, he brushed a roughened finger over the start of a bruise. Tomorrow he would have a colorful cheek, maybe a shiner. “Now that I remember Jesse saying it, yes, Dancer acted as if he was hallucinating. Maybe having a sort of seizure, which is ridiculous.”

Hallucinations. Seizure. Induced by an exotic foreign substance? She’d seen it once before. The horse died, because the diagnosis had been made postmortem. If she was lucky… “Jesse, get me a syringe. Jackson, take my bag to a better light.”

When both had done as she’d asked—she was working so quickly and thinking so hard—she hadn’t realized she had given orders. Or that Jackson Cade had obeyed without question. When the syringe was prepared, she stopped to explain. “I think I’ve seen this before. If I’m right and I move quickly enough, we can save your Dancer. But you have to realize this is little more than a wild guess, a gamble. Luck of the draw, so to speak.

“If we had time for tests…”

“Which we don’t,” Jesse reminded her grimly.

In a regretful tone she warned, “If I’m wrong…”

“What you try could kill him.” Oddly, as if he would spare her the grief of the words, Jackson stated the inescapable truth.

“Yes,” she admitted, for there was no other answer.

“In this condition, he’ll die if you don’t try,” Jesse put in, but Haley and Jackson were concentrating so intently on each other, neither heard. Neither needed to hear, for they knew.

“Last ditch,” Jackson murmured.

“So it would seem. But Dancer’s strong…there’s a chance this could run its course before his heart gives out.”

“No,” he disagreed. “You didn’t see him. Even if the next seizure is lighter, he won’t survive it.”

“Then will you trust me? Will you take the risk that I’m right?” Haley knew she faced the challenge of her career. As she’d warned, anything she did from this point on would be sheer guesswork. But with every other avenue exhausted, guesswork was all they had. All there was time for before another onset of Dancer’s madness. Dancer’s deliberately induced madness.

Haley caught a startled breath. Deliberately induced? Certainty came out of nowhere. But every intuition shouted deliberate. The word resounded in her mind like an echoing bell.

She knew little of the operation at River Trace, still less of its stubborn and scornful proprietor. Stubborn and scornful with her, she amended, for she knew of his reputation as a laughing, flirting, kindhearted gentleman. Once, long ago, she’d known his gentleness. Times change, people change. Perhaps the young man who had been kind to a younger, obviously forgotten Haley Garrett, had changed. Perhaps he’d made enemies. Vicious enemies.

A concept she understood all too well. One not beyond the realm of possibility. After all, Jackson Cade had certainly done his best to make an enemy of her.

Dancer tossed his head, then staggered and whickered, a prelude to the screams that had brought her here. “Imagining,” she whispered in a troubled tone, more certain than ever that she was right. There was hope for the horse now, but little time.

Laying a hand on the stall door, she started to enter when a hard, calloused hand covering hers stopped her. “Don’t,” Jackson said. “Whatever this is, it comes in stages. At his worst, he’s too dangerous for you to take this risk. I’m sorry.”

True regret flickered over his craggy, attractive face, startling Haley. Before she could protest that this was her job and that this was neither the first nor the last time she would face a dangerous creature, his clasp tightened, his fingers circling the back of her hand and her palm.

“I shouldn’t have interrupted your evening, Duchess.” This time the name lacked the sting it had carried before. If this hadn’t been Jackson, if he hadn’t proven time and again he had little use for her as a vet or a person, it could have been a nickname. The sort a friend might bestow on a friend.

Friends? Mutely she scoffed at her choice of words. Of the things she and Jackson might become as a result of this night, she’d already decided friendship could never be one of them.

“But you did make the call. A call I’ve waited…” Haley stopped short, only then admitting it was true. She had waited for his call, for the day he would need her. A startling admission she would need to give greater thought…but later, when his blue gaze didn’t burn into hers, making anger and animosity meaningless.

Gathering scattered thoughts, she turned her attention to the cause of her journey. “I’m here for a purpose. Your horse needs attention. Now, Jackson, before it’s too late.”

“He’ll be dangerous. Too dangerous.”

“Because he’s a fighter, yes, he will,” Haley agreed. “But he’s only restless now. Whatever this is, it’s building. If I move quickly, hopefully I can find what I’m looking for. If I do and if my half-educated guess turns out to be lucky and right, what I’m trying might counteract it.”

“‘Educated guess’? ‘Luck’?” It wasn’t an admission he’d expected. He’d set his mind so strongly against her, he’d never considered what he should expect from her.

Pretending his touch and the softening of his demeanor didn’t incite emotions she wasn’t ready to deal with, Haley was determined to do the job she’d been summoned to do. Glancing at a clock visible beyond Jackson, she found this exchange that seemed to go on forever had, from beginning to now, spanned just nine minutes. Even that little time was too much. Too long.

Certain she was losing her window of opportunity, if there was one, she restated an inescapable truth. “You’ve never wanted me here. That you’ve called me tonight can only mean that you knew anything I might do was a last-ditch effort.

“Look at him, Jackson.” Because she’d seen beyond the stubborn arrogance, because she’d felt the pain he guarded so carefully, she called his name softly. Hardly aware of what she did, with her free hand she touched his shoulder in compassion. “Time’s running out, for Dancer and for me.”

