It was as if I’d been shocked …

Damien’s big, strong body blocked out the glow of the fireplace, until all I saw was him. I swallowed hard. Vaguely, I wondered if I’d combust on contact.

Then, his lips were on mine and all that weird, anxious energy in me quieted. Those warm hands were on my waist, his fingers straying to the bare skin beneath the hem of my shirt. He steadied me as he kissed me, holding me still while his lips moved in a tantalizing dance over mine. Soft at first. And then, with a brief flick of his tongue along the seam of my lips, things turned sexy.

Hot.

Damien knew how to kiss. He savored me like fresh fruit at harvest time, tasting, nipping, licking. He made me feel delicious. He let me absorb every detail of the kiss at my own speed until I was comfortable.

No, not comfortable. Hungry …

My Secret Fantasies

Joanne Rock

www.millsandboon.co.uk

While working on her master’s degree in English literature, JOANNE ROCK took a break to write a romance novel and quickly realized a good book requires as much time as a master’s program itself. She became obsessed with writing the best romance possible, and sixty-some novels later, she hopes readers have enjoyed all the “almost there” attempts. Today, Joanne is a frequent workshop speaker and writing instructor at regional and national writer conferences. She credits much of her success to the generosity of her fellow writers, who are always willing to share insights on the process. More important, she credits her readers with their kind notes and warm encouragement over the years for her joy in the writing journey.

For Lisa Manasier,

who made me kale chips while I wrote,

who has encouraged me in more ways than she knows,

and who has always had my back.

I love you like a sister.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Excerpt

Prologue

“Is anyone there?” Shaelynn called, knocking on the door of the only house she’d seen after hours of walking through the cold, snowy dark. Her snowmobile had died miles from her hotel, crashing nose-first into a frozen stream. She’d lost her cell phone.

This Colorado getaway had stopped being fun and started being scary when she could no longer feel her toes. She had to get inside and get warm...fast.

“Hello?” She banged on the door again....

MY FINGERS HOVERED over the computer keys as I paused to reread what I’d just written. While my fictional heroine shivered in the mountains, I sat in my vacant L.A. apartment. All my worldly possessions were already packed in the SUV, and I was leaving town tomorrow. For tonight, I deserved a fun distraction. Ever since I’d taken it into my head to write a naughty novel, I’d been having a great time with my characters.

The world of steamy fiction was a vast improvement over my job as a struggling actress—a job I’d finally realized didn’t suit me one bit. And writing was far, far better than my awful experience on a popular reality series that had made me one of the most gossiped-about women in Los Angeles. Most of all, I had the sense that penning this book would finally heal some demons I’d been running from ever since I’d left home at eighteen. Closure on that dark chapter of my life was long overdue—especially since running from it had only made the past implode.

Drumming my fingers lightly along the keys, I forced those thoughts aside to concentrate on what happened next in the story, while on another screen, I waited for a reply on my instant message regarding a piece of property I wanted to see tomorrow. This business deal could give me the time and freedom to finally write my book. I’d scrimped and saved, living like a pauper, to finance the next phase of my life. Now that I’d won that reality game show series, I finally had enough starter money to get to work on my dreams. And not a minute too soon, given how much grief I’d taken because of the show ever since filming ended three weeks ago. Given how much grief a long-lost boyfriend was trying to create for me.

Shuddering, I turned back to the story.

“Is anyone home?” Shaelynn called one last time before she trudged through the knee-deep snow, her legs shaking from exhaustion and cold. Maybe she’d have better luck at the back door.

Shoving through the negligible barrier of an overgrown boxwood hedge, she peered around the back corner of the cabin. Another exterior light burned, just like in front. But inside, the place looked completely dark. Hopelessness threatened to swamp her as she banged on that door, too.

“Help!” she called, her voice echoing in the sharp cold. “Help!” She backed up a step so she could yell at the whole house.

And rammed right into a low wall.

“Oof,” she muttered, slipping. She grabbed on to the structure to keep herself from falling. Only to realize it wasn’t a wall at all. It was a hot tub.

Built into the cabin’s raised deck, the tub had a thick, insulated leather covering. A thin trail of steam wafted from the seam where the cover met the cedar siding.

Heat. Warmth. A guarantee of survival.

All those things awaited her there beneath that tarp. Who would call it trespassing when she was at risk of freezing to death out here?

Mind made up, Shaelynn tugged off her coat and unbuttoned her blouse with stiff, shaking fingers....

I imagined myself there in the crisp, clear air of the Rockies, sliding down among the hot jets of an outdoor spa. It was possible half the fun of this book was the access it gave me to the kind of life I’d always dreamed about. A sensuous life full of great sex was something I’d never quite managed in the real world. Far from it. I’d dropped a few dress sizes since high school, thinking I’d get over some of my insecurities by changing the external stuff. No dice. Now I would tackle those hang-ups through my book, where I could live out a vicarious existence of someone who was hot and sexy.

First fiction. Then real life.

Speaking of which...

Steam wafted up Shaelynn’s cheek like the touch of a phantom lover. After half an hour in the hot tub, she’d finally started to feel warm again. Her toes had quit throbbing. She’d quit jumping at every sound in the woods and had turned the jets on full blast. Now, the heat relaxed her. The pure decadence of being naked beneath the water made her whole body feel deliciously languid.

Tilting her neck back on the headrest, she stared up at the stars and breathed deep.

Until the sound of a dog barking made her sit up.

She listened hard, switching off the pump for the hot tub jets so she could hear better. Had she imagined it?

The bark came again. Closer. Followed by the definite crack of twigs and movement of something—something human sized—in the woods nearby.

Panic sliced through her as she detected the shadow of a man approaching. Should she sit still and pray he passed? Shout for help even though she was miles from anywhere and her phone was lost in the snow?

Before she could decide, the tall, masculine shadow emerged from the trees, scattering soft clouds of fresh powder with each step of his snowshoes. Dear God, what if he lived here?

She shook her head. Of course he lived here. Why else would man and dog be making a beeline straight toward her? There were no other houses for miles around. If she hadn’t been naked, she might have darted out of the tub to hide. But she was most definitely naked and her clothes were on the other side of the small deck.

The dog spotted her first, barking like mad and big as a bear.

“Rex, heel,” the man’s deep voice called, quieting the animal before he asked, “Who’s there?”

Broad, square shoulders took shape in the moonlight, along with a gray canvas coat unbuttoned despite the cold.

“Um.” Shaelynn cleared her throat, nerves making her sound shaky. “I broke down a couple of miles away. Your light was the only one I saw and when you weren’t home...”

She trailed off, distracted by the sight of the man as he slowly walked closer, and the glow of the back porch lantern illuminated his features.

Hazel eyes. Thick, dark eyebrows. A chiseled, aristocratic face that could be Mediterranean. An arresting face. Strong. Handsome. He huffed out a breath of warm air, the light cloud swirling for a moment until it vanished into the cold.

“You needed to warm up,” he finished for her, his eyes roaming over the deck where her clothes sat in a pile, then returning to her. Lingering.

Her heart beat faster. She swallowed past her dry throat.

“I’m sorry. I can go. But I lost my cell phone in the snow and I’m—”

“You can use my phone.” The man ventured closer. The deck was a few feet off the ground, but the snowfall put him on even footing with the base of the tub. His eyes locked on hers, stirring something deep inside her. “And my towels.”

A slow, half smile lifted the corner of his mouth. Maybe she should be afraid. But fear was the last thing she felt as he sauntered up to the side of the spa.

Did he know she was nude? She glanced down, grateful she hadn’t put the underwater light on. Pulse thrumming wildly, she withdrew her hand from the water, because touching this tall, sexy stranger was definitely not optional. She suddenly craved the feel of him....

Bing!

