Gavin wanted Sabrina more than ever—not just for the mine or because he liked her protective lioness attitude toward Henry, but because the passion she ignited inside him promised to be stronger than any he’d experienced before. Convincing her to test that passion would be a challenge, but he liked nothing better than tackling obstacles. He’d built his professional reputation on making a success out of projects others deemed impossible.
Peeling off his gloves, he stomped the light dusting of snow off his boots and knocked on the kitchen door Thursday morning. Caldwell opened the door and glanced past him. “Bringing out the big guns, ain’t you?”
“Yessir.”
“C’mon in and pour yourself a cup of coffee. Sabrina will be in momentarily.”
“Thanks, but I have a thermos of coffee in the carriage along with breakfast. I hope you don’t mind if I kidnap her for an hour or two.”
Henry raised his mug and smirked. “Good luck with that.”
“You could have warned me about her husband.”
“And have you quit before you started? Now that would spoil the fun, wouldn’t it?” The old man’s eyes twinkled with mischief.
“Glad I can entertain you.”
Sabrina’s soft tread carried down the hall. Gavin saw her before she spotted him. The softness of her face before her expression turned guarded had his heart slamming hard against his rib cage. Sabrina Taylor was definitely worth the battle.
She glanced from him to her grandfather and back, her wariness palpable. “Good morning.”
“Gavin here has a surprise for you.”
“What?” Suspicion laced the word and narrowed her eyes.
“A carriage ride,” Gavin told her.
Her lips parted. Interest flickered across her face before she shut it down. “It’s snowing.”
“It’s barely coming down. I have blankets, coffee and breakfast waiting in the rig.”
She brushed past him, heading for the window. The gentle bump of their shoulders aroused him like a damned schoolboy getting his first peep at a girl’s panties. If he ever— When he got her into bed, they were going to generate enough heat to melt the snowcaps surrounding the valley.
She looked over her shoulder at him. Excitement pinked her cheeks and sparkled in her baby blues. “I shouldn’t. Pops—”
“Go on, girlie. I’ll be fine for a few hours. We both know how much you miss the horses.”
Biting her lip, she hesitated. Outside the horses shifted and the tinkle of sleigh bells carried inside. He could feel her excitement, sense her indecision, and decided to give her a nudge. “If you want to see the sun rise over the mountains we need to leave now.”
“Go, Sabrina, before the road gets slick. He’s got wheels on the thing, not runners. Time’s a-wastin’.”
Gavin observed her changing expressions, and it was a toss-up whether he’d win or lose this round. He’d never met a woman more difficult to decipher.
She huffed out a breath. “Just a quick ride.”
Victory pumped through his veins. One step closer to his goal.
Six
She needed to end this Christmas card moment now, Sabrina decided as the carriage turned the corner and the inn came into view. But telling herself to snap out of the romantic fantasy Gavin had created with his horse-drawn tour of the city at sunrise and doing it were two different things. She adored horses and buggy rides—thanks to her grandmother.
Warm and toasty despite the frosty temperatures, she snuggled deeper into the fur blankets. Gavin had plied her with hot coffee, fresh beignets and stories about growing up in Aspen, and sometime during the past hour the steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves and the quiet tinkling of the bells on their harnesses had combined with the light drifting snow and the crisp start of a new day to blur the line between reality and fantasy.“You have good hands,” she offered grudgingly.
He shot her a look filled with sexual intent and the fire in his dark eyes nearly roasted her.
She gulped. “I meant you’re good at this carriage-driving thing. Your grip is steady but firm on the reins. My grandmother always said good hands were the mark of a good horseman.”
“My father made us work a variety of jobs. I drove the carriages when I had the chance.”
“What other jobs did you have?”
“We did whatever needed doing. Dad wanted us to learn the resort business from the bottom up.”
Once again, Gavin blew her preconceptions out of the water. Could he truly be that different from the spoiled men who’d attended the college where her parents taught? “You were good with Pops yesterday. How did you know how to handle the situation? Every time I try to talk to him about Grandma he gets ornery.”
“I’ve learned from experience with friends and co-workers who’ve lost loved ones to listen if they want to talk and give them space and privacy to grieve when they need it. Men don’t like to share their tears.”
When he said insightful things like that it was difficult to believe he was scheming to steal the inn from Pops. In fact, at the moment she actually liked Gavin. And that wasn’t good. Her guard was down, and she needed to keep a clear head around him. Being with him threatened the inner peace she’d fought so hard to find. But as long as they stayed out in the open nothing could happen.
He guided the horses into the inn’s driveway and then steered the carriage toward the barn. She straightened, letting the fur blanket slip. “Where are you going?”
“Henry’s letting me keep the horses in your barn while I’m working here. This pair is good for riding as well as pulling the carriage. You miss riding. So do I. We’ll ride together.”