“No.” Jackson couldn’t explain why he was resisting this. He’d called for her help. When all else had failed, Dancer’s survival rested, finally, in Haley Garrett’s hands. The hands of a duchess, despite the calluses and blunt nails.

Over the telephone, it was a matter of course to consider that she should do this. But when she stood before him, so tiny and yet so determined, he realized how impossible it was that she face a half ton of maddened horseflesh.

“You can’t. When I called, I didn’t realize…” His voice drifted into silence. His hand tightened over hers, his shoulders lifted, as he made a choice consigning Dancer to certain death. “I’m sorry, Duchess. I shouldn’t have interrupted the concert or your date with Daniel.”

“It wasn’t Daniel, and this is what I trained years to do. Why I relocated in Belle Terre and joined Lincoln’s practice.”

The exhausted stallion snuffled and took a stumbling step. Haley looked from Jackson to the horse and back. “Dancer isn’t the first crazed creature I’ve confronted in my life and in my work. He won’t be the last.”

“Let her go, Jackson.” Jesse spoke into the impasse. “I’ve seen your duchess in action. She can handle this and Dancer. Probably better than you or me.”

As Jesse distracted him, Haley moved beyond Jackson’s grasp. Syringe ready, she slipped through the stable door.




Two


Jackson Cade stood at the bedroom window. The bedroom he’d chosen as his when he’d bought the derelict farm the once-proud plantation had become. In debt up to his ears to the Bank of Belle Terre, he’d worked day and night, pouring his heart and his soul—and every spare penny—into the land.

When the effort seemed too much, his goal too impossible, it was this window and the view that kept him going. It was his measuring stick, the tally of his successes and his failures.

“How many times?” he wondered out loud. How many times had he stood here in dawn’s light, watching the changes a day brought to the land. The changes his labor wrought as he reclaimed first one pasture then another. Acre by grueling acre.

Even with Lincoln and Jefferson helping, progress had been slow. More times than he could remember, he’d wanted to give it up. To count River Trace as Jackson Cade’s folly. Then he would stand at this window at dawn. As his heart lifted with the sun, burdens seemed lighter, and impossible was only a word.

His first stud had been mediocre, not in keeping with the horse’s own bloodlines, but its colts had had a way of reverting to an excellence that had gone before. A gamble, but there had been those willing to take the chance for that rare, splendid colt.

With the stud fees he’d added a second stud and another pasture, and his name became a whisper in all the right circles. Jackson Cade and Cade horses became a coveted secret. Then Adams sold Cade Enterprises, insisting a share of the absurd sum go to his brothers. They became silent legal partners, having no idea they were partners, whom Adams credited with being as responsible for the ridiculously simple invention a competing company fancied.

When the dust of the family battle settled, there were funds earmarked to set Belle Reve, the floundering family plantation, aright, and to keep it that way. Millions were left to be divided between brothers. Adams would have it no other way.

Gus Cade’s sons, who had known nothing but hard work and penny-pinching times, were suddenly free of their beloved tyrant. And affluent into the bargain. But little had changed in their lives.

Adams stayed in the lowcountry and married Eden, the woman he’d loved forever. With her, he began rescuing the uninhabited and neglected houses of Belle Terre’s infamous Fancy Row. Bringing grace and dignity to derelicts that a century before, in an accepted practice, grandly sheltered mistresses and second families of wealthy Southern planters and businessmen.

Lincoln brought his veterinary office and equipment to state-of-the-art, bought a Jaguar, a pied-à-terre on a secluded street in Belle Terre and left the rest for Adams to invest.

And Jeffie?

Jackson smiled as the name tumbled into his thoughts. Who knew about Jeffie? He still hunted, still fished, still painted. He worked with the horses at Belle Reve and River Trace. And still had no idea the female population practically swooned at his feet.

A low laugh sounded in the pale darkness of Jackson’s bedroom as first light gleamed beyond the window. A laugh of pleasure in his youngest brother. For, if all the rest of their lives had changed little, Jefferson’s hadn’t changed at all.

“Nor mine, truly.” His life, his workload, his goals, were the same. Only River Trace had changed. Most of his own share of what he would always think of as Adams’s millions had been poured into the farm. First replacing a barn that had burned. Arson, but with no motive discovered, nor any suspect.

Except the Rabbs, a local family waging a one-sided feud. An old enmity, sparked by jealousy of the Cades’s misperceived wealth and anger over too many lost brawls. Jealousy and anger that turned to hate and danger and threatened tragedy.

With no proof and no more incidents, he’d filed his suspicions away. After the barn, he’d recouped and restored the last of the acres included in the original grant on which River Trace had been built. And, finally, the breeding stock. The studs, more and more costly studs.

Last came Cade’s Irish Dancer. The stallion on which he’d gambled his dreams and the financial future of River Trace.

“I almost lost it,” he muttered. “In a single night, I almost lost the dream.”

As if it had lifted out of the east pasture, the sun climbed slowly into the sky, casting light over fields of grain waiting to be harvested. Miles of white fences gleaming like rose-gold ribbons traversed and intersected the velvet green of rich, grassy pastures. Horses snuffling dew-beaded grass were sleek and sassy, and so beautiful it hurt to watch them.

Paradise. Yes, for Jackson, the land he surveyed from his bedroom window was no less than that. Paradise lost, but for a tiny slip of a woman. A brave, savvy, fool-hearted woman, a woman he’d been determined to dislike from his first glimpse of her.

