Flirting with Trouble
What the hell was he doing? Inviting Marnie to get a bite to eat? Thinking she’d actually accept him? Forget sleep deprivation. He was suffering from sleep delusion. Or maybe it was just as she’d said—that he was grateful to see a familiar face when he was going through such a stressful situation so far from home.
Incredibly, Marnie didn’t decline the invitation. She seemed about to, then, suddenly, she smiled. A smile that was equal parts happiness and melancholy, hope and regret. It was less the smile of the happy-go-lucky girl he’d known in San Diego, and more the smile of a wiser, more seasoned woman.
Finally, she said, “I haven’t had dinner yet, either. A bite to eat sounds good.”
What the hell was she doing?
As Marnie strode with Daniel through the halls of Elias Memorial Hospital, she asked herself that question and a dozen others. Why was she being so nice to him after the way he’d left her in Del Mar? Where was the outrage she was supposed to be feeling for the man who had dumped her? Why was she genuinely curious about what he’d been doing for the past eight years? Why didn’t she hate him? But hovering above all those questions was an even more important one: Why hadn’t she told him yet her real reason for being here?
She’d had hours on the plane between San Diego and Sydney to think about their upcoming meeting. But as she’d tried to figure out how she felt about Daniel Whittleson now and plan their inevitable meeting accordingly, she’d been inundated by memories of the past. When she’d finally landed in Australia, she’d had no plan of attack and felt more confused than when she’d left home.
Ultimately, she’d been forced to admit that she didn’t know how she felt about Daniel Whittleson now. She wasn’t the same person she’d been eight years ago. So much had happened since the last time she saw him, things that had changed her very core. Her father’s business had failed less than a year after her week with Daniel, something that had sent her family into a tailspin. Virtually overnight, Marnie had gone from rich to poor, from frivolous to serious, from party girl to working girl. There had been times during the trans-Pacific flight when she’d felt as if she didn’t know Daniel Whittleson at all. Not as the Marnie Roberts she was now.
After he’d left San Diego, she’d told herself that if she ever ran into him again, she’d be civil but cool. Show him that she’d put the past behind her and moved on, but that she didn’t quite forgive him for what he’d done. Instead, tonight, she’d been nervous and uncertain…and accommodating. She’d even accepted an invitation to join him for dinner. What was the matter with her?
But more important than any of that, she still hadn’t told him the reason she was in Hunter Valley. That was, after all, why she’d gone to the hospital. That and to inquire about Sam’s condition. She may have been unsure about many things with regard to Daniel, but there had been one decision she had made on the flight—to tell him immediately that she was working for Louisa Fairchild. And she’d thought it might be easier to talk to him if she went to see him as Marnie Roberts, an old acquaintance—for lack of a better word—instead of Marnie Roberts, representative of Division International, working on behalf of the woman who’d shot his father. She’d thought he might be more likely to listen to what she had to say in a less-confrontational atmosphere like the hospital than an office environment, or even his father’s house.
She’d worried, too, that Daniel wouldn’t agree to see her if she tried to set up an appointment as Louisa’s representative. And all right, she’d also thought that maybe by catching him off guard, he might be more amenable to a dialogue about the shooting that didn’t involve criminal charges.
What she hadn’t thought was that seeing him again would rouse all those old feelings from eight years ago. And not the bad ones like her turmoil at his panicked departure from her condo when he realized he was late for the race. Or, worse, the sickness that overcame her when she found his letter in her mailbox that evening after returning from the track to look for him—and not finding him. Those were the memories that should have risen most quickly, because those were the ones that had hurt so much.
Instead, she was remembering the good parts of that week. Like strolling hand in hand along Moonlight Beach in Encinitas. And tooling along Harbor Drive in her convertible with the top down. And licking the churro sugar from each other’s fingers on the patio at Café Coyote.
Then again, she thought as the images unrolled in her mind, thinking about those things now hurt even more than the memories of Daniel’s leaving did….
