Page 20 of Winner Takes All

A tear of happiness slid silently down her cheek. No words needed to be said.

Shaw lay on his side in the bed and watched Frankie sleep. Her chestnut hair tumbled around her bare shoulders as her head rested lightly on the pillow beside his, her full lips parted delicately. Each soft breath of sleep came deep and even, and he resisted the urge to lean over and kiss her, not wanting to wake her.

Sweet heavens, she was wonderful. He knew no other woman with her spirit and determination, her fierce resolve to have the life she wanted even if it put her at odds with her father. The viscount loved her, certainly, and that was the problem. Her father knew that the best life for her was as the daughter-in-law to a duke.

He smiled a bit arrogantly. The old man would suffer apoplexy if he learned that she’d given her innocence to a horse trainer.

The most wonderful gift of his life, too. Utterly overwhelming. Complete bliss. And surprising, even to him. He hadn’t meant to tell her that he loved her—what good could come of it? Yet he’d gone and done just that, like some green lad with his first woman. But in a way, she was exactly that. The first woman he’d ever loved. The only one.

“I do love you, you know,” he breathed into the darkness, barely a whisper. “You outspoken, reckless, clever woman.”

Impossible woman. That’s what his heart had repeated to him since the day he met her. Even now, she was beyond his reach. The woman he loved was finally with him, but she might as well have been on the moon.

Careful not to wake her, he slid out of bed and pulled on the breeches he’d tossed onto the floor in his hurry to undress. Good Lord, the way she’d gazed at him…beyond pleasing. Even now the thought of it tingled the tip of his cock and threatened to make him hard again.

He buttoned up his fall and glanced out the window at the darkness. Dawn was still several hours away, but there would be no sleep for him tonight, and only partly due to the utterly delectable creature warming his bed.

The race would run in less than ten hours. Then, three minutes later, one way or another, their lives would change forever. He hadn’t lied to her when he’d agree to help her train Midnight to the best of his ability. He would give this race everything he had with the full intent of winning himself, and he expected no less from her. Now it was simply a matter of which of their two colts would cross the finish line first.

He made his way downstairs and into the kitchen, pausing in the doorway to survey the room that was lit only by the banked coals in the hearth. Frankie had looked perfectly at home here during the past fortnight, as if she belonged within these stone walls. Her cooking skills, on the other hand…He grimaced. But what else did he expect? The woman had spent her life with servants who waited on her for every little need, and she most likely hadn’t been in the kitchens at Willow Wood more than a handful of times in her entire life. She might have looked at home here, but she’d also looked like a male jockey when she’d been on the colt.

Underneath, she was still a society miss.

He snatched up the pot of cold coffee from the table, flipped open the lid, and glanced inside, then carried it to the heath and nestled it into the bed of glowing coals to reheat it.

Turning around, he saw the sheets of paper that covered the table, those records they’d put together to grab an advantage on the rest of the field. A worthless task because the only real competition was each other; all the rest would be racing for third. Still he’d gone through the exercise, for no other reason than to have an excuse for keeping Frankie with him beyond their morning exercise sessions.

He picked up one of the sheets, and his chest tightened at the sight of her handwriting. None of that looping, flowery script other society ladies used. No, Frankie’s reflected exactly the woman she was—bold, strong, decisive.

His mouth twisted with irony. “Impossible to read.”

Blowing out a harsh breath, he tossed the sheet onto the table and raked fingers through his disheveled hair.

Christ…He’d told her that he’d loved her. He’d been mad as a bedlamite to admit it.

Worse—the little minx hadn’t said it back. Oh, he’d seen the tears that she’d tried to hide when they’d made love. But she was an innocent, and they might have been nothing more than tears of emotion over the intimate act itself, not a show of affection for him.

Damnation, it mattered! Because he was the first man she’d ever been with. Because he’d loved her for years. Because now she finally had the chance to shape her own future…one with the possibility of being with him.

If her father would rather have a horse trainer for a son-in-law than a spinster for a daughter, that is. If she wanted to be with him rather than claim the relative freedom of an unmarried life.Ifshe won tomorrow’s race. Because if she didn’t—

Ashes.He snatched up the sheets of paper and threw them into the hearth where the glow of the coals bit into their edges and sparked little flames that greedily devoured them.

His bare shoulders sagged as the flames faded.

Ifhedidn’t win the race, there would be no farm, no horses, no stone kitchen in which Frankie could burn pots of stew to her heart’s content. She would have the freedom to marry him, true, but he’d be nothing more than an indebted trainer who would have to go back to caring for someone else’s horses. A man still no better than the groom who’d mucked out her father’s stables.

Win the race, save his farm…send the woman he loved into the arms of another man.

Lose the race, lose his farm…give Frankie the freedom to choose her own path, one that could never include a penniless groom.

He laughed bitterly. Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Either way, he’d lose Frankie.

All he could ever have of her was tonight.

Needing to be with her to soothe his heart, he returned to his room. She was still sound asleep, the blanket pulled up tight to her chin. But he knew what was hidden beneath, the vivacious and beautiful woman who had him longing for all kinds of things he had no business wishing for yet still desperately wanted.

He shed his breeches and crawled into bed. The movement of the mattress beneath his weight jostled her awake, and her eyes opened, blinking slowly to clear the confusion from her sleep-fogged head as she remembered where she was and how she’d gotten there. With him. A sleepy smile of happiness lit her face as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. As he took her bottom lip between his, he felt her desire stir once more, and her heartbeat hammered against his lips as he dipped his head to brush his mouth down her neck.