took that to mean that this wasn’t the first time Phillip had shown up with women dressed like hookers.
Betty nickered in boredom and went back to cropping grass. Jo pretty much felt the same way. Of course this was how Phillip Beaumont rolled. Those headlines hadn’t lied. The thing that had been less honest had been that interview in Western Horseman. That had probably been more about rehabilitating his brand image than about his actual love and respect for horses.
But on the bright side, if he’d brought his own entertainment to the ranch, he’d leave her to her work. That’s what was important here—she had to save Sun, cement her reputation as a horse trainer and add this paycheck to the fund that she’d use to buy her own ranch. Adding Beaumont Farms to her résumé was worth putting up with the hassle of, well, this.
Then another set of legs appeared. Unlike the first sets, these legs were clad in what looked like expensive Italian leather shoes and fine-cut wool trousers. Phillip Beaumont himself stood and looked at his farm over the top of the limo, all blond hair and gleaming smile. He wore an odd look on his face. He almost looked relieved.
His gaze settled on her. As their eyes met across the drive, Jo felt...disoriented. Looking at Phillip Beaumont was one thing, but apparently being looked at by Phillip Beaumont?
Something else entirely.
Heat flushed her face as the corner of his mouth curved up into a smile, grabbed hold of her and refused to let her go. She couldn’t pull away from his gaze—and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. He looked as if he was glad to see her—which she knew wasn’t possible. He had no idea who she was and couldn’t have been expecting her. Besides, compared to his traveling companions, no one in their right mind would even notice her.
But that look.... Happy and hungry and relieved. Like he’d come all this way just to see her and now that she was here, the world would be right again.
No one had looked at her like that. Ever. Before, when she’d been a party girl, men looked at her with a wolfish hunger that had very little to do with her as a woman and everything to do with them wanting to get laid. And since the accident? Well, she wore her hair like this and dressed like she did specifically so she wouldn’t invite people to look at her.
He saw right through her.
The women lost their balance and nearly tumbled to the ground, but Phillip caught them in his arms. He pulled them apart and settled one on his left side, the other on his right. The women giggled, as if this were nothing but hilarious.
It hurt to see them, like ghosts of her past come back to haunt her.
“Mr. Beaumont,” Richard began in a warm, if desperate, tone as he went to meet his boss. “We weren’t expecting you today.”
“Dick,” Phillip said, which caused his traveling companions to break out into renewed giggles. “I wanted to show my new friends—” He looked down at Blonde Number One.
“Katylynn,” Number One giggled. Of course.
“Sailor,” Number Two helpfully added.
Phillip’s head swung up in a careful arc, another disarming smile already in place as he gave the girls a squeeze. “I wanted to show Sun to Katylynn and Sailor.”
“Mr. Beaumont,” Richard began again. Jo heard more anger in his voice this time. “Sun is not—”
“Wha’s wrong with that horse?” Sailor took a step away from Phillip and pointed at Sun.
They all turned to look. Sun was now bucking with renewed vigor. Damn stamina, Jo thought as she watched him.
“Wha’s making him do that?” Katylynn asked.
“You are,” Jo informed the trio.
The women glared at her. “Who are you?” Sailor asked in a haughty tone.
“Yes, who are you?” Phillip Beaumont spoke slowly—carefully—as his eyes focused on her again.
Again, her face prickled with unfamiliar heat. Get ahold of yourself, she thought, forcibly breaking the eye contact. She wasn’t the kind of woman who got drunk and got lost in a man’s eyes. Not anymore. She’d left that life behind and no one—not even someone as handsome and rich as Phillip Beaumont—would tempt her back to it.
“Mr. Beaumont, this here is Jo Spears. She’s the horse...” She almost heard whisperer sneak out through his teeth. “Trainer. The new trainer for Sun.”
She gave Richard an appreciative smile. A quick study, that one.
Phillip detached himself from his companions, which led to them making whimpering noises of protest.
As Phillip closed the distance between him and Jo, that half-smile took hold of his mouth again. He stopped with two feet still between them. “You’re the new trainer?”
She stared at his eyes. They were pale green with flecks of gold around the edges. Nice eyes.
Nice eyes that bounced. It wasn’t a big movement, but Phillip’s eyes were definitely moving of their own accord. She knew the signs of intoxication and that one was a dead giveaway. He was drunk.
She had to admire his control, though. Nothing else in his mannerisms or behaviors gave away that he was three sheets to the wind. Which really only meant one thing.
Being this drunk wasn’t something new for him. He’d gotten very good at masking his state. That was something that took years of practice.
She’d gotten good at it, too—but it was so exhausting to keep up that false front of competency, to act normal when she wasn’t. She’d hated being that person. She wasn’t anymore.
She let this realization push down on the other part of her brain that was still admiring his lovely eyes. Phillip Beaumont represented every single one of her triggers wrapped up in one extremely attractive package. Everything she could never be again if she wanted to be a respected horse trainer, not an out-of-control alcoholic.
She needed this job, needed the prestige of retraining a horse like Sun on her résumé and the paycheck that went with it. She absolutely could not allow a handsome man who could hold his liquor to tempt her back into a life she’d long since given up.
She did not hook up. Not even with the likes of Phillip Beaumont.
“I’m just here for the horse,” she told him.
He tilted his head in what looked like acknowledgement without breaking eye contact and without losing that smile.
Man, this was unnerving. Men who looked at her usually saw the bluntly cut, shoulder-length hair and the flannel shirts and the jeans and dismissed her out of hand. That was how she wanted it. It kept a safe distance between her and the rest of the world. That was just the way it had to be.
But this look was doing some very unusual things to her. Things she didn’t like. Her cheeks got hot—was she blushing?—and a strange prickling started at the base of her neck and raced down her back.
She gritted her teeth but thankfully, he was the one who broke the eye contact first. He looked
