Just as she got comfortable in the saddle, she heard the voice that seemed to haunt her at every turn.
“Mr. Smotter, my father needs you. I’ll attend to Ms. Steele,” Liam said.
“Of course, sir,” the good man replied. “I’ll return quickly,” he told Whitney.
“We can reschedule for another time. I’m perfectly fine with that,” she said. Hey, maybe she was going to get out of this ordeal without looking like a wimp.
“Nonsense,” Liam said. “I’ll take Ms. Steele on a ride.”
Mr. Smotter turned and left without another word. If Liam said he was doing something, there was apparently no questioning it.
That didn’t sit too well with Whitney. “I really wasn’t that excited about riding. The ground is covered with snow — obviously — and I’m certainly no expert horsewoman. I don’t need to waste your time with this.” She began to swing her leg over to dismount.
Liam’s hand shot out to stop her. The feel of his fingers squeezing her calf sent a sharp pang of electricity through her.
“I insist,” he said. When he had Whitney settled again, he took the halter of a stallion one of the groomsmen had brought up to him.
Here’s what really shocked her. Her mare began moving obediently behind Liam’s stallion as they went out of the stable. She didn’t have to use the reins.
Neither of them spoke as Liam led her on a slow gait through the snow-covered pastures. Slowly, slowly, slowly. Finally, Whitney couldn’t stand the silence a second longer.
“Did you and your brother grow up here?”
Liam remained silent for a few heartbeats, and Whitney was beginning to think he wasn’t going to answer.
“Yes. It was a good place to grow up. This side of the country offers a lot of opportunities.”
“And you obviously had a lot of land to play on,” she said with a forced laugh. “Pretty impressive when you live on the East Coast. There aren’t that many wide open spaces around these parts.”
“Granted. Still, I’ve never quite understood my father’s obsession with owning property. So much of it.”
“Maybe because he likes the freedom it gives him,” Whitney told him.
“The man you’ve met is far different from the man I grew up with,” Liam said. “I don’t think it’s about freedom. I think having the home and land made a statement.”
“Why do you say that?”
She had been at Frederick and Liam’s place for only a week, and so much confused her. She had no doubt in her mind that Frederick loved his grandchildren, that he deeply missed the son he’d lost, and that he hoped for his other son to quit being so bitter. But she didn’t understand Liam at all.
“It’s nothing,” he told her as they and their horses went around a bend.
Another mansion, all kitted out with stables almost as impressive as the property she’d been staying in, loomed before them.
“Where are we?”
“This is my place.”
“What do you mean? I thought you lived with your father.”
He led the horses toward the barn, and there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening.
“I’m thirty-four years old, Whitney. Do you honestly believe I would still be living with my father? This isn’t that old TV show Dallas.”
As Liam jumped down, a man suddenly appeared and took the reins of his horse.
“I just … well, I assumed you lived there because you’re there so often, eating with us, and … I don’t know. You’re just always there,” she finished lamely as he held out a hand to help her dismount. “I really shouldn’t get off. I need to get back to the kiss … kids, I mean kids!” She absolutely didn’t want to go into this man’s home.
The look he sent her definitely told her that he’d caught her Freudian slip. No, nothing Freudian about it. It was a mere slip of the tongue, one that she couldn’t account for at all. She didn’t want to kiss this man. No way!
“The children are fine, as you well know. I need to make a few phone calls, and you need to warm up before we head back to my father’s place.”
How could Whitney argue with that? “I could just stay in the barn while you make the calls. It’s warm in here, and I can brush the horses down.”
“You can brush your mare when we return.”
He moved a few inches closer, and unless Whitney wanted an all-out fight, she had little choice but to go with him. He would have plenty of staff in his house, she was sure. It wasn’t as if the two of them would be all alone and he could have his wicked way with her.
She felt only a small measure of comfort at that, but she gave him her hand, this time more prepared as the tingling zip, the electricity, shot through her body at his barest touch.