His Innocent Temptress

“Thank you,” he said as they left the stall, on their way to the large washtub at the other end of the stable. “I’m sorry I was so rough on you, but…well…”

“You thought how could klutzy Hannah Clark know anything about birthing a baby,” she completed for him as he turned on the water and handed her the soap, which she dropped, so that it clunked heavily in the bottom of the metal washtub.

Crisis over, klutziness back. It figured.

“Yeah, something like that,” Alex said, picking up the bar of soap and handing it to her again. “Anyway, I apologize. You did a terrific job.”

“I heard about this foal from my dad,” she told him, concentrating on soaping her hands. “It’s Jabbar’s, isn’t it? The original unplanned pedigree, registered pregnancy.”

“A gift from the Fates,” Alex said, handing Hannah a clean towel. “Desert Rose Khalid. That means—”

“Eternal. Yes, I know. It’s a lovely name.”

Alex tipped his head to one side, looked at her quizzically. “Arabic is one of the classes at the veterinary school?”

“Not really,” Hannah answered, avoiding his smile, which had the power to reduce her to a puddle of insecurities and unnamed desires. “Arabians are of special interest to me, because there are so many stables around the area, of course, but also personally. They’re just such beautiful, graceful animals.”

And an Arabian horse never looked better than when Alex Coleman sat one in the costume class of a competition, wearing snow-white Arab costume banded in gold, with a snow-white kaffiyeh on his head, ropes of gold weaving forming the agal that held the headdress in place.

The focus of such an event should still be the mount, the decorative bridle and other trappings, the proud lift of head and tail. But not when any of the Coleman boys were in the saddle, dressed in their ceremonial costumes. Then all eyes were on the dark-haired, dark-eyed men, their uniquely kinglike posture and ease, the deep golden tan of their skin against their kaffiyehs, the almost sensual thrill that filled the air when one of them rode into the ring.

Yes, all three were magnificent, but it had been Alex who had caught Hannah’s attention, and dreams, ever since she’d stood on the sidelines sixteen years ago, at the impressionable age of twelve, and knew that she had just lost her heart to the unattainable.

“Hannah? Hannah, are you listening to me?”

She shook herself out of her dream, rather surprised to see Alex standing in front of her in a deep brown corduroy jacket and skintight jeans. “Huh?” she said, and then blushed to the roots of her honey-blond hair.

“I said, I want to apologize again, and thank you. You came through like gangbusters, totally calm and professional.”

“You say that as if you still don’t believe it,” Hannah remarked, carefully stepping around a fallen rake, mentally seeing herself stepping on the tines so that the handle snapped upward and knocked her cold. Proud of herself, she turned her head to say something else to Alex—she wasn’t sure quite what—and felt her flannel shirt snag on a nail, ripping the sleeve as she instinctively pulled herself free. “Oh, God.”

Alex was biting his bottom lip, manfully trying not to laugh at her, she supposed.

“That’s the nail where we usually hang the rake, using the hole in the handle.”

“Yeah, figures,” she answered, her cheeks so hot they were stinging her eyes. Her stupid deer-in-headlights, too-big baby-blue eyes. Blond hair, blue eyes, and not quite five feet and three inches of too-slender body. All in all, at the ripe old age of twenty-eight, she felt about as seductive as a three-year-old with a lap full of dolls.

Still, anyone would think she had clown feet big enough to wear the boxes instead of the shoes, and Mister Magoo eyesight, for the way she was always walking into things, falling over things, knocking things over and generally showing all the grace of a bowlegged kangaroo.

“Maybe if you were to stand still for a minute?”

“Hmm? Oh, all right, Mr. Coleman,” Hannah said, wondering how she had gotten back into the stall, when she had picked up her jacket, her bag. It was like her dad always said, she just didn’t pay attention. Among her other failings, like daydreaming. Boy, had she picked a bad moment to daydream.

“Ah, good. I think I feel more comfortable when you’re standing still,” Alex said. His grin was still gorgeous, full of white teeth and smiling eyes, but this time Hannah wanted to bop him over the head with her medical bag, because he was openly making fun of her.

“You don’t have to keep thanking me, you know. You will get a bill.”

