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Rose heard plenty of gutter talk in the course of her work, and had grown up alongside her pa and six brothers without any softening female influences in the home, so she could give as good a
s she got, but Dante’s offer to do something other than stand on the fringes of the party eating cake had been crude and to the point.
She responded in kind, and, yes, okay, with a few extra flourishes. She was used to banter with her brothers and once she got into her stride, it was hard to call a halt.
To be fair, Dante took it well. When he’d finished laughing, she suggested he ask her again in six months’ time when her contract with the team was up.
Don’t judge me. I’m a professional woman with needs and desires like anyone else. If Dante still wants this six months down the line, I might feel compelled to try him out. After all, rumors should be investigated, and I’ve never flinched from duty in my life.
Chapter One
Six months later…
Shrugging off the gusting breeze, Dante strode toward the stable block. It wasn’t the weather conditions concerning him, but some inner warning system that alerted him to a slightest change in his ponies’ routine. He had inherited this sixth sense from his mother. Said to be a Romani princess, she had died giving birth to him. His late father, Vicente Formosa, a descendant of one of the foremost families in Argentina, had explained that Dante sometimes felt these things because Romani were closely linked to nature. Dante had seen no reason to disbelieve this and was as proud of his Romani heritage as he was of being part of a long line of land-owning aristocracy.
As lightning briefly illuminated the low-lying buildings housing the most valuable polo ponies in the world, he scanned the stable yard, searching for the slightest thing out of place. There were rumors doing the rounds of the polo world of a ruthless gang with global tentacles that was targeting top stables. Stealing priceless livestock, the gang would hold the animals for ransom, and if their terms weren’t met, they’d kill them in the most vicious way.
He could see nothing, but sensed an intruder. The block lay on the far side of the wide, cobbled yard. Beyond the perimeter, a restless ocean tossed beneath a smoky moon. Remaining motionless, he absorbed everything around him. The scent of rain rolling off the ocean was strong, but he detected a human presence in the stables with his horses when everyone was supposed to be at the party. The only sound, apart from the rising wind and the crash of surf, was music coming from the Big House, where the festivities were to mark Blood and Thunder’s elevation to the top-ranking polo team in the world. In Dante’s experience, there was nothing like the distraction of sex, drink, and celebration to lower the guard of even the most security-conscious organization, which was why he was out here tonight.
The team owned the world-class polo facility. It was where they trained and bred their polo ponies and stored the armaments required for their other activities. Team members Dante, Alexei, Diego, and Cesar lived double lives. As well as playing polo, they were vigilantes, heading up global forces that dealt with problems more conventional powers had failed to clean up. Their private army was so successful that governments across the free world jockeyed for their services.
A trill of female laughter rising above the hum of the party prompted him to increase his speed. He was glad to have something to do outside the party. He chose his pleasure. He did not have it thrust upon him. There was nothing to interest him at the Big House tonight. His colleagues had their own female interests, but there was no one he hadn’t tested and found wanting. He liked a challenge too much, and he hadn’t experienced anything close to a challenge since Rose Delaney had told him at Alexei’s wedding precisely what he could do with the bulge in his breeches. She had behaved with the utmost professionalism since that night, and his respect for her had grown, together with his determination to know every inch of that soft, warm body. And her six months were up. Opening the door to the stable block, he walked inside. “What the—”
Beneath the stark glare of a work light, a tableau was illuminated for him.
“Don’t be angry with me, Dante,” the leggy blonde pleaded. “One of the girls told me you’d left the party and were patrolling, so I thought you might call by here.”
Currently reclining naked on a hay bale, she looked ridiculous. “The only time I see you is in the stable,” she added, lowering her crossed arms to give him a better view of her breasts.
“And why do you suppose that is, Lucinda?”
“I don’t know,” she mewled in a tone that was in stark contrast to Rose Delaney’s forthright manner.
Had it really been six months? Rose was still holding out. Would she ever give in? He’d never known anything like it.
“But now I’m here…”
Lucinda’s squeaky tone distracted him. He switched his attention to what he supposed was meant to be an appealing face. Lucinda’s pout only tempted him to lob a pony nut between her improbably inflated lips. She was good with horses, which was the only reason she’d kept her job as a groom, though he’d heard rumors that Lucinda boasted certain other skills.
“Please, Dante…”
He shrugged. Between a rock and a hard place, there was a hot, wet place, and he had just enough time before supper.
~~o0o~~
Rose moved with purpose across the cobbled yard. She was thrilled to have her contract with the team extended, and put in twice the hours expected of her—not that it was any hardship. She adored her job.
Making no sound, she opened the door to the stable block. Being soft-footed was all part of becoming a horse whisperer, an old Romani lady had told Rose when she was just a little girl, adding that working with horses was the career that Rose was destined to follow, and that she would practice her skills in a vast, wild land. Well, that must be her father’s farm, Rose had thought at the time. Taking the wise woman’s advice seriously, she had tiptoed around the farmhouse from then on, driving her father mad. “Why aren’t you a boy?” he’d complain. “What do I want with a fairy in mud boots?” When he saw Rose practicing her fledgling skills, he’d yell, “You rule a horse with your voice, Rose. How are they supposed to know what you want if they can’t hear you?”
“They love me more when I whisper, Pa,” Rose had tried to explain.
Her father would reply, “You’re turning into a headstrong woman, Rose, just like your mother.” And it always gave Rose a thrill to be compared to the mother she had never really known.
Going into the tack room, she picked up some pony nuts. Glancing in the mirror, she tried to see something of her mother in her. And failed. Kathleen Delaney had been a redheaded Irish beauty with freckles, while Rose was more like her father: dark haired and pale skinned—except for the bloody freckles! “Thanks, Mum,” she murmured, remembering how her father had referred to her mother’s famed freckles as fairy dust. On Rose’s milk skin, they were just freckles.
Rose’s mother had been killed in a car crash on her way to the doctor’s for Rose’s six-month checkup. By some trick of fate, when the truck hit the car, Rose was flung free. She’d been discovered in a gorse bush, unharmed except for terrible scratches. When her father had a drink, he’d tell anyone who’d listen, “Rose was my mistake. Not only is she a girl, but she’s the baby who killed my Kathleen. There’s no excitement in my life now my Kathleen’s gone—no reason to live at all.”
And then he’d cry, and Rose’s brothers would leap to her defense. “Don’t you be saying that, Pa. You’ll be giving our Rose a complex.”
