Flirting with Trouble
She really, really hated days like this.
She tugged her foot free from the door and slammed it down with confidence—it was not petulance—something that made the heel snap off and go flying toward her other calf, leaving a long scrape. Not sure whether she should focus her immediate attention on the shoe, the calf or the rug, she hobbled to her desk and was reaching for a tissue when the intercom buzzed with enough volume to make her squeal.
“Marnie, I need to see you right away,” her boss Hildy’s voice boomed ominously into the room. Not that Hildy Emerson wasn’t ominous and booming every day, but today, she sounded even more urgent than usual.
Not a good sign, Marnie thought. But then, considering how her day had been so far, not exactly surprising, either.
She pushed the button on her intercom. “I’ll be right there, Hildy.” To herself, she added, Just as soon as I’m presentable. Which should be sometime in September.
As if reading her thoughts, Hildy immediately replied, “I need you now.”
With a wistful look at the rapidly spreading coffee stain, Marnie scooped up her now-empty cup and still-broken heel and made her way to the door. She dropped the cup in the trash on her way out, then staggered as well as she could to Hildy’s office on the other side of the reception area. Phoebe smiled perkily at her as she went, as oblivious to Marnie’s plight as she was to anything that wasn’t, well, perky. Inhaling a deep, fortifying breath, Marnie turned the knob to Hildy’s door and stepped inside.
“Marnie, I—” Her boss stopped cold when she glanced up from the papers on her desk to look at Marnie full on. She assessed Marnie critically from the hair bomb to the stained suit to the broken heel and back again. “My God, what happened to you?”
Marnie sighed, knowing they’d be there all day if she started listing. So she only said, “It does, too, rain in Southern California.”
Hildy studied Marnie through narrowed gray eyes. She opened her mouth as if she intended to ask something else, evidently thought better of it, and gestured toward one of two leather chairs on the other side of her desk. “Have a seat.”
Marnie hobbled across the room and folded herself gratefully into the chair, trying not to notice that Hildy’s silver-streaked black hair was perfectly coiffed and her plum-colored suit flawless. Hildy was always perfectly coiffed and flawless. That was why she was the employer and Marnie was a coffee-stained employee. As she sat in the chair indicated, she toed off her broken shoe and began trying to work the heel back on.
“You need to drop every account you have right now,” Hildy told her, “and focus on a new assignment.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Marnie objected immediately, her broken heel forgotten. “I’m juggling more than a dozen clients right now, on three continents. I can’t just blow them all off. They’ll—”
“Someone else can handle them,” Hildy interrupted. “I need you for something big.”
“Oh, bigger than Prince Torquil?” Marnie asked indignantly, citing the assignment that Hildy had previously told her should take precedence over everything else.
“This is much worse than Prince Torquil,” Hildy said evenly.
“I don’t see how it could be,” Marnie replied. “I mean, the Tortugan officials won’t even let King Bardo and Queen Ingeborg bring Torquil a minibar or personal chef to the jail. From all accounts, it’s been ugly.”
Now Hildy made a face. “Torquil will survive. We’ll let Jerry Turner handle it. He has a winter home down there somewhere. It’ll be like a paid vacation for him.”
Marnie started to object again, but was halted by Hildy’s raised hand.
“Louisa Fairchild has shot someone,” her boss told her.
Marnie’s mouth fell open and the forgotten shoe heel tumbled completely from her hand. Though, honestly, she didn’t know why she should be surprised. Louisa Fairchild was one of Division’s most crotchety clients, even living half a world away in Australia. One of their newer clients, she’d zoomed straight to the top of their list of High Maintenance Accounts. Even Prince Torquil’s martini deprivation paled in comparison. But then, Louisa Fairchild’s level of difficulty was pretty legendary, extending beyond the Thoroughbred industry in which she was practically an icon. Marnie had heard tales of the grand dame when she was a child, riding dressage herself.
“What happened?” Marnie asked.
Hildy sighed and leaned back in her chair. “It’s going to be a mess. Although Louisa claims it was self-defense, there are a number of extenuating circumstances and enough he said–she said to make your brain explode. Still,” she added thoughtfully, “the man she shot…Sam somebody…it’s all in the file…was in Louisa’s house when it happened, purportedly uninvited. Unfortunately, no one can prove he wasn’t there by invitation.”
