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VIC CAME INSTANTLY AWAKE as she always did in the morning. The clock read six-thirty. She sighed. Time to rise and shine. Horses to feed and water, stalls to clean, horses to put out in paddocks and bring in again, the endless grooming and exercising to get through, then a couple of lessons if the weather warmed up enough. Kids arriving after school. Clients checking on their horses. Then more feeding and haying and watering.
Occasionally Vic wondered what kind of life normal people had.
She sat on the edge of the bed, checked her address book and put in a call to Marshall Dunn. If he was going to be in his office, now would be the time to catch him.
“Dunn here,” came the gruff voice.
“Marshall? It’s Victoria Jamerson from America.”
“Ha! So Jamey chose you, did he?”
“What do you mean, chose me?”
“He called me last week from Kentucky, asked me to express him some referral letters. Wanted to stay in the south for the winter. I gave him Charlie Wright in Ocala, Meg Harwood in Southern Pines, Ted Russelwhite in Phoenix and you. Frankly I thought he’d pick Florida.”
“Essentially the same letter?” Vic asked.
“Mm. Essentially.”
“Why me? I’m hardly a high-profile operation.”
“Don’t remember, really. Maybe he mentioned he wanted to see Graceland or the Mississippi River or something. He seemed very pleased when I mentioned your name.”
“Did he now? Can you really vouch for him?”
“As to his honesty, absolutely. Knew his stepfather for donkey’s years. Jamey idolized Jock. Had a run of bad luck the last few years, what with his hand and losing his wife and brother that way. Not surprising he’d want to get away for a while, especially given his heritage.”
Vic had been caught short by the mention of the death of Jamey’s wife and brother and had planned to ask Marshall for particulars. That is, until his last words caught her attention. “What do you mean, given his heritage?”
“Suppose they do prefer the open road, really. In the genes or something. Surprising he stuck it out in Oban this long. With his parents gone, there’s nothing to hold him in one place any longer.”
“Marshall, I do not know what you’re talking about, and I am growing increasingly exasperated.”
“Ah. Well, of course, you can tell by looking at him, can’t you? The earring, I mean. Dead giveaway. Amazing man with horses, though, and as I say, always been as honest as the day is long with me. Excellent reputation that way.”
“Marshall, what are you talking about?”
“Well, of course, Vic, everyone knows he’s a Rom.”
“What the hell is a Rom?”
“Vic, old thing, the man is a full-blooded Gypsy.”
“So?”
“Don’t get me wrong, Vic—I like Jamey enormously. Glad to write his letters for him. Turned a couple of my hard-case Thoroughbreds into winners. But let’s face it, old dear, whatever veneer Jock McLachlan gave him when he gave the boy his name, he’ll never be a gentleman.”
Vic was too stunned to speak. And then too angry. Finally she simply shook her head at the telephone. “Marshall, your attitudes belong in the twelfth century.”
Marshall rumbled his great laugh. “Possibly. Still, they do me well enough. As for Jamey, enjoy him while you’ve got him. No doubt he’ll be moving along in a month or so. Now, I hear you have a new nephew-in-law and a grandniece. Tell me about them.”
After several more minutes Vic hung up the phone, sat back against the pillows and decided she would do precisely what Marshall had suggested. If a moss-backed bigot like Marshall Dunn considered Jamey McLachlan honest and competent, who was she to question?
Twenty minutes later, dressed and ready to meet the day, she moved the slipper chair from under her doorknob and went to the kitchen to start the coffee. Apparently Mr. McLachlan liked to sleep in. She started up the steps to call him and was met by Stripes coming out of the open door of his room. The cat stalked downstairs, tail erect.
“You spent the night with him, you fickle thing?” Vic said. Then she noticed the dogs were gone. She glanced out the front door and across the porch.
The motorcycle was missing, as well. How could she not have heard him leave? Was he gone already? Along with the silver, perhaps? Or the drugs? She paused at the kitchen door and saw a piece of paper from the memo pad beside the telephone propped against an empty mug. She walked over and picked it up. In an obviously European hand, it read, “Coffee is fresh. See you at the yard. J.”
“The yard?” Oh, yes. The British word for stable.
