The Horse Trainer's Secret Read online

  She went up the shallow steps that led to the library’s entrance and the glass door slid open before she reached it. There were deep, comfortable chairs everywhere she looked. But the shelves didn’t contain any books yet, and the study rooms weren’t furnished. A wide staircase curved up one side and when she reached the second floor that looked down over the front half of the lower level, she finally spotted Nick. He was in a far corner speaking with a gray-haired woman carrying a fat clipboard. Unlike Nick in his blue jeans and hiking boots, the woman wore a boxy blue suit that screamed she was someone official.

  Megan turned away and wandered around the upper level, absently pulling her still-damp hair over her shoulder and twisting it into a braid that she had no way to fasten. The shelves up here weren’t as tall as the ones on the lower level, and there were big patches of thick, colorful carpet inlaid among the wood planks of the floor. It was strikingly easy to imagine children sitting on the carpet, big picture books on their laps as they read and dreamed.

  She struck the image from her mind’s eye and went back down to the first floor.

  Nick was crouched next to one of the windows, where he seemed to be looking at the wooden trim work. There was no sign of the gray-haired woman.

  At the sound of Megan’s footsteps, he straightened and smiled at her. With the morning sun shining through the window around him, he looked like he was outlined in gold.

  The guy was just...beautiful.

  “So?” He held out his arms. “What do you think?”

  She took a quick gulp of coffee, glad he couldn’t read her mind. “I like the way it’s all open.” She gestured toward the stairs. “Nice area up there for kids. The library in Wymon used to have just a tiny corner where all the children’s books were shelved. Pretty sure I exhausted every single one that was either about horses or had a picture of horses on the cover by the time I was ten.”

  “My sister is horse crazy,” he replied, not seeming to notice the way she was blathering. “She’s driving my dad and Lucy bananas asking for one of her own.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Thirteen. And as preoccupied with the boys in her class as with horses.” He angled his head, looking toward the upper level. “Vivian was adamant about there being a large children’s library. Truth is, she’d have been happy to devote the entire place to a children’s library given the opportunity.”

  “Vivian?”

  “Vivian Templeton.” He began flipping to a fresh page on his pad. “She spearheaded this whole project in memory of her husband. He was a schoolteacher.” Nick made a few notes, then tapped the notepad against his thigh. “Those the most comfortable things you’ve got, huh?” He was looking at her feet.

  “Not for running a marathon, but since I don’t figure on doing that, they’re perfectly comfortable.”

  “We could stop and get you hiking boots—” He broke off at the look she gave him and shrugged. “Your feet, I guess. You ready to go up the mountain?”

  “That was the plan,” she reminded him.

  “Do you ever miss a shot?”

  “When it comes to humans of the male persuasion? It’s as easy as aiming at fish in a barrel.”

  “Speaking on behalf of the male persuasion, I’m offended.”

  The laughter shining in his gray eyes said otherwise.

  The glass door slid open smoothly as they approached it again. And it didn’t make a sound as it closed after them.

  “Won’t it be hard to heat the place in the winter with all those windows?”

  “They have more insulating factors than most of the houses around here. We’re actually using something similar for the lodge up on the mountain.”

  “Well—” she gestured with her coffee cup “—except for the empty shelves and the landscaping outside, it looks ready to open. You’ve done a good job of it.”

  “Careful, Megan. That might be praise.”

  “Don’t get used to it.”

  His smile widened. “It is just about finished. Hitting the final punch list. There’s going to be a grand opening on the Fourth of July coinciding with all the other community events going on that weekend. You’ll get to see Weaver at its finest.” He waved at the bricklayer as they passed him again and when they reached the SUV, he pulled open the passenger door before she could reach it herself.

  She usually protested that sort of thing.

  Just because she had a uterus didn’t mean she couldn’t open her own doors. Or change her own flat tires.

  Maybe pregnancy was softening her up.

  She climbed into the SUV and forced herself to focus on the library building instead of Nick. “How long did it take to build?”

  “Not as long as it took to design.” His voice turned rueful. “Vivian had me working on it even before she got the project approved by the town.” He finally pushed the door closed and she drew in a relieved breath while he rounded the front of the vehicle.

  She started to reach for the white bag containing her cinnamon roll, but the smell of the cinnamon was abruptly repugnant.

  She folded over the top of the bag a few times and set it behind the console in the back seat, then quickly unwrapped one of her lemon drops and popped it into her mouth just as Nick climbed behind the wheel.

  He tossed aside his pad again and fastened his seat belt, then they headed off.

  They retraced their route back to the highway, and he pointed out Ruby’s Diner when they passed it. The restaurant was situated on a corner and would be easy for her to find on her own. From the brief glimpse she got, it looked crowded inside.

  Before long, they’d left the town behind and picked up speed as the highway stretched out like a long black ribbon, cutting through the endless ranchland.

  She rolled down her window a few inches, glad for the rush of air blowing over her face. Along with the tart lemon candy slowly dissolving in her mouth, it helped ease the vague churning in her stomach.

  She probably should have eaten the roll before drinking that coffee.

