The Horse Trainer's Secret Read online

  He laughed softly. “Sweetheart, that is the last thing this man thinks where you’re concerned.”

  The second she could, she stepped away from him and pushed her tingling fingers into her back pockets. “The last time a guy made the mistake of calling me sweetheart, I was sixteen.” She waited a beat. “I gave him a black eye. And nobody around Wymon ever made that mistake again.”

  Nick had the nerve to grin. “You saying you’re going to punch me in the eye—” he leaned closer “—sweetheart?”

  She wanted to gnash her teeth. Instead she snatched up the empty water bottles and stomped off toward the trailer, annoyed as all hell because there was a weak little spot inside her that felt all gooey over that stupid, silly term.

  Sweetheart.

  Chapter Five

  Nick gave her a ride back to the motel. The entire drive down the mountain, he peppered her with questions about how things ran at Angel River.

  “I’m going back to the drawing board,” he told her when he pulled into the spot next to her pickup. “Start from scratch with a new plan that’ll work for the new location.”

  “What if the engineer tells you the new location won’t work?”

  “Then we’ll have to take another hike.”

  She groaned.

  “I’m kidding. No hike.”

  “My feet thank you,” she muttered and pushed open the door. “So...what do I do now?” She’d never been involved in any sort of design process like this before. “Just sit around on my thumbs awaiting further instructions?”

  “Heaven forbid you have a day to just relax,” he drawled. “No. Come by my office tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have initial sketches worked up by then.”

  “Where’s your office?”

  He reached into his briefcase and came up with a business card. “Anytime after three o’clock works.”

  She took the card, careful not to brush his fingers in the process.

  Then she grabbed her wallet and stepped out of his vehicle. It was long past lunchtime and he hadn’t made any mention of dinner again.

  She told herself she was glad.

  “See you tomorrow, then,” she said briskly and shut the door. This time, she didn’t fumble the room key in the lock.

  “Megan, wait—”

  She felt a surge of energy and looked over her shoulder to see Nick crossing toward her.

  Her palm suddenly felt moist around the doorknob...

  Until she saw the white paper sack that he was holding out to her.

  “Your cinnamon roll,” he said and pushed it into her nerveless fingers. Then he turned and loped back to his SUV, his long legs making short work of it.

  Two seconds later, he was backing out of the parking spot and driving away.

  That spurt of adrenaline leaked out of her, leaving her feeling even more exhausted.

  She went into the motel room, which had been cleaned during her absence.

  The Cozy Night was inexpensive, yes. But it still came with daily housekeeping service that, to her, was like a vacation in itself.

  The trash had been emptied, the flakes of mud on the carpet vacuumed away. Her phone had been moved to the nightstand next to her bag of lemon drops.

  She might miss her private cabin back at Angel River. But she definitely didn’t miss having to make her own bed or vacuum up her own messes.

  She dropped the white bag on the nightstand and sat down on the side of the bed to work her boots off her sore feet. She tossed the boots on the floor and carefully peeled off her socks.

  As soon as she could garner enough energy, she would shower and change and then drive over to Shop-World. Replenish the lemon drops. Buy herself some blister remedies and a pair of comfortable shoes. Something between a cowboy boot and a flip-flop ought to do.

  She picked up her phone and saw that she had messages. She dialed her voice mail.

  “Hi, Megan.” The caller had a chipper, high-pitched voice. “This is Kimmie from the Wymon Women’s Clinic. Did you know that at twelve weeks, your little nugget will be the size of a plum?” The woman giggled, obviously pleased with herself. “We need to get you scheduled for your second sonogram and our first opening is at the end of the month.” Her voice got even more impossibly chipper. “Don’t forget to take your prenatals and give me a call as soon as you can!”

  The girl was still rattling off the phone number when Megan hung up and deleted the message.

  Then she tossed the phone back onto the nightstand and flopped back on the bed, throwing her arm over her eyes.

  When she’d visited the women’s clinic where she’d had the sonogram that only confirmed what Megan already knew—exactly how long she’d been pregnant—they’d given her a bag full of stuff. Vitamin samples. Pamphlets about this. Brochures about that.

  Megan had pulled out the vitamins and shoved all the rest in a corner of her underwear drawer. When she’d packed to come to Weaver, she’d transferred the bag, along with the underwear, to her suitcase.

  She had just as little enthusiasm for exploring the contents now as she had when the nurse at the clinic had pushed the bag into her numb hands.

  She didn’t want to think about being pregnant.

  Didn’t want to think about being a mother.

  Undoubtedly, when Roberta Forrester had been pregnant with Megan, she’d felt the same way, because she sure hadn’t wasted any time before dumping off Megan to Birdie and hitting the road.

  If she’d ever told the man who’d gotten her pregnant about it, he’d never stepped forward to acknowledge it.

  Megan didn’t want to think there were any similarities between her and Roberta, which meant, sooner or later, she had to tell Nick.

  But later.

