Addicted to Nick (7 page)

Tamara would know. Even without the benefit of that letter, she knew more about Joe's thinking in those last months than anyone else. But would she tell him? That was the killer question. He had never met a woman so closed, so unwilling to let anything of herself out, so afraid to let anything of herself go.

Man, but he wanted to know what went on in her head.

As if responding to the power of that thought, she came walking into the kitchen. Stopped. A faint touch of color traced her cheekbones as her gaze met his, then slid away. Then she seemed to gather herself, to take a strengthening breath, and she kept coming. Nick felt breathless himself. He couldn't figure out why she affected him so immediately, so completely. As usual, she was dressed to make as little of herself as possible, yet something about the way she moved, the way she looked at him, was all woman. Yep, she only had to lean into the fridge at that certain angle to jump-start his engine.

“You want coffee?” he asked, hoping for once she would surprise him and say “yes.”

“Yes, please.”

Nick didn't do a double take. After all, she had been one surprise after another from the moment they met.

“What are your plans for today?” she asked as she brought milk and cereal to the table.

“Might as well start as I aim to continue. Down at the barn.”

Her eyes widened. “You're serious about learning how the stables run?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“We'll see how long you last on the end of a pitchfork, city slicker.”

Nick smiled back. He liked the teasing warmth in her eyes. Very much. “I don't mind getting my boots dirty.”

He watched her munch her way through a hearty helping of cereal before he spoke again. At least if she bolted he wouldn't feel responsible for another missed meal.

“You mind if I ask you something personal?”

She paused, coffee mug suspended halfway between table and mouth, her face all big-eyed suspicion. “That depends.”

“I wondered why you needed this job so badly.” What caused that emotional pounding she had hinted at. “You don't have to tell me. I'm just curious,” he said easily, as if he hadn't spent sleepless hours pondering the many possibilities.

“You know what happened to the curious cat.” Still teasing, although more warily this time. At least she hadn't walked away. Yet.

“Are you a local?”

“Our family had a small acreage about an hour's drive west of here,” she said carefully. “I lived there till I was seventeen.”

“Was that when your father died?”

She took a measured sip of her coffee. “That was two years later.”

“Your mother?”

“She died when I was little. I barely remember her.” She put her mug down with an abrupt click. “I don't know if you're really interested in my family history or if this is breakfast small talk, so I'll keep it brief. My father brought us up—my brother and me—which wasn't so bad, because we both happened to love horses and they were Dad's life. Jonno was killed when I was fifteen, and things went downhill from there. I stayed as long as I could, but when I got a decent job offer, I left.”

“Sometimes leaving's best for everyone.”

“Well, my father sure didn't think so.” She swirled the remains of her coffee around the mug, a small sad smile on her lips. “Obviously he wasn't as forgiving as Joe.”

“He was tough on you?”

“Yes, but he also taught me how to work and about self-discipline.” She lifted her chin, defied him to take issue.

“Seems to me you're too hard on yourself. Maybe you needed someone to teach you about lightening up, having fun.”

“I've tried that. It's overrated.”

Nick wondered if that was what her father hadn't forgiven—not the leaving home, but what she had done in those years—and what his lack of forgiveness had meant to her. “What happened to your father's place?” he asked on a hunch.

She shrugged, but the gesture seemed awkward. And telling. “He left it to someone else.”

A father gutted by the death of his son, a daughter who tried to fill the gap but felt she had failed, who maybe ran wild for a couple of years. And her bitter, tough, unforgiving father gives away her heritage.

It explained a lot about the woman sitting before him. Her self-contained strength, her vulnerability, how she worked her butt off, as if paying some sort of penance.
Her reluctance to accept what she thought she didn't deserve.

“And this is why you don't want to accept your part of Yarra Park?”

Determination hardened her expression. “It's not right. Joe's family should have it. I know how they must feel about this.”

“Joe's family is getting plenty. Believe me, this is nothing like the situation between you and your father.”

