Elizabeth Bevarly - Flirting with Trouble

Wasn’t a close friend, Daniel echoed to himself. Was that really the way she felt? That he wasn’t a close friend? For months after leaving San Diego—after leaving Marnie—he’d worried she loathed him. That he’d hurt her enough that she would never forgive him. And now she was telling him she simply considered him not a close friend? Had that week meant so little to her? Had it just been one of many similar weeks she’d enjoyed? Had he been one of many men to briefly share her bed? Had it been that easy for her to consider what had happened just one of those things and move on?

And if so, why did that bother him so much? Hell, hadn’t he just been thinking of that week as little more than a walk on the wild side himself? He should be relieved she felt the way she did. It meant she hadn’t been hurt deeply by what he’d done.

And why did that bother him even more?

“I know I only met your dad the one time at the track,” she continued, glancing up again…and then looking away again. “But I liked him. He was…nice to me.”

Funny, but she made it sound as if she were surprised someone would be nice to her. Daniel had gotten the impression that week in San Diego that she had more friends than she knew what to do with. Though, now that he thought about it, she’d never had to cancel any engagements to be with him. But then, that was the way with rich society girls. They didn’t worry about who they were standing up, right? But that didn’t seem like the Marnie he remembered, either.

He pushed the thoughts away. The less he remembered about that week, the better. “You made a good impression on Dad, too,” he said. Without thinking, he added, “That wasn’t always the case with the girls I dated.”

He winced inwardly after saying it. Not just because he really hadn’t wanted to dwell on their time together, but because what he said made it sound as though Marnie had been one in a long line of meaningless women. And that wasn’t true at all.

Daniel had been so focused on building his career that he’d seldom gotten involved with any women. He’d only meant that Marnie had been the kind of woman a father liked to see his son dating. Beautiful, charming, fun-loving, rich…Sam had told Daniel after meeting Marnie that he’d be a fool to let a girl like that get away. And what had Daniel done? Hell, he’d practically thrown her away. But back then, his budding reputation and career as a trainer had been what he cared about more than anything in the world. And now…

This time he was the one to look away from Marnie. Now, he felt the same way. His career was everything to him. Always had been. Always would be. It had been a long time since he’d felt poor and insignificant and unimportant. A long time since he’d known fear and insecurity and loss. Work had saved him from all those things. Work had given him everything he’d ever wanted, everything he’d needed—social standing, money in the bank, a sense of purpose and belonging. Work would take him exactly where he wanted to go—to that Thoroughbred farm with a powerhouse reputation and his name on the letterhead. Work brought success. And success brought security. Stability. Status. Daniel would never go back to his humble beginnings again.

Never.

“Daniel, why would someone shoot your father?” Marnie asked.

He sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand through his hair, feeling way more tired than a couple of nights without decent sleep should make a man feel. “I’m still not sure about the details myself,” he told her. “There are some aspects of the shooting the police aren’t willing to discuss, and some that make no sense. And Dad’s been too out of it to say much.”

“He was shot by a neighbor?” she asked. When he looked at her again, she added, “I mean, um…That was what the article in the paper said.”

He moved his hand to the back of his neck to rub at a knot of tension. “Yeah. An elderly woman named Louisa Fairchild. They’ve been arguing over rights to a lake that joins their properties for a while now, but I never thought it would escalate to something like this. She said it was in self-defense, that my father attacked her in her home. But I just don’t believe that. My father would never do something like that. And to make matters worse,” he continued, “Louisa Fairchild wants to press charges against the man she shot, wants to send my father to jail for assault and trespassing and God knows what else. It’s nuts. She’s nuts. And here I am, wanting an eighty-year-old woman to go to jail, and feeling like a louse about it.”

“Surely everything can be straightened out,” Marnie said.

He gaped at her. “Straightened out? The woman tried to kill my father, Marnie. The only way this will get straightened out is if my father fully recovers, and she pays for her crime.”

“Daniel, I didn’t mean…” Marnie sighed, sounding as weary as he was. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to sound flippant. I’m sure everything will work out all right. What’s most important is that your father is going to be okay.”

“True,” Daniel agreed. “But I want Louisa Fairchild to pay for what she did, and I want her to stop trying to make my father out to be a criminal. The shooting was totally unprovoked. The woman is clearly crazy. But she’s adamant that the police arrest my father as soon as he’s coherent enough to understand the charges against him. And they haven’t ruled that out yet.”

Marnie opened her mouth to say something else, evidently thought better of it, and closed it again. But her expression was one of obvious distress, and Daniel immediately felt guilty for jumping down her throat.

“Look, you don’t have to apologize,” he said. “I’m the one who should apologize. I shouldn’t have gone off the way I did. That was uncalled-for.”

“It’s okay,” she told him. “I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do. I just…”

“What?” he asked.

But she only shook her head and left that statement unfinished, too.

Daniel sighed again. “I’m sorry,” he said, more calmly this time. “I’m just worried about my dad, and I haven’t gotten much sleep since the police called me, and the trip from Kentucky was grueling.”

Her lips parted in a little half smile at that, and she seemed to relax at the change of subject. “You’re living in Kentucky now?”

He nodded, equally grateful for another topic, if for no other reason than it took his mind off his father for a few minutes. “In Woodford County. I’m the senior trainer for Quest Stables. It’s owned by—”

“Jenna and Thomas Preston,” she finished for him.

The fact she knew surprised him. “You’re familiar with it?”

“Anyone who’s ever worked with horses is familiar with it,” she told him. “Maybe I wasn’t raised around Thoroughbreds, but the equestrian world isn’t exactly a big one.”

He eyed her intently. “I didn’t think you rode anymore.”

She eyed him back just as interestedly. “How did you know that?”

Oh, hell. He knew that because he’d met a woman a year or so after Del Mar who’d remembered encountering Daniel and Marnie at a restaurant there, and had remarked what a cute couple the two had made. She’d turned out to be a friend of Marnie’s mother and had mentioned that Marnie had given up riding, not just competitively, but completely. Daniel had never discovered why, because he’d manufactured an excuse to extract himself from the conversation before the woman could fill him in on any more about Marnie’s life. He’d finally reached a point by then where he wasn’t thinking about her every day and hadn’t wanted to lose ground.

For now, though, he only said, “I ran into a friend of your mother’s at a party in Ocala a while back, and she mentioned it.”