He’d rejected her help time and again. Yet when he called, she came. He insulted her, she kept her cool. He acted the boor—keeping her dignity, she made him the fool.

When all he had lay on the brink of destruction, with perception, compassion and ill-advised courage, at great cost to herself she had cared for a maddened creature and saved the day.

“No.” He turned from the window to the bed where she slept, recovering from her near brush with death the previous night when a crazed Dancer had flung her violently against the wall of his stall. “She saved the night, my horse, and my home.” Crossing to the chair where he’d spent all but the last few minutes keeping watch, he settled down to wait for Haley Garrett to awake.



The grandfather clock in the foyer had boomed the hour five times since Jackson Cade had put Haley in his bed. Four of those times she hadn’t heard or stirred. On the fifth, she did.

Slowly, not quite awake, not quite asleep, her lashes fluttered but didn’t lift from her cheeks. As the clock fell silent, a frown crossed her face, then was gone.

Six o’clock. She was late. She should be worried, but couldn’t muster the energy. Not remembering the night, thinking only of the time, she stirred, beginning a languid stretch, and a sharp pain threatened to slice her in two.

“Oh-hh.” An unfinished breath stopped in her lungs. Lashes that had just begun to rise from her cheeks at last, fluttered down in an effort to seal away a world too bright and an agony too sharp. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t move, as muscles across her back and midriff held her in paralytic misery.

Denying the pain, she tried to move again, and her teeth clenched a second too late to bite back a groan. A sound that brought with it the fleeting stroke of a hand across her brow. One offering comfort, but she didn’t understand.

“No,” she whispered hoarsely, and turned away.

“Shh. Everything’s all right, thanks to you. You’re all right,” a voice assured.

Thanks to you. Thanks to you. She’d heard the routine before, trying to soothe what couldn’t be soothed, undo what couldn’t be undone, by planting a lie. God help her, she’d heard it all before and didn’t want to hear it again. Keeping her eyes closed tightly, weary of an old struggle, she whispered, “Don’t.”

Haley was too tired. The words hurt too much. “Just don’t.” In the darkness of her world she shuddered as the bed dipped beneath his weight. “Go away, Todd. Leave me alone.”

“Shh, shh. Easy,” A deep voice, not the obsequious wheedle she expected. “I’m not Todd, Duchess. I don’t think I’d like to be. But I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to.”

The voice she’d heard soothing a frighten, crazed horse. Soothing her as gently.

“Jackson?” Gold-tipped lashes lifted. As she risked the turn to face him, eyes once as brilliant as a bluebird’s wing were shadowed with more than physical hurt. Her gaze cleared, settling on his frowning features. As she remembered the night and the clock, deducing where she was, she checked a sharply drawn breath. Agony as sharp as the first crushed her ribs and spine in its vise.

Jackson watched her pallor grow more ghostly, and under his breath he cursed a man called Todd for sins he couldn’t name, and himself for his own folly. “You’re safe, Haley. And, because of you, so is Dancer.”

“Dancer.” The name fell from stiff lips as she remembered the stallion suffering the throes of madness. “He’s alive?”

“Thanks to you. He’ll need some time to recover, but eventually he should be good as new.”

“How? When?” Haley was discovering there was a gap in her memory. The last she remembered was taking her hand from Jackson’s and slipping into Dancer’s stall.

“You guessed right on the cause of his symptoms. He was on the edge of another siege when you got the needle in him. Whether it was the needle, the injection, or the cycle of the fits, Dancer sidestepped into you, pinning you against the stall wall.”

To Jackson’s disgust, by the time he’d recognized Haley’s intent, it was too late. Dancer had knocked her away as if she weighed nothing at all. She’d crumpled into a heap nearly beneath the horse’s flying hooves before Jackson could get to her. The time it took to tear open the stall door so that he could shield her was the longest of his life.

“You have a bad bruise.” Because he’d let her go. “And you’ll be sore awhile.” His fault, for calling her at all. “But Coop says you’ll be right as rain in a week or so.”

“Coop? Cooper.” She focused on the name, questioning and interpreting all at once. She heard nothing else Jackson said once she knew he was speaking of the dashing Davis Cooper, Belle Terre’s physician and bachelor extraordinaire. Her escort for the concert. A friend who, over dinner, had subtly made her aware that he’d like more than friendship from her.

Abruptly, in her rush to answer the call to River Trace, she’d left him with barely an explanation or a backward glance. Not the way to treat a kind and gallant man. A would-be lover.

Haley struggled to sit up, unaware that in her cautious efforts the broad shoulder of the shirt she wore slipped down her arm. “I should have called him. I should explain.” Not sure what Davis Cooper should know, or how she could begin to explain what she didn’t understand herself, she abandoned the muddled thought. “I need to apologize.”

“For what, Duchess?” Jackson zeroed in on the little of the ramble he could decipher. “For doing your job? And doing it too zealously and too well?”

An understatement and a far cry from what he’d expected of her. No matter that she was Lincoln’s associate, or that his brother would not choose a partner with lesser standards than he expected of himself. In his own stubborn mind-set Jackson knew he’d been unreasonable, believing only the worst of her.

“How I do my job isn’t the point.”

“Isn’t it?” A questioning eyebrow inched up. A typical Jackson Cade reaction, usually accompanied by a teasing smile. But at the moment, with his conscience in turmoil, the typical Jackson Cade was having trouble finding anything to smile about. “Do you really believe that?”

