heart-rate soared, and all she could think about was being held in those arms, how it had felt to be pressed up close against his body.
‘Ready,’ she confirmed, lifting her chin.
She had barely led Lizzie’s horse out of the stable when her phone rang. She looked down at the screen and shook her head. ‘Sorry, but I’ve got to take this.’
‘Go right ahead.’
She walked quickly away from Tiago, concerned that her mother’s torrent of words would alert him to her problem. It was always the same problem. Her mother was short of money again. It was the only time she ever called.
Taking a deep breath, she launched in. ‘Did you get my messages? I was worried about you. It seems so long since I’ve heard from you. Are you sure you’re okay? You’re not okay?’ Danny frowned with concern. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
She dreaded what her mother would say. It was never good news. The type of men Danny’s mother liked to go out with generally needed a loan. She held the phone tight to her ear as her mother repeated the familiar plea.
‘It’s just to tide him over, Danny. I told him you’d understand...’
Told whom? Oh, never mind. She wouldn’t know the man, anyway.
‘I knew I could rely on you. Thank you...thank you,’ her mother was exclaiming.
‘But I don’t have that kind of money,’ Danny said, horrified when her mother mentioned a figure.
Her mother ignored this comment entirely. ‘Just do what you can,’ she said. ‘You’re so generous, Danny. I knew we could rely on you.’
I’m such a mug, don’t you mean? Danny thought.
‘It’s only a short-term loan. He’s got money coming in soon.’
How often had she heard that? Danny wondered. ‘I’ll send you what I can,’ she promised.
‘I hear there’s going to be a lot of money sloshing around Rottingdean now Chico Fernandez has taken control?’
She recognised her mother’s wheedling voice and immediately sprang to her friend’s defence. ‘Chico hasn’t taken control,’ she argued, feeling affronted on Lizzie’s behalf. ‘Lizzie and Chico work in partnership, and their money has got nothing whatsoever to do with me. I’ll send you what money I can when I’ve earned it.’
‘Make sure you get your hands on some of their money,’ her mother insisted, as if she hadn’t spoken, and as if Danny were entitled to a share. ‘You’ve got it good now, Danny. It’s only fair to share your good fortune with others—with me—when things can only get better for you.’
Her mother’s voice had grown petulant and childlike. An all too familiar feeling swept over Danny as she was tugged this way and that by a sense of duty to her mother and a longing to get on with her own life.
‘Just one more thing before I go,’ her mother said. ‘I heard in the village that the repair work at Rottingdean is going to mean evacuating the house soon?’
‘That’s right,’ Danny confirmed. ‘It’s great news that the old house is going to be given new life, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so,’ her mother agreed. ‘But—and it’s really hard for me to say this, Danny—I’m afraid you can’t come back here to the cottage while the renovation work is being carried out.’
‘Oh?’
‘My new fella wouldn’t like it, you see. You do understand, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ she said faintly, taking this in.
‘I really think he’s the one, Danny.’
Another one who was ‘the one’, Danny mused wearily. ‘Just take care of yourself, Mum,’ she said softly. She would pick up the pieces of her mother’s life when it all fell apart again, somehow. And as for her own—
‘You won’t forget to send that money, will you?’ her mother pressed.
‘I promise,’ Danny said.
‘You’re such a good girl.’
Danny shook her head at the irony of her penniless self, bailing out some unknown man, and then the sound of horses’ hooves clattering across the cobblestones distracted her. ‘Mum—I’ve got to go. I promised to exercise Lizzie’s horse.’
‘Just don’t forget to send that money, will you, Danny?’
‘I won’t,’ she said again as Tiago rode round the corner, leading her horse.
She cut the line and focused on him. He took her breath away. He looked so good on a horse. He was so at home, so at ease in the saddle, that just watching him was a treat. But she felt anything but at ease, and was already beginning to doubt her sanity at agreeing to ride out with him.
‘Important call?’ he asked.
‘My mother.’
‘Nothing more important than that.’
She murmured in agreement, thinking that Tiago looked like a visitor from another, more vigorous planet, with his deep tan, thick black stubble and his wild jet-black hair secured by a bandana for riding. And that gold earring was glittering in the grudging light of the early-morning sun. More marauding pirate, than wealthy and respectable rampaging barbarian...
‘Something has amused you?’ he asked as he handed over the reins of her horse.
‘Just happy at the thought of riding out.’ She concentrated on mounting up and curbed her smile.
Just riding out with Tiago would be an adventure—but he didn’t need to know that. He made her feel things she had never felt before. Maybe she was a little bit in love with him? Ha! Much good that would do her.
He gave her an assessing look, but made no further comment as he led the way out of the courtyard.
* * *
He was feeling confident as they rode out together. He always felt confident, but Chico had filled him in on Danny’s family background, which had led Tiago to believe that if Danny thought she could keep her mother secure and have a real chance of starting her own training centre one day her answer to his proposition would be yes.
Urging his horse forward, he headed for the open countryside.
He raised the issue a short time later, when they’d reined in. ‘Would you be prepared to leave the country for a good job? Would you be able to leave your mother, for instance?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said at once. ‘I think she’d be relieved if I left her alone for a while.’
And just sent her money, he thought, remembering what Chico had told him about Danny’s mother’s constant demands for cash.
‘And you? What
