Bronwyn Jameson - The Ashtons - Jillian, Eli & Charlotte

Or simply from the adrenaline shock of fear.

On a mental flip of the coin—Left? Right? No, left—he turned and followed the dirt road all the way to the cottage at its end. No lights, no sign of life, but whichever Louret worker lived here could be out or away for the weekend. Vaguely he remembered a time when Saturday night meant something besides fewer work calls. More clearly he remembered this end of Louret from driving by on Route 29. He’d noticed the cottage and beyond it an artificial lake, postcard pretty in the blue-skied daylight, now an eerie hole of darkness as night stole over the land.

And there was no way of knowing if Jillian had taken a tumble into that eerie darkness.

Realistically, she could have been riding anywhere on the acreage, in any of the vineyards or down one of the many tracks cut for machinery access. He needed help. Cursing the frustrated speed of his departure from the stables and the cell phone left back in Napa, he turned his truck in a slow circle, scanning the wide arc of his headlights one last time as he prepared to head back to the Vines.

And there she was, a slender silhouette shading her eyes from the blinding glare of the high beams. Relief surged through Seth, overpowering in its intensity. Then he sucked it up and got moving, switching his lights to low before bursting from the truck and striding forward to meet her.

She was frowning—scowling even—but he didn’t give her time for more than, “Seth? What are you—” before his hands skated over her shoulders, down her arms and back again, tipping her face up and into the light.

“What are you do—”

“I’m checking you’re all right,” he cut in. Abruptly, harshly, but he had cause.

“Doing here?” She finished her question on a lame note, then drew an audible breath as he cradled her face between his hands.

“Are you hurt?” He dipped down closer, scouring her face and her eyes for any sign of injury.

“No.” But she must have sensed his lingering doubt because she lifted her hands to his and pried them from her face. “Apart from my bruised pride, I’m fine. See?”

Yeah, he saw. And he let his breath, his fear, his earlier crazed worry go in one solid exhalation. She was fine. She was standing there frowning up at him with a peculiar expression on her face, but since he’d turned his grip around, trapping her hands in his, she was probably trying to work out how to free herself without an undignified arm wrestle.

Right now it’d likely take that.

If he let go of her hands, he might yield to the real temptation of hauling her into his arms and holding her tight against his body. Of kissing her brow and her face and her mouth in a combination of repressed need and thank-you-God relief.

He figured he’d better keep holding her hands.

“What are you doing here, Seth?”

“Performing search and rescue, apparently.” Seth tried for levity but failed. Light humor, he decided, is a hard task when your heart’s still pounding with a crazy, dark dread.

Jillian shook her head slowly. “I don’t understand.”

“I was up at the stables when your horse came in.”

“Is she all right?” Her fingers clutched at his, suddenly tense and agitated. “Marsanne? My horse? She wasn’t lame?”

“Not that I noticed. She came galloping up the hill on all four legs.”

That seemed to offer the reassurance she needed. Her heavy sigh sounded a little shaky, but her posture eased from poker-backed alarm to a relieved slump. When her fingers relaxed their grip on his, Seth couldn’t help stroking his thumbs over the back of her hands. He felt her tremble and knew she was shaken up, no doubt more than her bruised pride would allow her to admit.

“I trust you didn’t come off at that speed?”

“No, and I shouldn’t have come off at all!” With a sound of disgust, she tugged her hands free. It seemed she couldn’t continue her explanation without their contribution. “I was lollygagging, not paying attention, and she shied at a quail in the grass. I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if my carelessness injured Marsanne.”

“What about injuring yourself? Did you spare a thought in that direction?”

“I told you—I only bruised my pride.” She dragged her hands over her backside and feigned a wince. “Or mostly only my pride.”

Okay. He was not going there. Not thinking about checking out that part of her anatomy for injury. Instead he brushed a thumb along her cheekbone, touching what looked like a smudge of dirt. “Looks more like you landed face first.”

“Perhaps I bounced.”

“Perhaps,” he said, and with a will of its own, his hand continued to stroke her face, down over her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw and the point of her chin. Her acceptance of that simple touch, the warmth of her skin, the subtle rhythm of her pulse in her throat—they all combined to stir a deep response, something beyond the usual lust.

He should stop, get his hands the hell back where they belonged, but he couldn’t make himself respond. He didn’t want to respond. Not yet.

“Lucky I was wearing a helmet,” Jillian managed to say in a husky whisper of breath, a perfect match for Seth’s caress, as tender and tantalizing as the stroke of velvet.

Then her words must have registered, because he gripped her chin firmly between thumb and fingers. His eyes locked on hers. “You’re not, you know.”

Not…what? Not covered in dirt? Not being stroked by velvet? Not about to be kissed—

“You’re not wearing a helmet,” he pointed out with indisputable logic. Even more annoyingly, he let her go and it felt as if her whole body sighed with disappointment.

“I was.”

“Did you lose it when you fell off?”

So, okay, she had fallen off, but did he have to remind her? Did he have to douse the lovely ripple of pleasure his touch had stirred in her veins? And did he have to stand there, looking as if no explanation but the complete truth would suffice?

“No, the helmet did its job when I became unseated.” Which, Jillian decided, was a more dignified description than ‘fell off.’ “I lost it afterwards.”

“While you were walking back here?”

“Does it matter? I’ll find it tomorrow. I know exactly where I tossed it.”

Hands on hips, he stared down at her until she caved.

Until she threw her hands in the air and admitted, “Yes, okay, I had this minor temper attack. I don’t like being dumped at the farthest point of my ride, especially when it’s my own fault.”

She should not have mentioned the temper fit. In retrospect, her honest admission sounded childish and apparently it had rendered Seth speechless. So much for her efforts to earn his respect!

Feeling a peculiar sense of letdown, she gestured toward his truck. “I wasn’t looking forward to the long walk. I’ll grab a lift back to the stables, if that’s all right.”

As soon as she climbed into the passenger seat and Seth closed the door on the enclosed intimacy of the cab, she knew it wasn’t all right. Her emotions teetered all over the place, her skin tingled everywhere he’d touched, and now she was drawing his earthy, masculine scent into her body with every breath.

And they weren’t moving, weren’t going anywhere.

Frowning, she turned his way and found him watching her, intently yes, but with a strange expression on his face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

He shook his head and murmured something that sounded like graciano but couldn’t have been, since that made no sense. Unless she’d landed face first in wine-colored earth.

Self-consciously she lifted a hand and scrubbed at her cheek. “Is my face coated in dirt? Is that what you’re staring at?”