Mending Fences by Lucy Francis Read Free Book Online

mine.”
    He watched her open her mouth to speak and hastily close it again. “You want to know why.”
    “It’s none of my business.”
    Curran opened the barn door, waving her through. “But you’re curious, and I don’t mind telling you. More importantly, Kelli wouldn’t mind. Her husband was an alcoholic and when he was drinking, his favorite sport was wife boxing.”
    Victoria gasped, color draining from her already pale skin. Though she clenched her fists, he didn’t miss the trembling of her hands.
    “Are you all right?”
    She blew out a breath and nodded, slowly unfurling her fingers. “Situations like that just make me feel…I don’t know. Helpless, angry. I hate that such things happen. She was lucky to get out of there.”
    “I like to think her husband was lucky. I let him live.” That was conditional, of course, on Jonas keeping his mouth shut. He’d be damned if his baby sister would find herself and her son splashed on tabloid pages. “She divorced him and I made sure she got far enough away from him that her ex can’t play the ‘please baby, I’ve changed and I want to come home’ game. He’ll be very, very sorry if he ever tries to get back into her life. Hers or Rob’s.”
    Victoria nodded, then walked over to her horse’s stall and lifted the bridle from the hook beside the stall door. “Good. At least Kelli had someone to turn to. So many women don’t.”
    “I wasn’t exactly set up to take her in at the time, but I couldn’t leave her there. I had a condo in Los Angeles. Plenty big, but it was no place for an ankle biter.” He held the half-door open as she stepped into the stall. Her horse whickered softly and nosed her hand, waiting for the bridle.
    “What brought you to Utah?” she asked as she slid the bit into the horse’s mouth.
    “We looked all over the country for a good place. I’d been to Park City before so I was familiar with the area. It’s a safe place. Good schools. Besides, Rob is crazy about skiing, so when he found out he could live and ski in the home of the U.S. Ski Team, that settled it.”
    “And you moved here later.”
    “About a year ago, yes.” He tamped down on the nagging bit of ego inside him that was preening and screaming she doesn’t know who I am? How can she not recognize me? She’d showed no signs of recognition at all, beyond remembering him from the club, and his more rational self appreciated that.
    Victoria led her horse out of the stall, and Curran picked up the blanket and saddle from the rack and swung them up onto the bay’s back. As he pulled on the girth, she asked, “Why not go back to Australia?”
    “I haven’t been back to Oz since I was eighteen.”
    “Don’t you miss it?”
    “Not everyone loves the place they came from. And sometimes, you burn too many bridges to go back.” That was the standard line. It was far more comfortable than talking about his phobia.
    Her gaze shifted to the horse. She rubbed her hand down the animal’s wide blaze. “Yeah, I know that feeling,” she said softly.
    He watched hints of emotion flit across her expression and continued talking to help pull her back from whatever tugged at her. “Once in a while I miss things. Mostly the mountains and wide open spaces, and I have that here. I thought about sending Kelli back. Australia was really the ideal place to put her, but she loves the States and Rob was born here. America is their home.”
    She smiled, returning to him. “Nice to have such an option. Did your work make it difficult to leave California?”
    A wave of tension hit him. He didn’t need another woman in his life interested in his image and his money. “Work doesn’t hold me in any particular place.”
    “What do you do?”
    It was the one thing she could have said to relax him. Maybe she was one of those people who ignored the tabloids at grocery store check stands, or she simply didn’t recall seeing his face on the pages over the last decade. He chose not