And that was where her truck had spent the night—in front of the barn. She’d have to walk down.
She grabbed a piece of cheese from the refrigerator and stuck it and an apple in the pocket of her heavy down jacket. She pulled on a knit cap and work gloves, poured herself a mug of coffee, turned off the coffeemaker and, cradling the steaming mug, stepped out into the morning.
The dawn barely tinted the eastern edges of the horizon. The wind was picking up. A blustery February day, then. The horses would all spook at the slightest distraction.
She wore silk long johns under her jeans and a fisherman’s sweater, but the breeze still nipped. “Yesterday, fifty degrees. Today, it’s thirty. Tomorrow, who knows?” she said to the open sky. “Make up Your mind, why don’t You?”
The dogs met her at the door of the barn. Her truck stood where she’d left it, alongside Angie’s car. The motorcycle stood beside it. When had the man gotten out of bed? And why hadn’t she heard him leave? He must move like a ghost.
And a ghost he was. She walked the stalls. Horses watered, fed and hayed. The muck cart already set out beside the last stall ready to be picked and fluffed. The aisle swept of stray hay.
And all peaceful. Quiet.
Quiet? It shouldn’t be quiet, not with Mr. Miracle waking up with the roosters. She trotted down to the stallion’s stall.
Empty. His gate was open. She ran to the door and looked toward the paddock. The stallion grazed at the far end, quiet as a gelding. He seemed to have turned from a terrorist into a wuss overnight.
But where was that damned man?
“Morning, boss-lass,” he said from somewhere behind and above her. She nearly dropped her coffee.
He hung from his good left hand with his feet four rungs from the bottom of the hayloft ladder. He let himself drop and thrust his hands into his pockets as he sauntered over to her with that muck-kicking grin on his face. “I thought I’d start by sweeping up the mouse manure and work up to the horse manure after the morning got a trifle warmer,” he said.
“You are seriously sticking it to me, aren’t you?” Vic answered. She finished her coffee and set the empty mug on the wash-rack shelf.
His grin widened. “See, I figure if I impress you today, I can get away with slacking off from here on in.”
That was when she noticed what he was wearing. A down vest over a skintight black turtleneck sweater, tucked into equally tight beige riding britches and well-worn black riding boots that already had a coating of dust over what had obviously been a spit shine. It was like an anatomy lesson. Every lean muscle defined. And very, very male. She gulped. “Uh, we don’t usually dress up around here except for shows.”
“Ah. This is my usual uniform at home. It’s as comfortable for me as jeans for you, probably. Besides, I get a better grip on my horses in boots. Does it bother you?”
Yes, as a matter of fact it bothered her quite a lot, but not in the way he meant. “N-no, of course not.” She looked away. “Whatever turns you on.”
“Then let’s get to it. How about I alternate exercising horses and cleaning stalls? If we each ride our share, we can be done by lunchtime, and then I can spend the afternoon cleaning out that pigsty upstairs.”
Vic stared at him. He didn’t know? Surely Marshall Dunn had warned him. But perhaps it was such old news that Marshall had not thought it necessary to say anything. Oh, nuts. “I don’t ride,” she said flatly.
“Come on, life’s too short for games.”
“I do not ride.”
“I remember your name from years back. You were on the U.S. equestrian team for a while, weren’t you? You’re just what that big old boy needs to teach him his business.”
“Mr. McLachlan, watch my lips. I have not put a foot in a stirrup in over twenty years. I do not, I can not ride a horse.”
Without warning, the shaking began at her fingertips. She clasped her arms tightly across her chest and felt her racing heart beating in her neck. The pain in her chest was like a vise. She clamped her teeth against the rising nausea and fought to keep them from chattering.
It hadn’t been this sudden or this bad in years. She’d thought she was over the worst of it—the panic, the shattering fear, the sudden desire to run and keep running until she was curled up in her own bed.
She fought to breathe. Last night dealing with the motorcycle had been a piece of cake compared to this.
And dammit, he knew!
“Oh, lass,” he said, and his voice was full of such sorrow and pity that she wanted to scream at him, except that her teeth remained clenched so hard she felt tears well in her eyes.
In an instant he wrapped her in his arms. She wanted to fight him off, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, could only stand there toe-to-toe and vibrate with the force of her heartbeat.