The chime of an instant message rang, startling me from Shaelynn’s hot tub adventures just when things were about to get interesting. I had to stop to fan myself, visions of the sexy stranger enticing me as much as they affected my heroine.

How come I never met gorgeous strangers who made me melt with a glance? Forcing my thoughts from the hot tub, I looked down at the incoming note.

I can meet. The message was from “Damien Fraser, Fraser Farm.” 6:00 p.m.

Okay. Guess that meant I had a plan for tomorrow. I’d worked hard to make it as an actress in L.A., but after five years, I was more than ready to move on. I’d never been cut out for Hollywood, but it had seemed like the thing to do when I’d been eighteen and desperate to escape the crap-storm of my life back on a small farm in Nebraska. I’d ended up enjoying my waitress job at a tearoom far more than acting, and became fast friends with the owner, Joelle. I’d learned how to cook, and to indulge my love of food in a way that didn’t involve scarfing down pastries. At least not too often.

I definitely would have kept on at the tearoom for a few more years if it hadn’t been for the complications and notoriety that Gutsy Girl brought with it. Reporters dug into my past and found out details that I was uncomfortable with. My sister’s ex-husband—who’d always liked me a little too much—had made a few calls that had me itching to disappear again. I could not afford to have Rick show up on my doorstep and start messing with my head. Now that my sister had given him the boot, he seemed even more unstable. Scarier. Besides, I’d fought too hard to pull myself together after the ways he’d torn apart my self-confidence. And my family.

Now I just really needed to get out of L.A. and write my book. If I could pen the kind of relationship I wanted to have in real life, maybe I could finally excise the past. The hero in my story was going to be a turning point for me. If I could dream a new, healthy relationship, I could eventually make it happen, right?

So I saved my manuscript and shut down my computer, wishing I’d come up with a name for the guy on snowshoes in my story. He felt so alive, so familiar. Like a safe haven from all my real-world craziness.

As I set my laptop on the floor next to my sleeping bag in the echoing apartment, I tried not to think how lonely I must be to have fallen for a character in my own book.

1

THEY SAY LIFE imitates art.

Which wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d met a hot guy like Shaelynn did in my story. But no. My life imitated art because on my way to Sonoma the next day, my car broke down.

Worse, the lock on my SUV was busted because I hadn’t taken the car in to the dealership to get it fixed after some creeps had vandalized it last week. So all that I owned sat on the shoulder of Highway 1, just south of Bodega, California. Any thief who came by would have the easiest job ever—if he happened to be interested in my prized collection of bonsai plants or size-eight flip-flops in every color known to man.

Yet as I walked up the road, the winter sun shining on my shoulders to tinge my fish-belly skin a lively pink, I knew the potential loss back at my used vehicle was not the worst of this day. My cell phone battery had died, so I couldn’t call for help. Or make sure Damien Fraser had gotten the text I sent just before my phone died, saying I’d be late for our appointment. Now, I would miss the meeting with the owner of a property I’d been dying to purchase. It was a little plot of land with a perfect-sized building, on which I’d pinned all my hopes for the future.

I’d driven six and a half hours with my entire life packed into the back of that SUV in the hope I’d relocate up here. That I’d be able to move right into the charming little structure that had once served as a farm stand, close to a main road. I would rent it from the owner before the closing, and start fixing it up to be the tearoom of my dreams. Unrealistic? Maybe. But in his Craigslist ad, Damien Fraser had sounded very interested in unloading it ASAP.

Plus, I had a respectable down payment. I carried a cashier’s check for 10K in my backpack, thanks to my Gutsy Girl winnings. Thieves would have done better to rob me as opposed to my SUV. I’d been careful not to touch a cent of the money after winning, knowing it was my ticket out of Los Angeles and out of the spotlight.

But now, thanks to my phone crapping out, the owner of my future tearoom might never know I was running late for our appointment. What if he ended up giving control of the sale to some hardball Realtor when I didn’t show up, and I’d end up paying more and waiting longer for the deal to go through?

Damn it. Damn it.

I might have slid my backpack off and sat on the side of the road to sob at my misfortune if I hadn’t held out a smidge of hope that maybe the building I was searching for was just around the next corner amid the olive groves crowding the northbound lane. I’d been telling myself that for two hours as I trudged up the road, because I was just enough of a glass-half-full girl that I maintained a shred of optimism. I had to be close.

When a truck pulled off the highway on the opposite side, I didn’t think anything of it at first. I assumed the driver probably needed to make a phone call or send a text or something. Still, thinking about that cashier’s check in my bag, I monitored the situation. I hadn’t survived in Hollywood that first year I moved to the West Coast from Nebraska by being oblivious.

So when the door of the oversize pickup opened with a squeak, I looked.

And saw the hottest guy ever.

Now, maybe it was the heat that seemed to spotlight this hunky slab of muscle and manhood as he stood beside the open door of the truck. He glistened with sweat despite a temperature that probably reached only the mid-sixties. He took the tail of a well-worn T-shirt and used it to mop his forehead.

In that moment, his abs were exposed to my dazed, spellbound eyes. He was pinup sexy. Lean and taut, he looked like he’d pulled about two million inverted push-ups to achieve so much delicious definition in that six-pack. Better yet, he was tanned bronze and I felt like I’d been given a VIP pass to the hottest show on earth.

What a gift in an otherwise hellacious day. My heroine Shaelynn couldn’t have done any better.

“Are you Miranda Cortland?”

I shook my head to clear it of fantasies that grew more explicit by the minute. The demigod across the road did not just talk to me.

I realized I’d stopped to stare, and felt just the slightest twinge of embarrassment to be caught in the act.

Giving him a lopsided smile, I told myself to keep moving. Then realized he’d somehow known my name.

“Excuse me?” I had to shout, since two cars barreled by in either direction.

“Are you Miranda?” he asked, his deep voice carrying easily over the distance. He slammed his door shut and jogged closer.

To me.

I blinked. Confused. Dry-mouthed.

Because now that I saw the guy’s face, he was a whole lot more than just hot abs. Streaked with sweat and a light coating of dust, he looked like a local laborer in his T-shirt and jeans. Although, knowing good clothes when I saw them, from years of shopping vintage, I realized he wore very good clothes. Those boots and jeans were both out of my price range.

“Lady, are you okay?” He was now just a few feet away.

Hazel eyes narrowed in concern, he stood a good six inches taller than me. His dark hair was close cropped and matched the dark stubble sprinkled along his jaw. Wicked cheekbones made him look a bit Native American. A prominent blade of a nose and full lips only added to his appeal.

I remembered the words I’d written to describe the hero of my book. An arresting face. Strong. Handsome.

“I’m fine,” I said, with a bit too much enthusiasm. What I meant to say, actually, was “You’re fine.” But he stared at me like I might have mental health issues, so I struggled to pull myself out of the sexy-man–induced delirium. He looked like the hero I’d dreamed up before I even laid eyes on this guy. “That is, I broke down a few miles back, but I don’t think I’m far from my destination.”

Belatedly, I realized I should have asked to borrow his cell phone. Or truck. Or his body.

“Right. Miranda Cortland?”

Holy crap. He really did know me. For a moment, I worried that he’d recognized me from Gutsy Girl. But he didn’t fit the show’s demographic. And now that I started to get a grip on the situation, I comprehended that he appeared very irritated. Highly annoyed.

Downright surly, even.

“Oh, God.” I put the pieces together and felt like an idiot. “Are you Damien Fraser? Did that last text message I sent actually go through?”

The screen had faded to black a second after I’d hit Send on my SOS message to him.

“I didn’t get it until a few minutes ago. I was working in one of the pastures.” He didn’t confirm his identity, but I guess he didn’t need to. His gaze roamed over me, assessing. As if I was the one who was sweaty and dirty from a day in the fields. Somehow, I’d assumed “Fraser Farm” was meant more as a picturesque description than an actual farm...with animals.

