‘Shall we skirt the boundary fence to the left and follow it round to that oak tree? The oak tree is still there, I take it?’ He wondered if he could concentrate on anything as banal as fencing when this woman was riding alongside him. Lord, but she looked beautiful. The sun captured the fairness of her hair until it seemed to dazzle the eyes and her body looked alive on the back of her horse, every muscle firm and toned. Quintessentially the very opposite to every woman he had dated since he had loved and lost her.#p#分页标题#e#
Ah, but he hadn’t lost her, had he? he reminded himself silkily. Because here she was, the wind blowing back her hair, her body slightly arched as she galloped at a steady speed alongside him. Sexy in the way only a totally natural woman could be sexy and soon to be his until such time as he no longer considered her a lost love, simply someone else he would have slept with along the way.
‘The fencing is in a bit of a state,’ Laura told him, pointing out the obvious as they both slowed to a trot to inspect it. She had worked up a sweat riding and now shoved up the sleeves of the jumper. ‘Dad looked after it when we still had horses but over the years he only managed to keep up rudimentary repairs.’ She turned to face him. I must have been a complete idiot not to have noticed what was going on.’
‘We all make mistakes.’
Was it her imagination or did she detect something else behind that throwaway remark? Was he referring to her? A past mistake he had once made?
‘Shall we continue?’ she asked tightly, and he nodded as he shrewdly assessed the extensive repair work that would have to be undertaken.
They circled the huge area. There were entire tracts of fencing that had rotted over time. The money that should have been used to fix them redirected into betting and alcohol. When Gabriel thought about it, he could feel a murderous urge towards Peter Jackson, but aligned to that was a certain sympathy that he neither invited nor welcomed. The man must have been distraught to have let the whole lot go. The riding stables had been his life.
By the time they finally reached the oak tree he had seen enough to have a pretty good idea of the state of the rest.
He dismounted, tethered his horse, thereby ensuring that she did the same, and then sat down at the base of the tree, his legs drawn up, his arms resting loosely on his knees.
‘Your trousers will be filthy when you get up,’ Laura remarked, smugly aware that she was far more appropriately dressed.
‘Sit down by me,’ Gabriel commanded lazily. ‘We need to talk about how we’re going to approach the job of upgrading the land.’ Which, he reckoned, should take about ten minutes. And after that...? He intended to stick to his plans for seduction and not be distracted by the buzzing inner voices that kept holding him back. He looked at her from under his lashes as she slowly walked towards him. He noted the unconscious elegance of her gait, the way she held her body like a dancer, utterly indifferent to how other people regarded her.
‘It’s been impossible trying to do anything about it,’ Laura said apologetically. ‘Since Dad died, I seem to have spent all my time in a nightmare of trying to work out finances.’ She sighed and Gabriel made an angry noise under his breath.
‘God, didn’t the man have any idea what this would do to you? Leaving you in a situation like that?’
‘He never thought he would just ...I guess he thought that he would have time to get things back on track and so I would be spared the worry.’ She looked down at the fields sprawled in front of them. From a distance, it all looked perfect. It was only when you got closer that you could see the signs of decay. It was the same for the house and the stables. ‘You don’t have to tell me that it’s a far cry from how things used to be around here seven years ago.’
‘I was not about to tell you any such thing.’ He got up, brushing himself down, only to reposition himself on the grass, lying on it with his hands folded behind his head and his long legs crossed at the ankles.
‘Shouldn’t we be heading back now?’
‘Oh, I think I’ll enjoy this sun for a bit longer. Of course, you are free to head back whenever you want.’ It was a gamble, but he didn’t want her in any way to feel that she had been manipulated. Nevertheless, his body seemed to twist into several thousand knots in the few seconds of silence during which she decided what to do. If she got up and rode back to the house, then he would be forced to stay, at least for a short while and, whilst the scenery was enchanting, its appeal would vanish like a puff of smoke if she weren’t here to enhance it.#p#分页标题#e#