“But…”

“Accept it, Tamara. It's what Joe wanted.”

“But you said you would consider taking my half.”

“I said I'd think about it, and I will. Are you this stubborn about everything?” Man, he hoped not. He had less than two weeks to change her mind, and he didn't mean about the inheritance.

“Stubborn?” She pushed herself off her stool, a faint smile curving her lips. “As a mule, Joe used to say, but only about things that matter. Now, let's go find you a pitchfork.”

 

The next five days rolled out smoothly enough, with Nick dividing his time between the stables and the office. Although he made no overt moves or provocative comments, tension simmered beneath the artificial surface of civility, despite her attempts to keep the mood light and easy. The flame had been turned down to pilot, but one quick flick of the switch would kindle the inferno she had felt that night in the moonlight.

Eight more days, she thought with a resigned sigh as she let herself into Star's stall. Could she keep a grip on her twitchy fingers that long?

She waited while the big mare went through her you-can't-catch-me routine, prancing from wall to wall with a succession of disdainful head tosses. Collaring her was a game of skill, patience and acquired knowledge. “Fin
ished?” she asked when the pirouettes ended abruptly. Timing was everything in this game. With a nimble sidestep, she intercepted a further halfhearted attempt at a pass and slipped the head collar into place.

“Ready for some work?” Star tossed her head with arrogant scorn, and T.C. laughed softly. “Silly question, huh? You love to run.”

As she smoothed her hand down the mare's neck, a sense of contentment settled in the pit of her stomach. This was why she had chosen this profession, for this simple, elemental feeling. Stooping down, she felt the mare's near foreleg, checking for heat in the tendon she had injured the previous season.

“Looking good, girl.” Satisfied with the inspection, she straightened to find Star nodding her head as if in agreement. T.C. couldn't help but laugh. “You are so full of yourself!”

The sound of her laughter brought Nick's grooming mitt to an instant halt. It had been like this for days. He would be working away, limber and comfortable, when out of the blue something would ignite his slumbering senses. The soft lilt of her voice as she petted her dog, a wet towel tossed negligently over a laundry basket, the lingering tang of her apricot shampoo.

Or her laughter, unexpected and unrestrained.

He ambled over to the open half-door, watched her hands skate lightly over the horse's glossy coat. Yeah, those hands doing pretty much anything that involved stroking turned him on.

He cleared his throat. “This one's Star, right?”

She turned slowly, unsurprised, as if she had known he was there. “Her full name is Stella Cadente.”

“Shooting Star,” he translated.

“You know Italian?”

“Enough. That name's a mouthful.”

“It is.” She smiled. “That's why we just call her Star.
Most of them have some Italian in their racing names and a shortened version for at-home use.”

“Monte?” he asked.

“Is really Montefalco.”

“Gina?”

“Lollobrigida.” A softly inquisitive expression lit her face. “And I suppose you're really Nicholas.”

“Niccolo. The Italian version.”

Head slanted to one side, she considered it, considered him. And he knew he would do anything to hear that name, his full name, on her lips.
Please, Niccolo.

“And what about you, Tamara?” He drew the name out lushly, saw her hand still on the horse's flank for an instant before she resumed stroking. Felt his own body pulse. “Why aren't you Tammy? Or Tara?”

“You have got to be kidding!”

He smiled at her melodramatic tone. “Why do you call yourself T.C.?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” With an abrupt click, she attached the lead and brought the horse to the door. He didn't open it. He wasn't letting her out of this quite so easily.

“My guess is you decided your name was too girly. You thought someone named Tamara should wear pretty dresses and high heels and a perfume that smells like a rich garden party—”

“Enough, already,” she interrupted, but a smile lurked around the corners of her mouth, and when that incredibly sexy mouth smiled it did more for him than any perfume or floaty dress.

Intent on teasing her embryonic smile to full life, he leaned over the half-door to sniff at her unperfumed throat…and the horse lunged, eyeballs rolling, mouth open.