“Of course I do. My work, underdone or excessive, isn’t the point of the apology. Common courtesy is. Cooper behaved like a gentleman, the least I can be in return is considerate.”

Touché, Jackson thought, though he knew there was no intended barb in the remark. He suspected she’d tolerantly filed away the memory of his behavior in the barn as one more Cade foible. If she remembered at all. Suddenly Jackson wasn’t sure he liked being dismissed so easily. Even at his insufferable best.

Indifference. The passiveness of indifference was the last thing he expected from Haley Garrett. As she lay in his bed, with his shirt refusing to stay properly in place, he had no idea what he wanted. Or didn’t want…except indifference.

“You can pay your dues to protocol later,” he suggested after a pause in which his damnable shirt slipped another mesmerizing inch. “But…” He stopped, then continued his lecture. “I assure you an apology is neither due nor expected.

“Had the circumstances been reversed, don’t fool yourself into thinking Coop would hesitate about leaving you. In the middle of a concert, in the middle of dinner, in the middle of…” His teeth clenched, briefly halting the outpouring. “Never mind about that one. What I’m saying is, that if a patient needs him, Coop’s like a horse with blinders. Because he’s so single-minded himself, he’ll understand about last night.”

Haley couldn’t be so certain. “Maybe. If he knew the whole story, and how grave Dancer’s situation had become.”

“He knows, Haley. Coop was here last night.” With a careful touch, Jackson leaned her back against a stack of pillows and adjusted the shirt. More for his own comfort than Haley’s. He was perturbed by what a glimpse of the curve of her bare shoulder had done to him. This was hardly the time or place for lust.

In any time or place, he reminded himself, the Duchess was all he’d schooled himself to dislike in a woman.

“Cooper’s here? Now?”

With the repetition of Cooper’s name, something altered in her face, even the shade of her eyes seemed to change. Jackson wasn’t sure what it meant, and he discovered he didn’t like it.

“It’s morning.” The paling sky had turned from red-gray to ever-changing blue. Light fell through ancient panes joining the dim glow of a single lamp. “Time all good little surgeons were at their operating tables.”

“Morning?” She had forgotten the striking clock.

“It was morning before you finished in the barn. It’s only a little later now.” There were no roses in her cheeks, but like her perception, her color improved by the minute.

Turning her head carefully, Haley realized she was in a very masculine bedroom. Obviously Jackson’s bedroom, not a guest bedroom. “That means I’ve been here for the remainder of the night?”

“What there was left after Cooper examined you.”

“Cooper examined me?” As her mind cleared, she realized she sounded like a broken record. She laughed, and rued the impulse.

“Maybe you think Coop is deserving of an apology, but he would disagree. The way he sees it, he was an unchivalrous idiot to let you drive to River Trace alone. He arrived less than a minute after Dancer did his number on you.”

“His number? On me?” Her back felt more as if a steam-roller had flattened her, not a horse.

“He bucked, flinging you like a ball.”

“You got me out.” She didn’t remember, but it wasn’t a question. Jackson might dislike her, he might regard her veterinary skills and professional dedication as suspect, but he wouldn’t stand idly by if she were in danger.

“With Jesse’s help.” Jackson spoke casually, leaving out every nuance of fear that had raced through him like cold fire.

He’d been wild when he’d thought she’d been crushed against the wall with all the brute’s weight. Wilder when hooves that would have cut her fragile flesh to ribbons stomped over and over, narrowly missing her as she lay unconscious on the floor. Fear and galvanizing panic had given him strength he hadn’t known he possessed. He didn’t tell her that if Jesse hadn’t kept a cooler head, calming Jackson as much as the horse, he would have killed Dancer with his bare hands. Nor that when she was safe, but he didn’t know the extent of her injuries, he was a madman.

“Then Cooper came?” Haley frowned and pressed a massaging finger against her temple as she tried to make sense of the chain of events by putting them in proper sequence.

Jackson’s head barely moved in a nod. “Cooper came.”

Like a gift of fate, Cooper had arrived in the midst of the worst of Jackson’s worry. And promptly threatened to eject him from his own barn, even forbidding him to watch, if he didn’t stop hovering and cool down. Throughout the cursory examination conducted outside the stall, Jackson had paced. Impotent, helpless, a banished animal. After Cooper’s determination that the bump on her head was simply a bump on the head, he continued with assurance that the breath had merely been knocked from her lungs when her back crashed into the wall.

Merely? Merely! Jackson had roared, adding angrily that he didn’t see much damned difference, since Haley, by damn, certainly appeared to be unconscious. Unconscious and still. Frighteningly, heart-stoppingly still.

“He examined me?” Her eyes widened. If any trace of lethargy remained, the idea of being unaware and at the mercy of three men—three disparate men—brought it to a screeching end.

“You weren’t exactly yourself.” He saw confusion and chagrin in her face. It pleased him to see this coolly controlled and professionally confident woman falter. The pleasure was short-lived as the militant conscience of a gentleman, however reluctant, kicked in. “I doubt even Superwoman would be herself after being body-slammed by the stallion from hell.”

“Body-slammed.” Haley sighed and ignored the penalty the stupidity levied. Jackson painted a good description of the little she remembered. “Knocked the breath out of me, did he?”