But Damien Fraser of Fraser Farm was technically listed as the seller of the property that I wanted so badly. I stood straighter, wishing we’d met when I looked more like a serious real estate buyer and less like a college student on spring break. Or a fugitive from Tinsel Town. I’d stripped off my neon-green lace shirt an hour ago to wrap around my head, turban-style. I’d warmed up in a hurry once I started my long walk with a heavy pack on my shoulders. Plus, wrapping the shirt around my hair helped prevent me from being recognized after my recent notoriety. But it left me wearing a pink floral tee that occasionally exposed my belly-button ring. A snake with a sapphire eye. It had been my gift to myself for meeting my weight loss goals a few months after moving to L.A. and away from my dysfunctional family.

“I’m just so glad it reached you,” I blurted, yanking the lace off my head, a trick that probably left my thick, ash-blond curls standing on end. “I mean, I’ve had a few hours to obsess over what might happen when I didn’t show up for our appointment. Like, that you’d sell to someone else. Or refuse to sell to me on principle, because I wasted your time....”

Midsentence, it occurred to me that I’d broken every rule for savvy real estate shopping. I’d let the seller know how much I wanted what he had.

“Would you like to see the property now?” He hadn’t interrupted me or anything, but I sensed he didn’t want to waste time chatting about my “might have” scenarios.

Which I respected. But between my outfit and my chattering, I just knew he thought I was some flighty Hollywood chick with more hair than brains.

“Sure. But can I ride with you?” I had checked him out online and he had big-time ties to the community as a Thoroughbred breeder developing an upscale business selling mega-expensive racehorses.

He didn’t strike me as the serial-killer type, even if he was a bit dirtier than I’d expected. Was I too swayed by his broad shoulders? Or by the fact that he was just what I’d pictured when I dreamed up the guy in my secret novel?

Now I’d never be able to see any other face but his when Shaelynn got back to her hot tub adventures. Lucky girl.

“Where’d you break down?” Frowning, he squinted against the glare from the late afternoon sun as he peered down the road behind me. “Is your car out of the way of traffic?”

“It’s on the shoulder,” I assured him, feeling an unreasonable need to have him view me as a responsible citizen. “It should be fine except...”

“What?” Hazel eyes searched mine, while a passerby shouted something incomprehensible at us out the window of a bright yellow sports car.

“Er...” I noticed the canary-colored vehicle threw on its brakes. Now I really wished I’d kept the turban on my head. “The lock is broken on my SUV—”

“C’mon.” Damien Fraser gestured for me to follow him toward the road and his massive pickup truck. “I’ve got some chains in the back.”

Okay. I won’t say where my mind went on learning that particular bit of trivia. Maybe I’d been spending too much time daydreaming up plot points for my secret novel. I focused on darting across Highway 1 without getting killed, all the while keeping a weather eye on the situation with the vintage yellow Porsche, which had pulled over fifty yards ahead.

“Miranda Cortland?” a woman shouted out the window of the Porsche, alerting me to potential trouble.

I scrambled into the passenger seat of the Ford 450—a fact I knew only because it said so in chrome along one side.

“Friend of yours?” Damien asked as he climbed into the driver’s seat, his size, warmth and general masculinity filling the cab. He kept his eye out the window on the sports car.

“No.” I didn’t need to look. I had become a recognizable face after the ten-week reality show I’d been on had turned into a surprise hit. I’d fallen into the job after a nice casting director who’d turned me down for virtually everything I’d ever tested for with her had recommended me.

While the show featured a few C-list celebrities competing in acts of daring to see who was the “Gutsiest Girl,” there were also a few “real people” to fill out the cast. I’d been one of them, and the directors had focused on my waitressing job in an upscale tearoom. I’d been the Nice Girl competitor. The contestant no one expected to win. But when the other women had started plotting against each other, everyone forgot about me because...honestly, I’m not that memorable and I’m just too nice. So the last one standing had been yours truly.

“She sure can’t drive worth a damn,” Damien Fraser observed as he pulled into traffic and stomped on the accelerator, his triceps flexing as he cranked the wheel.

I gripped the armrest as the powerful engine all but threw me backward into the seat. We put distance between us and the sports car in no time, and I decided I liked Mr. Surly. He was a no-nonsense kind of guy, different from the men I’d run across in Hollywood. I pictured him revving the engine of his badass truck to send members of the paparazzi scattering like ants under a boot.

“Thanks for doing this.” I knew I’d start chattering soon if he didn’t say something to fill the silence. Was he wondering how the woman in the Porsche had known me? Was he thinking I was a moron for not getting my SUV tuned up before a big trip? Joelle had told me to, but I hadn’t wanted to spend any of the money I might need for start-up cash. “I guess I left in such a hurry this morning I didn’t prepare as well as I should have.”

I yanked the green lace top over the pink one, covering up the belly-button ring and making me look a tad less disheveled.

“That you?” He pointed out my vehicle sitting at an angle on the shoulder, so that it looked as if it had already given up the ghost.

“Yes. Whoa!” I slid sideways into the passenger door as he flipped a U-turn and parked the truck in front of my broken-down SUV.

He shoved open his own door without another word.

“Wait.” I hurried to unbuckle and follow him. “I can help.”

I hated being Ms. Needy Female, but he was already hooking a metal cable around my front bumper.

“I thought you were using chains?” Stepping carefully around some brush off the side of the highway, I watched him work.

“The winch kit will work best for starters.” He pressed a lever to tighten the cable between my car and his. “Then we’ll add a couple of chains for good measure. You want to put it in Neutral and flip on the hazards?”

“Uh, sure.” I hoped this was safe. And while I was grateful to get my vehicle off the side of the road, I just hoped he wouldn’t hold it against me that I’d really inconvenienced him.

More than anything, I wanted to get settled in my new digs, since I was technically homeless.

And yes, I knew most people would call it insanity to leave one apartment without securing another, but I had never been one to play it safe. For me, there was never a plan B. When trouble came my way, I dodged it and moved forward. Some might call it conflict avoidance. Whatever. I considered it taking charge of my life. In my own way, I overcame obstacles and moved on.

I put the old Highlander in Neutral as he’d asked, and switched on the hazards, then hurried back to his truck, since Damien was already climbing into the driver’s seat. I got the impression he’d never wasted a second of time in his life.

Everything about Damien Fraser screamed that he did not suffer fools lightly. And me? I’d practically been born with a touch of foolishness. I considered it part of my charm. Up until recently, that is, when I realized that being on a reality show—if only for a few weeks—had made it easier for people from my past to find me and harass me.

Too bad Rick, the main offender, hadn’t stayed married to my sister. I’d always hoped him being married to Nina would keep the creep at arm’s length, but since their divorce, he seemed way too eager to see me again.

As if.

“Ready?” I smiled up at my rescuer as I buckled my seat belt again, but the effort was wasted, since he shifted into low gear and focused on pulling out onto the highway.

More silence.

“So, Mr. Fraser—”

“Damien,” he corrected, checking his side mirror.

“So, Damien. You have a Thoroughbred farm?” If I kept him talking, that meant I wouldn’t be talking. Which meant I couldn’t possibly say anything to potentially wreck my chances of buying the property.

“We breed racing stock. Sell shares in prospective winners.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but this seemed to say it all as far as he was concerned. I knew something about farming from growing up in Nebraska, but a Thoroughbred operation was a far cry from a small family farm that specialized in a few hybrid kinds of corn.

“And the property you’re selling. You just don’t need it?” I took in the stark interior of the truck cab. There was no iPod plugged in or coffee mug in the cup holder. No mail on the seat.

Tough to be nosy when there were no good clues to work with.