“Which I’ll play, gladly. However, I want to do more than just pay the bill. You can’t know how much Khalid means to me, to The Desert Rose. We’ve put Jabbar to stud any number of times, and kept some of his offspring for ourselves, but most get sold, as you know. Khalid? Well, he’s a gift, from Jabbar to me, to my brothers, my family. He’s special.”

“That’s nice,” Hannah said sincerely. “And almost mystical.”

“Yes. Yes, it is, and so my gratitude should be larger than just saying thank you and then paying the bill. So, if there’s anything else you want—anything, please just ask. I will tell everyone I know about how cool you were under fire, and that they should have no qualms about calling you in when your father isn’t available. But that doesn’t seem like enough.”

Hannah lowered her eyes as the most ridiculous, outlandish, absurd idea flashed into her mind. Boy, could she ever think of a favor Alex Coleman could do for her! But no, that was impossible. First, because she’d never have the courage to ask him, and two, because it was a stupid, personally revealing request. Totally stupid.

“Hannah? How about dinner tonight? It’s not much, but it’s a start, and maybe by then you’ll have thought of something else I could do to show you my gratitude.”

“Dinner?” Hannah’s head flew up so quickly, and she was standing so close to Alex—actually, he was standing so close to her—that she nearly clipped his chin with her head. Stepping back quickly, stumbling for a moment, of course, she looked up at him. “Dinner? Tonight?”

Alex smiled, shook his head. “But no sharp knives,” he teased, taking the medical bag from her hand and walking out of the stable with her, back to her SUV. “I’ll pick you up around six or so, okay?”

She slid onto the seat, praying the keys were still in the ignition, because otherwise she’d be damned if she knew where they could be, and she wouldn’t be able to stick them into the ignition anyway. Her hands were shaking badly, too badly to blame on the damp, biting weather outside the warm stable. “At six. Sounds…sounds fine.”

“Good,” Alex said, slamming the door, then stepping away, probably to make sure she didn’t back up over his toes. Hannah felt his gaze on her until she’d made the turn that would cut off his sight of her, then stopped the SUV, gripped the steering wheel with both hands and tried to get her breathing under control.

He had asked her out! Not a date. Nobody in their right mind could call it a date. It was a thank-you offer. Maybe even a pity offer. But he’d made it, and she’d accepted, and he still wanted to do something else for her. “Anything,” he’d said. “Anything at all.”

Oh, brother. Would she ever get a chance like this again?

ALEX SPENT ANOTHER HOUR in the stable, just leaning over the top of the bottom half of the stall door, watching Khalahari and Khalid.

They would lose Jabbar soon, it was inevitable. He’d had a long, good life, and enriched their lives as much with his presence as with the foals he provided that made up the bedrock of The Desert Rose, the growing legend of The Desert Rose as a premier Arabian stud.

Jabbar. The last legacy of his parents, the only thing besides his two brothers and the golden ring he wore on his right hand, left to remind him of Sorajhee.

There were so few memories, clouded by the passage of time and the fact that he’d only been four-and-a-half years old when he was suddenly ripped from his mother’s arms and put on a plane, traveling halfway across the world to a new land, a new family.

He could remember his father, but only vaguely. A tall man, who never hesitated to bend down to speak to a small child. A man whose face Alex believed he saw in his own mirror as he shaved each morning, now that he was thirty-two, already a year older than his father had been when he was murdered.

Flashes of a long white robe. A bright white smile in a swarthy, sun-kissed face. Big hands, hands that gently held those so much smaller. The soft musical murmur of Arabic, a language Alex once knew but now had almost totally forgotten.

That was a sin, and a shame. But Uncle Randy had seen no need to keep up the boys’ Arabic lessons, or so he’d said, right up until the day he’d sat the three of them down and told them otherwise.

Hiding. They’d been in hiding for twenty-seven years, all of them. Hiding from their Uncle Azzam, who still ruled in Sorajhee. Alex kept up on the news about his homeland, although he didn’t say anything to his brothers, his aunt or his uncle. There was no need to worry them, make them think that he might plan to one day go back, claim his rightful throne.

It was too late for that. Years and years too late. All that was in Sorajhee were the graves of his parents. He didn’t know the people, didn’t even know much of the language. His life, his memories, and those of his brothers, were here in Texas.