Though she’d paled with the sigh, she tried to hide it behind a wry smile. After hours of watching her, Jackson had grown familiar with every nuance of her mobile features. He saw the pain but respected her efforts by making no comment beyond addressing her supposition. “Among Dancer’s destructive behaviors, there was that. Along with a bump on the head.

“Which Coop assured me wasn’t as much the reason you were lying in a puddle like a discarded doll as the breath thing.” Anger kindled again as Jackson remembered how calm and controlled Cooper had been. As if a horse of River Trace causing injury to a beautiful woman were an everyday affair. “Which I told him was a damned fool thing to say. For, as far as I could see, unconscious was unconscious, no matter the cause.”

After that cynical remark from Jackson, Coop had given her something to ease her enough that she would sleep. Then he’d launched into a detailed explanation, comparing Haley’s condition with a child’s tantrum, held breath and all. Before he could stop himself, Jackson had snapped back that in case Coop was too blind to notice, Haley wasn’t exactly a child. And, in case Coop was too stupid to understand that tackling frenzied horses did not include holding one’s breath, he ought to try one or both someday.

Cooper laughed then, with Jesse’s guffaws joining in, while both watched him with smug, knowing looks. Which only made Jackson angrier, more frustrated. Which, he decided, excused him for being ornery. Explaining why Cooper’s offer to take her to Jackson’s bedroom—where, Coop pointedly reminded him, Jackson had insisted she rest and recover—was summarily dismissed. Which, to his mounting ire, produced another round of smiles.

It was the final straw when Cooper volunteered to stay. By then, finally convinced the Duchess was truly all right, and fed up with both Coop and Jesse, he nearly pushed each man out of the room. Then, gracelessly, he’d instructed Jesse to see to Dancer. With no more grace he suggested Cooper go home and wait for the next call, instead of dropping in.

Then he’d shut the door in their grinning faces.

“Why?” Jackson didn’t realize he’d spoken the word out loud. The word he’d asked himself more times than he could count as he’d sat by her bed through the few hours left of the night. Why had he been so cavalier with Haley when, after all, he had called her? When her only sin, beyond interrupting a special evening to rush to River Trace, was wanting to help? Why had he been irritable with Cooper, whose arrival had been a godsend?

And Jesse? The man worked tirelessly, asking no quarter, giving none, as he fought for Dancer and with Dancer. Jackson knew his treatment of the old hand was unforgivable.

“Ask for help, then spit in the eye of any who do,” he muttered, and turned from the bed and from Haley, to stare at the dawn that had become full-fledged morning.

“Is that what you call it?” Haley’s voice was strained as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and rested her bare feet on the floor. Bare feet. She didn’t want to think about that. Or that she was naked under the shirt she knew was Jackson’s. Except for her panties. He’d left her that small shred of pride.

“Is that what I call—” Jackson had spun away from the window. In long, hurried steps he returned to her bedside. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

“I don’t think, Jackson. I know.” Hands clutching the mattress, she tilted her head to meet his blazing gaze. “I’m getting out of your bed. And, if you’ll bring my clothes, out of your shirt as well.”

“You can’t.”

“No?” The anger she’d conquered hours ago for the sake of a suffering animal flared now at the fierce arrogance. “Watch me.”

The minute the words left her mouth, she knew her boast was worse than his bark. But pride wouldn’t let her back down now. She knew something of her dilemma must have shown in her face when she felt his arms circling her, lifting her gingerly to her feet.

“Thank you,” she murmured when she felt steady enough to speak. Glancing down at his muscular arms dusted with a pale auburn down, and conscious of his hands pressed against her back, strong fingers supporting, caressing, she whispered almost breathlessly, “You can let me go now.”

“Of course.” Jackson stepped back. His hands moved from her back to her shoulders, trailed down her arms, then curled over her clammy fingers. “You’re sure you can do this?”

“I’m sure. So long as I don’t need to tackle another horse anytime soon, I’ll be fine.”

Jackson laughed then, and released her. “Yes, you will, won’t you? Be fine, I mean.”

“It wasn’t the first time…”

“I know,” he interrupted softly. “Nor the last.”

“I’m repeating myself.” This time she didn’t laugh.

“Doesn’t matter.” A gesture called her attention to a door opposite the hall. “The bath’s there. A nice hot soak should feel good about now. If you don’t find all you need, just yell.”

“So long as the water’s hot, I’ll be fine.”

“Somehow I thought you would be. Since that’s the case, I’ll leave you to your bath, Duchess. In the meantime, I should be able to find some fresh clothes for you among Merrie’s things.”

“Merrie?” Haley knew she shouldn’t be surprised there was a woman in Jackson’s life. But she was. A dozen, maybe. No, not maybe, definitely. But not just one.

“Merrie Alexandre,” Jackson explained. “A university student who lived for a while with Eden and Adams. Between classes, and on weekends when she needs to escape her apartment mates, she helps here with the horses. Because she stays over when she works late, she keeps several changes of clothing here.”

Jackson let his gaze trail over Haley, lingering, remembering. But with none of the disdain of before. There wasn’t much of her. but what there was, he’d discovered, was flawless.

Lastly, his gaze returned to her hair. The mane of pale gold Dancer knocked partially from the perfect coil, and he finished taking down, untangling it before putting her to bed. Even now he remembered the feel of strands like silk slipping through his fingers, the clean fragrance drifting from it. Enchanting. Enticing. Pale locks that would bind a man to her.

