testing her, trying to find her limits.
He’d wanted her gone, and now she would be. Good. No more struggling to keep her eyes off the broad strength of his shoulders, the dexterous power of his hands, the dark magnetism of his gaze.
What a relief. So why the hollow ache inside her at the thought of leaving?
Probably that hollow space was there because she’d been up half the night drafting projections for a new client, with nothing more than a quick plate of fruit and cheese to keep her going.
She didn’t think he’d fire her when he heard her news. She’d been at the company long enough to know that for all his brash demeanor Elan treated his employees with scrupulous fairness. There were several pregnant women in the office and he’d even raised the idea of an on-site daycare to encourage employee retention.
His objections would be personal.
If he was trying to force her out now, how would he react when he knew her secret? Even if he didn’t fire her, he might push just hard enough to get her on that train home to Wisconsin.
Telling him was risky, but she wasn’t the kind of person who could sit on a secret like this. It was his child, too, and he deserved to know of its existence.
She’d reached a flat expanse of land on which she couldn’t see a man-made structure of any kind, let alone a house befitting a wealthy tycoon. Was she lost?
She hadn’t phoned to tell him she was coming. She’d figured the surprise of her unexpected appearance would only herald the other, far more dramatic surprise that she had in store for him. But if she didn’t find the place soon, the surprise would be finding her bleached bones out on the burning sands.
As she came to the top of a slight rise she spied movement off in the distance. Dark lines of pipe fencing crisscrossed the desert, marking boundaries on the open plain. She squinted against the high sun, trying to make out the shadowy shapes that darted to and fro in the distance.
A man and a horse.
A dark horse and a dark-skinned man silhouetted against the sun-bleached landscape. Gradually she saw the shape of the house emerge from its surroundings. Sand-colored, it blended almost totally into the environment. Other horses sheltered in the dark shade of earth-toned structures that became visible as she drew closer.
A trickle of sweat pricked at her spine, and her heart raced as much from fear as from physical exertion as she drew closer to her quarry.
He hadn’t seen her.
Elan stood in the center of a round pen. The dark-red horse ran on the end of a long lead, as he chased it around in circles. When the horse slowed or tried to turn away from him, he cracked a whip to drive it forward.
His attention focused totally on the horse, he didn’t look up even as she dismounted her bike. She leaned it against the sand-colored wall of the imposing bunkerlike structure that she assumed must be his house.
She approached slowly, her heart thundering against her ribs. The pen Elan worked in stood a good hundred yards away and she struggled to put one foot in front of the other and cover what suddenly seemed like an impossibly large distance.
She couldn’t back out this time. Wouldn’t leave until she’d told him.
“Yah!”
His shout startled her and she jumped. But he’d shouted at the horse. His expression frightened her, brows low over eyes narrowed against the bright sun, chin jutted in an expression of determination.
Her gaze dropped lower. He wore only a pair of dusty black jeans. His bare torso shone with sweat in the blazing midday heat. His hair was damp, black tendrils plastered to his forehead. He raised a muscled arm and buried his face in the crook of his elbow, streaking a mix of sweat and dirt across his face as he raised his focus again to his horse.
And then he saw her.
The rein to the horse went slack and the animal slowed to a halt. Elan raised his hand higher to shield his eyes from the sun and squinted at her as if doubting his vision.
“Sara?”
Her heart tripped over itself and her breathing quickened as she walked to him on unsteady legs. “Yes.”
“What brings you to my home?” Still squinting against the sun, he started to stride toward her. The horse, however, had other ideas and tossed its head, almost jerking the rein from his hand.
Elan jerked back and let fly a string of words in a language she didn’t know. “This mare, she has the stubbornness of an ox, the disdain of a camel!”
Sara looked at the mare. She had her head raised and one eye firmly fixed on Elan in an attitude of visibly insolent disregard. “I’m training her to see if she’s suitable to breed to my stallions.”
“But she has other ideas?” Sara raised an eyebrow. She was relieved by the minor distraction of talking about the horse. An icebreaker, if ice could even be imagined in the blazing heat of the desert.
“Yes. She’d like to train me to leave her alone with her food.” Elan’s lips curved into a smile. The mare seized the opportunity to turn her backside to him. Elan cracked the whip and goaded her into a swift canter around the pen, then brought her to a halt.
“There’s no point in breeding a horse that cannot safely be ridden, no matter how lovely her conformation,” he continued, as he gathered up the length of rein and led the horse across the pen to where Sara stood.
“She’s beautiful.”
“Yes, but beauty without loyalty can break hearts—and bones.” He smiled broadly and patted the horse’s neck. “She’ll bend to my will. It’s only a matter of time. I feed her, I care for her, give her shelter from the sun. She will learn these things come with a price, and she’ll learn to pay it.”
Sara nodded and looked at the beautiful sorrel mare, who tossed her head constantly, obviously hating the confinement of her halter. Her heart swelled with pity for the creature that wanted to be free, but would have to learn that her days of illusory freedom were over.
She knew that feeling.
At that instant the child stirred inside her, a strange new fluttering sensation that tugged her attention back to her purpose. Her fingers drifted instinctively to the place where her baby was secreted in her belly. Elan’s eyes narrowed as they followed the motion, and she yanked the traitorous hand behind her back.
“I need to talk to you.” Her gut tightened and her breathing slowed, making her light-headed.
“Yes?”
“Can we…I know you’re busy, but can we…go inside?” She couldn’t stand there in the heat much longer without keeling over. Her fingers and toes stung with needle pricks of awful anticipation and her heart bumped almost painfully against her ribs.
“Of course.” He paused for a moment, regarding her steadily. “I’ll put Leila in her paddock.” The expression on his face showed that he realized it was a serious matter. Elan was not a man to waste words teasing out the reason for her visit. They walked in silence together as he penned the horse and removed its halter.
