An Exception to His Rule(49)

                ‘What overall problem?’ she asked at last as she hosed Sprite down.

                ‘The one I have with going into the lounge, for example.’

                Harriet turned her hose off and took a metal scraper off its hook. ‘Why should that be a problem?’ She scraped energetically down Sprite’s flank then ducked under her neck to do her other side.

                ‘Well, if I’d flown halfway around the world and was in another country I might have found it easier to think of other things than you at Charlie’s party. At the moment, every time I walk into the damn lounge it strikes me again.’

                Harriet dropped the scraper and it clattered onto the concrete at the same as Sprite moved uneasily and her metal shoes also clattered on the concrete.

                Damien stopped hosing his horse and came round to see if Harriet was all right.

                ‘Fine. Fine!’ She retrieved the scraper and handed it to him. ‘I think I’ve finished.’

                ‘Thanks.’ He hung up his hose and started to use the scraper on his horse.

                They worked in silence for a few minutes. Harriet rubbed Sprite down with a coarse towel then she inspected her feet and finally threw a rug over her. But all the time her mind was buzzing. How to deal with this? How to deal with the fact that she still felt incredibly guilty about how she’d fled at the end of Charlie’s party after...after...

                Even days later, her cheeks reddened at the thought of how abandoned—that was about the only way she could describe it—she’d felt and how she’d run like a scared rabbit.

                She clicked her tongue and backed Sprite out of the wash bay to lead her to her box, where there was a feed already made up for her thanks to Stan.

                Perhaps it was that feed waiting for her that made Sprite a bundle of impatience to get to her stall, but she suddenly put on a rare exhibition that would have done a buck jumper proud, an exhibition that scattered Tottie and even caused Damien’s horse, still tied in the wash bay, to try to rear and plunge.

                ‘Sprite!’ Harriet clung onto the lead with all her strength. ‘Settle down, girl! What’s got into you?’

                ‘Tucker,’ Damien said in her ear. ‘I’ll take her.’

                And in a masterful display of horsemanship as well as strength, he calmed the mare down and got her into her box.

                ‘Thank you! I was afraid I was going to lose her—another accident waiting to happen, to go down on my already tarnished record!’ Harriet said breathlessly but whimsically.

                Damien laughed as he came towards her out of the stable block and for an instant the world stood still for Harriet. He looked so alive and wickedly amused, so tall and dark, so sexy...

                And what he did didn’t help.

                He came right up to her, slid his hands around her waist under her anorak and hugged her. ‘I wouldn’t have held that against you,’ he said, holding her a little away.

                Without thinking much about it, she put her hands on his shoulders. ‘No?’ She looked at him with mock scepticism.

                ‘No. I would have laid the blame squarely at the horse’s feet. She’s always been a bit of a handful. Hence her name. Typical female,’ he added.

                ‘Damn!’ Harriet assumed a self-righteous expression.