Instead, his dad gave a shrug. “All right then, suit yourself. Thanks.”
It didn’t suit him one damn bit, yet there he sat, scrubbing the already shining leather until the light sound of boot heels beat out a rapid rhythm on the cement twenty minutes later. He went on full alert as the steps came to an abrupt halt outside the tack room door.
“Oh. Um…is Estefan here?”
Reyes took his time looking up, partly to make her wait, partly to get his pulse to settle down. But one look at Raine’s windblown hair and those bright hazel eyes, and there was no reprieve in sight. “He went home. Why?”
“I was hoping to get some jumps set up.”
“Sure.” He gestured to the left with the oil cloth in his hand. “Out the main doors, you’ll find a large storage room on the left. Jumps are in there. Help yourself.”
She blinked at him, her expression astonished. “Help myself?”
“Yep. Just make sure you keep them under half a meter. Stimpy doesn’t have nearly the same level of training as your jumpers.”
One hand propped on her hip, and her brow arched imperiously as her cheeks flushed with color. “You do work here, don’t you?”
“I do.”
Her gaze narrowed, and he deliberately returned to polishing.
“And you aren’t going to at least come help me?”
>
“I’m busy.”
After a long moment, she pivoted on her heel and disappeared toward the storage room. Reyes rested his fist on the saddle with a heavy sigh, waiting for the sound of the wooden rails as she dragged them out to the arena. When all he heard was silence, he conceded maybe he didn’t have to be such an asshole because his pansy-ass ego was still bruised from ten years ago. Maybe he should go help—
The clip-clop of horseshoes rang out on the cement.
His brow dipped as he rose and walked to the doorway in time to see Raine leading Stimpy to the cross ties by his assigned stall. She didn’t deign to look in his direction as they passed the tack room.
Leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb, he asked, “Change your mind about the jumping?”
“Shelby texted me to meet her at the pool.”
Her snooty tone grated across his nerves while his fingers clenched the cloth in his hand at the memory of that little red bikini all those years ago. A mental head-shake banished the image as she secured the gelding in the cross ties. Then she gave him a rub on the nose and flipped her hair over her shoulder while turning to walk toward the main house.
Reyes couldn’t help but drop his gaze down to the sway of her ass in those tan, skin-tight pants. He swallowed hard against a rising tide of awareness.
“Tell your dad thank you for the ride,” she tossed over her shoulder while bending to fish her phone from the front thigh pocket of her breeches.
Reyes tilted his head slightly to watch the stretch of material—until he suddenly straightened from the wall with a jerk of indignation. “Whoa—hold on. Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“To the pool, of course.”
“Not before you take care of Stimpy.”
“I do believe that’s what you’re paid to do. I’m going to go have a swim.”
It was, and it wasn’t, but he wasn’t about to get into semantics with an uppity little princess like her. “You’re going to get your ass back here and take care of this horse. Now.”
That halted her steps and brought her back around. She lifted her chin, somehow looking down her nose at him from twenty feet away. “You can’t talk to me like that. I’ll have you fired.”
He snorted. “Good luck with that. In the meantime, the rule is, you ride in this stable, you take care of your horse. You may not remember everything about this place, but I know damn well you remember that.”
“What does that mean?”