  He didn’t seem inclined to talk and she was glad. It meant she could stare out her window and practice the whole deep-breathing thing, praying that her stomach didn’t get any worse.

  There wasn’t a lot of traffic and they made good time. Certainly better than she had the day before when she’d driven up the unfamiliar mountain road herself.

  Even though she wanted to enjoy the vista, she had to close her eyes as he drove. But then the low rumble of the engine and the rocking motion of the curves made her doze off.

  She didn’t even realize it, though, until she woke up and they were parked by the construction site.

  “G’morning again,” he said when she sat up straight. His gray eyes had that humorous twinkle and his smile was wide.

  Her cheeks got hot again. At least she hadn’t drooled.

  Well. She was pretty sure she hadn’t drooled.

  She snatched her coffee cup and drained the lukewarm dregs before shoving open her door and stepping out. Only when she stood did she realize her nausea had disappeared during her catnap.

  She rubbed her hands down the front of her jeans and followed him to the trailer. It felt good to stretch her legs.

  Unlike the day before, the construction site was a beehive of activity. There were dump trucks, a cement truck, excavators and backhoes. Workers wearing heavy tool belts, hard hats and safety harnesses climbed the frame of the lodge, and the sound of power tools filled the bracing air.

  When she and Nick reached the construction trailer, the door was open. Several people in work clothes and hard hats occupied the desks crammed around the perimeter of the room.

  Megan hung back on the plank boardwalk while Nick introduced her and then grabbed a couple water bottles from a bucket. “Come on.” He brushed past her as he set off in the direction of the lodge.

&
nbsp; With her long legs, it wasn’t often that she was outpaced, yet he did it easily. She skipped a couple times in order to catch up to him. He hadn’t said they’d need hard hats themselves, which meant they wouldn’t be getting too close to the actual construction work. “So what’s the plan now? I mean, what do we do next?”

  He stopped and she very nearly bumped into him. “I want to see how much of a hike it is to get—” he pointed with one of the water bottles “—down there.”

  She looked where he was pointing. Beyond the lodge, the ground broke sharply downward in a mess of jagged stone, studded by trees and brush. She could see several patches of snow that still hadn’t melted in the shady spots.

  It was one thing to talk about moving the barn to a lower spot on the mountain. And another to actually come face-to-face with the physical challenges involved.

  “You up for it?”

  She grimaced. No wonder he’d warned her about her footwear. “I guess.”

  “It looks worse from here than it actually is.”

  She couldn’t help a snort of laughter. She wasn’t afraid of a little hike. She led them routinely at Angel River. They even had a rock-climbing wall. What they didn’t have was a steep, rocky mountainside like this. “Right.”

  He smiled. “Trust me. I won’t lead you astray.” He stepped off the side of the boardwalk onto the rutted ground and extended his hand.

  She took the bottle but otherwise ignored his hand, and stepped off the side, too. At least the mud had dried since the morning before. “I believe you won’t walk me off a cliff,” she allowed. “But trust you? Don’t push it.”

  He pulled a face. “I’m wounded.”

  He so obviously wasn’t. “Don’t take it personally. I don’t depend on others and I trust myself first. Lifelong rule drilled into me by my grandmother.” She twisted off the plastic bottle cap to take a quick drink. “All right, then. Lead the way.”

  The view as they descended was incredible, and Nick was as much a visual feast as the landscape. They slowly zigzagged down the mountain. Every time they zigged, she caught a glimpse of the distant lake beyond the trees. Every time they zagged, it disappeared from view again.

  It took quite a bit of time. Not least because there wasn’t an existing trail, but also because Nick kept stopping to pull out his cell phone. At first she thought he was checking for a signal, but then she realized he had some sort of app that he was checking. And he stopped to take a bit of video or snap a few photos dozens of times.

  She figured they’d been at it for at least two hours before he finally came to a halt and hopped up onto a boulder that was squarely in their path. He pulled off his sunglasses and slowly turned around in a circle, nodding. “I thought this might work for the barn.”

  Megan didn’t see how. “It’s quite a hoof getting down here.”

  “Not so much. Come up here and see.”

  She was curious, so she took his hand and let him pull her up beside him. From the top of the boulder, she could see that the spot where they’d stopped was flatter than it had seemed from the ground.

  He closed his hand on her shoulder and angled her slightly to the left. “We worked our way down from there. But the direct line from the lodge would be about here.” He swung his arm to the right and drew a line in the air. “It’s steep, but properly graded, it’s wide enough for a short shuttle bus to carry people who can’t or don’t want to walk. This whole area’s a natural shelf. Fairly level, but we never considered it for the lodge because the view isn’t as good. I’ll need to get the engineers up here again pretty quick, though.”

  She looked over her shoulder. From here, the lake appeared to be much closer, and she immediately began envisioning summer trail rides down to it. But he was right about the view. It was pretty enough but not as spectacular as the lodge’s.

  “We use UTVs at Angel River to move guests around,” she said absently. “Could you really put a barn here? What about the riding ring?” At Angel River, they held lessons in basic horsemanship in the arena and also used it as a gathering place for dozens of activities. “Or would you want to leave the ring in the original location?”

