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Free to go… no more of his fingers teasing me, making me wonder if I’ve gone insane for liking it, madness? No more looking over my shoulder for his red truck each time I step foot outside the lodge. Being back with Fiona and Carol Ann and the other interns, doing the work that’s become so important to me?
I have to try.
But what is at stake? Something scandalous; his face says it all, that devilish half-cocked grin, the flash in his eyes, the color lost somewhere between blue and green, same stunning color the sea was this morning.
“And if you win?” I ask.
The look that comes over his face is enough to melt any woman’s panties right off. “I get to do anything I please to you. With your full consent.”
I think of last night, lying in my bed, dangerously close to calling him in to rub away the ache he’d left between my thighs.
If I do run and he catches me…
Have I really lost?
Chapter Fourteen
Bayne
I sit at the table, my timer set for two minutes. It’s amusing, watching her prancing prettily over my hills, long dark ponytail swishing across her back. Even tired from my earlier exercise, she hasn’t got a chance against me. I drum my fingertips against the tabletop—still trying to calm my anger after the stunt she pulled.
I’m not sure how or why that story came out. She has this innocent, almost naïve air about her. It breaks my guard down. And she’d shared with me, and I’m fair if nothing else.
Still, that was a dark story for a young, impressionable girl. Nothing like my cheating ex. That day left me scorned, swearing off serious relationships.
Haven’t trusted another woman since.
I’ve had women—unbeknownst to Cal Burnes, I’m not any kind of virgin, born again or otherwise—but not the kind you look to marry, just the ones you chase down for a good time.
Nothing like the sweet girl I’ve got under my care now.
I think of those deep brown eyes that were with her the day she was born and the father who never got a look at her beauty. What a shame. And a mother who doesn’t sound much better.
Such a nice girl.
How did she come from such horrid people?
I think of my own father, sleeping with my girlfriend behind my back, telling her to leave me, then killing her with his bare hands. That’s my and Eamon’s bloodline. It’s fine for me, I am what I am.
But I don’t want the same for Eamon.
I dream of another life for Eamon, far from that stone cottage with the red door. Not just because I can’t bring myself to visit that place after what happened, but I want more for him than this life. He was born with a golden heart, and I want the sun to shine on him every day.
I think of what Callum said to me, basically laying out the fact that he’s up to what I’m doing here, that I’ve got the girl. I don’t know how long I have till I’ve got to come clean. Or what they’re going to decide to do with her when they find out I’ve got her.
The Baynes-Burnes connection is still delicate. It needs watering, feeding, more time to grow. It’s not the time to come to blows over a girl.
Eamon’s going to want her safe. That much I know. Hell—I want her safe. The girl’s growing on me.
Other than that damn trick she pulled.
My heart’s still thumping, remembering the fear I felt when I couldn’t find her. I’m going to chase her down. And she’s going to pay.
My timer goes off.
I grab the horsewhip that’s been handed down in my family for generations. Long and thin and silver, made of flexible metal with a black rubber handle and a two-inch lash on its tip. They’re used for our illegal street horse-cart racing, a hobby we picked up from my great-grandfather’s Romani traveling people’s heritage. When he married my great-grandmother, a woman not from his community, for love, he was banished from his family but brought his traditions with him.
We’ve always kept horses. I learned to ride a miniature horse bareback when I was three, and Eamon did the same. The men in our family have always enjoyed racing our horses from the seat of a two-wheeled cart called a sulky.
