Marriage At A Price. Miranda Lee

brown hair that she could see, so her guess of early thirties remained. As did her initial impression that he was really built. With his suit jacket flapping open and his tie blown back over his right shoulder, there was no hiding the way his broad chest was stretching the material of his pale blue shirt.

      Yet there was no question of fat, or flab. That telling area around his waistline against which his binoculars kept bouncing as he walked showed no hint of a soft underbelly, or of being held in. His stomach looked flat and rock-hard, just the way Courtney liked them.

      He was even taller than she’d first thought on seeing him standing alone in the distance. Six four at least. A big man all round.

      Courtney adored big men.

      The three of them met on the grass, with Courtney hanging back slightly. All the better to observe him from…

      ‘Jack, darling…’ Lois presented her cheek to him for a kiss. ‘How lovely to see you.’

      ‘Hello, Lois.’ He smiled with a slightly crooked smile as he bent to give her a peck. ‘You’re looking lovely today. There again, you always look lovely.’

      ‘You’re such a flatterer,’ she said coyly, and Courtney tried not to laugh. But the woman was a riot. As rough as guts around the stables, but here, at the races, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

      ‘Now, what are you doing here, Jack?’ Lois went on sweetly. ‘When I contacted you this week, you said you definitely wouldn’t be. What changed your mind? The glorious weather?’

      He seemed drily amused by her none too subtle probing. ‘No, after we talked I remembered you always said that the first time you put Big Brutus over a bit of distance, he’d win.’

      ‘He will too,’ Lois replied. ‘I’m very confident.’

      Recognition of the horse’s name dragged Courtney’s attention away from ogling Jack Falconer. Big Brutus was one of Four-Leaf Clover’s first crop and the ugliest colt her mother had ever bred. Hence his name. He’d been one of the yearlings she’d refused to sell for peanuts, subsequently leasing him to Lois. He’d been a total dud at two years old, not much better at three, and had turned four this very day, still with only a few minor placings.

      But he was bred to stay all day.

      Courtney scrambled through her race book to find the race Big Brutus was entered in. There it was. A handicap over twenty-four-hundred metres, with prize money of…

      ‘Wow!’ she exclaimed. ‘First place pays a hundred thousand smackeroos. My cut would be what, Lois?’

      Those piercing blue eyes swung her way. ‘I beg your pardon? God, don’t tell me you’re Big Brutus’s jockey. Tell me she’s not the jockey, Lois.’

      ‘She’s not the jockey,’ Lois said with a wry smile on her face. ‘But if she was, you’d have one of the best riders in the country on your horse.’

      ‘That may be, but I’ve never had much luck betting on female jockeys.’

      Courtney bristled in defence of her sex. And irritation at herself for once again being attracted to a male chauvinist. Would she never find a man who looked as she liked them to look, yet believed God created man and woman equal?

      ‘When a race is lost,’ she said frostily, ‘it’s mostly the horse’s fault. Or the trainer’s. Or the owner’s. Not the jockey, be she female or otherwise.’

      ‘I don’t see how it can be the owner’s fault,’ he argued back.

      ‘Some owners insist on seeing their horses run in races far above their talents. And other owners insist their horses not run up to their ability at all!’

      ‘Courtney,’ Lois whispered under her breath.

      ‘No, no, let her finish,’ Jack insisted. ‘Do go on, Ms…er…?’

      ‘Cross,’ she announced.

      ‘Yes, I can see that,’ he said, smiling.

      Courtney would have liked to wipe that smirk off his face with more than her tongue. But she hadn’t physically brawled with a member of the opposite sex since she was thirteen, and didn’t think the lawns at Royal Randwick Racecourse was the place to begin again.

      ‘Aside from the horse having a lousy trainer or a crooked owner,’ she continued tartly, ‘the main reason female jockeys don’t ride all that many winners is that they are rarely offered the best rides in races, and when they are their male counterparts make sure none of the breaks go their way. It’s a sad fact of life that the male sex do not appreciate women taking them on in fields they’ve always considered their own private turf.’

      ‘Possibly. But you must concede that pound for pound male jockeys are stronger. Take you, for instance. If you were a jockey, quite a few pounds of your riding weight would be wasted on your very nice but less than useful breasts. Strength-wise, that is,’ he added ruefully.

      ‘Actually, no, that’s not the case,’ she countered without batting an eye. It wasn’t the first time Courtney had heard that old argument. It had whiskers on it. ‘If I were riding professionally, I’d have to strip off at least twenty pounds and my boobs would shrink from their present cup C to a flat-chested double A. Add five hundred push-ups a day, and I’d be every bit as strong as any male jockey. Being female is not the point here. It’s a matter of talent and opportunity. A woman jockey can have all the talent in the world, but rarely gets the opportunities.’

      He smiled. ‘I give up. You win.’

      ‘Thank you,’ she said crisply, but didn’t smile back. She was still smarting inside for finding him so attractive, and wasn’t about to be won over by one smarmy little smile.

      Getting the message that he was on the outer, he turned to Lois. ‘So explain the mystery to me, Lois? Why is Ms Cross, here, entitled to a share of Big Brutus’s prize money?’

      ‘Courtney’s mother bred Big Brutus. I leased him as a yearling, then syndicated him out to you and your partner.’

      ‘Oh, I see. Sorry,’ he directed at Courtney with another winning smile. ‘And sorry about the jockey bit. I was only stirring. I don’t know about your riding talents, but your debating skills are excellent. You wouldn’t be a budding lady-lawyer by any chance?’

      His charm was undeniable, and Courtney struggled to stay angry with him.

      ‘Courtney is a horse breeder, too,’ Lois answered for her. ‘The Crosses have been breeding thoroughbreds for generations.’

      ‘You don’t look like a horse breeder,’ he said, and those sexy blue eyes raked over her from top to toe.

      Courtney’s heart lurched upwards, then did a swallow dive down into her stomach.

      Wow, she thought a bit dazedly. This guy is dynamite.

      ‘Since Lois isn’t going to introduce me properly,’ he said, ‘then I will. Jack Falconer…’ And he held out his hand.

      It was a big hand, naturally. He was a big man.

      Reaching out, she slid her own relatively small hand against his huge palm, curling her thumb around half of his and squeezing firmly.

      ‘Courtney Cross,’ she replied, steadfastly ignoring her madly galloping heart.

      ‘Delighted.’ And he squeezed even more firmly back.

      She felt it all the way down to her toes.

      Courtney simply could not understand how any woman with an active libido could prefer some aging politician to this gorgeous hunk of male flesh.

      The only possible answer was money.

      Okay, so he’d fallen on hard times. But not through any fault of his own, according to Lois.

      Courtney wondered how he could afford Big Brutus’s training fees. Lois didn’t come cheap.