I
n a knee-jerk reaction, he hauled her out the door and out of the path of a set of extremely large and not very white teeth.

“Hey, what was that all about?” She sounded breathless and slightly stunned.

“That beast masquerading as a horse would have taken a piece of your sweet little hide if I hadn't saved you.”

“Oh, no, she was definitely gunning for
your
hide.”

Her husky laughter rippled close to his throat, and when she shifted her weight, her hip rolled against his thigh. The fire on slow smolder in Nick's blood roared into full flame, but when his hands firmed on her back, she sobered instantly, pushing and twisting her way clear of his arms.

“She's never done that before,” she murmured distractedly as the horse continued to stomp her hooves and toss her head.

“She's not the first female who's wanted to bite me.”

“I bet she's the first to take an instant dislike to you.”

“Ah, so
you
didn't.”

A wry smile quirked her lips. “If you're fishing, Nick, forget it. I'm sure you've heard exactly how likable you are from plenty of people with far prettier words than me.”

Yeah, but the thing was, he wanted to hear it from her. “If I was fishing, Tamara,” he said slowly, clearly, seriously, “it wasn't for pretty words but honest ones.”

Their gazes met and held, and Nick felt the heady rush of anticipation as keenly as if he stood strapped to his skis on a virgin Chugach ridge, about to go vertical. Then Star issued a shrill authoritative whinny that sliced right through the moment.

“That's her opinion,” he said. “Now what about yours?”

“She's speaking for the both of us.”

“If only I had a translator.” He gestured toward Ug, who lay sleeping under the feeder. “Don't suppose she speaks horse?”

T.C. laughed. “Not so anyone would understand.”

The mare stretched her long neck over the door in a gesture both elegant and eloquent, enticing Tamara to gather up the snaking lead
and
to scratch behind her ears.

Nick took a cautious step closer. Star rolled her eyes but kept her mouth closed. A promising start. Another measured step, a third, and she laid back her ears and kicked out at the wall. “Close enough, huh?”

The mare snorted.

“Seems I do speak some basic horse.”

This time it was Tamara who snorted.

He rested a hand atop the door, waited. When the mare didn't take a piece out of it, he left it there, although he didn't take his eyes off her long black face.

“Can she run?” he asked.

“Like the wind.”

“Is that how it feels, when you're driving? Like you're riding the wind?”

“Yes. That's it exactly.”

He heard the smile in her voice, longed to see it on her lips, but when he started to turn, the mare bared her teeth. He kept his eyes firmly on those teeth.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“I'm guessing it's a bit like skiing. The wind, the rush, the sense of freedom. There are mountains like this beauty here, all mean and full of spirit, and then there are the rest.”

She laughed softly. “Let me guess which you prefer.”

He watched the big mare toss her head and swing her quarters around, left to right, as if impatient with the inactivity. “I'd like to try it,” he said suddenly.

“You want to drive a horse?”

“I want to drive
this
horse. Will you teach me?”

“You're kidding! Was your first driving lesson in a Ferrari?”

Straight-faced, he looked down at her. “No. It was a Jaguar.”

For a moment she simply stared back at him, eyes wide and incredulous; then she burst out laughing. The dulcet sound danced through his senses, filling him with a pleasure so pure it warmed him to the marrow of his bones.

“Well?” he asked when she finally recovered.

She glanced at the horse, who stood rolling her eyes at him. “When you can catch her, I'll teach you to drive her.”

He took his time inspecting the horse, drawing out the suspense. Then he shrugged, pocketed his hands and stepped back. “Looks like I'll have to stick to the mountains.”

“You're not going to try?”

He met the surprise in her eyes with a slow grin. “I know when I'm being had.”

“Jase!” She sounded disgusted, but the look in her eyes approved his quick reading of the situation, and it warmed
places Nick couldn't remember as anything but cold. “You could learn on another one. Monte's a real gentleman.”