Oh, God. Just when she’d been feeling as though her life was finally settling down after years of struggle, why did Daniel have to walk back into it? He’d been the first of many things to go wrong eight years ago, and having him come back now made her feel as if she were going in circles, as if the bad times were just looping around to start over again. Only this time, she and Daniel weren’t two strangers meeting to embark on a week full of lovely experiences. This time, they were on opposite sides in a volatile situation that was bound to create bad feelings.
And this time, there wouldn’t be a second chance eight years down the road to meet and talk and perhaps find closure. Because after what Marnie was going to have to do, Daniel would never want to look at her again.
Chapter Three
After placing their order in the café, Marnie studied Daniel from the other side of the table and tried to figure out how to tell him she was representing Louisa.
Oh, hi, Daniel. Great to see you after all these years of not knowing where you were or what you were doing after you dumped me. But, listen, here’s the thing. It’s kind of a funny story, actually. That woman who shot and nearly killed your father? The one who wants to send him to jail? I’m supposed to make her come out smelling like a rose and see that your father is the one who ends up looking like the criminal. So how the hell are ya?
Somehow, saying something like that just didn’t seem like good PR.
Technically, she thought, she hadn’t lied to him. She was in Hunter Valley on business, and she had read about Sam’s shooting in the newspaper. In fact, everything she’d said to Daniel tonight had been true. It just hadn’t been exactly straightforward.
But, hey, he hadn’t exactly been straightforward with her eight years ago, had he? After spending a wonderful week together, he’d pretty much told her she mattered less to him than his horses. And in that same week, she’d begun to feel like Daniel Whittleson might just be The One. Her response to him was so much stronger than with other men. Other men with whom she’d spent significantly more time. She and Daniel had felt good together. They’d felt right. She’d been so sure he shared those feelings. The way he had looked at her. The things he’d said. The way he’d made her feel…
And seeing him again, Marnie realized she’d never quite stopped feeling those things for him. If she didn’t think about the way their time together had ended, she could almost imagine it was eight years ago, and the two of them were back at her condo on the beach, laughing and feeding each other shrimp and sharing the last bottle of beer in her refrigerator.
Except that Daniel didn’t look like the young, up-and-coming trainer she remembered from back then. Eight years had woven a few threads of silver into his black hair and carved faint lines around his espresso-colored eyes. Eight years had toughened his complexion to a rich bronze and roughened his hands deliciously. The years had broadened his shoulders and roped the muscles of his forearms where he’d pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. She wasn’t sure, but he seemed an inch or two taller, because she didn’t recall him being quite so…overwhelming.
A ribbon of something hot and electric uncurled in her belly as she looked at him, but it wasn’t the same heat and electricity she remembered from San Diego. She’d wanted Daniel with a young girl’s desire back then, all urgent and needy and intense. Looking at him now, she felt desire kindling again, but it was different this time. It went deeper and pulled harder and somehow felt even stronger than it had before.
How could that be? she wondered. How could she still want him? She told herself she was remembering an idealized version of him and all the good times they’d had, conveniently forgetting the very real hurt he’d left her with.
She gave herself a good mental shake. Daniel Whittleson had abandoned her. He’d hurt her. When didn’t matter. He couldn’t be trusted. Even if she forgave him for what had happened in San Diego—and she wasn’t sure she had—chances were good he hadn’t changed. If she didn’t remember anything else, she told herself, she’d damned well better remember that.
Still, she couldn’t deny that the years had wrought more than physical changes in him. He didn’t smile the same way he had then. Granted, he must have had the scare of his life finding out his father was shot. But it was more than that. There was a caution in him now that she sensed had been there for some time. And the wariness in his eyes when he looked at her hadn’t been there before. As if he wasn’t sure he could trust her.
Then again, she thought, he couldn’t trust her. Because she wasn’t being honest with him.
Straightforward, she corrected herself. She just wasn’t being straightforward.
