is it?”
He was tall. She liked tall men. They made her feel feminine and secure and somehow safe.
He’s a racehorse owner, the sane part of her screamed. Heck, and a horse trainer, too.
But he’d agreed to let her help him. That meant something.
“It’s cheesy spinach dip.” She tried like heck not to edge away from him, but she could feel the heat radiate off of him, which, in turn, made her feel flush. “There’s enough calories in that to clog an artery or two.”
He leaned down close to her, so close she could see the dark blue ring around his eyes. “You trying to kill me, then?”
He could have no way of knowing how just being next to him was killing her. No way at all, but she could have sworn she saw the glimmer of something in his eyes, something that made her skin prickle.
“It’s really good.” She sounded like a timid little girl.
He had really white teeth and a smile that made it difficult to hold his gaze. “What do we dip?”
She pointed with her chin toward the brown bag. The moment he stepped away, the muscles in her shoulders collapsed. Her legs damn near did, too.
He found the pieces of the French loaf she’d cut up earlier, his look of pleasure as he dipped a fluffy piece of bread, lifted it to his mouth, then chewed doing strange things to her insides.
“Forget dinner. We should eat this.”
“That’s okay with me.”
He smiled. “Nah. I have something special planned. Braised short ribs with a port arsenic reduction.”
It took her a moment to follow his words, which just went to show how discombobulated she was. “Uh-huh.”
All right. So he made her feel all silly and tongue-tied and teenager-like inside. Oh, well. She’d get over it.
“Just kidding.”
He was? She straightened in embarrassment. How had she missed that?
You were too busy ogling him.
“Seriously,” he said. “I’m making fajitas. Simple.” He went to the fridge and began pulling out the ingredients—a package of beef, a bell pepper, an onion and grated cheddar cheese—and then set them on the island next to her brown bag. “Only takes a moment. Sit down while I brown the meat and onions. You can tell me your plans for Dasher.”
She told herself to focus on what she’d come to do, not how the light from a window along the front of the house cast a glow onto his face, highlighting the dusky outline of his whiskers. He had a chin right out of a comic book and the shoulders to match. Hours out of doors had turned his skin a deep mahogany that emphasized the cobalt of his eyes. He kept peeking at her as he unwrapped the meat and set it on a cutting board.
“Go on,” he encouraged.
She took a deep breath. Okay. Focus.
“I bet Dr. Miller suggested stall rest and some kind of therapy for Dasher.”
He nodded as he began chopping the meat. “And maybe surgery.”
“Don’t listen to him.”
He paused. “You care to tell me why I shouldn’t listen to a doctor with thirty years of experience caring for racehorses?”
“For exactly that reason.” She spotted a barstool beneath the center island far enough away from where he stood that maybe she could concentrate. “He’s old-school.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
How could someone so handsome do something so deplorable for a living? It was hard to reconcile the man in front of her—good-looking, cooking dinner for her—and the mental image she’d built up of him as some kind of evil ogre.
“I wrote a paper my senior year on high suspensory tears in equines. In it I completely disproved the validity of the traditional treatment options used by modern-day veterinarians.” She frowned. “Although not without ruffling a few feathers.”
Including Paul’s, but she wasn’t going to think about that.
“I’ll bet,” he said, pulling a pan from somewhere and scraping the meat into it. “You’re good at ruffling feathers.” But he shot her a smile meant to take the sting out of his words, his grin causing her to shift her gaze to the granite counter. No, not granite, marble, she suddenly realized.
“They didn’t like that I was right.” When she lifted her gaze, it was in time to see him turn away, pan in hand, the click-click-click of the gas burner filling the air. “I might not have had as large a control group as they wanted, but I proved that conventional medical treatment guaranteed no more success than my method. In fact, my method actually had more success, something the review board chalked up to luck.”
And it still burned her when she thought about it. Luck. As if fate had had something to do with the successful rehabilitation of two show horses.
“And what is that method?”
The sizzle of cooking meat made her stomach growl. She reached for a piece of bread and scooped a bit of the dip. She was pleased with how good it tasted.
“Let me ask you something.” She resisted the urge to snatch up another piece. “If you were to tear your ACL or your meniscus, what do you think the doctors would prescribe as treatment?”
His back was still toward her as he shrugged, and Mariah couldn’t help noticing the muscles beneath his polo shirt. They were as well defined as a professional boxer’s. Must be all that hay he lifted.
“Rest. If that didn’t work, surgery.” She watched as he moved the meat around the pan. “Therapy afterward.”
“Exactly.” She gave in and scooped up more of the dip. Chewing gave her a moment to gather her thoughts. “Therapy. But what do they suggest you do? Lock your horse up for months on end, then walk him for another two months. No turnout. No movement. No real exercise. Nothing but rest, and that’s not good for an animal that’s genetically programmed to roam the range. Keep them cooped up for a few weeks and what happens?”
He turned, glancing up at her as he grabbed the onion pieces. “They blow.”
“Exactly,” she pronounced again. “And then you’re right back where you started from, sometimes in an even worse position. I’ve seen some injured horses go crazy in their stalls from lack of activity. So you drug them, but you can only keep them drugged for so long before they have health problems, and then what?”
He went back to cooking and it smelled divine, especially when he grabbed some spices from a rack above the stove. The scent of whatever he sprinkled caused her to close her eyes and inhale.
“So what do you suggest we do for Dasher?”
She had to force herself to open her eyes, because it was far easier to concentrate when she wasn’t looking at him. “Minimal stall rest, enough time to let the injury