“It’s a good retail location with proximity to Highway 1, and there’s already a building there. That little patch of property is worth more to me if I sell it rather than convert it into anything usable for the farm.”

“Do you get many tourists up here?” I hadn’t done much market research to see who might support a tearoom in this area. I figured I had Joelle in my corner to help me figure out how to make the business a success. Plus I’d had years to gather ideas of my own while watching her work.

“We’re situated right along the Coast Highway. Some people come out to California just to see the sights up and down this road.”

And yet it looked plenty rural to my eyes. I’d been really enjoying the scenery until the SUV bit the dust a few miles back. There were trees and hills, the scent of the sea in the air. Every now and then you turned a corner and caught a view of the Pacific, so blue it made your eyes hurt.

This was going to be a big improvement over L.A. When I first moved there, I’d just wanted out of Nebraska and away from Rick’s betrayal. He’d upgraded to my sister after leading me on, wooing me out of my virginity and making me feel like a total loser in bed. The guy was a head case, and he’d done more than a little damage to my mental well-being in the process.

My sister’s response to the news that her future husband had already been a jerk to me and showed flashes of a scary-as-hell temper? “Stay away from my man.” Not in so many words, but...yeah. Nina felt totally threatened and had been convinced I’d done the leading on.

So Los Angeles or New York had seemed like logical choices as big cities to get lost in and forget about my family. I had literally flipped a coin. No one seemed terribly disappointed when I didn’t go back for Nina’s wedding.

Now I knew myself better. I’d really enjoyed working at the Melrose Tearoom in L.A. but thought a business like that in a quieter area would be more fulfilling. Less of a spotlight. More anonymity after the dumb reputation I’d gained from Gutsy Girl. Plus, I guess I hadn’t lost my love of wide-open spaces. A part of me would always miss Nebraska.

But I’d learned to love the Pacific and the sense of peace the West Coast gave me. The Sonoma area had looked perfect when I’d been hunting online for likely places to open a shop.

Damien switched on his blinker and turned off to the right, near a small sign for Fraser Farm.

Intrigued, I saw four rail fences on either side and wondered if I’d missed the property I wanted to buy. It felt as if we’d turned right into horse country, with Thoroughbreds swishing their tails in green fields dotted with shade trees.

“Here it is.” He pulled off the road to the left, in front of the building I’d seen online. It looked smaller in reality, probably because it was surrounded by vast expanses of horse pasture.

That didn’t deter me. I slipped out of the passenger seat and hopped down to the ground, feeling the pull of destiny.

The structure resembled a bungalow, with a wide porch, where I could imagine setting up a few outdoor tables. There was enough space for a small parking lot; no doubt it had served as one in the building’s former life as a farm stand. I might be able to squeeze in a little garden around a patio if I used the space wisely.

I was already through the door, dreaming about how to convert the walls into shelves full of teas and tea-related products to sell to happy wine-country tourists, when I heard Damien clear his throat behind me. I turned, unsure how long I’d been planning my future in a total mental fog.

“Does it suit your purposes, Ms. Cortland?” His close proximity was not an unpleasant feeling. If I shut my eyes, I could imagine myself backing against him. Leaning into all that maleness.

What was it about him that had me thinking sexy thoughts so easily?

“Miranda. And yes. Very nicely.” There was a studio upstairs that would be quite enough room for living space. No one from my past would bother me—no one would even find me in the middle of a Sonoma County Thoroughbred farm.

I’d sell tea, bake scones and after hours I’d write my novel, under a pseudonym. In fact, I felt all the more compelled to write my book now that the hum of sexual attraction pulsed just below the surface of my skin. If ever I needed inspiration, I’d just look out my window and wait for Damien Fraser to ride by on a horse or in a pickup.

Definitely liking this vision of my future.

“You said in your original email that you hoped to put a tearoom here?” he prodded.

“Yes.” I tried to think about business details and not secret fantasies, but I was really distracted, imagining what he’d look like astride a horse.

Mmm.

“If I sell it to you, I’d need you to commit to that. The contract would include a stipulation that I’d have some say in the kind of business operating here. We can work that out with the lawyers, but I want to be up front with you.”

I had no idea about the legality of that, but I understood why he’d want that kind of control, since my little piece of property would essentially be surrounded by his.

“Certainly.” I set my backpack on the scarred hardwood floor that would gleam after I refinished it. I dug through my things to find my wallet, so I could hand the man my check and unpack a few things before it got dark.

I noticed the electricity had been turned off, so I wanted to get started ASAP, while I could still see.

From outside, a man’s voice called. “Mr. Fraser?”

“In here, Scotty.” Damien backed up a step and opened the creaking front door, allowing a wide swath of sunlight into the main floor.

A wiry young guy stepped inside. He wore a trucker’s cap, with a big pair of old-fashioned headphones clamped around his ears. I could hear the wailing steel guitar and fiddle music from where I stood across the room, so I had no idea how he heard anything else.

I smiled at him, ready to make his acquaintance. But when his eyes met mine, I knew.

I’d been recognized.

My heart sank even as his face lit up.

“Miranda Cortland?” He shoved off his headphones and stepped closer, with the familiarity of someone who’d known me all his life. “No freaking way. The Nebraska Backstabber in my own backyard.”

I swallowed hard, hating that stupid nickname the press had jumped on. Resenting that they’d dug up details about my past, even though I’d listed “Los Angeles” as my hometown.

“Scotty.” Damien did not sound amused. His hazel eyes flashed a deeper brown and he tugged the kid back a step. “What the hell kind of manners are those?”

I would have been touched by that moment of chivalry if I wasn’t sure that Damien Fraser would turn on me in another minute.

“It’s okay,” I rushed to explain. “Just a dumb nickname the media stuck me with after I won a reality TV show.” If I downplayed it, maybe he’d let it drop.

Of course, Joelle had tried ignoring it when I returned to work at her tearoom in L.A. At first, she hoped my notoriety would be good for business. But two weeks in, she was so fed up with the paparazzi harassing the other employees for an “angle” about me, and Hollywood watchers clogging up the tearoom so her real customers couldn’t get a seat, she’d asked me to take a paid leave.

Seriously? I wasn’t about to collect a check I didn’t earn.

“Don’t let her fool you, Mr. Fraser. She’s totally famous.” Scotty shut down his music and reached for his iPod. “See? The Nebraska Backstabber won last season’s Gutsy Girl by stepping back and letting everyone else fight it out. It was totally epic.”

He tried shoving the screen under his boss’s nose, but Damien’s eyes stayed locked on mine. “Maybe later. For now, can you finish up the fence on the northern pasture? I didn’t get to the last couple of acres in the southwest corner by the creek.”

“Yeah, boss, I’m on it. Wait until I tell my girlfriend about this.” He was already texting as he walked out the door.

Belatedly, I remembered that cashier’s check in my hand. More than happy to change the topic, I offered the down payment to Damien.

“I’m sure any way you write the contract will be fine,” I reminded him, all the while crossing my fingers.

Take the check. Take the check.

He didn’t take the check. His square jaw flexed, a five o’clock shadow only making him more handsome. Too bad I knew what that uncompromising look meant.

“Miranda, this is going to be a problem.”

2

HOT WOMEN WERE usually trouble.

Hot Hollywood women? They ought to come with a skull and crossbones taped to their foreheads. The potential for danger was just too damn high.

Damien Fraser knew this firsthand, having been born the son of a prominent American director and a flamboyant Italian actress. Their affair had produced three sons neither had time for, and the boys had grown up without much supervision, which meant Damien had tangled with his fair share of grasping Hollywood actresses who’d wanted to date him because of his famous father. But since he’d moved to Sonoma County and taken up horse breeding—a calculated move to distance himself from the Fraser fame—he’d figured his days of dealing with this kind of crap were done.