“There were no witnesses?” Marnie asked.
Hildy shook her head. “None.”
Marnie groaned. “Great. And the annual Fairchild Gala is how far off?”
Hildy’s smile was brittle. “Less than two weeks.”
Marnie nodded. Hildy was right. Prince Torquil’s snafu had nothing on a Louisa Fairchild shooting.
“You’re going to have a lot of damage control to do,” Hildy told her. “Louisa Fairchild is our first Australian client, and we’re working hard to make inroads into that country to broaden our base. And that gala she has is nationally recognized for raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for kids with special needs. If you handle this correctly, the gala will still go off without a hitch. And if Louisa comes out of this looking like the wounded party I’m confident she is, it could be just the ticket we need to expand our clientele.”
Oh, hey, no pressure there, Marnie thought. She just wished she was as confident of Louisa’s innocence as Hildy was.
Then again, Louisa was an eighty-year-old woman. What kind of man went after an eighty-year-old woman, even a cantankerous one? Of course Louisa Fairchild was the victim in this. Of course she was.
Hildy slid a manila file folder across the desk, which Marnie was confident would have all the information she needed for the case, and quickly began covering the basics. As her boss spoke, Marnie began to flip idly through the pages in the folder, realizing there was too much information to absorb casually. But, hey, that was okay—she’d have plenty of time to study it in depth on the trans-Pacific flight she would doubtless be taking within hours.
As if reading her mind—again—Hildy concluded, “Go home and pack a bag, Marnie. You’re on a three o’clock flight to Sydney.”
This was the part of the job Marnie hated most. The sudden switching of gears, the travel for which she had no time to prepare. It wasn’t unusual in public relations to experience both. Especially for a company like Division International, whose client list was overwhelmingly wealthy, pampered and used to getting their way. Of course, there had been a time in Marnie’s life when she herself had been wealthy, pampered and used to getting her way, but those days had come to an end seven years ago, when her father had lost everything—including the trust fund she’d assumed would always be there.
Marnie was about to flip the folder closed when she noticed the name at the bottom of the first page. The name of the man Louisa Fairchild had shot. The man who was, at that very moment, lying in a Sydney hospital undergoing surgery.
Sam Whittleson.
No, Marnie thought, physically shaking her head, as if that might negate what she was seeing. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Not Sam Whittleson. Not any Whittleson. Not ever again.
Most especially not Daniel Whittleson. Daniel Whittleson, the only man with whom Marnie had ever come close to falling in love. Daniel Whittleson, who’d come into her life out of nowhere eight years ago and made her rethink everything she’d wanted out of life. Daniel Whittleson, who had been charming and funny and decent and sweet—or so she’d thought—and who had shown her how very good it could be between two people…before dumping her with a Dear Jane letter in which he’d made it clear she was less important to him than the horses that could make him mountains of money. Daniel Whittleson, who had made her feel cherished and loved and important…before breaking her heart in two.
Daniel Whittleson, whose father, Sam, trained horses in Australia.
Chapter Two
“Mr. Whittleson?”
Daniel glanced up from where he sat beside his father’s hospital bed. The nurse had spoken his name barely loud enough to hear it. Dressed in the traditional white uniform so many nurses in the States had abandoned in favor of brightly colored scrubs, she looked to be in her fifties and had the sort of soft, pleasant features a person liked to see in someone whose job was taking care of others.
In the same hushed tone, he said, “Yes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, but you have a visitor.”
“Don’t you mean my father has a visitor?”
She shook her head. “No, sir. The woman asked if a Daniel Whittleson was here. That’s you, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.”
But why would anyone be visiting him? he wondered as he rose to follow the nurse out. He didn’t know anyone in Hunter Valley besides his father and Sam’s handful of friends, all of whom had already called or stopped by to check on him. And he was certain there were no women in his father’s life.
“Did she give you a name?” Daniel asked.