There were new tangles now, and his fingers curled as he thought of smoothing them again. Jackson rebuffed the thought and the path it was taking. Instead he moved to the bedroom door, opened it and stood with escape from his own awakening desire looming a step away. “You’re smaller, but I think I can find something that will serve. But don’t worry, Merrie won’t mind.”

Before she could even think to worry, Jackson stepped into the hall and shut the door. Haley was alone. “Alone in the bedroom of Jackson Cade,” she reminded herself as she wandered to the bathroom. “It’s just as well, considering that this show of kindness is contrition of the moment.

“Next week, this will be forgotten,” Haley predicted as she turned on the taps, discarded Jackson’s shirt and stepped into steaming water. “Next week he’ll hate me again.”



“‘My apologies. Called away, but not for long. Dancer’s fine, you needn’t check him. Wait. Rest. I’ll see you home.’”

Haley read out loud the note she’d found on the bed along with a selection of Merrie Alexandre’s clothing. Crumpling the hastily scrawled missive, she let it fall to the floor along with the towel covering her from breasts to hips. Then she proceeded to dress, admiring the younger woman’s taste, and disconcerted by Jackson’s evident skill in making choices in women’s clothing.

When she’d finished, she wondered briefly where her own clothes might be. Then, with a dismissive shrug, she counted them lost. Once the towel had been dropped in the clothes chute, her hair twisted into a helter-skelter knot and secured with what pins she could find, then the bed put in order, she was ready to go.

“Not one trace,” she murmured. “He won’t even remember I was here.” Spying the note lying on the floor, she scooped it up and stuffed it into the pocket of the borrowed jeans. Making one last survey, pleased by the utter perfection she was leaving behind, she left it behind.

As she hurried to the barn, anxious to check on Dancer before the master of the house returned, Haley reflected that it felt good to be back in jeans and boots. And even the soft but sturdy blouse that tugged a bit too snugly across her breasts. Merrie was obviously slender, with a more adolescent figure. And, either she wore no bras, she’d taken all of that particular sort of garment back to her apartment, or Jackson had forgotten.

A breeze was just kicking up, in it lay the promise of rain. Nothing was prettier than a lowcountry rain falling like streaks of silver and gold as the sun would alternately hide or shine. Haley loved the autumn showers, and in anticipation she crossed the cobblestone path to the barn with a less guarded step. Her back still ached, but the soak and simply moving had eased it into a manageable state.

A draft skittered around the side of the barn, rattled the metal rings of rigging, and set a gate banging. The fabric of her shirt was supple enough to cling, sturdy enough to not be indecently revealing, and rough enough that with the movement of her body coupled with the efforts of the breeze, it brushed over the tips of her breasts, teasing her nipples to a pleasant tingle.

Haley’s soft laugh at this secret pleasure was cut short by a low, deep bellow.

“What the hell are you doing here, and why the devil are you dressed like that?”

Spinning, she nearly collided with Jackson. As he glared down at her, she smiled with a calculated pleasantness, then sobered, assuming her most professional demeanor. “I’m here to check my patient. I’m dressed as I am because these are the clothes you chose for me.”

“Then I made a mistake.”

“Evidently you did. And, given your attitude, it’s just as evident that before we’re done with each other, it won’t be your last mistake.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Duchess?”

“You figure it out, Mr. Cade.” Smiling another, equally calculated smile, she sauntered away.

“Who’s Todd?” he called, expecting a reaction. Wanting one. Needing one.

His probing salvo produced nothing, not so much as a stumble in her step. With a dismissive waggle of her fingers, and maddeningly calm, she called back, “Todd’s no one you need be concerned with. He’s no one. No one at all, anymore.”




Three


Five days. Five long, long days.

Frowning as he put the thought and its unacceptable implication out of his mind, Jackson flicked a glance at Jesse Lee. Beyond the usual half-mumbled good morning, each wrapped up in their own thoughts, their own chores, they’d spent most of the day barely speaking until they walked together to the west pasture. The pasture most visible from the entrance of the faded and tattered manor, where Dancer had been allowed his first day of true freedom. But only under the watchful eyes of guards strategically posted by Jericho Rivers, sheriff of Belle Terre and the surrounding county bearing the same name as the city.

It rankled, having armed men roaming the farm. The idea of strangers, regardless of how unobtrusive they were, tramping the land, disturbed and disrupted what had been a gratifying routine. But Jericho insisted. As a friend, as well as the local legal authority, he feared the crisis with Dancer was more than an isolated incident, and perhaps a resurgence of the vandalism that had burned Jackson’s first new barn at River Trace to the ground. An unsolved crime that troubled Jericho. Now, as much as years ago.

Though he agreed with the need for the precautions, though he was more than grateful for Jericho’s men, Jackson hated the atmosphere of an armed camp. He mourned the loss of the peaceful innocence that had settled over his land since the fire.

Peaceful or dangerously complacent? he wondered now, and was surprised. Complacency wasn’t his nature. In fact, it was the last emotion he would ever be accused of harboring. Whatever he felt, right or wrong, he felt strongly. Obstinately.

“Yeah,” he admitted under his breath. “Obstinate. Right, and especially wrong.”

“You talkin’ to yourself, boy?”