“I don’t understand.” Miranda Cortland ran a weary hand through blond curl that went in every direction, her pale blue eyes shadowed with dark circles that didn’t do a thing to diminish her appeal. “I love the place. I’ve got a deposit. You want to make a quick sale, here you go. I’d like to rent out the spot until the official closing, so I can throw in whatever you think is fair for a month’s rent. Or two.”

She dug deeper in her backpack and emerged with a wallet.

Damien scratched his forehead, which was smeared with dirt and sweat from his time in the fields. He couldn’t make the pieces add up here. The woman was sunburned. Her car was old and in need of repair. Actually, all her stuff looked like it had seen better days; the hodgepodge collection of goods that he’d spotted inside the SUV appeared secondhand. She seemed down on her luck for a woman who’d just won a reality game show he’d never heard of—Gutsy Girl. That much definitely fit.

Miranda Cortland showed some serious bravado coming all the way up here to pitch him her idea, when she looked about as far from tearoom elegance as he could imagine. He was pretty sure she had permanent eyeliner tattooed around her lashes. Silver cuffs wrapped around her right earlobe the whole way down.

“The problem is this.” He cracked open a window to let more air into the place and leaned back against a rough support beam. “I’m building a brand with Fraser Farm. And it’s got to be upscale to support the growth I need in the Thoroughbred market.”

He needed word of mouth among a small, elite client base.

“This tearoom will be elegant and charming. A perfect match.” She crossed her arms at her midsection, right where he recalled seeing a silver belly-button ring in the shape of a snake.

Did she have any idea how much she stood out here? Not just in this part of the state, but on his farmland? In his mind? She was so bright and bold—from her yellow flip-flops with the big daisies between her toes to her lime-green lace camisole—it was like she operated on another frequency altogether.

“Unfortunately, the kind of crowd your high profile will draw may not reflect the brand I’m developing.”

“That’s incredibly elitist and also...incorrect.” Her voice remained steady, but he sensed more than heard the strong emotions there.

Chances were good that Miranda Cortland was here only to get close to his famous family. He’d had that happen before. So if she sounded convincingly disappointed, she probably was. But mostly because she wouldn’t be granted her “in” with a famous Hollywood producer-director. Hell, Damien’s father, Thomas Fraser, ran an independent studio, so he was definitely the kind of connection someone like Miranda might seek out.

“Fair or not, I have to think about the growth of my small business, and I prefer to have some kind of store or restaurant on site that will cater to the clientele I want to attract.” He’d posted as much in his Craigslist ad.

When you were starting a business, every dollar counted, so he really wanted to make this sale. Especially since he refused to take a cent from his obnoxiously wealthy family. He just wouldn’t make the sale to Miranda Cortland.

“Heard and understood, as I explained in my email to you—”

“Yet you did not disclose your celebrity status, and I have personal reasons for not aligning myself with the film industry.” He headed for the door, needing to get back to work. As much as he’d enjoyed the distraction of a female that wasn’t equine, he had ten other places he needed to be. His payroll was already ridiculously high with the specialized talent this kind of operation required, so until he could afford more help, he often had to be everywhere at once. “You’re welcome to leave your vehicle here for as long as necessary. Would you like a ride anywhere?”

“No.” She shook her head and backed up a step, as if she was going to follow him outside. “Can I just—please. Let me just show you one thing before you leave.”

She held up her faded floral backpack, making a barrier between him and the door. He wasn’t sure if she meant to slow him down or if the thing she wanted him to see was inside the bag. He noticed there were pins all over it—a cat with a hair bow in pink crystals, a few metal buttons advertising hole-in-the-wall nightclubs, a miniature L.A. Raiders jersey. The bag looked as if it had been around the world and back.

“I can’t stay much longer.” He held up his phone, showing a video feed of a birthing stable. “I’ve got a mare going into labor.”

“Fine.” Miranda was already setting her pack on the floor again and digging inside the bottomless interior. The sight of her sunburned arms and the bump of each vertebra showing through her tank top felt like chastisements.

What if she really was in need of a break? Something about her bravado—in spite of whatever personal issues she was dealing with—spoke to him on a gut level. He’d gambled everything to escape Hollywood once, too.

“I need some air.” Mostly because the woman smelled like peaches and he wanted to inhale her. He struggled not to feel sympathetic toward her. Or even more attracted. “So let’s talk outside.”

“Yes.” She followed him out onto the narrow porch, where two faded rockers still sat from the building’s long-ago use as a farm stand. “Just take a look at these before you give me your final answer.”

She held two pieces of paper in her hand. Actually, one sheet and one large photograph.

“I drew this last night when I couldn’t sleep.” She flipped the paper and handed it to him. “I think the look is very much in keeping with what you’d want to enhance your Thoroughbred business....”

She kept talking, but he was too distracted by the pencil sketch to pay attention. She’d drawn the farm stand building from the outside, but there was new life in it. Flowers bloomed in boxes attached to the front windows by iron brackets. Pillows and blankets were thrown over more rocking chairs on the porch, while round tables underneath big umbrellas made up a second tier of outdoor seating on a flagstone patio. The sketch was so detailed he could see some kind of flowering moss between the flagstones. A banner blew in an imaginary breeze, the flag depicting a steaming cup of tea and the name Under the Oaks.

“...I couldn’t draw the inside because you hadn’t posted any pictures.” Miranda was still speaking. “I’m not sure I’d really call it Under the Oaks, but it fits because of the trees and—”

“And it’s a racing term. Yeah. I know.” The whole thing was elegant and charming, just as she’d promised. He had to admit the picture she’d drawn was appealing and exactly the kind of operation he’d envisioned to complement his growing business. He actually had a few rooms to accommodate guests who visited their horses on site, but as of now, there were no facilities for feeding visitors.

The tearoom could fill the gap for some food service. Except that she could be full of B.S. about what she’d do with a tearoom. What were the chances a young actress who’d just experienced success on a reality show would really want to come live in the anonymity of Sonoma? No, damn it. She was only conning him, to get close to the Fraser fame.

“You could have input, of course, if my take on this is too cute. I could make it more horse-themed. Lots of hunter-green and burgundy, like a gentleman’s den.” She frowned at her sketch over his shoulder. “Usually tearooms appeal to women, so—”

“It’s great.” He realized how close she stood. Her scent hypnotized him even as her springy blond curls brushed his shoulder. “The concept is well-targeted.” He returned the paper to her and took a step back. “But just because you’ve got the right idea doesn’t promise a successful execution.”

She flipped a large photograph under his nose.

“This is the Melrose Tearoom, where I worked until a couple of weeks ago.” She pointed to the picture of her with two smiling young women, at a table full of fancy silver trays, tiny sandwiches, crystal champagne flutes and porcelain teacups. In the background, a sunny atrium with uniformed waiters and linen-covered tables showed more of the same. “If you’d like to speak to my former boss, Joelle, she’ll tell you I was personally responsible for much of her return business. I’m good at being a hostess, and I helped her stock a lot of unique specialty items that really increased her retail sales.”

“Why did you leave?” He rechecked his phone to make sure the mare in the birthing stall still looked good. Damn it, he needed to just tell Miranda no and get back to work.

Memories of finding her walking north on Highway 1 kept biting him right in the conscience. She had to have been out there a couple hours before he’d found her. He’d been so engrossed getting the fence restrung that he hadn’t checked his messages. She must have been determined to meet with him to make that long trek in the afternoon sun. To risk sunburn on her fair skin, when beauty was such a highly sought after commodity in her world.

“Honestly, I left because...” She met his gaze and bit her lip. “I attracted too much attention from that stupid TV show, but the fascination with stuff like that has a short shelf life. And up here, there are bound to be less tourists purposely looking for a brush with anyone remotely famous.”