  She lifted her arm from her eyes and pressed her palms against her abdomen. “I’ll get more prenatal vitamins at Shop-World, too,” she whispered.

  Then she turned on her side, bunched the pillow under her cheek and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  Nick spotted Megan’s mud-spattered truck as he pulled into the lot in front of his office building. It was the only vehicle other than Gina’s blue compact.

  He parked in the spot marked with his name and grabbed his stuff from the back seat. His head throbbed with the headache that had plagued him all day, after spending half the night before working on the barn design and the other half dreaming about Megan.

  Then this morning, he’d spent two hours trekking around on Rambling Mountain with the engineering team before he’d needed to get back to town for the council meeting.

  Which meant he was short on sleep. Short on food. And short on having a solid plan worked out for Megan’s barn.

  Even before he pushed through the glass office door, he could see her inside, perched on one of the leather chairs in the reception area.

  She was wearing dark blue jeans and a short leather jacket over a collared white shirt. Her sunglasses were pushed onto her head, holding her long hair away from her face. And in the moment before he elbowed the door open, he saw the way she was bouncing her knee as she waited.

  Her blue eyes turned toward the door as he entered to the sound of the phone ringing, and she popped out of her chair.

  Agreeing to pretend there was no attraction between them was easy enough in principle. Putting it into practice was another matter when everything about her appealed to him. Not just that she was tall, leggy and a looker. Or the fact that her body and his fit so perfectly together that all his dreams for the past two and a half months had been frustrating reenactments of the night with her in room 22.

  He liked her energy. Her humor and her blunt-edged way with words. He didn’t even mind the prickly vibe that she worked so hard to project.

  It just made him want to navigate her defenses even more.

  Patience.

 
“Hope you haven’t been waiting long.” He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

  “You said three o’clock,” she said as if he needed any sort of reminder.

  “I did.” And it was straight up three o’clock right now. But he’d figured on being back to the office well before now.

  Gina came around her desk and lifted the building model he was carrying out of his hands. “I told her the council meeting was probably running long.” She set the model on the long worktable behind her desk and snatched up the ringing phone, giving him a harried glare. “Ventura and Ventura,” she said into the receiver.

  He ignored his office manager’s glare and focused on Megan. “Do you want some coffee? Soda?”

  She shook her head.

  He glanced at Gina, who was listening to the caller. “Can you hold my calls?”

  She crossed her eyes at him but nodded. As he led Megan back to his office, Gina said into the phone, “I’m sorry, but we don’t really handle custom chicken-coop designs. If you have a computer—”

  Megan made a sound and covered her mouth with her hand. Nick saw the laughter in her eyes as he stopped outside his open office door and gestured for her to enter.

  She went into the room and turned to him. “Chicken coops,” she said in a low voice.

  “We’ve been asked to design doghouses,” he said. “Chicken coops are a step up.” He closed the door and swallowed a smile over how wide her eyes went.

  Then she shrugged her narrow shoulders a little and pivoted away. She seemed to be taking note of the framed certificates hanging on the opposite wall along with some of his favorite renderings that he’d done over the years.

  “A step up, but still beneath your big-city degrees.” She gestured at the display.

  “Nothing’s beneath the degrees.” He deposited his briefcase on his credenza. “But not a lot of folks around here want to pay the going rate for doghouse plans and the like once we’ve pointed out where they can get them for free on the internet.” He rolled his stool from the drafting table to position it next to his desk chair in front of his computer screens. “How’s your day been going so far?”

  “Good enough.” She didn’t elaborate. But she did perch on the stool when he patted it in invitation. “You’re looking pretty fancy. Get dressed up for the town council meeting your secretary mentioned?”

  Adding a necktie to his usual outfit of jeans and a button-down shirt was hardly fancy. He definitely preferred it to the suits he’d had to wear in the past. “Don’t let Gina hear you call her a secretary. She’s the office manager. And she’s already pissed off because we haven’t hired someone to help with the phones.”

  “Keeping pretty busy even without custom coops, I guess.”

  “You could say that.” He sat down in the desk chair. The stool had her sitting at a higher level than he was and he could smell the soap she’d used. Slightly floral. Slightly crisp.

  He yanked at the knot of his tie, loosening it enough so he could breathe again, and focused harder on the six feet of computer screens stretched across his desk.

  He tapped a few keys to bring up the plans for the barn, starting with the basic rectangular shape. “I think I took everything you told me yesterday into consideration, but if you notice anything that seems off, just say so. Not—” he raised his hand quickly “—that I expect anything less than straight talk where you’re concerned.”

  Her lips twitched. “Man can learn,” she murmured. “Who knew?”

  He suppressed a smile as he maneuvered the mouse. “So this is bare bones here. Walls. Stalls. Aisle. The aisle is wide enough to accommodate a tractor for delivering feed and hay, and hauling out waste from the stalls.” She’d gone on for twenty minutes straight the day before about the importance of manure management.

  J.D. was the only one he knew who talked as much or more about horse crap.