“Breathe. Take a long breath through your nose,” he said. “Do it!” His voice was harsh. She could feel every muscle of his arms tight around her, his thighs against hers, his body fitted against her. She began to struggle, but he held on. “Let it go,” he whispered. “Let it go.”
She drew a single breath that shuddered throughout her frame. It was as though that breath had hit her body’s off switch. She saw waves of red behind her eyelids...
“WHAT THE HELL am I doing down here?” she said. She felt the rough hay beneath her body and realized she was staring up at the roof of the barn—and into the concerned eyes of Jamey McLachlan. “Oh, drat!” she said, then put her hands against the bale of hay beneath her and struggled to sit up.
His hand on her midriff held her down. “Sit up now and you’ll probably pass out again.”
“Pass out? Don’t be ridiculous! I’ve never passed out in my life.”
He smiled. “Tell me another. I promise I didn’t deck you.”
“Let me up!”
“Answer a question first. Did you have any breakfast before you came trotting down here this morning?”
Vic thought of the cheese and apple in her pocket. “No, actually. Of course, that’s it. Low blood sugar. Too much caffeine, not enough protein.”
“If you like.” He stood and she realized he’d been kneeling beside her.
“How’d I get here?” She closed her eyes, “Oh, Lord, you actually carried me? Probably herniated a bunch of disks in the process. Don’t bother asking for workman’s comp.”
“Stop it.” His voice sounded harsh. “I could carry you one-handed.” His grin came back as he held out his gloved right hand. “As a matter of fact, it took one and a half, which is all I have available at the moment.”
She sat up slowly and carefully. For a moment her head spun, then it stabilized. Her heart rate had returned to something close to normal. Thank God the attack passed quickly this time. “I’m terribly embarrassed. I should know better than to skip breakfast.”
He turned away. “Come off it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Low blood sugar my ass. I’ll go up to the house and bring you something to eat, and then you’re going to tell me what in hell has kept one of the finest riders I ever saw out of the saddle for twenty years.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“BLOODY HELL!”
Jamey trotted up the hill toward Vic’s cottage with both dogs trundling along behind him. The last thing he needed was a woman who had full-blown panic attacks, no matter how much he enjoyed her company.
Liz Whitten wouldn’t be back with her new husband and child for two whole months.
Unless one of ValleyCrest’s boarders was an extraordinary rider—doubtful, judging from the rest of the horses he’d seen at ValleyCrest—Vic Jamerson was the only one who had experience on a horse like Roman. All right, so it had been a few years.
The woman had ridden with the U.S. equestrian team, for pity’s sake. The caliber of talent international competition required didn’t vanish with age.
He’d never find another rider with her sort of experience within a radius of five hundred miles. Even if he did, no way could he insinuate a stranger onto the stallion’s back.
Jamey was nearly convinced that Mr. Miracle was Roman. He couldn’t be entirely sure until he’d seen the horse put through his paces by another rider—a good one. He had to be able to assess the horse’s movements, temperament, and flair.
No doubt Whitten had gotten papers on the horse’s breeding from the farmer in Germany who had sold him. The papers were forged of course, but that might be difficult to prove. Jamey might never be able to trace every step the colt had taken from the moment he’d disappeared from Oban until he’d wound up on a nameless breeding farm in Wurtheim, Germany.
How could Jamey explain to Whitten or even to Vic that he’d spent the past two years searching the world for Roman? Or that he’d arrived in Belgium to check out a friend’s tip about a horse that might be his Roman only a day after Whitten had loaded the horse on an air transport for quarantine in Kentucky? What evidence did he have that would stand up against papers and a bill of sale? How could he tell anybody that Mr. Miracle was in reality Jock McLachlan’s foundation stallion?
Better to keep his mouth shut. At least until he was a hundred percent certain of his facts.
Vic said she couldn’t ride? The hell she couldn’t!
“Nonsense!” he said aloud. “I need her, dammit, and I need her in the saddle.” He slammed through the house, dug through her refrigerator until he found a diet soda and half a pound or so of ham. He took bread from the bread-box, spread it with butter, slid in several pieces of ham and wrapped the whole thing in a paper towel. As he started out the door, he remembered that Americans liked mayonnaise and mustard on their sandwiches, not butter. Well, at seven-thirty in the morning, butter would have to do.
