“We both know I won’t be sticking around long enough to open that tearoom here, let alone ask for help promoting the business.”
He noticed she didn’t say anything about the fact that her leaving meant they wouldn’t be together. His jaw tightened, but he wasn’t ready to tackle that just yet. Hell...they’d only just found each other. Only just crossed that line from strangers to a whole lot more. Why did Violet Whiteman have to show up and rob them of finding out exactly where that might have led?
“We don’t know that at all,” he said finally. He swung down off his horse and pulled open one of the gates to return them to Fraser Farm property.
“What do you mean?” She urged Windchime through the open gate with nothing more than a shift of her weight, her slender thighs flexing along the mare’s back. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? The secret is out. My whereabouts have been revealed. All that stuff you didn’t want to happen—star-watchers camping on your lawn, tabloid media following you with a camera lens in the hope of a good shot—all that’s going to happen now.”
“It hasn’t happened yet.” Taking Eclipse by the reins, he led the gelding into the fenced pasture and closed the gate behind them before he re-mounted. “And who knows when it will? Sonoma is a long drive from Los Angeles.”
“Seriously?” She shook her head as if to clear it, the feather earrings dancing just above the collar of her coat. “What happened to your concerns about a reality TV fan base detracting from the upscale ambience you’re creating here? You were ready to cart me off the property that first night—”
“And you can’t think of any reason I might feel differently about that now?” He wanted her so badly his teeth hurt. That kiss before they began the ride had wound him up.
“Attraction doesn’t change a fundamental divide.”
“No.” But it was more than attraction at work. Simple chemistry didn’t explain the way he’d felt when he’d seen her take care of a newborn foal, or when she’d invited Scotty to help himself to food she’d made. “It makes me want to work harder to figure out a way around it, though. What if this mass invasion of Hollywood reality rabble doesn’t happen? What if your celebrity status fades next week and we worried about all this for nothing?”
Neither of them mentioned Rick. Damien wasn’t sure why she didn’t bring him up. But he was already making plans to protect her from that bastard if the guy dared to show his face anywhere near here. There were benefits to being raised the son of Hollywood royalty, and one of them was that he knew a thing or two about personal security. He’d texted his brother Trey for the names of some people he could trust the second it had been obvious to him where Miranda’s story was going.
“That’d be surprising but...” She tipped her head into the breeze, breathing deeply. Did the scents of dry grasses and horses remind her of home? “Really, really great.”
“So let’s not borrow trouble.” He could see the barns in the distance and looked forward to the surprise waiting for her at the end of the ride. The temperature had really dipped as the sun sank, and twice he’d seen Miranda run a hand up and down her arm briskly, as if to warm up.
He looked forward to taking on that task himself.
“I would never have guessed you’d take that approach. I had an impression of you as a bit of a cynic.” Miranda gently tapped the slack half of the reins against her thigh, the sound of the leather—against her body—making it damn difficult to concentrate.
The need to get her alone—and off the horse—crawled over his skin and heated him from the inside out.
“Then you’ve got a lot to learn about me, don’t you?” He knew he wasn’t Joe Friendly. He’d been living like a hermit, trying to get his business off the ground, and the horses didn’t require a whole lot of social skills.