  She didn’t realize that she’d been circling in place until she found herself facing Nick. She instinctively took a step away and his arm clamped around her waist when her boot found nothing but air.

  His torso was hard against her chest and for a moment her mind simply went blank, surrendering to sensation.

  The heat of his fingers burning through her shirt.

  The rush of blood in her veins.

  Then her lungs decided breathing was probably a good idea, which jarred her from her stupor.

  She blinked. “Thanks.” Her voice sounded softer than usual.

  “Yeah.” His voice sounded deeper. He cleared his throat. “We’ll have to think about the riding ring.”

  She curled her fingers tightly, and her knuckles pressed against his chest. The water bottle she’d forgotten she was holding crinkled loudly.

  Feeling flushed, she cleared her throat, pulled away and hopped down from the boulder. She yanked off the bottle top and guzzled most of the water.

  One and done. One and done.

  She silently chanted the words.

  Says who? Says who? her thwarted desire argued back.

  Dirt and rubble scattered under Nick’s hiking boots when he jumped down beside her. “You need to make a choice.”

  She coughed a little and swiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “About what?”

  “We can take the easy route back or we can take the short route.”

  She swirled the inch of water still remaining in her bottle and gulped it down. “Short.” The sooner they got back to the construction zone, the sooner there’d be a few dozen people around and she’d have no choice but to keep her libido in check.

  Once again, Nick took the lead.

  Unlike the zigzagging, almost meandering route down, the trek back up was, quite literally, up.

  Which meant it was a lot more strenuous.

  Despite the brisk temperature, there was soon a line of sweat darkening his blue T-shirt that made it cling to his long back in all sorts of interesting ways. She was sweating, too, and before long, she had to stop to roll up the sleeves of her shirt.

  He paused, glancing back at her. “Okay?”

  She nodded. “Just, uh, gotta catch my breath,” she huffed. “You know.”

  “Yeah. I know.” He pulled up the bottom of his T-shirt and wiped his face with it. “Warned you.”

  The night they’d spent together hadn’t exactly been a fumble in the dark. But it hadn’t been broad daylight, either. The glimpse she now got of his hard, well-defined abs was going to haunt her.

  She closed her eyes and rubbed them, but the image still stuck even after she opened them again and his shirt was back where it belonged.

  Why him? Why couldn’t some other architect have taken over for Chance Michaels?

  The universe isn’t designed around your convenience, missy.

  She pulled in a deep breath and blew it out hard. “Okay.” She gestured at him, anxious to get moving. “I’m good. Let’s go.”

  They set off again. At times, Nick had to pull himself up a sheer rock face and reach back down to help her.

  The scrubby brush growing tenaciously on the rocky surface scraped her arms and the sharp jutting rocks scraped the rest of her.

  But finally, thankfully, the ground evened out again as they reached the lodge and Megan sank down wearily on the boardwalk.

  Nick went into the trailer and returned several minutes later, handing her another bottle of water.

  Then he sat down beside her and stretched his legs out over the side of the boardwalk. “That was more work than I thought it’d be,” he admitted.

  She didn’t know where th
e energy came from to chuckle. She drank down half the bottle before setting it aside to take off one of her boots. “I should’ve chosen the long route,” she admitted, dropping the boot on the ground.

  “Don’t have blisters, do you?”

  “Nah.” She pulled off her other boot and rotated her ankles. “Don’t think so, anyway.” It was a bald-faced lie.

  “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault.”

  She eased back until she was lying flat on the boardwalk staring up at the sky overhead. She saw the tops of fir trees and puffy clouds dotting the impossibly blue sky. A massive hawk glided on the breeze. Beneath the noise of hammers and guys shouting to each other, she heard the buzz of insects and the frenzied chirping of birds. “This really is a pretty spot,” she murmured.

  A power saw suddenly whined, drowning out the insects and the birds, and she forced herself to sit up.

  She looked at her cowboy boots on the ground in front of her. At some point, she was going to have to put those things back on. The prospect held little appeal. And that was saying something, since she’d never met a pair of boots she didn’t like.

  She looked over at the lodge, where the power saw was screaming. “Have they got a name for this place yet?”

  He shook his head. “From what April tells me, Gage keeps making suggestions that they don’t like, and she and Jed keep making suggestions that Gage doesn’t like.”

  “Going to have to come up with something soon if they want to be able to open on schedule by fall. I’d think they’ll want plenty of time to advertise and all that.”

  “No doubt. But that’s their deal,” he said. “I just need to bring the project in on budget and on time.” He leaned forward, snatched up one of her boots and crouched in front of her. “Come on, Cinderella.”

  “I’m no more Cinderella than you are Prince Charming.” But she pointed her toes and slid her foot inside the leather boot, then steeled herself as she stood and settled her heel.

  “Doesn’t every girl want to be Cinderella?” He held the other boot ready for her to step into it.

  She snorted. “Not this girl.” She eased her foot into the boot and wanted to curse when she wobbled slightly and had to steady herself with a hand on his shoulder. “Last thing I need is some man thinking I need rescuing.”