“So what kind of work brought you to Hunter Valley?” he asked after the waitress brought their coffee. His voice still bore that trace of an accent she remembered. Not quite Australian, not quite English, not quite American, either. It was a mix of all the places he’d lived and worked, something that made him seem slightly exotic.
She chose her words carefully. “I work for Division International. It’s a San Diego PR firm.” There. That much was true.
He looked puzzled. “Public relations?”
She nodded, but didn’t elaborate.
“But your degree is in business. You told me you wanted to run an equestrian camp for at-risk kids. Take them out of depressed urban areas and put them in the countryside where they could get sunshine and fresh air and learn to ride. You said you had some trust fund money you were going to use for the start-up.”
She curled her fingers around her coffee mug, suddenly feeling a little chilly inside. “That was a long time ago,” she told him.
“It wasn’t that long.”
“Yeah, Daniel, it was.”
A lifetime ago, she thought to herself. Back when she’d been happy and felt fortunate and wanted to share that happiness and good fortune with the rest of the world.
“What happened to change your mind?” he asked.
She sighed. “Not long after you…Not long after San Diego,” she quickly amended, “my father’s business failed. We lost everything.”
Daniel lowered his coffee cup. “Everything?” he asked.
“Everything,” she told him. She glanced up to meet his gaze, found that she couldn’t hold it, and looked back down. “To pay Dad’s creditors and survive the financial loss, we had to liquidate everything. Including my trust fund, my car and Blue Boy.”
“Your horse,” he said.
She nodded.
“But you really loved that horse.”
“I did,” she agreed. “But he was worth more than twenty thousand dollars, so…”
“He had to be liquidated,” he finished for her.
“Yeah.” She tried to smile. “He was bought by a very nice man, though, as a gift for his daughter’s tenth birthday. So Blue Boy ended up with a little girl who loved him. And he loved kids.”
“He wasn’t with you, though.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
Daniel said nothing for a moment. “You had to give up a lot when your father lost his business.”
Marnie nodded. “Yeah, but losing Blue Boy was the worst of it.”
“You sure about that?”
“Totally.”
“No more big house or fancy convertible,” he reminded her.
“No.”
“No more condo on the beach.”
“No.”
“No more life of leisure.”
As if she’d ever really enjoyed that anyway, Marnie thought. “No.”
“No more dreams of equestrian camp.”
“No,” she said sadly. “Which was the second-worst thing to lose.”
He was silent again, and she suddenly wished like hell she knew what he was thinking.
“Well, at least you still had your friends,” he said.
“Yeah, at least I had that.” Hardly. It was amazing how quickly people abandoned a person when she hit a rough patch. Of course, Marnie supposed she could argue that if they’d abandoned her when she really needed them, they weren’t friends in the first place.
And really, she didn’t miss them. Not anymore. It had been difficult at first. Terrifying, actually. She and her parents had felt dazed and displaced and wondered if anything would ever feel normal again. But her father had emerged from bankruptcy with a newfound sense of purpose and, with help from friends who invested with him, started a new business from scratch. It was significantly smaller in nature than his previous one had been, but he was enjoying himself more. Her mother had become his assistant in running the small vineyard they’d purchased three years ago. It would be turning a profit for the first time this year, a very modest one, and Marnie hadn’t seen her parents so happy in a long time. In many ways, they seemed happier now than they’d been when they were on society’s A-list.
Marnie, too, had found some small degree of happiness after losing everything. No, she wasn’t following the dream she’d originally mapped out for herself, and there were times when her job drove her crazy. But she’d convinced Hildy at Division to take on a handful of small accounts that weren’t as profitable to the company but were still worthwhile—like her parents’ business—and she enjoyed working with them. The big fish on Division’s client list might be the ones who paid Marnie’s salary, but it was the small fish who brought her satisfaction. Maybe someday she’d have her own PR firm and work with causes she considered worthy. And maybe then, she’d be as happy as her parents were.
