Million Dollar Mistake (14 page)

“How’s your headache?” Jackson asked.

“Gone,” Raven answered.

“Didn’t I say I know what’s good for you?”

“Isn’t that funny? I had a headache, too,” Lorianne chimed in, shouting to be heard over the swish of the sleigh and the cotton wool muffling of the falling snow. “Was it the champagne? Or your sinuses? Because for a while I thought it might be my sinuses. Then I thought I might be catching a cold, but I think it could have been the alcohol.”

Nicholas could barely contain a laugh as he joined the conversation, “Raven can’t handle champagne. I don’t know what we’ll do at our wedding.”

“Have you set a date for the wedding, Raven?” Lorianne asked, grasping the back of the seat in front of her as Jackson sped up, hurtling the sleigh over a bump then a dip in the path.

“No,” Raven practically snarled it over her shoulder. “And I’m not sure I’m going to either.”

“Darling,” Nicholas said, leaning forward, his voice smooth as aged Southern Comfort, “I don’t think we can elope, no matter what you think. The family would be so disappointed. Remember our agreement.”

Incensed that Nicholas had the nerve to mention the non-existent wedding and the earlier discussion they’d had about strategy, especially since he was a sneaky, slick, manipulative, high-handed, pain-in-her-ass, she turned to annihilate him. “I remember our agreement. It’s a shame
someone
, whose name I won’t mention, took advantage of it and misled me into thinking—” She swallowed her words as the sleigh suddenly dipped on the right side.

“Damn,” Jackson exploded as he fought the sleigh and the stumbling horses. “We’ve hit the marsh.”

Jackson shifted his weight toward the left to try to counteract the imbalance as the horses slowed down and struggled to get back out of the tall grasses and uneven sheets of solid ice on to firm ground. He’d almost managed to right the vehicle and turned to say so when the sleigh hit a raised sheet of ice. He lost his balance and dropped the reins.

“Jackson,” Lorianne yelled, leaning over the seat to reach for the reins that had slipped from Jackson’s hands. The move also put Lorianne off balance. When the sleigh did a slow-motion lurch through another bump and dip, both Lorianne and Jackson flew out of the vehicle and toward the marsh.

Raven scrambled to reach the reins, which had now dropped behind the horses as Nicholas climbed over the seat. He pushed Raven back to safety and balanced himself to lean over the horses to grab the leather straps. With a loud “whoa” he pulled the horses up as short as possible, scarcely waiting until they’d slid to a stop before leaping from the sleigh and running back to where Jackson and Lorianne had fallen. Raven jumped down and ran around to reassure the trembling horses before running back toward Nicholas.

Nicholas waved Raven toward Jackson while he went after Lorianne who was farther out, lying on her side on a slab of ice that covered the reeds and grasses. Her landing had been cushioned by a mound of snow and clump of marsh grass, but the ice had broken to allow what resembled lake water underneath to bubble up and reach her. Nicholas gingerly stepped toward her, calling her name.

Raven reached Jackson, who was now sitting up in a mass of snow-covered reeds and a small pool of water. He was swearing a blue streak.

“Jackson,” Raven said, “are you okay?”

“No. I’m soaked and pissed off,” he replied. Then he shook his head, rose to his feet in a cautious manner, and took a good look at her before reaching for her hand. “What about you? Are you all right?”

Raven stepped back from the uneven surface. “I’m not the one you should be asking.” She jerked her head toward Nicholas.

“What?” Jackson followed her gaze. “Lorianne? What the hell?” He waded through the thin ice covering his area of the marsh, managing to slip and slide his way toward Nicholas and Lorianne.

Nicholas was hunched over, running his hands over Lorianne. “Lorianne, Lorianne. Come on, honey, open your eyes.”

“Is she…hurt?” Jackson asked, his voice anxious as he held Raven back from attempting to move forward. “No, don’t go any farther, you’ll get wet.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Raven snapped.

Nicholas looked back at Raven. “No, he’s right. Stay back there, the ice is iffy.”

“Then hurry up and get her out of there,” Raven responded, her voice worried as she took in Lorianne’s white face.

Nicholas started to gather Lorianne into his arms when she opened her eyes and said in a weak but indignant voice, “I’m totally wet.”

Nicholas laughed, lifting her as he stood up. “So you are.”

Her eyes fluttered open to focus on his. “Oh…oh wow.”

Raven couldn’t help but sympathize with the awed expression on Lorianne’s face. Being held that close in Nicholas’s arms was enough to close down anyone’s thought processes. She stepped back as Nicholas walked in her direction, followed by Jackson.

“Can you tell me if anything hurts, honey? Head, arms—”

“My knee hurts a bit. I must have hit it when I fell. Oh and my head. A headache. I really have a headache.”

“You had a headache before, remember?” Jackson said, his voice tense. “Are you sure this is from—”

“Now it’s different,” Lorianne said, her voice stiff with dignity and discomfort, her teeth chattering from the cold as Nicholas bundled her into the backseat of the sleigh.

“What…” Jackson couldn’t finish his sentence since he was chattering as hard as Lorianne.

“Get in the back with Lorianne, Jackson,” Raven ordered. She and Nicholas wrapped all of the blankets around both of them before climbing into the front seat.

Nicholas grabbed the reins and turned the horses around for home as Raven glanced back. “Stay under those covers and hold on.”

“What,” Jackson tried again, staring at Lorianne, “did you think you were doing? How did you fall out?”

“What do you mean, what was I doing?” An indignant Lorianne stared back. “I was trying to help you.”

“I didn’t need your help. All you did was get yourself hurt.”

“Well, exc-u-u-s-s-e me!”

“I’m trying to. You scared the hell out of me,” Jackson yelled.

“You scared the hell out of me, too,” Lorianne yelled back.

