reins. Paco rode in the carriage. Exhilaration spiraled through Jillian. It was a surreal moment for her. After a year of mourning Kyle, she realized she’d put the pain behind her.
For the first time since his death she felt alive. Really alive.
As Remi drove the horses closer to them, his penetrating black gaze found hers. The collision sent her into shock much as a bolt of lightning would have done.
Paco got out and helped his grandchildren to climb in. Maria and Soraya followed. Jillian took pictures before getting in last. She was glad she’d chosen to wear her white cargo pants and green silk blouse. This way she didn’t have to worry about the hem of a dress or skirt riding up her legs like it had done the other day in front of Remi. She took her place next to Nina and her mother.
“Everyone in?” Remi looked over his shoulder. Jillian couldn’t take her eyes off him. It didn’t matter that he was dressed in his white workshirt and jeans like the men. He stood out. The process of natural selection had decreed it.
“Vamos!” Paco called out.
The next few hours were ones Jillian would always remember. Remi drove the horses to some groves where the oldest olive trees grew on the property. Their height and girth were noticeably bigger than the trees she’d seen the other day. Every day on the estate contributed to her education, causing her to clamor for more.
Tonight the festive atmosphere Remi had created prompted the little girls to sing. As the sun was sinking below the horizon, everyone joined in. Jillian didn’t know the songs, which was just as well since she sang off-key, but she enjoyed listening to Remi’s sensuous baritone voice. In fact she didn’t want the outing to end. Neither did the children, who were vocal about it once they started to head back.
That special feel of family togetherness was something she hadn’t experienced for a long time. She expressed as much to Remi after they’d reached the courtyard and she’d climbed out of the carriage.
His dark eyes slanted down at her. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
High up in the driver’s seat with his wavy black hair and burnished complexion, he didn’t know how attractive he looked. He was the epitome of male strength and Spanish pride. It hurt to look at him.
“I’ll never forget anything about my time here,” her voice throbbed. She took one more picture, hoping there was still enough light to capture this moment.
“Gracias, Remi!” the children shouted.
A slash of a gleaming white smile in that handsome bronzed face showed briefly before he drove the carriage out of the courtyard with the other men.
Jillian knew it would take him a while to put the carriage back in the barn and see to the horses. Since he had to be up at dawn, she realized she would have another long wait until she saw him again tomorrow evening, if then. Because he lived in the house to the north of the casa, she didn’t have the hope of seeing him going and coming.
Had he and his wife lived in the main house until his world came crashing down?
She hadn’t dared ask those questions, but whatever the answer, the long hours he worked and the distance he kept from Jillian guaranteed there’d been little contact with him since leaving the hospital.
Much as she dreaded what she would find out at the doctor’s office, she was looking forward to the drive, where she would have Remi’s undivided attention.
It wasn’t just because she couldn’t wait to share her ideas with him. The unvarnished truth was, she craved his presence. When he rounded a corner or came into a room, he charged the atmosphere with his own brand of electricity. She felt the buzz from the soles of her feet to the last hair on her head.
Until Remi drove her to the Prado Inn after the visit with Dr. Filartigua, she wouldn’t dwell on what it was going to be like to watch him walk away. Of course if it worked out that her company would be doing business with him, it followed she would have further conversations with him by phone or the Internet, but she’d no longer be a guest in his home. She wouldn’t have access to him in the same way. The intimacy they’d shared in the hospital was one of those moments out of time she’d never experience again.
No matter what she had to do, she couldn’t let him know how devastated she would be to get on with her life without him. During the night she’d had to face the painful truth that he wouldn’t suffer any loss to leave her because it wasn’t a question of his being interested in her. How could he be?
One didn’t recover from what he’d been through and still have faith to get involved in another romantic relationship. That wouldn’t be happening to him, let alone with her.
Maybe years down the road his loneliness would cause him to reach out to a local woman for companionship, but he’d never be able to summon the kind of love and passion he’d once felt for the woman who’d betrayed him.
Jillian shouldn’t be feeling heartache over that sobering fact. Unfortunately she did feel it because she was hopelessly in love with Remi.
Having known love before, she recognized all the signs, but this time everything was different. With Kyle there’d been no obstacles, no baggage for either of them. Their happy future lay before them. In Remi’s case she was doomed to love him from a distance without his ever knowing about it.
Like a bird thinking a window was open, she could fly to him but she would crash against the invisible glass protecting what was left of his wounded soul. A shard of glass had already damaged her eye. She couldn’t afford a broken neck, too.
So she would have to love him from a distance and feel joy knowing their chance meeting had resulted in him finding a new way to keep his heritage safe in an uncertain future. Tonight’s tour of the olive groves had infected her with pride in the Goyo name and what it stood for. Any tourists fortunate enough to stop here would go away having been given a figurative as well as literal taste of the glory of Castile’s past.
CHAPTER SIX
REMI NOTICED Dr. Filartigua’s reception room was filled with patients wearing eye patches. Apparently this was the postoperative day for his cataract patients, all of them much older than Jillian. The nurse called them back every five minutes for a quick check.
He’d driven Jillian to Madrid early that morning to make certain she was on time for her appointment. As it turned out they were early. He guided her to the only empty chair and remained standing until the room started to empty.
Looking fresh and incredibly attractive in a peach-colored sundress with its charming little short-sleeved jacket, she drew everyone’s attention. While she waited to know the extent of the damage to her eye, no one would know the depth of her fear. Remi was the one exception.
During the drive from the estate he’d been treated to her heightened animation and conversation. Her remodeling ideas were brilliant, but he could hardly concentrate because he knew all that emotion covered anxieties building since the accident.
When she’d met him outside the main house at eight this morning she’d been carrying her suitcase. His first instinct was to take it from her and put it back in the house, but he didn’t act on it. Jillian had been bracing herself for today and didn’t need anything to upset her.
Without saying a word he’d stowed the suitcase in