As he walked down the hill, a picture of Vic flying across the pastures on Roman came unbidden into his mind. What he’d give to see that. She’d be beautiful with the wind in her hair, that wide mouth of hers laughing...
Damnation. He needed to keep his mind on business.
Until he’d probed the people at the quarantine station in Kentucky for information, the only thing Jamey knew about ValleyCrest Stables was that the stallion had been sent there, ostensibly for training.
Once Jamey discovered the horse’s final destination, he’d actually had to call three acquaintances in Europe before he found one who knew the owner of ValleyCrest. Vic Jamerson. The name was vaguely familiar, but it took some time to make the connection to Victoria Jamerson. Plenty of riders had come and gone in the intervening years, and her career had been mysteriously short.
He’d had to do some fast toe-tapping to conceal the fact that his only interest was in that single stable—not the others he’d requested letters to.
Thank God Marshall Dunn was the least curious man he’d ever met and not overly swift when it came to anything other than racehorses.
Jamie smiled to himself and shook his head at the memory of the way he had manipulated Marshall.
He was well aware that Marshall considered him “not quite out of the top drawer, don’tcha know?” Good enough to train his problem racehorses, but not good enough to invite to Dunn House for a weekend party.
That should have made Jamey feel a bit better about pulling the wool over the man’s eyes. Marshall was, after all, the stereotypical gaja, the sort of man who, in an earlier century, might have driven Jamey’s family from their lands and watched them starve. Guilt had gnawed Jamey nonetheless.
Then he’d spent an entire evening last week winkling information from one of the lady quarantine attendants in Kentucky. At the time he’d thought he was having another run of dreadful luck. The stallion had been gone only a few days.
“Took the haulers over an hour to load him,” the woman said over her third whiskey sour. “They didn’t dare tranquilize him for fear he’d fall down in the truck and they’d never get him up.” The woman shook her head. “To tell you the truth, we were glad to get rid of him. He’s been a problem child since the day he danced off the airplane from Belgium. It took three of us to handle him, and only then with a chain across his gums.”
“Dangerous?”
The woman had laughed. “Not mean, but definitely dangerous. Anything that big is dangerous.”
Somehow he’d have to convince Victoria Jamerson to ride again. But how long would it take to get her fit enough to deal with a horse like Roman?
She was still in good physical shape. Fantastic shape, actually. Disquieting shape.
He remembered her slim waist when he’d plucked her off that ladder and set her down beside him, then the feel of her breasts pressed against his back on the short motorcycle ride up the hill last evening, the strength of her arms around his waist that held him so tightly he could barely breathe. Nice memory.
Nice woman, dammit, a woman he’d very much enjoy taking to bed. He stared at his reflection in the window of her truck and realized he’d started dreaming of taking her to bed ten minutes after he’d met her.
He could not let himself get involved emotionally. Not with someone he might have to rob. He took a deep breath and dragged his mind back to finding ways of getting Vic Jamerson to ride Roman for him.
Even if her physical shape was superb, her psychological shape was a different matter. Panic attacks like the one on the motorcycle? He’d have to find a way to work her through them. And quickly. Surely he’d be helping her. He refused to consider that he might damage her further.
He found her in the office at the desk. She sat with her head in her hands. She seemed smaller. He longed to take her in his arms and comfort her.
She heard him open the door, started guiltily and busied herself with something on the pad in front of her.
“Here,” he said, and handed her the sandwich and soda.
She took both, unwrapped the sandwich and began to eat without taking her eyes off him.
“Now talk.” He sat in the straight chair on the other side of the desk.
“Eat now, talk later,” she said..
“I’m not letting go of this.”
“Fine. In the meantime, go exercise a horse or muck a stall or something.” She turned her back on him and took a swig of soda.
“Fine.” He walked out and shut the door behind him. He checked the white board outside the wash rack for the list of horses to be exercised, went to the farthest stall, pulled out a big gray mare, rubbed her down, tacked her up, swung into the saddle and walked her to the arena. If Vic made him groom and tack his own horses, as well as exercise them, this would take all day.