Alex knew his father had died trying to make Sorajhee strong, safe from invasion, and that his mother had died to avenge their father and reclaim the throne for her sons. Now, with the passage of years, and the borders still firmly closed, Azzam’s rule was keeping Sorajhee out of the mainstream, keeping open only the ports that were the main income-making industry in the small country. Nobody save the natives of Sorajhee were allowed outside the ports, inside the country that was nearly an island, with only one strip of well-defended border touching the mainland. It was as if Azzam had built a high fence on three sides of the country and marked it “No Trespassing.”

Sorajhee was the past, both because of the time Alex had spent away from the land, and because his Uncle Azzam had decreed it to be so. But Azzam had been lucky so far. Keeping his ports open had kept the greedy eyes of the Middle East turned away from him for years, concentrating them instead on oil-rich countries like the neighboring Balahar.

But nothing stands still, and Alex, from his reading, felt sure that Sorajhee and Balahar would soon have to unite, as his father had prophesied, or they would both be overrun.

No. This was no place for a son of Ibrahim Bin Habib El Jeved. Enough Jeved blood had already been spilled, enough Jeved lives had been altered forever. Let his Uncle Azzam realize his brother had been right, or let him perish. Alex sometimes wondered if he was fatalistic or if what he felt inside him was the age-old Arab belief in fate. Either way, the fate of Sorajhee was not his. That he did know.

Alex had a job, a sacred trust his mother had given him that last day. He was to take care of his brothers, of Jabbar. He was to help his uncle Randy. And that is what he’d done. He was at peace with his past and with his future.

“I just heard,” Cade said, leaning on the wood beside Alex. “I got back from town a little while ago, and Mickey stopped me to give the good news. He’s a beaut, Alex. A true son of his sire. He’ll be black as Jabbar, too. Glorious and proud. But that will take a while.”

Alex smiled at his brother. “First he has to learn to control all four legs at one time,” he said. His brother, youngest of the twins by a few very important minutes as far as the succession went, was the Coleman who had chosen running the business end of The Desert Rose as his life’s work. Both Cade and Mac resembled Alex, but there was something softer, more human, about their dark handsomeness. More of Rose lived in her twins.

Alex flicked at Cade’s lapel. “A suit? You’re wearing a suit? Where did you say you went? And what’s her name?”

“Business, big brother, I went into Austin on business,” Cade corrected him, then shook his head. “Okay, and a girl.”

“There’s always a girl, isn’t there, Cade?” Alex said, turning to walk away from the stall. He was filthy, a little bloody, and suddenly he wanted a hot shower and clean clothes. “If you weren’t so damn good at your job, I’d have to call you a playboy, you know.”

“Well, now I’m insulted. I’d like to be considered a playboy. Has a certain ring to it, you know,” Cade said, obviously joking. “Not that anyone could call you a playboy, big brother. When was the last time you were out on a date? Your Bridle High School senior prom?” They walked across the stable yard together, Cade careful of his dress shoes, heading for the main house.

“Just because I don’t see one girl for drinks at seven, and another at ten for a late dinner, and call that a double date, doesn’t mean I don’t have a social life. As a matter of fact,” he said, knowing he was about to put his foot in his mouth, “I have a date tonight.”

Cade stopped dead outside the front door of the house. “Excuse me? I couldn’t have heard that right. You have a date? Has anyone notified the newspapers? Who is it?”

“Hannah Clark,” Alex muttered under his breath as he opened the front door, gestured for Cade to enter the house ahead of him.

“Oh, Hannah Clark,” Cade said, wiping his feet on the mat, his attention momentarily distracted, as he knew his Aunt Vi didn’t think he was too old to be scolded for tracing stable yard dirt into her house. “Whoa! Wait a minute. Did I just say Hannah Clark?”

“Actually, I said it.” Alex hung his hat on one of the hooks just inside the foyer. “She delivered the foal, a breech, and I wanted to thank her.”

“Uh-huh,” Cade said, watching as Alex stripped off his jacket and hung it on another peg. “Aunt Vi hates when you do that, you know. She says the rack is just for show. You weren’t even supposed to come in the front door in your boots. But, then, having a date with the Hannah Slip-on-a-banana Clark has probably scrambled your brains. Hannah Clark, Alex? Really?”

“Oh, shut up,” Alex said, stomping off to the wing of the house where he and his brothers all had their own rooms.

Chapter Two

Half of Hannah’s wardrobe now resided on her bed, on a small chair in the corner and draped over the desk in front of the windows. And still she didn’t know what she would wear.