He’d heard enough. He handed her back the picture.

“Listen, if this was just some random piece of property, I would sell it to you in a minute.” He tucked his phone in the back pocket of his jeans. “But I’ve got too much at stake in a business where the overhead is staggering. I can’t afford to have any operation on what is basically my property that might detract from what I’m trying to build.”

He’d invested every cent of his finances and himself in the Thoroughbreds. This farm had given him stability and purpose at a time when he needed to escape escalating family drama. He’d built a very different kind of life here. A stable life. There were no more weekend trips to Europe to help his mother solve some so-called urgent crisis that turned out to be an uneven number of men versus women at her latest dinner party. No more scandals involving his father’s revolving door of twenty-year-old girlfriends. Definitely no more would-be starlets who’d do “anything” for a chance to meet his father. Even pretend to give a rat’s ass about Damien.

Now, he kept in touch with his brothers, Trey and Lucien. But he was finished with the movie business and he was done with his high-profile parents.

“Interest in the show is dying down,” she pressed. “And I can make this tearoom kick butt.”

He was already heading for his truck. “I’m sure you could, but I just can’t take chances right now. If I get a bunch of tabloid reporters camping out on the property, it’s going to scare off the clients I’ll be inviting up here to check out the operation firsthand.”

He’d worked too hard to take this place to the next level, and he owed it to the former owner, who was also his mentor—a man who’d been better to him than his own father. Ted Howard had provided a job that allowed Damien to feel productive when he’d parted ways with his family, at age seventeen. He’d also shown Damien a different lifestyle—one that valued hard work. Physical labor. Mental fortitude. It had been exactly what a screwed up Hollywood kid had needed to reroute his life. So Damien wasn’t going to relax until Fraser Farm was an equestrian showplace and—more quietly, in a new part of the facility—a humane retirement home and retraining center for Thoroughbreds who didn’t achieve racing stardom. That had been Ted Howard’s dream, a dream the guy might not be around much longer to witness.

Damien’s jaw flexed, his shoulders tensing at the thought. He wanted that dream, too. He’d bought into it at seventeen, while working part-time to earn enough to go to college, and he was fully committed now. This life had saved him, so he planned to make the most of it.

“I am not afraid of hard work.” Miranda dogged his steps. “A tearoom has low overhead and I can get this place up and running before your next guests show up. I realize the car breaking down makes me look kind of, uh, low budget. But I’ve got enough investment capital stashed away for the tearoom. I just won’t spend it on fluffy stuff. Like a car.”

“Sorry.” He paused before the driver’s side door. “But the offer stands if you need a ride. Actually, do you want me to take you somewhere now?” He’d been thinking one of his handymen could cart her around, but how rude would it be to just drive off and leave her stranded? Hell. He’d been an antisocial horse breeder for too damn long.

Checking out of the fast lane didn’t mean he could quit society altogether.

“I’ve got nowhere to go.” She stuffed her hands in the front pocket of her jeans, making him realize she was way too thin. Hot, yes. But she definitely looked in need of...

No. He would not think about her needs.

“You can’t be serious. You’ve got a check for ten grand in that backpack, along with God knows what else.” He had the feeling Miranda Cortland, Gutsy Girl winner and—according to Scotty—the famed Nebraska Backstabber, had a wide assortment of talents to fall back on.

He didn’t think he wanted to be around when the backstabbing skill was revealed, although from what Scotty described, her method of winning the show hadn’t sounded the least bit underhanded.

“My savings are all for a bankable business. And until I find another perfect opportunity—the way this one was supposed to be—I’m not spending a nickel unless I earn it. So...need any help here?” She peered around at the empty fenced pastures.

Damn. It. He could almost picture himself standing here as a seventeen-year-old kid, looking for a job and hoping against hope that Ted Howard would find a way to make him feel useful. Damien hardened his heart, knowing her motives couldn’t be good.

“Not unless you know something about mares in labor,” he drawled, even as he took out his phone to text Scotty, so the kid could drop her at the nearest hotel. Manners be damned, Damien couldn’t deal with Miranda Cortland right now. He’d had a foaling attendant in the birthing stable all day, but he planned to take the night shift himself.

“Are you kidding? I grew up in the heart of Nebraska, surrounded by cornfields and cattle. I guarantee we think just as highly of our cows as you do your fancy racehorses.” She tipped her chin at him, all bold defiance and attitude. “It just so happens I spent more time in the barns than I did in my own living room, thanks to a dysfunctional family.”

Again, she reminded him of himself once upon a time. Hiding out from dysfunction? Yeah, he understood that. Still, he held firm. She had to go.

But when he checked his phone to send Scotty the SOS, he saw the video feed from the birthing stable, where Tallulah’s Nine was circling with restless frustration.

Crap. The mare became front and center in his thoughts. That foal had been sired by one of his most promising studs, and he didn’t have time to boot out Miranda.

“Then get in if you mean it. I’ve got a mare ready to foal tonight.”

* * *

THREE HOURS LATER, I’d shoveled enough straw to fill that stable ten times over. Or so it seemed.

I stopped for a moment to wipe away the sweat on my forehead and check out the miracle going on at my feet, now covered by a pair of huge boots I’d borrowed from Fraser Farm’s extremely well-equipped tack room.

Giving birth was a messy business, and since the foaling attendant—Bekkah, a local vet’s assistant—was busy keeping both the mare and Damien calm, I took up the less glamorous job of keeping the birthing stall filled with fresh straw. Damien had told me twice I didn’t need to, but since Scotty had a sick sister at home and couldn’t stay to do the grunt work necessary to help Tallulah’s Nine, I could tell Damien was glad I was there.

I knew how to stay out of the way. I’d done it from the time I was a pudgy-cheeked kid who didn’t compare to my big sister’s beauty. And I’ll admit, getting into the horse breeder’s good graces was definitely a high priority on my agenda now. My novel heroine, Shaelynn, wouldn’t have just given up and gone home. Especially not once she ran across a hero as hot as Damien. Besides, I loved animals. And I hadn’t had so much as a goldfish since leaving Nebraska. Yet another reason Fraser Farm would be ideal for me.

“Thanks, Miranda.” Damien worked to clean the new bay foal, while Bekkah waited for the afterbirth, the sweet scent of new straw hanging in the air. “With any luck, we’ll get this little guy nursing in the next hour, and then I can find someone else to sit with Tallulah. I just want to be sure there’s no need to call in a vet for anything. After that I’ll be able to take you home. Or wherever you’re staying.”

“Why don’t I sit with her tonight?” I offered, stroking the mare’s nose. “I’ll be able to tell if she’s comfortable.” I peered around the exhausted horse’s flanks to look at Bekkah for confirmation. “Right? Putting a new mother at ease shouldn’t be hard.”

My father’s small farm hadn’t been much, focused more on hybrid varieties of corn than the animals. But my dad had been old-school about farming, and just enough of a doomsday believer to think we ought to have access to our own milk and eggs. The cows and chickens had provided me with dang good company during the worst of my teen years.

“You guys will both have to fight me for the right to stay by her,” the foaling attendant retorted, a few long, dark strands of hair slipping out from under a worn Fraser Farm hat to hide one eye. “I’ve only been doing this for two years and every time it just...amazes me. I’m not going home anytime soon.”

Even if I hadn’t seen her face and the wonder in her deep brown eyes, I would have been able to hear it in her voice. I admired that kind of joy in a job. Moreover, I wished I could find it for myself. I don’t know what had made me think I’d ever be fulfilled as an actress. Yikes. Never trust the decisions you make at eighteen. Especially when they are based on putting distance between yourself and a creepy man.

“You know there’s a bed if you want to catch some rest,” Damien reminded her, his voice warmer, kinder than it seemed toward me. Not that I was jealous or anything. But it made me curious.