No. No. No. “I don’t have time to ride.”
“You have to make time for the things that matter. Besides, Henry likes watching you. He says you and your grandmother rode together.”
Making it a request from Pops made it impossible to refuse. “She’s the one who taught me to ride. Her horses were her babies.”
He climbed from the carriage and opened the barn’s double doors then returned. The coach rocked as he resettled himself in the seat, his body nudging hers and bumping her heart rate right off the charts, then he clucked to the mares, driving them inside.
The barn smelled different. Instead of dust and disuse, Sabrina smelled fresh hay, shavings and oats. She scanned the stalls as she descended. Two of the four had been prepared. “When did you do this?”
Gavin made closing the heavy sliding doors look easy when she knew it was anything but. She grunted and groaned and had to put her entire body weight into it when she opened them. “Henry and I cleaned up after we returned from the mine.”
She’d wondered where the men had gone. “Usually Pops naps in the afternoon.”
“He naps because he has no sense of purpose. He needs to feel useful,” he said as he began unhitching the harness from the horses.
Without the pale sunlight the shadowy interior created an intimacy she didn’t want—not while she battled this push-pull thing between them. “But the inn’s chore list—”
“Is beyond his capabilities at the moment. He’s not ready to admit it yet.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile that made her stomach flutter.
“Mucking stalls is too much for him.”
“I had him clean the tack room while I did the heavy work.”
His consideration surprised her yet again. How could he be a swindler? She automatically helped him remove the tack from the horses. Her fingers fumbled with the once familiar task of slipping pliable leather through buckles. Gavin, she noted, did not fumble. After they finished and the gear had been hung on the wall, he handed her a brush. She caught herself watching him, specifically his hands, and unconsciously matching his rhythm as she stroked the bristles over the mare’s glossy hide.
Would his hands be as gentle on a woman?
She pushed the disturbing thought aside. Gavin was as good with the horses as he was with her grandfather. But was it an act? A means to an end? Or was he the real deal? Evidence said he was no stranger to hard work, but her years of experience with men of his ilk said otherwise.
She needed to focus on something besides his positive attributes. “So your twin brothers, Blake and Guy, are a year older than you, and Trevor is a year younger?”
“Yes.” He bent over to clean his horse’s hooves and her attention zeroed in on his backside. Tight, firm, with enough muscle development to keep it from being flat.
Gavin straightened. She pried her gaze away and kept it focused on the dust motes dancing in the murky light while he tended her horse’s hooves. Then he led the bay mare he’d been grooming into the first stall. She led the sorrel into the second and latched the door. The slurp of the horses at the water buckets broke the silence.
Sabrina cleared her throat. “Are you and your brothers close?”
He shrugged. “Close enough.”
“Then there’s Melissa and…Erica Prentice? But she’s not a Jarrod, right?”
“We share the same father, but he never acknowledged Erica when he was alive.”
The bitterness in his voice caught her attention. “Don’t you like her?”
“Erica’s nice enough.”
“But?”
He pitched the brushes into a caddy. “My father had an affair immediately after my mother died.”
“You think he forgot her, and you’re angry that he moved on.”
“I don’t care.”
But he did. It showed in every stiff line of his body as he carried the caddy and blankets to the tack room.
She followed him inside. The smell of Lexol brought back memories of spending hours in here cleaning and oiling saddles and bridles. A small window filled the room with diffused light.
“Gavin, maybe he simply needed someone to prove he hadn’t died with her.”
He dropped the blankets on the sofa. “Is that what you need? Someone to prove you didn’t die with your husband?”
The unexpected attack and resultant stab of pain made her flinch. “This isn’t about me.”
He closed the distance between them in two long strides. His dark gaze burned into hers. “I think it is. It’s about you being afraid to let go of the past.”
She shook her head as denial raced through her, quickly chased by a thrill of something exciting and energizing. She tried to squash the latter, but failed. Her heart raced and her palms tingled. “No. You’re wrong.”
“Not this time. Come out of hiding, Sabrina.” He cupped her shoulders, and before she could convince her feet to carry her out of trouble’s way, he bent and settled his mouth over hers.
His lips were warm, firm, sure. Persuasive. A response she couldn’t prevent streamed through her like a waterfall pouring over the mountains and crashing into her stomach, but instead of filling her veins with icy mountain water, a warm thermal spring bubbled in her veins.
Her brain and body worked against each other. One demanded she push him away. The other stubbornly held on tight. If her internal battle wasn’t enough, Gavin’s passionate embrace evoked so many long-suppressed memories. She’d forgotten the experience of having a man’s strong arms hold her tight, forgotten the heat of a muscle-packed body pressed against hers, and she’d forgotten how deliciously feminine the combination made her feel. But mostly she’d forgotten how it felt to crave more.