She had no family, not even the promise of one she’d once harbored while engaged to Stone. She had her work, her horses. This was her life and her future.
Hooves clopped as Mariah and Stone passed off their rides to two stable hands. Johanna frowned. Even though the McNairs were wealthy, they usually unsaddled and rubbed down their horses themselves. Instead, the grandmother and grandson were walking directly toward her. Tingles pranced up and down her spine. Ignoring him would be impossible.
She hooked her stethoscope around her neck. Her own racing heartbeat filled her ears now, each breath faster and faster, filling her lungs with the scent of hay and leather.
Trailing her hand along the plush velvet of the horse’s coat, she angled her way out of the wooden stall and into the walkway. “Hello, Mrs. McNair—” she swallowed hard “—and Stone.”
Mariah McNair smiled. Stone didn’t. In fact, he was scowling. But there was also something more lurking in his eyes, something...sad? She hated the way her heart pinched instinctively, and hated even more that she could still read him so well.
Mariah held out a hand. “Dear, let’s step back into the office where we can chat in private.”
With Stone, too? But Mariah’s words weren’t a question. “Of course.”
Questions welled inside her with each step toward the office, passing Hidden Gem staff barely hiding their own curiosity as they prepped rides for vacationers. Alex and Amie eyed them but kept their distance as they hauled the saddles off their horses. The twins wore the same somber and stunned expressions on their faces that she saw on Stone’s.
Concern nipped like a feisty foal, and Johanna walked faster. She’d all but grown up here, following her stable hand dad around. Her family hadn’t been wealthy like the McNairs, but she’d always been loved, secure—until the day her family had died when their malfunctioning furnace caught on fire in the night.
She’d lost everything. Except rather than making her afraid to love, she craved that sense of family. These walls echoed with memories of how special those bonds had been.
Custom saddles lined the corridors, all works of art like everything the McNairs made. Carvings marked the leather with a variety of designs from roses to vines to full-out pastoral scenes. Some saddles sported silver or brass studs on horn caps and skirting edges that rivaled the tooling of any of the best old vaqueros.
Her job here had spoiled her for any other place. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. This was her home as well as her workplace.
Stone held open the office door, which left her no choice but to walk past him, closely. His radiant heat brought back memories of his bare skin slick with perspiration against hers as they made love in the woods on a hot summer day.
His gaze held hers for an electrified moment, attraction crackling, alive and well, between them, before she forced herself to walk forward and break the connection.
Red leather chairs, a sofa and a heavy oak desk filled the paneled room. The walls were covered in framed prints of the McNair holdings at various stages of expansion. A portrait of Mariah and her husband, Jasper, on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary dominated the space over a stone fireplace, a painting done shortly before Jasper had passed away from a heart attack.
Mariah’s fingers traced lightly along the carved frame before she settled into a fat wingback chair with an exhausted sigh. “Please, have a seat, Johanna. Stone? Pour us something to drink, dear.”
Johanna perched on the edge of a wooden rocker. “Mrs. McNair? Is there a problem?”
“I’m afraid there is, and I need your help.”
“Whatever I can do, just let me know.”
Mariah took a glass of sparkling spring water from her grandson, swallowed deeply, then set the crystal tumbler aside. “I’m having some health problems and during my treatment I need to be sure I have my life settled.”
“Health problems?” Concern gripped Johanna’s heart in a chilly fist. How much could she ask without being too pushy? Considering this woman had almost been her family, she decided she could press as far as she needed. “Is it serious?”
“Very,” Mariah said simply, fingering her diamond horseshoe necklace. “I’m hopeful my doctors can buy me more time, but treatments will be consuming and I don’t want the business or my pets to be neglected.”
Mariah’s love for her animals was one of the bonds the two women shared. The head of a billion-dollar empire had always made time for a stable hand’s daughter who wanted to learn more about the animals at Hidden Gem.
Johanna took the glass from Stone, her hand shaking so much the ice rattled. “I’m sorry, more than I can say. What can I do to help?”
Angling forward, Mariah held her with clear blue eyes identical to Stone’s. “You can help me find homes for my dogs.”
Without hesitation, Johanna said, “I can watch them while you’re undergoing treatments.”
“My dear,” Mariah said gently, but with a steely strength, “it’s brain cancer. I believe it’s best for my dogs to find permanent homes.”
The pronouncement slammed Johanna back in her chair. She bit her bottom lip to hold in a gasp and blinked back tears. There were no words.
A firm hand landed on her shoulder. Stone’s hand. She didn’t have to look. She would know his touch anywhere.
God, he must be devastated. She angled around to clasp his hand, but the cool look in his eyes stopped her. Apparently, he was fine with giving out sympathy, but his pride wouldn’t allow him to accept any from her.
Johanna reached to take Mariah’s hands instead, holding them in hers. “I’ll do whatever you need.”
“Thank you.” Mariah smiled and squeezed Johanna’s hands. “Stone will be finding homes for my dogs, but I need for you to go with him and make sure the matches are truly right for each one. It should take about a week.”