  Megan leaned forward, propping her elbows on her thighs, and her hair tickled his forearm. “Twelve stalls. That’s not nearly enough. That’s the same number Chance Michaels originally had. I have a string of twenty-two horses at Angel River just for guests alone. And we’re half the size this place is going to be.”

  Twenty-two. There was that damn number again.

  Taunting him.

  “Hold on.” He clicked another layer of detail into place on the screen.

  “Oh.” She nodded and glanced at him. The smile in her eyes was enough to tie his gut into knots. “Twenty-four stalls. Cool.”

  “All based on your required dimensions, ma’am.”

  She propped her chin on one of her fists. “And this square here?” She circled her finger over one end of the image, not quite touching the screen. “What’s that?”

  “Feed and tack.”

  “Looks spacious enough for feed.” She folded her arms over her thighs again. “Not sure about the tack, too. And depending on who they hire as barn manager, they might prefer some office space right there near the horses. I know I would.”

  “Surprised Gage didn’t offer you that job, too.”

  “Barn manager?” She shook her head but didn’t seem inclined to say more.

  He clicked again, replacing the entire floor plan with an alternative. One central aisle lengthwise became two aisles crosswise. “We could do a second floor for office space.”

  “Hmm,” she said softly as she studied the screen. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t know.”

  He brought up a third idea. Totally different. Instead of stalls on either side of the aisles, they were all on one side of the aisle, which ran along the interior edge of a U-shaped building. “With this configuration, there could be even more stalls,” he pointed out. “It also allows for more square footage for supplies and tack.” He clicked the mouse again and another set of walls appeared. Then he adjusted the dimensions, lengthening the two opposing sides while shortening the connecting side. “If we do something like this there’s still adequate room for machinery to access the stalls, and we could incorporate a third exterior door on the short side.”

  “Tack and feed could even be in separate areas, which I like better, anyway.” She leaned forward again, and her hair brushed over his hand this time.

  It was all he could do not to sift his fingers through it.

  Then she pushed her hair behind her shoulder as she glanced at him. “The separate areas could be narrower. Longer. And then maybe you could add an office here.” She put her hand atop his and moved the mouse pointer. Then she realized what she was doing and quickly snatched her hand away. “Sorry.”

  He wasn’t. He finished the adjustments and she nodded, giving him a pleased look.

  “I like it.”

  “Great.” He saved the changes, then rolled his chair away from the desk, regretting the loss of contact. “I’ll work on a cost estimate for this version and see where we’re at.”

  He got up and opened his door. Across the conference area right outside, his father’s office was still dark. Nick turned and leaned against the drafting table. Not once in his life had he ever been tempted to lock his door and get a woman naked inside his office, but he was now. “Engineer’s report should be ready by the end of the week. If that comes back okay, we’ll be set to move quickly.”

  “And if it doesn’t come back okay?”

  “Solutions,” he reminded. “We’ll come up with something else.”

  “And meanwhile? What do we do until then?”

  Images filled his mind all too easily, which didn’t help the way his blood had already headed south. “What do you want to do?”

  Her lashes suddenly fell and she pushed off her stool. “Not sit around all day in my motel room relaxing, that’s for sure. And besides, I don’t think that’s what Gage had in mind when he paid me for this little gig.”

  “I don’t think he expects you to start swinging a hammer, ei
ther, sweetheart.”

  She gave him a baleful look. “Bet I can swing a hammer as well as you can.”

  He couldn’t stop a laugh. He had a helluva lot of experience swinging hammers, but he didn’t doubt her for a second. “I’m sure you can.”

  Then she shoved her hands into her back pockets and rocked on her heels, looking away. “You were right about Ruby’s Diner,” she said abruptly. “I had breakfast there this morning. It was really good.” She waited a beat. “I actually went back for lunch.”

  “Oh, you’re hooked now.”

  Her lips twitched and she pulled her hands out of her pockets. She nodded at the wall of framed renderings. “Did you draw all those?” She didn’t wait for him to confirm it. “You drew the one that’s in the construction trailer, too. You have a good imagination. You’re quite an artist.”

  “Imagination is where amazing things start.”

  She looked thoughtful. “And that model? The one you were carrying when you came in? Did you make that, too?”

  He nodded. “Vacant commercial building we’re going to turn into a community athletic center.”

  “Isn’t that what the YMCA is for?”

  “If there happened to be one here. Only thing close to it is a for-profit fitness center over in Braden. Some thirty miles away. Doesn’t do any good for the people living in Weaver.”

  “Did the town council approve it?”

  “Hopefully by their next meeting they will.”

  “So besides the Rambling Mountain job, the library and the athletic center, what other projects are you imagining into reality?”

  He crossed the office to the rear wall and pushed open the sliding door enclosing half the shelves to reveal several more models that were still in progress.

  She came up next to him. “Impressive.” She flipped her hair over one shoulder as she leaned closer. “What do you make them out of?”