Fourteen pairs of jeans. How had she ever accumulated fourteen pairs of jeans? Granted, some of them dated back to her high school days, as she hadn’t grown as much as a quarter inch since the tenth grade. She’d lived in jeans then, as she pretty much lived in jeans now. Jeans, and flannel shirts, or tank tops in the summer.

The only dresses in her closet were the prom gown she’d worn the night Bobby Taylor stood her up for the sophomore Sweetheart dance and the navy-blue suit she’d worn on college interviews. Even the suit had slacks instead of a skirt.

Every penny she’d ever earned at summer jobs had gone toward veterinary school, and every penny she’d earn working with her father—for her father—would go to pay down the student loans she’d taken out when her father refused to help her. She didn’t have “casual” money, go-out-and-shop money.

And she had no reason to buy dresses. Working two part-time jobs all through school had limited her social life, not that anyone had ever asked her out more than once. Shy, tongue-tied, unsure of herself, she hadn’t been any young college guy’s dream of a hot date, and she’d known it. Soon the whole school knew it, and Hannah had plenty of time to keep her grades at a constant 4.0.

“Project at hand, Hannah,” she told herself out loud. “Ancient history is ancient history. Concentrate on the project at hand.” She jammed her fingers into her hair, put her other hand on her hip and glared at her wardrobe. She had no choice. It was the blue suit or jeans, as the pink organza would definitely be too much.

Dropping the large white towel she’d wrapped around herself after her shower, she stepped into panties, located a bra that didn’t have a strap held together with a safety pin, and spent ten minutes trying to remember where she’d stuffed her only pair of panty hose—bottom left desk drawer, under a copy of Common Parasites and Their Animal Hosts.

She couldn’t face the idea of the high-necked white blouse she’d bought to go with the navy suit. It was too virginal, just like everything else about her. Virginal to the hilt. Mold had more of a sex life. Deer ticks. Any one of those common parasites. Anything had more of a sex life than did Hannah Clark.

“Therefore, you don’t have to advertise that fact,” she said, returning the white blouse to the closet. Which left her with a blue suit, and no blouse.

Hannah bit at her bottom lip, shifted her eyes right, as if considering something naughty. And it would be naughty. Definitely.

Still, it beat the hell out of her white blouse.

“You’re twenty-eight years old, so what are you waiting for? Go for it,” she told her reflection as she pushed back her blond hair and leaned toward her reflection in the old, clouded mirror above her dresser. “Lipstick, eye shadow, the perfume sample you ripped out of the magazine in the waiting room downstairs. The whole nine yards. Knock the man off his feet. But not literally,” she added, pointing to her reflection.

Fifteen minutes later, she’d done it. She’d decided against the eye shadow, however, because she couldn’t seem to apply it so that she didn’t end up looking like a raccoon. But her freshly washed hair hung bright and clean almost to her shoulders, rather than in its usual no-nonsense ponytail. Her legs were shaved and encased in silky panty hose. Her legs felt good when she walked, when the lining of her suit slacks slid against her, but not as good as the lining of her jacket felt as it caressed her from the waist up.

All the way up to the top button, which was somewhere south of the beginnings of her cleavage.

Now, if she could keep from slamming her hands against her chest every three seconds just to be sure the top button hadn’t opened, she might be able to carry this off.

She slid back her left sleeve, looked at the utilitarian watch on her wrist. Six o’clock. Alex hadn’t told her exactly what time he’d pick her up—just some time around six—so she wanted to be ready and waiting when he arrived.

He would arrive, wouldn’t he? Hannah’s stomach hit the floor as she considered the fact that the man could phone at any minute to cancel. After all, it wasn’t as if this was some big hot date. He was just thanking her for her work this afternoon. He could have done that with flowers, or just the thank-you she’d already received.

No. He’d asked her to dinner, and Alex Coleman wasn’t the sort who backed out of a commitment. Was he? How the heck would she know? Worshiping a guy from afar like some lovestruck teenager wasn’t the same as knowing the guy. He could be a real louse with great eyes and a bone-melting smile. She may have given him every attribute possible in her fantasies, but that didn’t mean he could live up to any of them.

“You’re driving yourself nuts, you know,” she said as she bent down and fluffed the ancient pillows on the sturdy but relentlessly ugly brown couch in the living room of the small apartment above the office.