“Thanks,” Nick said slowly. “But I seem to have developed a taste for the difficult, spirited type.”

She met his unmistakable message head-on. And surprised him by not flinching. “Then it's a shame you have so little time. It could take months for a temperament like that to come around.”

“Yeah?” His gaze skated from her face to the horse and back again. “Then it looks like we both lose out.”

 

Despite his prior knowledge of Star's tricky temperament, T.C. had expected Nick to take up her challenge. She thought him arrogant enough to back himself in any difficult situation. Maybe he was, she thought consideringly, when she caught him standing at Star's stall door several days later.

Star took a tentative step forward and lowered her head to sniff at the hand resting on the door. Nick responded with a low laugh accompanied by some message of praise, and although distance muffled the words, T.C.'s body responded instantly to the mellow depth of his voice.

Exactly the same effect as he was having on Star, she realized. They had both started out kicking and snapping, and look at them now. Still wary, still inclined to take one step forward and two back, but both oh, so dangerously close to being seduced by a dark velvet voice and a steadily patient hand.

T.C. sighed with heavy resignation. Everything about the man—every damn thing!—was utterly alluring. His voice, the way he moved, that smile, the magic he made with a pot of pasta. Even his name was as exotically lush as the man himself. Niccolo Corelli. Why hadn't he turned out to be the conceited self-interested macho man she had imagined him to be? Why hadn't he been a carbon copy of Miles?

Heart in mouth, she watched Star toss her head and bare her teeth. Nick didn't move. He stood his ground, that one hand unmoving on the door, and she knew it was only a matter of time before the mare gave up the fight and came to him freely.

Did she stand any better chance of resisting?

She couldn't watch any longer, couldn't stand the apprehensive tension that churned in her stomach. Grabbing a head collar and lead, she strode to the door.

“I'm taking her out for some exercise,” she said, more sharply than she had intended.

He didn't move, but she felt his steady scrutiny. “You want to take a passenger?”

What harm could it do? Maybe he would be as delighted by the experience as Joe had been on his first ride…although she doubted that. It seemed far too tame for a man who chased extreme adventure.

“Okay,” she agreed eventually. “But this isn't a short cut to driving her. You're only the passenger.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Ten minutes later, when she picked up the reins and swung herself into the jog-cart, she remembered why she had delayed this moment. Proximity. The bench seat was supposedly wide enough for three, but Nick took up an extraordinary amount of space.

So okay, she told herself, seated side by side there was bound to be contact, but that was no reason for her breath to hitch each time his sleeve brushed against hers. No reason for that bare whisper of sound to echo through her head, drowning out the cadent fall of hooves, the creak of springs, everything but the thunderous beat of her heart.

Annoyed by such a ridiculous state of hyperawareness, she clicked into a jog and edged to her right. A fat lot of good that did her. Nick simply spread to fit all available space, and now his thigh rested flush against hers. No big deal, she told herself, as she turned onto the track and
settled Star into a steady relaxed pace. No bare flesh involved, a simple case of denim against denim.

All she needed was to redirect her senses.

Tipping her head back a fraction, she narrowed her field of perception, concentrating on the sun that touched her face, the strong wind that sifted through her hair and plastered her shirt against her skin. She absorbed the steady rocking rhythm of the horse's motion and felt herself start to relax.

“This is nice.”

“Pardon?” She blinked, stared up at Nick.

“I said, I'm enjoying this.” He nudged her with his elbow. “No need to look so surprised.”

“I didn't think this would be quite your speed.”

“You think I only like fast?”

Vivid images of all the things she had imagined him doing not-so-fast flashed through her mind.
Oh help, she did not need this now.
To hide the disconcerting wash of heat, she edged forward on the seat and pretended to reorganize the reins. She could feel his gaze on her, measuring, assessing.

“You love this, don't you?”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes, felt the smile well up from somewhere deep within. “I love working with horses. I love how it makes me feel. It's hard to describe, but it's like…like this is where I belong.”