“I know public relations might seem like kind of a strange occupation for me,” she said now, “but it’s actually a good fit. I like people, and Division liked the fact that I knew so many, some of them very prominent. I’ve been doing it for more than five years now.” She sat up and lifted her chin a little defiantly as she added, “And I’m good at it, too.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute,” Daniel said. “I’m sure you could do whatever you put your mind to.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s just that you seemed so focused on the camp for kids, that’s all.”
Marnie really didn’t want to talk about this right now. So she said, “It’s good to see you again, Daniel.”
Oh, damn, where had that come from? She really hadn’t meant to say anything like that. She really hadn’t meant to feel anything like that. But she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that she was still attracted to Daniel. The moment she’d turned to see him in the waiting room, her heart had begun to hammer, and heat had pooled low in her belly. And when he’d uttered her name in that low, soft way he used to…When she looked at his hands and remembered what they had felt like skimming over her bare skin…When she looked at his mouth and recalled the way he’d kissed her and tasted her, and all the places he’d kissed and tasted…
She halted the memories from forming, but not before they ratcheted up her body temperature a few degrees. Daniel Whittleson had been an incredible lover, had scorched her with his touch and enflamed her with his words, until she’d been unable to think about anything but him, until she could only feel him surrounding her and burying himself inside her, and…
She closed her eyes, hoping to put an end to both her distant memories and her current desires. There was no way she could allow herself to be attracted to Daniel again. It would mean risking her heart all over again, and then there was the difficult position her job had put her in.
But when she opened her eyes again, her resolve was nearly shattered. Because Daniel was looking at her as if he felt the same pull from the past that she did, as if he were remembering the same things she was remembering, as if he wanted and needed her now as much as he had then.
Very softly, he replied, “It’s good to see you, too, Marnie.”
And something inside her broke open, releasing all the feelings she’d wanted so desperately to keep locked up tight.
Oh, Daniel, she thought. Why did we have to meet again now? Why here?
She searched for something, anything, to say that might dispel the almost palpable awareness that lay between them. But all she could come up with was a very lame, “So. You, uh…you work for the Prestons. That must be interesting. They’ve bred and trained some pretty amazing horses.”
At first, she feared he would only continue to look at her with that same soulful yearning she felt so keenly herself. Finally, though, he nodded and said, “I like it very much, actually. Thomas and Jenna are good people. The whole family is.” He was thoughtful a moment, as if he still wanted to talk about himself and Marnie, then, thankfully, added, “Their son Andrew has taken over as business manager of Quest. Their son Brent is head breeder. Robbie’s turning out to be a top-notch trainer after years of Jenna and Thomas worrying he’d never figure out what he wanted to do with his life. And Melanie just made history as the first female jockey to win the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. Quest Stables is a wonderful place to work. And Kentucky’s a gorgeous state.”
Marnie forced a smile she hoped looked genuine. “I imagine it’s very different from some of the other places you’ve lived. I mean, a guy who followed his dad to jobs in Australia and England and Canada when he was a teenager, settling in a quiet state like Kentucky? Who would’ve guessed?”
“It’s different from those places in some ways, yeah,” he agreed. “But I like it as well or better than any of them.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “Though it always feels good to come back to Australia. I was born here, even if I moved back to Ohio with my mom before I started school, so I guess, technically, it’s home.”
They spent the next hour in companionable conversation, only skimming the surface of whatever they might actually be thinking or feeling, at least on Marnie’s part. But she was grateful for it. For now, at least, they both seemed willing to let whatever lay in the past stay there. She’d worry about the future when it came. And she’d worry about the past some other time. For this evening, she was content to just reacquaint herself with Daniel. Even if it was only superficially. And even if it wouldn’t last.
Gosh, just like old times.
After finishing dinner, they returned to Sam’s hospital room to check on him, but he’d just been given a sedative and the nurse said he was expected to sleep through the night with no change. Daniel double-checked to be sure the hospital had his cell number, then said he’d be at his father’s house if there were any developments.
He turned to Marnie. “Where are you staying?”
“I’m staying here in Pepper Flats, actually,” she said. “At the Wallaroo Inn.”