“No, she didn’t,” the nurse told him. She stopped in the middle of the hallway and gestured toward the end. “But she’s waiting for you in the waiting room down there.”
“Thanks,” Daniel said with some distraction as he strode in that direction.
At first, he didn’t recognize the sole occupant of the room. She was standing in profile, looking out the windows, staring at the lights of the dark and half-empty parking lot beyond. She was clearly deep in thought and unaware of his arrival, something that only intensified his confusion. He was about to speak when it finally hit him—like a two-by-four to the back of the head—who she was. It was as if thinking about her yesterday had made her suddenly appear today. Except she was supposed to be an ocean—and a lifetime—removed from here.
Marnie Roberts. Good God. What the hell was she doing here?
She had changed in the almost decade since their parting. A lot. Her hair was shorter, and dressed in tailored brown trousers and a shirt the burnt sienna of autumn leaves, she looked less like the vivid, bubbly party girl he remembered and more like a sophisticated career woman. But she’d softened the attire with a necklace and bracelet made of ribbons and beads, a bit of whimsy amid the elegance, and much more in keeping with the girlish flirt fresh out of college that he’d met in San Diego.
The minute she’d breezed into the ballroom of the Coronado Hotel as he was making his way out, Daniel had been smitten. Laughing and walk-dancing in time to the music, she’d been as effervescent as the dewy flute of champagne she’d been holding. He’d watched her as she plucked a chocolate-covered strawberry from a passing waiter and lifted it to her mouth, skimming the treat along her lower lip before taking a delicate bite. As if sensing his scrutiny, she’d glanced up just as she was sinking her teeth into the berry a second time, and her enormous eyes had widened in surprise before sparkling with laughter.
Once she’d realized she had an audience, she’d finished the fruit with an erotic flair. Her eyes never leaving his, she’d flicked the tip of her tongue against the luscious half-eaten berry before dragging it along her lip again, then sucked it softly into her mouth. Daniel had never been more aroused in his life as he watched her, and he hadn’t even known her name.
She’d fixed that problem immediately, though, doing the walk-dance thing across the room to boldly introduce herself. Her short, floaty dress was the same dark green color as her eyes, and diamond and emerald solitaires winked from her ears. They’d been triple-pierced, he remembered, and coupled with the dash of silver glitter under each eyebrow, she’d looked like a wild thing bent on mischief. At that point, Daniel had been so stressed out by the upcoming race, he’d decided a little walk on the wild side was exactly what he needed.
He’d had no idea just how long and complicated a trip it would turn out to be.
For the first time since arriving in Australia, he was conscious of his appearance, and he suddenly wished it hadn’t been thirty-six hours since he’d showered and shaved and changed into the now-disheveled jeans and oatmeal-colored sweater the Southern Hemisphere winter had demanded. Then he wondered why he cared. Marnie must hate him for the way he’d ended things in San Diego. Yeah, it had been eight years since the two of them had seen each other, and they’d both doubtless changed a lot in that time. But there were some hurts that went too deep, some hurts that people never forgot—regardless of whether they’d been the one who got hurt or the one who did the hurting.
“Marnie?” he said softly.
She turned quickly at the sound of his voice. Her lips parted for a moment, as if she were going to say something, then closed again when no words emerged. She made an effort to smile, but the gesture was clearly forced, and nothing like the smiles he remembered from San Diego, so quick and free and full of spirit.
“Daniel,” she finally said, the word coming out quiet and anxious. “How’s your father?”
Still befuddled by her sudden appearance, he spoke automatically, telling her what he’d told all of his father’s callers and visitors. “He’s groggy from his meds and spends most of his time sleeping, but he’s going to be okay. The doctor said if his progress is good, he can go home in less than a week.”
She nodded, a jerky, nervous gesture. “Good. That’s good.”
He shook his head slowly, as if that might somehow clear it of the cobwebs that were growing thicker by the moment. Of all the people in the world he might have expected to run into in Pepper Flats, Marnie Roberts wouldn’t have made the list. True, the HunterValley area rivaled California’s Sonoma Valley for tourism, and Pepper Flats was the largest of many small townships in the Upper Hunter Shire. But even though it had been founded in the mid-1800s, fewer than five thousand people called the town home. It was beautiful in warmer months, nestled among parks and nature preserves, and played host to festivals celebrating the local heritage and industries—everything from wine and Thoroughbreds to antiques and crafts. During those greener times, it was a lush, tranquil agricultural region that was home to some of New South Wales’s most prominent families.
