AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I just voiced your concerns.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered, setting her unfinished drink aside. “Look, I’m really very tired and I can’t think about all this tonight.”
“Don’t. Just try and get some sleep.”
She managed a wan smile and walked around to her side of the bed. “I guess I owe you an apology and a very big thank you. I . . . really appreciate all the help you gave in the foaling shed.”
Zane frowned. “For all the good it did.”
Tiffany raised sad eyes to meet his questioning gaze. “I don’t think there was anything anyone could have done.”
“Preordained?”
She sighed audibly and shook her head; The wet hair swept across her shoulders. “Who knows?” She sat on the edge of the bed, her fingers toying with the belt holding her robe together. “Goodbye, Zane. If you call me in the morning, we can find another time to get together and talk about your hypothesis concerning Devil’s Gambit and my husband.”
“I’ll be here in the morning,” he stated, dropping into a chair facing the bed and cradling his drink in his hands.
“Pardon me?” she asked, understanding perfectly well what he meant.
“I’m staying—”
“You can’t! Not here—”
“I just want to check with Mac once more, and then I’ll sleep downstairs on the couch.”
Visions of him spending the night in her house made her throat dry. She couldn’t deny that he had been a help, but the thought of him there, in the same house with her, only a staircase away, made her uneasy. Her fingers trembled when she pushed them wearily through her hair. “I don’t know,” she whispered, but she could feel herself relenting.
“Come on, Tiff. It’s after two. I’m not about to drive back to San Francisco now, just to turn around and come back here in six hours.”
Tiffany managed a smile. “I don’t suppose that makes a whole lot of sense.” Her blue eyes touched his. “You don’t have to sleep in the den. There’s a guest room down the hall, the first door to the left of the stairs.”
He returned her hint of a smile and stood. For a moment she thought he was about to bend over the bed and kiss her. She swallowed with difficulty as their eyes locked.
Zane hesitated, and the brackets near the corners of his mouth deepened. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, his eyes darkening to a smoky gray before he turned out the lamp near the bed and walked out of the room.
Tiffany expelled a rush of air. “Oh, God,” she whispered, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. “I should have made him leave.” He was too close, his rugged masculinity too inviting.
Maybe he would come back to her room, or maybe he would sift through the papers in the den looking for something, anything, to prove his crazy theories. But all the important documents, the computer data disks and the checkbook were locked in the safe; even if Zane rummaged through the den, he would find nothing of value.
That’s not why you’re concerned,her tired mind teased.What scares you is your response to him.She rolled over and pushed the nagging thoughts aside. Despite all of her doubts, she was comforted that Zane was still with her. Somehow it made the tragedy of losing the foal easier to bear.
* * *
Zane hiked his quickly donned jacket around his neck and felt the welcome relief of raindrops slide under his collar. He needed time to cool off. Being around Tiffany, wanting to comfort her, feeling a need to make love to her until the fragile lines of worry around her eyes were gone, unnerved him. The last thing he had expected when he had driven to Rhodes Breeding Farm was that he would get involved with Ellery Rhodes’s widow.
He heard the roar of an engine as he started to cross the parking lot. Turning in the direction of the sound, Zane walked toward Mac’s battered truck. Mac rolled down the window as Zane approached. Twin beams from the headlights pierced the darkness, and the wipers noisily slapped the accumulation of rain from the windshield.
“Everything okay?”
“Aye,” Mac replied cautiously. “The mare’s fine.”
“Good.” Zane rammed his fists into the jacket of his coat. “What about the colt?”
“Vance will handle that.” The wiry trainer frowned in the darkness. “He’ll give us a report in a couple of days.”
“Good.” Zane stepped away from the truck and watched as Mac put the ancient Dodge pickup into gear before it rumbled down the driveway.
Wondering at the sanity of his actions, Zane unlocked his car and withdrew the canvas bag of extra clothes from the backseat. He always traveled with a change of clothes, his briefcase and his camera. He slung the bag over his shoulder and considered the briefcase. In the leather case were the papers his attorney had toiled over. According to John Morris, every document needed to purchase Rhodes Breeding Farm was now in Zane’s possession. So why didn’t owning the farm seem as important as it once had?
