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The temperamental gelding jerked his head, and shifted his two hind legs in an impatient two-step. With a flick of the reins, Zane quieted the imposing beast.
“It’s so beautiful here,” Lesley added, hoping that was explanation enough. She glanced at her watch, startled by how much time had passed. It seemed she’d only been a matter of minutes, but she’d been sitting there nearly an hour.
She should say something, anything, but it was as if his happening upon her had frozen her thought processes. She knew that had she tried to explain, she would have made an even greater fool of herself, which was something she wasn’t eager to do. She didn’t know what Zane must think of her.
“This was my grandmother’s favorite spot,” Zane surprised her by saying. He didn’t sound displeased with her. If anything, she heard puzzlement in his voice, as if she were the last person he expected to find on his property.
“Your grandmother?” she repeated, not realizing that there was a family connection with the house.
“The house belonged to my grandparents,” he admitted gruffly, as though he resented her knowing even this small bit of information. The Arabian’s impatient jig continued. “How much longer do you intend to stay?”
“I really must get back to the office. I should have left right away. I’m sorry if I did something I shouldn’t have.” She backed away from him.
“It’s fine, Lesley,” he said so softly, she wasn’t sure Zane was the one who’d spoken or if it was that small voice she’d heard earlier. The voice in her own heart. The one that had welcomed her with open arms.
* * *
Lesley didn’t sleep that night. Every time she closed her eyes, it was Zane Ackerman’s face that came into view. He’d been both abrupt and unfriendly, and yet she was physically drawn to him with a force so powerful, it left her senses reeling.
The next morning the first thing Lesley did when she reached the office was put a call through to Jordan Larabee.
“How do you know Zane Ackerman?” she asked without so much as greeting him.
“Good morning to you, too,” Jordan said, his amusement echoing over the line. “I take it you drove out to meet Zane yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“How is he, by the way?”
“Fine. I take it he’s a friend of yours.”
“We go way back.”
“Tell me about him.” After a sleepless night, Lesley wasn’t up to playing cat-and-mouse games with Jordan.
“What do you want to know?”
“Is he married?” That this would be the first question she put before him shocked her. Although the question had been paramount in her mind, she never intended to blurt it out. She hoped to ease into it with far more subtlety.
To her dismay, Jordan laughed outright. “So that’s the way the ball bounces?”
“What do you mean by that?” She sounded defensive, and that irritated her all the more.
“You’re irresistibly drawn to his bad-boy image. Well, Lesley, I hate to say it, but you aren’t alone. I’ve never met a woman who wasn’t intrigued by Zane Ackerman. I don’t know what it is about him, but whatever it is, he’s got it in spades.”
“I’m not interested in him that way,” she said with far less conviction than she felt.
“And pigs fly.”
“He was rude and he couldn’t seem to get me out of his house fast enough.”
“That’s Zane all right.”
Her comments seemed to amuse Jordan.
“What happened to him? The injuries look recent.”
“He never said,” Jordan answered, “and I never asked.”
