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Mesmerized, she might have turned toward him a fraction.
Until a feminine voice shouted from the house.
“Fleur, it’s you!” Emma called to them, making Fleur leap back a step, her basket in her hands. “Drake Alexander, you’d better be inviting her to dinner.”
A sigh of relief—it must be relief and not a twinge of disappointment that the moment had been broken—dispelled the turmoil that had been whipping through her a moment ago. Fleur told herself she’d speak to Drake another time, when she wasn’t all twisted around and confused about him. She stretched her lips into a welcoming smile for her friend.
“Emma, I’m so glad to see you.”
Agitated, Drake spoke softly to Pearl to lead her to the barn. The mare nickered and followed him, her soft nose pressing into his shoulder every now and again, as if to pick up his pace so she could get to her oats faster.
Fleur had been pregnant with Colin’s child.
The news floored him. Maybe he should have guessed as much, considering how fast they’d gotten engaged and how uneasy Colin had seemed. Even Fleur hadn’t seemed like an eager bride. Which had made Drake wary of their motivations and love. But a pregnancy had never crossed his mind.
And shouldn’t that tell him something about how quick he’d been to draw assumptions about Fleur? He regretted that, if only because his interference could have had devastating consequences for the Alexander family line. Yes, she’d said she’d already miscarried by the time Drake convinced her to break the engagement. But what if she hadn’t? Would she have still caved to Drake’s insistence they were all wrong for one another?
He would have been responsible for separating Colin from the mother of his child. No wonder his brother didn’t speak to him.
Reaching the barn, he clipped Pearl into the cross-ties to groom her before her meal. There were ranch hands nearby if he’d wanted to hand off the task, but the simple ritual of brushing down his horse would be a welcome distraction when his mind was working double time.
Because even if he could set aside the fact that Fleur and Colin had shared a deeper connection than Drake had understood, he couldn’t escape the other thing circling around and around his brain. There’d been a breathless, heated moment with her just now when he’d nearly kissed her. He would have sworn—in that instant, at least—that she’d wanted him, too.
He removed the saddle and bridle, returning the pieces to the tack room before he retrieved the brush. The stables were empty with the other horses out to pasture, but an older gelding stood near the open doors to the barn in a shady spot he favored.
“Hello, Pharoah.” Drake paused to greet the tall palomino with a scratch along the flank.
While he stood there, one foot in the barn and one foot out, he could look at the main house and see the stone patio where his sister and Fleur now sat in the Adirondack chairs by the creek bend. The willow basket of almond cookies sat on a low wooden table between them along with a clear glass pitcher of lemonade Emma must have brought from the house. From almost two hundred yards away, he couldn’t hear them, but he could see Fleur’s face in profile well enough, her smile and relaxed posture telling him that Emma had put her at ease.
He felt relieved to know Fleur could put aside their conversation enough to enjoy her time with his sister. Fleur had been visibly upset talking about the miscarriage. It had surprised him when she’d attempted to downplay his role in breaking up her engagement to Colin by assuring him she’d already miscarried by then. He’d been reeling so much from the news of the pregnancy, she could have delivered a knockout blow if she’d allowed him to think he’d robbed her of the father’s support at a critical juncture.
Yet she hadn’t. Even though he’d most certainly done so.
On the patio, she turned toward him suddenly, as if she’d felt his regard. Awareness crackled to life, like a flame called from red-hot embers beneath the thinnest veneer of ash.
He nodded to Fleur along with a final pat to Pharoah before returning to the cool shadows inside the barn. Finding a currycomb and brushes for Pearl, he returned to the task of grooming the black-and-white dappled paint.
As he worked over the animal, he contemplated his next move, knowing he needed to be warier around the woman. The old enmity between them was fading. How could it stand based on what he knew now?
He’d done Fleur Barclay wrong.
As he’d told her, he could admit a failure. That wasn’t the problem wedged between his shoulder blades. Right now, all he could think of was how she’d fit against him when they rode together. How her breath had quickened when his thumb skimmed the band of bare flesh at her waist. How her gray eyes had turned a molten silver in the protracted moment when he’d thought about kissing her.
That was a far bigger problem than the mistake he made five years ago. Because it meant he wanted the woman his brother had loved.
And if he hoped to repair the damage he’d already done to the relationship with his sibling, he could never, ever act on that.
“Would you like any more chicken?” Emma asked Fleur as they finished their dinner that evening. Her hostess had somehow managed to barbecue in a white denim skirt and blousy orange top without getting a drop of sauce on her outfit. Her pear-shaped solitaire engagement ring glinted as she brandished the platter of poultry. “Or should I bring out thepolvoronesfor our dessert?”
The two of them sat on the patio as the sun sank lower on the horizon. Emma had produced salads and fresh bread to go with the chicken for an impromptu meal that had been delicious. It had taken a while for Fleur to relax enough to enjoy herself since she kept thinking Drake would join them.
Indeed, Emma remarked on it more than once that he usually joined her for supper. So perhaps he was staying away from the table because of Fleur. Which was just as well, of course. She preferred it, even. The old way of relating to Drake—ignoring him, hating him—was simpler than whatever had happened between them earlier that afternoon when things had turned unexpectedly heated.
“I couldn’t eat another bite of anything, Emma. But thank you. All the food was delicious, and I really enjoyed the meal.” Fleur shook out her napkin over the grass closest to the picnic table on the patio, then folded the red-and-white gingham linen to lay beside her empty plate.
She had almost convinced herself that she’d imagined those breathless moments with Drake when the air between them crackled with electricity and she swore he would have kissed her.
They’d never even liked each other.