“Hannah? Talking to yourself again? I can think of something more productive, like making my dinner.”

“Dad!” Hannah exclaimed, whirling to face her father and forgetting that she was wearing her only pair of heels. Her ankle twisted beneath her and she sat down on the couch with an inelegant thump. “I—I didn’t think you’d be home this early.”

Dr. Hugo Clark was a big man in every way. Six feet tall, he weighed over three hundred pounds, all of which had once been composed of very impressive muscle. That muscle had gone soft a few years ago, but Hannah didn’t see that. To her, Hugo Clark was still the great big man with the disapproving eyes and disappointed expression—at least it was disappointed every time he looked at Hannah, measured Hannah and found her wanting.

“Obviously not,” he said, throwing his fleece-lined plaid jacket on a chair. He never hung up his coat, or anything else. That was woman’s work. “What the hell is that on your mouth?”

Hannah raised a hand to her lips. “Lipstick?”

“You look like a tart. Just like your mother before you. All those years of school, just to make a dead set at some man. Total waste, educating a female, and I always said so. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? That war paint couldn’t be for the animals downstairs. And for God’s sake, put something on. I can damn near see your breasts.”

Hannah squeezed her eyes shut even as she instinctively pressed her hands to her chest, hiding herself from her father’s condemning eyes and blunt speech. Twenty-eight, she reminded herself silently. You’re twenty-eight. You’re a trained, licensed vet. You’re not little Hannah anymore. Don’t let him do this to you.

It didn’t work. Pep talks weren’t Hannah’s forte, and her father had mastered the art of the cutting remark, the insulting put-down. Ever since her mother had run away when she was a child, Hugo Clark had worked on making sure his daughter wouldn’t turn into the same flighty creature Ellen Clark had been.

Twenty-eight years also meant twenty-eight years of being told she was worth nothing, would never be worth anything; told she was stupid and clumsy and unattractive, and probably immoral thanks to her mother’s blood running in her veins.

Worse, she was small like Ellen, and blond like Ellen. If Hugo Clark wanted a whipping boy to take his frustration and hate out on, he’d found it in his daughter, in spades.

Hannah stood up, one hand still pressed to her breast. “I really thought you wouldn’t be home until very late, or even tomorrow. There are…there are some cold cuts in the refrigerator,” she said, heading for the kitchen. “And soup. I made soup yesterday. Let me heat it up for you, make you a sandwich.”

“A sandwich? You call that a meal? Never mind, I’ll go out. I should have known I couldn’t count on you. Never could, never will. Just thank God I called my service and there were no emergencies while I was gone, or you would have screwed that up, too. I can’t understand it. I’ve taught you and taught you to remember your responsibilities, and what do I get? A cold supper and my own daughter tarted up to go out barhopping.”

“There was an emergency,” Hannah said, hoping to stop Hugo before he could launch into another of his long harangues about how much she reminded him of her worthless mother. “Out at The Desert Star. Jabbar’s last foal, a breech birth. Alex Coleman phoned up here on our private line, so the service didn’t know about it.”

“Damn!” Hugo exploded, slamming one beefy fist into his palm. “Lost them both, I’ll bet.”

“No, sir,” Hannah said. At times like these, it was always better to address her father as “sir.”

Her father looked at her curiously. “They handled it on their own?”

“No, sir. I did it. Alex Coleman phoned and I went out, delivered the foal. A beautiful little animal, and probably the next Desert Rose stud.”

“You…you handled it?” Hugo’s black-bean eyes widened in disbelief.

She hadn’t pleased him. Hannah could tell by the look in his eyes, by the set of his body as he stood in front of her, that she had done the very opposite of pleasing him. “I’ll get the soup started,” she said, turning for the kitchen once more.

“The hell you will. I’m going out,” he said, grabbing his jacket and heading for the door. “And you’d better be home by midnight, girlie-girl, or I’m throwing the dead bolt. You hear me?”

“I hear you, sir,” Hannah said, subsiding onto the couch once more, flinching only slightly as the door slammed and she could hear her father’s heavy tread on the stairs.

She shouldn’t have come back. She should have graduated and taken one of the dozen positions offered her, from Texas to Maine. She’d graduated at the top of her class; her options had been almost limitless.