“For sure.” Bekkah nodded. “Looks like she’s ready—”

The mare’s contractions yielded the afterbirth that Bekkah had been waiting for. This part was a bigger deal with a Thoroughbred than a cow, I’d gathered. With a horse, it was important that none of the placenta was retained, so Bekkah would have to inspect the whole thing to be sure no pieces were missing that could cause infection in the mare.

Thankfully, the tack room had also been well stocked with gloves.

“Miranda,” Damien said sharply, while I watched Bekkah work. Peering his way, I followed his gaze and saw the foal trying to stand.

Awkward legs and knobby knees struggled to coordinate their efforts. The bay colt wobbled. Leaving the shovel behind, I hurried to Damien’s side. I didn’t know if we were supposed to help the animal or not, but Damien seemed content just to watch. When the newborn got all the way to his feet, he took a step and tested those long, skinny limbs.

“Wow,” I breathed softly, meeting Damien’s hazel eyes over the little creature’s scruffy head. “Incredible.”

Damien didn’t say anything. But his smile warmed me to my toes, our shared moment not needing any words. It felt special just to be there to see the foal standing on those precarious legs, instinctively seeking out its mama in the stall. And, okay, maybe I melted inside to see this big, badass dude—he had chains in his truck—so touched by the sight of the little animal.

I’m not sure how much more time passed before Bekkah declared the placenta intact, and Tallulah’s Nine was cleared from having a vet visit until the morning. I mucked the stable once more so the new mom—a first-timer, apparently—and her foal were clean and comfy for the night. Bekkah and Damien agreed that she’d call right away if she had any concerns. I washed up and stepped outside the big, U-shaped barn and into the moonlight. There were at least thirty stalls in this facility, each with access to fresh air, while giving the animals plenty of shelter and protection, too. I heard more than saw the other horses nearby. When we’d rushed into the barn earlier, I hadn’t noticed many other horses, but then, maybe they’d been in a pasture before sundown.

The soft creak of a door alerted me that Damien had joined me. Turning, I saw his broad shoulders emerge from the shadows of the building. His boots scuffed an even rhythm over the stonework surrounding the large fountain in the middle of the U.

“I’m tempted to wade right in there.” I lifted my face to the mist, even though the temperature had dropped when the sun went down. I’d washed up at a utility sink inside the barn, but still, I needed a major dousing. “You’ve got a beautiful facility here.”

“Thanks.” He sank onto the ledge of the fountain, even though there were benches built around it at regular intervals. “When I bought the place three years ago, it was half the size it is now. At the time, I thought that add-ons like the fountain and the jogging paths around the property would be overkill, but after seeing some other Thoroughbred operations, I knew I had to up the ante if I wanted to compete.”

“What made you want to be in the business?” I was curious about his background. Although he’d seemed a bit anxious during the foaling this evening, it wasn’t the nervousness of a first-timer. He’d done that sort of thing before, I could tell.

His concern was either from a genuine love of animals or, perhaps, worry about his investment. Maybe both. I knew Thoroughbreds were mega-expensive. I couldn’t begin to guess how much that mare or her new foal might be worth.

“I graduated high school early and moved up here to go to college away from family.” He dipped a hand in the fountain and ran wet fingers along his forehead. “I worked here for the former owner while I put myself through Sonoma State.”

I sat beside him, grateful to have a conversation that wasn’t about the sale of his building, or my notoriety. I definitely liked him, and not just because he was megahot. Even if his vision for Fraser Farm was an obstacle to my tearoom, I couldn’t help but admire his commitment. More than that, I still remembered the look on his face when he’d watched the foal stand for the first time.

“How long did you work here before you bought the place?” I put my feet on the ledge, tucking my knees under my chin while we talked. I was cooling down now that we were out of the stables, especially when the breeze occasionally blew the mist from the fountain onto my arms. It went right through my lace blouse.

“Off and on for six years. Even after I did a business internship overseas, the owner convinced me to come back here and apply some of what I’d learned to upgrade his operations.” Damien folded his arms across his chest, staring off into the distance, where I could see lights from what was probably his house. “He also convinced me to buy my own racehorse.”

“Really?” I sounded more surprised than I should have. “I mean, I guess it stands to reason that you must like racing. But I picture Thoroughbred racing as a very upscale sport, and today I’ve seen a very...er, earthy side of you.”

He laughed and that deep, warm sound chased off some of the chill I’d been feeling.

“The behind-the-scenes route to the winner’s circle isn’t exactly littered with roses. But my friend had given me a hell of a deal on the horse he sold me—Learn From Your Mistakes—and I started winning races.”

“Learn From Your Mistakes?” I had to smile. “Sounds like a horse I should have bought.”

“He turned out lucky for me. I made enough off his racing winnings to invest in two more horses. They both paid off even better than my first.” Damien’s voice quieted. “Little did I know Ted was trying to help me earn enough money to make a down payment on this place and take it over.”

“He sounds very generous.” I thought about my own winnings from Gutsy Girl. I wanted so much to put that money to work for me the same way Damien had made his horse’s earnings pay off with smart investments. “So then you bought him out?”

The sound of a soft, horsey snort came from one of the nearby stables, the scent of hay on the breeze.

“He was diagnosed with cancer and wanted to spend the rest of his time on a beach in Costa Rica, but he’d made commitments to other owners, since he boarded horses here. He was in a hurry to sell, but wanted to put the farm in the hands of someone who would honor those obligations and fulfill his other dream, of opening a Thoroughbred retirement and retraining facility.”

“Retraining facility?”

“For horses that don’t make the cut on the racing circuit. Too often, those Thoroughbreds who don’t start winning early in their career aren’t given a long enough chance to prove their worth. But there are a lot of options for them. Show horses. Pleasure horses. They just need a different kind of training. So we’re doing that here.”

“That’s a great idea.” I’d noticed construction equipment and new barns in the distance. I hadn’t expected that development would be for such humane purposes.

“If I make enough profit on one side of the business, it just might support the other. But the farm turned out to be a second chance for me. I guess I liked the idea of giving the Thoroughbreds second chances, too.” He shrugged. “Besides, I got the place for a bargain. But when I tried to give Ted more, he only ended up buying the architectural plans for the next phase of development he’d planned for the farm.”

“So he put the money back into the business, anyhow.”

“Yeah. He’s doing well, too, healthwise. If I don’t keep him updated on the farm, he hounds me for information. I can tell he misses it.”

“And all of a sudden you’re a horse breeder.” I tried to picture all that must have entailed, even as I wondered why Damien felt a debt to the former owner. I could tell he hadn’t just bought the farm for a love of Thoroughbreds. He’d wanted to help out a friend. He’d wanted to give those hard-luck horses a second chance. That said something special about the kind of guy he was. “Although you must have been very familiar with the business if you worked here even as a teenager. You seemed comfortable enough in the birthing stall.”

“I spent a small fortune having a vet by my side for the first few births after Ted left the farm, but I’ve learned what to look for now, so that if everything is going smoothly, I don’t need that level of help.”

“Bekkah’s great,” I observed, shivering involuntarily.

“Are you cold?”

“I’m fine.” I hugged my knees tighter, unwilling to end this conversation and potentially have him drop me off at a local hotel. I couldn’t think about my broken-down SUV and my broken-down life right now.

I needed a break from reporters looking to get a story on me, and digging into my past. Scotty hadn’t told Damien that the Nebraska Backstabber nickname came more from me dating the man my sister later married—an incident that had been widely gossiped about in my small hometown before I left. Tabloid media had latched on to that nickname with both hands, spinning it into a bigger story after my unlikely win.