“Did you feel that way about your father's home—where you were brought up?”

She thought about that. “I guess I did when I was younger. I know there were things I missed when I left, but there were other parts I couldn't wait to escape. But what I'm feeling here isn't about the physical things, it's about the spirit of the place and how it touches you. It's a sense of home.” She laughed, more than a little self-conscious. “Do you know what I mean?”

When he didn't answer, she turned, caught the hint of a frown. “I can't say I've ever got that concept of home.”

“What about Joe's Portsea house?”

“You've seen that place?” he asked with a mocking lift of one brow.

Not face-to-face, but she had seen pictures—it hardly fit the standard definition of home. But she wasn't talking about walls and lawns and manicured hedges, she was talking about feelings, and it seemed like he just didn't get it. She shrugged off an enormous wash of disappointment. Seems like she had been harboring a secret hope that he would fall in love with the spirit of Yarra Park as quickly and unconditionally as she had.

Only with Yarra Park, Tamara?

Do not go there, she told herself firmly. You'd do better to take this as a timely reminder of the footloose, uncluttered lifestyle he prefers…and of how little you have in common.

“You think I could do that?” he asked after a short, uncomfortable silence.

“I thought we agreed you were coming along as the passenger?”

He gave that lazy shrug he had down pat. “Worth a try.”

T.C. snorted, then thought about it for another half-lap. “I'll let you drive if you agree to talk to a solicitor about me signing my half over to you.”

“Don't you ever give up?”

“Worth a try,” she countered with a mocking shrug.

His bark of laughter sounded like equal parts exasperation and admiration; then he surprised her with a casual, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. I'll talk to my solicitor.” He reached for the reins, but she didn't hand them over.

“When?”

“As soon as I can make an appointment.”

She shook her head. “Not good enough. You're a Corelli—they'll make time for you.”

“Is tomorrow soon enough?”

“Morning?”

Laughing softly, he shook his head. “Can I have breakfast first?”

Still, she hesitated.

“Come on. It's not so hard, is it, handing over the reins?”

Yes, Nick, she thought. It
is
hard and it's scary, putting yourself into someone else's hands. Relinquishing control.

With a deep sigh, she handed them over. He assumed the correct hold like a veteran. He didn't ask any of the usual learners' questions:
Is this okay? Am I doing this right?
With the natural arrogance of someone who did everything well, he simply knew he was doing fine.

“You have good hands,” she praised reluctantly.

“So I've been told.”

By too many women, T.C. reminded herself. “Do you pick up everything this easily?”

“Everything?”

“All those action-man things you do—the heli-skiing and rafting and climbing. Were they this easy?”

“If they were easy, there'd be no sense in doing them. No challenge.”

“What about the risk?”

He glanced across at her, his eyes as intensely blue as the autumn sky. Her heart flip-flopped. “It doesn't hurt to take a few risks, Tamara, to push outside your comfort zone. That's what makes you feel alive.”

“No.
This
is what makes me feel alive.”

Something in his expression as he took in her resolutely spoken words did strange things to her heart. She felt the compelling draw of his gaze but refused to meet it. The
need to run, to escape, rode her hard, and she blew out a frustrated breath. “You want to try another gear?”

“Yeah. I feel like I could blow off some steam.”

“Then I'd better take over.”

As she took the reins, his fingers grazed across hers. Awareness charged through her system, causing her to fumble. Star reacted by grabbing the bit and plunging forward. For a while T.C. needed all her skill to restrain the horse's enthusiastic charge, but gradually the mare responded to her coaxing hands and soothing words.

As she came back into hand, T.C. realized Nick was laughing—not with reactionary hysteria, but with sheer unrestrained pleasure. His mood tapped straight into T.C.'s adrenaline overload. Unable to restrain herself, she let go her own wild tension-relieving whoop. The sound caught and lifted in the breeze, mingling with the thick red dust that rose in their wake.