“Next time, don’t help.”

Lorianne sniffed, lifting her nose in a snooty gesture. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

Jackson nodded and folded his arms. “Okay, fine.”

“Yes, fine,” Lorianne said, her teeth chattering from the cold.

Raven checked over her shoulder again, then back at Nicholas. “Get us back to the house before they kill each other.”

“Done,” Nicholas agreed, whistling and giving the horses their heads. The horses leapt forward, eager to get back to the barn.

They made the trip back in record time.

Nicholas pulled up in front of the house, glancing over his shoulder at Jackson and Lorianne. “Out you go. Get a hot bath and a warm drink.”

“I have to see to the horses,” Jackson chattered.

“I’ll take care of them. Raven, get them inside before they turn into ice statues.”

Nicholas watched as the duo headed for the porch, their blankets wrapped as tight as a mummy’s dress. As Raven ushered them to the front door, he slapped the horses lightly with the leather, urging them over the snow to the barn. Once inside, he took a few minutes to calm down before maneuvering the sleigh back to its berth. He’d just started to unhitch the horses when Raven came in.

“Nicholas.”

Seeing her, he realized that it could have been Raven lying in the snow instead of Lorianne. Raven he’d lifted into his arms. His eyes narrowed.
And wouldn’t it serve her right, contrary female that she is. Hot one minute, cold the next. How can a man cope
? His temper rose to the top like boiling bubbles, but he put a lid on it instead of exploding.

He cooled his voice. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you might need some help.”

“I’m capable of looking after the horses all by myself.”

“I know but…” Raven blinked at his arched eyebrow. “Oh, okay, Margaret started fussing and I couldn’t stand it. You’d think no one had ever gotten wet before. She was near hysterics right before I went out the door.”

“So you ran away?”

“No, not exactly. I wasn’t needed. J.R. got there and took control.”

Nicholas pinned her with a look. “I see.”

“Don’t look at me like that. If you’d heard her, you would have left too.”

“How’s Lorianne?”

“She seems okay. Limping a bit and got a bump on the head, but fine otherwise. So is Jackson. Except he looks pretty annoyed.”

“Serves him right,” Nicholas snarled. “He should have been more careful.”

“It was an accident.”

“We were damn lucky the sleigh had already slowed down or someone could have gotten seriously hurt.”

“He didn’t mean to run into the marsh.”

Nicholas began to unhitch the horses. “No, he just wanted to stop the talk about our wedding.”

“Make-believe wedding.”

He sent her a fierce stare. “It sure as hell is.”

She recoiled at the expression on his face, but then recovered. “A conversation you started, remember?”

“What was I supposed to do with you flirting with him as if nothing had ever happened?”

“I was not flirting.”

“What do you call it then?”

She lifted her chin. “I was trying to be nice.”

He slipped the bits from the horses’ mouths and began to remove the leather traces from their harnesses. “Being nice is saying please and thank you. You were saying ‘let’s start again’.”

“Well, so what if I was?” Raven fisted her hands on her hips. “Not that I was. But if I was, it was my choice.”

Nicholas snorted as he finished unhitching the horses. “That sentence made even less sense than the thought of you and Jackson.”

Angling her chin at him, Raven gave him her haughtiest expression. “Maybe I was too hasty in my decision about him. Maybe I should have given him more of a chance. See if he could grow on me.”

He glanced over his shoulder as he moved to the hooks to hang the leathers. “Like a fungus?”

Raven’s lips twitched. “That makes him sound dependent and easily led. He has more spine than that.”

“I’m sure he does,” Nicholas agreed in a smooth tone, “only not with you. The poor guy is putty in your hands.”

“So?”

“So I thought we straightened this out before. How we were going to handle things.”

“Our strategy, you mean?”

He grabbed the horses and began leading them down the barn with Raven following on his heels. “That’s right.”

“You know, Nicholas, I don’t see why everything always has to be your way.”

“My way? When you got us into this mess with your reckless behavior?”

Raven lifted her chin. “Perhaps I’ve changed my mind about our pretend engagement—about Jackson, about everything.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t allow that.” Nicholas found the stall labeled
Oscar
and placed the horse inside, then continued to the next before urging Ophelia through the door.

“You…you can’t allow that?” Raven sputtered. “What am I, six? Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do? I didn’t ask you to come up here, you know.”

“But you were pretty damn glad when I showed up, weren’t you?”

“Maybe at the time, but now I’m having second thoughts.”

“No, you’re not. You’re having a tantrum and doing everything in your power to wind me up too.” He turned toward her. “I don’t know what set you off because when I left you in the conservatory, I could have sworn we’d come to terms with the situation.”

“Oh yes, I remember how you ‘came to terms’ with it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She hunched a shoulder. “Nothing.”

“Oh yes, it did.”

“It’s not important.”

Nicholas could have sworn she looked hurt, but couldn’t figure out what about. Even the most open of women were a complete mystery, but when he tried to figure out a complex puzzle like Raven, it was almost hopeless, no matter how much experience he’d had with women.

He studied her more closely, thinking back to discover what might have happened to cause her mood, besides their usual picking at each other. The only thing that jumped out at him was their kiss. That kiss had unnerved the hell out of him. Had it unnerved her as well? Had she felt something? Had he? Or was it just the natural male reaction to a sexy female?

Nicholas cleared his throat, suddenly not sure of what he wanted to say. He closed the stall door and stepped toward her. “Uh, look, Raven.”

“Aren’t you going to groom them?”

“What?”

“You can’t just stick them in there and walk away.”

At her superior tone, he bristled. “Oh please—I do know what to do with a horse.”

Raven sniffed. “Just like you know what to do with a woman, I suppose.”

“I can handle a woman”—he sent her a sidelong glance—”as long as she’s reasonable.”