footsteps on the hard ground getting closer as she lay there, her chest burning as she tried to replace the air the fall had knocked out of her lungs. It hurt, but it was nothing more than she deserved, she decided, furious with herself for making such an amateurish mistake. Anyone could fall, but to let go of the reins when you came off … now that was stupid!
She waited for another of the painful stomach cramps to pass—this one was even more painful than the one that had hit her when the horse had stumbled—before she prised her eyelids apart and saw the shiny Italian leather shoes. She didn’t need to go any further up the leg of grey tailored trousers … She knew who was standing there.
Of all the people who could have discovered her in this ignominious position, it had to be him.
The surge of intense relief Santiago had felt when he saw her blue-veined eyelids flutter against her pale waxen cheek was submerged by the equally strong blast of white-hot fury that rapidly succeeded it. When she began to move his entire body shook with the effort of keeping his feelings in check, feelings that had been shaken loose by the sight of her seemingly lifeless body.
‘Keep still!’ he yelled, fighting his way through the memories that crowded in on him and forcing himself to think here and now … think potential spinal injuries?
Ignoring the terse instruction—did the man have to make everything sound like an order?—Lucy, determined not to lie there like a stranded fish while he looked down at her with disdain from an Olympian height, pulled herself up into a sitting position.
She clamped her teeth over the groan as the effort of the simple action caused a fine layer of cold perspiration to break out over the surface of her skin.
The immediate problem was breathing.
‘Just winded …’ she rasped between gasps, her voice barely audible as she struggled with the fastener of the helmet, then, exhausted by the effort, she lay it in her lap.
Santiago’s dark eyes moved from her pale trembling fingers to the cloud of silver-white hair that, released from the confines of the helmet, spilled down her back unbidden. The memory of feeling those glossy strands sliding through his fingers like silk surfaced … He pushed but the tactile memory lingered so inexplicably strong that his fingertips tingled.
Lucy plucked a piece of grass from her once pristine white shirt, very conscious of the angry figure who towered over her. Why didn’t he say something …? Finally unable to stand the simmering silence any longer, she croaked, ‘I’ve got grass stains on my shirt.’
With a snarl of disbelief, Santiago dropped down into a crouch beside her.
‘Grass stains!’ he ejaculated, taking the helmet from her trembling fingers and resisting the growing compulsion to press one of her slim white hands between his palms. This woman did not need comforting, she needed therapy.
Needed kissing.
‘Por Dios! If you can’t say anything sensible, shut up!’
Lucy, who could not have said anything even had she wanted to, swallowed past the aching emotional occlusion in her throat and clamped her teeth down on her trembling lower lip.
‘This thing …’ His voice faded as he laid the helmet to one side with exaggerated care. He inhaled and levelled a burning glare at the top of her blonde head as he fought for control. ‘This thing probably saved your life. You were lucky.’ It was not always the way … His heavy eyelids lowered partially, concealing the bleakness in the dark depths as the brutal inescapable images played in his head.
For a moment the silence hung between them, broken when Lucy gave a strangled sob she turned into a cough before pressing her face into her cupped palms. ‘Don’t dramatise,’ she mumbled, unconsciously repeating the phrase her father had always said when she became overemotional as a child.
That brought his head up with a jerk. ‘Dramatise!’ He swore in his native tongue and sucked in a wrathful breath as he dragged a hand over his ebony hair. ‘You want to see dramatic …?’
She lifted her face, her slightly dazed electric-blue eyes connecting with his, and Santiago lost track of his train of thought. Despite the tough-guy act she looked as he felt, and the petulant rebuttal seemed to have exhausted her. All the fight was gone, leaving her looking defenceless and vulnerable and several million miles away from the seductress his brother needed saving from.
With her defences stripped away her luminous beauty shone through: perfect bone structure, flawless skin … It was hard to look at such perfection and remain unmoved. As he stared he felt his anger drain away, leaving him feeling as if his armour had been stripped away … He felt suddenly exposed … He pushed away the thought. The only thing that was exposed was her inability to think beyond her own instant gratification.
Lucy sat there, her breath coming in painful uneven rasps, chin on her chest, her eyes lifted to the man squatting casually on the balls of his feet beside her. As always, he gave off the impression of elegant good taste overlaid by an aura of raw sexual magnetism that always made the details of what he was wearing secondary. Today it was an outfit more appropriate to the office than riding—a pale grey suit, crisp white shirt and silk tie, all classic and tasteful.
As their eyes connected the anger that was rolling off him hit like a physical force.
‘You shouldn’t be moving,’ Santiago snarled, thinking in the same breath he had to stop her before she caused permanent damage and it would serve her right if she did.
Practically speaking, if she chose to ignore him, short of flattening her with a rugby tackle and pinning her to the ground—an image that his imagination tended to linger unhealthily over—Santiago recognised that all he could do was watch.
‘Just because I’m saying something doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing to do, Lucy.’
Lucy blinked, horrified to feel the sting of hot tears behind her eyes. She was proof against his insults but the unexpected gruff gentleness she heard in his voice sliced through her defences like a hot knife through ice cream.
She bit her quivering lip, held up a hand in mute appeal and husked a breathless plea. She couldn’t cry—her tears would be something else for him to curl his lip contemptuously at. ‘I just need a minute … to get my breath back.’
Santiago opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again and tilted his head sharply in acquiescence before rising to his feet in one fluid motion. He walked away feeling an urgent need to put some distance between them.
Running one hand over his jaw, he reached for his phone with the other. The woman, he decided, punching in a number with unwanted viciousness, was amazing. Considering the circumstances, he had been bloody restrained and yet with one look from her swimming blue eyes she managed to simultaneously look like some innocent virgin and make him feel like a bullying tyrant—it was quite a skill.
In the periphery of her vision Lucy was conscious of him pacing a few feet away while speaking tersely into a mobile phone. When he dropped down beside her once more a few moments later her breathing was normal and more importantly she was no longer on the brink of a teary outburst.
‘Better?’
She nodded in response to his abrupt enquiry and said in her head, Suck it up Lucy, keep it together.
Santiago remained sceptical. The alarming rattle had gone, but her breath