Jackson looked down at Jesse and shrugged. “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“Well, I hope you’re a mite friendlier to yourself than you’ve been to some other folks I could name.”

“That bad, huh?”

“I’d say so.”

“But you’re still here. Why, Jesse?”

“Two reasons. First, you need me. Second, I figger your mad will pass, at least where I’m concerned.”

“Have I thanked you? For what you did? For staying now?”

“No. But I ’spect you will. In time.”

Jackson nodded silently and turned away. He owed Jesse far more than his thanks. The man was a walking encyclopedia on commonsense horse training and treatment. It was Jesse he’d called first. In the time following the stallion’s strange malady, the cowhand had spent most of his waking hours at River Trace, calling on Jefferson for help, then leaving the stock at Belle Reve in his capable hands. Lounging now at Jackson’s side, face shadowed by the hat brim tipped down against the late-afternoon glare, with his arms folded over the top rail of the fence, his keen regard never turned from the pasture.

“He looks good,” Jackson ventured after a while.

“Yep.” Jesse tracked the horse cantering across the pasture. “Friskier than a new colt.” Slanting a sly assessing look at Jackson, he muttered half under his breath, “Which is more than I can say for you. Along with being grumpier than a junkyard dog looking for a leg to bite, you look like hell.”

Warming to the subject, the older man studied Jackson’s haggard features. “You know, for a man who just had his dream handed back to him by the prettiest little gal to come along in quite a spell, you don’t look half as happy as I’d expect. Fact is, instead of being all smiles like any sensible human being should, lately you got more creases across your forehead left from frowning than this fence post has ridges.”

Jackson bristled, proving Jesse’s comment. “Let’s see if I get your point, Jesse. Which am I, mean as a junkyard dog? Dumb as a post? A little of both? Or can’t you decide?”

“Oh, I decided,” Jesse responded mildly, refusing to be riled or distracted. “You helped me decide that sometime past. And by the way, you left out mule-headed.” Before Jackson could bristle again, he patted a hard, broad shoulder. “What’s the matter, boy? Not sleepin’ so good these days?”

“I’m sleeping all I need to sleep.” A mild exaggeration, but the sharpness eased out of Jackson’s tone. Jesse was nosy, he pried, he meddled, he gossiped, but from the day he’d come to the lowcountry in answer to Jefferson’s appeal for help, the best interests and well-being of the Cade family had become his first priority. Jefferson’s younger years spent in Arizona working on the Rafter B for Jake Benedict had proven to be a godsend in many ways, Jesse Lee’s loyalty not the least of them. In the balance, a little prying and meddling was a small cost to pay.

“All you need? Humph!” Jesse plucked a splinter from the rail, studied it closely, then flicked it away. “Don’t appear so to me. In another week, what with the shadows lying under your eyes like blue hammocks and gettin’ darker by the day, you’re gonna look like the losing end of a bar hopper’s brawl.”

An innocent look wiped the worry from the cowhand’s face. Too innocent, as he shrugged. “Considering the extra security set in all the barns and around the pastures, by doggies, I can’t rightly see what’s keeping you awake.”

“We had security before. Not so tight, of course, but security. If I’m short of any sleep, I suppose it’s because I keep remembering Dancer as he was then.” Mild exaggeration had grown into bald lies. Or almost, by omission. For what Jackson couldn’t get out of his mind was not just Dancer’s screams, or even his critical condition.

No. What had him jerking from his dreams in a cold sweat was Haley Garrett. Like a tableau forever imprinted in both his waking and sleeping memory, the vision of that small, beautiful woman clinging to a frenzied brute of a horse played like a movie without end over and over in his mind.

He could still hear the sickening sound of her body striking wood. He saw flashing hooves flailing out in madness, falling ever nearer the unconscious woman. He still struggled to open a gate with fingers made clumsy with fear. And always there was the specter of being too late.

It was a nightmare that first sent him fleeing his bed, then left him sleepless, pacing and wrestling with yet another memory. The memory of undressing her, made too vivid by the night, a waking dream emblazoned forever on his mind by day.

Even now as his hands flexed within his gloves, the brush of soft leather became the brush of Haley’s softer, naked flesh. He had only to close his eyes to remember her tawny skin burnished by the fall of lamplight, the fullness of her breasts with nipples dusky and barely furled like newly bloomed rosebuds.

In his more lucid times, he wondered why his memories confused him. From his first glimpse of her on the day she arrived in Belle Terre, a glimpse that sent every male hormone into feverish response and set every mental warning bell jangling, he knew she was trouble. Trouble with a capital T. Right then, right there, in the middle of Lincoln’s office, he’d turned tail and bolted like a scared yearling. Then, as if escaping that first introduction wasn’t enough, he held himself aloof, rebuffing every near meeting or close social encounter with a grim determination bordering on surly.

Surly, boorish, tactless, cruel. Hell, given his performance in the barn, he wasn’t sure his vocabulary held enough words to describe his behavior.

And from the first, his efforts had been for naught. No matter how he avoided the woman of flesh and blood, in spirit Haley Garrett haunted him. No matter where he might go, or didn’t go, at some time Lincoln’s new partner would be mentioned.

At the local stockmen’s meetings, at the inn, with his brothers, in his own blasted barns—at the feed-and-seed supply store, even the damned grocer’s—as sure as breathing, her name tripped off someone’s tongue. Then she would become the topic of conversation. And though he tried to not listen, he did. Like a man too long without water discovering a sweet, cool well, he drank in every word.