But it was winter now, so there wasn’t much reason to visit. Add to that the fact that Pepper Flats was located two hours north of Sydney, and there was even less reason to come this time of year. For Marnie Roberts, a woman Daniel had last seen on the other side of the world eight years ago, to suddenly appear here out of nowhere…
“Marnie, what are you doing here?” he asked, unable to hide his astonishment.
She stared down at her coffee, silent for a long time. Then she looked up at him again. She opened her mouth to reply, but closed it, her gaze ricocheting off his. Finally, with clear discomfort, she said, “I’m, um, in Hunter Valley on business. I, ah…I read the article in today’s paper about Sam being shot and brought here, and I, uh…” She glanced at him again, looking strangely guilty about something, then stared down at her coffee once more. “I just…I figured you might be here, and that, ah…you know…you might welcome a familiar face.”
She looked up at Daniel again, but only held eye contact for a second. “I mean, if it were me, with my dad in the hospital in a strange place, and if someone I knew—even if I hadn’t seen them for a long time, and even if that person wasn’t a close friend—was in town, I know I’d be grateful to them for stopping by. So I…you know…stopped by.”
Wasn’t a close friend, Daniel echoed to himself. Was that really the way she felt? That he wasn’t a close friend? For months after leaving San Diego—after leaving Marnie—he’d worried she loathed him. That he’d hurt her enough that she would never forgive him. And now she was telling him she simply considered him not a close friend? Had that week meant so little to her? Had it just been one of many similar weeks she’d enjoyed? Had he been one of many men to briefly share her bed? Had it been that easy for her to consider what had happened just one of those things and move on?
And if so, why did that bother him so much? Hell, hadn’t he just been thinking of that week as little more than a walk on the wild side himself? He should be relieved she felt the way she did. It meant she hadn’t been hurt deeply by what he’d done.
And why did that bother him even more?
“I know I only met your dad the one time at the track,” she continued, glancing up again…and then looking away again. “But I liked him. He was…nice to me.”
Funny, but she made it sound as if she were surprised someone would be nice to her. Daniel had gotten the impression that week in San Diego that she had more friends than she knew what to do with. Though, now that he thought about it, she’d never had to cancel any engagements to be with him. But then, that was the way with rich society girls. They didn’t worry about who they were standing up, right? But that didn’t seem like the Marnie he remembered, either.
He pushed the thoughts away. The less he remembered about that week, the better. “You made a good impression on Dad, too,” he said. Without thinking, he added, “That wasn’t always the case with the girls I dated.”
He winced inwardly after saying it. Not just because he really hadn’t wanted to dwell on their time together, but because what he said made it sound as though Marnie had been one in a long line of meaningless women. And that wasn’t true at all.
Daniel had been so focused on building his career that he’d seldom gotten involved with any women. He’d only meant that Marnie had been the kind of woman a father liked to see his son dating. Beautiful, charming, fun-loving, rich…Sam had told Daniel after meeting Marnie that he’d be a fool to let a girl like that get away. And what had Daniel done? Hell, he’d practically thrown her away. But back then, his budding reputation and career as a trainer had been what he cared about more than anything in the world. And now…
This time he was the one to look away from Marnie. Now, he felt the same way. His career was everything to him. Always had been. Always would be. It had been a long time since he’d felt poor and insignificant and unimportant. A long time since he’d known fear and insecurity and loss. Work had saved him from all those things. Work had given him everything he’d ever wanted, everything he’d needed—social standing, money in the bank, a sense of purpose and belonging. Work would take him exactly where he wanted to go—to that Thoroughbred farm with a powerhouse reputation and his name on the letterhead. Work brought success. And success brought security. Stability. Status. Daniel would never go back to his humble beginnings again.
Never.
“Daniel, why would someone shoot your father?” Marnie asked.
He sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand through his hair, feeling way more tired than a couple of nights without decent sleep should make a man feel. “I’m still not sure about the details myself,” he told her. “There are some aspects of the shooting the police aren’t willing to discuss, and some that make no sense. And Dad’s been too out of it to say much.”
“He was shot by a neighbor?” she asked. When he looked at her again, she added, “I mean, um…That was what the article in the paper said.”
He moved his hand to the back of his neck to rub at a knot of tension. “Yeah. An elderly woman named Louisa Fairchild. They’ve been arguing over rights to a lake that joins their properties for a while now, but I never thought it would escalate to something like this. She said it was in self-defense, that my father attacked her in her home. But I just don’t believe that. My father would never do something like that. And to make matters worse,” he continued, “Louisa Fairchild wants to press charges against the man she shot, wants to send my father to jail for assault and trespassing and God knows what else. It’s nuts. She’s nuts. And here I am, wanting an eighty-year-old woman to go to jail, and feeling like a louse about it.”
“Surely everything can be straightened out,” Marnie said.
He gaped at her. “Straightened out? The woman tried to kill my father, Marnie. The only way this will get straightened out is if my father fully recovers, and she pays for her crime.”
“Daniel, I didn’t mean…” Marnie sighed, sounding as weary as he was. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to sound flippant. I’m sure everything will work out all right. What’s most important is that your father is going to be okay.”
“True,” Daniel agreed. “But I want Louisa Fairchild to pay for what she did, and I want her to stop trying to make my father out to be a criminal. The shooting was totally unprovoked. The woman is clearly crazy. But she’s adamant that the police arrest my father as soon as he’s coherent enough to understand the charges against him. And they haven’t ruled that out yet.”
Marnie opened her mouth to say something else, evidently thought better of it, and closed it again. But her expression was one of obvious distress, and Daniel immediately felt guilty for jumping down her throat.
“Look, you don’t have to apologize,” he said. “I’m the one who should apologize. I shouldn’t have gone off the way I did. That was uncalled-for.”
“It’s okay,” she told him. “I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do. I just…”
“What?” he asked.
But she only shook her head and left that statement unfinished, too.
Daniel sighed again. “I’m sorry,” he said, more calmly this time. “I’m just worried about my dad, and I haven’t gotten much sleep since the police called me, and the trip from Kentucky was grueling.”
Her lips parted in a little half smile at that, and she seemed to relax at the change of subject. “You’re living in Kentucky now?”
He nodded, equally grateful for another topic, if for no other reason than it took his mind off his father for a few minutes. “In Woodford County. I’m the senior trainer for Quest Stables. It’s owned by—”
“Jenna and Thomas Preston,” she finished for him.
The fact she knew surprised him. “You’re familiar with it?”
“Anyone who’s ever worked with horses is familiar with it,” she told him. “Maybe I wasn’t raised around Thoroughbreds, but the equestrian world isn’t exactly a big one.”
He eyed her intently. “I didn’t think you rode anymore.”
She eyed him back just as interestedly. “How did you know that?”
Oh, hell. He knew that because he’d met a woman a year or so after Del Mar who’d remembered encountering Daniel and Marnie at a restaurant there, and had remarked what a cute couple the two had made. She’d turned out to be a friend of Marnie’s mother and had mentioned that Marnie had given up riding, not just competitively, but completely. Daniel had never discovered why, because he’d manufactured an excuse to extract himself from the conversation before the woman could fill him in on any more about Marnie’s life. He’d finally reached a point by then where he wasn’t thinking about her every day and hadn’t wanted to lose ground.
For now, though, he only said, “I ran into a friend of your mother’s at a party in Ocala a while back, and she mentioned it.”
Marnie nodded, but didn’t seem to want to revisit the past any more than he did. She continued, rather hastily, “Not to mention Quest is the home of Leopold’s Legacy, who’s about to win the Triple Crown. And with a woman jockey, no less. But you didn’t train him,” she added, sounding a little surprised at that.
Maybe she didn’t ride anymore, but it was obvious she was still interested in the horse world. He shook his head. “No, the Prestons’ son Robbie trained Legacy.”