“How long will you be in town?”
Not an easy question to answer, Marnie thought—honestly or dishon…uh, not straightforwardly. As long as it took to clear Louisa’s name and ensure that the Fairchild Gala went off without a hitch. Hopefully, that wouldn’t take long. But how was Marnie supposed to answer him honestly without revealing the nature of her job? And why was she putting off telling him when he was bound to find out anyway? Especially since his question provided her with a perfect opening?
“I…” She hesitated a moment, telling herself to just spit out the truth and be done with it. Instead, she heard herself say, “Not long.”
And she hoped like hell that Louisa did what Marnie told her to do so they could put this all behind them and Marnie could go back to San Diego. Otherwise, she’d just told Daniel a lie. The only lie she’d ever told him, and she hoped it was the last one.
“I’m staying at my dad’s place,” he said. “He has a spread called Whittleson Stud about a half hour from here. Can I give you a lift back to the hotel? Or do you have a car?”
“I have a car,” she told him. “But I took a cab to the hospital because I didn’t want to have to navigate the town my first night here after such a long flight.”
He looked at her with surprise, and at first, she didn’t know why.
“You just got here today?”
She nodded reluctantly.
“And you came to the hospital before doing anything else?”
She nodded again, even more reluctantly. He was going to think there was something suspicious about that.
Instead, he smiled and that ribbon of heat unfurled in her once more. But it was replaced by guilt when he added, “That was nice of you, Marnie. I didn’t realize you thought so highly of my dad.”
Yeah, that was her, she thought. Always thinking of her clients’ shooting victims first.
“The least I can do is give you a ride back then,” he offered. “No sense paying for a taxi if you don’t have to.”
Marnie knew she should decline, but the prospect of spending a little more time with Daniel won out. “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it.”
For perhaps the hundredth time in as many minutes, Daniel asked himself what the hell he thought he was doing. This time, though, he did it twice—one what-the-hell for driving Marnie back to her hotel, and another what-the-hell for insisting he follow her up to her room to make sure she arrived safely. A woman traveling alone couldn’t be too careful, he’d told her. Even in small towns.
But he knew that was only part of the reason. In spite of having spent the last eight years trying to forget about her, he realized he was still powerfully attracted to Marnie Roberts. Maybe even more than he’d been in San Diego. He’d been a kid in San Diego, uncertain of himself and not especially confident where women were concerned. He’d always told himself that was why he’d fallen so hard for Marnie in the first place—because he’d been so inexperienced, and she’d seemed so sophisticated. But his experiences since then had only made him realize tonight just how special Marnie Roberts was, and how lucky he’d been to meet her when he did.
Not much had changed in that regard, he thought. She was still special. And he still felt lucky to have met her.
The dazzling, effervescent girl had blossomed into a stunning, elegant woman. As they’d chatted tonight, Daniel had been transfixed by her. By the changes in her. She seemed so much more confident, so much more poised than she had been before. Stronger. More seasoned. More womanly. She appealed to him in ways she hadn’t before. Probably because he’d changed so much himself.
Now, as he stood behind her and watched her slip her key card into the lock of the hotel-room door, he didn’t know what to say. What to do. How to act. He watched as the little green light flashed, followed by the click that said everything was okay. But nothing felt okay. And instead of signaling a go-ahead, the green light seemed to be a warning of some kind. Whether it was trying to warn Marnie or him, he couldn’t have said.
The room was dark when she pushed the door open, and she mumbled something about having wished she’d turned a light on before she left.
“I’ll get it,” he volunteered. And before she had a chance to decline, he was pushing into the room past her, trying not to notice the soft swish and click of the door as it closed behind them, throwing them into darkness.
Well, not complete darkness, he realized, since the curtains were open and the scattered lights of Pepper Flats lay beyond—not as bountiful as they would be in a big city, but glittery enough to look as if someone had tossed a handful of diamonds onto a black velvet background. He and Marnie were, however, utterly alone.