Little did they know that Rick had only used me to get close to my family, close to my sister, who’d always been “the pretty one.” His defection had hurt when he’d started dating Nina, but I’d gotten over it when I realized he was a bit of a sociopath—a charming liar whose brooding intensity covered a mass of insecurities more widespread than mine. Not that I could convince Nina of that at the time. She’d had to figure it out on her own. The fact that he was trying to connect with me so soon after his divorce did not bode well, but I could be anonymous here.

“Look, Miranda, I’m not going to kick you out if you need a place to stay.” Getting to his feet, Damien offered me a hand. “You were great back there, helping out without being asked.”

I stared at his hand for a moment. Touching him, even in such an innocuous way, seemed like something that would be...significant.

“I didn’t mind.” Carefully, I laid my fingers along his palm, waiting for the pleasure of it to subside into something more tame and appropriate, considering we’d only just met. “It reminded me of home. The nice parts of home, that is.”

My voice hit a husky note that I hoped he would attribute to sentimentality instead of raw attraction. But I was drawn to Damien in a way I’d never been drawn to any other man.

For a woman like me, with the kind of dating history I’d had and the flat-out issues I had with sex and romance, this was a daunting realization. It felt encouraging in some ways, since it meant I still had a sensual fire inside me somewhere. Worrisome in other ways, since I couldn’t imagine how I’d ever act on what I felt.

The attraction seemed exciting and scary at the same time.

“Well, I owe you.” He gave my hand a gentle squeeze once I was on my feet, then let go of my fingers. “And I told you, I’ve got some extra rooms for guests who want to visit their horses on site. Why don’t you stay in one of those tonight?”

I fisted my hand, holding the feel of him tight.

“As much as I hate to impose, that would really help me out.” I wasn’t going to dissemble and try to pretend I would be fine on my own.

Pride goes before a fall, right? Or something like that. I could not afford to be proud about this.

“Sure.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of his pickup. “You need a ride back to your vehicle for a bag?”

“That’d be great.” I followed him toward the truck, hope beating fresh in my heart, along with a girlie awareness of Damien that I could not allow to distract me.

I wanted to have a good working relationship with him for the sake of the tearoom I was determined to have. Plus, I liked the idea of being in his world so I could see what new ideas I might have for Shaelynn’s hero. I might not be able to have him, but my fictional heroine could.

After all, it felt as if he’d walked out of my imagination and into my real life, waking a sleeping sensuality and stirring something...deeply appealing. If that wasn’t a sign I was supposed to be here, I didn’t know what was.

But I drew the line at acting on the heat I was feeling for Damien. Because there was no way I would let my issues with men interfere in what could still be the best business decision of my life.

3

EVEN BEFORE HE was fully conscious the next morning, Damien’s gaze was drawn to the window of the building where he’d settled Miranda Cortland the night before. He’d put her in the best rooms he had, a large suite meant for a family or business partners who were travelling together.

The suite took up half the third floor over the offices. Many of the offices were still vacant while the business grew, but he had separate managers for the stallions, the broodmares and the yearlings, along with some administrative support people and a part-time transportation guy. Down the road, he’d need more exercisers, trainers and a sales director. Assuming he didn’t bankrupt the whole outfit first.

Tearing his eyes away from the building where Miranda had slept, Damien hauled himself out of bed and vowed not to let her distract him from his work here. He had no intention of screwing up the operation that Ted Howard had entrusted him with. Damien had thrived under the man’s guidance at a time when his every move had been chronicled in teen magazines. As the son of someone famous, he’d had cameras following him everywhere, even though he had no interest in the movie business. Damien’s father had laughed off his worries, purposely shoving him into the spotlight to, as the old man put it, “get over himself.” If not for Ted, Damien might have ended up completely severing ties with his father.

But he’d learned patience working here. Learned to separate himself from a father who thwarted his every effort to succeed, in some misguided attempt to make Damien “tougher.” So he wasn’t going to let his mentor down now, even though he was tempted to ignore what was best for the business and just sell that old farm stand to Miranda. After seeing her go to work in the foaling stall yesterday, he had to admire her grit.

A shower and a cup of coffee later, he headed out into the mist of another Northern California–winter morning, inhaling the earthy scents of the land that had saved his sorry ass when he’d first come here. The closest pastures were bordered by olive trees, the green-red of the fruit muted by a heavy coating of dew.

Carrying his second cup of coffee with him, he was making his way to the barn to check on Tallulah’s Nine and the new foal when he heard a woman’s off-key voice lifted in song.

“Bekkah?”

The singing stopped.

“Damien?” A dark head popped out of the birthing stall. And while the woman’s features were familiar, they did not belong to the veterinarian’s assistant. “Good morning.”

“Miranda?” He blinked and refocused as he closed the distance between them, and realized she was alone with the foal and the mare. “Is it just me, or were you a blonde when you went to bed last night?”

Heat crawled up his spine as soon as he asked the question, the mention of Miranda and “bed” mingling the concepts damned attractively in his mind. He liked seeing her in a borrowed canvas coat with the Fraser Farm logo on it, as much as he’d liked seeing her in lace and a belly-button ring—both of which had figured heavily in his dreams the night before. To distract himself, he edged past her to stroke the mare’s nose.

“Funny thing about that.” She set aside a pitchfork that she must have been using to spread more straw. The stall appeared spotless, the scent of fresh hay stronger than the smell of horses. “I’d meant to dye my hair before I came up here, but it slipped my mind. After Scotty recognized me from Gutsy Girl yesterday, I remembered how much I needed to try life as a brunette.” She settled on a worn wooden stool in one corner of the stall. “I took over for Bekkah a few minutes ago so she could grab some breakfast, by the way.”

He’d almost managed to forget that Miranda was an actress, until she’d brought up that show again.

He nodded, knowing he ought to be grateful for the reminder to keep his hands off her. He wasn’t. “Bekkah sent me a few updates last night. Sounds like the foal has been nursing regularly.”

“He looks really healthy, doesn’t he?” Miranda settled her palm on the foal’s flank, both animals calm and accepting of her presence.

It was beneficial to accustom the horses to handlers early in life, one of many reasons Damien liked having an attendant around the new foals. Better to think about that instead of the subtle curve of Miranda’s hip.

“Thanks for checking on them.” He liked a woman who wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. So different from every other Hollywood type he’d ever known.

He’d had a lot of experience with wannabe starlets, and most of them had been high maintenance. Cautious of their appearance at all times. His mom, in fact, had met his father back when she’d been acting. Motherhood had turned out to be a bit too hands-on for her.

“No problem.” Miranda rubbed her fingers together, and when he saw a hint of her breath, Damien realized she must be cold.

“There are heavier jackets in the tack room, where you found the boots.” He pointed to the big rubber footwear she’d helped herself to this morning. He’d insisted she wear them last night, since she couldn’t go into the barns in flip-flops.

“Maybe in a minute.” She gave him a sheepish grin. “I was actually trying to send a hint about the coffee.”

She pointed toward his insulated mug.

He had the feeling she would have taken his and chugged straight from his cup.

“There’s a fresh pot up at the house.” Picturing her in his kitchen proved almost as potent as envisioning her in his bed. But when she didn’t move to take him up on the offer, he extended his mug. “Or you can have—”

“Ohmigod. Thank you.” She accepted the stainless-steel mug with both hands and drew it to her face so she could inhale the steam. “I’ve been awake most of the night, and when I smelled this, I was seized with this major caffeine craving.”

Intrigued by her in spite of himself, Damien leaned against the stall wall while Tallulah’s Nine nursed her foal. He noticed Miranda didn’t wear nail polish, but her fingernails seemed to bear stickers of different flowers. A daisy on one thumb. A daffodil on the other. Some purple blooms on the pointer fingers. It was easy to see them, with her hands clutching the coffee cup. She treated drinking like a ritual, all her attention devoted to the task until she’d taken three long sips.

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