“A week?” she squeaked.
Go off alone with Stone for a week? No, no and hell, no. The torture of running across him here was bad enough, but at least they had the buffer of work. Stone had stolen her heart then trounced all her dreams of having a family of her own. He’d refused to consider having children or adopting. They’d argued—more than once—until finally she’d broken things off. He’d thought she was bluffing.
He was wrong.
Did Mariah think she was bluffing, as well?
Johanna chose her words carefully. “I don’t mean any disrespect, ma’am, and I understand your need for peace, especially now...” She pushed back a well of emotion. This wasn’t about her. It was about Mariah, and yes, Stone, too. “You have to realize this attempt at matchmaking isn’t going to work. Stone and I were finished a long time ago.”
Johanna shot a pointed look at him in case he might be harboring any thoughts of using this situation to wrangle his way back into her bed. Even when she’d broken things off, he’d been persistent for a solid month before accepting that she wouldn’t change her mind.
He simply arched an arrogant eyebrow before shifting his glacial gaze toward his grandmother. Only then did his eyes warm.
Mariah shook her head. “I’m not trying anything of the sort. I have trusted you with my animals for years. I’ve watched you grow up, known you since you were in elementary school. You also understand Stone. He won’t pull off anything questionable with you watching him. Can you think of anyone else he can’t charm?”
Johanna conceded, “You have a point there.”
Stone frowned, speaking for the first time, “Hey, I think I’m being insulted.”
Mariah reached up to pat his cheek. “If you only think it, Stone, then I must not be making myself clear enough. I hope you will be successful in proving yourself, but I have serious reservations.”
He scratched along his jaw, which was perpetually peppered with beard stubble no matter how ofte
n he shaved. “You trust Johanna over your own flesh and blood?”
“I do,” Mariah said without hesitation. “Case in point, you wanted to keep the expansion a secret, even from me.”
“Just until I had the details hammered out, to surprise you. To impress you.”
“Our company isn’t a grade-school art project to tape to the refrigerator. You need to show me you understand the importance of teamwork and compassion. That’s the reason I came up with this test.” Mariah’s calm but unwavering tone made it clear there would be no changing her mind. “Johanna, you’ll go with him to all the interviews with prospective families that I’ve lined up.”
“You’ve already found the families? You’re making his test too easy,” Johanna said suspiciously. “There must be a catch.”
“No catch. But as for easy?” Mariah laughed softly. “That depends on you two and your ability to act like grownups around each other.”
“Civility during a few interviews,” Johanna echoed. “We can handle that.” Maybe.
“More than during interviews. There’s travel time, as well.”
“Travel?” So there was a catch. She glanced at Stone who was looking too damn hot—and smug—leaning against the fireplace mantel. He simply shrugged, staying tall, dark and silent.
“These families I’ve lined up don’t live around the corner, but the corporate jet should make the journey easier.” Mariah patted her diamond horseshoe necklace. “You should be able to complete the meet and greets in a week.”
Stone stepped forward. “Gran, I can handle our travel arrangements.”
“You can. But you’re not going to. I’m calling the shots on this. My plan. My test,” his grandmother said succinctly.
Stone’s jaw clamped shut, and Johanna could see the lord of the boardroom holding himself back because of his grandmother’s condition.
“A week...” Johanna repeated. A week away from work, a week of more than just crossing paths for a few meet and greets. “Alone together, jetting around the country on the McNair corporate airplane?”
“I don’t expect the two of you to reunite. This truly is about Stone showing me he’s capable of the compassion needed to run a company.” Her hand slid up behind her neck and she unclasped the chain. “But I do hope the two of you can also find some way to reconcile your way back to friendship.”
Understanding settled over Johanna. “You want to be at peace—knowing your dogs are loved and that Stone and I won’t hurt each other again.”
Mariah’s fingers closed around her necklace and whispered, “My grandson’s well-being is important, more so than any company.”
Mariah had found Johanna’s Achilles’ heel. Was it an act from Mariah, to get her way? Heaven knew the woman could be every bit as wily as Stone. But given Mariah’s illness, the woman did deserve peace in every realm of her life.
“Okay,” Johanna agreed simply.
Mariah pressed the necklace into Johanna’s palm. “Good luck, dear.”
Johanna started to protest such an extravagant gift, but one look in Mariah’s eyes showed her how much it meant to her...a woman at the end of her life passing along pieces of herself. The horseshoe was so much more than diamonds. It was a gift of the heart, of family, a symbol of all Johanna wanted for her life.
All that Stone had thrown away without a thought.
She pitied him almost as much as she resented him for costing them the life they could have had together.
Her fist closed around the necklace, and she stood, facing Stone with a steely resolve she’d learned from Mariah. “Pack your bags, Casanova. We have a plane to catch.”
Copyright © 2014 by Catherine Mann
ISBN-13: 9781460328897
ONCE PREGNANT, TWICE SHY
Copyright © 2014 by Red Garnier
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