captive kicked like a mule, wrenching a single booted foot free from his grasp, and slammed it into Mac’s face.
A gash opened. Hot liquid streamed across his cheekbone.
He let go, hoping for another chance to apprehend the thug from a standing position.
Scrambling to his feet, he made another lunge for the bandanna-wearing perpetrator, but the other man beat him by a second, dodged left and ran out the barn door into the night.
Mac shook off the mental annoyance at being a step behind. That’s why he was here. That’s why he’d been relegated to this detail. To refine his skills again.
Wiping a hand across his face, he cleaned some of the debris out of his eyes and turned back into the barn.
“Miss Clareborn!” He stepped forward, trying to make form out of the shadows. “Emma Clareborn!”
The excited shuffle of horse hooves drew his attention to the first stall where a nervous Thoroughbred paced around inside the twenty-by-twenty-foot square.
He reached his hand through the upper railing to touch the horse’s muzzle.
“Get away from him!”
Jerking back he flattened against the wall of the stall, prepared to take on another attack, but the decisive ting of metal boring into wood locked him in place.
“Who are you?” A woman stood in front of him, her eyes wide, her breath coming in gasps that accentuated her state of agitation.
He was glued to the wall where the pitchfork she’d knifed at him had skewered the folds of his shirt, barely missing the concealed weapon holstered to his belt. He didn’t like feeling pinned like a moth to an insect board in science class.
Determination set her features and glimmered in her eyes.
“Mac Titus, your Solberg Agency referral. I’m the bodyguard you hired to protect you from thugs like that.”
Her shoulders drooped for a second and she let out a sigh, but the leery stare still haunted her dark eyes. “You have ID?”
“In my wallet.”
She didn’t move. “Toss it here.”
Mac dug into the back pocket of his jeans with his left hand, pulled out his wallet and lobbed it on the ground next to her.
Reaching down, she scooped it up without taking her eyes off of him. Flipping it open, she did a quick comparison. “You look better without blood on your face.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She closed his wallet and dropped it on the ground. Stepping up, she grasped the handle of the pitchfork in both hands and worked it out of the wall, freeing him.
“It’s the second time this week someone has tried to get to my horse. That bandanna-wearing bastard woke me up when he tried to jimmy the latch on the stall door.”
Almost on cue the horse in the stable behind him thrust his head over the gate and bobbed his head up and down several times.
“But I’m not your assignment Mr. Titus. Navigator is.” She pointed at the horse.
Mac sputtered, dragging the residual particles of sawdust up onto his tongue where he wiped them off with the back of his hand.
“I’m in the business of protecting people, not horses.”
“Solberg assured me you could handle this assignment. He claimed you have lots of experience with racehorses.”
Navigator bobbed his head again as if he were in some sort of conspiratorial agreement.
Another protest churned inside of him, but he held it in, taking in the subtle shade of sleep deprivation tinting the skin under her expressive eyes, and the cot made up next to the stall gate with a thick sleeping bag to keep out the chill in the December air.
“You’ve been sleeping out here?”
“Yeah. Every night since I received an anonymous threat over the telephone the day after Navigator won the Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs two weeks ago.”
“That’s impressive, Miss Clareborn. But he’s just a horse, and I usually protect those standing on two legs.”
Her eyes went wide, her body stiffened; he’d insulted her.
“He’s not just any horse. He’s going to win the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. The Triple Crown, Mr. Titus.”
Navigator bobbed his head.
Amusement glided over Mac’s nerves. It wouldn’t serve to insult her again, and from the set of her jaw to the surety in her sexy dark eyes, he knew she was certain. He’d seen the obsession before, experienced its destructive power firsthand. People with that much belief in something they couldn’t control belonged in Gamblers Anonymous.
“Do you have any idea who’s behind the threats against your Thoroughbred?”
“I didn’t recognize the voice on the phone and my caller ID registered it as an unknown number. It could be from half the farms in Fayette County, anyone with a Derby prospect. They’ve been slinking around my practice track, clicking their stopwatches from behind the bushes since early this fall. They’ve seen the speed he has and they don’t want to compete against him.”
She stepped to the horse and stroked her hand along the wide white blaze zigzagging down the big bay’s forehead.
His head drooped slightly, his eyes blinked shut.
Even a novice could see the woman loved her animal and believed in him, but he knew the inherent error in her thinking.
“I’ve got a first-aid kit in the tack room. I’ll clean you up.” She headed for the open door. “Besides I’d like to see what sort of man my money gets me.”
Mac scooped up his wallet and fell in behind her as she headed for the tack room in the corner of the barn, watching the sway of her curvy hips clad in tight jeans. The view put an unexpected hustle in his step.
Emma Clareborn was all grown up. A far cry from the girl he remembered seeing once twenty-five years ago. She’d gone from a freckle-faced kid with long, dark braids to a curvaceous woman who at the moment turned up the heat in his blood.
“How long have you been running Firehill Farm?”
“Since my father had a stroke about the time Navigator was foaled.”
Mac’s footsteps faltered. His dad’s old nemesis, Thadeous Clareborn, was still alive?
“It put him in a wheelchair and he never mustered the courage or the physical ability to get out of it.” Emma stepped through the tack room door with every nerve in her system attuned to the man behind her. Even bloody and covered with grit he caused an instant attraction just under the surface of her skin.
Dark hair dragged his collar.