Each time he kicked himself afterward. Each time he denied he felt anything more than the fascination that goes hand in hand with aversion. Oh, he fought and struggled, he resisted and denied, and still the next time would be the same.

Haley wasn’t a fool. She wasn’t obtuse. Even the rare times he was subtle, she got the message. She knew how little he thought of her and her sort. If by some far-fetched chance she should misread him, he never let her forget. Even though he’d never been rude, crude, or anything less than a gentleman to any woman before. Ever. Lady Mary, his elderly, impoverished, and genteel instructor in deportment, had drummed Southern gentlemanly honor into each of Gus Cade’s rowdy sons with astonishing success.

In all his years, Jackson had never strayed from that sweet lady’s indelible instructions. Until Haley. Then there were no holds barred, no behavior too extreme. Even twinges of conscience weren’t enough to dissuade him from his unreasonable vendetta.

He was unkind and cruelly mocking. Yet, when he’d needed her, she hadn’t hesitated, or bristled, or backed down. Most of all, she’d refused to let him self-destruct by pushing her away one more time. Rather than exacting retribution for past mistakes, she’d pacified without groveling, and with dignity, called a truce. That small miracle accomplished, calmly and coolly competent, she’d done what she’d been called to do.

She’d saved his horse. But more than that, as Jesse pointedly reminded Jackson, she’d preserved the dream that had become his reason for living.

His antipathy for confident professional women was a learned response, based on one woman but applied to all for too many years for him to change. Yet only a fool wouldn’t realize he should rethink the sweeping assessment. And Jackson had. At least in Haley’s case. Though he wasn’t changing, and only adjusting, the last insult had been hurled. The last skirmish fought. But he knew she would still haunt him. There could be no escape from his dreams of Haley Garrett, slender, fragile, almost perfect, buttoned chastely into his best silk shirt. His pillow would always carry the scent of his soaps and oils as altered by her body chemistry. No matter how pristine the linens, in his mind they would always shimmer with locks the color of captured sunlight.

Locks he’d drawn from their pins and combed with his fingers, wondering all the while how each shining strand would feel flowing over his body. And for just a little while, an impossible thought intruded. One he knew he couldn’t allow, as he’d put her gently into his bed. Then, resolutely turning from her, he’d left her to sleep away the effect of Davis Cooper’s sedative.

Once she’d left the farm, Jackson had thought to escape this malady—to ease the attraction. Now that he understood there was but one means of ease, and escape was impossible, his only recourse was to keep his perspective, control his male urges, and coexist.

Yes. That was the solution. Perhaps then, in keeping with another truce, Jackson Cade and Haley Garrett could be casual acquaintances. The sort of people who meet on the street and exchange meaningless pleasantries. No longer antagonists. Not quite friends.

And never, ever lovers! No matter that she set every male impulse raging within him like wildfire. But, if he went carefully, if he minded his P’s and Q’s as Lady Mary had taught him…ah, yes, they could coexist.

“…a tough time of it.”

“What?” Drawn from his thoughts and pleased with his resolution, Jackson’s temper flared at Jesse’s observation. “What’s tough about it? If I set my mind to it, I’ll just do it.”

Jesse’s puzzled look questioned Jackson’s immediate sanity. “Would you like to tell me what the dickens you’re talking about? Or explain what it is you’ve set your mind to?”

Casting a wry smile at the cowhand, and stoking a hand over the taut muscles of his neck, Jackson shook his head. “Sorry, Jesse. I was thinking of something else. Nothing important.”

Jesse’s faded gaze narrowed. “Judging from your reaction just now, I’m not sure I would call it nothing important.”

“But I did,” Jackson reminded him. “So, since that’s settled, would you like to repeat what you were saying?”

“Which part?” Jesse drawled.

“Which part? What does that mean?”

“It means I’ve been jawing at you for the last five minutes, and if you heard a word of it, I’ll eat my hat.”

Jackson laughed. His peace made with himself, his path set, his mood improved. “With or without salt and pepper?”

“Won’t need neither one, will I?”

“No.” A slow grin accompanied the admission.

“I don’t reckon it would do a speck of good to speculate where your mind wandered off to,” Jesse ventured.

“Don’t reckon it would,” Jackson agreed. “So why don’t you run what you were saying by me again? At least the last part.”

“Be glad to.” Jesse’s tone was just a little smug. “I was saying Dancer’s had a tough time. But he snapped back real quick-like. For sure, he’s a handsome brute today, but I wouldn’t a give a plugged nickel for him five days ago.”

There it was again. The count. Five days and fourteen hours ago, to be exact. To Jackson’s mounting disquiet, like keeping score at a sporting event, keeping the hourly count had become the measure of his days, changing his nights.

First it was one day. Then two, next three and four. Now it was five days since Haley Garrett had answered his call, done what she considered no more and no less than her duty. Then, as if nothing extraordinary had occurred, she’d walked out of his life straight into his dreams.

Since the morning after, which was Jackson’s true timetable, there had been no word from her. No interest in Dancer’s progress. No anything. Probably because Davis Cooper was keeping her so busy. Coop made no secret that he’d like to add Haley to his list of conquests. “Still,” Jackson muttered sourly, “busy or not, you’d think…”





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