“So let her muck the stalls,” he said to the mare.
As if in answer, the mare wickered softly. Instantly the stallion’s head went up; he turned and cantered straight at the paddock fence.
“Not now, old son,” Jamey said gently. He began to whistle softly. The stallion slid to a stop a foot from the fence, snorted, pranced around a bit and walked off with his tail in the air. The mare, not cycling sexually this early in February, could not have cared less.
“If you’d gotten to her, she’d have kicked your bloody head in,” Jamey said in passing. The stallion ignored him and fixed his eye on the mare.
She did enough ignoring for them both.
“Women,” Jamey said as he took the mare to a trot. “Make you hanker after them, then kick you in the crotch when you come close. Remember that, old son, and protect yourself in the clinches.”
IN THE OFFICE Vic took an additional two bites of her sandwich, then divided the rest between the two dogs. She wasn’t certain she could keep down what she’d already eaten.
How long had it been since she’d panicked that way? Years. Last night she’d managed to head off a full-blown attack when Jamey had demanded she ride behind him on his motorcycle. She’d been so damned proud of herself, elated that she had done it. Even enjoyed it—well, enjoyed having her arms around an attractive man. Her psyche had set her up obviously, and then ambushed her all over again.
She was so used to the whole world knowing and accepting her inability to get on a horse. Nobody questioned her any longer, and now that Frank was dead, nobody ever laughed at her or called her a coward for it, either.
Well, now that Mr. Jamey McLachlan knew what happened when she was pushed, he’d have better sense in future. He could whistle his way back to Oban before she’d discuss it with him any further. She decided to ignore the incident and muck stalls. As she pulled the door to the office closed behind her, the telephone rang. She rolled her eyes, but went back to answer it.
“Vic?”
“Good grief, Albert, you sound worse than Linette did yesterday.”
“The woman’s given me the flu. She’s piled up in the bed and I’m piled up on the couch.”
“Oh, Albert! You need me to come see about you?”
“No! You stay as far away from us as you can and you start taking some zinc right this minute. Maybe you won’t get it.”
“Obviously you’re not coming in today,” Vic said.
Albert groaned in reply.
“Have you called the doctor?”
“Doctor says it’s a virus. It takes three or four days. I got fever, Vic. Grown men don’t get fever.”
“You sound like Linette did it on purpose.” Vic laughed. “Look after yourself and don’t worry about me.”
“I’ll call Kenny and get him to come by after school to help out,” Albert said.
Vic caught her breath. “That won’t be necessary. I, uh...I’m managing just fine.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
His reply was a fit of coughing and a strangled “Bye.” She felt guilty to think of Albert’s flu as a stroke of luck, but now she wouldn’t have to explain Jamey McLachlan to him for at least another couple of days. By then she’d have better evidence that the man was not a serial killer. She knew darn well Albert’s nephew Kenny would go snitch about Jamey to Albert if she let the boy within a hundred yards of ValleyCrest. And Albert would coming racing over, fever or no, to check the man out.
This time she made it to the center hall before the telephone rang again. “Botheration!” she said, and picked up the portable from the wash rack.
“Miz Jamerson?”
She sighed. “Yes, Mr. Wilcox. What is it now?”
“Can you come up to the house? I need a decision on where to place these electrical outlets in the bathrooms.”
“How should I know? Put ’em where you think they should go.”
“Not my place to do that. I can’t go on until you come see.”
She’d been watching Jamey exercise the gray mare in the ring as she talked. The mare usually hated work, but today she seemed relaxed and almost enjoying herself. He definitely did have a way with horses. She noticed, however, that his gloved right hand grasped the right rein loosely, and that his left compensated in a complicated crossover hold. Workmanlike, but hardly delicate.
But he rode with a fluid grace that seemed to make him part of the horse. The mare responded to the slightest tilt of his slim hips.
The man was too damned attractive for his own good. She could think of half a dozen wealthy women who would be willing to set him up in business just for the sake of his companionship after hours.
Good thing she didn’t have enough money to tempt him.
“I’ve got to go up to the house to deal with the contractor,” she called to him. He glanced over, nodded and continued to work the mare.